Archives

Fenrir

May22

fenrirFenrir by M.D. Lachlan is the sequel to Wolfsangel and is really the same story. I’ll explain what I mean in a moment.

In Fenrir, a merchant is sent to bring a French noblewoman from Paris to Rus king Helgi because there is a prophecy that Odin will manifest on earth and trigger Ragnarok. The characters from Wolfsangel (Valli, Feilig and Adisla) are reincarnated in the characters in Fenrir, along with Odin and Fenrir, and it is not clear who is who. The merchant is accompanied by a mysterious warrior to protect him, as he is not the only one seeking Aelis, the noblewoman. The Vikings beseiging Paris also want her, as do two Viking shamans.

Aelis has her own ideas about this, which is nice to see, and takes charge of her own destiny in a way that feels consistent with her Christianity and the early medieval setting. It’s a gripe of mine that writing good female characters in historical settings means giving them modern sensibilities rather than fully embodying that character in time and space.

The characters are variously working for or against the manifestation of Odin and Fenrir, sometimes both. Lachlan manages to effectively convey a sense of confusion. None of the actors is sure what it is they are supposed to do and are wary of inadvertently bringing about the thing they seek to prevent.

Fenrir has a different style to Wolfsangel. Initially, I missed the lyricism and the mystical atmosphere of Wolfsangel, but I was soon drawn into the story. The change in style reflects the change in setting and underlines that this is the second cycle of the myth. It is the same, but not the same. In the end, Ragnarok is averted, but Odin and Fenrir will continue to try to manifest and the story will play out over and over again, until one day they meet and the end of the world begins. I enjoyed this and I’m looking forward to reading the next two cycles.

Honourable Friends

May17

Honorable friendsHonourable Friends by Caroline Lucas is a tour through her experience as a Green Party MP over the last five years and a look at the work she’s tried to progress.

Part of the book describes what it was like to enter Westminster when Lucas was first elected, with no party machinery in place to support her and no experience of the strange traditions of the place. Part of the book is a discussion about the change Lucas wants to see in both policy and procedure. A chapter is devoted to subjects like the environment, the NHS, housing and foreign policy. Lucas describes how she’s worked to find support from MPs in all parties and where she’s succeeded or failed. She points out how some of the ‘quaint’ archaic traditions of the British parliament hold back progress and block democracy. For example, Lucas talks about how voting works and how the process gets in the way of MPs giving votes serious consideration, or about how MPs are appointed to committees or reviews and how knowledge and experience is seen as unnecessary.

The book has a tone of ‘if people could just see how dangerous these policies are, they’d all change their minds’, a kind of bafflement that anyone could think austerity was a good idea. I’m not sure it’s a sophisticated persuasion technique, but I suspect Lucas is preaching to the converted with this book.

If you’re interested in the mechanics of how politics is done in the UK, or how democracy is expanded or contracted, then there is a lot of detail in here. Lucas’ style is conversational and it’s an easy read. I enjoyed it.

The Establishment

May11

Establishment  In The Establishment, Owen Jones argues that the establishment is not so much a group of wealthy people in cahoots to keep everyone else down, but rather a collection of people with shared beliefs who benefit from being able to influence each other.

The establishment hasn’t remained stable over the years and those that are considered to make up today’s establishment are not the same as those following WWII. To start with Jones charts the shift in the political consensus from the 1940s to now. Once upon a time, free market ideology was fringe thinking and considered a bit barmy. Jones shows the methods by which more and more influential people were convinced by it’s proponents. It shows how money can be used to change people’s thinking. There are lessons there for those who wish to shift the political consensus back towards the centre, but the lesson is that money speaks and money corrupts.

