Body Double

May18

Body Double by Tess Gerritsen is a Rizzoli and Isles mystery. A woman is killed in a car and she looks just like Maura Isles. Naturally, she’s shaken by this and responds by investigating the case. Isles is adopted and so it’s entirely possible the victim is related to her.

In the course of finding out who the murdered woman is, Isles meets a policeman who had been the victim’s lover and who develops a (slightly creepy) attachment to Isles. She and Rizzoli also discover some truly horrible crimes going back decades.

I don’t want to give the plot away. It’s nicely twisted and the connections are surprising. Gerritsen is a solid writer who creates believable characters. I enjoyed this, as I’ve enjoyed all of her books, and if you like thrillers, then you’ll like this.

Palimpsest

Apr19

A palimpsest is a manuscript page that has had the original text scraped off so it can be used again. Palimpsest by Cathrynne M. Valente is a gorgeous, sumptuous fantasy; reading it is like taking a luxurious, candle lit bubble bath.

Palimpsest is a fantasy city populated with weird and wonderful creatures that is entered through having sex with someone who’s been there. Those that have can be identified by the tattoos that appear on them after the first visit.

Visitors to the city come as a quartet. In order to stay permanently in the city the quartet has to find each other in the real world. The story of Palimpsest follows a quartet and the effect that going to Palimpsest has on them and their lives.

It is beautiful. And in the way of the truly fascinating it is both beautiful and horrifying. The story of how Palimpsest came to be is gradually revealed. Anyone who comes to Palimpsest wants to get back at all costs but they don’t know what was done to the people who have always lived there. They don’t know the horrors they’ve endured.

The language and style is ornate in the tradition of AS Byatt and Angela Carter. It’s indulgent like fancy chocolates and fine wine. I enjoyed this a great deal.

Sula

Apr14

I’m steadily working my way through Toni Morrison’s books. I’ve every intention of reading them all.

Sula is about a part of a small town in the US in the interwar period. It’s not so much a story as a series of interconnected character illustrations that Morrison uses to illuminate some really big social issues.

Shadrack is a young man injured in the First World War. He comes back to Bottom shell-shocked and traumatised and there’s no care or support for him. Helen Wright is a straight-laced conservative woman who is contrasted with earthy, sexually free Hannah. Their daughters, Nel and Sula, become friends. They have an intense and deep friendship in the way that girls do. There is a shocking incident involving a small boy in the village that is witnessed by Shadrack. Nel and Sula grow up together. Nel marries a local boy; a man angry at the unjust situation that gives white immigrants jobs and leaves local black men out of work. Sula leaves for the big city on Nel’s wedding day.

Nel has three children and what is a relatively successful marriage for the time and place. Plenty of men leave the women on their own to raise the children. There’s no work, so there’s no pride. They turn to drink and sit outside the pool hall all day. But Nel’s husband stays. Ten years later, Sula returns. She disrupts the whole of Bottom, including Nel’s marriage. Sula lives for herself, she doesn’t sacrifice herself the way a woman is supposed to. She acts like a man and is punished for it.

Sula is beautifully written and the time period and place is brought vividly to life. Morrison touches on some very serious subjects in a very light way. In a few words, the essence of a person is captured. It’s a literary novel so there’s not much story or plot. It’s about bringing to life a particular time and place that could easily be forgotten. It’s also about how hard it is for a woman to self-actualise.

The final paragraph is the perfect end to the book and is heartbreaking. I really enjoyed the book.

The Republic of Thieves

Apr5

The Republic of Thieves is the third book in Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastards cycle. To say I have been eagerly awaiting this book is quite the understatement. The Lies of Locke Lamora was one of the books that got me back into reading fantasy. I read almost entirely fantasy and science fiction when I was a teenager but I got turned off by a lack of originality and too much formula. Then when I turned thirty and started writing seriously I realised that what I wanted to write was fantasy and I wasn’t reading anything in that genre any more. So, I looked for something new and I discovered Scott Lynch, G.R.R Martin and Joe Abercrombie. Something new was afoot and I loved it.

In The Republic of Thieves, Locke Lamora is dying from being poisoned at the end of the last book. Jean Tannen is trying to find a cure and is at the end of his tether. At the very last moment, a bondsmage appears and offers them a deal. She will save Locke if he and Jean rig an election for her. The catch? Their opponent will be Sabetha, formerly a member of the Gentlemen Bastards and Locke’s lost love.

