Author: David Hebblethwaite

Jonathan Carroll, ‘Let the Past Begin’ (2010)

25th July 2010 / / 1 Comment

‘Let the Past Begin’ sits squarely in the middle of what I’d think of as ‘Jonathan Carroll territory’, in that it gives the impression of a world that, if only you scratched the surface, would be far stranger than it appears. Carroll’s protagonist hears from his pregnant girlfriend, Ava,  about the time she visited a fortune-teller/sage in Azerbaijan, whose powers (Ava believes) were genuine, and who told Ava that her child was cursed — its life would be the same as its father’s, in every major detail. The thing is, Ava doesn’t know whether the father is her current boyfriend or her ex, Eamon Reilly — and Eamon’s life is one that Ava would certainly not wish her child to live.

Carroll evokes ambiguity very well in this piece — if Ava’s oracle appears beyond belief, the known details of Eamon’s life are almost as strange, in their own way. I didn’t quite feel the full affect of fantasy that I have from some of Carroll, but this is still a fine story.

Rating: ***½

Elsewhere
Jonathan Carroll’s website

Pen Pusher Magazine 15: Spring-Summer 2010

24th July 2010 / / 1 Comment

Okay , so I’m reading Pen Pusher (‘Where new writing finds its voice’) for the first time – and a good read it is, too. It’s a varied selection of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction; but, as usual, I’ll be concentrating here on the prose fiction – which gives us:

Wayne Holloway-Smith, ‘Big Time’
An extract from the author’s debut novel, about one Dexter Hammond, who wants to be famous and thinks he’s found an unoccupied niche for a ‘rock ‘n’ roll preacher’. On the basis of this extract, Holloway-Smith’s novel is certainly one I’d want to read, because this is hilarious. Hammond is full of his own self-importance, and so desperate to be cool that one winces at seeing him try to emulate the latest-big-thing rock star, Tristan Rasclott – but, by the end of the piece, it’s starting to look as if Hammond might pull it off. I’ll be interested to read whether he does.

Grace Andreacchi, ‘Ikebana’
A short piece about a woman waiting at an ikebana demonstration for her older lover. There’s a subtlety and depth to this story, as Andreacchi portrays the doubts and conflicting emotions experienced by her protagonist. The woman’s changing attitudes to ikebana – at first, she thinks she’s not interested in it, then maybe she is, but maybe not – reflect her thoughts on her relationship. An insightful tale.

Ruth Davis, ‘End-of-Life Liaison’
This is a story about one of those things which one hopes will never happen, and which probably won’t, but to which there’s a certain nagging plausibility all the same. In this case, it’s that, in the face of continued pressure on resources because of an ageing population, anyone who reaches the age of 85 is compulsorily euthanised. It’s the routine way in which Davis’s fictional authorities handle this which makes the story particularly chilling – the policy has its own acronyms (such as ‘MPA’ or ‘Maximum Permitted Age’), and those approaching 85 are offered ‘End-of Life Counselling’. Davis’s tale follows one octogenarian, George Herbert, as he attends this counselling and unexpectedly presented with a possible way out. All is presented in a very down-to-earth manner, which gives the story its power.

Ross Sutherland, ‘Unexpected Flow’
During a school trip to London, young Connor ditches the rest of his party and wanders around Tate Modern, listening all the while to a Jay-Z album. This may not sound like much when I summarise it like that, but it’s the rhythm of Sutherland’s telling that makes the story work, with the rap lyrics acting as a counterpoint to the events. I could imagine ‘Unexpected Flow’ working very well as a short film.

Sarah Day, ‘Exposure’
A woman agrees to be the muse of an artist-geologist whom she knew as a child, and with whom she becomes reacquainted by chance as an adult, but it turns out to be a bad idea. This is a carefully written piece that builds up detail to create an effective study of both the narrator and the artist.

Michael Amherst, ‘What I Feel’
Another good character study, this time of a man who struggles to feel to feel any emotion about anything, and is now present when a woman falls from a railway platform and is run over by a train. The twist in the story is perhaps no great surprise; but that’s less important than the cold tone of the prose, which brings the character to life vividly.

