Another weekend sees the completion of another book. I am reading them so fast that I am almost in danger of falling behind in the reviews. There is the Agatha Christie one that I am about to discuss (completed last weekend) and now I can add another one to the completed list (Cornwell back on good form). I seem to still be on a reading roll! I have to say that today it has been kind of good reading weather - rainy, grey, noting enticing me to go out except for some essential groceries. Also it seems that my brain is ready for reading.. it needs the stories and wants to follow a narrative through to the end. Moving onto something a bit more meaty next... Sebastian Faulks.
Other major news this weekend is that I bagged myself a bargain in the Next Sale (a half price jacket) and that I have turned the heating on. I tried to put it off as long as I cold but when you are sitting still reading and your hands get cold holding the book then it is time.
### SPOILER ALERT ###
The Mirror cracked from Side to Side - Agatha Christie
Christie always amazes me with the simplicity of her stories. I mean that in the best possible way.
They are always so neat and tidy, they flow and fit together nicely. You spend the whole time thinking if what you are reading on this page or that is the one clue that you will end up having missed. You wonder about the characters and if what any of them are doing is going to turn out to be important or not. Her books are always like a little wrapped up parcel that is shaped like a square but you know is going to turn out to be a circle. I love her for it!
The world that this one is set in is a small village, although there seems to be some new kind of Development of houses that indicates the blossoming of the small village into commuter-ville. People are going about their business. Miss Marple is being patronised by her house guest, Miss Knight (who likes to talk in the royal we form... very annoying) and takes great pleasure in sending her on wild goose chase errands to the village. Miss Marple often gets sarcastic and a bit crabby with her and for good reason. Apparently someone thinks Miss Marple is getting old and needs looking after but from the way she acts you kind of doubt that from the start. She comes across as independent, astute, clever and inquisitive. People seem to be going about their normal business, shopping and tending their gardens and it is kind of like all is well with the world. Then suddenly someone dies. It kind of does not make sense for this person to die but they do.
The murder happens at a party for the local people. The Party is hosted by the new local celebrity (a film start in the autumn of her career trying to recapture her former fame) and all the local toffs are there. There are some unexpected guests as well but knowing Christie I picked up on them from the start and rules them out as potential murderers.... feeling all gloaty and good about myself. I should know better she always does this to me... it never ends well for me.
Miss Marple hears about the death at the party and it turns out she actually knew the woman that died. she met her a few days before when Miss Marple went walkabout in the new Development to see how the other side live.. very much like the rest of us mortals as she finds out for herself.
The great thing about this one is that Miss Marple does not even go to the crime scene until the very end of the book and then it is just to confirm what she already knows. She gets her clues from listening to the people that have been to the party. She also gets some information from her nephew who is a big shot Scotland Yard copper and has been asked to assist the local on the case. At times is feels that Christie is being lazy by having Miss Marple remain at home at talking to others the whole time while she works out what happened. It would be much more exciting to read about Miss Marple going about the village and running around chasing clues and running after criminals in the thick of the night but I kind of get the feeling that either Christie or Marple are done with that kind of stuff and are perfectly capable of putting a bit less effort in to get the same result. In this book Miss Marple's great strength seems to be in listening to other people and picking up on the importance of what they tell her in between all the irrelevant parts of their tales of adventure and woe. It is mainly from this that she manages to work out what actually happens. The story works kind of nicely in that you get a glimpse of something that could be important and then get steered away from it. Then we have the added confusion of who was actually the intended victim here... was it our local celeb as we all fear or was the right woman killed? Surely no-one in their right mind would want to kill a local busybody of a woman, someone who means well but does not have a clue on how her actions impact the people around her. As per usual there are a number of people put in the frame for the murder. All of them are dealt with and dismissed as they were either not in the right place at the right time or end up dead. I have to say that there is a surprising dead count even after the main murder and you are not sure why all these people end up dead until the end. Some of the deaths are quite clever whilst others are a bit more brutal. The woman who dies at the party turns out to be poisoned, one of the suspects ends up poisoned by her own inhaler and another ends up "simply" shot.
When in the end the motive comes out it is actually attached to a sad tale. You feel sorry for the woman and can sympathise with her and why the did what she did. But.. by then it is too late. I do not really want to give away too much but the reveal is unexpected to say the least.
The story moves at a good pace and the fact that there are several people bringing clues is a good little plot ploy to keep you interested as a reader. It is a clever little story and there are plenty of red herrings to distract your mind from the main players.
Title: The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side
Author: Agatha Christie
256 pages
Collins, The Crime Club
no ISBN nr
Books to be read: 84... and one more review to come!
Sunday 23 September 2012
Sunday 16 September 2012
In splendid Isolation
Another weekend, another book to review!!
I have actually finished two again (from reading during the week and this weekend) so I seem to have gotten back into the groove with the reading. It is doing wonders for the book counts well... it would do if I had not had a slight relapse in the book buying department but more on that later.
### SPOILER ALERT ###
Dark Matter, A Ghost Story - Michelle Paver
Let me start by saying that the fact that this one (as well as the previous DK one) also takes place in the Arctic is a complete coincidence. The second thing I have to say about this book is that it is amazing!
