Tag Archives: Fiction

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Reading: Iain Banks – Stonemouth

Iain Banks Iain Banks Iain Banks! I can stop right there. No more to say, it’s Iain Banks! The one without the sandwiched M! Iain Banks, author of the best first sentence in the history of writing. A sentence so brilliant it doesn’t even stretch to the end of the first line:

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”*

Iain Banks, who named the lead character of his first novel after me.** Iain M. Banks, whose Feersum Endjinn is my favourite novel of all, one that I resist re-reading too often just so I’ll enjoy it more. Iain Banks. Even his worst books are better than everyone else’s but two (Charles Stross, China Miéville as you well know).

Oh yes, I shall not get much work done the coming days. Evenings. Nights. Goodbye everyone, I have Iain Banks.

Iain Banks – Stonemouth Iain Banks – Stonemouth

* The Crow Road
** The Wasp Factory, ok not really, but …

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Reading: H. P. Lovecraft — Omnibus 1: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror

Once again, Charles Stross to blame. As if The Bloody White Baron wasn’t sufficiently ghastly, I now travel back to the origins of Cthulu mythos.

Imagine someone whispering in your ear, “Horror. Horror. Horror. Horror. Horror…”, and each utterance was unique and chilling, as if the immensity signified within that word reverberated whole and unobscured for the first time, and beneath the weight of which you quailed, exposed and helpless, in cold terror.

Actually, it’s quite fun to write like that, a bit like Black Metal lyrics; there’s a theatre in the prose, and considering the relative paucity of such dread words, H. P. is remarkable for this quality — even where such word as ‘horror’ (‘the horror’, ‘elder horrors’ …) occurs more than once in a page, it’s context seems distinct.

Paul at Saint George’s persuaded me to take the second-hand copy instead of the new one, which almost led me to take Omnibus 2. Alas, no used copy. It does have a certain majesty to be reading such an author — I could have sat in the shop all afternoon if I wasn’t intent on being hailed upon — especially considering Charlie and China Miéville, two of my favourite authors of the last few years, are so influenced by him.

By him, by the mythos, by Unheimlich horror, New Weird, whatever its appellation, even though H. P. himself was influenced by earlier writers (Necronomicon anyone?), there is something of a well-spring in him, traces of which I find in most of the art I’m drawn to.

I only hope it doesn’t give me nightmares.

H. P. Lovecraft — At the Mountains of Madness H. P. Lovecraft — At the Mountains of Madness
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Reading: Joan Slonczewski – The Children Star

Finishing my triumvirate of Elysium Cycle novels, Joan Slonczewski’s The Children Star is the last but two of her books I’ve yet to read, though of those two, one is Microbiology – An Evolving Science for university students and I suspect I would enjoy it in the way a Magpie enjoys shiny things, if I could even afford it.

After Daughter of Elysium, I was desperately hoping for something substantial and compelling in this novel, as the former unfortunately is one of the least memorable science-fiction works I’ve read. As usual, my intent to write this before I begin reading has been thwarted, so I shall reveal that firstly, it’s pretty good, and (without having read The Wall Around Eden to be sure) it marks the beginning of Joan’s delicious weirdness in imagining alien microbial sentience, and secondly, I think I’ve met these microbes before.

Joan Slonczewski – The Children Star Joan Slonczewski – The Children Star
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Reading: Joan Slonczewski – Daughter of Elysium

The second of the three I acquired of Joan Slonczewski last Friday, Daughter of Elysium follows on from A Door into Ocean, but some thousand years or more later. Why am I reading it? Because it’s Joan of course.

And yes, these aren’t reviews, but I’m around half-way through, and somewhat disappointed. There is a particular quality in her writing that even in her best works feels somewhat unclear, as though she knows the story she is telling perfectly, but it doesn’t quite make it to the page. In her works that succeed, this is merely a background hint, but in Daughter of Elysium, it’s unfortunately very clear.

Perhaps it’s a mix of characters being too archetypal, and so failing to act outside these roles; at other times it’s their behaviour, for which I feel strangely excluded from their motivation. Also too, despite drawing elegantly from microbiology and genetics, the gap of nearly twenty years shows. Perhaps this is an unfair criticism, as writing genuine science-fiction – that is, fiction which bases itself on plausible science – is the hardest genre to not become hopelessly, laughably old-fashioned or completely wrong in. Altogether this creates the uncanny air of reading something that doesn’t seem all that creative or inspired.

