Category: Books

Jethro Tull, RökFlöte and The Hanged God Trilogy

Jethro Tull is a band that have been longer than I have, and they’re still going strong. After taking two-decade hiatus during the first part of this century, they returned last year with The Zealot Gene, which is a truly excellent album.

They have recently announced that their next album, RökFlöte, will be released in April this year.

Ian Anderson and the band are returning with a 12-track record based on the characters and roles of some of the principle gods of the old Norse paganism, and at the same time exploring the ‘RökFlöte’ – rock flute – which Jethro Tull has made iconic.

They have also released the first single from the album, Ginnungagap, which is inspired by the god Ymir, a primeval being thqt lived in the grassless void of Ginnungagap.

The video is superb, both visually and musically, and it reminded me that I haven’t talked nearly enough about The Hanged God trilogy by Thilde Kold Holdt. These are fantasy novels, but so well grounded in Norse culture and mythology that they have a solidity that really brings home the events described.

And what events they are. This trilogy tells a truly epic tale that follows multiple characters as they head towards the inevitability of Ragnarok. I loved it and would recommend it to anyone.

BookWyrm: Federated social reading

I’ve mentioned Mastodon before now, but the great thing about federated social media is that it is not dominated by a single server, or even a single type of software. Multiple applications and networks exist to support a wide variety of social activities. And, because they all use the same protocol, they can all talk to each other.

It’s because of this that I came to discover BookWyrm, a non-commercial alternative to Goodreads on which you can track your reading habits, talk about books and find suggestions as to what to read next.

Of the available servers, I have settled in The Library of the Uncommons, the membership of which leans towards Science Fiction and Fantasy novels in terms of reading preferences. This, of course, is great for me and I have already discovered a couple more books to add to my ever-expanding pile of must-read books.

Because all of these federated services can talk to each other, I can interact with people on other servers regardless of whether they are using BookWyrm, Mastodon or anything else.

BookWyrm is still under development but all of the essentials are in place and working well. I especially like how easy it is to migrate from Goodreads to BookWyrm by exporting your books from one and importing them into the other. The import wasn’t perfect, but the site does tell me exactly which books I need to check, so getting everything set up is a remarkably painless process.

I find I am getting a lot more out of BookWyrm than I was from Goodreads. I haven’t deleted my Goodreads account yet, but I suspect that this is only a matter of time.

You can find me at The Library of the Uncommons. Feel free to pop over and say hi.

Don’t Panic!

Today is the 25th May, which is Towel Day, an annual celebration of the works of Douglas Adams.

As such, now is the time of the year at which I grab a towel and remind you all that…

It’s a tough universe. There’s all sorts of people and things trying to do you, kill you, rip you off, everything. If you’re going to survive out there, you’ve really got to know where your towel is.

Stay hoopy, froods.

Inheritor

Inheritor is the third novel in C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series and follows on directly from Invader, the second book. The series is broken up into trilogies, so Inheritor also represents the end of the first trilogy, and what an ending it is.

Six months have passed since the reappearance of the starship Phoenix — the same ship which brought a colony of humans to the hostile environment of alien atevi nearly two hundred years ago. During these six months, the atevi have reconfigured their fledgling space program in a bid to take their place in the heavens alongside humans. But the return of the Phoenix has added a frighteningly powerful third party to an already volatile situation, polarizing both human and atevi political factions, and making the possibility of all-out planetary war an even more likely threat.

As with the previous novels, everything centres on Bren Cameron, the human representative to the atevi who now finds himself having to face three ways between the atevi, the planet-bound human population and the crew of the returned starship which has sent down two representatives to the planet — one to the atevi and one to the human population.

Cameron then finds himself trying to deal with both atevi politics, an overwhelmedh spacefarer who has never stepped foot on a planet and a human government whose conservative and populist elements are deliberately seeking to undermine him. And if he gets it wrong, war is looking like a very real possibility.

What makes this novel, as well as the previous novels in the series really stand out for me is the sheer alienness of the atevi. Their politics, culture and society are all non-human in ways that are often opaque and which consistently defy human expectations. This is emphasised by C.J. Cherryh’s consistent refusal to provide any point of view other than that of the main character. What Bren Cameron knows, the reader knows and — importantly — what he doesn’t know, neither do we.

