In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 34/52

Six books last week; that's 31st March to the 6th of April.  Four I'd read before; only two were new to me.

Caradoc's Quest was one of those.  It's part of the Six World's Saga, one of which I read and enjoyed in my early teens.  It's set in a future where humanity has gone to stars, populating six planets which circle two twinned stars.  All religion has been lost - no religion but Christianity appears to have ever existed - and the heros are general trying to bring Christanity back.  I'm an atheist, but I attended a Catholic school, and I'll tell you this for nothing; the Bible is pretty epic.  If you ignore any real life implications and just read it as a story it's a long, winding saga about one family and the shenanigans they get up to.  If the book was the one ring, this thing would be fun than Tolkien.  The Qu'ran and the Torah are the same; they're very broadly the same story, literally the same family.  The Torah disagrees on the point of Jesus, and the Qu'ran splits off on the point of whether it was Isaac or Ishmael that Abraham/Ibrahim tried to sacrifice before god called 'psych!'.  If you've read The Handmaid's Tale then allow me to point out that this is the story used to justify the handmaid's; Sarah, Abraham's wife believed she was too older to bear children, so she encouraged Abraham to have a child with a concubine.  Later, she was actually able to have a son.  The latter was Isaac, the former Ishmael.  So it does seem odd that the society of The Handmaid's Tale is based on Christianity, when this particular story would better suit their needs in the Islamic interpretation.  Though, on second thought, it's not that odd; they were using whatever they could to justify what they wanted to do, rather than letting conclusions come from information.  Reminds me of an argument I had with an ex-housemate; he insisted that being gay was wrong because "it's in the Bible"; when I asked him about adultery and shellfish he claimed those examples were irrelevant because "people don't care about those".  Totally incapable of recognising his own circular logic there.

American Gods is a book I first read a few years ago; it's set in a world where Gods work based on belief and many travellers brought their gods to America with them.  The old Gods are going to war with the new Gods, and there's a whole boatload of symbolism, as well as some lampshade-hanging on how similar many of the stories are.

Clare in the Community - season 6 and 7 this week - is a radio show, with the titular Clare voiced by Sally Phillips.  She's lovely.  I particularly like her work in Smack the Pony.

Neil Patrick Harris' Choose Your Own Autobiography is another book I've read before.  It have the audiobook, which loses something in the translation; I'm tempted to borrow the physical book from the library, especially after reading this lovely review by Emily Short.

Finally, Sleep Tight is the other book which was new to me; it's an audiobook I was given by the author, so I do need to write a specific post for it!

In Which We Discuss Dolores Claiborne

When I was younger - between the ages of nine and sixteen - I used to be off school a lot.  When that happened, my grandmother would take me to Bearwood with her, and we'd look in all the charity shops up and down the high street.  I'd come away with piles and piles of books, which I'd start on in the pub, over a coke while my nan had a lager and caught up with her friends.

Dolores Claiborne was one of these.  I remember reading it and getting through the first hundred pages before we left, and I think I finished it later that same evening.  It's told in the second person, in one long confession by Dolores herself, something Stephen King hadn't done in long fiction before.  It's a pretty short book, somewhere between 200 and 250 pages, and it gave me a real bad case of the gottas.

Dolores Claiborne is linked to Gerald's Game via the eclipse that both Dolores and Jessie witness, during which they receive odd glimpses of one another.  I'm not sure which of the books I read first - it really makes no difference - but I think it was this one.

James Smythe points out that this is only Stephen King's second novel with a single viewpoint, the first being The Body.  I hadn't realised that - though obviously I noticed the second person aspect as being unique.   I also hadn't really noticed the dialect the story was told in; I knew it was there but it didn't impinge on my experience.  Of course, one of my favourite books is Lorna Doone.

Stephen King is very good at keeping track of multiple characters in an overarching third person narrative, but, like Gerald's Game, it's where he limits himself that his skill really becomes apparent.  I also feel that Stephen King writes excellent women.  I've noticed that authors with daughters tend to be better at it, though I've not done any sort of formal survey so this observation might just be a coincidence.  I'm thinking of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman when I make that sort of statement.  As well as having a daughter Stephen King was raised by a single mother, and is married to a woman with five or six sisters, so he's definitely had the opportunity to observe women in their natural habitat; he doesn't see them as being exotic beings or people very different from men, which we're not, in many ways.

I also like the discussion and use of the word 'bitch'.  It's used in a reclaiming way; sometimes being a bitch is all you've got to hold on to.  It's not a word I'd use on anyone else, who isn't fictitious, but I love bitches in fiction.  Strong women, who do what they need to do.