I am not quite sure how to characterise this one best to do it justice. You could say it is a ghost story but hat would ignore the fact that it deals with other themes as well: friendship, love, loneliness, envy, class, madness, nature, darkness and light, hardship and tenacity.
It is written in the form of a diary, almost presenting it as a factual story of polar exploration but it is not. It starts with a letter written by someone being asked about a polar expedition he was part of. He is obviously not happy about being petitioned to and seems annoyed at the suggestion that something "unnatural" happened during the expedition. The man seems a bit high and mighty and pompous, bordering on arrogant. This is all the introduction you get and then it is straight into the story. Interestingly enough the initial letter dates from 1947 and the expedition takes place in 1937... leading up to one war and just after another.
You are reading the diary of one of the expedition members, Jack. Because it is a diary you very quickly get drawn into the story. You are going through all of it with him very directly and closely. For us as a reader Jack is the main focus of the story. I quickly nicknamed him chip-on-his-shoulder-guy because he is. He seems very defensive of the way he got his education and how he was not able to get the job he felt he deserved. He tells us how he met the other expedition members and you very quickly see who he likes and who he does not. Jack's main reason for joining the expedition seems to be that he does not want to be like a corpse he sees dragged out of the Thames.... he wants a life that has meant something, he wants to achieve something more or otherwise... what is the point. He has worked hard to educate himself and has tried to get a job as a scientist, however, he has failed to do so. The other expedition members seem to be the silver spoon types. Well educated, well off, well on the way to a fabulous adventure I say. The expedition is mainly a weather data gathering exercise and will involve taking readings at several set points every day when at their base station. The expedition almost seems doomed from the start as not one but two members have to drop out (family emergency, broken leg). In the end three of them and a team of dogs set off for their destination: Gruhuken. The three members of the expedition that end up going are Jack, Gus and Algie.
Algie is the one who has written the letter at the start of the book stating that Gruhuken crippled one of his friends and killed another. What you now already begin to wonder is, what is going to happen to our Jack. Sure, he has written this diary but that does not necessarily mean that he is the one that survives and if he is the crippled one then why? This sort of already prepares you that something is going to happen to them while they are out there but it does not give you any major clues about what is in store for them except that some people may say it was an unnatural thing but yet very real.
What else do you need to know about Jack? Well... he does not like dogs (to start with) and he does not like Algie. He does like the idea of going to this isolated place, to be there where no man has been before, to do something that means something, he marvels at everything he sees and seems particularly fond of Gus. He is the only one keeping a diary... or at least he thinks so and he is very envious of the friendship that Gus and Algie have.
The first hint that this story is not going to end well, apart from the letter at the start, is provided by the captain that is supposed to take them to their base in Gruhuken. He seems to know that something happened there but does not want to elaborate. At one point he flat out refuses to take them there. Even though the captain relents he refuses to let his men stay on the island during the night and cannot wait to get out of there (should have been a clue for our boys really). He tells Jack to beware but does not want to tell him why.. he seems very scared and concerned that they have chose this place as their spot for a base camp. The boys, in the meantime are busy tearing down the old structures there putting their own mark on the place. It seems the place was used by seal hunters as well as miners in the past and remnants of both trades are everywhere. Things seem to be going okay.. although Algie behaves strange sometimes and Jack has a few experiences that leave him a bit shaken. But, being the intrepid explorer that he is, he shrugs it off and manages to convince himself that it is just an echo of the past and that it cannot hurt him. Whether or not he actually, deep down really believes this to be true is another matter. It seems to me it is more the kind of thing he tells himself to re-assure himself that he will be okay and that he is not going mad and what he is doing is worthwile.
Things get a bit more critical when Gus gets ill and has to be taken back to the mainland... he needs someone to come with him and Algie gets to be the one to go with him. This leaves our Jack as the one to carry on with the work carried out on the expedition. He is the saviour of the expedition. Left on his own Jack tries everything to keep himself and the expedition going. He sets up these routines where he does certain things at certain times. He has a blast eating all the stuff that he wants to and he even gets closer to the dogs (one in particular) but with Gus and Algie gone the sun light fading it is not long before he is left in the darkness of the polar days and nights. You read Jack's diary and know that he is getting a bit more unhinged every day, he seems that little bit more irrational about what happens around him, that little bit more panicked when something out of the ordinary happens, when the snow storms hit he is even more isolated that he already was. Jack sees this ghost several times but he does not understand what it is this thing wants from him. He can feel its malevolence but does not know exactly where it comes from and how.. if at all he can ease its pain. He worries about the others coming back, he hopes they will be able to get to him in time. He gets temporary relief when a local trapper comes to see him but this man only stays for a week or so. He does find out from this man what haunts Gruhuken and partly why... but it is not really what he want to hear. It is a dark tale of human cruelty and he is no better off for knowing it.
By this time also he has found the notebook that Gus was keeping. Now he finds out that both Gus and Algie have had experiences and have shared them between one another but not with Jack. Jack was surely too sensible, too reasonable, too much of a hard man to have experienced what they had so best not to bother him with it. You feel Jack's pain at discovering this.. he thought he could trust Gus but now the one that matters most to him has betrayed him.
