alex matheson

Life Of Pi by Yann Martel is a book that has intrigued me since I first saw it on the shelf of a local bookshop back in 2002, when it won the Man Booker Prize For Fiction. In fact, during visits to various bookshops I’ve found myself with a copy in the pile of books I planned to buy only to swap it for something else. Then the book got made into a movie and so reading it became a lot more urgent - it looks like a movie I want to see and I prefer to read the book before seeing the film.

So, the book?

Well, you just have to wonder how things are going to develop when a young boy finds himself adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger called Richard Parker for company. The fact is that the story develops in all kinds of ways as Pi and Parker find themselves at sea for 227 days. This presents Pi with a number of practical issues to overcome, the most pressing of which is to ensure he doesn’t get eaten by the tiger.

As Pi adapts to his situation, makes plans for his survival and drifts on the Pacific his story is told in a series of flashbacks. We find out about Pi’s family and their zoo, discover how he got his name and learn how he aspires to be Hindu, Christian and Muslim all at the same time. We also hear the amusing tale of how a tiger came to be named Richard Parker. Most importantly, we learn about the human spirit and the will to survive.

It’s quite an engaging tale, so much so that you start to empathise with Pi, sharing his fear, frustration and moments of triumph. Especially when he has his somewhat surreal meerkat encounter as the tale draws to a close.

This one deserves a big thumbs up and I’m looking forward to seeing the movie - eventually - some time after it becomes available on DVD.

As I’ve said elsewhere, The Rats by James Herbert is one of my favourite horror novels and I rank Herbert himself among the best of the horror authors I’ve read. Yet The Dark is a book that I’ve somehow managed not to read until recently. I guess the main reason for this delay was just not having come across a copy to buy or borrow until I picked up the Kindle version in a promotion on Amazon.

Anyhow, I finally got round to reading it and overall found it an enjoyable experience. In this outing Herbert mixes elements of the haunted house, occult and possessed sub-genres to good effect and the story nips along at a fair pace. There’s a fair bit of action sprinkled with gore which, let’s face it, is what you expect from a James Herbert tale. I wouldn’t say that it was an especially scary read but it does provide a few shocks and confronts the reader with some extreme and unsettling scenes - indicative of the madness gripping the victims of the evil force they have fallen prey to.

Although I did enjoy reading The Dark, I don’t think it’s one of James Herbert’s best. I felt the pace slowed down and the plot became a little unclear early in the second half of the story (too much going on and maybe too much wierdness?). However things did get back on track, the pace picked up and matters were brought to a conclusion - which I’d like to say more about but won’t (spoilers and all that, you know). I will say that I felt the conclusion worked though I’ve since read a few reviews that suggest it doesn’t. I think that just means that it is one of those thought provoking endings that we all read different things into. Which is perhaps the result the author was aiming for?

In conclusion: if you’re a fan of James Herbert you’ve already read this. If not then this one will unsettle you enough to keep you awake on a long flight or stop you falling asleep at the beach. However James Herbert has written better books (The Rats, The Fog, The Secret of Crickley Hall, Portent, etc).

Well the call of the second book of A Song Of Ice And Fire proved too much to ignore and I couldn’t wait to find out where this epic tale was going next.

In one plot strand a civil war has broken out with various factions vying for control of the The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. In another a scouting party goes to investigate strange goings on beyond The Wall and to find out why the anarchic Wildling clans are uniting. In the third a young Queen tries to gather support to reclaim lands that were stolen from her murdered family.

Just as compelling but a better read than A Game Of Thrones, George R. R. Martin’s A Clash Of Kings continued to rebuild my faith in the Fantasy genre. The characters who made it through the first volume are developing nicely (or nastily in some cases) and continue to hold my attention – even if I do wonder which one might be next to meet a sticky end. Events unfold at a steady pace and there are plenty of cliffhanger moments as perspective moves from character to character.

I’m also very impressed with how vivid the world Martin has built has become. Reading is all the more enjoyable if you can picture the places in a novel clearly and Martin has the world-building skills to make it easy to share his vision. The same applies to his characters as I now have a pretty clear mental image of the main players – I hope those images will remain intact when I get round to watching the tv series.

Anyway, I’ve prattled on for long enough. A Song Of Ice And Fire is an excellent fantasy series and I’m looking forward to A Storm Of Swords, which I’m sure I’ll read sooner rather than later.

The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth by Stuart Clark is a historical novelisation of Johannes Kepler’s study of the motion of the Sun and planets and the mathematical laws he derived as a result. Kepler’s investigation is set against a backdrop of conflict with the prevailing religious view of an Earth-centric universe, family tragedy and the machinations of various others including Galileo Galilei and assorted members of the Catholic hierarchy.

