re:mote voices: literature

2005-01-20T04:26:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - a
review:::

Mari Akasaka
Vibrator

Isabel Allende
the City Of Beasts

My Invented Country

Debi Alper
Nirvana

David Ambrose
The Discrete Charms Of Charlie Monk

M.T. Anderson
Feed

Thirsty

Darren Aronofsky
The
Fountain

Steve Aylett
Atom

Bigot Hall

The Inflatable Volunteer

Karloff's Circus

Shamanspace

Slaughermatic

Toxicology

2005-01-20T04:25:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - b
review:::

David Baldicci
The Winner

Iain Banks

The Business

Dead Air

Iain M. Banks

Against A Dark Background

The
Algebraist

Consider Phlebas

Excession

John Barker

The Chinese Girl

Nicola Barker
The Behindlings

Clear

Richard Brautigan
The Abortion

In Watermelon Sugar

A Confederate General From Big Sur

David Brin
Kil'n People

Dan Brown
The Da Vinci Code

Eric Brown
New York Dreams

Walkabout

Mikhail Bulgakov
The Master And Margarita

John Burdett
Bangkok 8

2005-01-20T04:24:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - c review:::

Pat Cadigan
Fools

Sarah Champion [Editor]
Disco 2000

Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist

Robert Collins
Soul Corporation

Glen Cook
Faded Steel Heat

Douglas Coupland
Hey Nostradamus!

Michael Connelly
Chasing The Dime

Harlan Corben
Tell No One

Robert Crais
Stalking The Angel

2005-01-20T04:23:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - d

review:::

Mark Z. Danielewski
House Of Leaves

Samuel R. Delany
Babel-17

Don DeLilo
Americana

Cosmopolis

Philip K. Dick
The Man In The High Castle

Martian Time Slip

Time Out Of Joint

The Zap Gun

Radio Free Albemuth

A Scanner Darkly

The Penultimate Truth

Mary and the Giant

Cory Doctorow
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Gardner Dozois
Nanotech

The Mammoth Book Of The Best New SF: Volume 15

The Mammoth Book Of The Best New SF: Volume 16

The Mammoth Book Of The Best New SF: Volume 17

The Mammoth Book Of The Best New SF: Volume 18

2005-01-20T04:22:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - e

review:::

Greg Egan
Teranesia/Luminous

Diaspora

Warren Ellis
Ocean

Richard Engling
Body Mortgage

Steve Erikson
Days Between Stations

2005-01-20T04:21:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - f

review:::

Will Ferguson
Hokkaido Highway Blues

Happiness ^TM

Tibor Fischer
Voyage To The End Of The Room

Emma Forrest
Namedropper

C.S. Friedman
This Alien Short

Takuya Fujima
Deus Vitae Vol. 1 and 2

2005-01-20T04:20:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - g

review:::

Neil Gaiman
American Gods

Andrew Gauntlett
Net Spies

William Gibson
Pattern Recognition

All Tomorrow’s Parties

John Gimlette
At The Tomb Of The Inflatable Pig

Tanya Glyde
Clever Girl

Junk DNA

Kathleen Ann Goonan
Queen City Jazz

Crescent City Rhapsody

Bones Of Time

Alisdair Gray
Lanark

Graeme Greene
The End Of The Affair

Travels With My Aunt

The Power and the Glory

Jon Courtenay Grimwood
neoAddix

lucifersDragon

reMix

redRobe

Effendi

Felaheen

Stamping Butterflies

2005-01-20T04:19:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - h

review:::

Joe Haldeman
The Forever War

Peter F. Hamilton
The Night’s Dawn Trilogy: The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God

Fallen Dragon

M. John Harrison
The Centauri Device

Light

Frank Herbert
Dune

Dune Messiah

Iselin C. Hermann
Special Delivery

Russell Hoban
Amaryllis Day And Night

The Bat Tattoo

Fremder

Her Name Was Lola

Kleinzeit

Mr. Rinyo-Clacton's Offer

The Medusa Frequency

Linger Awhile

Come Dance With Me

Paul Hoffman
The Wisdom Of Crocodiles

Stewart Home
69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess

Wei Hui
Shanghai Baby

2005-01-20T04:18:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - i

review:::

Simon Ings
Painkillers

Headlong

2005-01-20T04:17:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - j

review:::

Tama Janowitz
Peyton Amberg

Susanna Jones
The Earthquake Bird

Water Lilly

2005-01-20T04:16:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - k

review:::

Jonathan Kellerman
The Conspiracy Club

A.L. Kennedy
So I Am Glad

Everything You Need

Paradise

Looking for the Possible Dance

Naomi Klein
Fences And Windows

Hari Kunzru
Transmission

Hanif Kureishi
The Black Album

2005-01-20T04:15:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - l

review:::

Rod Liddle
Too Beautiful For You

Martin Limon
Jade Lady Burning

Ray Loriga
Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore

2005-01-20T04:14:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - m

review:::

Paul McAuley
The Secret Of Life

WholeWideWorld

White Devils

Mind's Eye

Ian McDonald
Chaga [aka Evolutions Shore]

Kirinya

Desolation Road

Sacrifice Of Fools

River Of Gods

Ares Express

Ken MacLeod
The Cassini Division

The Sky Road

Cosmonaut Keep

Dark Light

Newton's Wake

Jon McGregor
If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things

David Mack
Kabuki-Alchemy 6

Michael Marshall
Straw Men

The Lonely Dead

Blood Of Angels

China Miéville
Perdido Street Station

Magnus Mills
All Quiet On The Orient Express

Three To See The King

David Mitchell
Ghostwritten

number9dream

Cloud Atlas

Sakura Mizuki
Spiral

Manuel Vazquez Montalban
The Buenos Aires Quintet

Michael Moorcock
Von Bek

The Second Ether Trilogy: Blood (A Southern Fantasy), Fantastic Harbours, The War Amongst The Angels

Alan Moore
V for Vendetta - Moore

Richard Morgan
Altered Carbon

Broken Angels

Market Forces

Woken Furies

Steve Mosby
The Third Person

The Cutting Crew

Haruki Murakami
The Wind Up Bird Chronicles

Sputnik Sweetheart

Hardboiled Wonderland And The End Of The World

After The Quake

A Wild Sheep Chase

South Of The Border, West Of The Sun

Dance, Dance, Dance

Norwegian Wood

Kafka On The Shore

Ryu Murakami
Coin Locker Babies

2005-01-20T04:13:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - n

review:::

Barbara Nadel
Arabesk

Audrey Niffenegger
The Time Traveler's Wife

Garth Nix
Lirael

Sabriel

Abhorsen

The Creature In The Case

Amelie Nothomb
Fear and Trembling

Jeff Noon
Vurt

Pollen

Nymphomation

Needle In The Groove

Falling Out Of Cars

2005-01-20T04:12:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - o

review:::

Bryan OMalley
Scott Pilgrim vol 1 - Precious Little Life

Michael Ondaatje
Anil's Ghost

2005-01-20T04:11:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - p

review:::

Chuck Palahniuk
Fight Club

Invisible Monsters

Survivor

Choke

Lullaby

Diary

Fugitives And Refugees

Ann Patchett
Bel Canto

Marianne DePierres
Nylon Angel

Victor Pelevin
The Clay Machine-Gun

Omon Ra

The Helmet Of Horror

Frederik Pohl
Gateway

Nani Power
Crawling At Night

Malcolm Pryce
Aberystwyth Mon Amour

Last Tango In Aberystwyth

Thomas Pynchon
The Crying Of Lot 49

2005-01-20T04:10:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - q

review:::

2005-01-20T04:09:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - r

review:::

Robert Reed
Black Milk

Marrow

Sister Alice

Kathy Reichs
Death Du Jour and Grave Secrets

Willaim Rhodes
Paperback Raita

Ben Richards
The Mermaid And The Drunks

Kim Stanley Robinson
The Wild Shore

Pacific Edge

Ice Henge

Red Mars

Green Mars

Blue Mars

Antarctica

40 Signs Of Rain

Nicholas Royle
Antwerp

Greg Rucka
Shooting At Midnight

Critical Space

Rudy Rucker
Freeware

2005-01-20T04:08:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - s

review:::

Wilfred Santiago
In My Darkest Hours

Alex Shakar
The Savage Girl

Sara Sheridan
The Pleasure Express

Robert Silverberg
Lion Time In Timbuctoo

Face Of The Waters

Michael Marshall Smith
Only Forward

One Of Us

What You Make It

The Vaccinator

Neal Stephenson
The Confusion

Quicksilver

The System Of The World

Bruce Sterling
Heavy Weather

Holy Fire

Zeitgeist

Anna Stothard
Isabel And Rocco

Peter Straub
lost boy, lost girl

Charles Stross
Singularity Sky

Tricia Sullivan
Dreaming In Smoke

Maul

Luke Sutherland
Sweetmeat

2005-01-20T04:05:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - t

review:::

Chad Taylor
Electric

Shirker

P.J. Tracy
Want To Play?

Scarlett Thomas
Dead Clever

In Your Face

Bright Young Things
Going Out

PopCo

2005-01-20T04:04:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - u

review:::

2005-01-20T04:03:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - v

review:::

Kurt Vonnegut
The Breakfast Of Champions

Cat's Cradle

Slaughterhouse 5

2005-01-20T03:10:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - w

review:::

Nick Walker
BlackBox

HelloLand

Stephen Walker
Mr. Landen Has No Brain

Louise Welsh
The Cutting Room

Tim Winton
Dirt Music

Jeanette Winterson
The PowerBook

The Passion

Annie Wang
Lili

Alan Warner
Morvern Callar

These Demented Lands

The Man Who Walks

Ian Watson
Hard Questions

2005-01-20T03:09:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - x

review:::

2005-01-20T03:07:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - y

review:::

Banana Yoshimoto
Lizard

Kitchen

N.P.

2005-01-20T03:02:00.000Z

re:mote voices: literature archives - z

review:::

2003-08-20T21:15:00.000Z

Title: The Cutting Room
Author: Louise Welsh
Publisher: Canongate

The Cutting Room is the highly acclaimed debut novel by Scottish writer Louise Welsh. On the one hand celebrated as being a striking new crime novel, while on the other being described as a work that transcends the genre. Personally I think I'm in the transcends genre camp, though that is most likely because I don't entirely believe that it is a crime novel at all.

Despite the fact that I found The Cutting Room to be reasonably enjoyable, I do have to say that I mainly found it unsatisfying. At the root of that dissatisfaction is the complete lack of tension that I feel. As we reach the climax, there is a twist of sorts and the tension should come from the last mad rush. However it doesn't really have the effect, I don't really get that mad rush - nothing that is happening really seems to make a difference.

Rilke is an agent for an auction house, and with the death of Mr. McKindless it looks like they are being offered the biggest job the company has seen in a long time. However Rilke is sent off on a tangent of obsession when he finds some photographs in the attic of the house. They seem to show the murder of a young woman, and there seems to be a link to the dead man. This is where I hit on the core of the book, and the reason why I get no real sense of tension or urgency. The photographs are clearly old, so if a woman died, then she died some 30-40 years before. If Mr. McKindless was involved in her death, then he isn't going to be threatening anyone else, since he is dead. In fact Rilke seems to spend far too much time trying to determine whether the photos are even real for us to feel particularly concerned by their content. On his quest for the truth Rilke certainly meets plenty of dubious characters, and is warned that they are bad bastards and he shouldn't mess. Despite this suggestion there is no evidence of threat until the last 20-30 pages and even then it's too quick to change the feeling of the previous 200.

Almost as central to the book as the photographs is the character of Rilke, and the fact that he is homosexual. In some ways I can't decide what to make of the portrayal of Rilke. At one point he expresses negative feeling towards the gay clichés, Judy Garland records and affected campness. So we know that Rilke isn't that kind of gay, in fact for the most part Rilke is just a regular guy - which, lets face it, is how it should be. However Rilke seems to spend a reasonable amount of time in parks, bar toilets and generally with strangers, taking every opportunity to have sex. In some ways this comes across as another kind of cliché, the cruising and the ease and the promiscuity of the scene. Sure, this is a more honest portrayal, no doubt, than the Judy Garland style approach, but it is still one that seems exaggerated by the familiarity. On the other hand for people that pay attention to these kind of things, the fact that Rilke is the main character is probably a big deal, especially when the response to the book is taken into account.

With that in mind it will be interesting to see how the film fares. The latest press reporting that Robert Carlyle has been cast in the lead role. As cinema is a more popular medium the debate over the prominent gay role will no doubt be more conscious. In some ways I think the ending of the book feels somewhat cinematic and as such it may well work better on the big screen. The cast of characters should also be quite colourful for an adaptation.

For me the whole interaction of the character and who he meets is more interesting than the actual thing which is supposed to drive the book. His reaction to a young man he meets being perhaps the most endearing thing about the character, contrasting the bulk of what we are shown. Still I remain unconvinced in the end, with some heavy handed scenes, and certain lines of the book really detracting from the whole.

RVWR: PTR
August 2003

2003-08-20T21:11:00.000Z

Title: Going Out
Author: Scarlett Thomas
Publisher: 4th Estate

Going Out is the most recent novel by Scarlett Thomas, which has just been published as paper back, following an oversized edition. Going Out is essentially the story of Luke and Julie, two 25 year olds who have been best friends for years. Luke was diagnosed with XP, the illness which means he is allergic to sunlight (think those precocious children in The Others!), as a child. With the result he has been house bound all his life, carefully avoiding any exposure that could set off his allergies. His greatest ambition is to get out and see something of the world past the television. Julie has become increasingly paranoid and a hypochondriac, just about everything scares her. She won't travel by plane or train and can just about manage b-roads. The thought of staying inside, safe, for the rest of her life appeals. However Julie would do anything for Luke to get better. This is how the pair end up on a road trip to Wales - a healer having contacted Luke to suggest that if he comes to see him he might be able to help. The first half of the book is concerned with the set up, introducing these two and the rest of the characters. The latter part of the book sees all the characters suddenly brought together for this journey - on which each have their own goals.

Going Out is very much a contemporary novel, so that it is already dated by the references which mark when it is set. Which isn't to suggest that the book is out of date, rather that Scarlett Thomas has made this a novel dense with pop culture references. In a way that really makes the characters alive, making it easier for us to follow and appreciate what is happening. Being set in the south east of England with a journey to Wales, there is a certain level of this book which might work best if you are British. However Thomas' ability makes this a thoroughly enjoyable book, with characters that are lively and a situation that is filled with a light humour. Overall I found this an entirely enjoyable novel, and coupled with having read Dead Clever before, I can safely say I have become a big fan of Scarlett's work.

RVWR: PTR
August 2003

2003-08-20T21:10:00.000Z

Title: Slaughterhouse 5
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Vintage

The Vintage Crucial Classics print is a selection of 12 classic novels produced in a limited edition format. These books are being sold at a special price of £3.99, including work by Graham Greene, Angela Carter, Iris Murdoch, and Mikhail Bulgakov. Of the dozen I have so far bought Bulgakov's The Master And Margarita, and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5.

Despite the reputation of Vonnegut I have never read any of his material until now. Starting off Slaughterhouse 5 I get impressions of Philip K Dick's work, a writer from the same general time, who at least initially seems to have the same kind of vibe. Though as I work my way forward the difference that makes Vonnegut who he is starts to come through.

There are a couple of interpretations of Slaughterhouse 5 available. One is that Billy Pilgrim is a unique individual, who has come unstuck in time, travelling from moment to moment over the course of his life without warning; including being kidnapped by aliens and made to live in one of their zoos. The other interpretation is that Billy Pilgrim is barking mad, a man thrown into World War II at the deep end and living with the repercussions for the rest of his life.

As far as Billy Pilgrim is concerned it all makes sense. He studied to become an optometrist. Was sent to Europe before he could finish his study. Was soon captured by the Germans and made a prisoner of war. As a prisoner of war he was witness to the catastrophic bombing of Dresden. Upon returning home he finished his training. Married and had children.

The flow of Slaughterhouse 5 however is not that straight forward. Just as the life of Billy Pilgrim would seem not to be that straight forward. Vonnegut cuts the narrative up, propelling us on with a certain tongue in cheek effect. One moment Billy is on his honeymoon, the next in a prisoner of war camp, the next in an alien zoo. Through which he has to maintain a certain outlook so he can keep going, his motto becoming - so it goes.

The bombing of Dresden is what Slaughterhouse 5 is really about. The first chapter accounting for Vonnegut's own experience as a prisoner of war, who witnessed the bombing himself. He explains how this is a book about those events, how it is not a big book, because only so much can be said. A comment which is true, this is not a big book, just over 150 pages, but even with that Dresden remains a presence. Something inevitable and dark, which can't be shifted, and reflects throughout the real tragedy that is Billy Pilgrim's life. Even if he manages to shrug everything else off, we the reader are left with the effect of Vonnegut's story.

RVWR: PTR
August 2003

2003-08-20T21:09:00.000Z

Title: Sweetmeat
Author: Luke Sutherland
Publisher: Doubleday

I have just finished reading Sweetmeat, the second novel by Luke Sutherland. Sutherland was involved with alt.rock band Long Fin Killie, before more recently working under the name Bows, who released several CDs on the Too Pure label. Jellyroll was his first novel.

Sutherland creates a considerable character with Sweetmeat. Bohemond is as Sutherland gleefully and regularly points out a "fat black chef", and he really means fat. The fact that he has long hair and permanent make up doesn't help when it comes to people's responses to him. Bohemond is used to being treated like a freak, and throws himself into his cooking instead of dwelling on it. Still he does dwell on his unrequited love for Hermione, who owns the hotel where he works. They saved each other's lives, and Bo has been in love with her since.

Sweetmeat starts with the imminent wedding of Hermione. Bohemond plots to cook the most fantastic meal ever, so that Hermione will realise what a mistake she is making and turn to Bo instead of her husband to be. Interspersed with these plans, Faulkner the head of the hotel's band and an aging adventurer regales guests with wild tales. Tales which have an edge of the fantastic to them, an edge which permeates the atmosphere of the hotel as the book goes on.

Reality becomes a fracture. Relationships become too complex. In his desperate desire to capture Hermione's heart Bohemond does foolish things. At times you want to slap him, tell him to get a grip, point him in the direction of what is really going on. In some ways the odd little events manage to do this for us, the images and glimpses of things can't be real start to guide and turn Bohemond and soon he is involved in something else entirely.

At first the fairy tale/story telling aspect of Sweetmeat is a little distracting. It is a ploy I've seen before, interspersing core narrative with tangents, sometimes coming across as padding. But these tales start to merge with reality and the result starts to become magical. Sutherland's prose and Bohemond's faith (naive as it may sometimes be) bring the reader in and keep them captivated. Initially not sure what to make of Sweetmeat in the end I enjoyed this book a lot.

RVWR: PTR
August 2003

2003-08-20T20:28:00.000Z

Title: After The Quake
Author: Huraki Murakami
Publisher: Vintage

After The Quake is the most recent book by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. A series of six short stories, all linked loosely by an earthquake. Each story makes passing reference for the most part, one of the characters likely being from the area or knowing someone where the quake happened. As the stories goes on they each get further and further from the actual event, which is to say they are in chronological order.

As I say the references to the earthquake are passing, in all but one story, so the links to each other are a little tenuous and the stories can easily stand as individuals. The narratives tend towards the snapshot form rather than plot form, which is something I am becoming conscious of in literary short stories. This tends to make the pieces brief and to be honest not entirely memorable. We meet a girl who likes to hang out with a man that builds fires. A woman who gets away from her past on holiday, swimming every day. A man who deals with the aftermath of a failed love triangle while lamenting the death of the short story. and a giant frog who will fight the worm who would destroy Tokyo.

The super frog story is actually my favourite of the pieces here, there is a strong sense of the absurd and a definite humour that appeals, with more of an actual plot seeming to come through. The other pieces work well enough at painting their pictures, but overall After The Quake is too short.

RVWR: PTR
August 2003

2003-08-20T19:27:00.000Z

Title: So I Am Glad
Author: A.L. Kennedy
Publisher: Vintage

So I Am Glad is a curious novel. Saying what it is about is easy, explaining how that works probably less so. When a strange man comes down the stairs and into kitchen of a shared house in Glasgow, Jennifer assumes he is Martin, the new guy who is going to stay with them for awhile. Rather he is an amnesiac, with no memory of who he is or how he came to be in the house. Not long after his appearance he realises that he is in fact Cyrano De Bergerac, which is odd given he remembers dying 300 years earlier. When he decides he is being a burden on Jennifer he decides to leave the house, but with nothing to his name and in a foreign time/country he has limited options. Jennifer has had growing feelings for Cyrano, which given that Jennifer doesn't tend to have feelings about much is quite something. So she is quite distraught by his disappearance - a period which sees both of them hit bottom. With reunion helping the two to some degree, but the darkness of the time between needs to be resolved.

Quite how a 300 year dead French man ends up in Glasgow is never really covered, its not really a worry when it comes down to it. The core of the book is Jennifer who from my reading of Kennedy's work to date seems to be one of her classic characters - to some degree appearing perfectly normal, while being animated by an inner turmoil. Though given how calm Jennifer claims she is turmoil is likely too strong a word.

Kennedy writes Jennifer as narrator, so much of the story is through her thoughts and reflections. Tending towards emotional ground, as this is essentially for the most part a love story. There is also a strong thread of darkness through both characters - Jennifer has had violent relationships, and Savienen comes from a different age where men killed each other for honour, which sets him up for the life of violence led while outside the house.

Of course one hopes that an author gets better with each new work. So it should not really be a surprise that I found that I enjoyed the recent novel Everything You Need to a greater extent than this previous novel. Still over all I did enjoy So I Am Glad, and am likely to continue to explore Kennedy's work back the way while waiting for another forward step.

RVWR: PTR
August 2003

2003-08-20T19:26:00.000Z

Title: The Earthquake Bird
Author: Susanna Jones
Publisher: Picador

Instead of being a seventh son, Lucy was a disappointment. A fact she was never allowed to forget as she was neglected or mistreated as a child. So when she was old enough Lucy was only too happy to get as far away from home as possible. For Lucy that means Japan, where she has been for 10 years now. so she is less than pleased by the arrival of Lily. An English girl who has run away, to find herself a stranger in a strange land. Lily sees Lucy as her saviour - a woman from the same part of England, who knows how things work here. For Lucy though Lily opens wounds, triggering memories she'd rather not have.

The Earthquake Bird starts with the arrest of Lucy for Lily's murder. From there the story unfolds in Lucy's head - locked in a cell and refusing to answer any of the police's questions. With this Lucy's character and history are built up. First meeting her Japanese boyfriend, starting her job and the like. The things from her past, dark moments which seem to implicate Lucy. The introduction of Lily and how despite it all they became friends. Susanna Jones pulls all the pieces together in her first novel so that we really don't know whether Lucy did kill Lily or not right up till the end.

