Category: Uncategorized

The Portable Door

This is first of a new series by Holt, based around a leading character called Paul Carpenter.
The book starts with Carpenter going to an interview for a job. Convinced he isn’t going to get the job he obsesses over the other candidates. In particular the unpleasant thin girl in the corner.
After a very odd interview he is offered the post. On his first day he discovers that the thin girl, called Sophie, has also been given a job. Paul spends most of his time thinking about her and falling for her.
The job is boring and weird and things aren’t what they seem.
Holt is a competent writer, and can be very funny, but I’ve always had the feeling that he jumps on bandwagons rather than writing things that he really wants to. Of course, I can’t vouch for his historical novels, so I could be wrong.
Anyway this book is really very good while it’s based around the weirdness of the workplace and kind of loses steam once he introduces a fantastical element.
Worth a read though. I’ll probably read the sequel as well – which I suspect that it will irritate me.
Rating B

The Well Of Lost Plots

This is the third Thursday Next book. After the events of the previous book Thursday is hiding out in an unfinished book in the Well of Lost Plots. She is working for Jurisfiction as an apprentice agent and learning to deal with BookWorld.
The plot as slight as it is, involves Thursday in a plot to take control of BookWorld and dealing with a mindworm left with her by Aornis Hades.
Most of the book deals with her adventures in training to be a Jurisfiction agent.
It’s most definitely silly, but it’s a nice piece of world building, and while it’s the least of the books so far it’s still a fun read. Another one for the train.
Rating: B-

Lost In A Good Book

This is the second Thursday Next book. Following on from the events of The Eyre Affair, Thursday is newly married and work seems to mostly consist of doing publicity.
The plot involves Thursday butting heads with Goliath Corp once more, still getting help from her “time travelling knight errant” father, encountering Jurisfiction and dealing with a new villain who can decrease entropy.
It’s all a bit silly, but quite good fun – in fact it’s better than the first book.
An easy read, perfect for the train.
Rating: B

The Homeward Bounders

A classic “Young Adult” novel by one of my favourite writers.
Jamie stumbles across “Them” by accident one day. “They” make him a discard and he becomes a Homeward Bounder. He has to travel from world to world looking for the way home. Along the way he makes friends with Helen and Joris, travelling across worlds before the story comes to a very satisfactory ending.
I found this a bit more slight than usual for a Diana Wynne Jones book, but it’s still well written and has an involving plot.
If you’re brave enough to admit that you enjoy reading the occasional YA book, then you need to read Diana Wynne Jones. This particular book is definitely worth a read.
Rating: B

Freshers

I’m surprised I finished this book to be honest. It’s not really the kind of thing I would normally read.
This is the story of Kit Hannah and his first year at Sheffield University (First Year = Freshman = Fresher if you didn’t know).
The book follows him as he makes friends with Jinty, Adrian, Ben, Simon, Petra and Alex. They do the usual things that young students do, listen to alienated music, go out, get drunk, dance like a fool, take drugs, change haircuts, get pierced and fall in lust with strangers.
The main twist in the plotline is kinda bizarre and (I think) pointless – it’s there just to make you think ‘oh, that’s why’ when you don’t need a why. Of course that might be because of my Psychology background.
I’m deliberately trying to be vague here, so as to not spoil the book.
Anyway, a easy book to read, if deeply flawed in some ways. At the very least the lead character is likeable.
Rating: C

Good Omens

This was a comfort read – I’ve been fighting my way through a nasty little chest infection and I’ve been off work.
This is a superb comic novel based around the conceit of the coming of the Antichrist. I’m not going to spoil the plot for anyone, I’m just going to say that everyone should read this book.
Rating: A

The Drawing of the Three

This is the second of King’s Dark Tower Fantasy sequence. After the very odd first book this was actually a lot of fun to read.

Roland of Gilead is a Gunslinger – a knight equivalent in a post technological world. In this story he has recently caught up with The Man In Black on the western shoreline of his world, a man he has been chasing for around twenty years. Exhausted from the confrontation with his foe he is caught unawares by hideous giant lobster-like creatures who rob him of the first two fingers on his right hand and inflict many other injuries. His wounds become infected as he heads along the never-ending beach, and his ammunition is limited after becoming wet. Barely able to continue he comes upon a door. The door is the first of three prophesized by The Man In Black. The door is into the mind (and world) of a man in 1986. To go much further into the plot would thoroughly spoil things.
I enjoyed Roland’s interaction with 20th Century New York and the people he interacts with beyond the doors.
It is a book that I wanted to keep reading and that easily kept my attention (which has been wandering terribly of late). It promises that the rest of the series will be very interesting indeed and I’ll read the rest of the books.
At least I know they’re all written… (Not looking at Robert Jordan at all, not at all)
If you like fantasy you’ll probably like this a lot. Especially if you like fantasy worlds interacting with the real world.
Rating: B

Gun, with occasional music

This is Lethem’s first novel, which has lain in my ‘to read’ pile ever since I bought it just after the paperback release.
The recent excellent reviews for his latest novel ‘The Fortress of Solitude’ lead to me finally picking it up reading it.
The novel takes the form of a hard boiled ‘noir’ detective story, but it’s set in a future dystopian America. This is an America where government provided drugs are taken by the population to meet their own needs – to accept, to forget, etc. It’s also a world with ‘evolution therapy’ which allows animals (prominently in this story a kangaroo) to have human level intelligence, and for adults to become ‘babyheads’ essentially an adult in a child’s body.
It’s got a pretty standard detective plot for all the sfnal contrivances around it, though.
It’s obvious that he’s got a fluent writing style and enormous talent.
However this book is no classic. The plot is superficial and the twist is obvious really early on in the story.
I can’t say that I really enjoyed reading it that much, but it’s by no means a bad book.
Rating: C-

Sandman Presents: The Furies

This is a spin-off from the classic Sandman series written by Neil Gaiman.
An ancient figure from greek mythology is back and is aiming for the destruction of the Furies.
The plan involves Lyta Hall who is tightly bound with the Furies after events in Sandman.
An interesting aside and worth it’s short reading time – it is not in the same class as the original Sandman stories.
I really liked the art, with it’s blending of the photoreal and utterly fantastical.