Elsewhere in this issue of Pen Pusher, we find: a selection of poetry; some interesting reviews; an interview with Diana Athill, which makes me want to read her work; an interview with Helen Oyeyemi, which would make me want to read her work, except I’ve already done so and know how good it is; a superb non-fiction piece by Susan Barker about her time staying in China whilst studying Mandarin;  Paul Francis’s reflective graphic tale, ‘Tidalism’; a list of literary quotations about horses; and even more besides.

Links
Pen Pusher website
Websites of contributors mentioned: Michael Amherst; Grace Andreacchi; Paul Francis; Ross Sutherland.

Kat Howard, ‘A Life in Fictions’ (2010)

23rd July 2010 / / 1 Comment

This is Kat Howard’s first published story, and very fine it is, too. The five-page tale of a woman who finds herself being literally written into her boyfriend’s fiction (and being pushed out of her own life in the process). It succeeds because of the elegant way it conveys the underlying horror of the situation. On the basis of this piece, Howard is a writer to keep an eye on in future.

Rating: ****

Elsewhere
Kat Howard’s blog

Carolyn Parkhurst, ‘Unwell’ (2010)

22nd July 2010 / / 1 Comment

A rather chilling study of Arlette, an elderly woman who has been jealous of her sister Yvonne (apparently more introverted, but luckier in love) since both were young. Meeting the handosme Arthur on a cruise may be just what Arlette needs to come out on top once and for all. Parkhurst’s tale is neatly done, with Arlette’s character emerging stringly from her voice as well as her actions.

Rating: ***½

Elsewhere
Carolyn Parkhurst’s website

Weekly Geeks: Shiny Book Syndrome

21st July 2010 / / 4 Comments

I’ve decided to try to broaden the focus of this blog out a bit from just the usual reviews. To start with, I’m going to join in with Weekly Geeks, a themed posting challenge for book bloggers. This week’s theme is ‘Shiny Book Syndrome’ – or, as Tara puts it on the site, ‘when a person only wants to read their newest book and leave piles of poor unread books on their shelves to collect dust’. How, she asks, do you keep this at bay?

Well… I know all about this feeling; I’ve been buying books faster than I can read them for upwards of twelve years. It started in the late ‘90s, when, as a teenager, I found a cheap copy of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy in a book sale – and suddenly I was introduced to huge numbers of authors of whom I’d never heard, but now wanted to read. Later the same year, I started reading SFX magazine, whose book pages were my first proper source of news about new releases. A year or so after that, I joined the British Fantasy Society, and became aware of the small press writers associated with that organisation…

And I still have books from that period which I haven’t got around to reading yet.

Of course, the problem has grown over the years, as I come across new books (new to me, that is; even a yellowed second-hand book that’s falling to pieces can be ‘shiny’) and think, ‘Ooh, I’d like to read that’. I’ve managed to fill an entire bookcase in my flat with unread books.

Which is not to mention the books piled in the wardrobe.

Which is not to mention the boxes of books in the lounge.

Which is not to mention all the books which are still in my parents’ house.

You get the picture.

One of the stranger things which has happened over the years with regard to my growing book collection is that my reading tastes have evolved, to the point where I don’t actually want to read some of my unread books, because I’m no longer interested in them. One day, I ought to go through and weed them out, but… well, y’know – there’s always another book to read instead.

How do I keep Shiny Book Syndrome away? I don’t, really. I guess I just trust that the right tinme to read a given book will come and, if it doesn’t, then perhaps it wasn’t worth reading anyway.

Besides, without Shiny Book Syndrome, there couldn’t be those serendipitous moments when you come across a book you’d forgotten you had and think, ‘Yes, that’s just what I want to read next’.