The quotes on the back of the book promise a shocking conclusion. For me though the tone of the book is off-kilter enough that little seems surprising. Lucy refers to herself regularly in the third person, which seems curious. With that, our perceptions of what is going on are shaped by the way Lucy looks at the world. Overall I enjoyed The Earthquake Bird, the writing style is strong and readable. The mix of cultures provides an interesting backdrop, especially where it is ones that contrast so much, and where the character will never quite fit in.

RVWR: PTR
August 2003

2003-08-20T19:17:00.000Z

Title: Felaheen
Author: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Publisher: Earthlight

Felaheen is the third in Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Arabesk Trilogy, a cycle following the rise of Ashraf Bey from prison inmate to son of the most powerful man in Africa. All along there has been an 'is he, isn't he' scene set up, regarding whether he was just a convenient pawn put in place at the right time, who has run with it, or if he is indeed who they say he is. At the same time Raf has found himself playing the role of detective. In Pashazade he stood accused of murdering the aunt who brought him to Africa. In Effendi the father of the woman he loves was put on trial. Leaving Felaheen, where someone is trying to kill the Emir of Tunis, his alleged father.

In some ways Jon Courtenay Grimwood has fallen into a rut with this series. It doesn't really flex and expand as it should. The use of flashback damages the pacing, so that it takes longer to get into. Felaheen avoids the stumbling overlap that initially tripped up Effendi but still comes out as the weakest of the trilogy. A plot is certainly there, enough bits and bobs, suspects and distractions. So that by the time we get to whodunit it seems too easy, too out of a hat, for the reader to really care.

Which is a real pity, because Pashazade had a lot of potential to be built on. Ashraf is of course too cool, things done in his head make him truly post-human. His niece Hani obviously comes from the same background, an 11 year old genius, who is destined no doubt to surpass her uncle. The growth of Hani, and how she contrasts/compliments Ashraf and his past is one of the real successes of the series. Though perhaps at the expense of Zara, who was a bomb in Pashazade and a damp squib in everything else, a radiant woman defying her culture, ready to go off at any minute. While she is present in Effendi and Felaheen it almost seems that Grimwood can't quite work out what to do with her - so instead of being this striking character she is pouting wallpaper. Another addition which worked well was Edward, Ashraf's assistant. An average man who is good at his job and utterly bemused to find someone who noticed enough to take him seriously. Bumbling in some ways, but there is a certain joy as he relishes and celebrates the role.

Ultimately fellaheen is disappointing, there is a lot of potential in there that never quite comes together. Saddening me to say Pashazade remains the highlight.

RVWR: PTR
August 2003

2003-06-21T01:18:00.000Z

Title: Feed
Author: M.T. Anderson
Publisher: Walker Books

It bemuses me that Feed - by M.T. Anderson - is listed in some places as being for children, or probably more accurately "young adults". What does "young adult" mean anyway - sounds a bit like a condescending euphemism to me. But hey, I digress, Feed is filled with swearing, not something I particularly associate with novels given that kind of categorization - though, who knows, maybe things have changed since I was that age?

Anyway, the point is, it would be a pity if Feed were dismissed as a "kids" book. M.T. Anderson's writing is too on the ball to be missed. The characters are all young adults themselves, and that is reflected in their speech patterns, with Anderson taking it a step further. The dialogue is very loose, which has a very natural flow, at least initially - progressing to a point where you become conscious of the dumbed down vocabulary, the constant stumbling conversations of even adults in this future America.

The feed is the ultimate media device, plugs straight into the body at an early age. Takes over some major biological roles and generally monitors everything for the purposes of profiling. Which is used to help target you with product 24-7, while also narrowing you towards an easier niche, so that there are fewer niches and more sales. You walk into a shop and get bannered - ads, specs, special offers. You get your music and "TV" from the feed; they've calculated which chord structures will make 13-year-old girls scream.

It is the spring break. Titus and his friends have gone to the moon. It kind of um, sucks. But it changes his life when two things happen. The first event is when Titus met Violet. Violet is different from everyone he has ever met, but the two of them hit it off. The second event happens when Titus and Violet are in a club; they are hacked and end up in hospital.

These two events combine to provide a different view of the world. A world past the ideal of the feed. A world where not everyone approves. Where America has annexed the moon and the rest of the world is pointing some big guns in their direction. The world is dying, riots are breaking out, everyone is ill, but its okay cause the soaps say it's all hip.

Feed is layered with a caustic subtlety, enough critique of the things that are wrong with contemporary Western culture to give the reader a nosebleed. Filled with humour and a strong eye for detail that is combined in an entirely readable narrative.

RVWR: PTR
June 2003

2003-06-20T21:14:00.000Z

Title: These Demented Lands
Author: Alan Warner
Publisher: Vintage

These Demented Lands is the second novel by Alan Warner, something of a sequel to his debut Morvern Callar. One gets the impression that These Demented Lands follows close on the end of Morvern Callar. Though for the most part the character isn't referenced by name, in fact her name is even blanked out of the text where it should appear, only used at the ending.

These Demented Lands is delivered in alternating sequences, each coming from the two lead characters - referred to as "the girl" and "the air crash investigator" by each other. Like Morvern Callar the girl's sections are delivered in dialect, while the air crash investigator's is closer to standard English. This has a curious effect in terms of how the reader reads each section. The switching between perspectives of the characters also allows for a shifting insight into who the people are, as well as how they see the supporting cast around them. A perception of Morvern was something that I felt lacking in Morvern Callar, so here she is more fleshed out, of course by this stage she has changed considerably from the shelf stacker we first met.

Both the girl and the investigator are living in a hotel on a Scottish island. The rest of the residents are honeymoon couples, setting them up for more active roles in the games that the hotel owner plays with people. Each seeming to clash off each other to some degree, while holding the hotel manager as a common enemy. Around them there are some curious characters - John Brotherhood (the hotel manager), the devil's advocate (camped out in a tent, a judge of whether people are worthy of sainthood), Chef MacBeth (the hotel's incapable cook), the argonaut (the island's premier salvager), a couple of brothers with their father in a coffin, and a team of students trying to guide a herd of cattle across the island. All of whom add a certain surrealness to the proceedings, putting the demented in the title.

These Demented Lands gives the impression of being more compact than Morvern Callar, the events all take place in a more restricted location and seem to have a more compact continuity. The evolution of Morvern leads from a shop girl in the highlands to someone who has been travelling, seen the world and experienced so much in that time. A character who benefits well from this experience so that we witness a more rounded and grown character.

These Demented Lands is a strong follow up to Morvern Caller. Some have described it as being a little surreal, but for me it was entirely readable and thoroughly enjoyable.

RVWR: PTR
June 2003

2003-06-20T21:12:00.000Z

Title: Blackbox
Author: Nick Walker
Publisher: Headline

Trying to explain Blackbox is likely to be a difficult task I reckon, at least without giving too much detail away or totally confusing the reader. Approaching Blackbox the thing that is most known about the debut novel by Nick Walker is that someone died on a flight and that the death has affected a number of people. Early on we have the speculation of flight numbers - if this is flight 841 does that mean there were 840 previous flights? With this, Walker tells his story in sections, counting down those flight numbers and steadily introducing us to his cast of characters, a large enough group that a character list is included at the end for you to keep track of them all.

Straight off I'll say that Blackbox is very enjoyable. Watching all the pieces come together one by one until the climax is intriguing. Walker introduces us to characters, and then links them to other characters, then links those to yet other characters. The result is a web and actions bring things together so a full circle is evident. Early on the idea of six degrees of separation is echoed, and it is clear that the concept is one of the core thoughts behind the writing. with part of the enjoyment coming from the pieces falling into place, so that the presence of characters, and the way they are behaving fall into place.

The cast of characters includes sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, fathers and daughters. Actions include lies and deception, betrayal and mistaken identity. Characters are filled with guilt at what they have done or anger at what has been done to them. The flow keeping the reader going, so that we come crashing off the key sections with a striking inevitability.

In writing terms I get a comparison to Chuck Palahniuk coming up. The fact that Palahniuk's Survivor also features a count down and a character recording his life on a black box contributes to that as well - though that is really just coincidental base level. Walker delivers a dark humour in his writing, but is less caustic than Palahniuk. Blackbox also feels denser and like more of a writing achievement, Nick Walker delivering a solid piece of work here.

RVWR: PTR
June 2003

2003-06-20T20:29:00.000Z

Title: Coin Locker Babies
Author: Ryu Murakami
Publisher: Kodansha Europe

Coin Locker Babies is one of only a couple of books available in English from the Japanese author Ryu Murakami. The story of two boys who meet in an orphanage and become firm friends based on the fact that they were both abandoned to die in coin lockers. A fact that stays with them throughout their life. Half of the book is spent following them as they grow up, followed by the years covering their late teens and the climax of their story.

In the orphanage it becomes clear that the two boys have problems. Both of them reacting to those in different ways - one climbs on to random buses and travels as far as possible, the other gather bits and pieces and pretty much builds nests for himself. Eventually it is decided something has to be done and the two are taken to hypnotherapy. This seems to have worked, and eventually the two of them are adopted as brothers by a couple.

From there they grow up on an island until they are 17. One of them runs away to Tokyo, where he dresses as a woman and sells his body, searching for promises of fame. The other goes to Tokyo to find his brother, but in the process has his dark side opened, and driven on by his new girlfriend he wants to destroy Tokyo. Coin Locker Babies is a dark book, dwelling on the problems and the destructive habits of the two boys. Each of them desperately searching for something regardless of the consequences of their actions. As the story progresses it seems that they each head to opposite extremes - one in prison, while the other is at the top of his game.

It is inevitable in many ways that Ryu Murakami will be compared to Haruki Murakami, both being prominent Japanese authors with the name Murakami, both being side by side in the bookshop. But a real comparison is not fair, the two of these authors are very different and they are both setting out to achieve different things. The writing style of Ryu is very straight forward, with a rawness as he explores the emotions of his characters as each of them seems to go slowly mad. Dark and evocative, though certainly not as out there as perhaps some would suggest. After picking up Coin Locker Babies I learned that Ryu was the writer behind the story that became the film Audition - with it being likely that more people reading this will be familiar with the film then it is fair to say that you can see his style coming across there to some degree. Though in terms of the strength of narrative I think Coin Locker Babies is a stronger piece than Audition. Overall Coin Locker Babies is a good read, though perhaps spends too much time on the build up.

RVWR: PTR
June 2003

2003-06-20T20:27:00.000Z

Title: A Wild Sheep Chase
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

I have now read all of Haruki Murakami's novels to date (not including non-fiction Underground and story collection The Elephant Vanishes). I started with Dance Dance Dance and ended with A Wild Sheep Chase. Which is a very typical thing for me to have done. Dance Dance Dance was a random choice, taken from curiosity rather than knowledge. Knowledge came soon after as I tried to find out more having enjoyed DDD so much. So it is I find it somewhat ironic that the last book of his that I read should actually be one that is directly related to the first, and in fact it quickly becomes clear that Dance Dance Dance is a sequel of sorts to A Wild Sheep Chase. In real terms it probably doesn't make a lot of difference which order I read them - the links are made regardless. So that as I read A Wild Sheep Chase it quickly falls into place as being the same nameless narrator, his same mystery girlfriend with the gorgeous ears and the same Dolphin hotel.

The narrator has recently broken up with his wife and just started seeing this new girl. A girl who warns him that a phone call will be about sheep just as the events that lead him on a wild sheep chase are set underway. An advertising campaign that he has been responsible for featured a random photo he had been sent by a friend. But the photo features a sheep with a star on its back, a sheep that he now has to find or face the wrath of a powerful and secretive right wing businessman.

Before he knows it he is falling up leads on this sheep, with his girlfriend in tow. Hearing story after story about the mysterious power of this impossible sheep and its dangerous plans for the future of Japan. This leads him further and further into the wilds, with each new and odd character pointing the way.

A Wild Sheep Chase quickly becomes one of my favourite books by Murakami. The way it fits in with Dance Dance Dance raising the pair to a whole new level. The inferences of what is going in terms of psychic happenings and mystery work away at my mind, slowly blowing it a degree at a time. Taking the two together totally changes the two apart, because we get a better feel for who the narrator is, a greater understanding of why he reacts the way he does. The figure of his girlfriend is fleshed out by A Wild Sheep Chase, putting her well up there as one of the best and most elusive of Murakami's women - his women being seductive characters, filled with charm and mystery. Perfect foils for his inevitably male and inevitably non-descript leads.

As with the other novels by Murakami that I have particularly enjoyed he sets up a continuity that seems perfectly normal. One that we can get into and relate to, then weaves in a level of oddness. With the likes of Hardboiled Wonderland he totally flips that idea out there, though with Dance Dance Dance and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles and A Wild Sheep Chase the construction is more subtle and effective for that.

Once you become aware of Murakami and look around you quickly realize that there are a lot of people reading his work. In some ways whether you get into it or not probably depends on you individually and where you start with his work. Personally I feel that A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance are essential reading, as are many of his other works.

RVWR: PTR
June 2003

2003-06-20T19:30:00.000Z

Title: The Black Album
Author: Hanif Kureishi
Publisher: Faber and Faber

Shahid is the second son of a suburban family. A family trying to find its place between a Pakistani heritage and Britain in 1989. With the death of his father, Shahid has broken free - fled to college in London. There he has a new world opened to him. A world which quickly becomes split and leads to conflict.

The inspiration to come to this college were the good things he heard about the lecturer DeeDee Osgood, whom he falls in love with quickly, finding himself delighted when she returns his interest. At the same time he meets Riaz, a well respected spokesman for the local Muslim community. While he is fascinated by both DeeDee and Riaz and the cultures they represent they are not complimentary. Coming from an atheist background he struggles to come to terms with his new Muslim friends and their beliefs. The fact that they disaprove of the books and music he loves doesn't help. Books and music that DeeDee encourages, taking him to raves and feeding him drugs.

There is something almost surreal to the journey that takes place in The Black Album. Shahid wandering through a haze of bemusement and confusion. When he is caught up in either part he is determined to reject the other - down with the white woman and her corrupting drugs, switching to love for this woman and a rejection of the fundamentalism and extreme ideas. Everything really comes to a head with the declaration of a fatwa in response to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. A background of book burning and flash point politics is described, one which Shahid struggles to deal with.

This is the first work by Hanif Kureishi that I have read, so there is little for me to compare it to, though I've read mixed opinions from those with more experience of the author's work. Personally I enjoyed The Black Album a lot. The first chapter captures my attention straight away. The way in which Shahid meets his neighbour Riaz for the first time is cryptic and mysterious, intriguing from the outset. In some ways there is a lot of rambling wandering - between college, family and activism. But it is here where the picture is painted, where all the parts become a whole. It is the pacing of all these components coming together that makes The Black Album work - evoking a period in time and one man's role in clashing cultures so well.

RVWR: PTR
June 2003

2003-06-16T22:12:00.000Z

Title: Pattern Recognition
Author: William Gibson
Publisher: Viking

Pattern Recognition is the seventh novel by William Gibson, a book he assures is a stand alone novel, not fitting into a trilogy like his previous novels. Gibson really created a name for himself with the Sprawl Trilogy - Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive being the definitive Cyber Punk novels. With the Bridge Trilogy - Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties - Gibson moved closer to the present. Pattern Recognition is firm present form, though with the way these things work by the time it was published it was recent past.

Cayce Pollard is a woman in her early thirties. A "cool-hunter" and consultant for the advertising and marketing industry. Arriving in London to make use of her unique sensitivity to judge a proposed new logo for one of the big manufacturers of trainers. Cayce Pollard has an acute sense of pattern recognition, to the extent that she experiences physical reactions to logos and product that has saturated the globalized culture.

One of Cayce's passions relates to a series of film clips, which have appeared on the internet. She spends her online time on the Fetish:Footage:Forum discussing the finer points of these clips and how they fit together as a bigger picture. Arriving in London it turns out the ad agency has found out about the footage and wants her to help them find the maker of the footage. Recognising it as a memetic sensation, a cult following growing on the internet through a unique vector that the agency wants to exploit. This puts Cayce in a difficult position - possibly sell out her big interest to the very people who are contaminating public spaces with the items that make her ill, or turn down the opportunity to find out the truth behind her personal obsession.

Pattern Recognition doesn't need the levels of technological speculation expected in Gibson's work. The constant presence of cutting edge mobile phones and laptops provides everything on that front, just as the online communities reflect the extensions at work in Idoru. The core plot of mysterious maker and rich backer sending an expert on a quest to reveal all is a familiar one in Gibson's work, some might suggest it has become something of a formula. Regardless it is Gibson's ability with words that really makes him stand out from his peers. It is Gibson's ability with words that so many fail to imitate for all that they riff of the vibe that he set up at the start. The fact that the delivery of the ideas and characters in each new book seduces the reader as well is obviously another considerable factor in Gibson's success.

Pattern Recognition was a work in progress at the time of the terrorist attacks on the world trade centre. With that Pattern Recognition was changed forever in the same way that the lives of so many people were. Faced with the choice of scrapping what had been written to that point or coming to terms with those events, Gibson decided to come to term with those events in Pattern Recognition. As such the ripples are felt throughout Pattern Recognition, Cayce being from New York, her father having disappeared in the hours that followed. To some the references and flash backs that deal with this sub plot will seem tacked on, perhaps sitting awkwardly, but then the event by its nature is one that will feel funny regardless of who tackles the aftermath. For others these events are likely to bring more life to Cayce than the no-logo-backlash that is as central to what makes this woman. The feelings of uncertainty that Cayce retains at the blank in her life left by her father's disappearance must be one that contains a certain resonance in the wake of terrorist acts of that level.

Pattern Recognition fits well in the wave to the present that Gibson has established with the seismic event that was Neuromancer. As with Virtual Light there will be people that won't be happy with Pattern Recognition because it isn't another Neuromancer. It is also just as likely that there will be some unhappy because Pattern Recognition isn't another Virtual Light. Separating yourself from the past is a good idea when approaching Pattern Recognition, a good way to appreciate the patterns and the cast of characters which Cayce interacts with. Here is to more stand-alone novels where William Gibson continues to shine with his ability with words.

RVWR: PTR
June 2003

2003-04-20T20:22:00.000Z

Title: Broken Angels
Author: Richard Morgan
Publisher: Gollancz

Broken Angels is the second book by Richard Morgan, a follow up to his debut Altered Carbon. Though in saying that Broken Angels and Altered Carbon are very different novels, even though they both feature the character of Takeshi Kovacs. Broken Angels making a lot more of something that was background detail in Altered Carbon, to the point where it took me a moment to recall the references at all.

Kovacs was introduced to us in Altered Carbon, an ex-envoy, the UN's special force. Highly trained and used to keep the planetary colonies in line with Earth authority as the human race spreads across the universe. After a particularly brutal little struggle, Kovacs quit and has been generally on hire since. With Altered Carbon Kovacs was hired to investigate a murder on Earth. This put us in a firmly noir territory with a hefty dose of SF back drop.

Broken Angels sees Kovacs as an officer in a strike force being used by corporate influences to crush a planetary revolution. However this is a fight Kovacs does not want a part of, but can't find a way out of. That is until he is made an offer that would seem to be the answer to all his problems.

Evidence of an ancient alien race was found on Mars, and although it has become clear that they were actually scattered across space they have been referred to as Martians ever since. It is using the technology that Earth has managed to piece together that has allowed humanity to spread across an increasing number of planets.

As such every discovery of something new is a big deal. Kovacs is being offered a Martian space ship. Something which has never been discovered before. With the team that have approached him the next step is to get corporate backing. But they aren't the only ones to know that there is something out there. Cue backstabbing and cloak and dagger that keeps Kovacs and his crew on their toes.

With a mission rather than a case and with a team behind him we have more of an action thriller than the private investigation. The violence also seems stepped down a little, at least initially, and with the key technology where the name altered carbon came from there is less of a concern about death anyway. In some ways it would have been too easy for Broken Angels to have been more of the same, in the way that so many recurring characters fall into a rut style-wise. For Broken Angels to break the mould to this degree it is a smart move. The fact that it launches off the whole alien culture/technology vibe that was set up in Altered Carbon is something that makes so much sense.

Morgan as a writer is entirely contemporary with his style, even where certain ideas like ancient alien civilisations have been played with for many years in the science fiction genre. Fitting in well with his peers, reflecting the currents of popular culture well. Themes that come to the fore are the role of corporations in government and world finance. Broken Angels was published the same day as America invaded Iraq, and only a few chapters in, Morgan is discussing the idea of the UN and regime engineering. How much more up to the minute and contemporary do you want? Comparisons to Peter F. Hamilton's work seem to be most relevant with Broken Angels, with themes in common with both The Night's Dawn trilogy and Fallen Dragon. Richard Morgan is probably more political in his approach than Hamilton, though not as much as say Ken MacLeod, or at least more subtle than anyway. With Takeshi Kovacs, Morgan offers a character that is smart and quite capable of being brutal above and beyond the call of duty. Kovacs has developed already across only two books, each fleshing out his back history, while demonstrating why he has a tendency to be thoroughly pissed off with his lot on life.

Broken Angels offers the contrasts between the ideas of corporate expansionist culture and a post-Martian universe. With the idea that there must be a further visit to the life of Takeshi Kovacs being an irresistible thought - there are far too many questions about the big picture for there to be any other choice.

RVWR: PTR
April 2003

2003-04-20T19:23:00.000Z

Title: 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess
Author: Stewart Home
Publisher: Canongate

69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess is the latest book by English writer Stewart Home, published by the Scottish Canongate and set in Aberdeen. 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess is something of an oddity, low brow and high brow in equal measures it would seem. From the start it feels like every chapter contains graphic sex, while at the same time there is a running commentary of literary critique. Both of which become excessive at points.

69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess starts with the accidental meeting of Alan and Anna. Alan is in Aberdeen to clear out the flat of an old, deceased friend - a flat filled with books, all of which Alan is determined to read before he disposes of them. Anna is considerably younger, a 20 year old girl in Aberdeen as a student. Though both are English they find themselves in this Scottish city at the same time, where they meet and from the start have a relationship based on extreme sex and the constant discussion of literature.