The book - which was the best-selling American novel of 1992 - was made into a movie in 1995, starring Kathy Bates who also appeared in Misery.

The next book Stephen King published was Nightmares and Dreamscapes, a collection of short stories that I've also read before.  After that it'll be Insomnia, followed by The Green Mile, both of which I've also read previously.  Then we'll be back on to a long string of books I've not read before, starting with Desperation.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 28/52

Ten books last week - 18th February to 24th February.

It's actually only seven books; Day of the Dead, Seven Deadly Sins, and Being an Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolus were all books I read a few weeks ago but didn't date for some reason.

I listened to the fourth and fifth Harry Potter books this week.  I thought I'd read the fifth book before, but now I come to listen to it I don't think I can have.  I definitely read Goblet of Fire back when it first came out.  They've very enjoyable.  I'm reading along with the essays on hpcompanion.

Haunted Heart is an biography of Stephen King.  I rather enjoyed it.  The book goes into the way that Stephen King tries to write away his fears.  It's a kind of superstition; if he writes about it it won't happen.  Which explains a lot.  Speaking of Stephen King The Dark: Tower: The Gunslinger is a graphic novel of part of The Gunslinger.  I'd forgotten half of the plot - mostly because I wasn't paying attention - so it was a nice refresher.

I liked The Psychopath Test better than So You've Been Publicly Shamed, I suspect because Jon Ronson didn't read it to me.  He's a much better writer than he is a reader.

I read Big Fish because I loved the film.  The book wasn't as good.  Less clear and fantastical, and more subtle in a way that was less interesting.

I didn't enjoy The Great Unexpected that much either; Sharon Creech's books are always a bit hit or miss for me.

Finally, Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix.  I'd read Goblet before and I thought I'd read Phoenix but now I've listened to it I don't think I can have.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 25/52

Six books last week!  That's the 28th January to the 3rd of February.

Three were audio books and relatively short.  Charm School and Flour Babies are both around three hours long and both are books I first read and loved around 11 or 12.  I do love Anne Fine's writing.

I finally finished Adventures in the Dream Trade.  That's a collection of introductions and other bits and pieces by Neil Gaiman, including his online diary of the bits between writing and publishing American Gods, which I'm now rereading.

Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears is a collection of modern fairytales.  There are some particularly good ones in this collection, including my favourite one about a kitsune, which is a lovely word to say.  Kitsune.

About A Boy is a book I first read as a teenager.  This was the audiobook and I love Julian Rhind-Tutt's performance, actually more than that of Hugh Grant in the movie (and not least because I'm a bit of a Green Wing fan).

I've just heard that the book is being taught in secondary schools now, which I love.  I've reread it a few times over the years and I can see it would be an excellent point of discussion for teenagers.

It's weird to think of a book that I love being a 'school book'.  Though, of course, Shakespeare and Dickens et all were all very popular authors, and I do read Dickens novels for fun.

Better Than Before was a useful book.  It's about habits and motivation and so far I'm using two very useful tips.

The first one is the 'tendencies' the author sees people as being split into.

Upholders who are equally motivated by external and internal expectations.
Obligers, who are more motivated by external goals but more likely to let internal goals or expectations lapse.
Questioners, who will not accept a goal or expectation until they have question it and internalised it as acceptable.
Rebels, who defy expectations and find it hard to be motivated by a goal.

I'm definitely an obliger; if I decide to do something I find it very easy to talk myself out of it, whereas if someone else expects me to do something I find it harder to avoid. So the trick for me will be to externalise any habits I decide to do.  I've already done this; I've told my fb friends that if I don't stick to my study schedule for the week then I'm going to put the UKIP logo up as my facebook banner and my PC and phone background.   So far, that threat has been sufficient to get me up at 7am to study between 7:30am - 8:30am because I couldn't manage at any other time in the morning.

The other useful bit is realising that I'm very much a starter.  I LOVE starting new projects.  I love making new blogs, buying new notebooks and pens, making details plans...but I'm a bit meh on actually finishing things.  Knowing that is useful.  It's why my unread pile doesn't go down and why I end up buying books which I later just donate to charity.  Still working on ways to get around it, but at least I understand the issue better now.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 12/52

Only two books this week - 29th October to 4th November.  Stoner I already wrote a longer post about.  Seven Deadly Sins was part of the Gaiman Humble Bundle.  Seven short graphic-novel stories around the seven deadly sins, by different authors and artists.  Gaiman's Sloth was uncompleted, as a bit of meta-fiction.  The most interesting was Alan Moore's Lust - a retelling of World War II told as if it were a sexual encounter between Germany and Russia.  The line "afterwards, we both lay there smoking" was particularly chilly when juxtaposed with the image.