The more the story goes on, the more it becomes about isolation. Physical isolation, mental isolation. Jack is starved from regular human contact, he hungers for his friends to come back. all he has is the radio, the dog , his food. His routines go out the window and he becomes more and more irrational and scared. He keeps thinking that if only he can hang on until they come.. then all will be well. Jack ends up staying in his bed, with the dog close to him. He is a sad excuse for a human being, half deranged or delirious... unaware of how to save himself or what the sensible thing to do would be. Then the Thing makes its final assault on him and it looks like he will die on his own driven mad by what haunts Gruhuken. But no... there are his friends!! They have come for him at last. He is saved... well, yes... but there is a price to pay. It seems that Gruhuken must have blood and Gus' is that it gets. The way this part is written is confusing, vague, blurry like the way it would have been for them in the boat coming to save Jack. It is almost like a dream and for a while you think that perhaps Jack has really lost it and it is all a dream and not real.
Jack survives, minus one part leg, Algie also lives. Jack has lost more than just his friend in Gruhuken, he is scarred by the experience, physically and mentally.
It is a nice touch that Jack has this ceremony now where he goes out to the sea where he now lives in Jamaica. He can just about bear to touch the sea there. It makes him feel closer to Gus whose life was lost in it so far away but he also feels that the thing from Gruhuken is there too and that is why he can never go back.
This book is about so much and it is certainly not just a simple ghost story.
It is about human nature, about what it can endure. It is about the tricks the mind plays on you when under stress.
It is about isolation. There is the isolation of the location and the isolation of Jack. He loses his innocent enthusiasm for the place. It turns against him and makes him suffer for coming there. At the start he says he wanted the place to be untouched and pure. He wanted to go to a place where he would be the first to have been there. He wants to make Gruhuken his but Gruhuken fights back.
Dark and light are another theme that features. When they arrive there is still light during the day. They do not always have lights on and are happy, at one point Jack even tries to keep the light out. Then the place goes dark.. literally because for the diminishing light of the sun, then Jack's friends leave, and the dogs run off and then the last rays of sun disappear. The place also had a dark feel because the bad things that happened there. What was done to the ghost was not nice and fluffy but a demonstration of human nature at its most cruel.
Jack's world becomes smaller and smaller the more the story goes on. He starts out by walking about a lot and sticking to his routines. As the light fades he loses the structure in his life. He sticks closer and closer to the hut and eventually his bed. Unfortunately for Jack the thing that is out to hurt him lies in wait close by and is getting stronger.
As a reader you are close to Jack because it is his diary you are reading. It is written in the I-form and these are his words, his thoughts, his emotions. It really is a great way to draw the reader in. There is a lot of tension in the writing, you feel Jack's emotions strongly, his despair and loneliness are on every page and you feel that in the next entry you read he might either finally escape or lose it completely.
It is indeed, as the FT says "A tale of terror and beauty and wonder".
Title: Dark Matter, A Ghost Story
Author: Michelle Paver
252 pages
Orion
ISBN nr 978-1-4091-2118-3
Books to be read: 80
Books bought: 5
So, about my minor relapse...... I bought five books. I have to be honest and say that it was kind of a conscious relapse. I wanted something fun to do and then decided that a book buying trip would fit the bill. So I went out to Leighton Buzzard for a tour of the local charity shops. It could have been worse... I actually but I left one behind that I was not sure of getting ... might go back and get it in a few weeks.
Books to be read: 85..... well actually 84 as I have finished another one... But more on that in the next post.
I have actually finished two again (from reading during the week and this weekend) so I seem to have gotten back into the groove with the reading. It is doing wonders for the book counts well... it would do if I had not had a slight relapse in the book buying department but more on that later.
### SPOILER ALERT ###
Dark Matter, A Ghost Story - Michelle Paver
Let me start by saying that the fact that this one (as well as the previous DK one) also takes place in the Arctic is a complete coincidence. The second thing I have to say about this book is that it is amazing!
I am not quite sure how to characterise this one best to do it justice. You could say it is a ghost story but hat would ignore the fact that it deals with other themes as well: friendship, love, loneliness, envy, class, madness, nature, darkness and light, hardship and tenacity.
It is written in the form of a diary, almost presenting it as a factual story of polar exploration but it is not. It starts with a letter written by someone being asked about a polar expedition he was part of. He is obviously not happy about being petitioned to and seems annoyed at the suggestion that something "unnatural" happened during the expedition. The man seems a bit high and mighty and pompous, bordering on arrogant. This is all the introduction you get and then it is straight into the story. Interestingly enough the initial letter dates from 1947 and the expedition takes place in 1937... leading up to one war and just after another.