The relationship evolves around their explorations of a book called "69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess" - the author K.L. Callahan claims that the Princess Diana was not killed in Paris as reported, rather he was hired as an agent to kill her and dispose of the body. Having killed the princess the author then decided to take the dead princess on a tour of stone circles in Aberdeen. Alan and Anna are trying to recreate this tour and determine whether it is at all possible, and hence whether there is any validity to the claims put forward in 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess. To this end they cart a dummy filled with bricks round Aberdeen, taking photos at each site, have sex at many, and allowing Alan to rant about the books he has read the whole time. Through this Anna, who is narrating the book, describes her dreams and in her dreams she makes a pact with the dummy - where the two will conspire to kill Alan.

69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess, the book by Stewart Home, which is about the book 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess by K.L. Callahan in many ways, is not a big book. About 169 pages, which has its own significance in the narrative, but for all the perceived brevity of the novel it is a dense work. Containing many layers as the threads are woven together, the sheer volume of data having something to do with how the reader can be propelled through the book. It can be considered that this is a very dry novel - the amount of time spent on literature and literary critique is intense, with many of the works covered being unfamiliar to me, and from the sounds of it, of little interest to me. Part of me would suspect that Home's is making much of this up, but there are enough references to authors that I am aware of and publishers that I have heard of that he retains credibility in terms of this all being based on real material.

The tour of Aberdeen is similarly dense, a great deal of concentration being given to the stone sites, their history, their current condition, and reports from various sources of previous visits to these places. With this there is a certain aspect of the travel journal to the novel. Many of the conversations between the two characters occur in restaurants and cafes in the area. For the most part visiting a different establishment each time, with some form of commentary being added about these as well. With this, I feel it is a fine piece of satire when the duo start to include the local supermarket cafes as part of their journey.

The ending of 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess has a certain ambiguity. In some ways one can feel that this ending is something of a cop out, leaving the narrative unresolved. In other ways it does seem to offer a certain degree of comment on the characters and the actions they undertake through the book. One thing I particularly appreciated about the ending though was the author's change of tone. Chapters 1-9 establish the voice of Anna well, but as soon as you turn the page into chapter 10 you pick up changes. The people here are the same, but from the first paragraph we know something has changed. Something which is evident as these last three chapters, 10-12, bring the novel to a close.

I have little doubt that 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess will not be to everyone's taste. Certainly on reflection it is not really to mine, the whole literary aspect could easily lose me as a reader. Yet the concept of the dead princess and the stone circles, of these people trying to recreate this journey and just the sense that there is something odd about this novel as a whole is what I actually did appreciate.

RVWR: PTR
April 2003

2003-04-16T19:45:00.000Z

Title: Americana
Author: Don Delilo
Publisher: Penguin

Something about Americana strikes me that it is a very American novel, and it is more than just the title. Something about the tone and settings just strikes me so much that this must be what people mean when they talk about "the American novel". With that it strikes me that do not seem to have read a lot of that type, most of the recent literary fiction that I have approached falling into a split between Scottish and Japanese for some reason.

Don Delilo is one of those authors I have been hearing a lot about, particularly with the response to Underworld. Curiosity leads to a certain exploration, Underworld striking as something of a slab, and not a cheap one at that, for initial exploration. Going through his work to date, something about Americana catches my imagination. So this is the starting point I opt for, only later realising that of his 11 novels to date that this is his first. In fact with the realisation that this is Delilo's first novel, comes the realisation that this was also published before I was born.

Published in 1971 Americana is dated to some degree, but is surprisingly contemporary in others. Even some of the commentary which dates the narrative to the largest degree is what ties it to now the most. The main character David Bell works for a television network, and while the technology may have changed one suspects the principles are the same. This also seems to be the case with Bell's father who works for the advertising industry, commentary relating to that being as prominent as that related to television, going hand in hand as they do. Background detail includes references to war, which I assume was the Vietnam war, but contextualising it these references could just as easily be to the preparations for war with Iraq of the moment. There are also comments relating to race, which seem naive in a modern pc culture, and yet telling.

The basic plot is that David Bell is a network executive, rising faster through the ranks than anyone before him. However he is growing bored and restless, slowly going off the rails. When an opportunity comes up to go across the country to make a documentary he decides to turn it into a road trip. Accompanied by a sculptress he is infatuated by and a drunk veteran and failed novelist, he sets out in a motor home travelling across country. As they travel David becomes inspired to make his own film, corralling people in a middle of nowhere town to take part in the increasingly obscure endeavour.

Americana is told in four parts. The first part covers David Bell executive. Introducing us to this man he seems to be a combination of petulance and belligerence. A self confessed liar we watch as he fabricates every conversation he has with anyone he meets. During this section we get an impression of this character, which strikes me as being part Catcher In The Rye part American Psycho. It is with mounting eagerness that Bell approaches the proposed road trip, maximising his meddling in office politics just to get him through the day.

The second part starts as the group have just hit the road. This is the most difficult part of the book, flashing back and forth through the life of David Bell. Covering the period from him being about sixteen to graduating from college. This covers the relations with each member of his family. The key people he met at university, and the growth of his relation with his ex-wife. The narration wanders around, to some degree at random, one passage we have a youngster at home, while the next we have an adult. The topic of a passage seems just as variable, one moment the relationship with his mother is in the spotlight, then we shift to a casual acquaintance in college. For me this becomes tedious, I start to lose interest, and only the hope that some of the detail here will prove to be relevant keeps me from skipping ahead.

The third section sees things get back on track, coming back up to date and dealing with the groups arrival in a small town. The idea that blossomed in David's head at the end of the first part has taken hold. With that David seems almost to behave like a man possessed as he recruits actors. It is clear that the film that he is weaving together is a retelling of his life, trying to find meaning and wilfully rewriting and assigning meaning. This section works well, in keeping with the first section and demonstrating the spark that is present in Americana.

The last section of the book in some ways sees David Bell hit bottom. In the first and third part we saw a descent take place. A melodramatic but also understated break down. This last section deals with that.

In the end the second section makes little difference. Perhaps it reflects to some degree the mood and feel of the film that David is working on. However one gets the impression that anything of worth from the second section could be surmised from the others. Even a little fleshing out here and there as it became relevant would have changed the feel of the novel. With the bottleneck of this section Delilo doesn't make the best first impression. The first and third sections are what do make Americana readable though. The characters that appear in David's life are also a strong point in the work. While there could have been more time spent on a number of these people, contact with these characters is enough to give us at least an impression of their potential.

RVWR: PTR
April 2003

2003-02-21T01:28:00.000Z

Title: Dead Air
Author: Iain Banks
Publisher: Little Brown

Dead Air is the latest novel by writer Iain Banks, reputed to be one of the quickest he has written. Which no doubt contributes to the sense of rushing flow that the book displays. The story of Ken Nott, a radio shock jock on a talk radio show on a London radio station.

The core of the story relates to the amount of trouble he gets himself into, to the point he starts receiving threats, attacks and kidnap attempts. All of this coming from his ability to use and abuse his friends and their trust, as well as his ongoing affair with the wife of a major crime lord. As a background to this we have one of Banks' most political works, the first chapter featuring the twin towers, while further in we have discussions on Israel and encounters with holocaust deniers.

One down side of Dead Air is that it is, at least initially, hard to follow. Starting on September 11th the narrative then wanders back and forth filling in the gaps as Banks sees fit. The progress does become more forward looking as the book goes on, the back tracking more obvious, the reader having got a feel for who people are and how Nott has got to the point with them that he has.

Regardless Dead Air is one of Banks most readable and no doubt contemporary works to date. Nott is an entertaining character, though it is especially entertaining to see him called naive. For all his intelligence he is not smart enough to see how some things really are or to avoid getting out of trouble. In fact there are times where he manages to really drop himself in it - with the two words that make up chapter 10 summing up the key turning point of the narrative - "oh shit".

RVWR: PTR
February 2003

2003-02-20T21:10:00.000Z

Title: Dead Clever
Author: Scarlett Thomas
Publisher: New English Library

I believe at this point in time Scarlett Thomas has written 5 novels, three of those featuring the character Lily Pascalle. Dead Clever was her first work and the introduction to Lily. The debut of Lily Pascalle in some ways mirrors the life of Scarlett herself, both starting this new career with a departure from London and an arrival in Devon.

Lily has been hanging around London for a couple of years, a graduate in English Lit, specialising in crime and horror. Reaching the bottom of the downward spiral her current relationship has been in, Lily seems to have run out of reasons to stay in the city. With this she decides to visit her family in Devon, returning to find that there has been a grisly murder in the usually sedate locale. At a loose end she takes a job at the local university only to find that she is teaching the class the murdered girl was in. With the death of a second student and one of her colleagues gone missing and elevated to prime suspect as result, Lily finds herself drawn into putting her theory into practice to find out what is really going on.

For the most part the narrative is entirely from Lily's perspective, which tends to be the style of this type of fiction. However, perhaps as an experiment, perhaps just as contrast, we also get odd little paragraphs from the point of view of the villain of the piece - abstracted enough so that they don't give the big deal away, but providing the reader clues that Lily doesn't have. In some ways this is an interesting trick, disorientating the reader to some degree, but for me it does not entirely work and is the one thing I felt negative about with this book. In terms of building character Lily is given a past which emerges as the book progresses, linking her to some of the characters she meets and the environment. A balance which has to be carefully done to make the character believable and human. In plot terms clues are given, as well as the requisite cast of people it could be. Of course keeping certain details close to ones chest so that the reader is kept guessing is a good idea, and one that some writers overlook.

Dead Clever is a fun read and one that works well within the genres of crime and contemporary fiction.

RVWR: PTR
Febraury 2003

2003-02-20T21:09:00.000Z

Title: Zeitgeist
Author: Bruce Sterling
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books

Leggy Starlitz has been a recurring character in the short story work of Bruce Sterling. With Zeitgeist Sterling clearly decides he fits the idea and with that at last fills us all in on the story of this scam artist. Starlitz has been managing G-7, a multi-national girl group, for some time now. the band is post-Spice and comprised of a girl from each of the G-7 nations. Though the plan isn't to sell records, rather it is to sell merchandise. Having mined the obvious markets they are looking for fresh territories. Which leads them to Turkish Cypress with the hope of penetrating Turkey and the Middle East. With the Turkish gangster he is dealing with gradually outmanoeuvring him and the appearance of his teenage daughter, Starlitz finds things are not going as planned.

While this is the basic set-up the bulk of the book becomes about Starlitz and his daughter and how they are different from normal people. With this Sterling explores the ideas of narrative and how narrative and reality are not the same thing. The Starlitz family have always been different, living hardcore narrative, affecting it and doing things others couldn't. With this whole text of Zeitgeist gains a striking density that lurks within the straight story. How this defines millennial cross over and cultural structures is important, and reading Zeitgeist puts the likes of Sterling's Holy Fire into a new perspective.

The first book by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami I read was Dance Dance Dance, the UK edition of which has a quote from Sterling on the cover. Reading it I found the inclusion of that quote a little curious. I now find it ironic given that Zeitgeist has a certain aspect which is comparable to Murakami. Throughout the book there are little scenes and actions, which just seem to fit into that impression, while retaining Sterling's hand throughout. Most ironically is when Sterling spends a couple of pages discussing Murakami's Norwegian Wood!

Trying to convey quite why Zeitgeist is an important piece is difficult. I expect one really needs to get into the narrative to understand. Regardless this is Sterling's best work to date, quite exciting and thoroughly enjoyable.

RVWR: PTR
Febraury 2003

2003-02-20T20:27:00.000Z

Title: Hardboiled Wonderland And The End Of The World
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

While I have seen a number of people recommend Hardboiled Wonderland And The End Of The World as being the perfect starting point for reading Haruki Murakami it is my sixth novel by the renowned Japanese author. I think all of his books feature a male narrator, and like Hardboiled Wonderland, many of the narrators are nameless to the reader. As is the case here, though we can refer to him by his job title, as the character in turn does with all the other characters.

The story is split in two, reflecting the title to some degree. We have the Hardboiled Wonderland where our narrator is a Calcutec - which is a cryptologist for The System. Protecting data for the major corporation against the Semiotecs, agents of The Factory. The other side of the story is set at The End Of The World, a town surrounded by a large fence and populated by some people and unicorns. Here the narrator is a Dream Reader, releasing the secret dreams from the skulls of beasts.

Even with the split into two alternating threads we have a sense that these halves are clearly related. The first person narrative gives a clear feeling that the Calcutec and Dream Reader are the same person. The growing connections only add weight to this idea as the story progresses.

With works like Dance Dance Dance and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles Murakami has displayed a certain surrealness, an ability to step out there for a moment or two. From the start of Hardboiled Wonderland he has taken that step. The character introduced in a silent, possibly moving lift that leads to twisting corridors, which are present in both DDD and WUB. Never looking back Murakami accelerates into the territory that make this his bizarrest work so far. From the professor's studies of skulls and silence to the separation of body and shadow our hero struggles to work out what it is all about. One of my favourite parts of the book being where the character remarks in an off hand manner as part of his narration that you can't expect him to know what's happening.

Some descriptions of Hardboiled Wonderland introduced a certain fear for me, they managed to make it sound silly. However this is likely one of his best works, like the other Murakami books that I have enjoyed it draws the reader in and keeps them reading. His lead characters have a certain unassuming charm, interests which probably seem exotic for Japan, but these Western hooks provide more of a frame of reference for Western readers who are in turn supplied the exotic in the form of location. Though location is less of an issue here in that it has stepped so far out that even when it is set in Tokyo it doesn't really matter. But that is an aside, the grounding of the character allows us to walk through everything that happens to him with an appreciation, a recognition of what is different, taking it as it comes.

RVWR: PTR
February 2003

2003-02-20T20:00:00.000Z

Title: Chaga [aka: Evolution's Shore]
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Gollancz

With Chaga I have a curious situation. This novel by Iain McDonald is based on a short story, which I have read. It is also followed by a sequel, Kirinya, which I have also read. So approaching the novel Chaga itself is interesting. Made more complicated by the realisation that the novel Evolution's Shore and Chaga are the same book and I managed to get both of them at the same time. Evolution's Shore is the American edition and Chaga is the British, the change of title, like so many of these decisions seems odd and a little obscure.

It is 2008 and Gaby has just been accepted for a journalism course in London when one of Saturn's moons disappears. For her this is an omen that whatever this event is it will be her story. As she goes through her course what this event represents unfolds with arrivals of material from space. Meteor-like packages come down in Africa, in the territory of the Wa-Chaga tribe. The material that starts to spread from this point becomes known as Chaga. The alien material absorbing and transforming everything in its path, advancing incrementally every day, helped by the arrival of further packages. By the end of her course Gaby manages to get assigned to Africa, where the Chaga has been spreading, UNECTA troops evacuating each village in the path. Refugees rippling outward as a new and alien environment grows at the heart of the continent.

Chaga fits into a Science Fiction cycle of works that includes Bruce Sterling's The Artificial Kid and Paul McAuley's Secret Of Life. The idea of how a substance can spread and transform - microbes, or nanobes rebuilding everything in its path. Dealing with the concept of alien, without actually having obvious/physical aliens. A more creeping sense of horror of consumption than screaming space ships and death rays. McDonald's particular tactic is to deal with it, the people that lived there adapting to it as they either flee or resign themselves to whatever may lie in these territories, or the way in which governments react to the incursion.

One of the things I particularly like about Chaga, and Kirinya in turn, is the location McDonald has chosen. Deliberately choosing Africa rather than some first world country. From there he steps into territory less often covered by Science Fiction. Then builds in a way that means that every response is knocked off by that cultural difference. The idea that Africa would deal with this kind of event differently. The idea of how the rest of the world would react to Africa.

Of course to make Chaga readable McDonald also needs his characters. Gaby is the lead, too ambitious as a reporter, she pursues the story even to the point where she steps into the unknown. The upside is that she is driven and will get the story out there. The downside is that she won't even notice as she walks all over everyone she knows in the process. So while we chart the spread of the Chaga we also witness the rise and fall of Gaby MacAslan.

With Ship Of Fools and Kirinya I became a fan of McDonald's work, from that Chaga does not disappoint.

RVWR: PTR
February 2003

2003-02-20T19:26:00.000Z

Title: Everything You Need
Author: A. L. Kennedy
Publisher: Vintage

Mary Lamb is 19. She wants to be a writer. Her father is dead. Her mother has abandoned her. She has been raised by her uncles, her mother's brother and his lover. With the offer of joining a small group of writers as part of a writer's retreat on a small island she is preparing to leave for the first time.

Nathan Staples is a writer. Who has written dark fiction for some years. He currently lives on the writer's retreat, where he periodically puts himself through near death experiences in an attempt to understand and appreciate life more. He is to be Mary's tutor. He is also her father and is desperate to be reunited with his daughter.

Everything You Need covers a period of years, starting in 1990 with an introduction to the two characters - father and daughter and writers. The narrative covers the relation between the two and how it changes over the years. At the core of which is Nathan's inability to tell Mary who he is, constantly aware of how negative the consequences could be. To facilitate our understanding of the characters and the progression of the story we switch back and forth between the two characters in mostly alternating sections, with periodic switches from third person to first for the inclusion of sections written by Nathan which cover his past. Working in this way is an important part of the books success, Kennedy concentrating so much on the emotions and thoughts of the characters and why they behave how they do in response to each event.

As well as the main plot of Everything You Need there is a clear secondary commentary that is present from start to finish. The characters are writers - Nathan and Mary, along with the other 5 people who live on the island. Nathan is assigned as tutor to Mary to help her to learn how to write, this sets up series of thoughts on writing - golden rules delivered to young prodigy. Along with this Nathan's best friend is his editor, so there is also input from the editorial side of publishing. Mary is taken to a couple of industry parties while visiting London, adding another layer - insight into the current state of publishing. One presumes that much of this comes from Kennedy's experience, either as witness or personal - which would lead to a somewhat caustic impression. Though it also provides an easier level of humour.

The characters are well developed, especially Nathan, who really does take the narrative over. Recovering from a previous cancer we have an aging man, with one lung, who has to look after himself every day just to stay alive. A man who comes across as cynical and harsh, prone to unpredictable depressions and anger. His relationship with his dog and his behaviour towards his daughter show a whole other side to the man.

Kennedy's prose is lyrical, bringing the reader in with her rolling narration. Which as I approach for the first time I feel I need to slow down and really appreciate what she is writing. As she lays out these lives for us to explore her words are evocative, the emotions and struggling dynamic palpitating. This enables us to feel Nathan's frustration and awkwardness - his desperate desire to reveal all and his reluctance to do just that. As far as I can gather Everything You Need is the first novel by A.L. Kennedy, following a series of short story collections as well as some film work. A chunky book that shows considerably more weight than those previous books - with Everything You Need as testament one can only hope that this is the start of a new direction for the author.

RVWR: PTR
February 2003

2003-02-20T19:14:00.000Z

Title: Effendi
Author: Jon Courntenay Grimwood
Publisher: Pocket Books

Effendi is the second Arabesk, the second in a series of books by the author Jon Courtenay Grimwood. Pashazade introduced us to the character of Ashraf Bey. Raf found himself part of the hierarchy of the free city of El Iskandryia, having been broken out of a Seattle prison. Once there he found himself accused of murder, with his attempts to clear his name finding him raised to the rank of Chief Of Detectives as we start Effendi.

Hamzah Effendi is the cities leading industrialist, owning clubs and refineries, having come from nothing to be an Effendi. However it seems that the nothing in question involved Hamzah being a child soldier in one of many of the wars that have taken place across North Africa in the last several decades. With this revelation comes the one that he may also be a mass murderer. The role of El Iskandryia in the world is a fragile one, Berlin, Paris and Washington all wanting to increase their power there. With the importance of Hamzah and the damage his crimes could do this looks like an opportunity for power plays to come into force.

As Effendi progresses there are increasing problems within the city. Clubs burnt down, tourists murdered and mutilated, electro pulse bombings that wipe out all the city's electronics. Throughout this, Raf is trying to retain control and deal with the situation with Hamzah, and how he feels for Hamzah's daughter. Though the more significant actions are perhaps taken by Raf's 9 year old nice Hani and Hamzah's bastard son Avatar - both free to do what they want compared to the bound Pashazade.

Grimwood is working in a variety of genres, as he has done since his first book neoAddix. Part alternate history, where he explored a future which stemmed from a Napoleonic France in his first series, he concentrates here on a future extended from a surviving Ottoman empire. Technology and violence were more heavily present in the environment of the Napoleonic sequence than here, though they are both present here. Technology and violence are more integrated, more subtle, more mature in the Arabesk. Which for me at least, makes them more interesting reading. There is also a certain element of crime involved in these novels, Raf being forced to play detective in Pashazade and actually being chief detective in Effendi. With murders and politics for him to get caught in the midst of in each.

The one negative aspect of the book was the way it starts. Effendi follows on close from Pashazade, to the degree that much of the first 50 pages actually seems to retread previous ground from a different point of view. To a certain extent this serves as contextualization, setting up the idea that Hamzah had been having problems anyway. Still the manner in which it is done feels like a disorientated déjà vu, distracting the reader rather than bringing them into the narrative. The likelihood is that this renders Effendi less readable to someone who hasn't read Pashazade already; there are certainly comments which could be considered to be spoilers. Though the joy of a continuity is following it and watching things fall into place, so that helps to negate some of those issues. Once the reader is in and past that early section the pacing is solid leaving Grimwood with another page turner on his hands.

RVWR: PTR
February 2003

2002-12-21T01:26:00.000Z

Title: Consider Phlebas
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit

Consider Phlebas is the third book by Iain M. Banks that I have read, the science fiction alter ego of Scottish novelist Iain Banks. However it was the first he wrote under this identity, and perhaps it shows. Though it may well have been my mood. I found the other two novels, Excession and Against A Dark Background, enjoyable enough - appreciating in particular some of the ideas that made up the Culture. Consider Phlebas being a Culture novel I thought I would also appreciate that, on the other hand I found it to be a chore. Excessive descriptions choking progression, to the point where I found myself disinterestedly skipping paragraphs in the hope that I would find something happening. The middle section in particular is indulgent, seeming to go nowhere and to take forever to get there. It seems ironic that having read a pile of Iain Banks books before reading the Wasp Factory I also found it to be dull when I got round to it.

Still there were some moments in Consider Phlebas, particularly from the idea of the Culture and the overall bigger picture of that and the war with the Idirans. A war-like race of giant aliens, the Idirans, have gone to war with the human culture that is the Culture. In a scuffle a mind has been ejected from a ship, an artificial intelligence, constructs that are at the centre of what makes up the culture. In its attempts to escape the Idiran attack ships it does something it shouldn't be able to do. The knowledge of this could change the course of the war. Unfortunately to complicate things the mind has ended up on a planet of the dead - a planet cordoned off by an elder race of aliens, a reclusive group who don't take an interest in the universe anymore. But if their space were to be desecrated in an attempt to retrieve the mind they are certainly more powerful than anything either side can understand!

