[books 2016] Spark and Carousel

36. Spark and Carousel by Joanne Hall

Disclaimer: Jo is one of the BristolCon mob so I spend a fair amount of time in the pub with her.

I keep going to Jo's book launches but as my to-read pile has its own room, I hadn't got round to actually reading any of her books yet. Also, she writes more traditional fantasy than tends to be my thing. I mean, this one's set in a city, but it's a city at a late-medieval level of development.

I was pleasantly surprised. While it's not exactly up my street, the writing is good enough and the plotting tight enough to keep me interested. While there is magic and clearly a hierarchy and structure of magic use, this is incidental to the story rather than something the whole story is based around. The characters are interesting. The world is pretty grim but not without joy and hope. The black magic was creepy as hell.

The rest of her books have just been bumped up the queue, and there's a new one out next month.

[books 2016] Orlando

37. Orlando by Virginia Woolf

This month's book club selection. It was my nomination. I saw the film back when it came out but couldn't remember a thing about it. I was interested in it less for the gender swap than for the living forever element. (My favourite Sandman story is Hob Gadling). And then I remembered that I hate the Bloomsbury Set and everything they stand for.

Again, I was pleasantly surprised. Nobody told me that it's funny. And although it's generally classed as literary fiction, it's definitely fantasy. Aside from Orlando changing gender and living for 400 years, the geography is definitely of the next parallel world over.

Also, from a historical perspective she gets a number of things right - Orlando's stately home being effectively a working village is the only one I can remember now.

The description of the frost fair is gorgeous yet ridiculous. The description of the 19th century had me laughing like a loon in a random coffee shop.

It's difficult to read because there aren't a lot of paragraphs, and I kept having to stop and giving my brain a chance to compile, so it took longer than I planned for but was also way more rewarding than I thought it would be.

[books 2016] More generic crime fiction

38. Heartbreaker by Tania Carver

Tania Carver is actually a large man from the North East of England who also writes as Martin Waites. I was unaware of his/their work until he did a reading from one of the Tania books at BristolCon recently. I was intrigued (he described the Tania books as occupying the same space in British publishing as Karin Slaughter does in the US, and I do like Karin Slaughter).

This is a recent book in the series, which follows the exploits of a husband and wife team - he's a police detective, she's a psychologist. In this one their marriage is falling apart and he makes a lot of bad decisions. She works out a lot.

It's pretty generic violent-crime stuff (but it's not as graphic or even pornographic about violence as Karin Slaughter at all). Which is to say that I still read it in a very short period of time - nothing particularly to write home about, but very much delivers what it sets out to. It was above averagely plotted, though - I was pretty sure who the killer was early on, but enough red herrings are thrown into the mix to keep you doubting right till the end.

[books 2016] What is Paleolithic Art?

39. What is Paleolithic Art? Cave paintings and the dawn of human creativity by Jean Clottes

This was reviewed in New Scientist recently and I had to order it right away. Clottes is *the* expert on the cave art in the south of France and leading proponent of the theory that cave art is an expression of a shamanic culture. I recognised his name from Cave Painting and the Human Spirit.

The first one third to one half of the book looks at rock art throughout the world, including cultures in the Americas and Australia that still do it, and how their approaches correspond to theories about how and why neolithic rock art/cave art was made. The last (long) chapter relates this to examples from European cave art.

Fascinating stuff; it's only short and well worth it. Parts of it are not easy (I'm a historian, not a social scientist) but it's accessible to a general reader. It has reminded me to get m sticky paws on a copy of The Mind in the Cave and its sequel ASAP.

[books 2016] Traitor's Blade

40. Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell

I became aware of Sebastien at last year's Nine Worlds on a random panel (when I the one I had intended to attend was full). He writes "swashbuckling fantasy" which intrigued me but not enough to buy his books, even though he's witty, charming and Canadian. I knew that he was attending Nine Worlds again this year and the last time I was at the library his first book was there, so I grabbed it.

Anyway, I loved it. Yes, there is a sword fight in almost every chapter. Yes, the main character is a smartass whose two companions can be equally charming and/or annoying. Yes, if you are a goth the aesthetics are spot on (the disgraced order our heroes belong to is called The Greatcoats). But there are also All The Feels, and when it gets dark it gets really, believably dark and visceral and just awful. Although there are times when I think he came up the visual first and built the world backwards from there, it holds together really well.

If I hadn't just read Guns of the Dawn, this would easily be the best book I read this year. I bought volumes two and three at Nine Worlds.

[books 2016] Another Falco mystery

41. Two For The Lions by Lindsey Davis

A few years ago I read the first half of this series and then tailed off. I've read the first chapter of this a couple of times but couldn't get into it and thought maybe I'd had enough. Started it again on the bus/at lunch last week and got sucked straight in. Read the rest on the coach to and from London this weekend.

Standard Falco series stuff - Falco lands what he hopes is a lucrative contract as an auditor for Vespasian's census and is given the task of looking into the finances of various participants in the arena - gladiators, wild beasts etc and stumbles right into the killing of one of the lions to which convicted criminals are fed. This is, naturally, swiftly followed by the murder of a gladiator. For Reasons, the case unravels but Falco's entire family ends up in North Africa, where it all comes together again.

Because it's set in ancient Rome, even though it's mostly about a fairly clueless, smartass investigator, there's a lot of death and violence. Even so, the ending, where everything *really* all comes crashing down around him, is pretty dark.

And I have to read the next one really soon to find out exactly what Falco did bring to light about the sacred geese...