Please Hold [Your Call Is Important To Us]

There. All books read written about. 42 books read this year (and 5 manuscripts critiqued, 0 novels finished). I wasn't sure I'd get them finished in time. Definitely ran out of oomf at the end there. Too much analysing in too short a time. Or, I'm just tired and stupid.

Tomorrow morning I fly out without laptop or phone. I'll probably remain off the grid till I'm home again in late January, as the majority of time I'll be camping. If you have stalkerly-inclinations, you can track my approximate whereabouts following the itinerary here. If you're not quite that intense about your stalking, then just know I'm in Patagonia.

(It's amusing how many people have no idea where that is.)

Last Thursday I finished work. When it occurred to me I wouldn't be back in the office for more than a month I started to cry. The last couple of months have been a slow drowning. I'm understating that, because I've spent a considerable amount of energy not thinking of my circumstances, keeping myself distracted and the rug pulled over my eyes. Even though I can't see it, I can still feel the water rising.

There is no way out.

And-

I need to breathe.

Tomorrow I fly out, and then I will be able to stop worrying about money as everything has already been paid for. I won't have to organise anything or anyone, as that's someone else's job. I won't be carrying the weight of all the friends I'm neglecting, because I won't be in a position to do anything for them. I won't have to hold myself together, because I won't be me. I won't be afraid for my life, because I won't be in it.

I won't be unable to write, because I will not be writing.

For the record: the balance remains in favour of the year. Despite the plunge I've taken recently, 2009 has been the best year of my life. Everything that did happen, everything that didn't happen, all I've learned and gained and lost, it was worth it. It needs to be said.

As for you kids, I hope the new year treats you kindly (and you greet it with hijinx and tomfoolery). Keep on keeping on.



<3
Sir Tessa

Trash Sex Magic - Jennifer Stevenson

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

I found a hidden cache of female authors! POUNCE.

A big tree is cut down, which triggers a massive shift of energy by the Fox River, and trouble for the Somershoe women living in the trailers beside it.

It's an odd story, taking place over two, maybe three days, tops. A lot happens in that time - more than seems possible. The relationships between characters develop change faster than seems realistic in such a small time frame, but circumstances being what they are (magic electric), some acceleration is to be expected.

There's a lot of light, love and life in the story. It's supersaturated in what is natural, for all meanings of the word. I couldn't help but be caught up in all the passion that comes from living a life.

The writer in me was not without quibbles. There are characters who appear to serve no purpose, antagonists who aren't overly antagonistic, given plot developments that never actually develop and fates that their crimes aren't quite equal to. For all that MASSIVE STUFF IS HAPPENING, the characters are tumbling about with none of them having a very clear idea of what is going on until it has already happened. There's a balance in the structure, but not in the story. Why the foxes on the bridge?

But then, part of me is equally okay with this. It is natural for things to occur as they will. There is no rhyme or reason, fairness or justice.

(Had a perculiar drug addict vibe from this too.)

Verdict: An oddly unassuming, guileless and sunshine soaked love story. Fierce. Intense.

The Drowned Life - Jeffrey Ford

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

I didn't realise this was a short story collection when I picked it up, probably mixed it up with The Shadow Year at 6:17am with the lights off and running out the door for the train. I wasn't in a mood for short stories, but when you're forced to not type for 10 minutes every 10 minutes at work, and literally have nothing else to do, you devour the book in front of you regardless.

None of these short stories felt like short stories. They had a weight about them, although that isn't a right word. Perhaps, a deeper sense of...anticipation? Expectation? You know, when you start into a story, you can gauge how long it will be, not simply from the number of pages to go, but the pacing, how much is being set up, that sort of thing. These stories mined deep into the future - I was anticipating a long stint with them, longer than short stories warrant. I don't know that I read them any slower than I ever read, or any faster for that matter. I just know they ended at the right time, and every time I emerged from one, I felt I'd been gone much longer than I had.

