- Posts tagged reading
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A brief word on Rivers of London
A while ago, my lovely friends Darren and Laura bought me a hardback, signed copy of Rivers of London. They reasoned that it looked to be exactly my cup of tea, and it was dedicated to a dear mutual friend of ours. It went on my to be read pile and then stayed there for a bit, because at the same time I got a kindle, and the whizzbang bit of tech was my new best friend.
Well, just recently I decided that if I wasn’t going to shove the very lovely hardback into my handbag then I would bloody well get the ebook version and read that. The hardback remains pristine on a shelf... the point is, I recently finished Rivers of London and now I’m on to Moon Over Soho, and I’m very glad I got my finger out and read it, because these books are great.
I’ve read genre books before set in modern London, and apart from the fabulous Neverwhere I’ve never really connected with them. They never really felt like my London, the London I grew up in and work in and live in now, the London I love right down to my toes. Arronovitch knows the city and loves it, and he writes it brilliantly. It probably helps that he’s writing about places I have a fondness for (Soho, Covent Garden, Holborn) but it’s about more than that; PC Grant is a modern Londoner in every sense, and his droll affection for the city, wary street sense and family strife are London all over. Plus, he’s an immensely likeable and genuinely funny character; add that to a sprinkling of geeky references (how can you not love a book that mentions Doctor Who and Fringe and Playstations?) and a cast of supporting characters that brighten the story rather than distracting from it, and you’ve got a pretty top series of books, in my opinion.
A Number of Small Updates Ultimately Signifying Nothing
It occurred to me that I haven’t done one of those straight-forward, what’s going on at the minute sort of posts for a while, so here we go; prepare your ears for my latest escapades!
Ahem.
At the weekend I went to see Spirited Away on the big screen with my lovely friend Jenni. Spirited Away is one of my favourite movies (and I suspect one of Jenni’s too) so it was a real treat to see it in all its glory, and with an audience full of equally appreciative fans. Obviously Studio Ghibli have produced a lot of truly excellent films, but Spirited Away remains special to me for reasons that I can’t really put my finger on. Part of it, I think, is demonstrated by the picture above- the film makes me feel oddly peaceful, even in the midst of stink gods, No-faces eating everyone, and other weirdness. It’s impossible to watch this film and not feel quietly happy at the end of it.
Also at the weekend, I finished Camp Nanowrimo with a day to spare. Hurrah! And I appear to be doing the whole thing again this month, because I apparently want to test my sanity to the limits. This is good though, because it means I’ll have a complete first draft of The Snake House in two months, which I’m pretty certain would be something of a record for me. Dead Zoo Shuffle was almost that fast, but I wrote a Steampunk novella in the middle of it and that confused matters somewhat.
As for The Snake House itself, I will cautiously say it is going well. I’ve had to write about some very dark and nasty stuff, which has been more challenging than I expected, and in many ways I miss the freedom that straight-up fantasy books give you in terms of world-building and making up your own rules. However, my three old lady characters have been enormous fun to write and I’m finding out more and more about them every day, via that wonderful habit characters sometimes have of going off and doing whatever they like, or saying the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment. This seems to happen even more with old lady characters.
I’m re-reading A Song of Ice and Fire. I know, I know, I only just finished A Dance With Dragons, but after a brief break to read Full Dark, No Stars (which was pretty good) I’ve decided to throw myself straight back in. There is a certain delicious fangirl joy in knowing what will be significant later, so you can pay extra special attention to certain events, and what this character says to that character at this time. I’ve got the first four books all together on a kindle edition, so I’ve been reading for a day and a half and I’m still only 1% in. Hmm.
And that’s it for now. There is other stuff to talk about coming up on the horizon, but I shall leave it where it is for the time being, like Chihiro’s distant lights. See you on the other side of Nano!
