I'm having a good reading month. I've just had a run of books that were above average, though I haven't blogged about all of them. When I started The Hollow City, I was thinking that it might be even better than Daryl Gregory's Pandemonium, which I loved. Unfortunately the second half of the book wasn't quite as enjoyable for me as the first half.
The Hollow City begins with our protagonist, Michael, waking up in a hospital with no memory (or only vague and unrealistic memories) of the last two weeks. He's told that he'd been living rough and he'd fallen, but the details are foggy. It also isn't ever really explained how he knew that two weeks had passed since his last memories, if he didn't remember it. At any rate, two weeks previously he stopped going to work and dropped out of sight, and ended up in a hospital bed surrounded by a group of doctors behaving a bit oddly.
Michael freaks out when he realizes there's a piece of electronic equipment in the room, which leads to him panicking and trying to escape, which leads to him being sedated, restrained, and sent to a mental hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. There are hints that the police think he might be a serial killer, or a witness to a killing, or maybe just a person of interest, but Michael doesn't know the details and that's never really explained to the reader. From what I could gather, they didn't have any particularly good reason for thinking it was him, but this is a horror novel so it doesn't try too hard for logic.
Michael spends quite a while trying to sort out if he really is crazy, or if he's just reacting to stimuli that no one else is able to see. After all, you're not paranoid if someone really is trying to get you, and Michael is pretty sure that They have been watching him. This part of the story is really, really good. It pushed buttons I didn't even know I had, and I just loved the first two hundred pages or so. Michael's attempts to cope with his situation and rationally consider if he might have done something awful and not remember it, and the gradual reveal that he's an even more unreliable narrator than you realized--that some of the things he's experiencing aren't real--is just wonderful and deeply satisfying.
It couldn't last forever, though, and in time Michael needs to figure out what's behind his weirdness and, for that matter, the killings he may be suspected of committing. After the buildup, I think nearly any resolution might be disappointing, and this one certainly was. I have to say, it was not a solution that ever would have occurred to me. Perhaps it's because this is a horror novel (and I seem to be reading more horror again, though it isn't deliberate) and I'm not really a horror reader, but this went off in a direction that left me unsatisfied. And so did the way Michael handled the problem. If I try to think about it too much, I just don't see how that would work. (I am being deliberately vague here, because I don't want to spoil it. The joy of a book like this is in the discovery of what happens next.)
So it fizzled a bit at the end, probably due to my different-genre expectations. As someone who hasn't read horror in twenty years or so, I expect a different sort of ending. Which, I hasten to add, is not because it's a bad ending, it's because I'm reading outside my usual comfort zone and things are different over here and it threw me off balance a bit. I still gave it four stars, it's just that 200 pages in I thought it might turn out to be my favorite book of the year, before it went off in another direction I didn't like as well. So it wasn't a five star read in the end, but still I would highly recommend it. This book is still well above the average quality of what I've read this year, and I'm very happy I read it.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory
Reading Pandemonium reminded me of what's been lacking recently in my reading. I've been reading a lot of books that I found entertaining, and struggling a bit to find much to say about them when writing blog entries, because there just wasn't that much to say about them other than a plot synopsis and a brief paragraph on why I liked it or didn't. I especially have this problem with mysteries, because even a really good mystery novel is, for me, just a way to spend a few hours. It distracts and entertains, but doesn't move me or challenge me or take me places I haven't been before.
Pandemonium reminded me why I read speculative fiction. I've been taking a bit of a break recently, reading lighter works--mystery, urban fantasy, paranormal romances--but a really good work of SF can be a much deeper and more satisfying read. A good work of SF can nourish your mind and your soul. And Pandemonium is a very good work of SF.
I'm sorry that it took me so long to get to this one. I read the author's second book, The Devil's Alphabet, a few years ago, and found it very interesting but also essentially unpleasant, and though I put Pandemonium on my mental to-read list, I didn't hurry to find it. It also didn't help that the library had it shelved in the wrong place, making it less likely I would stumble upon it while browsing.
