Weekly Geeks 27 – Dewey

December 6, 2008 in Weekly Geeks | 4 comments

dewey3a_pIt’s a strange thing when the loss of someone that you have never met has an effect on you, but I was really very sad to read in the blogosphere earlier this week that Dewey had passed away, and moved to read many of the posts on other blogs which talked so eloquently about the impact she had on so many lives.

In terms of posting, I was an intermittent Weekly Geek but I checked without fail every weekend to see what suggestions Dewey had for us all, and they were always intriguing even when I didn’t feel able to participate. And it’s clear from the many comments that she contributed so much to building a book blog community.

My thoughts are with Dewey’s family at this sad time.

The Atrocity Archives

November 29, 2008 in Reviews | Tags: , , | 3 comments

atrocityarchivescharlesst46337_fIt’s always exciting when you find a new author that you think you are really going to enjoy, and extremely gratifying when you turn out to be right, as I have been with Charles Stross. I have read about him for a long time, and been intrigued by reviews of his books, but until now haven’t tried any of his works. And in looking for something different after my failure with Emperor, I decided to throw myself into The Atrocity Archives and I’m so glad I did because it is exactly what I needed!

In the acknowledgements at the beginning of the book Stross refers to three authors who made it possible for him to write the book – HP Lovecraft, Neal Stephenson and Len Deighton, which is a really interesting mix when you stop to think about it. The first two have been referred to on this blog more than once (I think – they are both favourites) and Deighton I know mostly through Michael Caine playing Harry Palmer in the movies but don’t think I have ever read.

So as you may have gleaned this is about spies and codes and Nameless Old Ones as seen through the eyes of Bob Howard who has been conscripted into the organisation known as The Laundry and about his experiences as a field agent. It is almost impossible to explain the plot without giving anything away but it is really enjoyable and if you are a civil servant you will recognise some of the worst traits of government bureaucracy (although obviously exaggerated – I don’t remember any zombie doormen, but you never know, I just might not have been looking in the right places). It appeals to the X-Files-and-Fringe-loving part of me, the bit that finds gibbous and rugose perfectly acceptable adjectives, and accepts whole-heartedly that there are lots of secret basements all over the place harbouring information it is better for us not to know about.

I really, really, enjoyed this and am already hunting out more of his work. And don’t skip the afterword – really interesting stuff there too.

Emperor

November 22, 2008 in Reviews | Tags: , | 3 comments

emperorgollanczsfstep40263_fI have to confess to a failure here – I managed to get to page 160 of Emperor when I ground to a halt. This is a rarity for me and I’m not sure why it’s happened in this case; after all:

  • I like Stephen Baxter
  • I like reading about Rome
  • I like alternative history type stuff

But, despite all of these things I just couldn’t persevere with this book. It’s not badly written, and the first section (set around the time of the Claudian invasion of Britain) was really good and I trotted through it very quickly. But then……. who knows?

It’s a shame really as this looked like it could be an interesting series (I think it ran ultimately to four books) but there you have it; the second unfinished novel this year.

Something Wicked This Comes

November 10, 2008 in Reviews | Tags: , | 1 comment

somethingwickedthiswaycome36579_fI feel as if I have been reading this book forever; that isn’t a criticism of the book itself, just that I started it before my hiatus and have only just finished it today so it has been with me for what seems like a very long time.

I have to say upfront that I was intrigued about how I was going to react to Something Wicked This Way Comes, because I saw the film adaptation many, many years ago, and although it was only one viewing it has stuck with me ever since. As suspected the film and the book are different in a number of ways, but both are equally enjoyable.

This is the story of two boys, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, and how they get drawn into the sinister world of Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show when it turns up in their Illinois hometown. The carnival, and particularly its proprietor Mr Dark, is incredibly sinister and it becomes clear very quickly that all is not as it seems.

This story deals with so many themes – the desire to grow up, the lure of temptation, disappointment, the power of goodness – that it’s difficult to know where to start. I found it wonderfully atmospheric and quite chilling, and the characters – Mr Dark, Charles Halloway, the Witch – really memorable. It is interesting to me that my favourite character in the book (as in the film where he is played by the wonderful Jason Robards) is Charles Halloway, the older father of a young son wondering what he had a achieved with his life.

I think that this is definitely one that I will come back to in the future – if you haven’t tried Bradbury before this is a good place to start. And isn’t it a great cover?

Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror

November 9, 2008 in Challenges, Reviews | Tags: , | 2 comments

I started writing this post, for the last book in the RIP III challenge, back on 4 October, and it seems strange to come back to something I read all those weeks ago and try to put down in words why I enjoyed it. Because I really did enjoy Uncle Montague – a collection of stories told to Edgar during apparently one visit to Uncle Montague in his strange house in the woods.

The stories themselves have a connecting theme – they are all ostensibly about bad things happening to usually young people who don’t listen to what they are told, although I’m not sure that you could call them morality tales. They have a lovely creepy Gothic atmosphere to them and are enhanced by the wonderful illustrations by David Roberts – I particularly like the expression on young Edgar’s face on the cover, which gives a strong impression of someone trying desperately not to look round at what might be behind him.

Particular favourites are Climb Not and A Ghost Story, but they are all very good, and the revelation of exactly what predicament Uncle Montague is in was satisfying. So definitely worth reading, though as I said more atmospheric than genuinely scary.

This was my final read for the RIP III challenge.

Return of the Bride

November 7, 2008 in Stuff | 2 comments

So here we are back again after a forced hiatus due to major desktop problems (don’t ask – it’s enough to say that there are certain pieces of anti-virus software that I won’t be recommending to anyone I actually like) and two weeks in Italy (much more pleasant!) I didn’t actually do very much reading in the four five (!)weeks since I’ve been offline but I’m sure I’ll get back into the swing of things fairly shortly, so watch this space.

