Books I couldn't finish

It's normal for writers and readers to wax lyrical about the books they loved, or still love, years later. Less talked-about are the books that they didn't like (but I hear you cry, that's what we've got Amazon One-Star for, no?)

I tend to get most if not all of my books from the library first go and then if I like them, I buy them for the bookshelf. That way, I don't get my fingers burned as I used to, many years ago, when I belonged to a book club and bought on their recommendation stuff that got given to charity shops or donated to the library so that they'd have a chance of finding a more receptive home.

It's rare that I'll stop a book halfway through and take it back to the library unfinished. However, one of the recent ones was Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. She's written this, and its sequel, Bring up the Bodies, about the life of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's fixer and schemer extraordinaire.

It's a big book (which was one minus point if you need to get a book read relatively quickly) and for some unknown reason, she chose to write it in the present tense and never actually identify Cromwell, merely referring to him as 'he' during the narrative, which made it immensely difficult to tell who was who when there was more than one 'he' present. It just didn't work for me and rather than slog on with it, I took it back, unfinished.

Another work that I had high hopes for to begin with was The Terror by Dan Simmons.

This is another big book (do you spot a trend emerging here?) about the loss of the Franklin expedition which disappeared whilst trying to find the Northwest Passage in the mid-19th century. It's a richly-detailed read and puts you right amongst the sailors and officers who made up the expedition but by jingo, it's long, long, long!  I felt like I'd accidentally ordered ten times as much of my favourite food as I'd intended and had to eat it all. In the end, I realised that I wasn't going to get to the end of it and skimmed forward to find out what the reveal was about the horrible monster which was picking off the sailors one by one. What a disappointment!  I won't give any more away just in case you've yet to read the book but for me, it was a massive let-down.

I won't go into too much detail on Dean Koontz's 77 Shadow Street.

I so wanted this to be everything that Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill wasn't (i.e scary), but after only a few pages, I began to realise that it wasn't. It veered off from psychological horror towards a strange sort of science fiction; indeed, it didn't really seem to know where it was going, which is probably why Bloody Disgusting, the horror review site, called it a 'boring, unplotted mess.'

I actually finished this one but it wasn't scary

 

 

So what about you?  Have you started a book that you'd wanted to read but ended up tossing it to one side in either disgust, boredom or bemusement?

The Hobbit

I've just finished reading the book that I got from my son for my birthday. Yes, I blush to admit it but although I had read it several times before, it never made it into my Tolkien collection. An oversight that I'm happy now to have corrected.

Of course, the book is back in the news now because of the trilogy of films that's been made from it. I have my own opinions about them; I watched the first one on DVD and was tutting throughout at the amount of changes that had been made (an experience that I recall having when I watched the Lord of the Rings films). I wonder why the film makers felt the need to tinker with what are rightly regarded as classics of their genre.

Still, it seems to be making them enough money and with that in mind, I don't suppose they care overmuch that Tolkien traditionalists like myself view the introduction of  'new' characters (i..e not in the books) as a kind of literary vandalism.

This grumble on my part gets us away from the fact that the book itself stands up very well to re-reading and is a fine work in its own right. It takes a slightly more light-hearted tone with authorial asides (in the same way that CS Lewis used to chat to the reader whilst writing the Narnia stories) but it cracks along at a splendid pace, never flagging or boring the reader.  Its relation to the Middle Earth mythology fell into place as Tolkien was writing it; he needed a name for the elf that they met at Rivendell and he chose Elrond, already a character in the legendarium that he had been working on since the First World War. With that, the references to Gondolin and Elvish history started to creep in, but at that point there was still no hint of the grander scheme of things that Lord of the Rings represented. In fact, this can be seen very clearly in the original chapter which dealt with the appearance of Gollum.  That Tolkien had to revise this heavily shows how he retrofitted the story of the Hobbit into the trilogy.

There's much in fantasy these days that's dark, gritty and generally grim; it takes all sorts to make a world and I don't deny anybody their right to read that kind of stuff. I dip into it myself from time to time. But the Hobbit takes us back to the 1930s, when the fantasy genre was only starting to develop into what it would one day become; it's a decent story, well-told, championing courage, friendships, truth and honour. Always recommended.

The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection by Alexander McCall Smith

There’s something very comforting about this series. It’s like settling down on a rainy night with a thick blanket and a cup of hot chocolate.  If you’re already a fan of the series, then you’ll need no urging to pick up this latest volume – in fact, you may well have done so already, but if you’re not familiar with these books, let me recommend that you make their acquaintance forthwith.

They’re set in Botswana, a country in Southern Africa but very little of modern African politics intrudes into the narrative. Very soon, you slip into the slow-paced way of life that carries the characters along like a sluggish river flowing gently to the sea. There’s no bad language, no real violence and no unpleasantness that isn’t resolved by the end of the book. In fact, it’s a perfect antidote to the contemporary obsession with grittiness.