I've spent much of the week reading Stephen King's The Tommyknockers which I aim to finish this evening.  After this, we'll finally be up to books published within my lifetime!  Nightmares in the Sky was published when I was two months old.  It's a collection of photographs with text by Stephen King, and it sounds kind of like the project Who Killed Amanda Palmer?.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 11/52

Nine books this week - that is 21st to 28th October.

Three of them were a series that I'd read before, The Marianne Trilogy.  They're by my favouite author, Sheri Tepper and they're not overly long - less than 200 pages each.  Really, the three together are basically the same as one of her other novels, though they are all unique stories.  The first two books seem to follow on from one another, dealing with the same overarching problem, while the third is an adventure with the same characters.  I wonder if it was intended to be longer than a trilogy at one point?  Or intended to be two books, and then she had nother idea?

I also reread The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making and The Grl Who Ruled Fairyland - for a Little While.  The latter is a short story exploring the backstory of the main villain of the former.  It's a nice bit of semi-meta fiction; it's a fairytale set in a world that tries to tie together other fairytale tropes.  Slightly post-modernist, in the way that it's aware of other stories and that readers will also be aware of other stories and tries to go beyond that.

Feeders and Eaters, Being an Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabus and Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament were all graphic novels in the Gaiman HumbleBundle I've mentioned previously.  Heliogabus was the best of them though Outrageous Tales did cover many of the good bits of the Old Testament.

Finally, Dare Me is a book I first read several years ago.  It's a tale of obsession, set in the world of cheerleading; eating disorders, combined with cliques, combined with the drive to be a good athlete.  All very intense and claustraophobic.  Megan Abbott has a wandering yet sharp sentence style, which makes the book feel like you're always a little out of breath, trying to keep up.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 5/52

Seven books between 9-16 September!

Two of these books were technically on my unread pile but they're not actually on the image.  One because I started it before my last birthday and the second because I thought I'd deleted it from my Kindle.

The one I thought I'd deleted was Malicious by James Raven.  I have a habit of doing that, getting cheap or free Kindle books and then getting rid of them when I feel overwhelmed by my unread pile.  This one was actually rather good, so I'm glad I did get to read it!

Malicious is about a policewoman who is addicted to online porn.  And a hacker who specialises into watching people on their webcams and then blackmailing them.  It's a nice little mystery and the internet aspects were well done; it wasn't a "down with the kids" sort of thing.  I quite enjoyed it.

The one I started before my last birthday was It.  I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  I read it as part of my Stephen King project, and there will be a longer post on it posted shortly
(I'm actually writing them both at the same time, and I finished that one first).

My unread pile has jumped up like crazy this week.  This is because of a Gaiman Humble Bundle - 18 manuscripts on a pay-what-you-like basis!  You got the basic bundle for whatever you wanted, unlocked a few more by paying more than average, and unlocked a couple more by paying over $15.  The average was up to $18 when I got around to it, so I just paid a round $20.  Actually, I paid that twice because it stalled on the paypal option and I didn't think it had gone through.  Hopefully they'll reply to my emails with a refund soon.

I've read of those books so far; Manuscript found in a Milk Bottle, which is a cute short story, and Love Fishie, which is Neil Gaiman's kid's vanity project, and about as a good as that implies.

Trigger Warning wasn't actually part of the Humble Bundle.  It's an audiobook, written and read by Neil Gaiman, of short stories.  I liked them, and I'm getting a lot better at concentrating on new audiobooks.

The Illustrated Mum and Stargirl are both old favourites.  I listened to Stargirl as an audiobook for the first time, and I only wish the reader had sounded a bit less like Gilbert Gottfried.  He had a kind of annoying nasal voice totally unlike how I imagined Leo sounding.

Although Stargirl has a sequel I prefer to pretend that it doesn't exist.  I feel that the reason the book works is because Stargirl is other, to us as well as to Leo.  When we get inside her head the magic disappears.

The Illustrated Mum I read on Kindle.  I did look at the audiobook, but the reader was doing annoying little kid voice, and, as you might expect, the illustrations are quite plot relevant.