This allows for a novel packed with plot threads and conspiracies working within conspiracies, all hinted at but never clarified. And it all comes together spectacularly in the final few chapters.

The more I read of the Foreigner series, the more I want to read.

Dune

Dune is not a novel that needs a review. First published in 1965 this is still a classic of the genre and one that encompasses politics, religion, ecology, environmentalism, and much, much more.

I first read the novel back when I was a teenager and it had a huge impact on me. I have re-read the novel a couple of times subsequently but, with Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation on the way, now seems like a good time to revisit the novel again.

The plot revolves around political intrigue amongst feudal powers in the far future and this is set against the background of a planet that is both impossibly brutal and unbelievably valuable. Into this emerges Paul Atreides, a ducal son bred and trained to fulfil a prophecy and finding himself careering towards an unavoidable fate.

Along the way we see religious manipulations, an exploration of other cultures and the way in which a culture interacts with its environment. We also see a discussion of the nature of power and much else besides.

I’m not doing justice to the novel here and I don’t think I can, it’s too big summarise. Additionally, one of it’s many strengths is that it can be read in multiple ways — the themes you picked up on previously may not be the ones you pick up on today, and the themes that strike me may not matter to you. This, to me, is why the novel has managed to remain so relevant for so long — it’s about people, societies, cultures and the way in which everything interacts.

What did strike me this time around, though, is just how immersive the novel is. The worldbuilding is still as superb as ever and, because of the far-future but non-technological setting, it still feels current today. The themes remain as dense as ever and when I was able to sit down and really spend time in the world of Arrakis the novel remains as rewarding as I remember. It’s something of a shame, therefore, that it has become rare that I am able to sit and do nothing but read for a couple of hours.

Dune is a novel with convincing characters, a powerful plot and a denseness that rewards re-reading. This will not be the last time I read it and, not only I am really looking forward to seeing what Villeneuve does with it, but I’m also considering revisiting David Lynch’s 1984 effort.

Dune

I first read Dune way back in the mists of time when I was still a teenager and, for a long time, I would have counted this as my all-time favourite science fiction novel. In fact, it wasn’t until I discovered Iain M. Banks that I began to adjust my opinion. Even now, though, Dune rates as one of the best novels I have read.

While I was more than a little disappointed by David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune, I never learn and the news that Denis Villeneuve was going to have a go filled me with optimism.

And now the trailer has been released and it certainly looks suitably spectacular.

A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, “Dune” tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence — a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential-only those who can conquer their fear will survive.

Frank Herbert’s novel influenced innumerable books, films and TV series — not least of which was Star Wars — and the trailer certainly captures the epic scale of the source. Whether Villeneuve has also managed to tell the dense and complex story about politics, ecology and the future of humanity remains to be seen.

And it will be seen, because this is one film that I will be rushing out to see as soon as it’s released.

El Sombra

El Sombra is a novel about a Mexican superhero who takes on a horde of steam-powered flying Nazis. It’s a deliberately outlandish premise but, if you can get behind it, the book is a whole heap of fun and I really enjoyed it.

There is no escape from The Ultimate Reich!

The terrifying Luftwaffe, on their steam-driven wings, have torn apart the sleepy town of Pasito in the heart of Mexico, only to rebuild it as a terrifying clockwork-town where the people become human robots, furthering the nightmare dreams of the Fuhrer.

General Eisenberg and his sociopathic son Alexis control this paradise of horrors. But they are unprepared for the return of a man the desert claimed nine long years ago, a man who has returned from the doors of death and the depths of madness to bring his terrible fury upon their world. With the slash of a sword and a laugh that lights up the night, the man in the bloodstained mask cuts his way through the hopeless, endless routines of the clockwork men to bring new hope to the people.

He defies death! He defies man! No trap can hold the masked daredevil, the saint of ghosts men know as El Sombra!

El Sombra is pitched as a steampunk novel, but it really isn’t. What Al Ewing has delivered with this book is an unashamedly pulp story — and a really good one at that. This is a book with no literary pretensions, focusing instead on a solid and action-filled narrative and peopled with sympathetic characters against a preposterous background.

The author, Al Ewing is primarily a comics writer and, in many ways, El Sombra harks back to the likes of Warlord, Action and Battle. This is a book that you really can judge by its cover, in which a lone swordsman faces off against a clanking Nazi monstrosity, both promises and delivers a thrilling adventure in which the good guy beats the bad guys — at least once per chapter.