Ford writes spins his stories - and spin is the right word - with delicacy. There is a whisp-like ephemeral feel to his sentences, that even when strung together into whole paragraphs remain light and fragile things. Violence and horror, despair and grief, all these things remain terrible and brutal, and, through Ford's writing, beautiful.

I adored 'The Night Whiskey' and 'The Dreaming Wind', but the my favourite far and away was 'The Scribble Mind'. I'm noticing a predilection in my tastes for stories that reveal your ignorance of the existence of a mystery, without ever revealing the nature of the mystery itself.

I bought up big on Ford's books at WFC. I anticipate much gluttony to come.

Verdict: An exquisite writer, and master of the short form. A collection with no repetition in it.

Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

This time, no waiting for the murder, it happened quite early in the book. Just the one murder, this time. And Poirot did his thing, again. Only with less rushing about and new developments to throw him in a spin. This time, he interviewed the passengers, had a think, interviewed the passengers some more, thought a bit more, and then came to the right conclusion.

I read this in one night. These books are quite more-ish, they're like M&Ms. I was quite alright throughout the entire book, until I finished, turned the light off, and discovered I was shit scared.

Of what, I don't know! There was no menace in the book. No threat or danger. But augh! I could not sleep without the light on. Odd.

This one vexed me considerably more than the previous, as Poirot solved the case by utilising details that the reader was not given, which...grrrrrr. If I want to be surprised by the outcome, then let the outcome be surprising rather than a conclusion I cannot reach on my own with the details given or not given to me.

Said conclusion also made my mouth twist a bit. Mrrrr.

Verdict: Mmmmmm.

Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

Following my 'must read more female authors' push. I've never read any Christie before, and I don't think I've seen any of the films either. What I know of her is the influence she had in various genres that I have encountered.

Standard plot - someone dies in circumstances that limits the number of suspects! Poirot, despite having no jurisdiction or authority, is the only person capable of solving the crime before the true authorities can step in! Go, go, Poirot brains!

What surprised me was how far into the book the actual crime occurred. There was a lot of set up, displaying an array of people with motives to murder a young heiress, and also a couple of potential victims. Then, she dies.

Okay, I thought, time for sleuthing!

And then more people die.

Which rather startled me. And then more people died, and I was even more startled. There weren't that many characters.

The end.

I did have a lot of fun trying to puzzle out events and solve things for myself (was vexed by the fact that every character out there seemed to be very carefully and deliberately stupid), but it didn't rock my world. Wasn't new to me, probably because her influence is so widely spread.

Verdict: Shall definitely eat more of these.

Shadow Queen - Deborah Kalin

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

Again, it's hard to form a structured opinion of this book because a) I critiqued it when it was just a wee manuscript in Courier New, and b) I adore this book so much I tend to start frothing in the mouth when I talk about it, and c) Deb reads this, and I know Deb reads this, and thus I'm more than tempted to say outrageous things just to mess with her.

(Hi Deb! You know, if you're reading this, it means you're not working on the edits for book 2. GET BACK TO WORK, WOMAN.)

Also, I'm not sure how to speak of it without incurring the wrath of the Spoiler Police (for whom I do volunteer work). Matilde is heir in waiting, and on the eve of what should see her ratified as ruler, unknown armed forces invade and KILL EVERYONE.

EVERYONE.

And so the story begins.

AND IT IS OOOOARSUM. The first time I read it I was yelling out loud, which I can't say I do often. Matilde is a brilliantly realised, she survives the night's massacre by utilising her wits in a move that is genius and madness and so unexpected that every time I reread it, I still crow in admiration.

The set up is such that she could be some sort of super magical "chosen one", but this book is unique among its fantasy counterparts in the furious use of quick thinking, odds-playing and political maneuvering above all other methods of progression. The fantasy elements contained in the world are not unrightly dealt with as any other possible political complication is dealt with, and not kept apart from the world people live in and through.

I love that Matilde's depth, how daringly she gambles everything, herself in her struggle to stay alive and regain her thrown. I love that she is frightened and hurt and cowed but too stubborn to despair. I love that she makes bad choices. I love that she is fallible.

