Author: Greig

Professional Librarian from Fife who likes books and music.

his girl friday?

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Steel Beach

John Varley

Steel BeachThis book is very much a tribute to the style and themes of Robert A Heinlein.
Hildy Johnson is a star reporter for a top Luna City dirt sheet. Life is good except for the bit where he keeps on attempting suicide. And just why is the Central Computer taking such a close interest in his case?
This book seems to occupy a strange place among Varley’s work, almost entirely taken over by the aping of Heinlein. It also seems to both be part of and simultaneously outside Varley’s previously created timeline.
I’d recommend this to people who are huge fans of Heinlein and can stomach the politics, violence, suicides and cold blooded murder of innocents.

Rating: B-

25?

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2005 End of Year Round-up (pt 2)

My top 25 albums of 2005 (in descending order)

Funeral – Arcade Fire
One of the most uplifting, life-affirming records I’ve ever heard. Every
track is great. This will be considered an all time classic in 10 years
time.

The Great Destroyer – Low
Louder than ever, but still beyond gorgeous. Lots of classic songs.

I Am A Bird Now – Antony & The Johnsons
Bizarre theme for an album to be about, but it is unflinching in it’s
emotional honesty and intensity. Antony boasts an unique voiice that
works perfectly in his context. The Boy George duet is just exquisite.

Gimme Fiction – Spoon
Fantastic alternative rock with the most unusual and inventive guitar
work I’ve heard in a long time.

Into The Woods – Malcolm Middleton
Bleakly witty, full of self-deprecation. God knows why he still bothers
with Arab Strap – his solo stuff is leagues better.

On My Way To Absence – Damien Jurado
So many great songs. A beautifully sustained mood.

The Repulsion Box – Sons & Daughters
Percussive, driven, almost hypnotic. From somewhere altogether different.

Leaders Of The Free World – Elbow
Incredibly strong album, remarkable mood. You just have to forget that
the songs are about Edith Bowman.

Black Sheep Boy – Okkervil River
Achingly beautiful acoustic music with a couple of less wonderful full
band efforts

Picaresque – The Decemberists
More epic story telling, more mad instrumentation. A really good album.
I have to admit I like Her Majesty more.

In Pursuit Of Your Happiness – Mark Mulcahy
Overlong, too much going on, but when he hits it, by god it’s brilliant.

Tiny Cities – Sun Kil Moon
Covers of Modest Mouse songs by Mark Kozelek. Works amazingly well.

The Back Room – Editors
Strong songs, hugely influenced by Joy Division. Just a bit too
unoriginal to be great, but still great stuff.

Alligator – The National
Catchy intelligent American left-field rock. Several really great songs
– a few very ‘meh’ ones.

Cripple Crow – Devendra Banhart
Half brilliant half annoying. The strong songs are just fantastic,
filled to the brim with humour and great melodies. The annoying stuff is
just too whimsical for it’s own good. God knows what he could produce if
he ever gets it just right.

Pocket Revolution – Deus
Brilliant come back by the Belgians.

Veneer – Jose Gonzalez
Warm acoustic music, kind of reminiscent of a less depressed Mark
Kozelek. Quite beautiful in places. Only discovered this in the last
week of the year – I reckon it could have made the top ten if I’d had
longer with it.

Man-Made – Teenage Fanclub
Another great album by one of my all time favourite bands. Nothing new
here, just strong song-writing and brilliant hooks.

A Certain Trigger – Maximo Park
I’d made a valiant effort to ignore this band altogether this year,
reckoning that they were just another early 80’s post punk rip off
thing. Then the earworm that is ‘Apply Some Pressure’ caught hold of me.

The Witching Hour – Ladytron
Some really great dance/rock crossover stuff. Pity it can’t keep it up
over the whole album

Black Mountain – Black Mountain
An odd take on early 70’s rock. The epics are the best thing about the album

Discover A Lovelier You – Pernice Brothers
Lovely smart pop. Great songs. Just not as good as the last full album.

Silent Alarm – Bloc Party
I like three songs on this one, and I like them a lot. I feel like I’m
missing something on the others. Maybe one day it will all fit together.

