Miscellany – May 2008 Bonus Issue

In the last 20 days or so, I've been able to read quite a bit more. Sadly for some of you, a lot of it is really serious (haha) stuff on education in Southeast Asia and that kind of thing. Without further ado, here we go: a dirty dozen to end the month of May.

1. George Alec Effinger's Dirty Tricks is an odd mixture of his short stories. Essentially, Effinger's oeuvre is the peculiar short story that leaves you wondering a) what you just read, b) what world you're living in, and c) whether buying the book was worth it. The fact that it is hard to resolve any of these questions testifies to his skill; then again, one is never sure what kind of skill it is.

2. John Scalzi's The Android's Dream is a sideways tribute to Philip K Dick's novella which eventually became Blade Runner (yes, starring Harrison Ford too). What's interesting is that it's about blue and sheep and genetic engineering and alien powers who have been using humans for various reasons. Not really about androids, but certainly fun; one of those 'Earthman wins against superior and arrogant aliens' stories.

3. Charles Stross's Toast is a much better collection than Effinger's. It isn't all beautiful, but the stories glitter with a touch of the future that could be just round the corner. Alternate worlds, alternate times, and the pains of growing up as individuals and as a species. He does have his fixations though – computing and computers, Cthulhu, stuff like that.

4. Singapore Inc.: Public Policy Options In The Third Millennium, edited by Linda Low and Douglas Johnston, is a useful book but not a beautiful one. It covers a lot of ground, but can be boiled down to perhaps a single main point: globalisation and the knowledge-based economy are the excuses/forces which are persuading Singapore to tread the fine margin between ethical behaviour and profitable behaviour. Yes, quite.

5. Examinations In Singapore: Change And Continuity (1891-2007), by Tan Yap Kwang et al, is a quick look at 116 years of examination history in this small island. It offers many curious and entertaining facts but desperately tries not to be controversial, which makes it a little toothless. It almost (but not quite) completely fails to critically analyse the system and its evolution. Nevertheless, it offers a good starting point for further digging.

6. Glen Cook's Cruel Zinc Melodies is the 12th of his series of novels about Garrett, a private investigator in a fantasy world who has a dead demigod as his partner and a host of curiously entertaining acquaintances as his supporting cast. This one is almost like Marvel Comics' Runaways in which the children of some seriously bad people do interesting things, get the adults involved, and wake up things not meant to be woken. As entertaining as the other eleven.

7. T A Pratt's Poison Sleep is the second of a series that began with Blood Engines (see earlier post). It's an exciting read which delves into the seamy underside (overside?) of Felport, a city full of sorcerers. Marla Mason is the hard-boiled heroine who is also the guardian of the city and default arbitrator between its many contending powers. The story rolls on crisply as psychotic magicians, dreams, and chaos-makers contend; the heroine and her sidekick(s) get into all kinds of chilling situations; and the ending unfolds just untidily enough to lead to the next book. Marla has her own website. Great stuff.

8. David Gibbins is obviously out to make a lot of fast bucks. His previous two books were Atlantis and Crusader Gold. His latest is The Last Gospel, a rather unusual thriller about Jesus' own story, with enough Dan Brown-style material to outrage conservatives. It also completes the Lost Civilisation plus Secret Order plus Heretical Christ-Account trifecta which seems so beloved of thriller writers these days. That said, they're not bad stories even if they're bad books.

9. The Singapore Miracle: Myth And Reality by Rodney King, an Australian writer who worked in Singapore for 15 years , is a hard-hitting attempt to apply serious analysis (for once) to the question of how much about Singapore is myth and how much is reality. He does a good job, slightly undermined by the Australian determination to demostrate a personal bias for the sake of showing character. The undermining is negligible though, because King is ruthless, generally fair and reasonably accurate. It's not deathless prose, but it's the critique of Singapore you won't find in the other books mentioned in this post.

10. The Onion Presents: Our Dumb World – Atlas Of The Planet Earth is the most beautifully evil piece of humour I've read this whole year. Playing off the myriad prejudices and stereotypes of their predominantly American readership, the Onion staff have come up with a true Atlas filled with stuff man was not meant to share around at parties. If you have the cash, this is a must-read.

11. Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston have co-written many hair-raising thrillers together. The Wheel Of Darkness, starring Aloysius Pendergast, an FBI agent quite unlike any other, is all about a secret order, a hidden treasure with evil powers, the science behind demonic manifestations, and a luxury liner about to kill a lot of people in a dramatic way. Good plot twists and madly killer (haha) pseudoscience make for yet another Child/Preston success.

12. Paul Magrs has joined the ranks of Kim Newman, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Christopher Fowler and the many other chroniclers of what I call 'secret England'. In Something Borrowed, the second of his books about an unusual lady named Brenda who lives in Whitby, he pulls together threads left over from his previous Never The Bride to make a mind-blogging pastiche involving mad Chinamen under Limehouse, a dastardly vampire, and a bunch of oddly familiar writers.

Well, that's it for now. I have a huge pile lined up, and as you can see, free time to consume the whole lot and do useful work too!