Deb has this terrible knack of writing Matilde into an impossible situation, the only way out of which is to write her into a different impossible situation. The book is fucking relentless.

<3!

Verdict: Seriously awesome! Matilde - strongest female character evah!

Steps Through The Mist - Zoran Živković (translated by Alice Copple-Tošić)

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

Another mosaic novel, and I'm running out of adjectives that are effusive and complimentary and excited enough to express the joy in these three books.

Unlike the previous two, which come together at the end, the connections between the pieces is established in the first story. Five women have a dream, or, dreamed they're having a dream. The scenarios look at the unknown and the uncertain, and how we deal with the great and formidable 'un's in our lives. Does not knowing save us? Should we shy from the unknown or sally forth boldly?

There is no one 'this is so' statement to be made. The unknown by definition cannot be known, and cannot be prepared for. Conversely, even that which is known cannot be expected either.

Where Impossible Encounters was a book of men, this is a book of women. A small but well chosen selection, crossing ages and social standing.

In the end, you make up your own mind.

Verdict: ...and then I finished this set of mosaic novels, and was sad-hearted and down-mouthed that there were no more, and you can only ever read a book for the first time once.

Impossible Encounters - Zoran Živković (translated by Alice Copple-Tošić)

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

Okay, having glanced at Amazon and had a heartattack, I realise these books are expensive. I don't know how much I paid for them, as I picked them up at WFC where I'd given myself permission not to look at book prices. But OH EM GEE, these books are, they're just, so, I don't know, they're just, perfect, I love- if you can only afford one, get this one. Of the three, this was definitely my favourite, far and away.

Another fantastic little mosaic novel, it features encounters with- what? Encounters that are impossible, encounters that are from beyond the boundaries of what we have decided is reality and possibility, and yet remain within the realms of what we call ordinary. They're quiet and soft in the nature of the extraordinariness. Subtle, delicate, and unassuming.

The separate pieces are tied only in theme and the cameo appearance of a book - "Impossible Encounters" - in each, until the final story, which was just-

You know, I loved this little book so much that even a couple of weeks later I'm still giddy and babbling.

Oh! There were a couple of moments that had an inferred connection to The Fourth Circle, and you can't believe the squee I did at that. These are not simply mosaic novels, the novels themselves are part of the greater mosaic comprised of his various works-

I do believe I've fallen well and truly in love with Živković's writing.

Verdict: Oh, it's beautiful, and I think writers in particular will appreciate it. Genius, absolutely.

Seven Touches of Music - Zoran Živković (translated by Alice Copple-Tošić)

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

Wow.

Look at it. I mean, really, just look at it. One of the most beautiful books I have ever seen. Elegant and understated, even the interior and edging is stunning.

This mosaic novel is woven of seven parts, each of the parts unrelated to its neighbours, with only music as a catalyst for the amazing being a similar vein. Music is the medium through which revelation is delivered, or triggered, or forced. Revelation wonderous, revelation horrific, revelation without context or meaning, but always a revelation pregnant with significance, meaning, a moment of enormity in what are otherwise the mundane lives of ordinary people.

Music is a strange beast. We can remember it, recall it, but the magic in music lives only while the music is playing. We can't summon that ourselves, not without music. When it leaves, we are ordinary again.

This is magnificently written, and I've a very strong bias towards mosaic novels, anything that plays with structure both mechanical and thematic.

Verdict: Oh, just wonderful.

Rain - Conrad Williams

GIANT FLYING SHARK!
buy - author site

Moar? Yes! Moar! I have to slow down with the Williams eating, as there's only a couple more books of his I know of. Found this one at Borderlands in SF. Delight! Joy!

I probably should restrict myself to one a year, actually. This is only a slim little novella, but still left me glad as all fuck the sun was out and I had absolutely nothing in common with the events, location, characters or environment in the story.

To rip off the blurb (it isn't a long blurb);

Ben and his family move to France.
There is an accident.
There is death.
There is rain.
Much rain.