Pandemonium is set in our world, but not exactly. People are sometimes possessed by demons, which often fall into recognizable archetypes. There is Truth, who wears a fedora and a trenchcoat, and shoots people who are lying. There is the Painter, who temporarily possesses someone to create a work of art. The Little Angel, who possesses pretty little girls who then appear in hospitals delivering the kiss of death. And several others. Our protagonist, Del, was possessed in his childhood by the Hellion-- "It was a Dennis the Menace, a Spanky, a Katzenjammer Kid. It possessed boys who were at least four and never older than nine--towheaded kids with impish smiles and fly-away hair--and turned them into scampering brats with Woody Woodpecker laughs. The Hellion was the eternal prankster. He booby-trapped doorways with paint buckets, threw baseballs through windows, slipped snakes into beds. Whipped out his homemade slingshot and knocked those glasses right off your head."
Del eventually got rid of the demon, or so his family thought. But he still has strange sensations, and even therapy is no longer helping. He has decided that the demon never left him, it just got trapped inside him--and now it's trying to get out. He sleepwalks, he screams and breaks things. He was committed to a psychiatric hospital, where all they could do was drug him senseless and lock him in a night. He's out of the hospital now, and has a mission--he wants to talk to a researcher who he thinks might be able to help him remove the demon from his body.
Pandemonium is an insiders' book. There are rewards for those of us who are well-steeped in the genre, like the scene where he's at a party with a bunch of people (at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago, where Worldcon was held in 2000 and will be held again a couple of weeks from now) discussing the difference between science fiction and fantasy with the demonically possessed body of Philip K. Dick. It's loads of fun, but definitely aimed at fandom, not a general reader.
Del has many surreal adventures, and encounters others who have been demon-possessed, and the wonderful thing about this novel is that I never had any idea where it was going or what would happen next. It's such a refreshing change to read a book that truly surprises me. It's also a mature and satisfying book in that the problem is difficult and painful, and there are no easy solutions, and you don't just have to find the right person who has the answer and then everything will be okay. That's not how real life usually works, but often fantasy does. A resolution is eventually reached, but it isn't easy on anyone. It is quite satisfying, though.
I loved Pandemonium, and am somewhat bewildered that it didn't receive more attention (at least in the places I hang out, online and in real life) when it came out. This is a truly amazing book, both an entertaining and deeply satisfying read. Now I need to track down a copy of Raising Stony Mayhall.
Pandemonium reminded me why I read speculative fiction. I've been taking a bit of a break recently, reading lighter works--mystery, urban fantasy, paranormal romances--but a really good work of SF can be a much deeper and more satisfying read. A good work of SF can nourish your mind and your soul. And Pandemonium is a very good work of SF.
I'm sorry that it took me so long to get to this one. I read the author's second book, The Devil's Alphabet, a few years ago, and found it very interesting but also essentially unpleasant, and though I put Pandemonium on my mental to-read list, I didn't hurry to find it. It also didn't help that the library had it shelved in the wrong place, making it less likely I would stumble upon it while browsing.
Pandemonium is set in our world, but not exactly. People are sometimes possessed by demons, which often fall into recognizable archetypes. There is Truth, who wears a fedora and a trenchcoat, and shoots people who are lying. There is the Painter, who temporarily possesses someone to create a work of art. The Little Angel, who possesses pretty little girls who then appear in hospitals delivering the kiss of death. And several others. Our protagonist, Del, was possessed in his childhood by the Hellion-- "It was a Dennis the Menace, a Spanky, a Katzenjammer Kid. It possessed boys who were at least four and never older than nine--towheaded kids with impish smiles and fly-away hair--and turned them into scampering brats with Woody Woodpecker laughs. The Hellion was the eternal prankster. He booby-trapped doorways with paint buckets, threw baseballs through windows, slipped snakes into beds. Whipped out his homemade slingshot and knocked those glasses right off your head."
Del eventually got rid of the demon, or so his family thought. But he still has strange sensations, and even therapy is no longer helping. He has decided that the demon never left him, it just got trapped inside him--and now it's trying to get out. He sleepwalks, he screams and breaks things. He was committed to a psychiatric hospital, where all they could do was drug him senseless and lock him in a night. He's out of the hospital now, and has a mission--he wants to talk to a researcher who he thinks might be able to help him remove the demon from his body.