On Finishing A Dance With Dragons (no spoilers)
So, that’s it. I have moved A Dance With Dragons from my “currently reading” file to my “finished” file (after having ritualistically read through the index of character names and houses- am I the only one to do that?) and I am bereft of book. I won’t do a big lengthy review or anything, but I will say it was great, I enjoyed it immensely, and that George Double R’d Martin is a wily sod. Despite the horrendously painful cliff-hangers he likes to torture us with, I can genuinely say that it was more than worth the wait. Big books take a long time to write (even small books can take a while, let’s be honest) and big excellent books with huge character histories, complicated intrigues and rollicking adventures… yes, they can take years to write. And I’m fine with that.
I expect I shall sulk for a while now, as I listlessly pick up other books and put them back down again, finding them lacking in some vital way (dragons, mainly) until I eventually have to accept the fact that A Song of Ice and Fire is pretty damn special, and I will have to read something else as we begin the agonizing wait for the next book.
Unless I just read them all again from the beginning. Then I can make a little folder on my kindle just for ASOIAF! Woot!
Women and Wizards- The Warlord Trilogy by Bernard Cornwell (potential spoilers for the first two books!)
I’ve just finished the second book in Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord trilogy (a gutsy and gritty retelling of the Arthur mythos) and a bloody good read it is too. I’ve still got Excalibur to go, which I shall be reading as swiftly as possible before A Dance With Dragons comes out, and indeed these tales of swords, beards and heroism make a lovely almost-fantasy appetizer for the next George R.R Martin book.
What has impressed me in particular is the quality of female characters in the first two books (The Winter King and Enemy of God, go and grab copies) – previously my only experience of Cornwell was via the TV series Sharpe, which my partner is a big fan of (I rather like it myself), but it has to be said the ladies in the series don’t have a lot going for them. His first wife, sure, the Spanish rebel who kicked ass in her own right, she was excellent but inevitably she didn’t quite last the whole series, and then after her most of the female characters in Sharpe (the TV series, at least) are consigned to breathing heavily in garments not made to stand such stresses and throwing themselves (understandably, perhaps) at the eponymous hero. Even worse, one of his wives turns out to be an absolute rotter, who simpers and faints and gets off with Wesley Wyndham-Price instead.
However, in his King Arthur stories Bernard Cornwell has given us a cast full of extraordinary and interesting ladies; characters who are perhaps more memorable even than the male characters you remember from the Arthur mythology. There is Nimue, Merlin’s high priestess and childhood friend of our narrator- she is clever, ruthless, intermittently mad, and utterly determined. The portrayal of Guinevere is a fascinating one, as we meet a woman who is beautiful and knows it, and has infinitely more ambition than even Arthur himself- a woman constrained by the times she lives in, and looking for ways to break out. Even Ceinwyn, who could easily have been a winsome blond princess with little else to do but be the caring one, keeps things a little subversive by taking a vow never to marry, and instead takes her own path through life.
This is more like it. And there’s tons of other stuff to admire about the books of course, particularly Merlin, who is devious beyond measure and very, very funny, and Cornwell gives us a portrayal of pagan Britain that feels real, even if it is nearly impossible to know exactly how it all went down. I’m expecting to zoom through the third book now, and only partly because I know Westeros is waiting for me at the end of it.
Oh, and if you haven’t done so yet, please do check out the short story I posted below… it’s not Arthurian Fantasy but I am very close to 100 views and every plug helps! ;)
On the Importance of Being a Reader
Still no review of Dragon Age 2 I’m afraid. This is largely because I’ve, well, started playing it again, but I’m sure that my second play through as a bisexual mage will add all sorts of nuances to my final verdict (I called him Theon in the end, rather than Spanky).