In scope, the story covers Kepler’s life from early years through his time working for Tycho Brahe, advising Emperor Rudolph II, the observation of the 1604 Supernova, his two marriages and his theological differences with the Lutheran church of which he was a member. This makes it useful as a history book as well as a description of an important stage in our understanding of the universe. As such it achieves the aim stated on the author’s web site:

“The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth is the first in a trilogy of novels which dramatically bring to life key moments in our understanding of the cosmos – when our view of the universe changed forever…”

However I feel that as a novel it doesn’t quite work. I have to confess that I’m not sure quite that why that is but I think it’s to do with the difficulty inherent in turning scientific studies and events into a narrative. So whilst the story contains intrigue, tragedy and conflict these elements are, in this case, not enough to outweigh the scientific content. So if I was awarding stars with these posts I’d probably give it 3 out of 5 as a novel. But if I change things around by putting a popular science hat on I’d up that rating to 4 because Stuart Clark does a very good job of conveying the nature and importance of Kepler’s contribution to astronomy and our understanding of the cosmos.

Of course, I’ll pick up and read the remaining parts of this trilogy The Sensorium Of God and The Day Without Yesterday in order to find out more about the lives and impacts of Sir Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley from the former and Albert Einstein and Georges Lemaître from the latter.

Clockwork Angels: The Novel is the novelisation, by Kevin J. Anderson, of the story told by the concept album of the same name released by Rush. It tells the story of Owen Hardy and how he comes to leave is home in Barrel Arbor, visits Crown City, joins a travelling carnival, sails to another country, wanders a desert in search of a lost civilisation, has a close encounter with pirates and becomes entangled in the conflict between the Watchmaker and the Anarchist.

You might be forgiven for thinking that a novel based upon the lyrics of a rock drummer might fall a bit flat. However Neil Peart, the lyricist and drummer in question, is quite an accomplished teller of tales. True most of his tales concern his travels by bike and motorbike between and during concert tours but they are very engaging, well-written, enjoyable tales. So Neil Peart’s story idea originally told through his lyrics combined with Kevin J. Anderson’s sci-fi pedigree combine well here, producing something I think is quite special and rather enjoyable. Of course, this will remain novel that will primarily be bought and read by Rush fans but as a work of science fiction it is accessible to all.

If you do happen to pick up a copy, and you are a Rush fan, keep an eye out for phrases and lines culled from the lyrics found on other Rush albums. There are quite a few to be found as Kevin J. Anderson is a long time fan of the band and obviously knows their work well.

If you’re not a Rush fan, perhaps you should pick up a copy anyway as it’s suitable for young and old alike and is a pretty good read.

PS Rush are in the UK in May with dates in Manchester, London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Glasgow (more info) and I shall be keeping up my run of Rush shows by taking in the Glasgow SECC date.

I used to be a great fan of fantasy fiction. Swords, sorcery, hobbits, Lords, rings – I’m sure you know the sort of thing. Then along came Robert Jordan’s The Wheel Of Time series…

Now I know there are many, many folk out there who are huge fans of that series, all of whom have enjoyed reading it immensely. However for me that series killed the genre. Killed it and stomped all over its corpse. Sorry.

Things started well enough back in the early ‘90s when I started reading The Eye Of The World. But as the volumes piled up it became more of a struggle and by ‘96 or thereabouts with the release of the seventh book in the series, A Crown Of Swords, I couldn’t take it any longer. I gave up. Even though I was given a copy of the eighth book, The Path Of Daggers, as a gift I could not bring myself to read it. I switched instead to a diet of horror, sci-fi, crime, western, assorted non-fiction works, biography, auto-biography, classics, histories, anything other than fantasy. Apart from when I re-read The Lord Of The Rings at speed in advance of seeing the movies.

So what prompted me to break my fantasy embargo now we’ve reached the second decade of the 21^st century?

a) Curiosity;

b) Seeing copies of A Game Of Thrones all over the place;

c) Hearing people go on about Game Of Thrones the tv series;

d) Being in possession of a Book Token and not finding anything else to spend it on.

The answer is, of course, secret option e) All of the above.

And it turned out to be a pretty good choice.

As the first book in a series (will I last the distance?) A Game Of Thrones by George R. R. Martin covers a lot of ground. There are lots of characters to introduce, scenes to set, locations to describe, and plot strands to get running – a lot to take in, I’m sure you’ll agree. But it wasn’t enough to divert me from my return to the genre and before long I was completely immersed in a world of political intrigue, moral dubiety, outright treachery, gore-strewn battlefields and so much more. The pages turned and turned and I was surprised at how quickly I found myself on the final page – always a good sign and something that bade well for the rest of the series.

One of the things I really like about this book is that it does not rely heavily on the use of either magic or the supernatural as plot devices. There are hints of these as the story progresses but they are very much in the background, leaving the focus very much on the interaction of the multitude of characters and the events they are embroiled in. Conflicts are resolved by exchanges of blows and/or dialogue rather than by swapping spells and this gives the story more of a grounding in the real as opposed to the fantastical.

Also there is a genuine sense of threat and uncertainty as the author is not afraid to kill off characters who have central roles in his tale. This gives rise to some real cliff-hanger moments which help hold the attention and really make you wonder what is going to happen next. I consider this to be a really good thing in a novel as too many times you know that no matter what the hero or heroine will win the day in the end. Every once in a while they need to lose or be heroically wiped out (no matter how tempting the rewards of a sequel might be!).