I can’t really sum up the plot of any of the books because the plot isn’t what’s most important about them. It’s the time spent in the company of the characters that’s really what makes these books. By this volume, the thirteenth in the series, opening the pages feels like dropping in on old friends for a cup of tea. In fact, almost one whole chapter is spent discussing the merits of making and serving tea – but it doesn’t matter. Some people, who like fast-paced action and excitement may cavil at the laid-back pace but let them stick with their hard-boiled, cynical and ultra-realistic reading matter. I may join them, but only as long as I can pop back to Botswana to wind down from time to time. These books give me just such an opportunity.  

Winterbirth

You’ve probably not heard of Ruckley – this is his first book, as far as I know, the first volume of a trilogy (why do fantasy novels come in threes?) and he’s just released a new one about the body snatchers of Edinburgh. Must check that one out as well

The setting for the Godless World trilogy is Dark Ages with impressive scenery – Ruckley can make me ‘see’ his landscapes in a way I’ve not experienced since LotR. The first book is set just as winter begins, hence the name, and whilst it’s got some brutal scenes in, with unexpected deaths and cynical betrayals, there seems to be no language NSFW, which is quite refreshing. Ruckley also knows when to cut away and not revel in the gore.

There’s very little magic in this one. We’ve got humans, elf equivalents and half-elves who seem to be equally despised and distrusted by both. The elves and half-elves have something called the Shared, which seems to be very like the Force (even to the point that one character refers to feeling a disturbance in the Shared) but anyone growing up since 1977 is going to find that sort of thing hard to shake off.

What is quite ground-breaking here is that the elves (and I’m using that term rather than the in-book name, which will mean nothing to anyone who hasn’t read it) are tribal in organisation and more or less hostile to each other, to the point at which they launch raids and attacks on each other’s camps and territories. Some are nice elves, some are rather nasty – I was minded of the inter-tribal hostility of the Indians in Last of the Mohicans when I read this. They are also enlisted by the humans as guides and allies during their campaigns (again, another North American reference) but take offence quickly and easily and drop those who they don’t get on with.

There’s also precious little in the way of religion here (or priests); the series title “The Godless World” refers to the fact that at a certain point in the past of the world, the gods abandoned the races they had created; part of the driving force behind the wars that course through the books like a dark heartbeat is the effort of one particular sect to convince the gods to return. There are five specific races in the books, only two of which (humans and elves) we really encounter in Book One. There’s reference to what might be a race of werewolves, attacked and wiped out by a human/elf alliance in years gone by, and that’s something I hope we learn more of in subsequent books.

The whole thing weighs in at 539 pages and whilst it could probably have been shorter, I didn’t feel that at any point I was skim-reading. There are maps (which I found I was glancing at quite regularly) and a list of characters (which, until you’ve got your bearings, you’ll probably be checking on too).

The Amulet of Samarkand

I’ve just spent a few days in the company of a djinni and a boy magician and loved every minute of it. I’m talking about Bartimaeus and Nathaniel, the protagonists of the aforementioned novel (2003) which, although aimed at the teen reader market is thoroughly enjoyable, fast-paced, very well-written and extremely funny to boot.

What’s it all about? Well, it’s set in an England that has all the hallmarks of the modern day (give or take a decade or two) but is ruled by magicians who summon and enslave the djinn, marid, afrits and various demonic entities of Arabic mythology. Imagine Harry Potter written by Michael de Larrabeiti and that gives you a rough idea of what to expect.

The viewpoint switches between the two main characters, with some backstory for Nathaniel, filling in some details on the world without going all Captain Exposition. The use of footnotes for Bartimaeus’ sections, in which he snarkily comments on the goings-on is a very witty and well-executed technique which had me laughing out loud on more than a couple of occasions. It certainly brings home the point of view of the summoned as well as the summoners. Something to think about when your magic user is standing in the middle of his pentacle, about to cast Spiritwrack.

I found myself making time to dip back into it in a way that I did not with some ‘grittier’ and darker adult novels and am delighted to report that there are two more volumes in the series and a prequel which came out a couple of years ago. All three have gone on my reading list.

Hawkwood's Voyage

The history of Europe is a fascinating one and the 15th century is a particularly interesting time, what with the Voyages of Discovery, the development of gunpowder and the expansionist march of the Ottoman Empire. Yet it was still a time when superstition held sway, when the fastest thing man could use to travel was a horse, when great swathes of the continent were still uninhabited, littered with the ruins of fallen Empires.

Paul Kearney has set this fantasy novel, the first of several, on the cusp of mediaevality and modernity, hurling two power blocs against each other and giving us the tales of the ordinary folk who are caught up in the middle of things.