Interweaved with the present day caper is a story from when Locke, Jean and Sabetha were children together. Their mentor sends them off to work a long con all by themselves in a strange town and the Gentlemen Bastards form as a proper gang for the first time. It reveals the history between Locke and Sabetha and their painful vulnerability is beautifully rendered.

Throughout, a bigger picture is emerging. The Gentlemen Bastards are caught up in someone else’s game and we begin to see how.

The two stories are equally balanced. They are both gripping and entertaining, full of twists and turns, and I was equally interested in the outcome of both. I loved it. Couldn’t put it down. Couldn’t wait to pick it up again. The characters are vividly realised. Sabetha is wonderful. In the two previous books, she was a mysterious, mythical presence. In The Republic of Thieves she has the chance to come alive and she takes centre stage. Lynch writes women really well, in that he writes them as human beings first and then also shows an understanding of the experience of the world that only women will have. The dialogue is great and the way Lynch reveals character and story through dialogue and action is brilliant. This is a masterclass in showing, not telling. If you like fantasy and haven’t read these books, then you must. They are so good.

Kushiel’s Dart

Apr3

I was reading articles about worldbuilding on Fantasy Faction and one of them mentioned Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey. It was an example of how changing something in your fantasy world has ramifications that ripple through the whole society. In this case, a religion that sees sex as a sacred act, as a way to worship, and commune with your god.

Kushiel’s Dart is the story of Phedre told in first person memoir-style. It’s not my favourite style but for at least the first half of the book it is done very well. Phedre is telling the story of her childhood; how she was born into the service of god and how she learned what she was. She is an anguisette, a woman who finds her sexual satisfaction in experiencing pain. This is something in great demand as it is something beyond the ordinary sexual submissive.

But rather than be dedicated to a house of service, Phedre is bought by a court noble, Delauney, and trained by him to be a spy. He knows what she is but does not allow her to lose her virginity until she is eighteen, much later than it would have been in a house.

Delauney is killed and Phedre finds herself thrust into the contest for the throne of Terre d’Ange. She is betrayed, sold into slavery in a barbarian country, discovers a treacherous plot, escapes, and returns to the Queen. She becomes the Queen’s emissary and then is central to forming the alliance that saves the Queen and foils the plot to overthrow her.

For the first half of the book the language is rich and extravagant and suits the story very well. It’s engaging. Phedre is a little annoying; she’s arrogant and self-satisfied. But I’m happy to be interested in unlikeable characters. Once the story gets past Phedre’s childhood and her training with Delauney, I found I was enjoying it much less. The language and style wasn’t consistent throughout the book. About halfway through the language became more plain and I felt the book lost something.

Mostly, the reason I was frustrated was that there was a lack of conflict. Everything comes a little too easily to Phedre. I didn’t find the psychology of the characters believable and felt that the courtly intrigue was shallow. There was no real depth, no real danger. And then, I was a little disappointed in the depiction of Phedre as an anguisette. It was built up extremely well in the first half of the book. I couldn’t wait to get to the good stuff. Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver.

I also didn’t think it really stood up as the example of worldbuilding it was supposed to be, but that’s hardly Carey’s fault. It’s more of an alternate history than a fantasy. I didn’t actually finish it. According to my kindle I got 95% of the way through but I couldn’t bring myself to read the last few pages.

Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential

Mar31

A mindset is a collection of beliefs, assumptions and methods we have about how to do things and what things mean that is so established that it provides a powerful driving force for our decisions and choices.

In Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential Carol Dweck looks at the impact on success of a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. Success is defined in terms of achieving goals, pursuing dreams and having good relationships.

A fixed mindset is a collection of beliefs that says whatever you do is a test that you have to pass. A score on an exam, performance in a game, how you do in a meeting, whether you get on with people. If you do good, you are good. If you don’t do good, then you’re rubbish. Everything becomes a sign of your ability. People with fixed mindsets tend to believe that abilities like intelligence, creativity, athleticism, strength, courage, or singing are innate. You’re born with a certain amount of these things and that’s it. If you can’t cook an omelette the first time you try then you can’t cook. And you’ll never be able to cook.

