What a performance!

Now I know I'm a bit behind in my reading, but some good stuff is on the horison. I'm currently busy with Paul S. Kemp's The Hammer and the Blade, then right into Chuck Wendig's Mockingbird - with a giveaway - and then most probably Mark Lawrence's King of Thorns. So there are some damn good books and reviews coming in the near future.

I'm behind because of the Olympics. The games have sucked me in, and refuses to let me go. We do not stand much chance of a huge medal haul here in South Africa, it's always been that way. That's why when we win one it's kind of a big deal. Cameron van der Burgh worked his ass off to dominate in the 100m breststroke and Chad le Clos stunned the world in the 200m Butterfly. Thanks guys, you made my year!

Angelmaker - Nick Harkaway

The Blurb: From the acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World - a new riveting action spy thriller, blistering gangster noir, and howling absurdist comedy: a propulsively entertaining tale about a mobster's son and a retired secret agent who are forced to team up to save the world.All Joe Spork wants is a quiet life. He repairs clockwork and lives above his shop in a wet, unknown bit of London. The bills don't always get paid and he's single and has no prospects of improving his lot, but at least he's not trying to compete with the reputation of Mathew "Tommy Gun" Spork, his infamous criminal dad.


Edie Banister lives quietly and wishes she didn't. She's nearly ninety and remembers when she wasn't. She's a former superspy and now she's... well... old. Worse yet, the things she fought to save don't seem to exist anymore, and she's beginning to wonder if they ever did.When Joe fixes one particularly unusual device, his life is suddenly upended. The client? Unknown. And the device? It's a 1950s doomsday machine. And having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the government and a diabolical South Asian dictator, Edie's old arch-nemesis. 


With Joe's once-quiet world now populated with mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realises that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she gave up years ago, and pick up his father's old gun...


If you are able to read the blurb of the book and find yourself disinterested in it, there must be something wrong with you. It's really well written, and shows what can be done with a blurb. It's one of the better ones out there.


Nick Harkaway has followed up the frankly brilliant The Gone Away World with this gem, Angelmaker. Most of the plot is explained in the blurb above, but that isn't where the strength of Mr. Harkaway's writing lies. It's in his characters. Damn me, he can write interesting characters.


And not just interesting, funny as well. I'm not sure how he does it, but each character stands strong on his own, with his own sense of humour. That lifts them all from the page, fleshes them out and make you feel as if they are real.


There is some liberal usage of flashback chapters in the book, but how else are you going to tell the story of a 90 year old spy? Edie's input is brilliant, her chapters a joy to read and her dog quite terrifying in his own right.


Our main character, Joe Spork, has issues. Issues with his dad, grandfather and himself. His struggling for his place in the world is one of the big driving forces in the book, and the resolution of it is well crafted and implemented.


The action in the book happens mostly iin London, and it's well enough described to be interesting and really relevant in the book. The story is a London story. It wouldn't really work as well somewhere else. 


There's violence, language and a suggested sex scene in the book. Since it's kind of a gangster story, what else would you expect? It's all constructive to the story, and done well. 


This is easily the most fun book that I've read this year.  I just wish there was more Harkaway to read. Well done sir!




9/10

Joe Abercrombie's Red Country UK cover!

Damn I love these Abercrombie covers! And I can't wait for this book. Bring on the Bloody Nine.

Under Heaven - Guy Gavriel Kay

The Blurb: Inspired by the glory of Tang Dynasty China in the eighth century, Guy Gavriel Kay melds history and the fantastic into something both powerful and emotionally compelling. Under Heaven is a novel on the grandest narrative scale, encompassing the intimate details of individual lives in an unforgettable time and place.


Shen Tai is the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in that empire's last war against their western enemies from Tagur, twenty years before. Forty thousand men on both sides were slain beside a remote mountain lake. General Shen Gao himself has died recently. To honour his father's memory, Tai has spent two years of official mourning alone at the battle site among the ghosts of the dead, laying to rest their unburied bones.


One spring morning, he learns that others have taken note of his vigil. The White Jade Princess in Tagur is pleased to present him with two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, given, she writes, in recognition of his courage, and honour done to the dead.


I bought this book on a sale a while ago, mostly because of the cover. It's quite unique and stood out well between the other sale offerings. I plopped the book onto my bookcase and promptly forgot about it. On Friday, while admiring my collection, I saw the book and thought I should at least give it a bash. And am I glad I did!


I love my Epic Fantasy. I love the traditional European setting with Knights, castles, Kings and chivalry. It's like a comfortable coat. This isn't quite like that. I know nothing about the Tang Dynasty of China. If I hear that the book is in an eastern setting, I immediately think about ninjas and samurai's. Clichéd I know, but I cannot help myself.


