Adventures in the Mouse House

19. Above the Snowline by Steph Swainston

This is a prequel to Swainston's Castle trilogy, which I read and loved last year (I think, but with my grasp of time it could be longer).  

It's neither as good as I was hoping, not as bad as I'd heard it was.

It's still about Jant, the immortal who can fly, who is the narrator of the Castle novels.  In this book his narration switches off with other characters.  He is forced to go back to the part of the world where he grew up (and was hounded out of, on account of being of mixed race, for lack of a better description) and ends up siding with the people he has spent his entire existence distancing himself from.  He even falls in love with one of them.

From having read the Castle books, you know that it doesn't end well.  How that plays out is still worth reading.

I did like this book quite a bit.  It's just that she ended the third Castle book with a bunch of big reveals, and we're still left on a cliff about all those.  

I've been trying to stop writing these up in batches; clearly failing miserably.

48.The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston

Another one foisted upon me by techbint. I never would have picked it up without a personal recommendation - it starts off as a standard fantasy novel and there were bits that did indeed drag and a few battle scenes I could have lived without. However, somewhere in the middle I was completely sucked in and the only thing that stopped me ordering the sequel immediately upon finishing it was the hope that I could borrow it from Lisa as well (the answer is yes). Swainston gives you enough information about the world it's set in so that things make sense, but leaves a powerful "but how does that work - I need to find out more" effect.

It's set in a world where human and human-like species have been at war with the Insects for about 2000 years. The Emperor is immortal and has a council of 50 immortals (this is a changing, fluid institution) to help him fight the Insects. The protagonist is Jant, the first man in centuries who can fly. He also has a serious drug problem.

What appealed to me is that unlike most fantasy novels where characters can fly, here it's a huge, exhausting physical effort.

Highly recommended.

49. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
This is far, far better than The Little Sister. All the sloppiness is completely gone, and Chandler is back on top form. At 450 pages, this is nearly twice as long as the rest of his books, and it's all genius. The last couple paragraphs are truly heartbreaking.

I'm not going to do this justice so I'm not even going to try; just go read it already.

50.European Gothic: A Spirited Exchange 1760-1960 edited by Avril Horner

Bought this at the Gothic Nightmares exhibition. It's a series of articles abut how gothic literature in different European countries (and the US) have influenced each other. As is usual with these things, some chapters were a lot better than others, but none were a waste of time. One started out all psychoanalytical crap but swiftly turns into an examination of social history, which is far more to my liking.

I was impressed by the explanation of why Spain had no contemporary tradition of gothic literature (particularly interesting in terms of what Carlos Luis Zafon & related writers are doing now); yet Russia, arguably a more alien society, did pick up elements of it.

Overall, really interesting & impressive, but has expanded the to-read list exponentially.

I've read a lot of the French books examined here but nearly none of the German. There was a lot about Melmoth the Wanderer which I haven't read since the early 90s and might be due for a re-visit. I was also reminded that I never got round to reading The Manuscript Found at Saragossa despite starting my PhD on Orientalist-inspired frame tales (my one problem with the programme at Manchester was they didn't encourage comparative reading in books written in languages other than English; in fact my supervisor nearly fainted when I presented an article that I'd read in French). Also really need to read Pushkin.


July reading:
Books read - 7
Non-fiction - 2
Borrowed from friends/library - 2
books purchased - er. many

Thus - to-read pile eradication FAIL again. Except that both non-fiction books have been sitting around for years so at least I'm getting some movement into the system.