Jones looks at each of the groups whose members make up the establishment and shows how their interests align and complement those of the other groups. The chapter on tax avoiders was particularly illuminating. The involvement of corporations and huge consultancies in the process of writing legislation and regulation enables those corporations to manipulate the system in their favour. The revolving door between politics and business has serious implications for democracy. To be clear, Jones never claims this is a conspiracy. There’s no group of people sitting in a room somewhere cackling and stroking white cats. Much of this is the unintended and unexamined consequences of people pursuing their own interests.

I found the discussion about ownership of the media and their relationship with their readers interesting. Papers don’t report what they think their readers want. They report what their owners and advertisers want. He shows (and he’s not the first) how the pressure to maximize profit compromises investigative journalism.

The Establishment is a dense and lengthy read. I found it thought-provoking and stimulating and would recommend it to anyone interested in how politics works.

The Handmaid’s Tale

May6

handmaid's taleHow have I waited so long to read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood? It’s a classic, and has been televised, and is the kind of thing that sometimes you don’t read because you think you know all you need to about it. The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985 and I really should have read it long ago.

Sometime in the 20th century a Christian extremist sect sets up a totalitarian theocracy in the US. The handmaids are a caste of women able to have children which is now a rare ability, due to widespread sterility. It’s not clear if that because of environmental toxins or out-of-control STDs. Offred doesn’t know what’s true and what isn’t, so neither does the reader. The ruling elite use propaganda to create the beliefs they want the populace to have, and much of what the narrator, Offred, relates is what she’s been encouraged to believe. The parallels between that and the distortion of reality created in today’s media are striking.

Offred describes her life, her illegal relationships with the Commander and his driver, Nick, and her eventual escape via an underground railroad. It is compelling. The claustrophobic nightmare of Offred’s life is vivid. What struck me the most was the boredom. Offred has nothing to do. People are not permitted to read or to write and a handmaid’s only role is to breed. Offred is allowed a daily trip to obtain rationed food but she has no other role, so she spends a lot of time on her own in her room doing nothing. There are exercises and prayers but Offred is not a true believer.

I was gripped by the story. I’d expected, as it was published in 1985, to find it dated. Scarily, the opposite was true. It seems like a future that is only a couple of steps away. One or two wrong turns and we could easily end up there. Atwood’s realisation of the impact of living in a totalitarian society is chilling. It’s an important book and is still relevant. If you haven’t read it yet, don’t wait any longer.

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Buy my book Fragments at Amazon or Smashwords.

The Book of You

Mar29

 

bookofyou

The Book of You is Claire Kendal’s debut novel. I picked it up as an impulse buy in a newsagent in an airport, drawn by the title, and then by the blurb on the back.

Clarissa Bourn is being harassed at work. Rafe wants to be in her life and won’t take no for an answer. She tries to be polite and nice, like she was brought up to be, but he doesn’t seem to be getting the message. Then Clarissa gets called for jury service and thinks that she will have a break from Rafe, The trial is going to be seven weeks long. Having called 999 on a previous occasion, Clarissa is reluctant to go to the police. After all, what has he actually done? She has leaflets on stalking, yet can’t quite bring herself to acknowledge what is happening to her, can’t quite grasp that Rafe won’t respond like a normal person.

The trial is not the respite she hoped for. Rafe continues to follow her, contact her, harass her. And the trial is of five men accused of abducting and gang raping a drug addicted woman who has sold sex to pay for her drugs. What people say about the victim underlines and reinforces Clarissa’s own shame, yet she sticks to the advice in the leaflets, even when Rafe’s actions escalate.

This book is fantastic. Kendal captures the shame, self-blame, anxiety and bafflement felt by victims of sexual harassment and stalking. Clarissa can’t understand why this is happening and believes it must be something about her that has caused it. She’s ashamed of her behaviour and believes people will judge her. It takes a long time for her to grasp that this is about what’s wrong with Rafe. I particularly enjoyed the way Kendal has captured the effects of prolonged anxiety and stress on Clarissa’s body and mind, the way the constant alertness, feeling trapped, being suspicious of everyone and everything, grinds a person down. This is an exceptional study of what it’s like to be stalked. There’s a lot in the book about the way women are treated by society, especially how evidence of any sexual activity is used to diminish and punish victims, and how they’re expected to respond with politeness, but it is all conveyed by the story and there is no sense of lecturing by the author. It is very skilfully handled.