Instead I’ve been thinking about the importance of reading in regards to the process of writing. Lovely twitter peep @RozD has started a blog recently detailing her current challenge to read 100 hundred books (go here to check it out) and we briefly discussed the idea of reading as procrastination. But the truth is reading is an enormously important part of the writing process too. To be a writer, we are told, you must:
a) Write
b) Read
But, it’s a little tricksier than that I think. The actual physical act of writing, sitting your bum down and getting the words out, is obviously the key to being a writer. BUT, I am tempted to put reading on an equal footing. Firstly, if you don’t read, then why are you writing? If you don’t love books, then why do you want to make them? It sounds daft, but I have encountered people before who were rather in love with the idea of being a writer- on the surface it sounds cool, like you’re an eccentric lone wolf who drinks neat whisky and stares broodily out of windows whilst scribbling in a notebook*. But when I asked said people what their favourite books were and who they hoped to emulate, they would shuffle their feet and shrug and indicate that, well, they were only really interested in their own books. When they finally got around to starting them, that is.
Also, without reading you have nothing to aspire to. Or, if you like, you won’t experience that snarky little rage that causes you to twirl your moustaches and think, “I could do better than this!” You would never be inspired, or informed, or enlightened by the simple marvellousness of the fiction that is available to us. If I hadn’t read Perdido Street Station, for example, I might still be labouring under the misapprehension that all fantasy had to look and sound a certain way. If I hadn’t read A Song of Ice and Fire I’d never have gotten a girl-boner for swords and written The Steel Walk (although I’m still unsure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing). The idea of writing without reading is incomprehensible. Mind-boggling. And so, when we spend hours giggling over Wodehouse or days dallying in the world of Jonathan Strange (as I have been doing lately) then we must not feel guilty, or that we are neglecting our writerly duties.
Because to write you have to a) write, and a) read.
*this is an accurate depiction of my life, obviously.
The Instant Kindle Convert
So, my lovely boyfriend bought me a Kindle for my birthday.
Previously I had remained rather neutral on the subject of e-readers. I’ve always been such a “paper” book person, you see; I work for a company that make beautiful hardback editions of classic books, I’ve a degree in illustration, and I studied bookbinding at art college. Most telling of all, there are just piles and piles of the things at home, so many that we sort of exist in a fort made of paper and text. I like the smell of them, the physical weight of a paperback or a hardback. In this, I thought, I would remain a luddite. Touch screen phones and wi-fi, yes, but e-readers- probably not.
It took me approximately 30 seconds to fall in love with the Kindle.
It is devilishly cute, for a start. The screen looks just like a page, not an electronic screen, and it is not remotely aren’t-I-trendy-and-flash like some electronic devices I could name. It’s easy to use and does everything it’s supposed to. It brings up pictures of fish and birds and Jules Verne if I leave it alone for a little while. But the thing that sold me on it, the thing that made me cling to it like a monkey with a chocolate dipped banana, the thing that means it hasn’t been out of my sight since the 19th is- I can now carry all the books I’m reading with me, all of the time.
This is significant. This is epic.
Because I’m one of those people who tends to be reading more than one book at a time. And everyday, when I leave for work, I have to look at each book in turn and decide which one I will cram into my handbag. This is never an easy decision for me; it’s rather like deciding which of your children to take to Disneyland, and which to send to the workhouse to eat gruel.
But now you can all come! Now we can all go on It’s a Small World and eat ice-cream and prance and sing and cavort with the sinister costumed things!
Um. Anyway, there is that, and the tremendous power of thinking “You know, I’ve never gotten around to reading Stephen King’s The Long Walk…” and hey, by the end of that sentence there it is, sitting on my Kindle waiting for me to read (it was brilliant, by the way, some of the best King I’ve read in years and years). There are dangers, obviously; for a book addict this is rather like being in a giant shop full of book-shaped cakes and the baker saying “They’re free! All free! But careful you don’t ruin your dinner.”
All in all, I think you can consider me converted. No doubt I’ll still continue to buy good ol’ paper books too, but the Kindle is here to stay. Now, on with The Anubis Gates!