It's from the point of view of Dolphin, daughter of Marigold and younger sister of Star.  Marigold has a lot of tattoos and manic-depression/bipolar disorder.  She was also a foster child, -

 - and while googling I have discovered that there is a TV adaptation! Excitement!  I am watching that this afternoon!  It's on youtube!

- anyway, yes, Marigold was a foster child following her own mother's abuse.  She's also developed a fear of hospitals, following some horrible experiences.

All of this means that Star and Dolphin cover for Marigold when she has one of her "spells"; they don't want to be taken into care, and nor do they want to send her to hospital.  So they just cope.

As the older sister, this mostly falls on Star and we enter the story at the point at which she is becoming sick of it.

Reading it as an adult (instead of a teenager) there are a few things I didn't pick up on before.  Mostly, how utterly unlikely it is that Dolphin should - spoiler alert - find her father so easily.

And it turns out that the same company who televised The Illustrated Mum also did Double Act.  Squee!

I also never realised previously that Marigold's frog tattoo is actually for Dolphin's father, though I think I probably did twig that Dolphin was named that because her father taught Marigold how to swim.  Though perhaps not, I can be a bit oblivious.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 31/52

Terry Pratchett died this week.

The first Prachett book I ever read was Only You Can Save Mankind, when I was ten.  Then The Colour of Magic, at eleven.  Then Jingo.  Then, I think Maskerade, then I saw the animated version of Wyrd Sisters, then I spent my birthday money on lots more of the discworld books, whatever they had in my local waterstones.  I'm now reading Raising Steam.  It's the last one for me.  It's the last one for all of us.

Last week, I reread Peony in Love for my feminist book group, which meets next week.  I read it back in November or December as well, so I won't repeat what I said then.

The Housemates was a book I've had sitting on my unread pile for a while.  It reads like someone watched Big Brother, hated it, and decided a fitting punishment for the contestants would be to mash it up with the Saw movies.  Everyone involved in the torture-gameshow is a criminal, and the whole thing is arranged by their victims.  Uncomfortably gory and violent, but compelling and quiet well plotted.  The ending, when it comes, is more obvious than I thought it would be.

Fortunately the Milk... I saw at the library, and had finished it before I got home.  A short children's book, with lots of illustrations, about a father explaining why he was delayed bringing home the milk.  Definitely does not including a time-travellings stegosaurus.

I read How to Become a Police Officer: The Insider's Guide because I'm applying to join the WMP when applications open on Monday.  Some of this is inspired by Commander Vimes.  Vimes is who I want to be when I grow up.  It's a pretty good guide, which talks through the recruitment process in depth with examples of questions that are likely to come up.  I'm confident about the tests - SJT, verbal and mathematic.  I'm confident about the phone interview and the bleep test (I ran one in my garden the other day).  I'm less confident about the initial application form and the face to face interviews, and the roleplay, and the essay questions.  We'll see.  I guess if my application form is fine, that'll mean I've gotten the hang of answering the competency questions, or at least that I'm better at it.

Mr and Miss Anonymous is another book I've had sitting on my unread pile for a while.  I read it because I'm aiming to read all the unread books on my Kobo.  Then maybe sell it or give it away.  I love my Kobo, and it was my faithful companion for months when I couldn't afford a Kindle.  But now I can, and the Kindle is better maintained with a better range of cheaper books.  Plus, I can read my Kobo books on that, or my phone, or my nexus.

Anyway, it's about a couple who donate to an egg and sperm bank.  They meet afterwards, fall in love at first sight, then don't see each other for years.  They meet again when they find out that something very dodgy happened to their genomes.  There are lots of contrived coincidences and love at first sight suddenly happening.  All very silly.  Quick read though.

Something Fierce is the memoir of a girl who served as a revolutionary in South America in the eighties.  I'm glad I read, since that's an area and a time period I don't know a lot about.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read Last Week IV

I started work last Monday, so this week has involved slightly less reading.  Well, actually, it's more complicated than that.  I've had less time for doing stuff in general, but I'm reading regularly on the train and during my breaks, so it's a more regular amount of reading time, and more than I did when I was just playing videogames and watching movies all day.  I did do that sometimes, and barely read anything.

Anyway; this week's books!

I forget whether Coraline showed up on Kind of Book or not.  I do recall that it was very cheap, and since I liked the film and the graphic novel, I figured I should give it a read.  I gave it 4/5 stars.  Because the story wasn't new to me, it's hard to find anything to say about it.