I don’t want to give away the ending, but I do want to say something about it. Initially, I found it somewhat unsatisfying. There’s an expectation that this kind of book will go a certain way, so anything that’s different from that is surprising. I guess it shows how deeply ingrained those expectations are. The ending is uplifting. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. And, on reflection, I find that I like that.

The Book of You is very, very good. It is absorbing, claustrophobic, scary and compelling. It’s so good I’ve broken my six month blogging hiatus to write about it (and I’ve read a few good books lately). I’ll be looking out for Claire Kendal’s next one.

The Leopard

Sep22

leopardThe Leopard by Jo Nesbo is the sixth in the Oslo sequence featuring detective Harry Hole.

It starts with Harry on a massive bender in Hong Kong. He was going to Thailand but didn’t make it that far. He’s a mess, having rung up large gambling debts and indulging a heroin habit. Because that’s less of a problem for him than alcohol.

Back in Oslo, two women have been found dead with mysterious wounds to the face. The police are fighting a political battle for jurisdiction over murders with Kripos, who are responsible for tackling organized crime. Harry’s boss wants him back to solve the crime and to stick it to Kripos. He sends detective Kaja Solness to bring Harry back.

In turns out that there are more than two murders and the connection between them is not simple. Nesbo serves up several red herrings and twists and keeps the reader guessing right to the end. I loved this. The plot was gripping and expertly handled. There is treachery and intrigue amongst the police and the perpetrator was deliciously complicated. There are lots of threads and none of them are left loose at the end.

It’s in this book that it’s made most clear that Harry’s flawed character is the reason he’s an exceptional detective. Writers are urged to give their characters a flaw to make them human and enable the readers to identify with them. I think it’s true to say that most fictional detectives are flawed and that alcoholism is very popular as said flaw. In the previous books in the series, Harry’s alcoholism is treated in a fairly standard way. He’s an arse and he’s difficult to work with, he’s unreliable and unstable. But he’s a great detective by virtue of persistence and making connections others don’t, so his bad behaviour is excused in favour of his results.

In The Leopard, Nesbo shows how Harry’s flaw is the very thing that makes him great. His addiction is integral to his excellence. At the beginning of the book Harry is on a bender because of the impact his previous case had on him. He doesn’t want to chase serial killers again. He wants oblivion. Harry resigned from Oslo police but they bring him back. At first he resists but he finds he can’t help himself. He has to follow the threads, he has to work out what has happened and who did it. Harry is addicted to solving crimes.

For me, this is the best Harry Hole so far. I really enjoyed it.

Zoo City

Sep18

zoocityZoo City by Lauren Beukes is set in a world where those who commit crimes gain animal companions and psychic powers. It’s not considered a good thing and those with animals sink to the bottom of the pile, making a living however they can.

Former music journalist, murderer and junkie, Zinzi December finds things that are lost, for a fee. After a job goes south, she’s offered an opportunity to make a lot of money finding a missing girl. It’s not what she normally does, but the money’s too good to pass up. Naturally, nothing is as simple as it seems, and when she finds the girl she uncovers a much bigger, nastier crime.

This is brilliant. It’s written in the first person present tense and Zinzi’s voice is compelling and funny. The plot is deep and tightly woven. It all makes sense at the end, and everything you need to know was always right there, masquerading as worldbuilding. I loved the concept of the animals and the powers and I loved the dystopian alternate world. I would highly recommend it.

Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence

Sep14

FocusFocus by Daniel Goleman is about awareness. There are three levels of awareness and if you can master each and master switching between them appropriately then excellence will be yours. Assuming that’s what you want.