The Sunset Tree – Mountain Goats

Song cycle about Darnielle’s youth. More polished musically than ever
before. For some reason it’s both too slick and too personal for me to
fall in love with it.

Noah’s Ark – CocoRosie
Quirky as fuck, sometimes beautiful. I waver between thinking it’s
genius and that it’s bollocks.

58?

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2005 End of Year Round-up (pt 1)

Here are the books that I read in 2005 (roughly in the order I read them)

1 24 Hour Party People – Anthony Wilson
2 Night Watch – Terry Pratchett
3 A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away – Christopher Brookmyre
4 Understanding Comics – Scott McCloud
5 The Sacred Art Of Stealing – Christopher Brookmyre
6 Pattern Recognition* – William Gibson
7 Feet Of Clay – Terry Pratchett
8 Jingo – Terry Pratchett
9 Men At Arms – Terry Pratchett
10 Maskerade – Terry Pratchett
11 Pyramids – Terry Pratchett
12 Going Postal – Terry Pratchett
13 Thief Of Time – Terry Pratchett
14 Big Deal – Anthony Holden
15 Drunkard’s Walk – Frederik Pohl
16 Sign O The Times – Michaelangelo Matos
17 Amnesia Moon – Jonathan Lethem
18 Conrad’s Fate – Diana Wynne Jones
19 Revenge of the Sith – Matthew Stover
20 The Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett
21 Garden State – Rick Moody
22 Cosmonaut Keep* – Ken MacLeod
23 Dark Light – Ken MacLeod
24 Engine City – Ken MacLeod
25 All My Sins Remembered – Joe Haldeman
26 The Infinity Concerto – Greg Bear
27 The Serpent Mage – Greg Bear
28 In Your Dreams – Tom Holt
29 The Family Trade* – Charles Stross
30 To Say Nothing Of The Dog – Connie Willis
31 Silent Bob Speaks – Kevin Smith
32 Constantine: The Hellblazer Collection – Steven T Seagle
33 The Atrocity Archives* – Charles Stross
34 Topics About Which I Know Nothing – Patrick Ness
35 Accelerando* – Charles Stross
36 Tony & Me by Georg Bush as told to Dr Parsons – Dr Parsons
37 Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince – JK Rowling
38 Moon Dust* – Andrew Smith
39 Do Not Pass Go – Tim Moore
40 Permutation City – Greg Egan
41 The Hidden Family – Charles Stross
42 The World According To Clarkson – Jeremy Clarkson
43 Anansi Boys* – Neil Gaiman
44 Thud!* – Terry Pratchett
45 The Man Who Was Thursday – GK Chesterton
46 Chronicles Volume One – Bob Dylan
47 The Apocalypse Door – James D MacDonald
48 The Diamond Throne – David Eddings
49 The Ruby Knight – David Eddings
50 Men & Cartoons – Jonathan Lethem
51 The Sapphire Rose – David Eddings
52 Domes Of Fire – David Eddings
53 The Shining Ones – David Eddings
54 The Hidden City – David Eddings
55 Feersum Endjinn – Iain M Banks
56 Incompetence – Rob Grant
57 Stamping Butterflies – Jon Courtenay Grimwood
58 The Brotherhood of the Grape – John Fante

My favourites (not re-reads) are asterisked.

anarchy?

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The Man Who Was Thursday

G.K. Chesterton

Syme is a poet and an anti-anarchist policeman. He cleverly gets voted on to the Supreme Council of Anarchists as Thursday (The council members all have days of the week for names).
The rest of this story details his adventures as he attempts to derail the activities of the Council.
This is a blackly comic, surreal tale, with many layers of meaning.
I’d recommend it, but I don’t really know why. Anyway you can get a download of it via project gutenberg like I did and read it as an e-book.

Rating: B+

where’s my cow?

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Thud!