I've had The Donor for a while.  Last time Kobo ran a competition, I used some of my vouchers to pick it up cheaply.  It's initially introduced as a dilemma; twins are both suffering from kidney failure, and their (single) father cannot donate to both of them.  So yeah, it sounds a bit Jodi Picoult-ish.  The book itself goes into their relationships with each other and their past in a way that's a lot more interesting than the actual dilemma, even if the whole thing does twinge on an incredibly unlikely fact.

Spoilers Below

Seriously - no one has ever told Will that two blue-eyed parents couldn't have brown-eyed children?  No one's ever mentioned that to him, ever?  I can understand why no one else would point it out, since they'd probably just assume that Georgie and Kay's mother had brown-eyes, and even the girls themselves might not have looked that closely at old photos.  The author didn't even need to throw that fact in there; their paternity wasn't realised or even suspected because of their eyes, and it could so easily have not been mentioned at all.

End Spoilers.

I gave it 4/5 stars because I enjoyed the journey.

Rage I've read before.  It was Stephen King's fifth published novel, though one that he started in High School.  It's no longer in print, though it does seem to be included in the Kindle edition of The Bachman Books, and you can still pick up second hand copies.  I gave that 4/5 stars as well.

I picked up Thank You For Smoking because Kind of Book notified me that it was reduced to 99p. I'd heard of the movie and thought of watching it, though I never actually got around to it.  Anyway, I figured I'd just read the book because it sounded pretty interesting.  4/5.

Divergent was another book I found on Kind of Book, and I really should break that addiction.  A friend of mine has been recommending it for ages, and I'm so glad I finally got around to reading it.  It's another dystopian teen trilogy like The Hunger Games or Pretties.  The basic premise is that, in this society, sixteen-year-olds are given an aptitude test which indicates which of five societal groups they are best suited to being before choosing which of those groups to belong to for the rest of their lives.  I predict it will follow the essential path; the first book introduces the society, focusing on one member who doesn't quite fit into it as they come up to a specific occasion where they are to take on their adult role within society.  They train for this role for a while, learning more and more, until they - or she, usually she - accidentally breaks society due to their personality being incompatible plus some kind of megalomaniacal Big Bad trying to take over.  During the second book, our societally unacceptable heroine will join some rebels, at least one of whom will have important technical knowledge.  Finally, she will triumph in the third book.

All of that isn't to say that I don't enjoy this kind of thing, or that I won't read more of it.  Another 4/5.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read Last Week III

I'm actually starting this post a few days early, since I won't have time on Monday - I'll be completing my first day in my new job!

This week has dragged.  It was one thing when unemployment was a long term thing, that stretched on.  I could come up with routines, experiment with recipes within my meagre budget, and generally just get on with living.  Now though, I'm not living, I'm waiting.  For my real life to begin.  So I'll read a book or maybe two or three...

Neverwhere - This has been in my unread pile for a while.  I like most of Neil Gaiman's stuff, though recently, I've found it hard to forget his association with and support of Amanda Palmer, considering the Evelyn and Evelyn trainwreck (post here about why it was so terrible).  Anyway, that's probably why it took me so long to get to Neverwhere.

I liked Neverwhere.  I read it over two days, and it was interesting and absorbing, and so on.  I don't know why though, I just can't get excited about it.  The plot is what you might imagine you'd get if someone with an interest in fantasy started having fever dreams beneath a map of London tube stations.  I gave it 4/5 stars, but I'm thinking of revising it to 3.

I seem to be the last amongst my group of friends to have read it.  When I checked goodreads, they'd all left their stars already.

The Perfect Murder - I actually read this last week, or maybe the week before, but completely forgot to mark it as finished.  It's a collection of short stories, like The Perfect Escape, which I read two weeks ago.  Essentially, you get a bunch of short stories and a sample chapter of a novel by the same author to go with each one.  They were pretty good, especially since the Kindle edition was free.  I gave it 3/5.

We Use Coupons, You Should Too - this is yet another book aimed at an American market.  I read it because I'm frugal and because I have an odd habit of reading non-fiction books that do not in any way apply to me.  For instance, I'm currently reading Babynomics, a finance book written for expectant parents.  When I was about thirteen or so, I read The Selfish Pig's Guide to Caring, which is even more irrelevant to me, since I have no intention of ever becoming a carer.  It was very well written though.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading this.  It's a very thorough guide, and even though much of it doesn't apply to me, I  still found it interesting.  And now I'm tempted to go look up couponing (vouchering?) in the UK.

...okay, it's now Monday, and I did google it, and it's not really possible.  I gave it 3/5 stars anyway.