The three levels are: awareness of your inner state; awareness of what’s going on between you and other people; and awareness of the wider world. Lots of this happens in your subconscious because your brain isn’t under your control. You are the narrator for the adventure your body is having. But if you can manage to stop distracting yourself with sensation and pesky emotions and actually pay attention to what you’re doing/experiencing in the moment, you’ll be happier, more productive and achieve all your goals.

There’s a lot of good stuff in here, although not much that’s new. Goleman spends quite a bit of time talking about emotional resilience and the importance of learning to distract and soothe yourself. He also talks about the need to scan and take information in so that your subconscious can do the heavy lifting of making connections between unrelated things that is key to creativity. There’s a difference between focussing narrowly on a task at hand to get it done, and a more wide-ranging focus on gathering data, and how both are necessary. Goleman also talks about when it’s helpful to be unfocussed, because that too is important in creativity. Mindful daydreaming, if you will.

I wasn’t keen on the tone. According to Goleman, the world is going to hell in a handbasket due to the pernicious effect of modern technology. And climate change, and obesity, and lack of wholesome outdoor pursuits. Everything was all better in the past when people had real conversations without texting someone else. There’s a lot of assumptions masquerading as evidence and a lot of nostalgia for a never-was golden era. Which rather spoilt it for me.

The Inner Game of Work

Sep6

inner gameI’m getting the opportunity to get lots of training at work at the moment, and that usually comes with book recommendations. The Inner Game of Work is about coaching, and written by W. Timothy Gallway who revolutionised tennis coaching by focussing on inner resistance rather than technique. The idea is that performance is as much about what’s going on in your head as it is about skill and ability. Negative self-talk can drag down the best players.

The Inner Game of Work talks about learning, focus, finding your joy, and awareness. Which is great, but it’s long on theory and short on practice. It asserts the importance of being present and being in the moment but offers little guidance as to how you do that. You’ll have to turn to other books for that. It was pretty hard work reading it but there’s some useful ideas.

I did like the section on thinking like a CEO. It challenges you to question whether you are actually in charge of the corporation that is you or whether you’ve given decision-making responsibility to others. These are ‘stakeholders’ such as family, employers, friends, and anyone else who has an opinion about how you live your life. I like to think of it as being master of your own ship because I was a pirate in a past life, but the CEO metaphor works as well.

I am on the lookout for a writing coach in the London area though, so if you can recommend someone, let me know in the comments.

Ritual

Sep3

ritual-pbkHaving enjoyed Poppet so much I thought I would read all Mo Hayder’s Jack Caffrey thrillers. I like to do things in order.

I feel a bit mixed about Ritual. It was a good thriller. I enjoyed the plot and thought it was well handled, keeping the identity of the killer hidden until the very end. Caffrey has transferred from London to Bristol and his first case is a hand recovered from the harbor. The coroner confirms that the owner of the hand was alive when it was cut off and may still be alive. All the pieces are skillfully woven together so that you only see the whole, gruesome picture at the end.

Caffrey is working with Flea, the police diver, and the events that are between them in Poppet begin here. So, it was nice to start to piece that story together as well and I like the connecting thread between the books. There is also a little bit of follow up to the actions Caffrey took at the end of Birdman and the impact on him that has had. Rather than being a series of individual thrillers connected only by the central character, like the Reacher series, it has the feel of episodes in a series building up to something bigger.

There was one thing that bothered me though. The Jack Caffrey in this book didn’t seem like the same character as in Poppet, Birdman or The Treatment. Some of that was physical characterization. After reading those three books I had an image in my head of Caffrey as tall and blond. In Ritual, Hayder describes him as dark-haired. That might be inconsistent, or it might be me misremembering. The tall thing is more clear-cut though. In this book, Hayder repeatedly describes Caffrey as tall. Then she describes him through Flea’s eyes as being medium height. It really bothers me and I’m not sure why.

Overall, it was alright. I did enjoy it, but perhaps not as much as some of the others.