Category: A

flip?

Posted on by Greig

Bellwether

Connie Willis

BellwetherThis is only the second Connie Willis book I’ve read. Like that book this is an excellent read.
Sandra Foster is a sociological researcher at a privately funded institution looking into fads and how they start, who is bought into contact with a researcher into Chaos Theory called Bennett O’Reilly after a parcel is delivered wrongly to her lab.
Not a book of great events or battles, this instead is all about the characters and the way they interact, the way they see the world and the consequences of those actions.
This book is rather lovely, with a lot of wit and good insight to the human condition and particularly good at skewering the ridiculousness of bureaucracy.
I particularly loved the breakdowns of various fads histories delivered at the start of every chapter.
I would recommend this book to pretty much anybody. I won’t guarantee that you’ll like it, but those that do will fall totally in love with it..

Rating: A

true knowledge?

Posted on by Greig

The Cassini Division

Ken MacLeod

The Cassini DivisionThird Fall Revolution novel is, for me, the best of the series so far. Following on from the events of the end of The Stone Canal we find ourselves back in the solar system, and at the beginning of the book, back on Earth.
Ellen May Ngwethu is a member of the Cassini Division, an elite (if such a thing can exist in the socialist anarchy of the Solar Union) force detailed with the task of controlling the threat posed by the post-human intelligences that stayed behind at Jupiter.
She’s been tasked with finding the man that came up with the physics that allowed the creation of the wormhole, so that a way through to New Mars can be found in order to assess if there’s any threat from the stored post-human intelligences that the Jay-Dub copy of Jon Wilde told them about.
A really enjoyable read with some excellent characters and SF ideas.
Highly recommended.

Rating: A

his?

Posted on by Greig

The Damned Utd

David Peace

The Damned UtdQuite, quite awesome fictional retelling of Brian Clough’s 44 days in charge of Leeds United.
Peace writes the entire story as if coming from Clough’s own mouth or subconscious. In one half of the narrative it’s the ‘present day’ and Clough is trying, and failing, to get to grips with the Leeds United job and the other tells the back story of Clough’s managerial career at Hartlepool, Derby County and Brighton.
It’s a fascinating insight into a brilliant and deeply flawed man. A man driven by all sorts of demons, including a desperate desire to prove himself and to best those he respected and those he hated. There was no-one he hated more than Don Revie and his Damned Utd of the title. A great football team that won by playing game in as cynical a fashion as possible. It was his burning desire to best Revie and doing so by turning his cynical machine into a pure football dream that got him to take the job in the first place. Only for him to ruin it by alienating the first team and the board as only he could.
It is quite simply the best football book I’ve ever read. If you have any love for the game you owe it to yourself to read it.

Rating: A

feather?

Posted on by Greig

Anansi Boys

Neil Gaiman

Anansi BoysGods are a preoccupation of Mr Gaiman, what with the sheer number of Gods and godlike beings in Sandman, and of course the rather good and rather lengthy American Gods.
This time though the tone is less weighty. In a curious bybrid of fantasy, horror and humour the book relates the story of Charles “Fat Charlie” Nancy. Fat Charlie is a likeable, if rather ineffectual, man who finds out after his Father’s funeral that he was the spider god and trickster Anansi and not only that but he has a brother too.
On a whim he invites this newly revealed brother, Spider, into his life and things start to spiral out of control.
This is a very enjoyable book, wittily written and effectively scary at times. It’s only weakness is a somewhat unlikely denouement.
I’d recommend it as an introduction to Gaiman, maybe only bettered by Neverwhere. I’d also recommend it as a good read to just about anybody.

Rating: A

pamphlet?

Posted on by Greig

Mortal Causes

Ian Rankin

Mortal CausesI no longer keep up with Rankin’s books as eagerly as I once did (I think I’m about three books behind the publishing schedule) and I never did get round to reading all the early books (I entered with Black and Blue).
Now I was watching the documentary about Rankin, Rebus and Edinburgh on BBC Four earlier this year and Rankin was back in the Cardenden cul-de-sac he grew up in mentioned about sectarianism in small town Scotland and that he’d eventually dealt with it in a book called Mortal Causes. Now this certainly piqued my interest, because sectarianism is something I have never really understood or really experienced (at least not in it’s red raw guise) despite growing up in a town just five miles away from that Cardenden cul-de-sac.
So when I saw it in a local supermarket for £1.99 I couldn’t resist.
It’s a bloody good book, all the better from not suffering from the bloat that later books are infected with. The brilliant device of a young man being found murdered in Mary King’s Close, terrorist execution style leads you into the plot and from then on in you’re hooked. Rankin covers a lot of ground including sectarianism, gangs and paramilitaries in this one meshing it into a coherent whole with all the skill that would lead to the amazing Black and Blue.
I would very much recommend this book, as a crime novel, as a look at 90’s style terrorism and as a bloody good read.

Rating: A

mabuse?

Posted on by Greig

The Jennifer Morgue

Charles Stross

Jennifer MorgueThe second Bob Howard book is a genuine delight.
Where the first played with the tropes of a Len Deighton style spy, this one subverts the James Bond archetype.
Full of clever twists and humour, Stross subverts your expectations at every step.
Of all his varied output I think that the Laundry books come out best – he tries a bit too hard with his full-on SF and seems a bit bored of his fantasy series. With the Laundry he\’s just having fun and it shows.
I wholeheartedly recommend that you read both The Atrocity Archives and this one – you will not regret it.

Rating: A

woodpecker?

Posted on by Greig

Going Postal

Terry Pratchett

going postalThe first Moist Von Lipwig book finds the young conman saved from the noose and given a second chance by the Patrician and tasked to take on the disaster that is the Post Office in Ankh-Morpork.
The scams and schemes that Pratchett puts Lipwig through are ingenious and frequently hilarious. This is a very good Pratchett if not in Night Watch or Small Gods class.
Totally recommended.

Rating: A