I picked up Nikki Grahame's Fragile in another Kind of Book sale, if I recall correctly.  I'm working on a longer post about it, so I won't say too much here.  I gave it 4/5 stars.

Finally, The Shining.  Another one that I want to discuss in another post.  For some reason, it took me ages to read it; a good fortnight or so.  Unusual for me, especially since I didn't hate it.  3/5.

In Which We Discuss The Space Merchants

In a world taken over by advertising, where a vote has more weight depending on the wealth of the person who cast it, nations only exist in order for trade to take place, and the Earth is almost used up, what's an adman to do?

Mitch Courtenay works for Fowler-Schocken associates, one of the more powerful PR companies in the futuristic world he inhabits. At one point, Mitch describes exactly how powerful they are to Jack O'Shea, an astronaut who insists that he doesn't fall for it.

All of Jack's clothes and luggage are Starr brand, the brand sold by Fowler-Schocken. Jack threatens to go straight home and throw his luggage away, replacing it with that of their rivals. Mitch doesn't doubt this, but he explains that the power of their advertisements means that Starr are viewed as the best. Although Jack may put up with his second rate luggage for a while, he'll start to notice problems, and one day, with an odd sort of amnesia relating to this conversation, he'll replace it all with Starr brand; the brand that's seen as more successful, more virile, and just better, all due to Fowler-Schocken. Jack doesn't disagree.

Later on, another example of this is shown. The Earth is slowly running out of it's natural resources, and things like real roast beef and coffee are expensive and difficult-to-obtain delights. Instead there is Coffiest, a cheap replacement which contains a small amount of an addictive drug. Completely legal, this will result in an addiction to the product in anyone who drinks it for any length of time. Another element of this is association. When someone drinks Popsie (something equivalent to a soft drink, apparently), they will crave Starr cigarettes. The cigarettes will spark a craving for a kind of confectionery. And the sweets will lead you right back to Popsie.

Because of all this, Fowler-Schocken are so powerful that they've been given what is possibly an advertisers ultimate coup - the rights to attract colonists to Venus.

Venus is, at first, an incredibly inhospitable planet. The first colonists will have to live in severe discomfort for generations, while the planet is terraformed, and Mitch's job is to make this concept seem attractive.

This job isn't easy, though. Although Mitch uses all the tools available to him - rumours, posters, subliminal adverts, rhymes, gossip, and more traditional techniques - he has other things to worry about. Like his companies rivals, who've been known to kill men for less. Like the Consies.

Consies are conservationists, and, in this world, they are akin to terrorists. Most people can't even comprehend the ideals that Consies believe in. After all, who cares if the topsoil of the Earth is destroyed? It can be replaced. Who cares if roast beef is now expensive? Chicken Little is cheap. Even the people who study the consies in order to avoid attacks and demonstrations don't understand them.

Speaking of Chicken Little, it's a cheap and ingenious replacement for other kinds of meat (along with soya substitutes). Chicken Little is a mass of living tissue around a heart. Keeping it fed with all the nutrients it needs and slicing off the meat which is ready is a dangerous job (although still safer than working in todays meat packing plants), and recruitment for it is akin to press-ganging with a touch of debtors hell to keep them there.

The book is told entirely in first person, and so a major focus of the book is Mitch's complicated and changing relationship with his wife and his boss, the owner of Fowler-Schocken, who could be said to think of Mitch as equivalent to a son.

The book is written by joint others, Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. This is relatively uncommon, for two authors to work together, although for Pohl and Kornbluth, it seems they worked together extremely well. They did so often, anyway. Unlike the Neil Gaimen/Terry Pratchett joint work, Good Omens, where, in the first few chapters at least, there was a clear difference between the two writing styles, Pohl and Kornbluth manage to create an invisible seam. Unfortunately, due to Kornbluth's tragically early death at the age of 36, the sequel to this book was written by Pohl alone. It'll be interesting to see how he manages it.

Although the book was written in 1952, there's a clear correlation between the events an the world shown in the book, and that of the film Fast Food Nation. Both contain an adman in a corrupt business, with conservations threatened and persecuted. The link obviously isn't intentional, but it's an odd and slightly scary coincidence.

In summary, I loved The Space Merchants. Pohl and Kornbluth are both masters of the sci-fi genre. The book is fairly short, but manages to get a good amount of plot into the space. The changes in Mitch's character are dramatic but perfectly logical and believable, and the book is way ahead of it's time, with it's discussion of issues which are only now beginning to achieve mainstream importance, such as the conservation of natural resources, and overpopulation.