I came across this via Amazon’s “People who have bought this book also bought…” and I’m very glad I did. It was written in 1995, a year before A Game of Thrones was published so Kearney was in at the forefront of the gritty, morally ambiguous, hard as nails combat genre. He’s also a keen sailor and that comes across in his chapters concerning the eponymous sea voyage.

A brief outline of the set-up – an abandoned ship is found, its crew dead or missing and something horrible in the hold. In the captain’s cabin is a rutter and log that hints at a western continent unknown by the civilisations known as the Monarchies of God. Meanwhile, the magic-using peoples, persecuted by the Church are seeking escape and a young, free-thinking King realises that he can kill two birds with one stone. Before you can say Columbus With Spells, two ships have been chartered and filled with mages, dweomer-folk and a shifter – this world’s version of a lycanthrope.

Meanwhile to the east, the vast armies of the Merduks, (resprayed Ottomans) are marching to crush the infidels, having already captured Aekir, the Constantinople of this world. Once they’ve got that under their belt, they’re heading west – unless the armies of the Monarchies of God can stop them. And they’re too busy trying to work out a way of getting the too-keen-on-burning-heretics Church off their backs.

I must admit that for the first 100 pages or so, I was getting used to Kearney’s chop-and-change style of switching viewpoints; there are quite a few different plot strands but they’re needed because, rather in the fashion of journalists being embedded with the US and UK armies, his characters are right there in the forefront of the action. And there’s a lot of action to cover. Even the politics, which can sometimes make my eyes glaze over in other works, don’t have that effect in this one. The battle scenes really come alive, with changes of focus from the strategic to the personal exactly when needed. He also knows precisely when to switch characters in a way that gives the reader just enough to make them want to get back to that strand again.

Constructed to cover several books, Kearney is taking his time in developing the plot strands but even though he has to break off at some point, he manages the suspense in such a way that my reaction at the end of this volume was definitely not “Meh”. I’ll be checking out the second book in the series “The Heretic Kings” soon.

The Desert of Souls

A fine book, this; Arabic-flavoured swords and sorcery but also a look back to the days when fantasy was expletive-free and concentrated on virtues such as honour, duty and loyalty to friends.

Set in Baghdad at the end of the eighth century, during the rule of Harun al Rashid, the heroes are Asim and Dabir, captain of the guard and scholar respectively. Stumbling across a legendary treasure, they are soon embroiled in a quest that becomes progressively more dangerous, going from scrape to scrape; people are killed on a regular basis but Jones does not linger over the gory details.

The pace of the book is steady and full of event, which means that it reaches the point by the halfway mark that other books might see as the end; Jones, however, manages to pack a lot of action into the second half of the book; there’s no anticlimactic wind-down to disappoint the reader.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and agree with the reviewer’s quote which described it as a cross between Sinbad and Indiana Jones. If you like either of those, or even if you think that Swords and Sorcery is not the genre for you, give this one a try.

Long John Silver

I’ve just finished this one and had to take the opportunity to recommend it to anyone who likes a good pirate story. But it’s more than that, actually. Not only does it riff off the original Treasure Island but it takes the Silver character and fleshes him out in a way that’s wholly respectful of the source material and yet at the same time very much an original creation.  The prose is excellent and totally in character for the eighteenth century, made all the more impressive that it was written in Swedish and translated brilliantly into realistically briny and nautical English.

Larsson’s Silver is a compelling and fascinating individual, powered by the desire to live on after his inevitable demise. To this end, he sets to penning his autobiography from the island sanctuary to where he has retired. Larsson has given him a truly memorable history, full of incident and adventure, stuffed to the gunwales with authentic period detail. Real characters and events mix with the fictional creations and it seems from the author’s postscript that the former might well outweigh the latter.

At a certain point, Silver starts to realise that the literary character bearing his name has taken on a life of his own; in a way, the act of writing down his account of his life is almost hastening his end. The flesh and blood fades away as the legacy steps forward to take its turn in the spotlight.

For all the treachery, bloodshed, rapacity and lusty seafaring, Silver’s character comes across as immensely likeable in a strange way. He breaks from the linear narrative several times, at one point encountering Daniel Defoe in a London tavern, assisting the author with his work “General History of the Pyrates” on the condition that Silver himself is left out.  As the story continues, an air of melancholy infects the narrative as, one by one, the old pirates are hunted down or die in mires of vomit and brandy. Just as Pike Bishop saw out the era of the traditional outlaw, so Silver stands as sentry at the exit door for such colourful characters as Flint, Taylor, Hands and England.

A thoroughly enjoyable work and recommended – not just for pirate enthusiasts but for anybody who is starting to look at the story of their own life and wondering how they will be read by generations to come. 

