[books 2014] Ken McLeod

29. Descent by Ken McLeod

Set in Edinburgh in the age of our grandchildren (more or less), Ryan has an alien abduction experience as a teen. But he's savvy, he knows it he wasn't actually abducted by aliens and it was more likely to be a top secret aerospace project.

Nonetheless, this even has a pretty big impact on his life thereafter, a time of big change in Scotland and the world. The Depression (which is strongly hinted has been going on since our own crash in 2008) seems to be over and the political landscape is changing. Revolutionaries give up and go home...or do they.

I loved this - in some ways, not a lot happens, but it's the way he tells it. It's Ken McLeod, so it's full of ideas, but not in a way that bogs you down and makes you take a long break to process like in a lot of his works.

It's probably my second favourite of his books, after The Night Sessions.

[books 2014] John Connolly

30 The Wolf in Winter by John Connolly

It's no secret that I love John Connolly's writing very much and I'm a big fangirl. However, I did feel that he'd lost his way with some of the more recent Charlie Parker novels.

He's found it again. I couldn't put this one down. It's got all the plot elements that tick my boxes, and some beautiful turns of phrase and perceptive writing, in particular a few paragraphs on the sheer hard work of keeping alive day to day when you're homeless that's breathtaking.

The last quarter is not quite what you expect. Charlie Parker is in a coma, and it's about the people who care enough to avenge him and to finish the job he was working on.

I tag this one supernatural detective series, but this has so little in common with, say, the Dresden Files or the London series that are doing the rounds. This is much darker, more elemental.

[film] Star Trek: Into Darkness

As I suspected, pretty pants. Definitely of the school of "keep the action going really fast, maybe nobody will notice we don't have a plot".

There's a nice bit in the middle where it slows down for some plot exposition and you think some substance may come out of this after all but - no.

The best thing about it is Benedict Cumberbatch, and Zachary Quinto's Spock is interesting. But otherwise - really poor.

[film] Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

This has been sitting on the recorder for ages because I've been waiting to have enough functional brain cells to devote to it. Eventually admitted that was never going to happen and watched it anyway yesterday.

Bleak and a bit complicated, but very, very good.