Pandemonium is an insiders' book. There are rewards for those of us who are well-steeped in the genre, like the scene where he's at a party with a bunch of people (at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago, where Worldcon was held in 2000 and will be held again a couple of weeks from now) discussing the difference between science fiction and fantasy with the demonically possessed body of Philip K. Dick. It's loads of fun, but definitely aimed at fandom, not a general reader.
Del has many surreal adventures, and encounters others who have been demon-possessed, and the wonderful thing about this novel is that I never had any idea where it was going or what would happen next. It's such a refreshing change to read a book that truly surprises me. It's also a mature and satisfying book in that the problem is difficult and painful, and there are no easy solutions, and you don't just have to find the right person who has the answer and then everything will be okay. That's not how real life usually works, but often fantasy does. A resolution is eventually reached, but it isn't easy on anyone. It is quite satisfying, though.
I loved Pandemonium, and am somewhat bewildered that it didn't receive more attention (at least in the places I hang out, online and in real life) when it came out. This is a truly amazing book, both an entertaining and deeply satisfying read. Now I need to track down a copy of Raising Stony Mayhall.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews
This is the second in the Kate Daniels urban fantasy series. Kate has now mostly moved to Atlanta, where she holds a newly-created position of liaison between the Mercenary Guild and the Order of Merciful Aid, both of which exist largely to kill dangerous monsters. At the beginning she is doing a mercenary job with her shapeshifter friend Jim, subduing a man with a chameleon who wants to burn down Atlanta. They capture him and the chameleon safely, but then their catch is shot by a mysterious assassin before they can take him in. Kate decides to investigate who the killer is.
Her search leads her to a site where some powerful magic has been worked, and a boy she owes a favor to entrusts into her care a 13 year old girl whose mother, a witch, is missing. Kate spends the rest of the novel trying to protect the girl and fighting off various monsters who keep popping up and attacking. She eventually learns that the girl's mother's coven summoned a Fomorian deity (sort of the Irish equivalent of a Titan) who is anxious to enter the mortal world and take it for his own, killing humanity in the process.
Kate again ends up working closely with the aid of the shapeshifters, and she and their leader, Curran, continue to drive each other nuts in a way that signals to an experienced reader that it may end in romance. He is certainly interested, but she is not. Anyway, facing a threat that could wipe out humanity, it is a dire fight at the end, and Kate lets loose what she's been hiding within herself. She still doesn't explain to the reader what she is, but she is clearly not human, or only partly human. That makes her strength and kickassedness a little bit more plausible than so many urban fantasy heroines. And I will say again: it's so nice that she's not a self-absorbed little idiot like so many of them are.
Overall, Magic Burns is a very solid and entertaining read. I have mostly forgiven Kate for some of the obnoxious things she did at the beginning of the prior book, and I look forward to reading more. Andrews has me hooked.
Her search leads her to a site where some powerful magic has been worked, and a boy she owes a favor to entrusts into her care a 13 year old girl whose mother, a witch, is missing. Kate spends the rest of the novel trying to protect the girl and fighting off various monsters who keep popping up and attacking. She eventually learns that the girl's mother's coven summoned a Fomorian deity (sort of the Irish equivalent of a Titan) who is anxious to enter the mortal world and take it for his own, killing humanity in the process.
Kate again ends up working closely with the aid of the shapeshifters, and she and their leader, Curran, continue to drive each other nuts in a way that signals to an experienced reader that it may end in romance. He is certainly interested, but she is not. Anyway, facing a threat that could wipe out humanity, it is a dire fight at the end, and Kate lets loose what she's been hiding within herself. She still doesn't explain to the reader what she is, but she is clearly not human, or only partly human. That makes her strength and kickassedness a little bit more plausible than so many urban fantasy heroines. And I will say again: it's so nice that she's not a self-absorbed little idiot like so many of them are.