The basic idea for the novel works. The rivalry between the agent of Culture's Special Circumstances and the shape changer agent of the Idirans works, as does the role of the Culture analyst. But the whole stuff with the pirate crew and the time spent on the orbital seems to be where it is all particularly lost.

Having picked up Look To Windward, Iain M. Banks' most recent novel, while reading Consider Phlebas, I can only hope that it is an improvement and more in keeping with the other pieces I have read.

RVWR: PTR
December 2002

2002-12-21T01:15:00.000Z

Title: The Discrete Charms Of Charlie Monk
Author: David Ambrose
Publisher: Pocket Books

Charlie Monk is a special agent for a secret organisation. He takes part in all the latest training schemes and is regularly involved in sensitive jobs that require his special touch. When not working he likes to date a string of beautiful women and paints in his spare time. It all seems very glamorous, too cool. That is until Charlie is injured and wakes to find that the rules have changed, or more accurately that things never have been as he thought they were, and is being held prisoner.

Susan Flemyng is a scientist who specialises in memory and its manipulation. She is at the cutting edge of her field and is doing great work with trauma victims. Her husband is a brilliant surgeon, who is dedicated to travelling round the world's trouble spots helping where he can. Their son is the light of their lives and they are incredibly happy. Then no sooner has her husband died in Russia in a plane crash than she is being told that it was murder and that the company she works for was responsible.

Initially I had certain expectations about The Discrete Charms Of Charlie Monk. Loads of espionage and glamorous locations, a spy who was some how more than the ordinary, conspiracies and memory games. As it goes on it is clear that the action is more tightly contained than that, streamlining into captivity and plots and the insides of installations owned by the organisation behind it all. But in terms of conspiracy and head games once it gets to that stage of the book, that's all there is, a constant flow of keeping on top of events and trying to second guess the shadowy hand of power.

On the whole The Discrete Charms Of Charlie Monk is an easily read work that is more than just a spy book. David Ambrose hits us with some turns that aren't entirely expected and has us going for awhile. The epilogue style finish is perhaps taking things too far, adding a degree of ambiguity, which isn't necessarily helpful or smart. Regardless of that Charlie Monk is a fun read.

RVWR: PTR
December 2002

2002-12-20T21:13:00.000Z

Title: Morvern Callar
Author: Alan Warner
Publisher: Vintage

Morvern Callar was the debut novel by Alan Warner. A novelist who has just published his fourth book and seen this first one released as the second film by director Lynne Ramsey. Having seen the film my curiosity was sparked, and I've read a variety of reviews of the film and of the book with interest. Especially of interest are the interpretations of the character Morvern Callar herself, interpretations that I don't necessarily see from either the film or the book - which at times leads me to the belief that some are reading to much into the narrative.

It is often said that a writer's first book is autobiographical. if one were to interpret Warner's presence in Morvern Callar then it is most likely to be as the character that kills himself just before the start. A character who is a writer and has eclectic taste in music, which to some degree certainly seems to describe the author. The effects of this character are felt throughout the book even though he is never actually in it as anything more than a corpse.

Morvern is a 21 year old shelf stacker in a remote highland town. It's off season and coming up for Christmas when her boyfriend decides to kill himself. She leaves the body lying for days, tells people that he has left her and goes through her usual routine in something of a haze. During this time she decides to use the money that he has in his account to get away on the resort holiday she has so long dreamed of. With this there are a stream of events - she realises that he has left her his finished novel for her to get published, and she decides to change it so that her name is on it, and she comes into an inheritance that he had signed over to her. This leaves her sorted for cash with her and her best friend heading off to Spain - living it up in the sun and raving all night. While this seemed like exactly what she wanted it immediately feels hollow to her, and she has to run further away - finding somewhere more excluded still.

Morvern Callar, for me at least, is an enigma. Many are keen to make declarations of who she is, what she stands for. On the one hand Morvern is a woman that is young and likes to party - a child of the raves, to some degree - from the house parties in the highlands to massive warehouse events in Spain. On top of that she changes the name on the book and tries to publish it as her own, removes all the money from his account, then disposes of his body. For many this paints a picture of someone who is canny and calculating. However for me, Morvern is more detached than that - seeming to be a perpetual outsider, she never strikes me as being comfortable with the world around her - at least, not until she has run away from it all. The body of her boyfriend lies around for days, and she goes out of her way to avoid thinking about it - actions that scream denial. Having gone down this route probably makes it easier to accept the decisions that she finally does come up with. Everything about Morvern screams out that she is looking for some answers, though throughout the narration her voice seems to be more removed and separate, a permanent calm that suggests the idea of detachment. The idea that Morvern is an orphan is an undercurrent of the book, her relationship with her step-parents stirring in there and no doubt being a contributing factor in the development of Morvern. It isn't until Morvern is totally away from it all - enough money that she doesn't have to worry for a little while, and the sun above her certainly factor into this, but the whole sense of stillness Morvern attains when she gets away from the resort and sets up a little island of comfort makes so much difference.

Having seen the film before reading the book it is interesting to see the differences, and there are always differences between the two medium. Warner and Ramsey have different approaches, with it being curious how they have played scenes one way or another, emphasised certain threads or ignored them all together. In the book Morvern's step-father and the community have a bigger presence, while in the film her step-father is entirely absent. Before heading off to Spain Morvern has a fight with the friend she is going with, in the book this is a constant edge to their behaviour, while in the film they have totally made up. On the one hand the tension between them contributes to Morvern's desire to flee further, while this seems less obvious in the film. Though in contrast it does almost seem more within character for Morvern not to take the fight too seriously and to make up quickly. Perhaps most striking is that the taking of the novel as her own plays more of a role in the film than the book - being carried around on a disc for some time before its even looked at and then almost forgotten about, compared to the flashing on the screen right from the start of the film.

In language terms Warner is a contemporary Scottish novelist, and as such plays around with the form of narrative to some degree. The language itself is in dialect, presumably derived from the area of the highlands that the character comes from. Some people might find it difficult to comprehend, though in some ways it is a question of rhythm that has to be fallen into. Strangely I suspect some non-Scots might find that an easier exercise, the variation in dialects means that there is a certain overlap between my Glasgow voice and Morvern's, which seems to throw me out more when I come across something that isn't in that overlap. The downside is that some parts feel awkward, part of me says it is just down to the accent/dialect thing, part of me wonders whether it is a stumbling by Warner that doesn't do his character any favours?

For all that I remain bemused by Morvern her life on the screen and page still has something compelling and intriguing to offer.

RVWR: PTR
December 2002

2002-12-20T20:26:00.000Z

Title: South Of The Border, West Of The Sun
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

The more I read of Haruki Murakami's work the greater sense I have that his work falls into two categories. The first is the dramatic romance, concerned with unrequited love that goes through numerous twists through its course with little guarantee that it will all work out in the end - like Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart. Then there is the more quirky work, filled with strange events, strange characters and bemusing dialogue - like Dance, Dance, Dance and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. The second category is the one I am tending to enjoy more, though South Of The Border, West Of The Sun falls into the first category. Which still makes it enjoyable work, but I just don't find this kind of material quite as satisfying.

Hajime and Shimamoto meet in school, both only children in a post-war culture where the idea of only having one child seems aberrant. As such they become firm friends, spending all their time together. However when they are 12, Hajime's family moves away and while they are close enough that he can still visit the new distance and the onset of adult hood make things awkward. So they go their separate ways, but throughout Hajime's life he is haunted by the memory of Shimamoto. Throughout his 20's he knows no real happiness, always left looking for something. Then by chance he meets Yukiko and they fall in love, get married, have children, and with the support of her father he opens a successful jazz bar. At last he has found happiness, at least until Shimamoto comes back into his life, turning up at his bar one night. Which opens up the feelings they both had for each other all through their lives and complicating matters entirely.

The form of West Of The Sun is episodic, each chapter, at least initially, being quite compact - to the point where they could almost work as short stories, with the theme of thoughts of Shimamoto linking the sections together. As it goes on the novel is less compartmentalized, getting into the body of the story, the two characters reunited and the stages of how their relationship evolves. When Murakami works like this there seems to be a certain distance between the reader and the action, which makes this style less compelling than his other work. Still readable enough, but without the sense of who the characters are or any of the other things which really pull the reader into the narrative.

RVWR: PTR
December 2002

2002-12-20T19:33:00.000Z

Title: Dark Light
Author: Ken MacLeod
Publisher: Orbit

Dark Light is the second in Ken MacLeod's Engines Of Light trilogy. He is working as a tighter trilogy than his previous works which had a more tenuous link over the course of their development. In Cosmonaut Keep we followed the threads of Matt Cairns and Gregor Cairns - one on earth making the first step into space the other his descendent on an alien planet. This set up the backdrop of the Second Sphere, a collection of earth like planets populated by human's and other Adamic races who have been transported there by the power of aliens so powerful they are referred to as gods. The group of Cosmonauts from the first book are the first humans to arrive in the Second Sphere under their own power, and as such are somewhat revolutionary in the scheme of things.

With Dark Light Gregor and Matt and their crew have got the Bright Star flying again for the first time since their arrival 200 years before. A fact which causes yet more controversy in the sphere, especially amongst the recalcitrant Saurs - who are the image of our classic "grey" alien and unwilling to share their more advanced technology. But when the goals of the Bright Star - a plan to talk to the gods and demand answers - are revealed, tensions reach a new high.

With this series MacLeod is dealing with a variety of ideas - from the classic ideas of alien visitations and a creation myth to his more scientific/social revolutions. Recurring themes in MacLeod's work are anarchism and communism and they appear again here, brought to a head in political upheaval and revolutionary action. Mixed in with interstellar travel, extended life spans and a potential war among gods.

Starting with the introduction of a new planet, populated by stone age and steam age communities MacLeod brings us up to speed with a surprising velocity so that Dark Light becomes a rush of narrative quite quickly. The only criticism is the way he deals with Gregor and Elizabeth from the first book, they are present here, but are entirely side lined in a way that doesn't quite fit in. Though the lead that is provided by Matt is retained and built upon, a character which builds upon the ideas set up with the run from The Star Fraction through The Stone Canal and The Cassini Division to The Sky Road.

RVWR: PTR
December 2002

2002-12-20T19:25:00.000Z

Title: Painkillers
Author: Simon Ings
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Painkillers is the fifth book by British writer Simon Ings, and it is something of a departure for him. Hot Head and Hot Wire were related novels and very much hi tech cyber fiction, Headlong was somewhere along the same lines, though his style had changed by degrees and the scale was probably smaller and more contemporary, while the City Of The Iron Fish was more of a fantasy piece by comparison. While Headlong, his last novel may have had more of a contemporary feel Painkillers is even more so, set in the late 90s, revolving around the period of when the British handed back Hong Kong to the Chinese.

Adam went to Hong Kong to join the serious crime squad. There he quickly meets some dubious people as well as Eva, the woman he soon marries. Things seem to be going well, until between the surveillance on his boss and the birth of his autistic son he is knocked off track. Work becomes difficult and all his spare time is spent researching miracle cures for Justin. Then with the handover he is back in the UK, runs a small cafe, his son is in a special school, and he thinks that he has left behind the regrettable things he had to do. But with a prominent trial, the mysterious death of his former boss and the return of old "friends" it is clear the past has come back to haunt him.

Painkillers is not the longest of books, about 150 pages of text in this paperback edition. To some degree meandering as we follow the next step in the disintegration of a drunk's life. Switching back and forth the narrative moves from Adam's time in Hong Kong, from his arrival as an up and coming operative through to his corruption, then to London post-Hong Kong and the collapse of what was, in the wake of which Adam has become an alcoholic and relations with Eva are ever strained. While the return of the past has its negatives it also does offer a new lease of life for Adam. The results are part domestic, part thriller and being Simon Ings part science.

The science bit comes from a black box. A mysterious device Adam is introduced to in Hong Kong and turns up again in London in the hands of his mistress. A device corporations are looking for, people have been killed over, and a box which might change Adam's life altogether. Tangled in with this and the narrative as a whole are the ideas of autism, discussions on what autism is thought to be by various parties and some of the ideas that have been put forward to relieve the symptoms. The combination of these elements is what ties this to Ings previous novels at all.

Painkillers is relatively quick paced, given how much it gets into the pages. Being so different from his previous work disorients a little, leaving a little uncertainty as to what to make of it, Painkillers feels like an odd little book in some ways. On the other hand I did enjoy it, even though it took some effort to track a copy down in the end.

RVWR: PTR
December 2002

2002-12-20T19:22:00.000Z

Title: Special Delivery
Author: Iselin C. Hermann
Publisher: Harvill Press

The attraction to Special Delivery is its vividness of language. Which is interesting given that it has been translated from Danish and is supposedly in French. I've picked up this slim edition published by Harvill Press, who seem to specialise in translated works, and reading the back had a certain curiosity. This time picking it up I read the first couple of pages, which are pretty short, and was caught up in the sense of how this could work.

Delphine is a Danish girl, who inspired by a painting by Jean-Luc, a French artist, decides to send him a short note on a post card to tell him how it has affected her. To her surprise she receives a reply to her note. With a correspondence growing from there over the next 18 months. The two write back and forth in French, becoming increasingly flirtatious as they do - conjuring scenes and scenarios where they meet and engage. Mixed through this are discussions on who the people are, key sequences in their lives, on art and how it describes what is going on between them, and language and it's interpretations, which are especially relevant given the pan-European aspect of this building narrative.

With out doubt this is a romance story, and okay I admit it, there is part of me that is just an old romantic. But there has to be more to a piece than slush for it to have a real attraction to my more cynical side. Special Delivery works, it is an exercise in that it builds a restriction and works with that - everything that happens must do so through the form of a letter - so we have short note, postcards, long gaps between responses that provide tension. The characters come through in the writing style - Delphine is young and passionate, linked to France by her French Grandmother, Jean-Luc is older and hesitant, he is married, though gains a flush of excitement from the emotions he has sparked in this woman, despite any reticence he may display.

The progression is such that these two must meet. Though there is the warning from Jean-Luc that neither of them are really who they are on the written page and the illusions could just as easily be shattered as fulfilled. With this one becomes curious how the ending will be brought about, how the life outside the written page will be conveyed to the reader. This is achieved by the end note, which is supplied by Jean-Luc who is supposed to be have published this correspondence in this form.

Cells are tingling in me - Delphine says at the start of one letter. For me this is a perfect description to this book - the words come alive and tingle like those cells on these pages.

RVWR: PTR
December 2002

2002-11-20T21:16:00.001Z

Title: Lizard
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
Publisher: Faber and Faber

I bought two Banana Yoshimoto books at once, part of a special offer. I read Kitchen already, with mixed feelings in the end. Completing Lizard hasn't particularly resolved those issues - her work has strengths and weaknesses and I can't decide how they cancel out.

The Japanese author seems to specialise in novellas and short stories to judge from these two volumes. Where Kitchen was two novellas (technically two related stories plus a third unrelated), Lizard is 6 short stories which from the author's notes are intended to explore the big things in life - love, death, sex, spirituality and the like. Reading the stories it is clear that some attempt has been made in this direction, with some of those being natural and some being heavy handed.

Having finished the book I was reading before at lunchtime I start Lizard on the train on the way home from work. The first story is Newlyweds, which takes place on a train and is about a man on his way home from work. Synchronously I finish the story as the train pulls into the stop and I'm standing at the carriage doors, the story ends as the characters train pulls into the station and he is standing at the doors. This provided something of an extra resonance to this piece, which was curious. The story itself is about a man who is on his way home, having had a few drinks, and starts thinking about his new wife and their life together. For some reason he decides not to get off at his stop, to just keep going. Which triggers the event which happens next, a curious stranger sits down beside him even though there is plenty of room in the carriage. The stranger is at first a homeless man, but then he transforms into a beautiful woman, who starts to ask him why he didn't get off at his stop and what he is thinking. From here we have the curious notion of this spirit who goes round on the Tokyo trains observing the lives and details of the passengers. With that it is interesting that the story was originally serialised on the trains in Tokyo.

The title story Lizard is next and initially seems to be a straightforward relationship story. The narrator is a man who has come across this woman at the gym with a lizard tattoo on her thigh. He asks her out eventually and they start dating. But the focus of the story turns as we learn how both characters have suffered extreme trauma as children and as adults he is a doctor who helps traumatized people and she has opened a practice where she heals people with her hands. With this we have a new perception of how theirs is a relationship of dependency, but also of a fragility and specialness that really brings them together. The third piece is called Helix and gets more into Banana's ambiguous territory where I can't decide what I make of it. For the third story in a row we have a male narrator and at the core the nature of his relationship with his girlfriend. The feeling is that he isn't entirely happy with the way things are going. Having been drinking the night before he feels negative, doesn't want to get up, but still when she phones to make arrangements he agrees to meet her. Where they meet is in a cafe that has closed, so they are sitting in this empty place in the dark and with that Banana seems to be trying to convey everything that needs to be said about their relationship. How the story ends from there seems entirely random, and while random events do happen the way it is handled is curious. A big deal seems to be made about this event to some degree and yet it almost becomes bland through the filter of these characters.

The next story is Dreaming of Kimchee, the first here to have a female narrator. Her monologue pretty much concerns itself with how she reads magazines in her spare time and how they always have articles about women having affairs with married men. As this goes on the narrator reveals how in fact she is having an affair with a married man, then how he has become divorced and the two of them are now married. So I guess its a happy ending, though like Helix there is something extra at the end to make more of the situation, but again the result is not particularly much of anything. From here it is clear that the book is in two halves, the first three stories have male narrators while the second three have female. As such Blood and Water is the story of a girl raised in a kind of religious commune, which she has left when she is old enough - heading to Tokyo in an attempt to find her true self. Which she does with the help of an artist that she meets. This piece is more interesting than the previous two, having a wider scope and allowing more of the world to creep in - from the story of how her parents joined the commune, through her meeting with her boyfriend, to how she gets on with her parents now.

The final story is A Strange Tale from Down by the River, where the narrator explains how she is changed from her wild youth to now where she is getting ready to get married. As a young woman she was involved in extreme sex, she threw herself into it and as far as the others she was involved with she had a unique vitality and took a special delight in it all. However with the meeting of her husband to be she has gained a calm and no longer feels that need. Through the course of the story we experience her reflections, the news of her marriage bringing up people from the past - recounting the best and worst aspects of her previous life style. At the same time there is the contrast of the idea that she is marrying above her station, a some how more mundane and old fashioned idea, especially held against her sex life.

At times the narratives feel sparse, without a doubt being short pieces, 6 stories in under 180 pages doesn't seem to be much of a book. With this some of the stories leave me with a detached feeling, doing little for me. Yet on the whole Banana has a certain way that seems to work and provides enough of interest throughout that along with some of the quirks, provides her work with a level of appeal.

RVWR: PTR
November 2002

2002-11-20T21:16:00.000Z

Title: Kitchen
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
Publisher: Faber and Faber

I wonder where the line between what counts as short story and what counts as a novel is as I read Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen. The book is under 140 pages and contains two stories. The first of those two stories being in two parts, such that it could easily be two stories - the initial piece and the follow up. Thematically the three parts of this book have similar themes - primarily of death and its effect on the young characters, secondarily it is about love and relationships.

The title story is the story of Misakage, who takes the role of narrator, and as can often be the case in these instances the facts we know are those that come up, with which we have a certain sense of gaps in who the character is. Through her young life she has experienced several deaths, so that for much of her life she has been raised by her grand mother as her only living relative. With the start of Kitchen her gran has died and she is all alone in the world. So it comes as something of a surprise when a guy about the same age as her approaches her at the funeral and invites her to move in with him and his mother. Things continue to get odd as she realises the boy has something in common with her, in that his mother died when he was young - his father having got a sex change after the mothers death and taking on the role of mother for his son. Despite the unconventional life style Misakage moves in to their home and befriends the two. The title comes from the fact that Misakage has always felt most comfortable in the kitchen, with the kitchen in this new house being particularly attractive to her. It is here that she repays the pair, cooking for them.

In the second part of kitchen we get more into the relationship of the boy and girl. Time has passed and Misakage has moved on, working as a trainee chef and living on her own. Death touches their lives once more and in doing so forces them to face up to what there is between them.

The third part is again told from a girl's view point, a girl who has lost her boyfriend of four years in a car crash. At the same time her boyfriend's brother lost his girlfriend in the same accident, and the story deals with how they are each coping with this event.

Banana's writing is relatively sparse. While probably an unfair comparison to make, one feels that there are parallels to the work of Haruki Murakami, possibly because he is the only other Japanese writer I have read. With that Murakami has also written about relationships and tragedy, but where he would get several hundred pages out of the plot Yoshimoto's work is considerably briefer. The end result of this is that while her work is readable, while she is certainly capable and does have a certain quirkiness informing her work one can't help but feel that there could be so much more to this.

RVWR: PTR
November 2002

2002-11-20T21:08:00.000Z

Title: Holy Fire
Author: Bruce Sterling
Publisher: Gollancz

Mia Zimmerman is 94, a medical economist, part of the gerontocracy that survived the plagues that swept the earth through the course of the early 21st century. The gerontocracy is set up to favour those who are prepared to look after themselves rather than those who fritter it away. As such the old are in control and the young are effectively powerless until they have proved themselves. As such millions of credits are dedicated to medical research, and medical research is dedicated to the commitment of allowing people to live longer. As a medical economist Mia has her finger on the pulse, and thinks that she has found a winner in life extension techniques - so is preparing for the first time to take a big risk on an experimental treatment. However with a combination of a meeting with some youngsters before the treatment and the effects of the treatment her entire persona is turned about. With her body regenerated to be effectively that of a girl in her 20s and her mind similarly affected, she is no longer entirely in touch with Mia. So she runs away, ending up as a girl called Maya travelling around Europe, where she is on a quest to become vivid, to understand what it means to have the holy fire. A feeling that makes one truly alive instead of a withering codger who is too scared to do anything for the fear of its long term effects on their body.

Holy Fire doesn't have the pace and upbeat agitation of the likes of Heavy Weather or Distraction, making it a very different book for Sterling. The character spends a lot of time drifting about, and as such so does the narrative, which means that it can feel unfocused and meandering at times. Though with this Sterling is clearly capturing the sense of what the character herself is going through - someone transported from one life style to another and the extremes of culture that go with that life style. Despite the wandering, meandering thread of the plot there is still a lot going on, Sterling's usual social commentary is definitely still here and says a lot about power and its evolution along side the increasing life spans of the individual. Holy Fire isn't without a sense of humour, by page six we have gone post-canine to keep pace with the post-canine.