You are reading the diary of one of the expedition members, Jack. Because it is a diary you very quickly get drawn into the story. You are going through all of it with him very directly and closely. For us as a reader Jack is the main focus of the story. I quickly nicknamed him chip-on-his-shoulder-guy because he is. He seems very defensive of the way he got his education and how he was not able to get the job he felt he deserved. He tells us how he met the other expedition members and you very quickly see who he likes and who he does not. Jack's main reason for joining the expedition seems to be that he does not want to be like a corpse he sees dragged out of the Thames.... he wants a life that has meant something, he wants to achieve something more or otherwise... what is the point. He has worked hard to educate himself and has tried to get a job as a scientist, however, he has failed to do so. The other expedition members seem to be the silver spoon types. Well educated, well off, well on the way to a fabulous adventure I say. The expedition is mainly a weather data gathering exercise and will involve taking readings at several set points every day when at their base station. The expedition almost seems doomed from the start as not one but two members have to drop out (family emergency, broken leg). In the end three of them and a team of dogs set off for their destination: Gruhuken. The three members of the expedition that end up going are Jack, Gus and Algie.
Algie is the one who has written the letter at the start of the book stating that Gruhuken crippled one of his friends and killed another. What you now already begin to wonder is, what is going to happen to our Jack. Sure, he has written this diary but that does not necessarily mean that he is the one that survives and if he is the crippled one then why? This sort of already prepares you that something is going to happen to them while they are out there but it does not give you any major clues about what is in store for them except that some people may say it was an unnatural thing but yet very real.
What else do you need to know about Jack? Well... he does not like dogs (to start with) and he does not like Algie. He does like the idea of going to this isolated place, to be there where no man has been before, to do something that means something, he marvels at everything he sees and seems particularly fond of Gus. He is the only one keeping a diary... or at least he thinks so and he is very envious of the friendship that Gus and Algie have.
The first hint that this story is not going to end well, apart from the letter at the start, is provided by the captain that is supposed to take them to their base in Gruhuken. He seems to know that something happened there but does not want to elaborate. At one point he flat out refuses to take them there. Even though the captain relents he refuses to let his men stay on the island during the night and cannot wait to get out of there (should have been a clue for our boys really). He tells Jack to beware but does not want to tell him why.. he seems very scared and concerned that they have chose this place as their spot for a base camp. The boys, in the meantime are busy tearing down the old structures there putting their own mark on the place. It seems the place was used by seal hunters as well as miners in the past and remnants of both trades are everywhere. Things seem to be going okay.. although Algie behaves strange sometimes and Jack has a few experiences that leave him a bit shaken. But, being the intrepid explorer that he is, he shrugs it off and manages to convince himself that it is just an echo of the past and that it cannot hurt him. Whether or not he actually, deep down really believes this to be true is another matter. It seems to me it is more the kind of thing he tells himself to re-assure himself that he will be okay and that he is not going mad and what he is doing is worthwile.
Things get a bit more critical when Gus gets ill and has to be taken back to the mainland... he needs someone to come with him and Algie gets to be the one to go with him. This leaves our Jack as the one to carry on with the work carried out on the expedition. He is the saviour of the expedition. Left on his own Jack tries everything to keep himself and the expedition going. He sets up these routines where he does certain things at certain times. He has a blast eating all the stuff that he wants to and he even gets closer to the dogs (one in particular) but with Gus and Algie gone the sun light fading it is not long before he is left in the darkness of the polar days and nights. You read Jack's diary and know that he is getting a bit more unhinged every day, he seems that little bit more irrational about what happens around him, that little bit more panicked when something out of the ordinary happens, when the snow storms hit he is even more isolated that he already was. Jack sees this ghost several times but he does not understand what it is this thing wants from him. He can feel its malevolence but does not know exactly where it comes from and how.. if at all he can ease its pain. He worries about the others coming back, he hopes they will be able to get to him in time. He gets temporary relief when a local trapper comes to see him but this man only stays for a week or so. He does find out from this man what haunts Gruhuken and partly why... but it is not really what he want to hear. It is a dark tale of human cruelty and he is no better off for knowing it.
By this time also he has found the notebook that Gus was keeping. Now he finds out that both Gus and Algie have had experiences and have shared them between one another but not with Jack. Jack was surely too sensible, too reasonable, too much of a hard man to have experienced what they had so best not to bother him with it. You feel Jack's pain at discovering this.. he thought he could trust Gus but now the one that matters most to him has betrayed him.
The more the story goes on, the more it becomes about isolation. Physical isolation, mental isolation. Jack is starved from regular human contact, he hungers for his friends to come back. all he has is the radio, the dog , his food. His routines go out the window and he becomes more and more irrational and scared. He keeps thinking that if only he can hang on until they come.. then all will be well. Jack ends up staying in his bed, with the dog close to him. He is a sad excuse for a human being, half deranged or delirious... unaware of how to save himself or what the sensible thing to do would be. Then the Thing makes its final assault on him and it looks like he will die on his own driven mad by what haunts Gruhuken. But no... there are his friends!! They have come for him at last. He is saved... well, yes... but there is a price to pay. It seems that Gruhuken must have blood and Gus' is that it gets. The way this part is written is confusing, vague, blurry like the way it would have been for them in the boat coming to save Jack. It is almost like a dream and for a while you think that perhaps Jack has really lost it and it is all a dream and not real.
Jack survives, minus one part leg, Algie also lives. Jack has lost more than just his friend in Gruhuken, he is scarred by the experience, physically and mentally.
It is a nice touch that Jack has this ceremony now where he goes out to the sea where he now lives in Jamaica. He can just about bear to touch the sea there. It makes him feel closer to Gus whose life was lost in it so far away but he also feels that the thing from Gruhuken is there too and that is why he can never go back.