Overall, Magic Burns is a very solid and entertaining read. I have mostly forgiven Kate for some of the obnoxious things she did at the beginning of the prior book, and I look forward to reading more. Andrews has me hooked.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
The Memory of Blood by Christopher Fowler
Christopher Fowler has a series of novels featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit of the police force. This is the second one I've attempted, and the first I've finished. The primary characters are Arthur Bryant and John May, wily and peculiar old detectives with unorthodox methods--particularly Bryant. They also have a staff of officers working for them, and Fowler kindly provided a cast list and description at the beginning, which was very helpful as I otherwise would have had trouble keeping them straight.
We begin the novel at a theatrical party in a penthouse apartment. A new play is about to open, and the owner of the newly-opened theater has invited the cast and crew and the reviewers to his apartment to mingle and get drunk. There are various tensions, both among the theatricals and between the obnoxious millionaire and his insecure, much-younger wife who he feels isn't doing a good enough job of being the graceful hostess. It is a stormy night, and they become aware of a cold, wet draft. They go upstairs to check on their baby and find the bedroom door locked from the inside. When they force it open, they find a window is open and the baby is missing -- having been tossed out the window to its death. An antique Mr. Punch puppet lies near the crib.
This seems to be right up Bryant's alley, as he has a fascination with the theater and with Punch and Judy. While all his colleagues treat it as a perplexing but mortal crime and try to figure out who would have motive and opportunity, Bryant seems to be seriously considering that the baby was murdered by Mr. Punch, and goes off on tangents about the history of Punch and what he represents. I have to say, Punch and Judy is one of those things about British culture that I truly don't understand, probably like most Americans.
There follow more murders, and they slowly hone in on the fact that the obnoxious millionaire is the intended victim, not the killer. Fowler tries to throw in a couple of red herrings, one of which surprised me and the other didn't fool me for a moment. Nevertheless, it was a surprise when the killer is revealed, particularly since we had been told more than once that he was one of the few people they were certain hadn't done it. I thought it a little bit strange that they kept bringing him in and consulting him, though, so there was always something a bit odd about how he was handled.
At any rate, this was a quite entertaining book that nevertheless didn't really hold up, structurally. We are dragged to the seaside, to a wax museum, to an specialist toy shop, and to a fake medieval dungeon, and while it was an interesting diversion most of it had nothing to do with the crime or finding the solution. It's like an entertaining misdirection so that you don't see what a magician is really up to. There is always a hint that maybe there's something unnatural or supernatural about what's going on, but in the end it's just a revenge plot. Oh, well.
So, this book is entertaining but meandering, and a little bit disappointing. That said, I was entertained enough to get another from the library, so clearly I liked it well enough. I just would have liked it better if the solution really were non-mundane in the end.
We begin the novel at a theatrical party in a penthouse apartment. A new play is about to open, and the owner of the newly-opened theater has invited the cast and crew and the reviewers to his apartment to mingle and get drunk. There are various tensions, both among the theatricals and between the obnoxious millionaire and his insecure, much-younger wife who he feels isn't doing a good enough job of being the graceful hostess. It is a stormy night, and they become aware of a cold, wet draft. They go upstairs to check on their baby and find the bedroom door locked from the inside. When they force it open, they find a window is open and the baby is missing -- having been tossed out the window to its death. An antique Mr. Punch puppet lies near the crib.
This seems to be right up Bryant's alley, as he has a fascination with the theater and with Punch and Judy. While all his colleagues treat it as a perplexing but mortal crime and try to figure out who would have motive and opportunity, Bryant seems to be seriously considering that the baby was murdered by Mr. Punch, and goes off on tangents about the history of Punch and what he represents. I have to say, Punch and Judy is one of those things about British culture that I truly don't understand, probably like most Americans.
There follow more murders, and they slowly hone in on the fact that the obnoxious millionaire is the intended victim, not the killer. Fowler tries to throw in a couple of red herrings, one of which surprised me and the other didn't fool me for a moment. Nevertheless, it was a surprise when the killer is revealed, particularly since we had been told more than once that he was one of the few people they were certain hadn't done it. I thought it a little bit strange that they kept bringing him in and consulting him, though, so there was always something a bit odd about how he was handled.
