NextRead

The wonderful Vintage Classics (I’ve really fallen in love with them.) are releasing another batch of beauties on 4 Oct 2007. This time the batch includes:

THE GORMENGHAST TRILOGY by Mervyn Peake
DRACULA by Bram Stoker
DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE by R. L. Stevenson
THE WOMAN IN BLACK by Susan Hill
THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins
THE TURN OF THE SCREW by Henry James

And to go along with this release, which is just in time for Halloween, Vintage along with The Times have opened a Ghost Story Competition . Strangely, in that it doesn’t normally happen, is that one of the judges (Susan Hill) has released some advice on ghost stories for entrants to follow. She makes an interesting argument on the nature of a ghost story. It might be little too strict for some tastes.

Unfortunately, I do judge a book by its cover, on which subject there’ll be a post shortly, and Vintage are doing a sterling job of making them interesting but stylish at the same time.

Tags: reading lists

Title: The Atrocity Archives
Author: Charles Stross
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2007
Price: £6.99
Shelf Copy

Charles Stross is a very prolific writer but this is my first chance to sample his very active imagination. And what an imagination: we have terrorists, Nazis, horrors from other dimensions, secret government departments, and a techie called Bob who’s just started Active Service.

Stross has created a fully believable world where technology is basis of magic and advanced maths can open holes in the universe. Shh it’s a secret.

Bob Howard is not James Bond thank god but he does have a few gadgets up his sleeve and a beautiful and intelligent girl to save, bad guys to chase and the tentacles of the Lovecraftian horrors to fight off whilst dealing with office politics and an computer audit.

The strengths in The Atrocity Archives are not only the use of ideas, which is both creative and grounded in scientific theory, but also the characterisation of the people in The Laundry (the secret government department).

It’s not really a complete novel. It is two stories bundled together. We have the fuller length ‘The Atrocity Archives’ and the episodic ‘The Concrete Jungle’. ‘The Atrocity Archives’ does all the hard work by setting everything up and ‘The Concrete Jungle’ shows Bob at work. Both enjoyable and I like the additional story as it feels like a bonus tale. And shows the potential of both the format and the character.

There are a few words of warning.

It does get very techie at times. This is partly due to the nature of the character of Bob who is also the narrator but also, I think, that Stross can’t help himself sharing what he knows. And he knows a lot!

It’s not completely polished. There are some niggling rough bits that I’ll forgive as I feel that Stross will get better and better as I work through his more recent works (This novel was written in 1999/2000.) He shows bags of potential and energy which is occasional misdirected. And I hope that he’ll revisit the actual Atrocity Archives in much more detail in a future book as there was a lot left to explore/explain.

Overall, if you’re a fan of occult tales with a techno-thriller twist this is a book for you. And if you’ve enjoyed of the Indiana Jones Nazis’ or Hellboy you’ll enjoy this too. And if anything in this review sparked your interest go get it. You’ll like it.

Tags: Bookshelf, horror, reading lists, shelf copy

Edit: Well I got John’s list totally wrong (thanks for the headsup) so I’m re-writing this post.

Actually we have three. The two that I’d be more inclined to trust and the ‘real’ shortlist. Book prizes are a wonderful way of narrowing down the vast number of books published each year and highlighting some of the reading options but when it comes to the winners (depending on how it’s judged) I’m not always convinced that it’s the hottest book that we get - rather the korma that everyone can stomach. Am I being too unfair?

Anyway, there seems to be some consensus amongst our judges though only the Bookerthon judges chose from the debuts. Neither chose The Reluctant Fundamentalist or On Chesil Beach so you can bet that one of them is going to win and I’m betting on McEwan! Kidding.

John Self’s Shortlist
Nicola Barker, Darkmans
Peter Ho Davies, The Welsh Girl
Anne Enright, The Gathering
Tan Twan Eng, The Gift of Rain
Lloyd Jones, Mister Pip
Indra Sinha, Animal’s People

Dovegreyreader’s Shortlist
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
Self Help by Edward Docx
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Animal’s People by Indra Sinha

The Actual Shortlist
Lloyd Jones - Mister Pip
Ian McEwan - On Chesil Beach
Nicola Barker - Darkmans
Mohsin Hamid - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Anne Enright - The Gathering
Indra Sinha - Animal’s People

Not having read a single one of them I couldn’t possibly make any sort of sensible prediction of the winner but my gut feeling is Darkmans should win.

It does go to show that you can’t really tell what books you’re going to like until you’ve actually read them.

Tags: reading lists

I didn’t finish my reading from last month. I did try but I’d rather read things properly rather than rush.

I’m currently finishing The Dreaming Void. Why haven’t I read Peter Hamilton earlier? I am enjoying it. There is a quite a lot of needed technspeak but so far it’s mostly making sense and he seems be tackling very basic human needs in this futuristic setting. It is slow going though.

I might have to read a couple more books before reading The Lying Tongue as I’ve just read the excellent Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam and I don’t want one to influence the reading of the other. I don’t know if they’re actually that close but I’d still like some distance.

Blood Kin by Ceridwen Dovey came to my attention after reading a review by John Self. I’m a bit apprehensive about reading it. I’m not sure what I’m expecting even after the review. But I’ll let you know. Thanks to Atlantic.

Murder Most Fab is the debut novel by the once shocking British Comedian Julian Clary. The opening chapter talks about ‘my enormous, proud, and every ready member…’ so MMF seems out to be shocking from the start - not that the pink cover is in anyway subtle. It’s a tale of television and murdering your way to the top. Should be a laugh.

A new paperback was half-price this week in Borders and I couldn’t resist. The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke is a collection of short stories by the author the bestselling and very large Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Not that I’ve read the big tome yet. Did I tell you I’m not overly keen on novels that are over 600 pages? Not sure if I’ll read it this month as I’m off short fiction. I’m sure it’s very good though.

Some of my wish list arrived so I’m going to try and fit in them. I might grab a couple of books from the bookshelves as well. We’ll see how it goes.

Tags: reading lists