On the whole, Holy Fire is a good book and does fit in well with his recent works. However, one does get the impression that more could have been done with the undercurrents and a very different book lies in here somewhere.

RVWR: PTR
November 2002

2002-11-20T20:37:00.000Z

Title: Lullaby
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Publisher: Jonathan Cape

Lullaby is the fifth book by Chuck Palahniuk, just published in the larger paper back format with the move of his previous novel Choke to standard paper back format. Talking about his previous works Chuck has described the themes of those 4 to be about identity, with Lullaby he moves on. Carl Streator is a journalist, and the narrator of this story, who has been assigned to do a story about cot death. Designed to be a series of stories covering different families, he has spotted that at least two of the families had read their dead baby the same poem the night before it died. With some research and testing Carl finds that this lullaby is in fact a culling spell from Africa, which was designed to put the elderly, the wounded, the excess population peacefully out of their misery. Horrified by the potential of such a spell in the information age Carl decides to track down all the copies of the book and destroy them before the spell can spread. Of course, things aren't as easy as that, and complications arise when he meets someone else that knows the spell and has been using it for their own end.

While the big picture might be different in narrative terms, the small scale themes are familiar and subversive as ever. Through out there is the idea that we are a culture addicted to noise, we must constantly have the TV blaring, the radio blasting, we must always be talking to fill the silence - the suggestion that silence fills us with fear and is to be avoided. Meanwhile we have the persistent appearance of adverts in the paper, which pick on expensive establishments and make suggestions that could tarnish their reputation. Then there is the estate agent who specialises in houses, which have been the scene of some violent death, leading to some great scenes.

Lullaby is as fun as Chuck's other work, and while it speaks with his familiar voice there is a slightly different tone to his words.

RVWR: PTR
November 2002

2002-11-20T20:25:00.000Z

Title: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

Toru Okada lives with his wife in a suburb of Tokyo, paying a reduced rent by living in a house his uncle owns. Things seem to be going well, the two of them living in their own little world for the last six years. But Toru has decided his job isn't working out, so he quits and is struggling to come to a decision as to what to do next. Then the cat goes missing, his wife Kumiko is very concerned by this - especially as they adopted the cat just after they were married. The cat is an omen, while the late hours that Kumiko is working should have been a clue - one day she doesn't come home and it becomes clear that she has left him. From there Okada's life starts to get odd, influenced by obscure comments and encounters with psychics, both in the flesh and the mind. Forced to deal with Kumiko's brother, who he hates, he becomes driven as much by his desire to interfere with Noboru's plans as to get Kumiko to come back.

As with other works by Haruki Murakami that I have read, offering a simple plot summary doesn't necessarily cover what the book is really about. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles is Haruki Murakami's longest work, split into three "books" each of about 200 pages each. The story is told in first person, so for the most part the narrative comes from Okada's point of view. But this switches about to some degree, as the character receives letters from other characters or sits through long monologues by other characters. Despite the clear depth of feeling Toru has for Kumiko, she is barely a presence in the story, even before she leaves there is something absent about her. Through the searches for the cat Okada makes friends with a 16 year old girl, May Kasahara, who refers to him as Mr. Wind-Up Bird and provides some strange, dark thoughts, as well as some of the most amusing dialogue.

Kumiko's brother Noboru Wataya is set up as the antithesis of Toru Okada. Okada is unemployed, easy going and searching for direction, and is an unknown to most people. Wataya is a talking head, an economist, and aspiring politician, driven and intense. While Okada is likeable, Wataya is unpleasant, even though he seems to have gained a certain celebrity. Then there are the sisters Malta and Creta Kano, one a psychic the other a prostitute of the mind; Creta having been violated by Wataya in the past. It is through the sisters and his mysterious caller that Okada starts to explore the dream world of a dark hotel.

In some ways the hotel located in some other realm is reminiscent of Dance, Dance, Dance, the feel of the location itself is different, but both have a definite effect on the plot. In addition to a dream hotel, Murakami adds the bottom of a well, where Okada starts to spend a lot of his time thinking about what is going on in his life. An idea spawned by a couple of characters and at points imitated by a couple of other characters. These locations and the stories/thoughts which Okada experiences through the book guide him in some strange fashion to a climax.

In some ways Murakami addresses the mundane in his work. Introducing perfectly ordinary characters, with perfectly ordinary lives. But through them in a work like The Wind Up Bird Chronicles he starts knock things a little off kilter. And it is that process which starts to make his work compelling - the narration of his characters leading us through his maze, while the dream like results manage to contain an edge of tension that compels us to keep going.

RVWR: PTR
November 2002

2002-11-20T20:24:00.000Z

Title: Sputnik Sweetheart
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Vintage

Initially it would seem that Sputnik Sweetheart will be comparable to Murakami's most well known novel Norwegian Wood, but it quickly becomes clear that it isn't the same deal at all. Like Norwegian Wood there are three main characters, forming a potential love triangle to some degree.

This is the fourth book by Murakami that I have read, and the fourth in which the lead character/narrator is male. However in this context it initially seems an odd decision and doesn't entirely work. Though in the end, I suppose it makes a certain degree of sense, considering how things turn out. The narrator, who I don't think is named, but is referred to at one point as K, met Sumire in college. The two of them hit it off and became great friends. The narrator gradually fell in love with Sumire, but as long as he had known her she had never really expressed any sexual desire for anyone, let alone him. However things change when Sumire meets someone at a cousins wedding - of course the fact that the person is 17 years older than Sumire, married and also female complicates matters. Miu gives Sumire a job and she is quickly transformed, from the somewhat awkward college drop out to an efficient and well groomed young woman. Things come to ahead though when Miu is going on a business trip to Europe and decides to take Sumire with her. The narrator is suddenly left with only the occasional letter as contact with his best friend and Sumire finds herself constantly in Miu's company.

Where the story goes from there is not something that is expected. The drive from that point being the question of what will happen next? Will there be a happy ending? And with this in mind the form of narration starts to make more sense. Though there is still a certain disjointedness and unlikely level of detail provided. Despite the fact that it is all supposed to be coming from the narrator's point of view, Murakami uses the familiar technique of shifting the narrative by using letters, but also he will switch to another characters thread with the theory that it is being recounted by the narrator as what that character said happened. The problem with this is that the level of detail is higher than one would expect from second hand information, which throws the balance a little.

On the whole, not the best book by Murakami that I have read - there isn't enough of his strong dialogue, and while there is a certain familiar "other" it doesn't seem to be pursued far enough. Though with that the result is something I wasn't expecting, and by not pursuing the other as would be done in say The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles he deepens the point of what he is doing with Sputnik Sweetheart. The version I have bought of Sputnik Sweetheart is the new UK paperback, which marks it as different from the Harvill Press versions of the rest of his book - the sprawling naked woman on the cover not being of the same appealing standard as the rest of the UK editions and it is a little misleading.

RVWR: PTR
November 2002

2002-11-20T19:22:00.000Z

Title: Wisdom Of Crocodiles
Author: Paul Hoffman
Publisher: Black Swan

If there is one downside to The Wisdom Of Crocodiles it is perhaps that there is too much going on - too many characters, who could easily be spun out into their own complete novels. Testament to this is that there has already been a film made following one of the threads of the novel, with another film based on another thread and a TV series on yet another thread reported to be in the works. But in turn it is the amount of ideas that are here that make it as much fun to read, especially as Hoffman ties every strand together.

A woman meets the love of her life, only for him to rip her throat out with his teeth. Her godfather has just retired from the anti-terrorist unit and taken a new job as the head of a similar group that tackles financial fraud. Using his old contacts he has someone look for his missing goddaughter, a policeman who has just separated from his wife. A wife who found his pornography collection and is trying to understand his motivation, while also dealing with her job as an accountant. And so on, with the inclusion of the leaning tower of Pisa, terrorist attacks, the hardest cross wordclue in the world, parachuting, machine intelligence and alien contact.

With all that it is hardly surprising that the book is of a decent length and that it took Hoffman 13 years to pull it all together into this final form. Setting everything up as he goes along, spinning each character out so that they take on a unique life of their own, while at the same time managing to tie those lives back into the body by linking them back in to a thread other than the one which they originally spun out from. While at the same time also having to work each of these threads to a point where they each have enough of a sense of closure that he can let them lie - bringing it back down to the original characters and the climax of their stories.

RVWR: PTR
November 2002

2002-09-21T20:15:00.000Z

Title: Norwegian Wood
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

This version of Murakami's Norwegian Wood finishes off with a couple of pages from the translator. These fill in some of the details surrounding this work. Murakami had written several books and achieved a certain level of success with his quirky ideas and fluid narratives. However with Norwegian Wood he suddenly found that he had a real hit on his hands and from there he has become one of the most popular Japanese writers in the world - a result which seems to have taken him by surprise. But would certainly explain why of all his novels Norwegian Wood is in fact the most readily available, this copy having been picked up in the local branch of a chain newsagent/stationery/bookshop thingmabub which of all Murakami's novels only had this one (as did another branch which I checked after finishing the book).

Since reading Dance Dance Dance I had been intending to read more Murakami, I had even decided which of his novels I was going to go for next. Then I read an extract of Norwegian Wood online and enjoyed it a lot, and knowing that I could get a copy easily during my lunch break I did. While some slagged off this book by comparison to his other novels this still is not an entirely straight forward work, for all that it is a story of teen romance. Watanabe is 37 years old when he hears a version of the Beatle's track Norwegian Wood after a long flight. Which takes him back to the period when he was 17-20, which covers the end of the 60's and the start of the 70's. When he was at school he only really had one friend, he used to hang out with him and his girlfriend all the time. However when they were 17 his friend killed himself, affecting both Watanabe and the girl, Naoko. Watanabe moves to Tokyo to go to university, keen to leave the memories behind. But one day he bumps into Naoko, his dead friend's girlfriend, who has had the same idea. They start to spend time together, essentially not having made any friends in Tokyo. But just as it seems that things are going well between them Naoko has a breakdown and ends up in a private sanatorium, where she hopes to come to terms with her problems. The two keep in touch but in the mean time Watanabe meets Midori, a girl who shares a couple of his classes. In turn the two of them start to spend time together and the spark of life and enthusiasm that burns within Midori is something that Watanabe can't help but be attracted to. With the rest of the book Murakami charts the relationships between Watanabe and these two girls, Midori and Naoko both having their strengths, while undoubtedly contrasting each other in a clear fashion.

As I've already said Norwegian Wood is readily available, as such I had picked it up in the past. The description of a book set in the 60's and inspired by a Beatle's song didn't really capture my interest. While finding Dance Dance Dance on a display I found the description there did capture my interest. So I did find my way to Norwegian Wood anyway, and in the end one of the things I like about Murakami's work is that the time it is set and to be honest the time it was written are irrelevant to the reader to a large degree. The story is about the characters and Murakami's characters are strong, his skill with dialogue really bringing them alive and providing a spark to their interactions. So the fact that Norwegian Wood is set in the 60's is mostly irrelevant. Though there are details in the commentary which flesh the book out that are clearly references to the time, and those do add to the bigger picture rather than distracting.

Curiously the character Midori feels that Watanabe reminds her of the lead from Catcher In The Rye, which she says at least once - with that the ending, for me at least, strikes of having a distinct Catcher vibe going on. In fact the whole way the ending is dealt with is a little curious, given that we start with the character looking back 20 years. Though on the whole Murakami brings the narrative to a clear point, where an ending for this kind of scope makes sense - the start of something new rather than the end of a person's story.

RVWR: PTR
September 2002

2002-09-21T01:27:00.000Z

Title: The Business
Author: Iain Banks
Publisher: Abacus

With The Business it is the first time I've read Banks for awhile, not counting the couple of Iain M. Banks that I read recently. I picked up Song In The Stone a while ago, which was his previous book, but for some reason I never got into it. Maybe got a third of the way through the book and then gave it up, overcome with boredom, but then I did that with a couple of books around that time. So anyway that means I've read everything by Banks to date except that 2/3 of Song Of Stone and for some reason Canal Dreams, which I just never got round to. I tend to find Banks to be a funny one, some of his stuff is really good, but sometimes it takes a bit to get into. Though in saying that I never especially enjoyed Wasp Factory, despite the acclaim for it, possibly because it was his first book and about the fifth by him I read and because people kept telling me how good it was.

Anyway. The Business is the current name for an organisation which dates back to the time of the Roman Empire, which it actually ran for a short period of time - an embarrassingly short period of time that they would rather not be reminded of. Since then they have dealt with states and have interests around the world, but never attempted to try and run their own state again - until now. Determined that the way forward for the Business is to get a seat on the UN they decide to buy a small country, with Kate Telman, the youngest level 3 ever, finding herself involved in this clandestine deal. For the most part the story is pretty much tightly bound to this character, so we see everything unfolding from her view point. Flashes back filling us in on how she was growing up poor on a Glasgow housing estate when she was discovered by a respected level two - who signed her up for an intensive education in the best schools. Coupled with some smart investments she has risen through the business in quick time. The downside of following one character in such a big organisation is that perhaps we don't get as much of the big picture as we could.

Still, an enjoyable work with a quick pace and a sense of an inherent width.

RVWR: PTR
September 2002

2002-09-20T20:55:00.001Z

Title: Pacific Edge
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Voyager

It seems to be an ongoing issue when I approach trilogies unconsciously - I always seem to end up reading the wrong book first, which I guess is to say any book of three instead of the first. Here Pacific Edge is the third in Kim Stanley Robinson's "orange county" series, though one suspects that each volume is in fact separate enough as to make little real difference.

Pacific Edge is the story of one of the most eventful phases in the life of Kevin Claibourne. Kevin has just taken a place as a green representative on the town council. On the same day as he finds out that the girl he liked the most in school and has remained friends with has just become single for the first time in 15 years. However that night at his first council meeting he catches the new mayor trying to slip something past the council. A motion which relates to the last piece of wilderness in the area, an area just behind his house. This sees him in a struggle to save the land, and then to complicate things the new mayor who is driving for the change is the ex of the woman he is falling in love with.

With the intensity of Kevin's life in the months that follow it is almost irrelevant that this book is set in the 2060's after a period of sweeping political changes across the world. With the battle for the piece of land it is already clear that KRS's familiar themes of environmentalism are present here - though with the detail of the current state of things KRS goes further than that. Corporations have been dismantled, companies now having limits on how large they can grow, as have the wages of people. Everyone in a community takes part in the preservation of that community in some way and the houses they live in are increasingly ecologically sound, giving rise to expanding home farms.

KRS combines the two levels of his book well, though in the end it seems that the side of emotional relationships takes more of the driving seat while also being the most striking and gripping force of the narrative.

RVWR: PTR
September 2002

2002-09-20T20:55:00.000Z

Title: Pacific Edge
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Voyager

2002-09-20T19:38:00.000Z

Title: Whole Wide World
Author: Paul McAuley
Publisher: Voyager

With increasing pressure from decency leagues and drives for child protection there is an increasing rise of puritanical thought in Britain - particularly with the rise of the internet and the like. Then there was the InfoWar - microwave bombs are set off, banks are hacked and chaos ensued. A short sharp war, a modern war, where more casualties arise from the riots than the conflict, but computers are wiped, bank balances reduced to zero across the country. From which legislation is passed easily, no longer just parent's groups and the like. Cameras are popping everywhere, intelligent surveillance software is in place.

John is a policeman, he was involved with activities which range from the admin side of police work to hostage negotiations. During the InfoWar he was catching a life with a front line unit, where he was involved in an incident. He was the only survivor. But a death bed report put him to blame for what happened. While investigations exonerated him he was still relegated to a minor computer unit when he refused to retire. From there he is called to collect the computers from a murder scene for investigation. Looking to make this his chance to get out of relegation and back to police work he does his best to help along the homicide inquiry. A murder which involves the torture and killing of an art student that was broadcast across the internet. By a killer who should have been tracked entering the building, but wasn't. John quickly becomes convinced he knows who the killer is, but he is on his own and when no one backs him up he goes it alone. With his chance to repair his reputation quickly crashing down around him as he gets further in.

Whole Wide World is McAuley's most contemporary novel to date, set a few years from now with a character that grew up in the last century and listens to the music of the seventies and eighties. The technology and social environment are pretty much now, but bumped along by a notch. This matches a pattern of his recent work, his previous novel The Secret Of Life being closer to now than his earlier work, though one definitely got a vibe that it fit in to some degree with the likes of Fairyland - the Mars landing which was in the background and the presence of coincident characters. With the feel of the present Whole Wide World takes on more of a thriller/crime feel - the lead a police officer rather than a subversive scientist of some sort. Though with that we have a discredited officer who is on a steady slope, one which leads to the last section of the book where he is surrounded by hackers and has taken a step into McAuley's recurrent Invisible Country.

With the crime thread being the drive one does feel a certain shift from alignment, so that ones expectations from McAuley's work aren't quite being met. Though he does seem to be handling the material well, while also addressing the themes of technology and how they relate to our lives. Doing so without as much of a moralising tone as came across in The Secret Of Life, which for me is a strong step forward. Whole Wide World has a lot to say about surveillance and control and the moralising of certain groups over others in the name of "protection" - something which is particularly relevant at the moment in the UK with the rise of disappearing children and the role that the internet seems to have been credited with their disappearance and the part CCTV has played in attempts to track their last known moves. As a narrative McAuley manages to build WWW till it gains its own momentum, climaxing in a solid fashion, that weighs well with the reader, which isn't always the easiest thing to do after achieving one's aim.

RVWR: PTR
September 2002

2002-09-20T19:21:00.000Z

Title: Fallen Dragon
Author: Peter F. Hamilton
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Following the massive work that is the Night's Dawn trilogy Peter F. Hamilton returns with Fallen Dragon - this time a one-off book rather than a trilogy, but still in itself a hefty read at over 800 pages. Fallen Dragon is also a story on a tighter scale, rather than spanning dozens of characters and planets sticking to one character and covering his life.

Lawrence Newton is a Sergeant in a corporate strike force, involved in what the organisation euphemistically calls "asset-realisation" and the planets subject to the act refer to as bloody piracy. Newton grew up on a colony planet, the son of the board member, the man technically in charge of the planet. This wasn't where Lawrence wanted to go though, he dreamed of being an explorer, of flying ships to new planets. To this end he breaks away from his home planet, his home company and goes to earth to join another company. But to earn enough of a stake to be eligible for pilot training he has to join up as a trooper. Twenty years later and he is still in the ranks, but has seen a dozen planets in his time. When he was on Thallspring before he came across something that made him suspicious. With a new trip to Thallspring planned he makes sure he is involved convinced that whatever it is that is out there will be enough for him to retire. However Thallspring is waiting for them, ready to show the resistance they couldn't offer the last time. And Newton and his comrades soon find themselves at the centre of a constant guerrilla war, but it all seems to be a cover for some local organisation who are a lot more organised and capable than they should be.

Throughout Fallen Dragon Hamilton switches back and forth between each chapter, covering the present of Newton's preparation for the mission then involvement in, then back in time following his life story and how he became who he is today. To a lesser extent than in Night's Dawn there is also narrative following other characters, which is one of Hamilton's strengths, fleshing out a range of characters to give the narrative a greater depth and allowing for view points which fill in the gaps that the lead character can't provide. Further contrasts to Night's Dawn come from the general level of human culture. In Night's Dawn it seemed that the human culture was unstoppable, wondrous technology, harmonious relations with alien races and an abundance of planets to be found. In Fallen Dragon the human race has hit a plateau, space travel isn't paying off and is slowly being curtailed, where everything in ND has a nice solution in FD it is awkward and unpleasant. Which provides an interesting contrast, perhaps Hamilton feels that his characters had it too easy - here something as "simple" as space travel is an unpleasant experience.

Of course one wonders whether after ND Hamilton finds it difficult to write anything that is brief, while the scope of the book covers this one trip the scale of his writing makes it into an epic and the result still has universe spanning results. Which provides for the build of the ending, which while not as sweeping and god scale event as ND is certainly potentially plateau shifting.

RVWR: PTR
September 2002

2002-08-20T20:10:00.000Z

Title: Ghostwritten
Author: David Mitchell
Publisher: Sceptre

Ghostwritten is the first novel by David Mitchell, his second novel number9dream having been reviewed here recently. There are many similarities in Mitchell's approach to these two books, the fact that both are in "nine parts" for example, though overall I tend to feel that Ghostwritten is more consistent and coherent than number9dream. In each chapter Mitchell would have some secondary narrative going on, which acted either as an alternative interpretation of the primary or as a contrasting passage. While Ghostwritten is written in such away that it could essentially be described as 9 short stories, each is delivered in a block which is consistent and doesn't suffer from excessive tangents. Though at times the idea that these nine stories are intended to be a novel sometimes becomes frustrating, each really being separate from the others, so that in real terms it is a collection. The only thing which binds it in the end is the sense of travel and of coincidental connectivity.

Ghostwritten is a journey, starting in Japan where Mitchell resides and then travelling from the east to the west one location at a time and one character at a time. As each story progresses there will be a connection to the previous story and to the next story, which occur as various degrees of coincidence. Indeed there is a certain level of amusement to be had from trying to keep up with Mitchell and spot the clues that link things together as you go. Particularly as we reach the last couple of stories we perhaps have as vague a sense of a bigger picture as you are going to get, but along with that so many more connections start to come together linking several of the stories together to shadow subconsciously one of the characters who has travelled the same journey as the reader to some degree.

Starting in Okinawa, Japan, we have the story of a cult member who has released nerve gas on the Tokyo underground - following him as he goes into hiding. Returning to Tokyo we have two young people who meet in a record shop specialising in jazz, both half Japanese and both attracted to each other. From Tokyo to Hong Kong and a trading banker from the UK loses millions and reflects on the break down of his marriage. Into China we spend 70 years on the holy mountain, the life of a tea shop and the journey from girl to old woman, via all the political shifts in china over the years. over the border into Mongolia we follow a fairy tale in search of a fairy tale; interestingly rather than a city with this section we have a country, reflecting the more nomadic nature of Mongolians. The journey continues to Petersburg in Russia, where a woman steals paintings from a gallery, hoping that they will fund a new life in Switzerland. The trip jumps then, arriving in London as a bypass of most of Europe - where we meet a ghost writer contemplating his life and where it is going. Then it is another short hop, to the most remote part of Ireland and a homecoming, a woman returning to her people haunted by what she has been involved in and knowing that it will catch up with her. The ninth story is different from the others, the holy mountain and Mongolia covered time in a way the others didn't, but they dealt with the past and still worked into the continuity of Ghostwritten, with "night train" we cover a period of years starting off from the time period everything else has happened in. technically set in New York, but perhaps more detached from space than that as this story deals with a DJ on a late night talk radio show and the conversations he has with a caller who calls at the same time every year.