At any rate, this was a quite entertaining book that nevertheless didn't really hold up, structurally. We are dragged to the seaside, to a wax museum, to an specialist toy shop, and to a fake medieval dungeon, and while it was an interesting diversion most of it had nothing to do with the crime or finding the solution. It's like an entertaining misdirection so that you don't see what a magician is really up to. There is always a hint that maybe there's something unnatural or supernatural about what's going on, but in the end it's just a revenge plot. Oh, well.
So, this book is entertaining but meandering, and a little bit disappointing. That said, I was entertained enough to get another from the library, so clearly I liked it well enough. I just would have liked it better if the solution really were non-mundane in the end.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Wicked Autumn by G.M. Maillet
It's hard to be sure if this book fell flat for me due to its qualities, or if it was because I was tired, distracted, and not feeling well when I read it.
Wicked Autumn is basically an English village cosy mystery. In a nutshell, the bossy and abrasive woman who is running the autumn Fayre (can I mention how much that spelling rubbed me the wrong way?) is murdered, and it's up to the handsome vicar to solve it. He is not an average vicar, however, as he entered the clergy when he left MI5 after a crisis of faith when a friend was killed. This doesn't necessarily make him qualified to investigate crimes, as he was in the spy business, not an investigator. But it marks him out as an exceptional character with an exceptional (and frankly unbelievable) past. I wanted to like him, really, but he's surprisingly flat and shallow, even when Maillet reveals the painful secrets of his past.
I really enjoyed the novel at first. The village of Nether Monkslip is also unbelievable, picturesque and fairly isolated, with a cast of characters who have the kinds of careers people in mystery novels do: knitwear designer, bakery owner, new-age shop owner, antique shop owner, restaurant owner, and of course retired military man. I was having quite a lot of fun with the village and their justifiable anger with the woman who ended up dead. But once she had been killed, I found the book rather flat and dull. The police ask the vicar to look into the matter because people might be more open with him, and he spends most of the book going around talking to people and thinking about them. I wasn't at all surprised by who the killer was, I just didn't know why he had done it until the end, where it's revealed that he's secretly gay! (gasp) There are potential problems with revealing that the reason someone was the killer was because they were gay -- it isn't necessarily a bigoted choice by the writer, but it can easily come across that way. And to make things more tedious, there is a wrap-up chapter at the end where the vicar explains to the policeman how he figured it out, going through all the stuff we've already read again in laborious detail, and then explaining the things that really tipped him off -- most of which we don't hear about until this last chapter. And even so, the things which supposedly led him to the right conclusion are so very slight, so shallow and nonsensical, that they don't read as anything like believable. In short, I just didn't believe the nonsense he was spouting.
Wicked Autumn isn't a bad book. In fact it was quite fun up until a certain point, and I fully expected to enjoy it. Unfortunately it lost its momentum in the second half and in the end it was a bit tedious, which is too bad. It's focuses on so many characters, yet they are all so flat and cut-out, that it kind of reminds me of what people used to say about the Platte River: a mile wide and an inch deep.
Wicked Autumn is basically an English village cosy mystery. In a nutshell, the bossy and abrasive woman who is running the autumn Fayre (can I mention how much that spelling rubbed me the wrong way?) is murdered, and it's up to the handsome vicar to solve it. He is not an average vicar, however, as he entered the clergy when he left MI5 after a crisis of faith when a friend was killed. This doesn't necessarily make him qualified to investigate crimes, as he was in the spy business, not an investigator. But it marks him out as an exceptional character with an exceptional (and frankly unbelievable) past. I wanted to like him, really, but he's surprisingly flat and shallow, even when Maillet reveals the painful secrets of his past.