Not to worry, still only half-way, with another one yet unread, and it’s always worthwhile reading an author’s problem children. (And I still have a daunting pile of Cantonese and Chinese history to get through …)

Joan Slonczewski – Daughter of Elysium Joan Slonczewski – Daughter of Elysium
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Reading: Shi Naian — The Water Margin: The Outlaws of the Marsh, Trans: J. H. Jackson

This is one of the classics of Chinese literature, and me being the philistine could only gawp over how thick it was when I picked it up yesterday — and this is the translation with only 70 of a possible 120 chapters. I keep thinking a useful comparison would be Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which was written around the same time, as while Chaucer’s work has several possible orders it can be read in and its completeness is uncertain, The Water Margin has had a number of additions, annotations, commentaries, re-assemblings in that distinctive Chinese approach to writing.

So I, without knowing all this until I read the introduction, have found myself landed with Jin Shengtan’s 1641 version, with his commentary and missing the final 30-50 chapters (depending on which previous version one might refer to), by way of J. H. Jackson in the ’30s, who prudishly omitted some of the more creative language, which was then re-edited by Edwin Lowe. This translation though isn’t as well-regarded as the Sidney Shapiro one (something I wish I’d bothered to find out before carting it home).

Shi Naian – The Water Margin Shi Naian – The Water Margin
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Reading: Joan Slonszewski – Brain Plague

I’ve already finished it.

Joan Slonczewski I discovered through Charles Stross, when she guest-blogged there, and her The Highest Frontier was my fiction book of the year this year. Getting hold of Brain Plague took longer than expected – much longer than reading it. I stopped in a café on the way home last night and began two hours there, devouring another third when I arrived in bed, and finishing it off in bits and pieces over the course of today.

A comparison with China Mievillé’s Embassytown comes to mind. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold off before ordering en masse the remainder of her books.

Joan Slonczewski – Brain Plague Joan Slonczewski – Brain Plague
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Reading (nth Time): J.K Rowling — Harry Potter Series

Needing a short pause from the non-fiction I’d been reading lately, before I plunge into the one book I’ve taken to Brussels, and while waiting for the arrival of one of Joan Slonsczewski’s, I decided to spend a night reading the first Harry Potter.

Which turned into a week reading the first five.

I’ll have to wait till I’m back in Berlin to finish the last two, but it has been highly enjoyable.

There’s a definite turn after The Prisoner of Azkaban, which has long been my favourite, and by The Order of the Phoenix, there’s more being said than needs to be; I was sitting on a train from Zürich to Vevey in 2005, reading The Half-Blood Prince feeling decidedly tired with the proceedings, especially with Harry’s surly moods. Still, many of the books came out on or so near to my birthday, I decided I must share the date with the Boy Who Lived (turns out it’s not).

I’ve been paying more attention to Hermione this time, whose narrative journey over the seven books is the most fascinating, as well as often unexpected — she has a life outside of the pages that neither Harry nor Ron do. There’s an obvious feeling in her character than she is the embodiment of many hopes and aspirations not just of the author, but of what a girl can strive for while growing into a woman.

So, a bit of a distraction for some days, still two and an half to go. Would that there were more from the Potter universe to read.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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Reading (2nd Time): Charles Stross — Rule 34

The first time I read Charles Stross’ Rule 34, I wasn’t writing about why I read certain books. So, taking a break from the recent binge of non-fiction before I plunged into the next cycle, I returned to some favourites, or rather some science-fiction I haven’t read three or four times.

I read Charles Stross because he is intelligent, bitingly witty, and one of the only science-fiction writers who manages to write about (very-) near-futurism without either sounding like a Boy’s Own tech blog or being embarrassingly out of date upon publication (both fates have simultaneously befallen two other writers I used to enjoy hugely, and are now departed from my reading list).

Along with Iain (M. or otherwise) Banks, and China Miéville, I have his upcoming books firmly in my reading list, partly because of the above, and also because all three of them take the subordinate place of women in society seriously and consciously write to address this. Charles also has one of my favourite blogs.

As for Rule 34, yes, definitely worth the second read, though I’m still slightly confused by the implications of the ending — which is to say, I’ll probably read it again just to grasp this better.

charles stross – rule 34 charles stross – rule 34