Mr. Kay does an amazing job making the new and really strange easily understandable. The whole culture in the book is quite different from what I'm used to, with respect and standing sacrosanct and the Emperor the ruler ordained by heaven. Public Service is the highest honour, with difficult exams. Poetry is everywhere, and how a person conducts himself in the vicinity of his betters can lead to his death if he's not careful. It's a strange, mystical world and it's amazing.  


The characters are brilliantly done. Shen Tai - the POV - spends a lot of time in his own head, and this helps making his decisions and motivations clear to the reader. It's not like he can scream and shout or think out loud, as the culture in the book won't allow it. The nuances that comes through in a persons body language becomes important, every written word gets scrutinised for extra meanings. The depth here is amazing.


I usually hate poetry in a book, but here it fits. A normal person in the book can quote the greats, and the Public Servants must be fluent in it. It's presence is everywhere, but it does not overshadow or draw attention away from the story.


Everyone should read this book. It's amazingly done and easily the best thing I've read the whole year.


10/10

The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi

The Blurb: Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s calorie representative in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, he combs Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs long thought to be extinct. There he meets the windup girl – the beautiful and enigmatic Emiko – now abandoned to the slums. She is one of the New People, bred to suit the whims of the rich. Engineered as slaves, soldiers and toys, they are the new underclass in a chilling near future where oil has run out, calorie companies dominate nations and bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. And as Lake becomes increasingly obsessed with Emiko, conspiracies breed in the heat and political tensions threaten to spiral out of control. Businessmen and ministry officials, wealthy foreigners and landless refugees all have their own agendas. But no one anticipates the devastating influence of the Windup Girl.


Now I know that I said I'll be reviewing Sophia McDougall's Romanitas, but it's still being read. You see, my Kindle decided to go flat the day we left for a weekend away, so I had to grab something off my TBR shelf. Yes, I still buy books, even though I own a Kindle. Nothing wrong with that. And The Windup Girl is well known, so I thougt it a good choice.

Bacigalupi's future sucks. The world's oil is finished, meaning the Global Village is dead. International travel is all but gone and electricity does not really exist any more. People are landlocked for the most part and stuck in their immediate surroundings. 

Then the smart nutrition companies thought it a good idea to start ecological warfare. They designed viruses that attacked plants, and then produced the only virus-resistant grains to be sold to the highest bidder. This makes them more powerful than any government. Too bad they also suck at their jobs and things got out of hand. New plagues sweep the world and life is mostly miserable. Any resistant food is worth more than gold.

Thailand is one of the last "free" lands on earth. They are keeping their heads above water is some interesting ways, and it was really fun to read about a different culture for a change.

None of the main characters are real heroic. They are mostly bastards, but at least they are bastards for a reason and the reasons are there. The book isn't a nice easy read, but it is damn riveting. I have heard that people complain that all the plot threads does not get resolved, but if you activate your brain and think about the repercussions of the choices made in the book, it all makes sense. It's masterfully done, and a great read if you are looking for something a bit dirty and not straight forward,

There's murder, rape and even a little pillaging, and it all fits into the bleak world that we read about. 

I demolished this book in two days, and when I was done I wished there was more to read.

9/10.

Wassup??

No, I'm not dead or gone. Just busy as all hell with the damn job and other commitments. That includes Skyrim. "But it's and old game, how can you still be busy with it?!?" you ask. "'Cause I take my time and enjoy the flower-picking and potion crafting" is my answer.  Unfortunately it happens sometimes, and this leads to a drastic decrease in my reading speed. I'm winging my way through Sophia Mcdougall's Romanitas and enjoying it immensely thus far. Give me another week(?) and I'll have a review ready and rearing to go. For now, here's the cover art:

I like the simplicity of it.

Saladin Ahmed free short story

Mr. Ahmed posted a free short story over on his website here. All he asks are some help in these difficult times. Everyone is suffering through life, bus sometimes someone just needs a hand up. All help will be appreciated.


Here's the first part of the story:

Zok Ironeyes stared at the tilecard table before him and cursed softly as Hai Hai clacked down the Dragoness tile with a gloating grunt.

Hai Hai looked up from the table and locked her shiny black eyes on the innkeeper, her nose and whiskers twitching. The scraggle-haired, red faced fool avoided Hai Hai’s gaze with the shame of a man who’d been caught staring. Zok couldn’t fault the innkeeper’s curiosity. The man had probably seen only a handful of rabbitmen in his life, for few of Hai Hai’s people ever made it this far south. But if the proprietor of the preposterously-named King’s Crest Inn didn’t watch himself, he was like to get his nose broken at least. Hai Hai wasn’t one to indulge untraveled bumpkins’ gawking.

Go read the rest at his blog, and help out if you can!