I really enjoyed the novel at first. The village of Nether Monkslip is also unbelievable, picturesque and fairly isolated, with a cast of characters who have the kinds of careers people in mystery novels do: knitwear designer, bakery owner, new-age shop owner, antique shop owner, restaurant owner, and of course retired military man. I was having quite a lot of fun with the village and their justifiable anger with the woman who ended up dead. But once she had been killed, I found the book rather flat and dull. The police ask the vicar to look into the matter because people might be more open with him, and he spends most of the book going around talking to people and thinking about them. I wasn't at all surprised by who the killer was, I just didn't know why he had done it until the end, where it's revealed that he's secretly gay! (gasp) There are potential problems with revealing that the reason someone was the killer was because they were gay -- it isn't necessarily a bigoted choice by the writer, but it can easily come across that way. And to make things more tedious, there is a wrap-up chapter at the end where the vicar explains to the policeman how he figured it out, going through all the stuff we've already read again in laborious detail, and then explaining the things that really tipped him off -- most of which we don't hear about until this last chapter. And even so, the things which supposedly led him to the right conclusion are so very slight, so shallow and nonsensical, that they don't read as anything like believable. In short, I just didn't believe the nonsense he was spouting.
Wicked Autumn isn't a bad book. In fact it was quite fun up until a certain point, and I fully expected to enjoy it. Unfortunately it lost its momentum in the second half and in the end it was a bit tedious, which is too bad. It's focuses on so many characters, yet they are all so flat and cut-out, that it kind of reminds me of what people used to say about the Platte River: a mile wide and an inch deep.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
1222 by Anne Holt
I do not have a good relationship with Scandinavian mysteries. I've picked up a few over the years, and my mystery group in the last year read a steady stream of them, and I couldn't get through most of them. So I wasn't expecting much when I picked 1222 off the rack at the library.
In some ways, however, 1222 is a very old-fashioned mystery, and reminds me more of old Golden Age mysteries than modern Scandinavian thrillers, which is probably why I was able to get through it. There is a sense of unreality (or implausibility) that appealed to my SF & fantasy reader sensibilities. It's not believable. But that's probably why I enjoyed it.
Our protagonist, Hanne, was a police officer until she was shot and suffered a severe spinal injury. She is now in a wheelchair, and about four years removed from her former career. She is not likable. She didn't like people very much even before she was injured, and now she is effectively housebound by choice as she doesn't like to deal with anyone but her lover and their child.
In 1222 she is traveling to Bergen to consult a specialist about some nagging but troubling health problems she's been having. The train derails in the mountains, and the passengers are able to get to a nearby hotel, a huge old place that was nearly empty, yet strangely has a fully stocked kitchen and kitchen crew to provide plenty of delicious food to the hundreds of unexpected guests. They are trapped there by a storm that is raging, making it nearly impossible even to step outside, and thus no one can come rescue them for a few days. Hanne proceeds to make herself extremely unpleasant to nearly everyone around her. Despite that some of them seem to come to like her reasonably well anyway, but she keeps doing everything she can to destroy any bonds of friendship that might be forming. In that I found her quite unbelievable. Her thoughts about what an awful childhood she had, or how she's learned never to form any attachments to anyone but her lover, are all very dark and brooding and dramatic, but this woman is too seriously damaged or perhaps melodramatic to be believed. In some ways she thinks like a teenager, not a middle-aged woman.
Anyway, they are trapped in a huge old hotel with a hurricane-force blizzard raging outside, and then someone is murdered. Hanne is asked to get involved, as the folks from the hotel know she's a former law officer, and she is very uninterested, insisting that the police can take care of it once they're rescued. The storm rages longer than she expected, though, and then someone else dies, and she is reluctangly drawn into figuring it out. Meanwhile everyone is aflutter with rumors about an extra car on the end of their train, and the armed guards that came with it, and trying to guess who it might be. (The answer: not entirely clear, but it's strongly hinted that it's Osama bin Laden, being hidden away by the Norwegian police to prevent the Americans from asking for his extradition) This part of the storyline was not enjoyable to me. One of the things about Scandinavian thrillers I don't like is when they go political, and there was a strong whiff of that about this one, and hints about Hanne's backstory that indicate that she's like the paralyzed lesbian Norwegian equivalent of Jack Ryan. Which is why I won't be reading any more of the series.