Gene Wolfe, ‘Leif in the Wind’ (2010)

21st July 2010 / / 2 Comments

Wolfe is one of the greats of science fiction, but I found this story only averagely satisfying; it feels curiously old-fashioned to me. The tale focuses on the three surviving members of a six-person crew sent to explore an alien planet. One of the crew, Leif, is outside the ship as we join the story, and apparently hallucinating. On his return, Leif claims to have brought birds aboard ship with him; his crewmates, Ena and Brennan, doubt him – but soon have reason to question their assumptions.

‘Leif in the Wind’  revolves around the question of whether or not Leif is actually hallucinating; there’s some ambiguity along the way, but not enough, I don’t think, to sustain the story. And I don’t really feel the claustrophobic atmosphere for which the tale seems to be aiming.

Rating: ***

Jonathan L. Howard, Johannes Cabal the Necromancer (2009): The Zone review

20th July 2010 / / 0 Comments

The Zone website is now carrying my review of Jonathan L. Howard’s debut novel, Johannes Cabal the Necromancer. It’s a comedy in which Johannes Cabal seeks to get his soul back from the Devil, who demands a hundred other souls in return. Cabal has a carnival at his disposal to assist with this, but, of course, it’s not that straightforward.

I found Johannes Cabal the Necromancer to be moderately successful, and gave it 3 stars. You can read the full review (which includes some more general thoughts on comic fantasy) by clicking on the link below.

Elsewhere
My review at The Zone
Some other reviews of Johannes Cabal the Necromancer: Amanda at Floor to Ceiling Books; Matt McAllister for Total Sci-Fi.
Jonathan L. Howard’s website

Stewart O’Nan, ‘Land of the Lost’ (2010)

19th July 2010 / / 1 Comment

A woman living alone becomes fixated on the case of a girl’s murder, which turns into a resolution to find the body, which the killer claims to have buried. I think O’Nan is aiming to present his protagonist’s search for the body as a search for purpose in life; her obsession is conveyed effectively, but I don’t find the central parallel to be drawn as strongly.

Rating: ***½

Elsewhere
Stewart O’Nan’s website

Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death (2010)

18th July 2010 / / 3 Comments

This is the first time I have read any of Nnedi Okorafor’s work, and I suspect that what I’m about to write will not do justice to Who Fears Death. I suspect that I’ve seen only a fraction of what there is to see in the novel, but I’ll try to put my impressions into words nevertheless.

Some distance in the future, when disaster and the weight of centuries have turned our present time into echoes, a girl named Onyesonwu – ‘Who Fears Death’ – is born of violence, her Okeke mother raped by a Nuru man, as part of a concerted effort by the latter tribe to wipe out the former (Okorafor draws parallels in the book with the situation in present-day Sudan). Onyesonwu is thus Ewu, with sand-coloured skin and hair – a social outcast.

And there is something else which marks Onyesonwu out as different: she has powerful juju, of which shapeshifting is merely one of the first manifestations. This normally being the preserve of men, Onyesonwu has to push against multiple barriers in her desire to learn more. But learn she does and, in the course of doing so, discovers that her biological father, Daib, is himself a powerful sorcerer who wishes her dead. Onyesonwu resolves to take her revenge on the Nuru general, and sets out across the desert with a group of friends, and Mwita, the boy she loves – and finds that her reputation has preceded her.

There are many different aspects of Who Fears Death on which one could focus, but the one that stands out to me is the way in which it interrogates a standard literary template – namely, the  fantasy quest; I think Okorafor does that as thoroughly as China Miéville did in Perdido Street Station, albeit in a rather different way. The structure of Who Fears Death is superficially that of a quest fantasy – a band of companions crosses a landscape to defeat an antagonist intent on taking over the world of the book; there’s also a prophecy concerning the fate of the world, which could be fulfilled by either Onyesonwu or Daib – but the end result does not play out in the way one might typically expect of that form.

For example, Onyesonwu is not a straightforwardly ‘heroic’ protagonist: she is prone to anger, may at times be hated by her friends, and the use of her powers can result in death and destruction. The protagonist may actually be every bit as dangerous as her enemy. Though Who Fears Death tells of someone overcoming the obstacles to truly become herself, it’s a rite of passage that comes at great cost to Onyesonwu, those close to her, and the wider world.