I had a moment of "...again?" upon discovering this story was similar in vein to 'The Scalding Rooms' and 'One' in that the emphasis lay on the father-son relationship, and the shattering affect becoming a parent has, and how devastating the love for your child is, equal parts a strength and weakness. The wives/mothers/girlfriends are mostly distant, verging on the point of being the antagonists, either in the threat they pose to the father/son bond or in plainer and more overt terms. Should Williams ever write a story in which there is a healthy happy couple not on the verge of going each other with blunt objects...well, actually, I'd be pretty suspicious and assume I'd accidentally picked up some other Conrad Williams who did not write deliciously fucked up shit.

Particularly enjoyed the environment in this. The rain, the untamed garden and sullen estate they find themselves in, all these aspects speak with precision. Very little happens which doesn't hide the fact that an awful lot happens in a very short time.

Verdict: It's Conrad Williams, it's awesomely brutal.

Last Drink Bird Head - Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (ed)

buy - editor

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more. (Why'd I even cut and paste this?)

I remember thinking, "Well, I'm on a role with reading stuff with my name in it, might as well keep going..." So I did. And I am continuing that with the writing, and in fact, I've already written about it. What does that make me? Inconsistent hypocrite.

Very pretty book. Gorgeous as an object. Nom.

Halo: Evolutions - ...they don't list an editor?

buy

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

What is protocol when writing about books you're in? I suppose, since this is my blog, I can do what I like. But...er. I dunno. Sits funny with me. I didn't intend to touch the book at all, to be honest, as I'd read our story so many times in such a short space, but when it turned up on the door step, and was sitting there looking all pretty and stuff...well. You know how it goes, when you're alone with a book and no one else is around. Things just...happen.

And I think I've decided I'm not comfortable commenting on the merit of a project I had a hand in. Conflict of interest, too many disclaimers and contexts to provide and only 10 minutes.

I've been sitting here much longer than 10 minutes trying to convince myself to just pretend our collaboration doesn't exist for a moment and talk about the other stories, and dude, I can't do it! WTF. But the reader in me is getting MIGHTY shirty about not getting her say.

Okay, special mention goes to 'The Impossible Life and Possible Death of Preston J. Cole' by Eric Nylund, a delicious little folder of bits and pieces of evidence put forth regarding the near legendary Cole. It does some very interesting things.

Writer, satisfied? Reader, satisfied? Good, now shush.

Palimpsest - Catherynne M. Valente

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

Keeping with the theme of female authors, of which I have so few books that meet that criteria. I was astounded on the first page. Valente's prose can only be described as sumptuous. Her world-building: sumptuous. Characterisation: sumptuous. Every aspect of story-telling that is contained within a book: sumptuous. I felt, sinking into those paragraphs, that I was being given a glorious treat, a pampering only the truly privileged get to experience and the rest of us only dream of. I think this may be the first of Valente's work I've read, and I will certainly be hunting out more.

Palimpsest is a city not here, but there. It isn't a dream, but it may as well be. It isn't imaginary, it is real, yet not what we consider real. There is only one way of visiting - to have sex with someone who has already been touched by it. It's almost a viral city, of a sort. A sexually-transmitted city. Upon arriving, you are quartered, linked with four other people who are also new to the city, and forever bonded with them.

Upon arriving, it's hard to do anything upon waking up except try to get back.

The book follows one such grouping, as each individual bumbles around as any foreigner new to a place will do, making faux pas here there and everywhere, and we follow them as the city comes to take over their lives, even when awake. Obsession has that affect.

As the story progressed and the utter amazingly spectacle of gorgeousness continued, a slight unease grew in me. Perhaps I've read about too much ordinary crime at work, but after a while I figured what was bothering me. The obsession with the city and the massive drive to get back to it, at the cost of all else - it was similar to that of a drug addict's need for another hit. Too similar for me. What they put themselves through, what they put the people around them through...bearing witness to that pulled me back and away from that splendid city, and the final conclusion made me want to run, far and fast as I could.

Dangerous things attract us, don't they? Even now, I'm flipping through the pages, savouring these sentences.

