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inulroI lie, something ace is happening in my life right now. I'm just about finished reading Nocturnes by John Connolly. He's one of the writers who appeared at Fantasycon that I was determined to check out, and as it happened this book was sitting on the "recently returned (and we haven't had time to shelve it)" shelf at the library when I returned my last lot of books.
John Connolly is known mostly for writing crime novels with a supernatural element (so you can see where I'd be interested), but this is a collection of short stories. It completely rocks! Some of the stories have modern-day USA settings (as, apparently, do his novels), but a lot of them are based in England around the time of the Great War. They are similar in tone to MR James or Algernon Blackwood (the settings to James, but something about the air of menace reminds me of Blackwood), but with much wittier prose. I *heart* his prose - it's funny and beautiful and scary all at once. And creepy as all hell.
For those who were at Fantasycon, John was the Irish guy who ranted (very eloquently) about people who diss him for using the supernatural in his detective stories, but who read "cat mysteries" where the kitty is the detective. I thought he meant the Felidae series, which I haven't read but had understood to be reasonably respected novels. While I was home sick recently I was reading some random web article about animal welfare and discovered to my horror that there are indeed "cat mysteries" that sound exactly like the Bad- and Wrongness that Connolly described. I did not investigate further.
John Connolly is known mostly for writing crime novels with a supernatural element (so you can see where I'd be interested), but this is a collection of short stories. It completely rocks! Some of the stories have modern-day USA settings (as, apparently, do his novels), but a lot of them are based in England around the time of the Great War. They are similar in tone to MR James or Algernon Blackwood (the settings to James, but something about the air of menace reminds me of Blackwood), but with much wittier prose. I *heart* his prose - it's funny and beautiful and scary all at once. And creepy as all hell.
For those who were at Fantasycon, John was the Irish guy who ranted (very eloquently) about people who diss him for using the supernatural in his detective stories, but who read "cat mysteries" where the kitty is the detective. I thought he meant the Felidae series, which I haven't read but had understood to be reasonably respected novels. While I was home sick recently I was reading some random web article about animal welfare and discovered to my horror that there are indeed "cat mysteries" that sound exactly like the Bad- and Wrongness that Connolly described. I did not investigate further.
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Date: 2006-10-27 09:12 pm (UTC)I don't think I've read any 'kitty detective' novels. Well, I've read detective stories which have involved cats (specifically 'The Cat Who...' series) - but the humans always do the investigating, it's just that some of the cat behaviour, with hindsight, would seem to point to a particular clue or suspect, that's all. Then again, I don't think I could cope if cats were actively solving mysteries, unless it was a clearly a fantasy to begin with. I mean, if it was reality-based they'd give up clue-hunting the minute it was dinner-time...
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Date: 2006-10-30 08:44 am (UTC)Nocturnes sounds really good, though. I'll have to look it up.