Not a good day at all

October 5, 2008 in Stuff | Tags: | 1 comment

It’s very wet and grey and windy here in London, and just a few days short of my long-awaited annual holiday my PC has decided to go kaput; well Windows isn’t working properly rather than the hardware failing.  It’s a long, long story…….

So while I wait for a solution and contemplate whether this is a message that I really should by a new computer (as I’ve been talking about for months), and as the Book God mops my fevered brow, I’m going to start my blogging break slightly earlier than planned.

Normal service will resume later in October.

Happy reading!

The Touchstone

September 29, 2008 in Reviews | 5 comments

This is a little gem of a book.

The Touchstone tells the story of Stephen Glennard, who is in love with the beautiful but poor Alexa Tennant but who can’t afford to marry her. When confronted with the possibility of losing her to a lengthy trip in Europe with her aunt, and having come across a newspaper advertisement seeking the letters of the late author Margaret Aubyn, he resolves to publish her correspondence to him as a means of funding his marriage. But of course it isn’t that straightforward, as the reaction to the letters and his own feelings about what he has done to the memory of a woman who had loved him begin to intrude into his domestic bliss.

This is all about moral ambiguity, how we live with the consequences of the choices we have made, and how we might redeem ourselves. It is a powerful story, beautifully written, full of wonderfully quotable passages such as “there are times when the constancy of the woman one cannot marry is almost as trying as that of the woman one does not want to.”

This is a lovely edition, with a striking cover and an excellent foreword by Sally Vickers which is full of interesting insights, including the suggestion that Margaret Aubyn may have been based in part on George Eliot (with the implcation that Edith Wharton dd not like her).

I haven’t read as much Wharton as I should, though I’ve always been attracted by her work ever since reading The House of Mirth as a teenager. I will definitely read this novella again, and will probably pick up more.

This is my sixth and final read for the Novella Challenge.

Let The Right One In

September 29, 2008 in Challenges, Reviews | Tags: , , | 7 comments

I have to say right at the beginning that I really love stories about vampires. That’s not to say that I am uncritical; there are at least two series of vampire novels that I’ve stopped following because the the stories have become formulaic (I won’t mention any names…..). But it means that I’m always on the lookout for something interesting in the genre, and was thrilled to come across Let The Right One In by accident when browsing in a bookshop.

According to the blurb on the cover, Lindqvist has “reinvented the vampire novel” and there is “a whiff of the new Stephen King” so this was a no brainer for me. And I’m so glad that I picked it up, as it is a genuinely creepy and unsettling book which has been stuck in my head over the few days since I finished it.

We are in Sweden, a suburb of Stockholm to be exact, on a council estate. Oskar is 12 years old, being brought up by his mother alone and bullied at school. One night, while acting out a fantasy of revenge in the local play area, he meets Eli, a girl of indeterminate age, and they form a bond. She gives him the courage to face up to his problems, but it soon becomes clear that she isn’t what she seems; she is in fact a vampire who is at least 200 years old.

That’s the set-up, but there is so much more to this story. It’s incredibly bleak in places, a lot of the characters lead disappointedlives, the children are mainly from broken homes. However, the supernatural element blends in; Eli is a victim also, turned into a vampire when a child, not really understanding how it all works but knowing what she needs to do to survive. It’s incredibly gruesome in places (which I don’t mind)  but also really affecting, and I found the end satisfying.

I’m not sure I’ve done this unusual story justice, but if you want something new in the vampire tradition then give this a try.

This is my third read for the RIP III challenge.

Weekly Geeks #18

September 26, 2008 in Weekly Geeks | 1 comment

This week’s theme is: catch up on… something.

Weekly Geeks #6 was catch up on reviews week, but so many of you organized bloggers were caught up with reviews that you chose to catch up on other things. So I kept in mind that a catch-up week every now and then will probably be welcome. At this point, I’m very behind on several blog tasks, so I thought maybe you might be, too!

Some suggestions:

Catch up on….

…challenges

…organizing your sidebar

…updating lists of some sort (I need to deal with my giveaways list!)

…making links wherever (challenge lists, monthly reading summaries, etc.)

…bloghopping

…your TBR pile

…your library books

…updating your blogroll

…updating your reader

…???

How to:

1. Decide what you need to catch up on.

2. Write a post if you feel like it, telling your readers what you intend to catch up on. If you do that, you can sign Mr Linky right away with the link to that specific post.

3. Catch up!

4. Write a post near the end of the week (Thursday or Friday) summarizing how your catch-up week went. If you didn’t sign Mr Linky with your intentions post, sign it with your summary post.

The Hidden Side of a Leaf .

So what am I going to try to catch up on?

  • book posts = a review of Rape: A Love Story plus a post on my intentions for the Fall Into Reading Challenge
  • film posts = reviews of Fantasia 2000 and Michael Clayton on my other blog Bride of the Screen God
  • challenges = finish reading my third novel for RIP III
  • update my blogroll

And how did I do?

  • book posts = Completed
  • film posts = Completed
  • challenges = Completed
  • blogroll = Failed

So 3 out of 4 isn’t bad, I suppose. I will get that blogroll sorted out one day soon…….

Bride of the Book God

Follow brideofthebook on Twitter

Scottish, in my fifties, love books but not always able to find the time to read them as much as I would like. I’m based in London and happily married to the Book God.

I also blog at Bride of the Screen God (all about movies and TV) and The Dowager Bride, if you are interested in ramblings about stuff of little consequence

If you would like to get in touch you can contact me at brideofthebookgod (at) btinternet (dot) com.

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