Verdict: ...sumptuous.

Illuminations - Gillian Polack

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

One of the sections in 2666 covers a series of murders occurring in Santa Teresa. It does not attempt to lead the reader into solving the mystery or finding the defendants or figuring out why. It details the bodies of the murder victims when, where, and as they were found. They're all women. They're all raped and tortured. It doesn't take long for the gut-wrenching sexism and misogyny to wear you down, especially if you are a woman.

This divide between the sexes made me want to read something that was woman friendly. I looked at the pile of books I had read, and realised there were two (2) female authors in it. I looked at my shelves, and there were very few female authors sitting there.

How did it get to this? I buy the books that interest me, I read the ones I feel like reading at that moment...why are there so few woman?

Have I become a male reader?

This upset me. I felt I'd betrayed my gender. I wanted a book written by a woman, that was kind to me, the reader. I remembered Gillian saying that her book had been described as 'sitting down to coffee with old friends', and I picked it up and devoured it.

It is a gorgeous book! It switches between letters that Rose - an academic on a research trip in Europe - sends to her mother, and pieces of an manuscript that she has found and is translating, complete with footnotes. The manuscript tells the tale of Ailinn and Guenloie, two young women setting out on a hard journey in Arthurian Britain. Rose finds her personal life strangely mirrored in the manuscript, and between the three of them there are more than a few demons to be conquered.

And it is a wonderful book. Despite the fey evils stalking Ailinn and Guenloie and the all too ordinary evils plaguing Rose, the manuscript that adheres to an older set of narrative laws and expectations in which things do not work out fairly, despite the death and injustice and bitterness of it all, it is a healing book. A wonderful warm book full of love. A book that is, yes, like sitting down to tea (not coffee) with old friends.

It washed the misogyny highlighted in the violence of 2666 right out of my head. Of course women, especially Ailinn and Guenloie, are slighted as less important or capable than men, but this is a story about women who carry on despite that, or perhaps because of that. They do not need to bray their prowess. They simply are.

On top of all that, I also learned a lot about the practices of historians and Arthurian lore.

I do love this book. It's a quiet, quirky and unassuming little thing. It doesn't shout. It won't push you around. It doesn't need to. It will have its way with you gently and leave its mark on you deeply. You won't want to leave the pages when you're finished. I didn't.

Verdict: a gorgeous, lovely, wonderful, humourous, sad, comfortable, small, towering, warm story. Miss Apricot adores this book, she really does, and she has excellent taste. MOAR.

2666 - Roberto Bolaño

buy - author wiki

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

This book needs so much more than 10 minutes.

I couldn't write, I had nothing to do and a head to fill and I spent all my free time sitting here, at my desk, reading. I picked this up purely because now was a prime opportunity to read huge books without having to carry them around. Seriously, if I'd tried to read this holding it on a train, my hands would have been in even worse condition. It lay here on the desk, flat, and I turned the pages.

It's a leviathan. It needs so much more than 10 minutes. It deserves so much more. It's a book I want to dive deep into, rummage around in the guts and pull out all the invisible things that made themselves felt. It's an incredible book, a book that spans much more than the numbered pages it sits on. It sits deep in Europe, and deep in Mexico. It sits deep in academic aristocracy and deep in the poor of Santa Teresa. It's a love story, an angry story, a story of family, a story of monsters. A fairytale in the original sense of the word, a terrifying tale. It's a mosaic novel in which the pieces of the mosaic are so large they consume each other. It's five different stories. It's one story. It's about writers and books, critics and ideals, murders and lovers, lost and found, escapes and advances and what is not acknowledged and what is ignored. It's books in a book about the effect of books. It isn't.

I just don't know what to say because I can't say enough.

...had already begun a voyage, a voyage that would end not at the grave of a brave man but in a kind of resignation, what might be called a new experience, since this wasn't resignation in any ordinary sense of the word, or even patience or conformity, but rather a state of meekness, a refined and incomprehensible humility that made him cry for no reason and in which his own image, what Morini saw as Morini, gradually and helplessly dissolved, like a river that stops being a river or a tree that burns on the horizon, not knowing that it's burning.