Nevertheless, the puzzle of being trapped by a storm and wondering who the killer is was quite absorbing. I read the book in a day, despite the inconvenience of having to go to work seriously interfering with my reading time. In reviews I've glanced at, people keep mentioning Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, and certainly Holt is trying to make that connection with the way she wrote it. But I would throw out another Christie that it reminded me of: The Mousetrap. There is an unreality about the situation that I found quite enjoyable, and most of the characters except Hanne were interesting and some of them likable. I was frustrated that it ended when it did, as there was at least one loose end that I would have liked to have had tied up better, and I was also very frustrated with the insertion of a mysterious political prisoner. Otherwise, though, it was a very entertaining read. But I won't read any others in the series, as I'm quite sure I wouldn't like them as well.
In some ways, however, 1222 is a very old-fashioned mystery, and reminds me more of old Golden Age mysteries than modern Scandinavian thrillers, which is probably why I was able to get through it. There is a sense of unreality (or implausibility) that appealed to my SF & fantasy reader sensibilities. It's not believable. But that's probably why I enjoyed it.
Our protagonist, Hanne, was a police officer until she was shot and suffered a severe spinal injury. She is now in a wheelchair, and about four years removed from her former career. She is not likable. She didn't like people very much even before she was injured, and now she is effectively housebound by choice as she doesn't like to deal with anyone but her lover and their child.
In 1222 she is traveling to Bergen to consult a specialist about some nagging but troubling health problems she's been having. The train derails in the mountains, and the passengers are able to get to a nearby hotel, a huge old place that was nearly empty, yet strangely has a fully stocked kitchen and kitchen crew to provide plenty of delicious food to the hundreds of unexpected guests. They are trapped there by a storm that is raging, making it nearly impossible even to step outside, and thus no one can come rescue them for a few days. Hanne proceeds to make herself extremely unpleasant to nearly everyone around her. Despite that some of them seem to come to like her reasonably well anyway, but she keeps doing everything she can to destroy any bonds of friendship that might be forming. In that I found her quite unbelievable. Her thoughts about what an awful childhood she had, or how she's learned never to form any attachments to anyone but her lover, are all very dark and brooding and dramatic, but this woman is too seriously damaged or perhaps melodramatic to be believed. In some ways she thinks like a teenager, not a middle-aged woman.
Anyway, they are trapped in a huge old hotel with a hurricane-force blizzard raging outside, and then someone is murdered. Hanne is asked to get involved, as the folks from the hotel know she's a former law officer, and she is very uninterested, insisting that the police can take care of it once they're rescued. The storm rages longer than she expected, though, and then someone else dies, and she is reluctangly drawn into figuring it out. Meanwhile everyone is aflutter with rumors about an extra car on the end of their train, and the armed guards that came with it, and trying to guess who it might be. (The answer: not entirely clear, but it's strongly hinted that it's Osama bin Laden, being hidden away by the Norwegian police to prevent the Americans from asking for his extradition) This part of the storyline was not enjoyable to me. One of the things about Scandinavian thrillers I don't like is when they go political, and there was a strong whiff of that about this one, and hints about Hanne's backstory that indicate that she's like the paralyzed lesbian Norwegian equivalent of Jack Ryan. Which is why I won't be reading any more of the series.
Nevertheless, the puzzle of being trapped by a storm and wondering who the killer is was quite absorbing. I read the book in a day, despite the inconvenience of having to go to work seriously interfering with my reading time. In reviews I've glanced at, people keep mentioning Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, and certainly Holt is trying to make that connection with the way she wrote it. But I would throw out another Christie that it reminded me of: The Mousetrap. There is an unreality about the situation that I found quite enjoyable, and most of the characters except Hanne were interesting and some of them likable. I was frustrated that it ended when it did, as there was at least one loose end that I would have liked to have had tied up better, and I was also very frustrated with the insertion of a mysterious political prisoner. Otherwise, though, it was a very entertaining read. But I won't read any others in the series, as I'm quite sure I wouldn't like them as well.