This book is about so much and it is certainly not just a simple ghost story.
It is about human nature, about what it can endure. It is about the tricks the mind plays on you when under stress.
It is about isolation. There is the isolation of the location and the isolation of Jack. He loses his innocent enthusiasm for the place. It turns against him and makes him suffer for coming there. At the start he says he wanted the place to be untouched and pure. He wanted to go to a place where he would be the first to have been there. He wants to make Gruhuken his but Gruhuken fights back.
Dark and light are another theme that features. When they arrive there is still light during the day. They do not always have lights on and are happy, at one point Jack even tries to keep the light out. Then the place goes dark.. literally because for the diminishing light of the sun, then Jack's friends leave, and the dogs run off and then the last rays of sun disappear. The place also had a dark feel because the bad things that happened there. What was done to the ghost was not nice and fluffy but a demonstration of human nature at its most cruel.
Jack's world becomes smaller and smaller the more the story goes on. He starts out by walking about a lot and sticking to his routines. As the light fades he loses the structure in his life. He sticks closer and closer to the hut and eventually his bed. Unfortunately for Jack the thing that is out to hurt him lies in wait close by and is getting stronger.
As a reader you are close to Jack because it is his diary you are reading. It is written in the I-form and these are his words, his thoughts, his emotions. It really is a great way to draw the reader in. There is a lot of tension in the writing, you feel Jack's emotions strongly, his despair and loneliness are on every page and you feel that in the next entry you read he might either finally escape or lose it completely.
It is indeed, as the FT says "A tale of terror and beauty and wonder".
Title: Dark Matter, A Ghost Story
Author: Michelle Paver
252 pages
Orion
ISBN nr 978-1-4091-2118-3
Books to be read: 80
Books bought: 5
So, about my minor relapse...... I bought five books. I have to be honest and say that it was kind of a conscious relapse. I wanted something fun to do and then decided that a book buying trip would fit the bill. So I went out to Leighton Buzzard for a tour of the local charity shops. It could have been worse... I actually but I left one behind that I was not sure of getting ... might go back and get it in a few weeks.
Books to be read: 85..... well actually 84 as I have finished another one... But more on that in the next post.
Monday 10 September 2012
How to get along with your fellow man in a frosty environment
As I said yesterday this will be the second of my posts on a finished book in as many days. I know I can read quickly but the pace at which I went through this one surprised even me. I started it on Saturday and finished it on Sunday afternoon. Even more scarily I am almost halfway through the next one again already! I did notice that there a kind of link between the one I am reading now and the one I am about to review. You will have to wait for that link until I finish the present one.
### SPOILER ALERT ###
Icebound - Dean Koontz
(This is a revised version published in 1995 of the previously released Prison of Ice, written under the pseudonym of David Axton)
It is one of a handful of stories that he has republished in a revised edition and boy am I glad he did! It is a belter! It was a real page turner. I tend to find DK easy to read anyway but this one was almost over before I knew it.
It is a different kind of book from what he usually writes. The themes are different, it feels different.... lighter. According to the man himself with this one he has tried to write an "adventure suspense" novel. From the start you kind of get that you are not going to have to worry too much about deep characterisation and deeply moral themes of faith, hope and sacrifice or the everlasting struggle between the good and evil in man. This one just wants to keep you in suspense of what is going to happen next and who will make it to the end of the book. In a way I found it kind of refreshing not to have some of the well known DK themes and style in the story. DK can be a bit of a moralising writer at times. In most of his novels he attempts to make a point of addressing issues he thinks relevant. At time he even tries to beat you about the head a bit too much with them. This one was refreshingly different.
So how do yo go about creating a nice "adventure suspense" themed environment. Well.... let's face it, you cannot get much more tense and contained situation then a team of scientists stuck on an iceberg in the arctic that is about to be blown to bits with them on it unless a miracle happens. There is the isolation of the Arctic due to the cold, then there is the isolation of the various team members as they are off in various places doing their jobs. Even when they get back together as a group they all have their own issues they are trying to deal with. Brian thinks he is not worthy, George has seen the brutality of war close up, Rita is afraid of ice and snow, Pete is a scientist who looks like a footballer, Claude is close to being over the hill and being put out to pasture, Franz is still obsessed by the woman he lost (Rita), Roger is a weightlifter trying to please mummy and Brian is a late bloomer who hopes he will have the chance to hold on to the life he has.
At the start of the story we learn that there is an idea to blast a piece off the mainland ice to see if they can drift it south to serve as drinking water for those areas that need it. Nice idea on paper, not so easy to execute. Especially not if you find that there is a killer in your midst as well. This is what the main players, the Carpenters (no relation to the singing group), face. The way it is set up is kind of good as in you do not find out that someone is out to get one of the expedition members until you get about halfway through the book. All this time you have been worrying with them about how they are going to get off the iceberg but now you also have to try and figure out who is out to get one of the team. The whole issue of getting the iceberg to drift South becomes a secondary problem and survival becomes the first and foremost priority for the team members.