Fixed mindsets develop when kids are praised for being something or criticised for not being something, as in ‘you’re so clever’ or ‘you have no sense of rhythm’. It’s reinforced by the behaviour of adults demonstrated a fixed mindset about themselves. The cultural belief that if you’re good at something then it should be effortless.

A growth mindset sees everything as a learning opportunity. If you don’t do well on a test, then that tells you to try harder, to work smarter, to think about what you could have done differently. It encourages you to look at what other people do well to see what you can learn from them. People with a growth mindset believe that whatever level of talent you start with in any sphere of life you can learn to do better. If you can’t cook an omelette the first time you try then you recognize that you have a lot to learn and practice will result in a better omelette.

Growth mindsets come from being praised for working hard, practicing and honest feedback about how you did.

The book is filled with examples of business leaders, sports people, musicians and many others who demonstrate either of the mindsets. Dweck says that most people have a mix of growth and fixed mindsets, that you believe that there are some traits and abilities you can change and some you can’t. She also provides examples of people who changed from fixed mindsets to growth mindsets.

I found the book inspiring and it was a joy to read. I recognise that I grew up with a mostly fixed mindset but over the last fifteen years have moved to a growth mindset in many areas. But there are still places where I have a fixed mindset and I’m motivated to change that. I know that under stress I can fall back into fixed mindset thinking, but I also know that I can move on from there. The book is fantastic and I highly recommend it.

The Departure

Mar22

I’ve read some of Neal Asher’s Polity novels and enjoyed them, so I thought I’d try the first in another of Asher’s series, The Departure.

In a near-future dystopian version of earth, a totalitarian world government is hoarding resources and allowing the vast population to starve. Dissidents are dealt with by torture and scientists are forced to develop cybernetic neural implants. They have prisoners to practice on.

One man is on a mission of revenge. He doesn’t know who he was, but he does know he was tortured and sent for incineration. Somehow, with the help of a rogue AI, he survived and is hell-bent on destroying the man who tortured him. The Departure is the events that lead Alan Saul to remember who he was and collect the elements he needs to complete his mission.

Like the Polity novels, The Departure is pretty hard sci-fi and takes a while to get into. I didn’t like this novel as much as the others. It was hard work and I nearly gave up. I think the reason it didn’t work for me was that I didn’t find much differentiation between the point-of-view characters. Most of the book is from Saul’s point of view, but there are sections set on Mars from the point of view of Var, a senior technician, and sections from the point of view of Heather, Saul’s girlfriend and the creator of much of the cyberware that enables him to carry out his mission. Saul is hard to identify with: he’s cold, emotionless and ruthless. When it’s revealed that he’s autistic some of that makes sense, but it’s still hard to care. Var feels like a set-up. She’s a plot device not a character. Heather is supposed to be Saul’s conscience but she doesn’t have much depth. Her main function in the story is to provide an external view of Saul, to show the reader what his neural tech costs him physically, and to humanise him a bit. Neither Var nor Heather come across as characters in their own right.

I think the same is true of the villain, Director Smith. He is depicted as a sadist and an ambitious politician, but we don’t really get any sense that he’s developed beyond that.

So, I did finish it eventually, and the ending was really good. The novel is the first part of a series and this book sets up what the series will be about. It was exciting and made me want to read the next part. It’s conceivable that the characters make get stronger. It may be some time before that happens but I’m not ruling it out.

First, Break all the Rules

Mar11

I have a sort-of-new job at work and so I have had a spate of reading business books. First, Break all the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman is about how great managers get the best out of people. I’m a manager and I think I’m pretty good at it, but I can do better and lately I know I’ve not given my team as much attention as I would like.

First, Break all the Rules is based on identifying great managers and studying what they do, both within organizations and between organizations. It distinguishes between good and great. The book doesn’t just look at what average (good) managers do, it looks at the people who are exceptional. What is interesting is that what great managers do is defy conventional wisdom.

For example, most performance management is based on helping people identify their weaknesses and overcome them. Great managers focus on strengths and getting people into situations/roles that enable them to capitalize on what they do best. Weaknesses are worked around. I realised I’m tired of working on weaknesses and I’m inspired by the idea of building on strengths.