In The Shadow of the Sword

This book is not an easy read; firstly, it takes, as one of its objectives, a review of the historical evidence regarding the birth of Islam and the conclusions to which Holland has come have attracted the opprobrium of certain adherents of that faith.

Right, that’s the elephant in the room out of the way. Secondly, the book covers a period from 224 to 800, which is a lot of years to cram into 430 pages (which does not include the chronology – vital – the dramatis personae – likewise – and the many pages of supplementary notes on the points raised in the chapters.) This is not a book to rush through; it will need the backflipping of pages to refresh yourself on details that you may have noticed but – due to the densely-packed narrative -  you might have forgotten about.

This is because Holland’s prose style is almost novelistic and this makes his account of the end of the classical world and the rise of the three monotheistic faiths and their transformation into the religions we know today a very entertaining read.  The bloodthirsty nature of both large-scale events – battles, massacres and plagues – and individual deaths (often gruesomely described with relish by Holland) is brought into sharp focus and we’re never allowed to forget that these deeds were carried out by men who firmly believed that what they were doing was right and sanctified.

Because he does not focus primarily on a simple chronological progression but rather examines his topic subject by subject, we retread the same years but from different perspectives. Holland slowly builds up his evidence in the style of a lawyer presenting his case; such is his technique that when he finally drops his bombshells, as outlined above, you find yourself nodding to yourself and saying “Ah yes, of course, I see it now.”


If you're able to give this book the time it deserves, you'll find it sheds a great deal of light on an area which has previously been thought merely a transition between the ancient and mediaeval worlds; in fact, this era was much more than that - incipient within it were the seeds of a major element of the world in which we live now.

The Thirty Nine Steps

Think you know the story? Think again. 

She's not in the book

This never happens in the book

Sorry, no Forth Bridge hidey bits in the book

Forget all about Mr Memory

Many people will be familiar with this one via the many cinematic or televisual adaptations which seem to come along more often than a new edition of D&D. However, few, if any, have given a faithful rendering of the book and it’s only in the past few days that I’ve actually gone back to source and read the original, which is getting on for 100 years old (in 2015).

Why, I wonder, do they feel the need to adapt it so heavily?  What about the story seems to make it difficult to transpose to the screen?  The book itself is short – around 41,000 words, so its length shouldn’t be a problem. It’s fast-paced with barely a let-up in the action, so fitting it in to 2 hours or so presents no difficulty.

No, what the problem is with the book is its sheer old-fashionedness; it champions values that are sadly out of keeping with the modern world as we perceive it and wish it reflected in our entertainments.  Nobility and self-sacrificing heroism, a rugged masculinity and a lack of sexual content seem, it appears, to make for poor crowd-pleasers.  It did, however, manage to please me, since I took it at face value and cannot really remember clearly the cinematic adaptations.

To be honest, whilst enjoying the yarn (for such it is), I was reminded for the most part of a Call of Cthulhu scenario in the Keeper is intent on giving the players the fright of their lives whilst never really intending to kill them. In fact, the whole book could serve as an object lesson in how to survive whilst on the run in the aforementioned game, since it is set in 1914, barely a decade or so before the time during which many Keepers set their adventures. Merely substitute ‘sinister plotters’ for ‘sinister cultists’ and you could probably run this one.

Of course, there are, it is freely admitted, colossal contrivances that conspire to make the story work. It’s a yarn, as I’ve already said. The pace manages to overcome the disbelief that may rear its head at certain points and if you read it in the spirit in which it’s written, the enjoyment is heightened. There’s also a rather abrupt ending and some dialogue that might be read as a ‘comedy Scottish accent’ although since Buchan was Scottish, I must bow to his inestimably superior knowledge.

As a glimpse into another time, another world and another set of values to which we may well glance with wistful nostalgia from time to time, especially when confronted with the less than savoury aspects of our own time, this book stands as a very good example.

Introduction

This is a blog to showcase my writing, both old and new. I've been writing for a very long time, over forty years or so. I started at primary school and I've never really stopped.

In 2001, I started a 6-year part-time Creative Writing Degree at the University of Hull, in which I gained First Class Honours. Many of the pieces that you will read over the next month or so came into being on that course.

Others were written for various poetry competitions; they veer perhaps a little too far towards the strange, but I'm including them here anyway.

I'm also adding book reviews which first appeared on another blog; I'm hoping to increase these in number as I finish books. I've almost always got a book on the go and for this, I owe a debt of gratitude to my local library who are only too happy to get new books in for me if they're not in stock already. Thanks, ladies!

I hope to add to the pieces in the collection; I'm still writing and will put them up as I finish them.

Finally, this is not a criticism arena; I would be interested in comment but have no editorial intentions as yet. I'm just keeping the creative juices flowing and trying to maintain my confidence.