Hell Island
A Matthew Riley book; I got it for free when I bought a couple of books in the “Fifty Amazing Reads” or whatever it was promotion. It was very short, but quite entertaining. I’ve only read one other Riley, and I quite liked it too, but the same things annoyed me – too much gratuitous use of italics, mostly, and a few too many exclamation marks! Again, though – as with Cussler – I quite like the adventures, so I am willing to put up with a few annoyances. As long as I have breaks between reading them, so I can partially forget about it in the meantime.
Another Borders 3 for 2 deal – The Little Lady Agency, Almost French, Ewan McGregor
The Little Lady Agency, by Hester Browne
This is not the sort of book I would usually read – really, really not. However… I was looking for a third to round out my group, and this caught my eye. I read the first couple of pages (not, like a friend of mine, a few pages in the middle of the book, randomly chosen), and I thought it looked quite funny. So I bought it. And I read it, and I really quite enjoyed it. It’s that classic tale of someone pretending to be someone they are not – but in this case, being paid for it. The characters were amusing; I liked that it was from the first person, and I really liked that Melissa is very definitely not Bridget Jones (which I refuse to see or read), because she is generally fine with her appearance, only grousing about it as much as a ‘normal’ chick. It was terribly funny to see the portrayals of the upper-class girls and boys: I wonder if the author herself is from the upper echelons… I would be surprised if she didn’t at least have some real contact with it. It got a little bit wearisome in parts, with Melissa worrying about whether she loves someone and if he likes her or not, but the wearisomeness didn’t realistically last that long. I liked it, overall; I can see that this could potentially have a sequel, but I’m not convinced that I would read it.
And I haven’t read the other two yet, so I will post about them when I have.
Borders 3 for 2 – Eragon, Inkheart, Trojan Odyssey
Even though it is part of the Evil American Empire Taking Over the World, I really do like Borders; especially their 3 for 2 tables. I know all about impulse buying and luring people in to buy things they don’t really need, and I don’t really mind that it sometimes works on me.
Eragon, by Christopher Paolini
I didn’t realise, until I got to the author bit at the end, that this was written by a teenager… although I had guessed that it was a first novel, by some of the clunkier bits in it. But I really loved this book; it’s got some good ideas and some great characters, and it’s obvious that it can be developed, probably into a trilogy – I know the second one is out now. I like that there are a couple of secrets not revealed and questions not resolved, and that these haven’t been played up too heavily in the story; there hasn’t been a whole lot of griping about them, nor have there been many clues, so I at least am not positive about how they will be resolved. I am definitely going to read the rest. I like being back with dragons!
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
This book captured my heart. It’s fantastic. Whoever translated it was brilliant; I can’t even imagine how hard translation work like that must be. I love that there were quotes from different books, real books, at the start of each chapter; it’s such a nice touch, particularly when I knew and loved some of them – The Neverending Story (which of course was written in German originally), and The Princess Bride, to mention only two. It’s also given me some new books to find! But back to Inkheart… lots of people have thought about meeting the characters from books, but this is a whole new twist on the idea, and it was very well realised. The characters are wonderful, the intricacies of the plot are brilliant. It’s a kid’s book – teenagers maybe – which is partly obvious from the hints you get throughout that the heroine, at least, has a future after the adventure; my gosh, though, I would recommend this to adults with no hesitation. I’m also going to buy the author’s first book, Thief Lord, which I saw in the shop the other day.
Trojan Odyssey, by Clive Cussler
After Valhalla Rising, I swore that I would read no more Cussler books… it was all just getting way, way too tacky for me, and so formulaic I felt I could guess what Dirk and Al would say to each other. But then I saw this on the 3 for 2 table, and my itchings to keep following their adventures got the better of me. Even though I knew the writing would be a bit painful, I was willing to put up with it for the sake of the adventures. And I was as right as I knew I would be: the writing was a bit boring, some bits were excruciatingly average, but the adventure was a whole lot of fun. Given the ending, I am pretty sure this will be the last Dirk Pitt adventure. I really, really hope that Cussler doesn’t think he can continue the franchise with Dirk Jnr; that would be just wrong. I’m thinking now of going back to the old books and seeing for myself whether it was me or the writing that got old. But I don’t think I will read the other Cussler series; I just don’t have the emotional attachment to the characters to be willing to put myself through it.