Monday, August 6, 2012
The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross
The Apocalypse Codex is the latest entry in Stross's series about The Laundry, a department of the British government that is so secret it doesn't officially exist. They exist to deal with supernatural problems. Our narrator, Bob, is an IT guy who was forcibly recruited into the organization when he accidentally nearly caused a supernatural disaster, as computers can be powerful tools in magical rites. Now he works in a government bureaucracy under the mostly benevolent eye of his boss, Angleton, who is himself a scary creature from another dimension.
Bob has been working his way up the ladder of responsibility, and has apparently been put on the management track. In The Apocalypse Codex he is assigned to another department, Externalities, who seem to be The Laundry's version of Special Circumstances (this is a reference to Iain Banks's Culture novels, in case you haven't read them). They want to test Bob to see how he does, and so he is sent off to the US to watch over a couple of genuine spy novel-type heroes (all of these books are based on various spy novels, though I don't recognize most of the references because I don't read spy novels) without a proper briefing or a well-explained job. Bob grumps around and does his best, until the shit hits the fan and then he steps up and does rather well, actually.
Because Bob never has enough information, it's hard to tell with these books how much of what happens is a surprise to his superiors, and how often they're actually calmly sitting back with full knowledge and watching him flail around. In this case, the Apocalypse that Bob and his companions seem uniquely placed to prevent appears to be an unpleasant surprise to The Laundry. On the other hand, it is unclear whether the Black Council, the US version of The Laundry, are wanting to stop it, or if they're the ones behind it.
I have to say, I occasionally read books by British SF writers that lead me to think they have peculiar ideas about the US and religion, and this is one of them. Even in Colorado (where this book is set), the vast majority of the US population are not mindlessly fervent members of super churches. And the idea that they could convert all of the law enforcement, all the FBI agents, all the airport personnel, nearly all the state troopers -- simply ridiculous. I know televangelists and the acutely and unfortunately devoted are an easy target when looking for something to go wrong in America, but they just aren't THAT influential. Even in Colorado, which is a magnet for a fair portion of the West's whack-jobs and loonies.
Overall, I found The Apocalypse Codex a fairly enjoyable read, but also fairly minor and forgettable. I was entertained as I read it, but it's not the sort of book I'm likely to ever want to re-read. In that, it's a fairly typical Ace book.
Bob has been working his way up the ladder of responsibility, and has apparently been put on the management track. In The Apocalypse Codex he is assigned to another department, Externalities, who seem to be The Laundry's version of Special Circumstances (this is a reference to Iain Banks's Culture novels, in case you haven't read them). They want to test Bob to see how he does, and so he is sent off to the US to watch over a couple of genuine spy novel-type heroes (all of these books are based on various spy novels, though I don't recognize most of the references because I don't read spy novels) without a proper briefing or a well-explained job. Bob grumps around and does his best, until the shit hits the fan and then he steps up and does rather well, actually.
Because Bob never has enough information, it's hard to tell with these books how much of what happens is a surprise to his superiors, and how often they're actually calmly sitting back with full knowledge and watching him flail around. In this case, the Apocalypse that Bob and his companions seem uniquely placed to prevent appears to be an unpleasant surprise to The Laundry. On the other hand, it is unclear whether the Black Council, the US version of The Laundry, are wanting to stop it, or if they're the ones behind it.
I have to say, I occasionally read books by British SF writers that lead me to think they have peculiar ideas about the US and religion, and this is one of them. Even in Colorado (where this book is set), the vast majority of the US population are not mindlessly fervent members of super churches. And the idea that they could convert all of the law enforcement, all the FBI agents, all the airport personnel, nearly all the state troopers -- simply ridiculous. I know televangelists and the acutely and unfortunately devoted are an easy target when looking for something to go wrong in America, but they just aren't THAT influential. Even in Colorado, which is a magnet for a fair portion of the West's whack-jobs and loonies.
Overall, I found The Apocalypse Codex a fairly enjoyable read, but also fairly minor and forgettable. I was entertained as I read it, but it's not the sort of book I'm likely to ever want to re-read. In that, it's a fairly typical Ace book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)