That’s probably enough for just now as there are another 6 books in this sequence to come and I’ll have something to add about each. I’ll just add that I’m glad I used that book token to pick up a copy of A Game Of Thrones, its a great read and I’m looking forward to A Clash Of Kings. Will I read any more in the Fantasy genre when I reach the end of A Song Of Ice And Fire? Well, it is far too soon to say but if this standard is maintained I suspect anything else the genre has to offer may pale in comparison.

So, I’m a big fan of Zombie-horror provided there is a bit of humour, satire and/or social commentary under-pinning the gratuitous gore. Which means that I was totally blown away when I read Feed, the first volume of Mira Grant’s Newsflesh trilogy.

Feed is set some 20 years after a Zombie apocalypse, The Rising, which was caused when two experimental viruses (one a cure for the common cold, the other a cure for cancer) were accidentally released from their labs. In the wild they combine to form a nasty pathogen which, when it’s host dies, goes into a kind of overdrive and sends the corpse shambling forth to spread the disease. Humanity survives but both virus and zombies persist as a threat to the tightly controlled safe zones society has retreated to.

Against this backdrop bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason win the contract to follow and report on Senator Peter Ryman’s campaign for the US Presidency. They quickly find themselves embroiled in a chaotic mix of conspiracy, death, mayhem and zombies…

What I particularly like about this story is that it builds a very convincing post zombie-outbreak society that is clearly on the edge despite retaining some of the comforts we know today. It also has a good explanation of the zombie plague’s genesis – the genetic modification of viruses in an effort to combat two common illnesses. I can’t speak to the scientific accuracy of this explanation but it seems to make sense within the context of the story and certainly seems plausible.

There are also twists and turns that would make most twisty-turny things jealous but I’ll have to leave you to uncover these for yourselves.

Overall Feed is a well-paced horror story with strong undercurrents of political intrigue, subtle hints of satire and the occasional shocking slap in the face – just to make sure you’re awake.

Enjoy!

To prove I haven’t either stopped reading or fallen off the edge of the planet here’s the first of several views that I’ll be posting over the coming weeks…

Drumbeats is a short story by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart about a drummer who, during his downtime, is cycling around West Africa where he is seduced by the sound of a drum.

Although short (about 32 pages including fore- and afterword) it’s an enjoyable read which I whizzed through to fill a gap as I decided which novel from my reading pile to tackle next. The narrative brings drummer fictional Danny Imbro, the landscape he travels through and characters he meets to brief but brilliant life as he journeys towards the twist in his tale. There’s not much more that can be said without venturing into spoiler territory but this one will suit fans of chilling fiction everywhere.

You can pick up the extended edition of Drumbeats for your Kindle from Amazon and enjoy the foreword by Kevin J. Anderson and afterword by Neil Peart in which author and real-life drummer, respectively, discuss their friendship – a must have for fans of Rush.

Whilst I’m a long way from reading all of Patricia Cornwell’s novels I have really enjoyed those that I have read. When I picked Port Mortuary up it looked like it too would be a good read. It didn’t disappoint.

Kay Scarpetta finds herself enmeshed in an investigation where a range of high technologies collide. She’s been trying out some advanced autopsy techniques involving virtualisation and computed tomography and looking into how these can be used from military into civilian use. Before she knows it, she’s using these techniques to investigate the death of a young man who might still have been alive when he was placed in a mortuary cooler.

The author blends technology and whodunnit to create a tale which hooks you very early on and keeps you engrossed as the mystery unfolds. Events unfold very quickly over a short period of time which I felt heightened the tension and made for a thrilling read. And this is another read I’m happy to recommend but with one condition – it will really help if you are already familiar with the characters that inhabit Kay Scarpetta’s world. If you’re not already familiar with them it shouldn’t dull your enjoyment but you may find yourself a little confused at times. For my part it just makes me want to read more of Patricia Cornwell’s books so I can fill in the blanks.

The Lewis Man is the second book in Peter May’s Lewis Trilogy and the sequel to The Blackhouse, which I posted my views on here.

In this instalment of the trilogy a well-preserved body of a man is found buried in the Lewis peat. At first it is thought the body may have lain in the ground for thousands of years but this idea is soon dispelled following the discovery of a rather more recent tattoo. There are no other identifying marks on the man’s body but it becomes clear he has been murdered. With so little to go on there seems little hope of either finding the man’s identity or solving the crime. Fin Macleod, who has now left both Edinburgh and the police force, has just returned to his home island and finds himself entangled in the investigation. Which he soon finds strikes closer to home than he might like.

What else to say? Well, I enjoyed reading this one more than The Blackhouse. I felt that it was more compelling and kept me turning the pages a lot more rapidly – perhaps as a result of having become familiar with the writer’s style and with the characters themselves. As with The Blackhouse there are moments of humour amongst an otherwise dark and somewhat tragic tale – a tale made all the more real by the use of actual locations from Edinburgh, Lewis, Harris, and Eriskay (most of which I found recognisable).

Overall, a thrilling read and confirmation that time reading this trilogy will be time well used.