There are certain themes which crop up through the stories. Each seeming to be at a crucial period of the characters life, or death. The ideas of spirituality come up several times, as do the ideas of ghosts and intelligences beyond flesh. Then there are ideas, which find a certain continuance with number9dream - the central character could almost be an extension of the Tokyo story: the record shop become video shop, the search for a father become more prominent, the idea that the girl will depart rather than return. Along with that Eiji in N9D lived on the remotest of Japanese islands, which mirrors Mo and her remotest of Irish islands, while the thunder god on the island and Eiji's relation to it encapsulates several of the more spiritual ideas of Ghostwritten.

Ghostwritten is very much contemporary writing, the ideas of terrorism and financial collapse straight from the headlines, the idea of a DJ as cultural figure, the ideas of technology and the steps that they are taking riding that edge between being current and being speculative. All together making Ghostwritten an exciting work that compels even as the reader travels through these stories, led by an overriding sense of connection and focus.

RVWR: PTR
August 2002

2002-08-19T16:08:00.000Z

Title: Junk DNA
Author: Tania Glyde
Publisher: Codex

Junk DNA is not as much of a hectic collision as Glyde's story in Disco 2000 was, the work that most people who are aware of Glyde are likely to be aware of. At its core the mapping of the human genome and the ideas of what the results of that kind of knowledge could be, particularly the sense that everyone will be able to pinpoint who they are from their DNA.

The central character is Reg, a faux-therapist who has played on people's problems for years. With the mapping of the genome she feels that she will become redundant, so is looking to change her profession, preferably becoming a performance artist - hitting on the use of animals and genetic engineering as her artistic tool of choice. Along the way she becomes involved in the dispersal of a new drug, the side effect of which is that women become allergic to children and chaos breaks out through out the country.

Overall the Britain that Glyde creates is a twisting of the contemporary so that it is not entirely recognisable - taking some of the worst aspects of the social/political environment in this country in the last 30 or so years and exacerbating them in a manner that is mildly horrifying. Coupled with the action of the narrative the Britain that Glyde projects is certainly one that you wouldn't want to see coming about.

The downside of Junk DNA is that it is perhaps a little detached, more of a sense of things going on peripherally than actually happening, the drive not being as dynamic as Glyde can be. Apart from which it is an interesting and on balance enjoyable book, despite being woefully short.

RVWR: PTR
August 2002

2002-07-20T20:40:00.000Z

Title: Crawling At Night
Author: Nani Power
Publisher: Vintage

The words sordid and tawdry come to mind to describe the lives of the characters in Crawling At Night. A story that takes place over the period of a couple of days, yet manages to cover the entire lives of everyone involved. And it is fair to say that no one here seems to have had a good life.

Ito is the head chef in a sushi restaurant in New York; there he is attracted to one of the waitresses. He spots her drinking on the job, he decides this is bad, that he should give her a warning. But at the same time he feels that it wouldn't do any harm to ask her to dinner. She decides that she will meet him for dinner, but falls asleep in the bath and doesn't make it. The next day Marianne is cagey not sure how Ito will react, while Ito is hurt and confused. However that same day Marianne is fired by the restaurant owner. At the end of his working day Ito gets Marianne's address from the owner's records and goes out to find her. The rest of the story unfolding as they meet up and start to understand who each of them is.

Ito is a sushi chef, highly trained, like any of the other Japanese arts. With the death of his wife though this aging man finds himself in America, working for a younger man who maybe of Japanese descent but is more American than Japanese. For Ito the Americans don't understand sushi, the ritual and honour involved, rather it is novelty and instead of using nothing but the best he is encouraged to use only the cheapest. For years his relationship with his wife wasn't physical, so he used a woman at the local brothel, a woman he fell in love with. Now in America he has been stalking a woman he believes to be this same woman, tortured by his loneliness in this new country.

Marianne is an alcoholic, the daughter of an alcoholic. At the age of 16 she ran away, got herself married and pregnant and was an alcoholic before she was even 18. Her baby was taken off her and she ended up with another man in New York. Since then it has been a string of men and drinking, a consumption by her demons. The job in the restaurant is her third this year, and she has just been raped by the owner. Not sure what to do she carries on as though nothing has happened, though she is confused further by Ito's advances, especially when the owner fires her, increasingly worried that she will do something about what he did.

Crawling At Night follows the lives of these two characters, but in the process covers the lives of the people they meet - from the taxi driver to the girl that Ito is stalking. People who are mostly immigrants, people who are mostly chasing dreams that remain unattainable. A cast of the poor, a mother who works several jobs to raise her mentally handicapped son, a father who sells his daughter's body for a little extra money. Despite the grimness of the story the narrative seems to be presented with a certain upbeat feel, the balance between things that are going on now and the past allowing for a strong flow from start to finish.

With talk of what goes on behind the closed doors of restaurants and late night clubs in china town and a sushi chef in love with a waitress I had certain expectations as to what Crawling At Night was going to be about. While all those aspects are contained within the book, they aren't as I expected. Yet on the whole I found this to be an enjoyable read.

RVWR: PTR
July 2002

2002-07-20T20:23:00.000Z

Title: Dance Dance Dance
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Panther

I've picked this up a few times, the modern design work and the fact that the translation is recent threw me. Apparently this guy is really popular in Japan, but for some reason it has still taken years for his work to be translated - so this was written in 88 and published in English about 10 years later. The fact that it is then set in 1983 threw me even more. But other than the music references the work remains considerably contemporary I believe, especially with the main characters rants about corporate domination of markets, seems very now....

Dance Dance Dance is a bit of an odd book, though maybe not as odd as the back of the book might suggest? Anyway, the main character, who is unnamed, visited the dolphin hotel with a girlfriend four years ago. Though they had been going out for a couple of months he never knew her name, and while staying in this hotel she just left him and he hasn't seen her since. But for some time now the hotel has been visiting him in his dreams and he feels compelled to go back - with the feeling that if he doesn't he will never resolve his issues being a strong one. However, when he turns up the grubby, little hotel that was there, it has been replaced by a massive, luxury hotel. In his attempts to discover what happened to the old hotel and solve his mysteries he befriends one of the girls behind the front desk - who has had a strange experience. It seems that this architectural, monolith is haunted by the old hotel, the girl having experienced this in a distressing fashion. Things aren't going to plan, and while killing time in this city he goes to see a film, one which stars a man he went to school with. Much to his shock there is a scene with his school friend and the woman who led him to the original Dolphin hotel.

With this he heads back to Tokyo, but is asked to escort a 13 year old girl back as well by the hotel girl he knows. As he befriends the young girl it seems that she has some form of psychic power, that adds to the mystery and his own strange experiences in the hotel. Back in Tokyo he manages to get back in touch with his old school friend who is now famous, and learn more about the woman that he is looking for.

On the whole Dance Dance Dance is about how the character interacts with the other characters, the bigger picture being of less real importance, more of a driving tool than the core. Yuki is the daughter of a famous photographer and writer, her parents are divorced and her mother is always leaving her. Because of her psychic senses she has been marked out at school and doesn't fit in, so spends most of her time alone listening to pop music. While she is difficult and awkward to some degree the fact that the main character is willing to give her time and pay her attention is a big deal for her. In some ways there is a sense of the Lolita to this relationship, though in reality the guys intentions are honourable. Gotanda has always been handsome, popular and intelligent, he could have been anything, but fell in to acting. He has become famous, but is stuck in a rut of playing nice guys, always a teacher or doctor or dentist - nothing challenging, nothing interesting. His wife has left him and taken all his money, leaving him in crushing debt, yet the studios demand he lives a certain lifestyle so they fund a life of false luxury. Suddenly having someone he was at school around him again allows him someone he can really talk to, giving him the feeling that maybe he can take his life back. Yumiyoshi the hotel girl is someone the main character is very attracted to, and as their relationship develops he feels she could be the one that brings an end to his cycle of non-relationships that he has been living with since he split from his own wife.

Saying that Dance Dance Dance is about characters and their lives of parental neglect, spoilt wealth, departed wives and the like may make it sound mundane but instead there is something compelling about this novel.
The narrative and the mystery that is present drives the reader on, the interaction between the character and his outlook on live being considered and appealing. Along with the babysitting, nostalgia and potential for new love there is more to this strange cast. There is still the issue of the missing girl that knows both men, a high priced call girl with a habit of vanishing when she feels like it. The photographers latest boyfriend, a one armed beach poet. A murder that sees our hero run around by the police. Then there is the other, the things which are less easy to explain, the weirdness on top of weirdness. The sheep man who resides in the spaces between the old hotel and the new, a guide to the narrator. A room with six skeletons, representing the deaths of people we come in to contact with, bodies counted off through the book. Then there are the senses that Yuki gets which are unnervingly accurate and have their own effect on the course of the book. And weirdest of all - there are two occasions where things are said which seem deeply significant, and seem to have come from nowhere that catch the attentive reader, but in the end are part of this mystery which appear to remain unanswered.

RVWR: PTR
July 2002

2002-07-20T20:08:00.000Z

Title: number9dream
Author: David Mitchell
Publisher: Sceptre

number9dream is the second novel by British author David Mitchell, as with his debut Ghostwritten, influenced by his residence in Japan. Number 9 Dream is the story of Eiji, who comes to Tokyo looking for his father. The child of a married man's mistress, Eiji has never met his father, and his mother was an alcoholic who abandoned him and his sister with her family. With the death of his twin sister Anju at 11 years old he has been driven by his need to find his father. Between his father's lawyer and wife though, it seems that fulfilling this dream is not going to be easy. Along the way he somehow gets mixed up with the Yakuza and finds that things keep getting more complicated than they should be, though luckily makes enough friends to see him through the hard times.

To go with the title number9dream the book is broken into nine chapters, though to be fair the 9th part is blank. With that each chapter has an idea of dreams, or at least narrative injections - from the first chapter's day dreams, through the letters from a repentant mother, scenes from a computer game, sections from children's stories and the diary of a soldier during the second world war. Some of these contributions are quite nice and compliment the overall narrative quite well, some probably should contribute quite nicely, but for me become something of a drag - the main examples being the war diary and children's story. In the last chapter there is some reference to the title, with the suggestion that it was either a Beatle's or John Lennon track, with in turn reference to the track Norwegian Wood, which is the name of one of the most well known novels by one of Japan's most well known author's Murakami, who is also passingly referenced earlier in the book. Keeping with the title's themes the number 9 is something, which crops up repeatedly, having a certain significance in Japanese numerology.

Mitchell has clearly immersed himself in the culture of Japan in his time there, seeming to be well versed in language and geographical ideas of Japan. Which makes the narrative so much more fluid and allows for a certain level of extra detail that wouldn't be possible otherwise. In addition to his main narrative the sub narratives in each chapter demonstrate the range of the author and make this more than just the story of a boy looking for his father. Though as I've already mentioned the enjoyment of some of those add ins varies, and one could almost expect that they become too much of a gimmick on the whole. Though to be fair I enjoyed the book over all, the sections that didn't do it for me being brief enough that they didn't affect overall.

RVWR: PTR
July 2002

2002-06-21T01:25:00.000Z

Title: Bigot Hall
Author: Steve Aylett
Publisher: Indigo

Bigot Hall is a big house built on the outskirts of a small village, designed and built by the head of the strange family that live there. Hints are made that there is more to the house than a design, which hasn't been approved - built on land that was bought with forged money and with some kind of purpose. Part of the house is given over to a foundry run by nuns, who are referred to but never encountered. The rest of the house is taken up by the one family and a couple of lodgers. With this the book follows the son of the man who built the house, never named but mainly referred to as "laughing boy". Each chapter being his experiences/encounters with the various members of his family or things in general which have shaped him.

The family ranges from his Uncle Snapper who is homicidally incompetent or Nanny Jack who gets buried on a regular basis but keeps coming back and then there is his incestuous relationship with his sister Adrienne. In terms of events we get accounts of the time he ran away to the circus only to find it a horrifying experience or when the neighbours came round for a visit unannounced and wouldn't take the hint that they weren't welcome. Secrets and spectres stalk the rest of the book, punctuated by Aylett's regular witticisms that keep the book rolling along in an amusing fashion.

Bigot Hall on the whole is less out there than the likes of Aylett's Beerlight books or the Inflatable Volunteer, but definitely displays his style from beginning to end.

RVWR: PTR
June 2002

2002-06-21T01:24:00.000Z

Title: Atom
Author: Steve Aylett
Publisher: Phoenix

I wonder how many Steve Aylett books you need to read before you go barking mad? I mean this is my fifth and I've got another two lined up for reading. Though at just over 100 pages Atom is a pretty quick read, as is Bigot Hall which I followed Atom with and am already half way through.

Anyway for those that haven't read Aylett or one of my reviews of Aylett's work it should be pointed out that he is a potent writer - free flowing stream of conscious simulated dialogues, walking a fine line between absurdist humour and semi-complete nonsense.

Maintaining certain benchmarks of what mode Aylett is in can be useful - taking The Inflatable Volunteer as a constant of absurd and Shamanspace as the most coherent of his work to date. On that scale Atom is towards TIV but isn't quite as extreme, a manageable plot and flow being possible to summarise after reading the book. Though plot is a tangible idea, one which on the whole Aylett has a tendency to neglect, wandering off on diversions and desperately padding out.

The plot in Atom's case is that a brain has been stolen from Beerlight's brain factory - labelled as that of Tony Curtis but actually formerly residing in the skull of Franz Kafka. Beerlight is a crime city, crime is art and a way of life it seems. With which it isn't a surprise that there would be several groups interested in the brain in question - so one group turns up at the offices of Atom & Drowner to secure the services of Taffy Atom private defective. Hoping that his PI modal will help retrieve the brain for them; even though he turns them down another group believes he must be involved so they also start asking Atom questions. Quickly this progresses to the point where so many people believe that Atom is involved that he might as well be.

With that set up firmly set up Aylett works with the PI noir, adding a mutant fish for partnership and a smoky dame. Filling out the picture are the gangsters, with their whacked nicks that define or contradict their characters. Somewhere several steps behind everyone else are the police who work out their own mode, where everything is a crime with only the evidence to be creatively invented for charges to be brought about. With all parties armed and spontaneous with the art of the state of the art weapons anything can happen and in Aylett's hands it does.

RVWR: PTR
June 2002

2002-06-20T20:31:00.000Z

Title: Vurt
Author: Jeff Noon
Publisher:Pan

I guess with the name Vurt it is likely that Vurt is the first of Jeff Noon's Vurt novels. Though there are a number of stories in Pixel Juice, which refer to the vurt feathers, some of which may have led to the expansion that is Vurt, while some no doubt flesh out the idea further. The idea of vurt that is, the idea that vurtual reality is an interactive entertainment system which can be accessed by the use of feathers.

There are 5 types of feathers - each indicated by their colour. The first is blue, the legal type which most folk will use, filled with all sorts of nice fun and games. The next type is pink, pornovurt, filled with sexual fantasies, strictly adult vurt only. Then there is black which is like blue, only illegal, jail time if you get caught with black vurt. Which leaves silver feathers - the engineering feather, a tool used by the makers of vurt. Rarest of all feathers and the most risky is the yellow - while other colours come with an out, and exit if things get too much, yellows don't. If you are in a yellow its win or lose, life or death - win the game and you can exit, lose and you could end up dead.

Vurt is the story of Scribble and his friends, but mostly Scribble and how he lost his sister to vurt. Its a different world, between the hybrids and vurt - people can get lost in vurt, exchanged for vurt creatures. While in a yellow Scribble lost Desdemona for a vurt creature, since which he has been driven to find a copy of the feather and get his sister back.

With that Vurt is a the story of the breakdown of friendships causes by one event and how the characters deal with that. The whole vurt and hybrid thing is a backdrop; another idea used extensively is that there are five pure states - human, robo, dog, shadow and vurt - which can interbreed to provide hybrids. By being background it doesn't interfere with the plot, but gives a rich environment. It also means it is already all in place for when it does actually become important to the plot.

RVWR: PTR
June 2002

2002-06-20T20:15:00.000Z

Title: Altered Carbon
Author: Richard Morgan
Publisher: Gollancz

Altered Carbon is the first book by Richard Morgan, equal parts thiller to science fiction. Which is just as well given that the main character gets killed in the first few pages - altered carbon allows him to be given a new body, a technology which has changed the way that people live. But as always these things come with a price, theory is you can live forever if you are rich enough and the man that wants to hire Kovacs to find his killer is certainly rich enough, giving him 3 centuries of life so far. So Kovacs, fresh plucked from his death on the Japanese/Polish colony of Harlan's World finds himself on Earth with a deal that leaves him little choice but to find out who was responsible for blowing the head off his client.

Takeshi Kovacs is an ex-Envoy, the UN special forces created to deal with the spreading influence of the human race, intended to keep things under the control of earth. Specially trained so that they can deal with any new situation on any planet in any sleeve of altered carbon in which they might find themselves. This makes him a unique investigator, and one used to the levels of violence he quickly encounters as he is plunged in at the deep end of the games of the unnaturally old, conspiracies and general mistaken identities. Fast and hard as clues are laid out for the attentive reader at the same rate as the characters past is pieced together.

In a lot of ways Altered Carbon could almost be said to be more heavily in the crime genre. The lead character taking on the role of private investigator for a rich client. The client's wife playing the femme fatale to perfection, especially when she is as many centures old as her husband. Add a conflicted relationship with the local police and a selection of bad guys that ranges from modified street tough to the smart edged black-corporate criminal. All the elements are there and transposed against a satisfyingly hard SF back drop. Exotic planets and extended life spans fleshed out by the technologies which make it all possible as well as the differences in culture which are likely to crop up. The whole sleeve culture that has cropped up is particularly effective - the idea of disposable or regenerative bodies isn't a first, but the way in which it has been integrated and developed here is different and interesting, especially in the way it seems to have been so casually accepted as way of life - except for those religious objectors of course.

An enjoyable first work which hopefully the author will be able to build upon to make his future work even more impressive.

RVWR: PTR
June 2002

2002-06-20T19:57:00.000Z

Title: Desolation Road
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Bantam

Apparently Desolation Road is the first novel by Ian McDonald where he explores his vision of Mars. Trying to avoid the typical clichés in many ways Desolation Road almost comes across as more of a Western, with the pioneer spirit and the way in which progress on the colonised planet is related to the spread of the rail lines. But with that McDonald is keen to maintain a multi-cultural approach, while also mixing a whole range of strange ideas into his hectic melting pot.

Covering a period of 30 Martian years Desolation Road is the story of an accidental community that rises from one man to world wide prominence back to red dust again. A scientist is wandering and comes across an oasis in the middle of the desert where one of the terraforming machines has come to die prematurely. With this he ends up staying in this place, one night drunkenly misnaming it Desolation Road. From this starting point McDonald leads us through a number of short chapters which introduce a colourful and disparate cast of characters who all end up living in Desolation Road by one accident of fate or another. The community established he then follows the fates of this cast and how they and their children are linked to this place.

Over the course of this place's history we experience time travel, war, cyborgs and corporate domination, along with all manner of travelling shows. We meet glorious prophets, cyborg dreamers, the greatest snooker player in the universe (and via him we witness a game against the devil for his soul and a man who can tell your future by the way the balls break on the table), and the human scorn who can make a man bleed with the power of his sarcasm!

Familiar with other works by this Irish writer we are used to the amount of ideas he crams into a book. With Desolation Road McDonald has adopted a clear style for his narrative, which had its pros and cons. In many ways the style is easy going and has a certain lightheartedness - which is complimented by some of the ideas that are more out there. On the other hand, the whole set up of the scenario seems to take a long time, the numerous short chapters becoming a little predictable and while heavy on detail at times actually light on character. While this works itself out so that once we are fully immersed Desolation Road does become quite compelling it can feel like it took too long to get to that stage.

RVWR: PTR
June 2002

2002-06-16T21:05:00.000Z

Title: Happiness ^TM
Author: Will Ferguson
Publisher: Canongate

Edwin works in a publishers, just another editor in a cubicle environment - under paid, living beyond his means, unhappily married, hating the hell that is the city. Spending a morning going through the mountain of unsolicited submissions, he is a little distracted when he is called to a meeting. Which leads to him being caught out when the company's owner asks him for a book to fill a place in the season's catalogue. Panicking he comes up with the last book he binned that morning - a book that claims to be the ultimate self-help book, and the way that Edwin talks it up he thinks it had better be something. Feeling the pressure he slaves away at pulling this book together, though in the end it turns out the book is intended just as a token gesture - minimum print run and zero advertising.

The book is called What I Learned On The Mountain and is by the mysterious Tupak Sharee. As the token run is sent out Eddie starts to have a bad feeling about it, a feeling which turns out to be justified. The book sells, it sells well, and keeps on selling with repeated print runs. A self-help book that works - improves people's health, sex life, helps make them money. What would happen if this was the case - well first the cigarette industry collapses, then the alcohol, then the gyms and rehab centres and it goes from there. What I Learned On The Mountain is a monster, Tupak a cult of merchandising and appearances on Oprah. Which sets up the question - what can Edwin do stop the end of the world as we know it?

Happiness ^TM is the first novel by Will Ferguson and comes from an interesting idea. On the whole Happiness ^TM is a reasonably enjoyable read, though I tended to feel that Ferguson could have spent more time getting into the spread of "happiness" and its cultural effect. Instead we spend too much time on the life of our hapless (hopeless?) hero and the setting up of the farce that is the publication of the What I Learned On The Mountain.

RVWR: PTR
June 2002

2002-06-16T20:59:00.000Z

Title:Body Mortgage
Author: Richard Engling
Publisher:

I picked up Body Mortgage second hand, a book published in 1989 and set in the future of 1999 and I guess in many ways it shows. Certainly there are problems with setting a novel in the near future, especially when it gets to the point when as far as the reader is concerned it is the past. From the predictions of millennial riots, TV phones rejected and the use of electric cars to the omission of mobile phones and the internet. Along with the technological issues of setting a book in the future that has become the past too soon are the cultural aspects - an under current of racism seeming to come through - whether that is a sign of the time (ie 1989), a deliberate affectation to get a more urban/gritty feel or something else all together isn't entirely clear - though it is something which I am particularly conscious of as I read the book.

