Books read in August

[ladyofastolat]

The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper (re-re-re-reread)

Over Sea, Under Stone
The Dark is Rising
Greenwitch
The Grey King
Silver on the Tree

Classic children's fantasy series. I was inspired to reread this by our holiday in North Wales – although we didn't actually make it to the relevant parts of Wales this time. I won't bother to summarise the series. Anyone reading this post has doubtless either read the series or has no intention of reading it, since it's written for children. The Dark is Rising itself really must be one of the best children's books ever written. However, I do have a soft spot for Greenwitch, because of the whole secret identity/outsider viewpoint thing, which I always love. I really must visit Mevagissey one day. As for the final book, I think I've finally reconciled myself to the ending. Almost.

Letters Between Gentlemen by Professor Elemental and Nimue Brown

This drew my attention while I was shelf-tidying in a library. It looked amusing, but also baffling, since it was apparently written by one of the main characters. When I got home, Pellinor looked at the cover, and said, "that looks like Professor Elemental." "Um, it is Professor Elemental," I said. "Who’s Professor Elemental?" "Oh! Is it is a novelisation of Chap Hop?" he asked. "Of what?” I asked. Explanation and Youtube videos ensued - some of which I realised I had, in fact, seen"before - and things became somewhat clearer, if no less strange.

As for the book, it's an steampunkish epistolary novel in which a private detective attempts to discover the truth about Professor Elemental: cunning murderer, or misunderstood genius whose inventions just happen to leave bodies strewn in their wake? It's frequently bizarre – intelligent letter-writing mice get involved at one point – and I found it a pleasant enough and mildly amusing diversion, though nothing particularly special or memorable.

The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher (reread)

First (and currently only) book in The Cinder Spires series. With the planet surface fog-shrouded and full of dangerous monsters, people live in Spires – massively arcologies, miles high, each one protected by their own navy of tall-masted wooden airships. The book is part YA coming of age story, part Age of Sail adventure in the sky. The YA part follows two teenage girls who have just started their year of service in the guard when a neighbouring Spire launches a surprise attack. The naval adventure follows a wrongfully-disgraced ex naval officer, now privateer captain, who also gets caught up in the attack. Soon both threads converge as everyone tries to save Spire Albion from a dangerous foe. Oh, and there's a talking cat, too, and some crazy etherealists (mages, effectively.)

I very much enjoyed this book, hence the reread. Although it's the first book in a series and the story is far from complete, it doesn't end on a cliffhanger, and it works fairly well on its own. I particularly enjoy the Age of Sail aspect of the book, mostly because the privateer captain – honorable, wrongly-accused, fiercely loyal to his ship - is just the sort of character I fall for.

The Accidental Assassin by Jan Toms

A local book by a local author. A customer talked about this, and the premise sounded amusing, so I gave it a go. Set on the Isle of Wight, the story involves a mild-mannered tax clerk who falls off a ladder while gardening and accidentally squashes a passerby dead. The victim turns out to be a gangland bruiser. When the local paper prints the story, they get the tax clerk's name wrong, calling him by an alias used by an international hitman. With two rival gangland families assuming that our hero is a hitman, a catalogue of comical misadventures ensue, in which our hapless hero keeps on accidentally causing the death of various villains, generally without realising that he's done so.

This could have been really good, but sadly wasn't. All the villains were straight out of a bad sitcom, full of stereotypes and outrageous foreign accents. Writing wise, it was full of sentences like, "green and covered with moss, the tourists queued up to marvel at the beauties of nature." I could forgive some of the implausibilities, but many went far too far – e.g. when the plot required someone with a deadly peanut allergy to take a well-filled peanut butter sandwich from a stranger and eat the whole thing without noticing the peanuts. I persisted for about half the book, then got very bored and skimmed to the end.

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

YA. Book 1 in the Library of Alexandria series, also grabbed on a whim while shelving. This is set in an AU in which the Library of Alexandria never burnt, but instead became a world-spanning superpower. Using alchemy, they long ago invented "mirroring," which has allowed them to distribute library-approved, editable copies (alchemical e-books, really) to anyone in the world. Owning private printed books is illegal. Jess, the main character, is the son of a book smuggler. Under orders from his father, he gets a position as a library trainee, in order to infiltrate the operation. The first half of the book is effectively a school story, before he and his fellow trainees get thrust into a war zone (Oxford, about to fall to the Welsh), where he learns new, sinister truths about the nature of the library and the goals of those who run it.

As quite often happens, I preferred the first half of the novel (slower, less action and lots of character interaction) to the action-dominated second half. I didn’t dislike the book, but it didn’t interest me enough to read the sequel.

The Shambling Guide to New York by Mur Lafferty
Ghost Train to New Orelans by Mur Lafferty

Another book grabbed while shelf-tidying, without any attempt to read reviews. This is urban fantasy, following a 30-something woman who gets a job editing a travel guide aimed at magical and undead creatures. This is rather a surprise to her, since before she got the job, she didn't know that such creatures existed, let alone had their own restaurants and nightclubs. As she gradually gets to know the ways of the "coterie," as such creatures call themselves, everything gets suddenly thrown into confusion by the arrival of a Big Bad who threatens the city.

A quick glance made it look like a comedy, but it was mostly played pretty straight, which disappointed me. It would have worked a lot better as a comedy, I feel. I enjoyed – albeit in a fairly lukewarm fashion - the first half of the first book, but once the action started, I found it all far too hectic and strangely emotionless. I only read the second book because I finished book 1 on a long train journey, and had already bought book 2 on my Kindle before leaving home, just in case.

Non-Fiction

The Fourth Horseman by Andrew Nikiforuk

A history of epidemics, covering one disease per chapter and focusing on its impact on history. It’s readable and has some interesting stuff in it. However, I really don’t know how much, if any, I can believe. There are no footnotes. There are lots of sweeping, dramatic statements. Some I know are wrong – or, at best, massive over-simplifications – so I felt that I couldn’t trust any of them. There is a lot of Horrible Histories style gleeful dwelling on the hideousness of the past. (Although not the distant past. Before agriculture, apparently we lived in harmony with the "super-organism" (bacteria) and were all healthy god-like figures, bounding happily across the plains, untroubled by even a sniffle.) The author clearly has Opinions, and dismisses germ theory outright, stressing instead that disease is caused entirely from environmental factors. I know little about the subject, but surely it must be more complicated than that?

Started in July, but never finished, and forgotten when I did my last write-up:

Outcasts of Time by Ian Mortimer

This books follows a pair of brothers in 1348 who have only days left to live, thanks to the Black Death. In strange circumstances, they get offered the chance to live out their 7 remaining days in the future, one day per century: 1448, 1548 and so on. Having a weakness both for the Black Death and for scenes in which a familiar setting is seen through the eyes of a stranger, I was very much attracted to the premise of this book. However, I never really managed to get into it. I skimmed a bit, then gave up entirely.

Now reading Plenilune by Jennifer Freitag, which is very, very long, very slow moving (this is not a criticism) and quite challenging, full of conversations absolutely teeming with deep undercurrents of emotion and significance. It’s been a slow burn, and sometimes it's been rather hard work, but I’m beginning to think it might be really quite good.