Do not worry that there is no justice in this arctic world of ice. As per usual it is not the most obvious red herring that turns out to be the killer and yes he does get his comeuppance. The Carpenters who are easily the most likable characters in the book stay together and survive the murder plot. Each member of the team kind of overcomes his or her issues that was holding them back. They are, naturally, saved from their predicament and the way it happens is kind of brilliant. It involves a cunning plan, a Russian submarine and a very determined captain and that is all I am saying about that.
It was a great read and I hope that DK will do some more of these although he himself says that he feels he does not have another one in him... go on.... I'll cook you dinner!?
Title: Icebound
Author: Dean Koontz
373 pages
Headline Feature
ISBN nr 0-7472-4740-4
Books to be read: 81
Books bought: 0
### SPOILER ALERT ###
Icebound - Dean Koontz
(This is a revised version published in 1995 of the previously released Prison of Ice, written under the pseudonym of David Axton)
It is one of a handful of stories that he has republished in a revised edition and boy am I glad he did! It is a belter! It was a real page turner. I tend to find DK easy to read anyway but this one was almost over before I knew it.
It is a different kind of book from what he usually writes. The themes are different, it feels different.... lighter. According to the man himself with this one he has tried to write an "adventure suspense" novel. From the start you kind of get that you are not going to have to worry too much about deep characterisation and deeply moral themes of faith, hope and sacrifice or the everlasting struggle between the good and evil in man. This one just wants to keep you in suspense of what is going to happen next and who will make it to the end of the book. In a way I found it kind of refreshing not to have some of the well known DK themes and style in the story. DK can be a bit of a moralising writer at times. In most of his novels he attempts to make a point of addressing issues he thinks relevant. At time he even tries to beat you about the head a bit too much with them. This one was refreshingly different.
So how do yo go about creating a nice "adventure suspense" themed environment. Well.... let's face it, you cannot get much more tense and contained situation then a team of scientists stuck on an iceberg in the arctic that is about to be blown to bits with them on it unless a miracle happens. There is the isolation of the Arctic due to the cold, then there is the isolation of the various team members as they are off in various places doing their jobs. Even when they get back together as a group they all have their own issues they are trying to deal with. Brian thinks he is not worthy, George has seen the brutality of war close up, Rita is afraid of ice and snow, Pete is a scientist who looks like a footballer, Claude is close to being over the hill and being put out to pasture, Franz is still obsessed by the woman he lost (Rita), Roger is a weightlifter trying to please mummy and Brian is a late bloomer who hopes he will have the chance to hold on to the life he has.
At the start of the story we learn that there is an idea to blast a piece off the mainland ice to see if they can drift it south to serve as drinking water for those areas that need it. Nice idea on paper, not so easy to execute. Especially not if you find that there is a killer in your midst as well. This is what the main players, the Carpenters (no relation to the singing group), face. The way it is set up is kind of good as in you do not find out that someone is out to get one of the expedition members until you get about halfway through the book. All this time you have been worrying with them about how they are going to get off the iceberg but now you also have to try and figure out who is out to get one of the team. The whole issue of getting the iceberg to drift South becomes a secondary problem and survival becomes the first and foremost priority for the team members.
Do not worry that there is no justice in this arctic world of ice. As per usual it is not the most obvious red herring that turns out to be the killer and yes he does get his comeuppance. The Carpenters who are easily the most likable characters in the book stay together and survive the murder plot. Each member of the team kind of overcomes his or her issues that was holding them back. They are, naturally, saved from their predicament and the way it happens is kind of brilliant. It involves a cunning plan, a Russian submarine and a very determined captain and that is all I am saying about that.
It was a great read and I hope that DK will do some more of these although he himself says that he feels he does not have another one in him... go on.... I'll cook you dinner!?
Title: Icebound
Author: Dean Koontz
373 pages
Headline Feature
ISBN nr 0-7472-4740-4
Books to be read: 81
Books bought: 0
Sunday 9 September 2012
Confusion and 2-for-1
First of all I have to address the book count.
I have no idea how it happened but somewhere along the line something seems to have gone awry with the count. According to my tally on the Blog I should have a starting total of 84 unread books waiting patiently for me. However, today I did a head count (several times) and counted 81 on the shelves, this is minus the two I have now finished. Even I can work out that that meant that I had only 83 to begin with. No idea where the little straggler has gone? I have been through my boxes of books to check if there was one that ended up in the wrong pile and the wrong box with the move or something, but no. So.... either I have ghosts or my counting is off.
However much I would like to have a haunted flat I think the most logical conclusion is that I miscounted.
Therefore..... Books to be read: 83
The good news is that this means I am one book less addicted to book buying than I thought I was and I have one less book to read. I am sure I can address both and see them through to a satisfactory conclusion.
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
The Mammoth Book of Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories - Richard Dalby (Ed.)
This one took me a long time to finish. Anthologies usually seem to take longer to read anyway I always find. Not sure why as they are all short stories and there should be no real difference in reading 10 short stories of 10 pages to reading one book of 100 pages. And yet.... there seems to be. I have to say that the pages in the Ghost story book are bigger that those of the average pocket I read so perhaps there is something in that? Anyway.... this one is done and dusted. As usual with these anthologies most tales selected are good, some are really good and there was one surprising lowlight for me.
