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Watcher of the Dead, J V Jones

fantasy, finished reading, recommended 5 Responses »

Apr 162010

Watcher of the Dead is the fourth book in J V Jones’ (JVJ) Sword of Shadows series and as such I’ve assumed that you’ve either got knowledge of the previous 3 volumes, or, after reading this, you’ll be enthused to click on the link at the bottom and order volume one.

Until I just had a look, I always thought JVJ pushed this series out fairly rapidly but it turns out its 4 books in 11 years, which compares unfavourably to George RR Martin’s 4 books in 9 years (and I never thought I’d use the word unfavourably in comparing release schedules against Martin!). Still, its mostly due to a 5 year hiatus between books two and three, which caused me to reread books one and two at the time.

Book four, Watcher of the Dead, sees the action really hotting up. “Relentless” isn’t a word I use a lot, especially in a 400 page novel but it really is suitable in this instance: from Angus Lok, to Raif, to the Eye, Effie, Raina and so on, at the start of each and every chapter you’re desperate to continue the story of the person from the last chapter. For all of two pages anyway, and then you’re gripped by the continuation of the next characters story arc.

Poor old Raif is looking like he’s going to be held together entirely by scar tissue at some point in the not to distant future, there is some imagination involved in the regular torments he suffers. Certainly wouldn’t want to get the wrong side of the person that dreamt them up.

Part of the skill is keeping a tight rein on your characters, if they wander off you spend too much time getting them into place for the finale, and this is where series can lose it in the middle- endless trekking, contrived reasons for going somewhere and a lot of boredom for the reader. It’s obvious JVJ has spent a lot of time planning this series and this book particularly because at volume 4 we’ve not really encountered pointless marching for the sake of getting the chess pieces in the right place.

The only issue I have with this book is a silly one really. It’s so well written if you read the series back to back it exposes the shortfallings of the first book. Thats not to say Cavern of Black Ice is badly written because it isn’t, but this is on a different level, the writing is up there with the top contemporary fantasy crowd. I shudder to think the level of research thats gone in to some of it (although hopefully not as much research into the torture aspects as the post Iron Age technology and so on).

All in all, well worth reading. If you’ve read the other 3, it’s a no brainer to get this, if you haven’t, go grab volume one, A Cavern of Black Ice, you’re in for a treat.

If you want to see some more detailed analysis (containing *SPOILERS*), there are some after the click through.

The Broken Shore, Peter Temple

finished reading, thriller No Responses »

Mar 112010

The Broken Shore is my first foray into detective fiction. Our book group selected it from the CWA (Crime Writers Association) Dagger winners from a couple of years back, so it came with a reasonable pedigree. The book blurb is also more than complementary, verging on the hyperbole at times as it decries the book as not just a great Australian crime novel but as one of the great Australian novels full stop.

Well it’s enjoyable but its certainly not the greatest thing since the invention of things. Temple has a very engaging writing style, he deals with the spoken word as it is spoken, which is rather uncommon in literature. The detectives and police in general speak in short clipped terms, whilst everyone else is a little more loquacious. It takes some getting used to but works well.

Try as I might however, I can’t hear the voices with an Aussie accent. I’ve spent 6 weeks in the country, so its not a lack of exposure to it. I suppose its the way that the back water hick town most of the novel takes part in are just like the back water hick towns in the deep south of America.

The plot itself centres around a detective called Joe Cashin (although in the great tradition of detective novels, he’s referred to as Cashin by pretty much everyone bar his mum), who has headed back to the small town he grew up in to lick the wounds of a serious accident he was involved in and recover. Then the equilibrium of quiet racism and rural crime is disrupted by the murder of a local bigwig.

Characters are set up as the perpetrators but its fairly evident they’re not to blame and things move on at pace from here. And it’s this that really proves the issue to be honest. The murderers only appear in the last 50 or so pages, basically at the reveal, so there’s no link to them other than the odd mention for the main bulk of the novel. This feels unsatisfactory when you finally get to meet them.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book enough that I’m going to dig out some of Temple’s other work. Particularly any other Cashin books he’s written, as I found the whole thing rather engaging.

The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1

finished reading, horror No Responses »

Feb 142010

The Walking Dead then, bit of a change here, this ones a comic. I’m not going to call it a graphic novel or anything pretentious like that, it’s 1,000 odd pages of pure and unadulterated zombie awesomeness.

It follows a group of survivors of some sort of apocalypse- we’re left vague to what this is as the main character Rick is in a coma for it and wakes up in an empty hospital- as they struggle to survive the zombie aftermath.

As the story progresses it becomes less and less about the zombies, after all there are only a limited number of ways people can be ripped to pieces by the undead, and more and more about the relationships between the survivors and how utterly horrible people can be to each other.

It gets increasingly bleak as it progresses, dealing with death, madness and a desensitisation to violence amongst other recurring themes.

The art work veers between the great and the clunky but the story is what matters and it is great. It’s a £45 RRP but currently only £25 at Amazon. Buy it whilst it’s still in print.

The Piano Teacher, Janice Y. K. Lee

finished reading No Responses »

Feb 122010

I kept this one in a brown paper bag when I was on the train. It’s a book group read and I must say it’s the first time I’ve read a book that has a glowing endorsement from Elle magazine splashed all over the cover. Oh the shame.

This pretends to be two stories about Hong Kong, during and after the war. One thread follows Claire in the early 1950′s as she comes to terms with her marriage of convenience in the new surroundings her husband Martin has been posted to. The second story takes place ten years earlier and follows Will during the lead up to and the actual Japanese occupation during the second world war.