Faking Literature
It’s been ages since I wrote about any of the books I’ve read, so I’m going back just a little way in time to comment on some of them.
This book, Faking Literature, I picked up at Readings from the cheapo academic table, partly because hoaxes/fakes fascinate me, but also because the author, Ken Ruthven, was the lecturer of a couple of subjects I did at uni. He was pretty hard to handle in first year – I really didn’t get it – but in second year I thought he was fantastic. I guess I’d grown up enough to understand him and his humour, not to mention lit crit.
This book is, of course, all about fakes and hoaxes in the literary world, and I learnt an awful lot about Great Scams in Literature. It was good to see that he included those few great Aussie ones, too – Helen “Demidenko” and Ern Malley; as well as Milli Vanilli, which was pretty funny. But given that he included that last, I was a bit surprised that he did not include Elizabeth Durack, a white female artist, and her great scam posing as Eddie Burrup, an Aboriginal male artist. The only reason I know about it, of course, is that it’s one of the family’s great stories. Anyway.
Aside from the historical pointof view, the book is also about the reactions of the ‘legit’ literary community to the deception – particularly when they have at first embraced the hoax/fake as itself being legit. His contention, I think, is that the legit vilifies the so-called illegit to stop people from questioning the legitimacy of the legit itself, and also becuase it is only legit by defining itself against the illegit. I love it… dichotomies only exist by defining what each side isn’t, which can only be done with reference to their opposite.
It was a great book. Quite easy to read, which was refreshing, and with some quite witty parts as well. And I’m sure Ken would be gratified to hear that I think so.
Deathstalker saga has stalked itself out
I am finally completely finished with the Deathstalker series… except for Deathstalker Prelude, but that doesn’t count, since it’s not about a Deathstalker, it’s just set in the same universe. I am very glad I have read them all – very worthwhile in the end, and I must say not quite as dark as I had been expecting. It’s certainly not Eddings, but there is definitely more horrid scifi in the world than Green. I really liked the Owen character, and thought he developed quite well, although once again the repetition of words and phrases did get a little tiring. I guess that’s the danger of a series that’s about 7 books long. I forgive him.
Bookcrossing… yay!!!
How cool is this!! Excuse my excitement, but one of the books I released yesterday has been registered as found!! Yippee!! I would guess that the others have been found too, just not registered.
I hope that I may add “not yet” into that last clause and it proves true.
Anyway, I am excited to bursting that Aeneid has been found, and the person who found it said they would read and release it!
Yay. How exciting.
Bookcrossing
I haven’t released any books for a very long time, but I did today – four! The joys of public transport. I do hope they get picked up by people who appreciate them. I also hope it encourages me to do it with more books… since I hang on to them rather selfishly most of the time.
Deathstalker/Long weekend
Ok, so… in Lorne for the loong weekend, and I didn’t leave the house in about 48 hours. That’s not to say I didn’t go outside – I did, they have a perfectly lovely balcony. We dragged cushions out there and slept for a bit in the sun on Saturday afternoon; it was great.
Anyway, I started my third book of the weekend this morning. The first two were the Deathstalkers I mentioned. Really good. The book – even two books – before, I was getting a little bit distressed that maybe, just maybe, he was losing The Touch a bit; he was repeating stuff in the same book, whole phrases in fact (which is fine if it’s a character’s catch phrase, but when it’s the narrator describing something, I’m not such a fan), and I was getting a bit narked. But never fear – these were really well written, so it’s all good. Except… yes… I realised when I got home that I have not, as previously thought, bought all of the next books. I have Deathstalker Prelude, which I am looking forward to reading, but I don’t have the one after Deathstalker Legacy, which is making me a bit mad. But the Readers’ Feast night is coming up, so I’m not that fussed… they will soon be in my grubby little hands.
Hitchhikers’ Guide
I liked it. I don’t really mind that much that they changed the story a bit – even putting in new bits – because the story is so completely flipped out that it would be impossible to film in the first place, and then no one would go and see even if it was filmed except for the really hard-core Adams fans, and most of them would be likely to be disappointed anyway. So, my thought is, at least this way they would have got a pretty good audience of both Adams-nuts and others, which might in turn get more people reading the books, which is all good.
I liked Jon Malkovitch is Harma Kavula. He was cool. And the guy who played Zaphod – so, so perfect.
Randomly Yours, Alex 