There isn’t much depth to El Sombra, and nor does it aspire to any, but it is a very well-written and self-aware novel. Ewing has clearly set out to deliver a blood-spattered page-turned and, in this, he has succeeded magnificently.

Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets

Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets is a short story collection. Specifically, it’s a collection of 14 short stories, all of which reimagine Sherlock Holmes to a greater or lesser extent.

The world’s most famous detective, as you’ve never seen him before!

This is Sherlock Holmes as you’ve never seen him before: as an architect in a sleepy Australian town, as a gentleman in seventeenth-century Worcestershire, as a precocious school girl in a modern British comprehensive. He’s dodging his rent in the squalid rooms of the notorious Chelsea Hotel in ’68, and preventing a bloody war between the terrible Lords Wizard of a world of fantasy.

Editor David Thomas Moore brings together the finest of celebrated and new talent in SF and Fantasy to create a spectrum of Holmes stories that will confound everything you ever thought you knew about the world’s greatest detective.

It’s an interesting collection of stories although, inevitably, there are some that I enjoyed more than others. Highlights for me included Kelly Hale’s Black Alice which shifts Sherlock Holmes to the Enlightenment and pits him against the parochial superstitions of seventeenth-century Worcestershire. This felt like a near-perfect setting for the great detective and I would loved to have seen more like this.

Then there was Kaaron Warren’s The Lantern Men which was very dark. If you can imagine Edgar Allen Poe having set a Sherlock Holmes story in Australia, then you have pretty much captured the feel of this story. Emma Newman’s A Woman’s Place imagines a near-future dystopia and explains — rather brilliantly — why he unflappable, ever-present Mrs. Hudson continues to put up with Holmes.

The Small World of 221B by Ian Edginton is an overtly strange story that I found myself enjoying a great deal more than I expected. The Final Conjuration by Adrian Tchaikovsky makes no attempt to re-imagine Holmes, preferring to plonk him unaltered into a high fantasy setting, to brilliant effect.

The Innocent Icarus by James Lovegrove gives us a Holmes in a world of superheroes and All The Single Ladies by Gini Koch gives a breezily flippant Holmes against a background of reality TV.

And finally, there’s Parallels by Jenni Hill which takes the re-inventing Holmes idea to it’s limit with a pair of teenage girls.

Obviously, other people will respond to different stories differently and will find other highlights. But you have any interest in the idea of a re-imagined Sherlock Holmes, and even if you don’t, this collection is well worth a read.

Grass

There are some books that really make you think, that challenge both your assumptions and prejudices and follow through on their premise that not only makes you consider how we got here but also where we are likely to go from this point.

Grass, by Sheri S. Tepper, is just such a book.

What could be more commonplace than grass, or a world covered over all its surface with a wind-whipped ocean of grass? But the planet Grass conceals horrifying secrets within its endless pastures.

And as an incurable plague attacks all inhabited planets but this one, the prairie-like Grass begins to reveal these secrets – and nothing will ever be the same again …

Initially, the novel reminded me a lot of Dune in that the focus is on a world that is superficially strange but for which both the environment has been thought through well enough that the details can be allowed to emerge as the story progresses. Even the name of the novel hints at this.

While it takes a bit of time to really get going, once it does, Grass proves itself to be both very much it’s own story and utterly gripping.

Humanity has spread throughout the galaxy and colonised innumerable planets while still owing allegiance to Terra — our home planet — and Sanctity, the dominant religion and political leadership. Sanctity is trying to deny the existence of the plague while also convince the leaders of Grass to allow their scientists to try and discover why this planet, alone in the galaxy, remains unaffected.

A compromise is reached when, instead of scientists, the leaders of Grass agree to an embassy from Sanctity and so Marjorie Yrarier and her children find themselves travelling to the planet along with her husband, Rigo, who has been chosen for the Ambassador’s role. It very quickly becomes clear just how little Sanctity knows about the planet and its people.

Grass is very much a book about ideas, and the novel is packed with them. The environment, ecology, the conflict between religion and belief, the problem with perfection, and how humanity’s relationship to other species. It’s a novel that takes a bit of time to get into, but once you do, the pay-off is well worth it.

If you want a solid story that gives you plenty of food for thought, then I can’t recommend this highly enough.