Great Books I Have Known: IT by Stephen King
One of the things I want to do now I have this swish new space is a series of blogs about books that have been particularly important to me, or made a lasting impact. I’m not sure how regular these will be (goodness knows I’ve plenty of books to write about in that respect) but I’ll be aiming for around once a month. It’s nigh on impossible to choose just the one book by Stephen King, and I’m sure I’ll be coming back to him more than once for this series, but to start with I’d like to talk about It. No, not that, you filth wizards. The other It.
IT tells the story of the Losers Gang, both as children and adults, as they attempt to face down the terrible predatory force of “it”, a being able to disguise itself depending on the fears of its prey. The creature often appears as Pennywise the Clown, giving an entire generation of readers a life long phobia of weirdoes with painted faces.
It is a big old book, born of those delicious days when King wanted to tell you the back stories of every minor character- a habit that makes for doorstep sized books, but I have always loved that aspect of his writing; King is brilliant at creating believable characters precisely because he seems to know their entire back stories. This book is full of people you can care for and understand, and that is why the terrifying force of It is so effective; if you can remember being afraid of the dark, or watching a horror film you really shouldn’t have just before bed, or have ever felt uneasy walking across an abandoned piece of wasteland, then It will scare you silly. I think it’s scarier than The Shining, scarier even than The Stand, and in fact the only book he’s written that freaked me out more was Pet Sematary, and that is largely because it is so relentlessly grim. No one is safe in It, and no one gets out unscathed. Just the opening scene is so shocking that thinking about it now gives me the creeps.
It’s not a perfect book mind, and aside from accusations of bloat, I have heard people say the ending is very weird, and there’s a scene that takes place in the sewers when the main characters are children that has drawn raised eyebrows and frowns from everyone I’ve mentioned it to, but to me this is King at his best; a story that is relentlessly scary, tremendously compelling and ultimately redemptive. He’s known for his pitch perfect depictions of small town American life, but for me the doomed town of Derry was the best of them, and the one that will haunt me the longest.
Three
So I finally saw some of it and was rather disappointed. To be fair, I'm coming rather late to the party, and my paltry plot knowledge gleaned from poorly constructed jpegs containing such wisdom as "I would hit that!" and "Ruby sucks!" was hardly likely to give me the best preparation. But still. What mainly happened was a number of devastatingly attractive people hung around looking devastatingly attractive, whilst giving the sort of moody glances that indicate rumpy pumpy might be on the cards at any moment. True, there was a woman there in a mental institution who could hear the voices of angels and demons, but even she was distractingly beautiful. Despite being loopy, she still apparently had time to nip out and get her hair dyed "Mystic Plum". Oh, someone had a nosebleed too, and someone tried to stab someone else. But that was largely it. And not once did those two brothers have sex. Disappointing.3) Fantasy trilogies: I am in the middle of one at the moment. This is rare for me, because the sort of fantasy that comes in trilogies (and higher numbers) is normally the sort of fantasy I'm rubbish at finishing. No reflection on the books themselves; I still love sword and sorcery fantasy and all it is and all it stands for. When I was a kid I was obsessed with The Lord of the Rings, but since then I think my attention span has shrunk, and proper po-faced fantasy has me running for something a bit more funky, with a little more humour in it; The Lies of Locke Lamora, for example, or The Book of Lost Things.
So the Trilogy I am currently slogging through? Robin Hobb's Soldier's Son sequence. And I am enjoying it; I'm just not sure I can tell you why. The set up is very similar to her previous series, the Assassin's Apprentice (which I loved) where a young male character grows up with an unwanted magical "gift", has all sorts of shit happen to him because of it, and generally has a fairly rotten time. The AA series had dragons and pirates going for it, and intrigue and castles, but Soldier's Son... well. It has the army. Uh. And spotty magical people. And stately balls (ahem). And the most interesting thing to happen so far happened in the first 100 pages, which is a little annoying when you've read around 800 pages so far.
But, it is a testament to Hobb's writing that she can take the pace this slow, have no dragons in it and still have me balancing the book on the washing machine while I try to turn the burger's over one handed. The woman writes characters you grow to love, and you learn a lot of patience that way.