Terry Pratchett

The latest Discworld book. This is another focussing on Sam Vimes, and the City Watch.
The city is on edge, Dwarfs and Trolls are spoiling for a fight as Battle of Koom Valley day approaches. A high-ranking religious dwarf has been killed and Vimes has to find the person really responsible before the city falls apart. All the while making sure he makes it home for 6pm to read ‘Where is my Cow’ to young Sam Vimes jr.
Vimes is my favourite Discworld character after the outstanding ‘Night Watch’ and this book has done nothing to change that.
Not in the very top rank of Discworld books, this one is nonetheless very strong and has some interesting things to say. It’ll be interesting to see how the events that happen in this book play out in future books.
I’d recommend this to anyone. Pratchett is a genius.

Rating: A-

284?

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Anansi Boys

Neil Gaiman

Fat Charlie’s Dad is dead. Fine time to learn that he was a god. Oh and to find out that you’ve got a brother.
This is a brilliant mixture of horror and comedy, handled with Gaiman’s customary skill.
Odd thing about this one is that I think it may work better as an audiobook.
I would recommend this book to anyone. It’s such an unusual creature that I can see it appealing to a really wide audience.

Rating: A

283?

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The Hidden Family

Charles Stross

The second book in Stross’ new fantasy series. This one wraps up the story started in the first.
The heroine spends much of this story in a third parallel world, building up interests to protect herself from the various people out to kill her.
This is very entertaining, well written fantasy and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the genre.

Rating: A

Oh, yeah and I read The World According To Clarkson by Jeremy Clarkson too. I’m not proud. Oh and it was crap.

282?

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My Latest Novel – Saint Jude’s Infirmary

I’m friends with the guys in Saint Jude’s Infirmary and I turned up to this one as I’ve got a terrible record of attending their gigs. It’s the perils of commuting mostly, well that and my frequent bouts of avoiding social contacts as much as possible.
Saint Jude’s are incredibly tight these days and have built up a really good set of songs. They did well in spite of some sound issues. I also managed to take a few pictures of them playing (110 or so!) and some have turned out well. I’ll link to them once they’ve gone up on the band’s site.
My Latest Novel were much better in more intimate surroundings, but their songs still lack much in the way of punch. This is not a bad thing, but as a result, I still think that they’ll work best on record where the fluid dynamics of the songs can work their way into your head.

281?

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Permutation City

Greg Egan

This one was a re-read.
The story is mainly about uploaded humans, insanity, guilt, alternate biochemistry in a virtual environment and other such everyday concerns.
The book is genuinely quite insightful, but I feel it no longer works as well as it did on my first couple of reads. This time round it felt like a long novella fleshed out with tenuously related short stories.
Definitely worth picking up if you’ve never read any of Egan’s work before. I used to think that he could end up a genuine SF great, but a few of his latest books have passed me by entirely.
Recommended for anyone who likes the hard, techy end of Science Fiction.

Rating: B-

280?

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The Pixies – Idlewild – Teenage Fanclub – My Latest Novel

I’ve never been to Meadowbank stadium before and I have to say it’s not the most auspicious place to have a gig. It’s basically a rundown lower league football ground (without a team) that also does athletics. God knows how they’ve managed to hold two Commonweath Games there without cringing with embarrassment. It also does a nice line in swirling wind.
My Latest Novel were the wrong band for this bill. Just a bit lacking in energy and grit to fire up the imagination of the crowd. I think they might be nice on record, you never know.
Teenage Fanclub were great as usual. It’s a bit worrying to see just how much they look like schoolteachers these days, but they still make a magnificent noise when they’re on stage. My particular favourites, as usual, The Concept and Everything Flows.
Idlewild were good, a nice selection of older stuff, a pity the material from the latest album is so ineffectual. They’ve also invested in silly haircuts and the lead guitarist has bought a portfolio of rock star poses (silly bugger). They’ve still got a fanbase filled with rabid teenage girls with a tendency to be both drunk and abnoxious.
Pixies were mind blowing. Totally mind blowing, just great song after great song as the crowd got more mental and the mosh pit bigger until it was practically the whole crowd. I escaped to a more sane part of the crowd (I’m too old for mosh pits these days) but a friend had to get pulled out of the pit during Monkey’s Gone To Heaven.
It’s probably entered the top three of my favourite gigs of all time, definitely top five.