I read this when I couldn't write.

And maybe I'll never be able to articulate what that means.

Verdict: Magnificent.

Breath - Tim Winton

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

Sharks. Bane of all surfers. Hehheheheh.

Every time Tim Winton wins another major Australian literary award, I frown a little bit. He's beginning to feel like the easy way out for judges to take, he's Australia's King of Capital L Literature, so whatever he writes must be worthy of award, even if there are scads of books out there which are better.

Which is an unfair reaction for me to have, given I have not read much Winton, nor have I gone on much of a crusade to discover and read any other contenders.

But seriously, he is not Australia's only writer, and this book is not all that.

It is coming of age story told as reminiscence by the man who has already come of age and is past mid-life. As such, all that occurs in his reminiscing is tinged with nostalgia that tempered with cliche, self-flagellation and no small amount of of blame - these people played this role in his formative years, therefore how he turned out as an adult is their fault. I kept waiting for the reminiscing to stop, to have some pay off with the grown adult that the book kicks off with. It didn't.

There are interesting themes that thread through the narrative. That of breathing, obviously, and how that links to death, and thus life, to be alive. That of fear, how it holds us back but not without reason. That of beauty, of doing something that has no practical or pragmatic purpose other than because it is beautiful.

But these themes aren't balanced. They're picked up and put down with no sense of rhythm, and bounce off each other in discord. The note the book ends on ties back to something that did not overshadow the bulk of the narrative, and felt out of place.

It was given to me. The price tag on the back is $24.95. It is a small book and the print is quite large, as are the margins.

Verdict: It is a decent read, with some interesting moments in there, but it is not worthy of the roaring around it.

Finch - Jeff VanderMeer

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

In that photo you see the (abridged) evolution of Finch. The MS printed out on both sides, followed by the proof, followed by the release, followed by the super-saiyan-insane-bling Heretic Limited Edition. If only all books achieved such a state of being, because the camera does not do Heretic justice. It's so shiny and glittery and a block of literal and literary gold.

I almost feel like I can't and shouldn't write my thoughts on the book, seeing as I was privileged with punching it in the nuts a few times when it wasn't properly hatched. When you've approached a book from a critical approach, your relationship with it is different than if you'd picked it up to read for pleasure. You force yourself to hunt out any tick or smudge that could be polished up to make it bigger, brighter, better, you're unwilling and unable to forgive anything. At least, that's how I am with stories I've critiqued.

I picked up the market release (I do not let Heretic out of its bag) and read it out of curiosity, to see how the butterfly had emerged from the cocoon. It remains a fucked up cocoon and a fucked up butterfly. Barely a year since I read the MS, no surprises left for me, and it didn't matter. I ate it in a day. Again.

It's garnered all sorts of praise and accolades since being released into the wild, and it deserves it.

(Yay Rathven! Oh Whyte!)

Verdict: It's Jeff Fucking VanderMeer. I do not froth about the brain over his writing without exceptionally good reason.

In Patagonia - Bruce Chatwin

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

If Miss Apricot stretches her neck....she still fails to look like a guanaco on the pampas.

On the back here it says 'The book that redefined travel writing'.

Really? 'cause I just read a book by some Dane that was published 38 years before hand, and it worked better for me. Perhaps I'm just a simple minded fool who likes looking at pictures.

In a way, they both did the same thing: dug up the stories around them. Chatwin told the stories of the towns he passed through, the people who gave him lifts, and the estanicas he visited. And then, occasionally he didn't. Sometimes, he would merely describe the scene before him, and leave it to the reader to cast judgments, if there were any to be made. He go on great tangents, talking of references to the land made in literature, references generally stolen from other references. Or he would narrate some explorers voyage, some hundreds of years ago, and in great ambling loops bring that history back around to the person he was seeking, or the ground he stood upon.