Schalken the Painter - JS Sheridan Le Fanu (highlight)
Partly a good one because it is set in Holland and it characterises the Dutch as "honest and blunt". Also good because the story is dark and involves a blushing bride trying to get away from a relentless husband who is hell bent to claim her for his own.
Fitz-James O'Brien - The Lost Room (highlight)
This one shows that you need to make sure that you remember where you leave things, never trust a servant that is too smiley and that things are not always what they seem. A man leaves his oh so familiar quarters only to have them visited by some unwelcome guests.
Charles Dickens - No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman (highlight)
Really good one!
Right amount of tension in the story. It runs over only a few days but from the start you know things are not going to end well for one of the main characters. There is a tunnel and a misty, foggy world below on the railway lines. Perfect territory for a ghost story where echoes from the past seem to predict the future.
Henry James - The Romance of Certain Old Clothes (highlight)
A nice one about the love and hate that can exist between two sisters when there is a man involved. Even after death one is able to reach out to the others and not in a good way. Would probably be described by a man as "a lot of fuss over some frocks".
Mary E. Braddon - John Granger (highlight)
Finally a man who is loyal to the woman he loves. There are star crossed lovers, a pot of money, false identities and intercontinental travel. A nice little tale of a deserving man trying to do the best for the woman he loves even though she marries someone else and being thwarted by the lowly, weaselly looking cousin.
Theo Gift - Dog or Demon (highlight)
This tale illustrates really well that you should never mistreat an animal. This one has a bite that catches people out beyond the grave as a poor woman and her little newborn find out.
One of the best starts to a ghost story I ever read: "At last she is dead!".
Richard Marsh - A Set of Chessmen (highlight)
When you buy a chess set make sure that you do not say even one bad word about the previous owner. Two men try to play each other at their own game but there is something stopping them.
Bram Stoker - The Judge's House (highlight)
Part of the "will-they-never-learn" type.
A guy goes looking for trouble and surely finds it. Extra scary as there are rats involved..... I hate rats. Even more now than I ever did. Oh... and one very mean hanging judge.
Ambrose Bierce - The Moonlit Road (highlight)
There are 3 people in this one. Each tells his\her perspective of what happened, as far as they know it. In the end you end up with the complete picture. A nice way of telling the entire ghost story. Short and sweet.
Sabine Baring-Gould - H.P. (lowlight)
I am not sure what this one actually wants to be. It certainly is not a ghost story.
It seems to be more of a moralistic tale against modern man and society in general.
Man is trapped in a cave and has a conversation with the "spirit" of some Iron Age man who is seemingly jealous of the world that the modern man lives in. One of those that made me go "Whatever!?" and is more social commentary than ghostly tale.
Bernard Capes - A Ghost-Child (lowlight)
I had to start this one twice as it seemed to be about a girl first and then mentioned a boy. It did not get much better after that. Some vague story about lost love and a little kid that has the soul of her lost lover. Tries to pull the heart strings and fails.
Henry James - The Jolly Corner (lowlight)
A surprising lowlight for me. I have read some of his stories and liked them but this one just seem to witter on. Half of it was descriptions, no essential descriptions of hallways, rooms, feelings and actions. So much so that it made me skim read part of the story because nothing was happening. Also one of the most disappointing ends ever to a story.
Alexander Harvey - the Forbidden Floor (lowlight)
This one claimed to be "pleasantly erotic". If it was then I must have missed it.
Did not care much for the story either. A writer is to write a biography and for some reason seems to need to stay in the house as well. There is the lady of the house who seems to not say much and a son who keeps to his rooms at the other floor (you guessed it the "forbidden one") most times. Then we have the sullen housekeeper and we have our set complete. Some female ghost turns up and tempts our boy up the stairs. We then find that the son was tempted/haunted by the same ghost... Two sentences later all is well and our writer and lady of the house are married as is the son, to a woman who used to come to dinner.. or something - the end. Not a great story, not a great ending... no trace of eroticism for me.
These are not all the tales but they are the ones that came back to me most vividly when thumbing through the book again for this review. The other tales in this anthology are good as well but this selection is purely based on something in the story that tugged at my brain or made me smile.. or wince.. or put another light on.
Title: The Mammoth Book of Victorian & Edwardian Ghost Stories
Author: Richard Dalby (Ed.)
573 pages
Robinson
ISBN nr 1-85487-338-5
Books to be read: 82
Now.... there is another one I have finished but I will have to leave the review for that one for tomorrow. I can reveal that it is a Dean Koontz one. Not one of his standard works and perhaps the better for it.
I have no idea how it happened but somewhere along the line something seems to have gone awry with the count. According to my tally on the Blog I should have a starting total of 84 unread books waiting patiently for me. However, today I did a head count (several times) and counted 81 on the shelves, this is minus the two I have now finished. Even I can work out that that meant that I had only 83 to begin with. No idea where the little straggler has gone? I have been through my boxes of books to check if there was one that ended up in the wrong pile and the wrong box with the move or something, but no. So.... either I have ghosts or my counting is off.
However much I would like to have a haunted flat I think the most logical conclusion is that I miscounted.