In Which We Discuss Books I Want

I want to work on completing my collections of graphic novels this year, mostly Sandman and Misfile. I also want to fill in more of my sci-fi and fantasy masterworks.

When I get home, I need to rearrange my bedroom so I can fit in two or three more bookcases. That should be enough. Hopefully. I have seven at the minute.

I may just possibly have too many books.

In Which We Discuss Lisa Jewell

I've settled on a new project for myself and this blog. In short, to read the complete works of an author, in chronological order, reviewing each one, to see how he or she has changed over time.

My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and Sheri Tepper, but each of those has a bibliography as long as my arm. Instead, I'm going with Lisa Jewell. Her bibliography, in chronological order, is as follows;

* Ralph's Party (1999)
* Thirtynothing (2000)
* One Hit Wonder (2001)
* A Friend of the Family (2004)
* Vince and Joy (2005)
* 31 Dream Street (2007)
* Roommates Wanted (2008)- alternative title for 31 Dream Street
* The Truth About Melody Browne (2009)

Of those, I've read six; the first six, actually.
Thirtynothing I find to be sickeningly sweet, while One Hit Wonder and A Friend of the Family are two of my favourite novels.

So, I'll be starting with this just as soon as I'm done reading my current library books and Tepper's Arbai trilogy. That'll give me time to get used to typing on this new notebook.

In Which We Discuss The Children's Section

Why do they hide all the good books here?

In my local library (Birmingham Central), the children's section is on an entirely different floor, with miniature chairs, decorations in pastel colours, and, once, palm trees made entirely of coloured balloons.

Now, the other day, I reserved a few books - namely, Bridge to Terabithia and Christopher Pike's Weekend. I noticed that, although I'd be picking them up from the main floor, the children's section had several copies of Pike's books. So, when I returned Bridge to Terabithia yesterday morning, I decided I'd return it to the children's section, then go ahead and explore their teenage shelves.

Honestly, it's amazing how nerve-wracking that was. I felt like an imposter. I'm twenty years old, and told that I look older. I felt like Gulliver walking into Lilliput.

Once I'd got over the initial embarassment, it wasn't so bad. The staff were friendly (it looks like they shift them between floors, so I'd seen a lot of them before), and none of the small children even looked at me. It also helped that an older man was in the queue in front of me.

I never made it to the teenage section, by the way. The Discworld Big Comic, Mort, grabbed me on the way past.

It's interesting how the books are segregated, by age. As I said, I found Mort in the children's section, and it was called a Big Comic. Neil Gaiman's Sandman series are upstairs, in the Graphic Novel section. Now, Gaiman is scarier than Pratchett, but they're not terribly different. And, in fairness, Death is one of the main characters in Mort.

A lot of children's books can be equally enjoyed by adults, too. While many are quite vapid, and assume that young = stupid, some are interesting. They're the kind of books you get more out of, every time you read them. Things like Peter Pan or The Little Prince, for instance. They're obviously children's books, but there's a lot in them for adults as well (honestly, if you've never read them, go take a look - you'll be pleasantly surprised).

The Discworld books and the Harry Potter series have both been given special 'mature' covers, so adults don't feel silly reading them. This is essentially the same as putting a different picture on the packaging for hair dye or moisturiser, so men don't feel silly using girly products.

In Which We Discuss Jodi Picoult, Comic Books, and People Who Live in Basements

Jodi Picoult is a very successful American author. Her bibliography is as follows;

Songs of the Humpbacked Whale - 1992
Harvesting the Heart - 1993
Picture Perfect - 1995
Mercy - 1996
The Pact - 1998
Keeping Faith - 1999
Plain Truth -1999
Salem Falls- 2001
Perfect Match - 2002
Second Glance - 2003
My Sister's Keeper - 2004
Vanishing Acts - 2005
The Tenth Circle - 2006
Change of Heart - 2007
Nineteen Minutes - 2008

I've read nine or so of those, mostly the more recent ones.

The first book of Picoult's that I read was My Sister's Keeper, about a girl who was born only because her sister needed stem cells. However, soon, Kate, the elder sister, needs more than stem cells, and Anna is in and out of hospital, despite not being sick herself. Finally, Anna decides to sue her parents for medical emancipation - the right to do what she likes with her own body.

The book is told from a variety of different viewpoints, including Anna, her parents, her brother, and her lawyer. The one point of view that is noticably missing is Kate's, and this lack is extremely effective. The story focuses around her, but her thoughts are not revealed. My Sister's Keeper was an excellent book, which encouraged me to pick up another of Picoult's novels - Plain Truth.