Unlike Mielche, he was quite absent from the text. If he wanted to be there, it didn't show. If he didn't want to be there, it didn't show. Was this the redefinition spoken of? I haven't read much travel writing, so I don't know what the norm is, or was. It felt like I was looking over the shoulder of someone who didn't care, this absence.

I was quite taken by the brontosaurus skin, though. And the unicorn.

Written as it was much later that Mielche's, there are none of the native tribes left, and I felt this absence as well. All the people he talked to were ex-pats and immigrants from far, far away, dreaming of a home they couldn't run any further from. He paints Patagonia as a strange place of exile.

Apparently this is the book people take to Patagonia. I'd prefer Mielche's company.

Verdict: ignoring the pigeon-hole of travel writing, this is actually a very interesting book, and an excellent read.

The Stainless Steel Rat - Harry Harrison

(Spartacus and the Decepticon aren't talking, so I had to upload the photo over TweetDeck.)
buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

This was another book loaned to me by yet another person working on the same floor at my secondment. Maybe they don't meet many other readers, or readers of genre. I had to practically fend off the book recommendations with a stick.

This was one of two books he loaned me. The other I got some twenty pages in and had to stop. In comparison, this book was a marvel.

It follows the Stainless Steel Rat, aka, Slippery Jim, aka many many names, one of the greatest criminals out there, and given the advances of civilisation and technology, one of very few criminals left at large. And he is a fantastic con man, I have to say. Quite impressed with all his heists and the audacity that comes naturally to him. He's a character that sits comfortably on 'cocky' without straying into 'arrogant'. Much to his horror, he appears to have some sense of social justice and even worse, a conscience! Not useful traits for criminals.

It's age is showing; the future predicted has already been well and truly jettisoned, but it remains a solid little story.

Unfortunately, it suffers in its depiction of women.

Holy fucking shit does it suffer.

And I'm about to spoil Madame Antagonist's key motivation, so if you're interested in reading look away for a moment-



Dude, she turns into the greatest and most ruthless criminal in the universe, one without conscience, because she was born ugly. Yeah. Surgery fixed that, but she was born ugly. That makes her bad. Because to be an ugly woman is to be an unperson, a worthless and pointless and useless woman, failing to be a proper woman because you have to be good looking to accomplish that. And the fact that she's beautiful now makes her worth saving.




AUGH.

Aside from that, yes, good tight and highly amusing bit of writing.

Verdict: I don't feel compelled to overlook that 'aside' however.

The Misenchanted Sword - Lawrence Watt-Evans

buy - author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

This book was lent to me by one of the guys working on the same floor when I was on my secondment earlier in the year. Generally, I'm against the borrowing of books, from either end of the bargain. I like to own the books I read, and don't like being responsible for other people's books even though I'm well aware most people aren't so ridiculously anal retentive. But I couldn't really say no, so I read it fast.

It's old high fantasy, sword and sorcery. It has wizardry against sorcery, oooold school fantasy kingdoms fighting oooooold school wars. Dragons. The sort of thing I scrunch my nose at a bit now days.

Found myself enjoying it though, perhaps because, after the last few books, it asked absolutely nothing of me. The main character (whose name I don't remember and I don't have the book here so I can't look up) is a great big void. People complain of Bella Swan being a hole, this guy is even more so. He has no personal history, no personality quirks, no future goals, he's just a vessel moving the story around. Not a stupid vessel, nor an annoying one, but entirely devoid of depth.

He gets himself in a bit of a bind behind enemy lines, encounters a wizard who gives him the sword of the title, and from there, his life gets complicated.

I was never quite sure exactly where the story was heading. I thought it would follow standard sword and sorcery plot structure, but it started edging off sideways with the end of the war and economic turmoil that followed. In fact, it's a surprising book. Never quite gains depth, but doesn't do what you'd expect it to.

It has a twist ending. Normally such a thing would make me scrunch up my noise, but it was so simply pulled off that I laughed out loud.

Verdict: not a great work of art, but it was fun, easy light reading, and gave me a hankering to go back and find my old fat fantasy books, 'cause there are some styles of story you just can't get away with these days. Which occasionally is a pity.