It’s one of those novels that uses the jumping around between two periods/stories to make it more interesting but in this instance it doesn’t really work. It stays in one period for a very long chunk of the book and then drops you back to the 1950′s just at the wrong time.

When we discussed it at our February book group, a lot of us had trouble with the character Claire and her motivations. This kind of book is really about the rich and vibrant locale it is set in but it lives and dies by how believable it’s characters are and in this instance, the main female lead is unfortunately paper thin.

The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong was brutal and this is communicated pretty effectively by the author- the dissonance between the high society parties and the socialites getting their fingers broken one by one is stark. But overall it tries too hard- Will is supposed to be an enigma to Claire, he’s not particularly enigmatic, just rude. Claires supposed to be be this blossoming prude who flowers in the hot climate of Hong Kong, but she isn’t written with any sort of conviction unfortunately.

Having said that, my wife has picked it up and is currently hooked on it, so perhaps Elle has the right of it and I’m entirely wrong

The House of Thunder, Dean Koontz

finished reading, horror No Responses »

Dec 112009

When I was in my late teens I went on a bit of a Dean Koontz marathon. It was the early 90′s so even the stuff written in the 70′s hadn’t dated too badly at the point (no ubiquitous mobile phones for example). I ran through most of his back catalogue in a long summer and enjoyed pretty much all of what he wrote. It is true to say that when you read his works back to back, the lead characters become a little but samey- basically they are idealised versions of Koontz himself, generous caring chaps, a lot of them with special forces backgrounds that they don’t like to mention because they’re working as a mechanic or something or other now days.

It’s been a few years now since I read anything of his, although I keep on meaning to go back and read the Watcher as it’s one of the books I remember enjoying the most when I was younger. But since the weathers been terrible this week, I’ve not really wanted to haul Wolf Hall into work every day as its over 600 pages and a bit too much like hard work in that respect, so I have another book on the go at work.

The House of Thunder lies a little about its age, it purports to have been written in 1994 but that’s the first time it was published under Dean Koontz’s name as the author rather than a pseudonym. It’s really older, dating back to the early 1980′s. But that doesn’t really matter, that’s part of the joy of books, stuff that was written a few years ago is still relevant, it doesn’t become outdated or outmoded by the latest remake or sequel like TV or film does.

I can see why The House of Thunder wasn’t originally released under the name Dean Koontz. Although the writing style is definitely his, the nature of the book isn’t particularly (although he has visited the central themes of it again in the 90′s with False Memory).

I’m not going to give the central plot point away as that will render the book a bit pointless but you shouldn’t be more than half way through before you get the gist of the twist. It’s fairly well telegraphed. Some of the prose is a little poor, and the way Susan falls for her doctor isn’t handled in the most convincing manner- it is very facile and more than a little twee.

It’s not a long book, weighing in at 350 pages, so it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. When I’ve finished A Christmas Carol for our bookclub, I think I’ll try one of his newer books. Or maybe I’ll dig out my ancient copy of Watchers…

Book 12 Wheel of Time: The Gathering Storm, Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan

fantasy, finished reading No Responses »

Oct 112009

As I mentioned in my previous post, this book rattles along at a fair old rate, a rate that the series hasn’t really managed since the first four or five volumes. Continue reading »

Nothing to Fear, Matthew D'Ancona

finished reading, thriller No Responses »

Jun 012009

It’s just as well I’m past the stage of judging a book by it’s cover as this is reminiscent of an 80′s Dean Koontz or Stephen King novel. And not in a good way. Nothing to Fear was the first book I read for the St Albans Book Group I’ve joined and it was a bit of a stinker. D’Ancona might be a pretty good political editor and commentator but I got the distinct impression his career as a novelist is born out of a conversation in a gentleman’s club.

It’s not that it’s a bad book per se, it’s just so underwhelming in all regards. The characters are wafer thin, the plot is nonsensical in parts and the ending is implausable.

What it does have going for it is that it can be read in a lunch time or two and is fairly inoffensive. Ideal to read on the beach if you’re looking at girls in bikinis over the top of it. I imagine.

Best Served Cold, Joe Abercrombie

fantasy, finished reading No Responses »

May 302009

It’s easy to get set in your ways and comfortable with the same authors. I’ve been reading Terry Pratchett, Robert Rankin, Stephen Donaldson, J.V. Jones and George RR Martin for years and it’s sometimes hard to give another author a chance. He’s new, how can be be any cop? is a hard mental shackle to break at times.

Fortunately my good chum Harry pointed me at The Blade itself by Joe Abercrombie and I was able to get past that stumbling block and read the first of what turned out to be a thoroughly entertaining modern fantasy trilogy. I’ll do a proper post on that series later but for now I want to talk about Best Served Cold, which is a follow up stand alone novel set in the same world as the First Law trilogy. It follows Monza’s quest for revenge as the mercinary captain is betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for dead. She is not a happy bunny, and goes about recruiting a bunch of misfits- a “savage”, posioners, ex-convicts, torturers, her old boss who she betrayed herself and so on, to wreak merry havok on those she deemed responsible for her near death. There is no epic questing for magical ornaments involved, which is good. There is a focus on character rather than on high fantasy concept. This is also good.

It’s interesting to see the lack of description doesn’t really get in the way of a cracking good yarn either. It’s really the characters where Abercrombie’s writing shines. He writes a good battle, an engaging posioning but it’s the dialogue between the characters and the underlying dark humour where he really shines.

There’s one stand out line that goes like this: “We talked about many things, fine wine, women, his impending destruction, you know small talk. He told me he’d have my head, I told him I quite understood, I found it enormously useful myself.” Which I think illustrates the genius of Abercrombie nicely.

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