Miscellany – May 2008

My last update had me starting on a roll. Little was I to know it would soon be curtailed by serious work. But here is the reading list for May so far:

1. G M Ford's Blown Away is not related to movies with similar titles. However, it is a rip-roaring tightly-paced book that is a good successor to his (previously reviewed) Fury. The plot begins with a chain of people being blown up in bank robberies. Then comes the idea that Frank Corso is the cause. The ending is as precipitous a cliffhanger as I've ever seen. Very good!

2. Gordon Dickson's (posthumous) 10th volume in his Childe Cycle was completed by David Wixon. It's called Antagonist, and we are reunited with Bleys Ahrens in his monomanic plot against the Hal Mayne and the Final Encyclopaedia. It is about as good as it gets for this rather pedagogic part of the Cycle. I much preferred The Tactics of Mistake and the first few other books in the series.

3. David Gemmell's Fall of Kings was also completed posthumously, in collaboration with his wife, Stella. It is the final part of his Troy trilogy, and is as powerful as the first two, though less good-humoured. We finally see Troy fall, meet old friends, watch them die, and see what happens to Helikaon and the beginnings of a new legend. The writing is clear, forceful and expressive; the plot is full of action and character. What more could you wish for?

4. Meanwhile, Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze graphic novel series about the Trojan War continues with Part 3a, Betrayal. In this book, we find the feud between Agamemnon and Achilles come to the fore. Everyone does unhappy things to everyone else. It is a low, brutal look at an age of heroes, and it is wonderful to read it in conjunction with Gemmell's Trojan epic.

5. China Miéville's Un Lun Dun is another 'hidden London' novel. This one is good, but somehow less creepily inventive than the ones shown to us by Kim Newman, Christopher Fowler, and even Neil Gaiman (as in Neverwhere). I cannot recommend it to you except for its playful creativity; unfortunately, this palls after a while. And it doesn't compare so well to the next book on my list.

6. Stephen Hunt's The Court of the Air is a tour-de-force. It is at least at the same level as Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, minus the footnotes and obvious real-world parallels. It is possibly superior, dealing as it does with a post-apocalyptic world that is somehow stuck in a steampunk frame of mind which is rather 19th century in tone and appearance. It is too inventive to describe; mutants, magic, mayhem and marvels are but the least of it. And it is pacy and beautifully developed all the way to the end; five stars, at least. And two thumbs up. And I also think it is far better than Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Far better.

7. James Rollins's The Judas Strain is a bit far-fetched to me. Yet another biological plague novel, this. It is full of the usual Rollins action and deadly confusion, arcane factoids and cool gadgets – but it fails to grip in the face of the ever-strengthening competition from people like Paul McAuley these days. Fun, but not a whole lot more than usual.

8. Mr Wong Goes West is the latest installment in Nury Vittachi's very funny series about a Singaporean feng shui detective and his adventures. This one has the odd murder of a Greek is a semi-sealed-room mystery, the Queen of England, a huge aeroplane with nightclubs in it and a bunch of eco-terrorists on the loose. Madness.

And that's it for now!