Therefore..... Books to be read: 83
The good news is that this means I am one book less addicted to book buying than I thought I was and I have one less book to read. I am sure I can address both and see them through to a satisfactory conclusion.
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
The Mammoth Book of Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories - Richard Dalby (Ed.)
This one took me a long time to finish. Anthologies usually seem to take longer to read anyway I always find. Not sure why as they are all short stories and there should be no real difference in reading 10 short stories of 10 pages to reading one book of 100 pages. And yet.... there seems to be. I have to say that the pages in the Ghost story book are bigger that those of the average pocket I read so perhaps there is something in that? Anyway.... this one is done and dusted. As usual with these anthologies most tales selected are good, some are really good and there was one surprising lowlight for me.
Schalken the Painter - JS Sheridan Le Fanu (highlight)
Partly a good one because it is set in Holland and it characterises the Dutch as "honest and blunt". Also good because the story is dark and involves a blushing bride trying to get away from a relentless husband who is hell bent to claim her for his own.
Fitz-James O'Brien - The Lost Room (highlight)
This one shows that you need to make sure that you remember where you leave things, never trust a servant that is too smiley and that things are not always what they seem. A man leaves his oh so familiar quarters only to have them visited by some unwelcome guests.
Charles Dickens - No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman (highlight)
Really good one!
Right amount of tension in the story. It runs over only a few days but from the start you know things are not going to end well for one of the main characters. There is a tunnel and a misty, foggy world below on the railway lines. Perfect territory for a ghost story where echoes from the past seem to predict the future.
Henry James - The Romance of Certain Old Clothes (highlight)
A nice one about the love and hate that can exist between two sisters when there is a man involved. Even after death one is able to reach out to the others and not in a good way. Would probably be described by a man as "a lot of fuss over some frocks".
Mary E. Braddon - John Granger (highlight)
Finally a man who is loyal to the woman he loves. There are star crossed lovers, a pot of money, false identities and intercontinental travel. A nice little tale of a deserving man trying to do the best for the woman he loves even though she marries someone else and being thwarted by the lowly, weaselly looking cousin.
Theo Gift - Dog or Demon (highlight)
This tale illustrates really well that you should never mistreat an animal. This one has a bite that catches people out beyond the grave as a poor woman and her little newborn find out.
One of the best starts to a ghost story I ever read: "At last she is dead!".
Richard Marsh - A Set of Chessmen (highlight)
When you buy a chess set make sure that you do not say even one bad word about the previous owner. Two men try to play each other at their own game but there is something stopping them.
Bram Stoker - The Judge's House (highlight)
Part of the "will-they-never-learn" type.
A guy goes looking for trouble and surely finds it. Extra scary as there are rats involved..... I hate rats. Even more now than I ever did. Oh... and one very mean hanging judge.
Ambrose Bierce - The Moonlit Road (highlight)
There are 3 people in this one. Each tells his\her perspective of what happened, as far as they know it. In the end you end up with the complete picture. A nice way of telling the entire ghost story. Short and sweet.
Sabine Baring-Gould - H.P. (lowlight)
I am not sure what this one actually wants to be. It certainly is not a ghost story.
It seems to be more of a moralistic tale against modern man and society in general.
Man is trapped in a cave and has a conversation with the "spirit" of some Iron Age man who is seemingly jealous of the world that the modern man lives in. One of those that made me go "Whatever!?" and is more social commentary than ghostly tale.
Bernard Capes - A Ghost-Child (lowlight)
I had to start this one twice as it seemed to be about a girl first and then mentioned a boy. It did not get much better after that. Some vague story about lost love and a little kid that has the soul of her lost lover. Tries to pull the heart strings and fails.
Henry James - The Jolly Corner (lowlight)
A surprising lowlight for me. I have read some of his stories and liked them but this one just seem to witter on. Half of it was descriptions, no essential descriptions of hallways, rooms, feelings and actions. So much so that it made me skim read part of the story because nothing was happening. Also one of the most disappointing ends ever to a story.
Alexander Harvey - the Forbidden Floor (lowlight)
This one claimed to be "pleasantly erotic". If it was then I must have missed it.
Did not care much for the story either. A writer is to write a biography and for some reason seems to need to stay in the house as well. There is the lady of the house who seems to not say much and a son who keeps to his rooms at the other floor (you guessed it the "forbidden one") most times. Then we have the sullen housekeeper and we have our set complete. Some female ghost turns up and tempts our boy up the stairs. We then find that the son was tempted/haunted by the same ghost... Two sentences later all is well and our writer and lady of the house are married as is the son, to a woman who used to come to dinner.. or something - the end. Not a great story, not a great ending... no trace of eroticism for me.
These are not all the tales but they are the ones that came back to me most vividly when thumbing through the book again for this review. The other tales in this anthology are good as well but this selection is purely based on something in the story that tugged at my brain or made me smile.. or wince.. or put another light on.
Title: The Mammoth Book of Victorian & Edwardian Ghost Stories
Author: Richard Dalby (Ed.)
573 pages
Robinson
ISBN nr 1-85487-338-5
Books to be read: 82
Now.... there is another one I have finished but I will have to leave the review for that one for tomorrow. I can reveal that it is a Dean Koontz one. Not one of his standard works and perhaps the better for it.
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