It also talks about how competencies tend to reduce everyone to averages rather than helping people to be their best. We’ve just introduced competencies at work, lol.

It was published in 1999 and some of the examples feel a bit dated. I liked it and found a lot useful. Part of the reason I liked it is because I’m already doing some of the things it says great managers do, so clearly the book is amazing. Some of those things aren’t supported by my peers and managers and I’m liking the reassurance that I’m on the right track. But also, I’m inspired by new-to-me suggestions.

Half of a Yellow Sun

Mar8

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been on my shelf for a while. I was leant it by a friend and have been feeling bad about having kept it for so long. Lately, I’ve seen Adichie’s name mentioned in a lot of the media I read and it inspired me to pick it up. I can’t say why it has sat there unread for so long, except that I thought it might be heavy-going.

I was wrong. It is a beautiful read. Half of a Yellow Sun depicts the Nigerian civil war in the years just after independence from the British Empire and the short-lived existence of Biafra through the point of view of three very different characters. Ogwu is a village boy who gets a job as a house-boy to a university professor with radical views. He grows up in awe of learning and listening to the political debate his master and friends engage in. When the war comes he’s torn between looking after the family and becoming a soldier. He’s forcibly conscripted and his experience is horrific. Olanna is the daughter of a wealthy business man and was educated in London. She loves Ogwu’s professor despite her family’s disapproval. When times are easy she seems to struggle to navigate her relationships but when times are hard she’s the one that holds it all together. Richard is a white man that comes to Africa to escape his family. Before Nigeria becomes independent he thinks he has a good position. He loves Igbo art and culture, almost to the point of fetishizing it, and finds it’s purest expression in Kainene, who is Olanna’s twin. He rejects British expatriate culture and embraces Nigerian culture. After independence he finds that no one trusts him, but he stays in Biafra and doesn’t leave even after Kainene dies.

This is a big book in many ways. There is so much in it. As well as the three point of view characters there is a host of secondary characters that pop out of the page. Characterisation is good. Everyone in it is real. It’s a literary novel so it is heavy on narrative. Generally I like more action-driven books, but when the literary genre is done well it is amazing. This is done very well. The narrative builds the setting and the characters and brings the world to life rather than weighing the story down with exposition. I knew very little about this time and period of history – African decolonisation after WWII was my favourite class at university but we covered a lot in low detail – and I really enjoyed being educated about it. It was moving. I laughed and I cried. Mostly I cried.

There are some books that are so good I feel like giving up writing because I could never produce anything anywhere near as good. This is one of those books.

The Shining Girls

Mar5

I’m terribly aware how heavily skewed my reading is in favour of white men. It must have an impact on my writing, and my language, and my worldview, and I’d like to have more diversity in my reading. I read widely in terms of genre, but not so much in terms of author. There are blog challenges similar to the ‘100 books in a year’ challenge which I could do, except that it’s a tough year and I don’t want to take on anything I know I will turn into a chore. That doesn’t mean I can’t pay more attention though.

Whenever I look for contemporary female SFF writers Lauren Beukes is always at the top of the list. The Shining Girls is a story about a time-travelling serial killer. Harper stumbles across a house in the 1930s and to stay in the house he has to match girls with the trophies in the house. Kirby was attacked by Harper but got away. She becomes obsessed with finding out more about her assailant. What she discovers can’t possibly be true. Until he comes for her again. She got away and Harper has to correct his mistake.

The time-travelling element is an interesting twist on the serial killer horror story and the construction of the novel means that you don’t get all of the pieces until the end. It’s cleverly done. The characters are interesting. Harper is complex. Beukes conveys him in a way that shows how he is compelled by house. You could almost think he doesn’t have any choice. But she also shows how his personality makes him so compatible with the house, as if it drew its own to it.

Kirby is a brilliant heroine. She’s likeable, dogged and smart. Her previous traumatic experience makes part of her want to hide away and part of her want to fight back which I found very realistic. I thought it was a sensitive depiction of the complicated and contradictory feelings people have after being made a victim. And Kirby has more trouble in her life than that. It doesn’t define her and she still has to cope with all the other shitty things life hands her.

It was really good. I enjoyed it, would recommend it, and will be reading more work by Lauren Beukes.

Boudica Marginalia

Reading, writing, and other things

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