In some ways Body Mortgage is a really bad book, pandering to clichés and barely surviving its own awkwardness. My reasons for picking it up are mixed, as I've mentioned it was second hand, therefore it was cheap, but also it sounded like it could be a curious mixture of odd ideas and cheese - which I admit I sometimes find amusing. The idea of the body mortgage comes from the market for body parts - there is always a demand for transplants, so someone came up with the idea of lending money based on the reclamation of the body. You get a loan of money from the bank and pay it back fine, but if you don't you then forfeit your body to the bank and you are chopped up for spares. An extreme idea to be sure, but as the main character points out only a fool would get involved in that. Gregory Blake is a private detective and against his better judgement finds himself taking on the job of protecting one of these fools - an inventor with a "wonderful new machine" which he has R&D'd with a body mortgage which is now due. Of course for this sort of book to work there needs to be more than one thing going on at once, so we have a mysterious someone having broken into the detectives office, someone telling folk that it was the detective who informed on a local agitator as being responsible for a bombing, and the contamination of a chemical supply at a regular client's works. Soon Blake is swamped by all the strands, but gradually starts to pull them all together.

In so many ways Body Mortgage conforms to all the rules of a private detective novel while seemingly oddly dated for something which should feel more contemporary. Engling apparently has an MA in creative writing, which sets me to thinking about training versus talent went it comes to something creative. There are ways to adhere to rules while bringing your work past those and ways to barely pull it off. Here Engling comes out with some things which just seem too much - the blossoming relationship between Blake and his secretary Mona seems too forced, too much of a narrative gambit in an attempt to play to the genre rules. In general the writing is something I am particularly conscious of, which is unusual and I don't think a good thing. Repeated phrases like "he recognised the guy instantly" being one aspect of the unnaturalness that comes through.

While the suggestion that Body Mortgage is "Chandler meets Blade Runner in a terrifying thriller set in a nightmare future" is unfortunate, on the whole it is an easy, undemanding read, which while not really good is okay enough.

RVWR: PTR
June 2002

2002-05-21T19:50:00.000Z

Title: lucifersDragon
Author: Jon Courtney Grimwood
Publisher: Earthlight

lucifersDragon is the second novel by John Courtenay Grimwood, and the only one that I haven't read. Along with his first book neoAddix, it had been out of print, while I had found an old copy of neoAddix second hand lucifersDragon had eluded me till now. Back in print for the first time in a number of years, with a cover style that is consistent with the later novels reMix and redRobe, unlike the early edition of neoAddix, which featured a hideous SF cover work. lucifersDragon fits in with these other three novels as part of his sort of alternate-history/near future cyber punk thing. Linking in with some contribution from the characters Alex Gibson and Razz from neoAddix, as well as a more global feel. lucifersDragon is perhaps the most convoluted of the four books, and despite the fact that is perhaps meanders, and at times in a confused manner, is probably the best of the sequence. The title comes from a semi-AI computer game, in which the player can experience the apocalypse either as the archangel or the dragon. The doge is a kind of child king/corporate figure head for neoVenice, and he is a big fan of the game, which he is playing when he and his exotic bodyguard Razz are attacked. All sorts of rumours spread around the shanty towns that surround neoVenice, while the corporate structures of the city itself try to clamp down. The book follows, from that start, the trail of Razz who having been killed is in a new body, the Doge's cousin Karo who is trying to get revenge, and the police officer who has been assigned as a token gesture to solve the crime at the start. In the process, the police officer is trying to understand how this all fits together with the island construct that is neoVenice, and so we back track in time with him, following a spoiled daughter of a mafia billionaire as the tries to pull of her cunning plan to build her own island. As with the rest of Grimwood's work this is a pretty straight forward read - filled with drugs, violence and tech. Winding the threads, he manages to bring them to a point where they have a certain momentum, and it is easy enough to get caught up in that. Though to some degree I was conscious of just how convenient those events seemed, and how unlikely it is that something wouldn't have been done sooner to prevent the momentum from building. Interestingly there are a couple of strong inferences that are worked into the text, which are never laid straight out, which was novel and refreshing.

RVWR: PTR
May 2002

2002-05-20T21:13:00.000Z

Title: Mr. Landen Has No Brain
Author: Stephen Walker
Publisher: Voyager

Mr. Landen has no brain, but he does have a tub of margarine instead. Mr. Landen is just one of the cast of characters in the book that is named after him, and perhaps strangely not even the most prominent of characters. The action takes place in Wyndam-On-Sea, in a local caravan park. The timing is during a competition to see who can have the safest caravan park in the district. What with the unusual number of strange deaths in recent times the local council are concerned about dwindling tourist numbers, so they came up with the competition for the dullest park (with the theory that calling it the "safest" park might have negative inferences).

Unfortunately for Sally Cooper the caravan park she is managing for her uncle is filled with "interesting" characters. Apart from which she also has a track record of being associated with death thanks to her failed career as entertainer's assistant.

Teena Rama is a genius and far too beautiful, and getting more so every day. At least according to her. She is staying in the caravan camp along with her assistant Mr. Landen. Where she has unleashed a giant talking rabbit. As well as applying anti-gravity cream to an intelligent cow.

Clthula Gochlagochgoch is a welsh girl, though her mother is someone she is avoiding, what with the tentacles and all. Her boyfriend is Roddy, he has funny eyes and suckers on his fingers. Her boss is Sally's uncle, who is a machine.

The cast of characters all work along those lines. Every one of them with their own agenda to complicate things. On the whole Mr. Landen Has No Brain is an odd book, one which could probably become silly, though manages to tend towards the absurd to a greater degree. Retaining a certain internal logic, which it benefits from.

RVWR: PTR
May 2002

2002-05-20T20:38:00.000Z

Title: Survivor
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Publisher: Vintage

No doubt like so many others I came to Chuck's work after seeing the film Fight Club. While it would feel better to be able to say that I was there from the start man, it just isn't true - in this case I have to just admit I read the book after the film. But after Fight Club I kept reading. from there to Invisible Monsters, then timing led to Choke and in turn Lullaby as those two came out. For some reason never quite getting round to going back to Survivor till now.

The first thing the reader will notice on opening there copy of Survivor is that the book is backwards. Presenting a countdown starting with chapter 47, page 278. A gimmick sure, but one which catches the readers attention straight off and works as we follow the account of Tender Branson's life. Tender Branson is 35, one of a dwindling numbers of survivors of a mass suicide by the Creedish Church. Only the first born son of each family stayed within the church district, increasing their lands incrementally while breeding more children. All the other children were sent out brainwashed, destined to clean and do manual work with all the money generated from their actions being sent back to the church. Tender hasn't been home since he was 17, and for the last 10 years he has watched the others in the FBI Survivor Program take their lives to join with rest of the church members in death.

As Tender becomes the last member of his church he gets an agent and becomes a celebrity which is the point where Chuck really cuts loose. His biting detail bridling up until this point then tearing into so many levels of modern American culture in the process. The upward spiral seems to be with every step a downward spiral in reality. Culminating with Tender being on a hijacked plane, counting down as each engine crashes and burns to leave an inevitable conclusion.

I'm not sure whether it is because this is a backwards step for me, having more recently read Choke and Lullaby, but it seems to take me longer to get into Survivor than his other work. But without a doubt Chuck's voice is as clear in Survivor as in any of his novels. An author that always surprises with the amount of detail that he actually works into his text. The result being that sometimes his work is not the most epic but is undoubtedly dense. In each book he comes with a satirical commentary that burns vividly and subversively - little throwaway ideas that act as bombs, the after-shock being what really catches the reader.

RVWR: PTR
May 2002

2002-05-20T19:35:00.000Z

Title: The Straw Men
Author: Michael Marshall
Publisher: Harper Collins

The Straw Men is the first book by Michael Marshall, a new and alternative name for Michael Marshall Smith who has published 3 novels and one collection of short stories to date. So why the change of name? Good question - and a valid one I feel, given that I think he could have gotten away with publishing this as MMS rather than MM. Though on the other hand there is an undoubted genre shift and to that end there are always people who are willing to be confused by these kind of things, so a name change provides a warning of change and a fresh slate in a new genre. Only Forward, Spares and One Of Us are all Science Fiction novels to some degree, though they are near future and the don't necessarily read as hard science fiction novels. With The Straw Men I wasn't sure what to expect genre wise, I was getting hints of crime and horror from the presentation (I've also seen it on display in the "crime" section) - but for me genre wasn't really important. Familiar with the work of Michael Marshall Smith I trusted that Michael Marshall would provide work of a similar calibre.

The Straw Men works as two narratives, which inevitably come together at points, as you would expect as soon as you work this fact out. Interestingly one narrative is told in first person and the other is in third person; most novels being one or the other. Wade Hopkins is the first person, in town for the funeral of his parents who have been killed in a car accident. Wade hasn't been particularly close to his parents, and they certainly didn't know about his past as a member of the CIA, an ex-member for various reasons. This fact becomes relevant as he finds an elaborate series of clues left for him by his parents, allowing him resources which wouldn't be open to the average person. The first being a note that claims that they are not dead - despite all evidence to the contrary. This leads to the conspiracy, which seems to revolve around an organisation calling itself The Straw Men.

Meanwhile the third person narrative follows a couple of characters, though all of this link together in a more obvious fashion. John Zandt is an ex-policeman, his work in homicide division led to experience of serial killers, which led him to involvement with the FBI on a couple of cases. The result was that his own daughter was kidnapped by a killer as a warning, the fourth and last girl to go missing, and the only one whose body was never found. Several years have passed and The Upright Man has returned, John becomes involved once more, hoping to be able to find the killer of his daughter and to save the life of his current victim.

As Michael Marshall Smith there tends to be a pattern to his novels, in that the lead character is always a male, someone who has maybe hit on hard times of a varyingly dubious nature but is still hard as fuck if he really has to be. With The Straw Men we have a shift, primarily with the whole first/third person thing, but also because essentially we have two leads of this nature rather than one, while also following the FBI agent, the kidnapped girl and the kidnapper at various points. The macho potential of the leads is toned down from previous works, the characters both having worked for government agencies and now both cut loose from those lives but for different reasons.

The only thing I could possibly describe as an obvious weakness with The Straw Men is that certain facts are given too early. So that certain conclusions are made from those facts. The result is that when we approach the climax of events there are things, which surprise the characters, but the reader will likely already have worked out. Given the balance of the narrative overall it is possible that Michael felt that it was more important to reveal these facts to provide flow and motivation for one of the narratives. In real terms it doesn't detract from the book, but its a lost potential for shock.

This is another enjoyable novel from Michael regardless of which name he has gone for. A different content, but with enough stylistic and thematic similarities to please a familiar reader like myself.

RVWR: PTR
May 2002

2002-05-20T19:18:00.000Z

Title: reMix
Author: Jon Courtnenay Grimwood
Publisher: Earthlight

It starts with a kidnapping, rich and spoilt girl with mega bad attitude is taken as she arrives for school on the moon. The girl is LizAlec, daughter of the enforcer for the Napoleonic empire. As though her mother didn't have enough to worry about, an Azerbaijani Jihad nano virus is sweeping Europe and Paris is under siege from the Black Hundreds of the Fourth Reich. So against her better judgement she releases Fixx from her prisons - the has-been mixer, once was the superstar who LizAlec had been seeing - gives him the job of bringing LizAlec back.

Rapid paced sex and violence, caught up in a trail of wrong turns and bred killing machines, add a dash of bitter revenge and you are getting a feel for reMix. Flecked with cultural references, like mixes of Wagner/Petty/Goldie or some such, extracting from the now to a possible then. Contrast with a few historical mixes, the return of the Napoleonic age under a Napoleonic emperor or the rise of fascist horde as a bored fashion statement/sign of the times. Then of course there are drugs and cults, because every good speculation needs them, because people need these things in the ever present.

RVWR: PTR
May 2002

2002-05-20T19:16:00.000Z

Title: redRobe
Author: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Publisher: Earthlight

redRobe is another book by Jon Courntenay Grimwood, once again fitting into his whole alternative time line future extraction thing as set up in neoAddix and concluded by reMix. Essentially the story of Axl Borja, an orphaned kid on the streets of a Mexico which has been run by Austria. Taken in by a priest who has risen to become the countries leading Cardinal, Axl became one of the core characters in a reality television show - warChild. As a celebrity killer he was involved in skirmishes around the world, but the toll of violence and drug abuse led to burn out and a fall from grace. Working in a burger bar Axl gets involved in one last hit, the fall out from which leads him back to the Cardinal and the choice of taking on a mission for him or facing a death sentence.

The pope is dead and all the money that the now corporate Vatican had has vanished with her, the trail leading with a stream of refugees to an artificial holy land run by the Dalai Lama and religious AI. Which is where a severely beaten and blinded Axl finds himself, painfully under cover and on a mission. Add in an artificial intelligence that used to be Axl's gun, a Japanese kinderwhore who is here against her will, the pope's sister and troupe of Worldbank/UN special forces soldiers who are also on a mission and everything could just go horribly wrong. In some ways redRobe dwells too much on it's central character, and for a lot of the book it doesn't feel like he is particularly well fleshed out - though as it goes on the back history becomes more apparent. Giving more time to Mai the kidnapped whore would probably have been useful, striking the reader as having more potential than is actually delivered - though it could be argued that maintaining a certain distance from her gave us more of a perspective in common with Axl. Again hi-tech, designer clad, and drug fuelled sci-fiction which is pretty readable despite any niggles I may have remaining about this earlier work by Grimwood.

RVWR: PTR
May 2002

2002-05-20T19:14:00.000Z

Title: neoAddix
Author: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Publisher: New English Library

Having recently read reMix it is interesting to now read neoAddix, the first in the first series of novels by jon courtenay grimwood. which introduces the character lady claire who was also in reMix as well as Alex Gibson and Razz who are both referred to in that book but are more central to the plot of this one.

There is a mysterious killer stalking the streets of paris, one who seems to be able to elude all attempts to capture him, along with which he seems to be hundreds of years old. alex gibson is a trial chaser, finding the trials that are likely to be worth televising. he has an interview with a tramp that witnessed one of the killer's murders - which is evidence certain people would rather he didn't have. an assassin in on his trail and alex has soon disappeared, with the assassin acquiring a new plaything in the form of a young street girl who has witnessed what he has done. meanwhile it seems that one of the reasons that the serial killer has never been captured is because the head of the french secret service is covering it up - which is unfortunate for claire, and ambitious investigator who is trying to get to the bottom of the latest murders.

One of the things that put me off picking up Grimwood's work when I first saw remix was the comparisons to Gibson and Tarantino - both being far too over used in terms of comparisons, and to be honest normally the sign of laziness. With that it probably is fair to say of the three books by Grimwood I've read now this is the only one where I can see any real comparison to Gibson. Certain points giving that uncanny sensation, but for the most part he gets over that and certainly as his work has gone on he has improved, so that his current series is better than this first one.

RVWR: PTR
May 2002

2002-05-16T19:33:00.000Z

Title: Stalking The Angel
Author: Robert Crais
Publisher: Orion

There is something about a private detective style story that works for me. It is a realisation that I have fairly recently found, coming through hybrid styled narratives (Glen Cook's books, Mick Farren's Exit Funtopia being the first to come to mind). There tends to be a certain easy going feel, an edge of humour that often appeals. Though there are certain rules to the genre, which seem to be fairly obvious, though in fact add a good amount of the charm to the system. Stalking The Angel falls into this category, Elvis Cole being an LA based PI with a case to solve and an untouchable woman to attract his interest - classic stuff.

It starts with a rich man and his beautiful personal assistant. A precious Japanese book has been stolen from his house, a book on loan and very significant to his partners. Following it up it is clear there is a lot of interest in the book, and soon there are special police divisions and yakuza for Cole to deal with. Then the client's daughter is kidnapped and things move up to another level all together.

Classic elements include the wise cracking PI and his tougher than anything else side kick, damsel in distress, insufferable client, gangsters, and the unobtainable dame. An easy going read, which is reasonably enjoyable for that.

RVWR: PTR
May 2002

2002-04-20T20:53:00.000Z

Title: Antarctica
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Voyager

The parallels between Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy and this novel Antarctica should be clear. Setting his narratives against an extreme environmental background; in fact the group of colonists that were sent to Mars in Red Mars trained in Antarctica. With his extreme environmental background it is perhaps not then surprising that environmental issues are one of his key themes - Antarctica depicted as the planet's last great wilderness with a unique history and equally distinctive future. Here he places his characters in a period of flux - the treaties which protect Antarctica from exploitation have expired and various factions are jockeying for advantage and stalling renewal.

As with his Mars Trilogy Robinson manages to combine a level of politics and science that really fleshes out his topic as much as his characters. At times in the Mars trilogy I felt he went a little over the top with details, here he has either got the balance better or I am more used to his style. Leading the narrative are four main characters, though there are plenty of other people to be met. First off is Wade Norton, a senatorial aide for a notoriously eccentric senator, sent to Antarctica to get a feel for the place and find out what is going on there. Then there is X and Val, who were a couple last season, but X, general dogsbody and bottom rung worker, known by the size of his overalls rather than his name, has been cruelly dumped by Val the striking mountaineering guide. Lastly there is Ta Shu, a Chinese poet struck dumb by Antarctica on his first visit, returned renamed and as a Feng Shui geomancer. Through the first three we explore the situation, the factions, the scientists, encounters with eco-terrorists and nomads, new oil explorations and the blossoming adventure tourism industry. While Ta Shu provides the role of narrator to some degree, an observer who transmits his commentary back to his viewers in China - a mix of deep, poetic scene setting, observation and recounting the history of the continent and those who have explored it over the years.

Over the course of the book Robinson builds a situation where we are following these characters and their interactions. The human details of broken hearts, and the mistakes that led to them, the grind of the job and how the related ambitions allow the individual to fit (or not) into the rest of the world. These things guide how the characters will act when a sudden direct action by environmental terrorists affects everyone on the continent. The catalyst which drives his narrative to its peak and then in turn to resolution. The fact that he manages to tell a human story while educating the reader about the likes of Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen, global warming, the debate over how long the continent has actually been ice, is testament to Robinson's real ability as a writer.

RVWR:PTR
April 2002

2002-03-21T01:30:00.000Z

Title: Excession
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit

Excession is the second novel by Iain M. Banks I've read, following most of his books as Iain Banks which I've read over the last 10 years or so. Unlike Against A Dark Background, Excession is part of Banks' Culture set, which I gather to be a background he has worked in with more of his work.

The Culture is a future civilisation which has derived from the human species. There are other such cultures, but the Culture is the strongest with the rest being spin-offs. There are other species as well, so that space culture is made up of the interaction of these races. Other races have gone before, transcending to another level as elder species. And there are also things that remain unknown with the universe for these races to encounter. Much of the choices of Culture are dictated by Minds, what we today would call Artificial Intelligences, taken to an ultimate level where they are the leaders of the system which the organic beings of Culture find themselves in.

On the surface Excession is the story of an excession which is an extreme form of contact which is beyond anything that the Culture have encountered to date. On this level the Culture are attempting to understand what this mysterious and enigmatically black sphere that has appeared in space is, and in the process advance their position in the universe with what they learn. But as the book proceeds it is clear that there is a lot more going on. Contact is the division of Culture which deals with these sort of things and it is setting up a group to explore this situation. Then there is Special Circumstances, the shady cloak and dagger branch which is putting operatives to work here and there. Which is fine, but then there seems to be different sub groups working against each other. Covert operations and conspiracies starting to dominate what is going on, so that the action of Excession moves away from the artefact and instead sees the reader trying to work out what is really going on. Which agents are working for the good, who is being deceived and what are the real circumstances of the war that has erupted.

Throughout Excession Banks provides repeated characters and threads, so that we have something to work with. So that we follow the progress of Byr, the attempts to stop him by Uriel and what his old relation with Dajiel signifies. Which covers the human level, but a novel level is that a lot of the action happens between ships and drones and the like - each decent sized mechanism being imbued with a mind which can run endless simulations and conspire with its fellow minds on numerous levels. With this there is a lot of drama, Minds bemused by the sneaking suspicions they develop and then incensed by the revelations of duplicity. Much of the humour Banks works into this work also comes from the names that the Minds have taken for themselves, with warships called "shoot later" or the eccentric "grey area", the enigmatic "problem child". With that there is a certain irreverence and tongue in cheek nature demonstrated by the human characters and they way that they are allowed to behave within this "perfect" society.

An enjoyable read that has a strong combination of human and not human characters. Mixing a certain level of humour with conspiracy, action and drama.

RVWR: PTR
March 2002

2002-03-21T01:23:00.000Z

Title: Shamanspace
Author: Steve Aylett
Publisher: Codex

"Teaching you to fieldstrip and reassemble yourself like a gun? You think being permitted is the same as being free?"

Shamanspace marks the fourth book by Steve Aylett that I have read - following on from Slaughtematic, The Inflatable Volunteer and Toxicology - and being more of a solid story and narrative than the latter two of those three. Though at 120 pages or so I suspect it could be more considered as almost a novella, I certainly had read it in no time at all, an hour or so in one sitting and it was done.

For centuries the Internecine have been a secret organisation of assassins, stemming from the 'hashishins'. Mixing mystical skills in their mission to destroy god. A mission which has been taken for granted through that time without any concrete proof that there is a god. There have been schisms within the organisation, so that the Internecine and the newer group the Prevail are both set with the task of deicide, though with different reasoning's - the Internecine believe that with the death of god the universe will cease to exist, while the Prevail think it will keep on going.

Shamanspace is the story of Alix, Internecine hit man - god has been proved to exist, there have been previous failed attempts - but Alix knows where the heart of god is, and is preparing for the kill. Unfortunately things aren't that straight forward, the information came from a dead Prevail agent, and there seems to be treachery from friends and colleagues.

Pretty much we know that Alix fails from the start, the story is told to the latest edgeman, the latest bright young thing following in his footsteps. It's Sig's turn to take his pop at god, but not before he is forced to talk to someone who failed; in the same way that Alix explains he also did before going for the kill.

As with the rest of Aylett's books this is stripped down narrative, raw and abstract. Evocative flow, which says so much about what is happening without being blatant or entirely transparent, flirting with poetic license.

RVWR: PTR
March 2002

2002-03-21T01:22:00.000Z

Title: Toxicology
Author: Steve Aylett
Publisher: Gollancz

Reading Toxicology comes across as a flashback to The Inflatable Volunteer - recreating the baffled sense of wonder that one experienced with that free-form novel. Though in saying that, Toxicology is not another novel by Steve Aylett rather it is a collection of "short stories". I think most people have a perception of what length a short-story should be, for the most part these pieces are shorter than that - Aylett hitting us with a couple of pages at a time and moving on. In contrast to The Inflatable Volunteer, I tended to find that Toxicology was a demanding read in a different way, despite its mere 120 or so pages I took longer to read it - rather than having to keep up with the momentum of The Inflatable Volunteer I found that after each story I instead had to stop and take a moment. Ploughing on into the next story made me feel flippant, as though I expected to be able to just absorb everything as it happened.