Plain Truth focused on an infanticide discovered on an Amish farm, and was interesting in that it provided a detailed view of the Amish lifestyle. Although no Amish people have read or commented on the book, lapsed Amish - those who were brought up that way, but do not live in Amish communities as adults - have said that this portrayel is accurate.

The Tenth Circle, the next novel of Picoult's that I read, was about rape. Possibly. It's a grey area. It also had a lot of information on the culture of Inuit peoples, and some of their ideas.

The next book I read, Salem Falls, had a sideline in Wiccans.

Now, although I loved each of these books - particularly Salem Falls, which focuses on a man falsely accused of rape - I began to notice something rather formulaic about them. There is a debatable issue at the heart of each novel, and, in each of them, some unique culture is showcased.

Now, Picoult is very good at researching her novels. As I said, her portrayel of the Amish was well received, as were many of the cultures shown in her other novels. But, on reading Nineteen Minutes, something went wrong.

The main character is, essentially a computer geek. He spends a lot of time online, and is someone whom I feel I could identify with - if he weren't a two-dimensial stereotype held together with cliches. He doesn't seem real. He's not accurate. She got it wrong.

Now, it's entirely possible that Picoult's other portrayels had exactly the same problems, and I merely wasn't aware of it. But, I have another theory. I suspect that Picoult doesn't bother to research things that she thinks that she already knows.

Picoult's had trouble with -

I'm not sure what to call them. I'd like to say 'geek community', but that's not right. It's hard to classify the kind of people I mean. The cult in cult classics, the ones who dress 'unusually', and tend to like fantasy, or sci-fi, or the unusual. The kind at home on the internet. The kind who read comic books and aren't ashamed of it (especially from authors like Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman).

Anyway, however you define them, Picoult's had trouble with that group before.

The Tenth Circle involved a graphic novel, written by one of the characters, with pages of it interspersed with chapters of the book. On the strength of this, Picoult was offered the chance to write issues of the Wonder Woman comics.

This did not go well.

Picoult contradicted the history of the comics, made jokes which fell flat, and generally, wasn't all that great. Since, admittedly, I'm more of an X-Men (Quicksilver, mostly), than a Wonder Woman fan, this is better summed up by the following quote, taken from here.

"She wrote several horrible issues of Wonder Woman where Diana didn't know how to pump gas, use a credit card or order coffee despite having been in "Man's World" for years (and despite actually having worked at a fast food outlet at some stage), and she blames all of these on "really scary people who live in their parents' basement"? Perhaps its that sort of condescending attitude towards comic book readers that had them braying for her head in the first place."

The full quote from Picoult is as follows;

"You have to keep it in continuity or you will be attacked by the messageboards, which are made up of really scary people who live in their parents' basement."

Now, that quote is hearsay, but it would explain why she got the main character of Nineteen Minutes so wrong.

On another note, comic books have a history of not being taken seriously, as literature or art work. The work of people like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman have helped to fix this somewhat, but comics still have a long way to go before being taken seriously (I've given up on the phrase 'graphic novel' entirely by this point; it doesn't help, and it's very unweildy).

DCs effort, of bringing in successful novelists, may have seemed good on paper. Good writers = good comics, right?

Well, not entirely.

Comics are not novels. Some writers - like Neil Gaiman (I like him) - do both very well. But they are different things.

Many comics - including Wonder Woman - have a very well-established history, that's been dealt with numerous times. Look at X-Men for instance - how many times has the Rogue's Origins - Wolverine's Origins - Dark Pheonix cycle been rehashed?

My point is that, although it is usually rewritten multiple times, this huge history is there, and it helps if the author is familiar with it. Fans usually prefer it when the people involved love whatever it is at least as much as they do. I remember how disappointed I was in a Tara Strong interview which made it clear how clueless she was about the Final Fantasy series, including the games she worked on. Picoult's lack of familiarity, and her lack of experience with comic books are, I think, what contributed to the failure.

Anyway, going back to a previous point; Picoult writes better when she starts from scratch, and has no preconceptions about the group she's describing. When she does have preconceptions, about the computer geek in Nineteen Minutes, or the gay guy in Change of Heart, she can stray into offensive territory. Stick to what you don't 'know', Picoult.

Incidentally, Change of Heart, the last Picoult novel I read, is very similar to Stephen King's Green Mile. Very similar. It's like she read Green Mile, and thought "what if...?", much as I wanted to do to Genesis Alpha.

That may not be a bad thing, I just wish it weren't so transparent.