Something else that particularly struck me about the novel is that Okorafor includes some aspects which would normally drive a fantasy novel straight off the rails for me (such as the exercise of mighty, world-changing magical powers), but which don’t seem so problematic in the context of Who Fears Death. I think there are several reasons why this is so, One is that the sorcery is very well woven into the fictional world; one accepts easily that this is how that world is. Furthermore, all this power does not come without consequence in the book: it may cause great pain, even when used for beneficial purposes; and there is often a price to be paid for the use of magic – and not always paid by Onyesonwu.

So, that’s what I took away most from Who Fears Death. Sampling some of the other online commentary on the book, it seems that others have found a range of things to talk about. To me, that’s a sign of a rich work of fiction; I’d recommend Who Fears Death as a book well worth reading.

Elsewhere
Some other reviews of Who Fears Death: Matthew Cheney for Rain Taxi; Carol Cooper for The Village Voice; Zetta Brown for The New York Journal of Books.
Nnedi Okorafor’s website

Tim Davys, Amberville (2007/9)

16th July 2010 / / 6 Comments

This is the first book I’ve read for the Transworld Summer Reading Challenge; I thought I might start my posts on the challenge with a few words on why I selected the books I did. It’s quite straightforward with Amberville: anyone who reads this blog regularly will know that I have a soft spot for odd books, and this was the most obviously odd title on the list – a noir thriller with a cast of stuffed animals.

The story goes like this: Eric Bear has a happy life, married to the beautiful Emma Rabbit and with a good job in advertising. But, in his past, Eric was involved with some shady characters, one of whom now comes calling – Nicholas Dove, who has heard that his name is on the Death List, which means (if the tales are to be believed) that the Chauffeurs will shortly come to escort him on the ultimate one-way journey. Dove demands that Eric find the Death List and get his name removed from it, or Emma will be the one who pays the price. The job should be straightforward enough, because the Death List is just a fable; but Eric gets his old gang back together all the same – and, of course, the truth proves more complicated than anyone thought.

So, this Scandinavian crime novel (the author is Swedish; ‘Tim Davys’ is a pseudonym) is far from the norm, and could have been ridiculous – but it’s not. What is perhaps most striking about Amberville is that Davys tells his tale with a completely straight face; one might laugh briefly at the thought of, say, a stuffed dove walking around with two stuffed gorillas for heavies, but not for very long, because it’s not funny at all in the context of the story – it’s deadly serious. Davys creates his world with such integrity that one can’t help but take it seriously. His control of voice is also superb, switching between different characters whose voices are all distinctive, no matter how brief their turn at narration (and here, I must also acknowledge Paul Norlen’s excellent work as translator).

Driving the plot of Amberville is a mystery – is there a Death List, and, if so, who’s behind it? – which is deeper for reader s than it is for the characters, because we have more questions to ask: what is this place, Mollisan Town, inhabited by walking, talking, living stuffed animals? What goes on behind the scenes to make it all work (the inhabitants of Mollisan Town know that the young animals are manufactured somewhere and delivered to the city in vans, but no one thinks to question any further)?

Well, Amberville is the first novel in a series (though that’s not clear from the edition I was reading), so the answers aren’t all forthcoming here. That’s not a problem in itself, but I do think it has a knock-on effect – it seems to me that the major revelations for this volume are made some time before the end, leaving the rest of the book to be mostly i-dotting and t-crossing, which feels somewhat anti-climactic. This is unfortunate, because most of the rest of Amberville is pacy and engaging (with an added helping of speculation about the nature of good and evil, courtesy of Eric’s brother Teddy).

My misgivings about the conclusion of Amberville make me feel a little less inclined to find out where Davys takes his series; but the momentum of the earlier parts of the book is considerable. It’s worth a look, I think.

Elsewhere
Some other reviews of Amberville: Jane Bradley at For Books’ Sake; Presenting Lenore; Mike Krings; Mur Lafferty.

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