Steve Aylett has written a trilogy of books set in the one environment - The Crime Studio, Bigot Hill and Slaughtermatic - with some of the stories coming from that background so that the ideas of the perfect thought crime are at work as is the repeated presence of the confounding copper Henry Blince and private investigator Atom (who featured in the book of the same name). Some of the stories are just random, where Aylett hits us with a full on flow of consciousless diatribe.

It may be worth noting (though perhaps only for myself) that the first contact I had with Aylett's work was with the story Gigantic, which is the first piece featured here. A millennial piece from a millennial collection where the history of the past is revisited on the people of the present; a story populated by crack pots and nutters so that the only truth sayer is lumped in with the rest. Tusk works with the ideas of masks and the relationship between a criminal and his mask. If Armstrong Was Interesting explores the options that Neil Armstrong could have gone for through his famous moon trip if he had actually been interesting, I mean come on "one giant step" is so lame when you could have "not bad for a girl". The Passenger deals with the lengths that some folk will go to get noticed, just to get that big break their band deserves - extreme! The Met Are All For This deals with modern surveillance and paranoia, all with a nice Kafkaesqe twitch of phrase. Fiasco shows how badly things can go wrong when you just set out to do someone a favour. And so on across 25 stories which don't really bare neat summary of this fashion. After all how can neat summary really capture the idea of a man who calls his dog Fire and then is surprised when people reacting oddly when he calls its name or when original thought comes down to the declaration that bees are aerodynamically wrong for flight and really move the world about around them with telekinesis.

One of the senseless beauties of Toxicology is that you could probably get to the end and start all over again and in the process get something entirely different out of it. That is of course if you thought that you were hard enough to take reading text this dense again so soon. I know I'm not.

RVWR: PTR
March 2002

2002-03-20T19:19:00.000Z

Title: The Nights Dawn Trilogy
Author: Peter F. Hamilton
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

The Night's Dawn trilogy, which is made up by The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God, is a colossal undertaking - with each volume coming up to 1200 pages. Which allows for some amount of characters and plot complexity, while also being surprisingly gripping.

With the environmental decay of Earth people have had to seek refuge in great domes to protect them from the weather. At the same time resources have become scarce and the population is continuing to rocket, this was the impetus for further space exploration. Over the course of 7 centuries the human race has spread across the galaxy, building up a new kind of society and economy, which includes relations with alien species.

A new group of settlers arrive on a young colony, along with their group of prisoners (criminals deported as an involuntary workforce). This seems to be a new life for these people, hard work setting up villages and farms, but at last a release from the Earth's overcrowding. However things go wrong when some of the prisoners step out of line, with once incident accidentally opening a gateway which allows something to come through, something which takes over the human bodies and is extremely powerful. With no idea of how or why the planet soon finds that it has been invaded, and the enemy are quickly building to threaten the entire confederation that the Earth has worked so hard to build.

The Reality Dysfunction sets the scene, Peter F. Hamilton constructing a space opera of epic proportions, but one which is contemporary enough to fall into the category of hard science fiction as well. Over the course of the book as the threat spreads he manages to work in a real sense of tension and horror, introducing us to characters and building them for their fall while we watch. With the end of Dysfunction some of the truth of what is happening is becoming revealed, which opens up the way for The Neutronium Alchemist. The humans who have been taken over are referred to as the possessed and they are spreading across the universe, fighting with their extraordinary powers at every turn. With each turn things seem only to get worse, whole planets fall and vanish from the universe, while the nature of the possessed has changed the entire meaning of life. All sides struggle to regain a doomsday weapon - the Alchemist - in the hope that it will provide an advantage, a solution. Battles are being fought on every front, desperation for a solution continues to drive the confederation, leading to the search for The Naked God deep in uncharted space.

Hamilton fleshes out his future to an incredible degree, filled with ideas and the terminology to go with it. At the core a schism in the human race - Adamist versus Edenist - the churches are appalled by bitek (advanced bio-technology) and strive to ban it, while those that embrace it set up a new community (Eden) and set themselves up as the first new community of the future. Throughout we follow how various factions are dealing with the problems that beset them, from the political to the social. Along the way old conflicts must be resolved to form new alliances, we view action on the political front and on the covert as we continually discover new organisations and new interest groups. From the horror and tension that mounts with the spread of the problem in the first book Hamilton moves it so that we are less aware of that as an issue by the third book, confronted by big questions and elusive answers.

With a work of this scale and having set up such a threat we must become aware of one question as the trilogy continues - how is Hamilton going to pull it off? A solution to the problem must be found, or at least some sort of credible ending must be reached for all this work to have been worth it in the end. Through the books we find that other alien races have faced the equivalent problem in the past, with which each have faced it in a different manner, giving us insight into the different levels of society these races represent. The Kiint maintain that there are solutions from the start, but as a vastly superior race they have sworn themselves to non-involvement. So while they won't provide the solution it is with this aspect that we are helped to realise that there can be an answer. In the end the solution is extreme, final battles are culminating, lost battles are trying to recover, heroes and villains are set up - then the answer is presented and it is sweeping and dangerous. Dangerous for an author that is, a fine line between getting carried away - did he go to far or did the massive universe changing finale justify the scale of the tale being told? I suspect that for some the feel of what Hamilton is doing will not work - from the detail and cause throughout to this momentous conclusion. However if you get as far as the third volume then you are probably up for it, and with that the big ending is pulled off just on the satisfying side (it is a thin line after all).

RVWR: PTR
March 2002

2001-12-21T01:31:00.000Z

Title: The Chinese Girl
Author: John Barker
Publisher: Orion

The Chinese Girl is a bit of a misleading title I guess, but given that is what Stone Lewis thinks he has found on his doorstep then that's where the idea comes from. Stone Lewis has been out of prison for 6 weeks, not along time when you've been there for the last 11 years after killing a man. In that time he swore revenge on the man he should have killed, the man who scarred his mother, the man who had his face tattooed while he was in prison. On the way home from work one night he finds a man running from his doorway, leaving behind an unconscious woman, who Stone initially thinks is a Chinese girl. Rather than calling the police, he takes her into his house, convinced that if he gets the police involved they will think he did it and put him back in prison. He soon finds that the girl has grown up locally and been living in America for the last few years, but with the disappearance of an old friend she has returned to investigate. Stone decides to help her and as the book progresses it looks like they may in fact have a common enemy.

John Baker's story is unusual in a couple of ways. The biggest being that a substantial amount of the first part of the book is given over to the letters of the missing woman, which to a degree fills in background detail, but also manages to knock out the pacing of the book for a period. The fact that Stone has a number of tattoos on his face and is fresh out of prison make him a conflicted "hero" - but some of that is lost by the manner in which he got the tattoos and the projection of him being "really handsome" underneath, which makes him more of a cliché. A reasonable enough read, especially for the curiosity of being set in Hull, Britain with an odd cast of characters.

RVWR: PTR
December 2001

2001-12-21T01:29:00.000Z

Title: Against A Dark Background
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit

Strangely despite having read the bulk of Iain Banks books to date, I have never actually gotten round to reading any of his science fiction work under the name Iain M. Banks, that is until now. Starting at random with Against A Dark Background as I have I find it to be quite an enjoyable piece of space opera and conspiracy.

Sharrow is part of an old and influential family, who have made some enemies in their time. The religious cult, the Huhsz believe that they are being held back by transgressions committed by Sharrow's ancestors. The only solution is to kill off the female line or for the object that was stolen and started all this to be returned. With an approved licence to kill Sharrow she has limited options if she wants to stay alive - go on the run or give them the object. Unfortunately that object just happens to be a Lazy Gun an insanely powerful weapon, with only one left in existence, and it hasn't been seen for 1000's of years. Getting her old team together she goes on the run, forced by events to flee from the cult but also to search desperately for the weapon.

The darkness of the title comes from the success of Sharrow's flight, how the enemy always seems to be so close. Along with which she finds herself caught up on too many sides by conspiracies she doesn't have time to follow and given circumstances can't keep up with. Overall Banks keeps the pace high, so that the flow of the book strikes as being full on. Through that he manages to work in the details of the characters and their histories, put in the context of a futuristic society with a dense back history. Against A Dark Background works well enough that I will be likely to read more Iain M. Banks in the near future.

RVWR: PTR
December 2001

2001-12-20T19:56:00.000Z

Title: Sacrifice Of Fools
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Vista

Andy Gillespie has just taken part in a botched hit as part of a loyalist hit squad when the news that the aliens have arrived comes through. While he in prison he encounters one of the aliens who have been assigned to Belfast as a settlement, and in the process swears to dedicate his life to helping the Shian people. Regardless of this and the alien people in general, Northern Ireland still remains polarised by the troubles - which causes problems for the Shian who want to have their say in the country they are now living in, especially when they won't take sides. Gillespie finds himself thrown in to the deep end when the Shian family he has been working for are brutally murdered - he becomes prime suspect, but with the reaction in the Shian community itself there is clearly something more going on than meets the eye.

Ian McDonald does something particularly cunning with Sacrifice Of Fools I feel. Using the troubles in Ireland to give a picture of what it is like to live against this polar background for some, where everything is always about taking sides - regardless of whether it is appropriate. The use of an alien race particularly illustrates this matter, especially when there are parallels made to more earthly immigrants in the process. At the same time being able to flesh out an alien culture/language to the degree that he does is interesting in itself. With the addition of the murders and the investigation that goes with that there is also a touch of crime fiction as Andy tries to put all the pieces together. All together a strong mix of elements that make for an enjoyable and original read.

RVWR: PTR
December 2001

2001-11-20T19:41:00.000Z

Title: Kirinya
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Millennium

Kirinya is a sequel to Ian McDonald's Chaga. The Chaga is an alien life form/material that has crashed to earth. What it is is never quite clear (though for me that maybe because I haven't read Chaga), but the fact that it is sweeping across Africa as a slow wave assimilating everything in its path is fairly clear. At the same time there is an alien object in the sky which seems to be related to the Chaga. Kirinya follows on from the aftermath of Chaga - the southern hemisphere for the most part has been assimilated by the nano-virus and a new form of life has come out the other side. The people are healthier and some are becoming post-human, they have access to all sorts of nano-tech. But at the same time they are regarded with fear and horror by the northern hemisphere. Which leads to a hot-cold war where the infected nations are held in strict quarantine, killing where need be. At the same time more is being found out about the alien object in space, which is under the authority of the north, though is increasingly being hijacked by the Americans. As the strength of the new nations increases it is clear that their politics will have to be acknowledged and that the object may well be the key.

Gaby was a journalist who was heavily involved in reporting the onset of the Chaga. During that time she became pregnant, but couldn't leave Africa because her baby was deemed to be infected. Her daughter is now in her teens, exhibiting some of the post-human abilities that the Chaga affords it's offspring. The two women clash and in the process follow two different paths within the emergent political schism of the southern hemisphere. With which McDonald gives two related characters to tie the whole together, while at the same time driving the characterisations on their differences and personal conflicts.

To date I have read a number of McDonald's short fiction works, which I have pretty much enjoyed, one of these even being related to this storyline. With that this is the first of his novels I have read, the reason for picking this one up in particular being that related story and the fact I came across Kirinya rather than Chaga. One of the joys of Kirinya is the scope and the sheer mass of ideas that McDonald manages to work into the whole - combining politics, a transformed way of life, post-human abilities, nano-technologies and a wonderfully detailed and contrasted space environment all at the same time. This amount of work going on give the piece a manic edge to a degree which gives a sense of revelling in the ideas and giving an extra drive to the momentum of the work.

RVWR: PTR
November 2001

re:mote voices: literature

re:mote voices: literature archives - areview:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - breview:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - c review:::

Pat Cadigan FoolsSarah Champion [Editor] Disco 2000Paulo Coelho The AlchemistRobert Collins Soul CorporationGlen Cook Faded Steel HeatDouglas Coupland Hey Nostradamus!Michael Connelly Chasing The DimeHarlan Corben Tell No OneRobert Crais Stalking The Angel

re:mote voices: literature archives - d

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - e

review:::

Greg Egan Teranesia/Luminous Diaspora Warren Ellis OceanRichard Engling Body MortgageSteve Erikson Days Between Stations

re:mote voices: literature archives - f

review:::

Will Ferguson Hokkaido Highway Blues Happiness TMTibor Fischer Voyage To The End Of The RoomEmma Forrest NamedropperC.S. Friedman This Alien ShortTakuya Fujima Deus Vitae Vol. 1 and 2

re:mote voices: literature archives - g

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - h

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - i

review:::

Simon Ings Painkillers Headlong

re:mote voices: literature archives - j

review:::

Tama Janowitz Peyton AmbergSusanna Jones The Earthquake Bird Water Lilly

re:mote voices: literature archives - k

review:::

Jonathan Kellerman The Conspiracy ClubA.L. Kennedy So I Am Glad Everything You Need Paradise Looking for the Possible DanceNaomi Klein Fences And WindowsHari Kunzru TransmissionHanif Kureishi The Black Album

re:mote voices: literature archives - l

review:::

Rod Liddle Too Beautiful For YouMartin Limon Jade Lady BurningRay Loriga Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore

re:mote voices: literature archives - m

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - n

review:::

Barbara Nadel ArabeskAudrey Niffenegger The Time Traveler's WifeGarth Nix Lirael Sabriel Abhorsen The Creature In The CaseAmelie Nothomb Fear and TremblingJeff Noon Vurt Pollen Nymphomation Needle In The Groove Falling Out Of Cars

re:mote voices: literature archives - o

review:::

Bryan OMalley Scott Pilgrim vol 1 - Precious Little LifeMichael Ondaatje Anil's Ghost

re:mote voices: literature archives - p

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - q

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - r

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - s

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - t

review:::

Chad Taylor Electric ShirkerP.J. Tracy Want To Play?Scarlett Thomas Dead Clever In Your Face Bright Young Things Going Out PopCo

re:mote voices: literature archives - u

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - v

review:::

Kurt Vonnegut The Breakfast Of Champions Cat's Cradle Slaughterhouse 5

re:mote voices: literature archives - w

review:::

Nick Walker BlackBox HelloLand Stephen Walker Mr. Landen Has No BrainLouise Welsh The Cutting RoomTim Winton Dirt MusicJeanette Winterson The PowerBook The PassionAnnie Wang LiliAlan Warner Morvern Callar These Demented Lands The Man Who WalksIan Watson Hard Questions

re:mote voices: literature archives - x

review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - y

review:::

Banana Yoshimoto Lizard Kitchen N.P.

re:mote voices: literature archives - z

review:::

Title: The Cutting Room Author: Louise Welsh Publisher: Canongate

Title: Going Out Author: Scarlett Thomas Publisher: 4th Estate

Title: Slaughterhouse 5 Author: Kurt Vonnegut Publisher: Vintage

Title: Sweetmeat Author: Luke Sutherland Publisher: Doubleday

Title: After The Quake Author: Huraki Murakami Publisher: Vintage

Title: So I Am Glad Author: A.L. Kennedy Publisher: Vintage

Title: The Earthquake Bird Author: Susanna Jones Publisher: Picador

Title: Felaheen Author: Jon Courtenay Grimwood Publisher: Earthlight

Title: FeedAuthor: M.T. AndersonPublisher: Walker Books

Title: These Demented Lands Author: Alan Warner Publisher: Vintage

Title: Blackbox Author: Nick Walker Publisher: Headline

Title: Coin Locker Babies Author: Ryu Murakami Publisher: Kodansha Europe

Title: A Wild Sheep Chase Author: Haruki Murakami Publisher: Harvill Press

Title: The Black Album Author: Hanif Kureishi Publisher: Faber and Faber

Title: Pattern Recognition Author: William Gibson Publisher: Viking

Title: Broken Angels Author: Richard Morgan Publisher: Gollancz

Title: 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess Author: Stewart Home Publisher: Canongate

re:mote voices: literature archives - a
review:::

re:mote voices: literature archives - b
review:::

Pat Cadigan
Fools

Sarah Champion [Editor]
Disco 2000

Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist

Robert Collins
Soul Corporation

Glen Cook
Faded Steel Heat

Douglas Coupland
Hey Nostradamus!

Michael Connelly
Chasing The Dime

Harlan Corben
Tell No One

Robert Crais
Stalking The Angel

Greg Egan
Teranesia/Luminous

Diaspora

Warren Ellis
Ocean

Richard Engling
Body Mortgage

Steve Erikson
Days Between Stations

Will Ferguson
Hokkaido Highway Blues

Happiness ^TM

Tibor Fischer
Voyage To The End Of The Room

Emma Forrest
Namedropper

C.S. Friedman
This Alien Short

Takuya Fujima
Deus Vitae Vol. 1 and 2

Simon Ings
Painkillers

Headlong

Tama Janowitz
Peyton Amberg

Susanna Jones
The Earthquake Bird

Water Lilly

Jonathan Kellerman
The Conspiracy Club

A.L. Kennedy
So I Am Glad

Everything You Need

Paradise

Looking for the Possible Dance

Naomi Klein
Fences And Windows

Hari Kunzru
Transmission

Hanif Kureishi
The Black Album

Rod Liddle
Too Beautiful For You

Martin Limon
Jade Lady Burning

Ray Loriga
Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore

Barbara Nadel
Arabesk

Audrey Niffenegger
The Time Traveler's Wife

Garth Nix
Lirael

Sabriel

Abhorsen

The Creature In The Case

Amelie Nothomb
Fear and Trembling

Jeff Noon
Vurt

Pollen

Nymphomation

Needle In The Groove

Falling Out Of Cars

Bryan OMalley
Scott Pilgrim vol 1 - Precious Little Life

Michael Ondaatje
Anil's Ghost

Chad Taylor
Electric

Shirker

P.J. Tracy
Want To Play?

Scarlett Thomas
Dead Clever

In Your Face

Bright Young Things
Going Out

PopCo

Kurt Vonnegut
The Breakfast Of Champions

Cat's Cradle

Slaughterhouse 5

Nick Walker
BlackBox

HelloLand

Stephen Walker
Mr. Landen Has No Brain

Louise Welsh
The Cutting Room

Tim Winton
Dirt Music

Jeanette Winterson
The PowerBook

The Passion

Annie Wang
Lili

Alan Warner
Morvern Callar

These Demented Lands

The Man Who Walks

Ian Watson
Hard Questions

Banana Yoshimoto
Lizard

Kitchen

N.P.

Title: The Cutting Room
Author: Louise Welsh
Publisher: Canongate

Title: Going Out
Author: Scarlett Thomas
Publisher: 4th Estate

Title: Slaughterhouse 5
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Vintage

Title: Sweetmeat
Author: Luke Sutherland
Publisher: Doubleday

Title: After The Quake
Author: Huraki Murakami
Publisher: Vintage

Title: So I Am Glad
Author: A.L. Kennedy
Publisher: Vintage

Title: The Earthquake Bird
Author: Susanna Jones
Publisher: Picador

Title: Felaheen
Author: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Publisher: Earthlight

Title: Feed
Author: M.T. Anderson
Publisher: Walker Books

Title: These Demented Lands
Author: Alan Warner
Publisher: Vintage

Title: Blackbox
Author: Nick Walker
Publisher: Headline

Title: Coin Locker Babies
Author: Ryu Murakami
Publisher: Kodansha Europe

Title: A Wild Sheep Chase
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

Title: The Black Album
Author: Hanif Kureishi
Publisher: Faber and Faber

Title: Pattern Recognition
Author: William Gibson
Publisher: Viking

Title: Broken Angels
Author: Richard Morgan
Publisher: Gollancz

Title: 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess
Author: Stewart Home
Publisher: Canongate

Title: Americana
Author: Don Delilo
Publisher: Penguin

Title: Dead Air
Author: Iain Banks
Publisher: Little Brown

Title: Dead Clever
Author: Scarlett Thomas
Publisher: New English Library

Title: Zeitgeist
Author: Bruce Sterling
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books

Title: Hardboiled Wonderland And The End Of The World
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

Title: Chaga [aka: Evolution's Shore]
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Gollancz

Title: Everything You Need
Author: A. L. Kennedy
Publisher: Vintage

Title: Effendi
Author: Jon Courntenay Grimwood
Publisher: Pocket Books

Title: Consider Phlebas
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit

Title: The Discrete Charms Of Charlie Monk
Author: David Ambrose
Publisher: Pocket Books

Title: Morvern Callar
Author: Alan Warner
Publisher: Vintage

Title: South Of The Border, West Of The Sun
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

Title: Dark Light
Author: Ken MacLeod
Publisher: Orbit

Title: Painkillers
Author: Simon Ings
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Title: Special Delivery
Author: Iselin C. Hermann
Publisher: Harvill Press

Title: Lizard
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
Publisher: Faber and Faber

Title: Kitchen
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
Publisher: Faber and Faber

Title: Holy Fire
Author: Bruce Sterling
Publisher: Gollancz

Title: Lullaby
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Publisher: Jonathan Cape

Title: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

Title: Sputnik Sweetheart
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Vintage

Title: Wisdom Of Crocodiles
Author: Paul Hoffman
Publisher: Black Swan

Title: Norwegian Wood
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press

Title: The Business
Author: Iain Banks
Publisher: Abacus

Title: Pacific Edge
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Voyager

Title: Pacific Edge
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Voyager

Title: Whole Wide World
Author: Paul McAuley
Publisher: Voyager

Title: Fallen Dragon
Author: Peter F. Hamilton
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Title: Ghostwritten
Author: David Mitchell
Publisher: Sceptre

Title: Junk DNA
Author: Tania Glyde
Publisher: Codex

Title: Crawling At Night
Author: Nani Power
Publisher: Vintage

Title: Dance Dance Dance
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Panther

Title: number9dream
Author: David Mitchell
Publisher: Sceptre

Title: Bigot Hall
Author: Steve Aylett
Publisher: Indigo

Title: Atom
Author: Steve Aylett
Publisher: Phoenix

Title: Vurt
Author: Jeff Noon
Publisher:Pan

Title: Altered Carbon
Author: Richard Morgan
Publisher: Gollancz

Title: Desolation Road
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Bantam

Title: Happiness ^TM
Author: Will Ferguson
Publisher: Canongate

Title:Body Mortgage
Author: Richard Engling
Publisher:

Title: lucifersDragon
Author: Jon Courtney Grimwood
Publisher: Earthlight

Title: Mr. Landen Has No Brain
Author: Stephen Walker
Publisher: Voyager

Title: Survivor
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Publisher: Vintage

Title: The Straw Men
Author: Michael Marshall
Publisher: Harper Collins

Title: reMix
Author: Jon Courtnenay Grimwood
Publisher: Earthlight

Title: redRobe
Author: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Publisher: Earthlight

Title: neoAddix
Author: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Publisher: New English Library

Title: Stalking The Angel
Author: Robert Crais
Publisher: Orion