Category: Rated

boffo?

Posted on by Greig

Wintersmith

Terry Pratchett

This is the third of the Tiffany Aching books.
In this one she steps into a dance she shouldn’t and the Wintersmith – the spirit of winter – falls in love with her.
So somehow Tiffany has to save the Discworld from perpetual winter while continuing her novice witch training.
This continues the high standards set in the previous Aching books, The Wee Free Men & A Hat Full of Sky.
Pratchett continues to be on beautifully bittersweet and humourous form while Tiffany grows up to fulfill her destiny as a witch of remarkable power.
I wouldn’t read it as a stand-alone (though you probably could) it really does work best as part of the sequence.
In that case I wouldn’t give a moment’s hesitation in recommending anyone to read this book

Rating: A

rhino?

Posted on by Greig

The Salmon of Doubt

Douglas Adams

The Salmon of DoubtThis posthumous cash in contains random articles, essays, speeches and letters written by Adams before he died as well as a hitchhiker’s based short story and the chunk of a Dirk Gently book that never was that gives this volume a title.
No single part of this book is worth buying it for, but as a whole it is a nice reminder of who Douglas Adams was, what he stood for and the work he was capable of.
I bought this book not long after it made paperback for less than half price in a supermarket. I don’t know I would have bothered if it wasn’t so cheap. That I only just got round to reading it speaks volumes as far as I’m concerned.
My recommendation, unless you’re a Hitchhiker’s nut, is that you don’t buy this for less than a bargain price.

Rating: C

four digit prime?

Posted on by Greig

Miss Wyoming

Douglas Coupland

Miss WyomingSusan Colgate and John Lodge Johnson, an ex-child star and big time Hollywood film producer, are the lead characters in this book.
Not the most promising start, but Coupland beautifully realises these cliches as real people with all the neuroses, strengths, flaws and past history that you could ever wish for.
Told as usual with his fabulous style, I really enjoy this book, but the plot is pointless and inconsequential and rests on the strength of the characters. If you can’t enjoy the characters then the book will mean nothing to you. I recommend this if you already like Coupland’s work.

Rating: B+

boston crab?

Posted on by Greig

The Wrestling

Simon Garfield

Excellent look at British professional wrestling, told essentially in the words of the participants. Professional wrestling is remembered in the British collective memory as a naff spectacle of deeply unfit men participating in obviously fake matches in the afternoon on ITV. It was like that, but also it was home to some intriguing personalities and an interesting mat based style in comparison to the major US promotions. British wrestlers knew their stuff even if the stars ended up being big fat men like Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks who won through their sheer size. This book gives an historical overview of the wrestling and a personal view of the business as told in the wrestlers, promoters and managers own words. Highly recommended to anyone with a passing interest in professional wrestling.

Rating: B+

kovacs?

Posted on by Greig

Watchmen

Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

WatchmenI normally don’t blog about comics since, strictly speaking, even in trade paperback form they’re not novels. Even the majestic Sandman series consists of short stories and novellas. Moore and Gibbon’s classic, however, is beyond all doubt a true graphic novel.
Watchmen is about a subtly different version of now, where “superheroes” or masked vigilantes really existed, and the consequences of their existence for every living person.
It’s a densely layered piece making the best of a medium that is both visual and written. The central narrative unwinds beautifully, the characters are exquisitely portrayed, and the questions asked resonate in your mind for years.
It’s a piece I have read many times, and yet I continue to find new details in it even today.
I recommend this book to anyone, with no hesitation.

Rating: A

koma?

Posted on by Greig

Margrave Of The Marshes

John Peel & Sheila Ravenscroft

Margrave Of The MarshesJohn Peel’s autobiography was posthumously completed by his Wife and children.
A fascinating, if scattershot, telling of Peel’s life up until shortly before he married his first wife and his radio career took off in the USA, is as much as he completed before his death of a heart attack in Peru in October 2004.
The rest of the book is related by his wife, Sheila (also known as Pig), and is a bittersweet reminiscence of her life with him and an honest telling of the obsessiveness that drove Peel in doing his job.
It made me miss Peel very much.
If you ever spent time listening to the man’s radio shows, you have to read this book.

Rating: B

blue bell?

Posted on by Greig

All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye

Christopher Brookmyre

This is one of Brookmyre’s novels where an ordinary Scot finds themself in the middle of a full out Hollywood movie situation.
It’s a blast from beginning to end and features one of the best characters that Brookmyre’s ever come up with. Jane Fleming is an East Kilbride based grandmother that feels resigned to the scrapheap of life.
Except she’s not yet 50, and there’s still a spark of the girl that was a punk in ’77. When her engineer son goes on the run for his life after he falls foul of the arms industry, that spark is fanned into flame.
Recruited by a team of mercenaries to help in locating and protecting her son, she transforms from a dowdy grandmother/housewife into an asskicking undercover operative.
Sure it’s totally unbelievable, but that’s pretty much the point.
If you’re not looking for realism but rather for a really fun read for the summer holidays then I totally recommend this book.

Rating: A

sabotage?

Posted on by Greig

JPod

Douglas Coupland

JPodSupposedly an update of the classic Microserfs for the Google generation this is instead a cynical, heartless mess of a novel.
Centred around a group of workers at a faceless games company in Vancouver, the book riffs off on the personal neuroses and bizarre acts of these people and their families.
As always Coupland’s prose is superbly readable and some of it is very funny, but the story is stupid, the characters are deeply unlikeable and he fills about a third of the book with concrete text or lists of prime numbers, digits of pi, and other pointless lists. It worked when used sparingly and within context in microserfs – in this novel it makes a slight tale seem more of a rip-off.
If you read Microserfs and wanted more or you just love Coupland’s work, then read this book, but be prepared to be disappointed. Otherwise, avoid it.

Rating: C+

bad egg?

Posted on by Greig

The Big Over Easy

Jasper Fforde

This book is a story of the Nursery
Crime Division of Reading police. DC Jack Spratt has to unravel the mysterious murder of Humpty Dumpty.
Yes, this is another one of Jasper Fforder’s comic novels. This is the first not to feature Tuesday Next, and focusses exclusively on the novel’s murder mystery rather than playing some of the meta games of his other novels. As always his jokes depend a hell of a lot on the reader’s knowledge of the books that he’s referencing or parodying.
The book is a slight, enjoyable read, that I’d recommend to anyone looking for a cheap, mildly funny summer read.

Rating: C

minifigs?

Posted on by Greig

Microserfs

Douglas Coupland

MicroserfsI last read this book in 2003.
As I said then, it’s one of my favourite books to re-read from time to time. I re-read it this time to prepare for reading his latest novel JPod, which is meant to be a more cynical take on the same world.
It’s a funny and moving tale of a bunch of tech workers who leave behind the tech monoculture of Microsoft to work in a start up in Silicon Valley.
It contains a lot of very interesting and some valid ideas about geek life. It’s a pity that as technology has raced ahead it’s made a lot of the tech observations obsolete.
I still recommend this book and especially to anyone who works in IT or similar geek workplace.

Rating: A