Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology

When I was about 10 my grandfather gave me a huge book of world mythology. Many of the accounts inside gave me real insights into the culture and religion of my classmates who came from a wide variety of backgrounds. But I was always most taken by the Norse myths. For a young boy these were fantastically dramatic - full of fighting, quests, drama, love and bravery.

So for me, Neil Gaiman's retelling of the myths is a return to much loved stories. And he does it extremely well. The tales aren't overly written - they're bare of details, but designed to allow the reader to fill in the gaps. Readers of Gaiman's other books might be disappointed by this, as was I initially, as I was used to his incredible descriptions of fantastic places. But once you realise that these myths are told as they would be round a camp fire, perhaps by a viking bard reading them to a group of listeners, then you can understand why they work so well.

Those new to the myths, will almost certainly find something they recognise, if only the names of the gods which have recently been reused by the Marvel comic and film franchise. But these characters are different to their movie portrayals. Here for instance Loki develops from an annoying trickster to a vicious psychopath.

North Mythology is an enjoyable retelling of some classic tales. Neil Gaiman's storytelling skills fit the material admirably and its well worth reliving these ancient quests and battles as he tells them.

Related Reviews

Gaiman - American Gods
Gaiman - Neverwhere
Gaiman - Ocean at the End of the Lane
Gaiman - Stardust
Gaiman - Smoke and Mirrors
Gaiman - Anansi Boys

Anatole France - The Gods Will Have Blood

The title of Anatole France's 1912 novel of the French Revolution reflects a common theme for discussion of that historical event. Reading the book in the centenary year of the Russian Revolution its easy to spot some parallels with commentators on 1917. The idea that revolutions devour their children is a common one for those seeking to defend the status quo, and Anatole France was certainly not the first author to use it. But France was unusual in this - he was a supporter of the Russian Revolution and the formation of the French Communist Party.

The problem really is that in this novel France focuses not on the great events of the French Revolution, but on the role of an individual within it. A young, idealistic and extremely naive Evariste Gamelin is the books' central figure. An unquestioning supporter of Marat and Robespierre, Gamelin is swept up within the Revolution. He falls as passionately in love with Elodie Blaise a woman whom he knows through his artistic work, as he does with the ideals of 1792.

The very real threat to Revolutionary France transforms itself into seeing enemies everywhere. As various groups within the new state struggle for power, and to protect the gains of the Revolution, violence becomes a daily occurrence. Gamelin becomes a revolutionary magistrate, tasked with defending France from its enemies and offering justice to those in front of him. His decent into bloodlust is partly a result of the normality of violence, and from a need to appease his peers. Strangely it seems also to create an erotic lust in Elodie. Eventually, and inevitably, Gamelin becomes a victim of the state violence, just as his heroes Marat and Robespierre did before him.

Oddly the novel's story is the least satisfying part. The strength is the individuals portrayed within it. The old, defeated aristocrats hoping for a revival of their fortunes, prepared to comprimise in any way to defend themselves. The corrupt magistrates, prepared to rape the relatives of their victims on the false promise of freedom. The idealistic individuals inspired by the Revolution and depressed by its reality.

What is lacking however, is a sense of the masses who stormed the Bastille and who joined the Revolutionary armies. Here they are a backdrop to the story of naive Gamelin who rose and fell with the revolution. The masses who made the revolution feel thin and shadowy. Perhaps this is why I was left unsatisfied by France's novel, for all the author's talent.

Ignacio Padilla - Shadow Without A Name

This compelling, if confusing novel spans the darkest years of the twentieth century, from the beginning of the First World War, to the aftermath of the second. Its characters live in central Europe and find themselves in the middle of war, fascism and the Holocaust.

The novel begins with an attempt through a bet on a chess game, to win an identity change which will leave one person in relative safety behind the lines, and the other facing the bullets and shells in the trenches. This sets the scene for repeated changes of identity, until it becomes unclear precisely who is telling the story, about whom.

These characters become embroiled in the nascent fascist movements at the end of the First World War, and eventually rise to be at the heart of Hitler's Nazi Party and, in one case, uniquely positioned to witness the beginnings of the Final Solution. To say more would spoil a complex plot that had this reader constantly looking back to earlier chapters to try and better understand events.

Well written, compelling, shocking and innovative, this is an excellent novel from an author who tragically died far too young.

Hilary Mantel - A Place of Greater Safety

Hilary Mantel's talent for talking historical figures and making them real is put to superb use in this novel of the French Revolution. Focusing on three key revolutionaries, Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins, she weaves their personal lives and loves into the tangled story of the revolution itself. All three figures played central roles and Mantel brings to life the fierce debates that the revolution throws up - the question of violence in particular, deployed in defence of the revolution's gains.

Unfortunately this sharp focus on three individuals means that the mass who made the revolution remains just that - a mass in the background. Occasionally the crowd bursts into the story, but only to highlight the role of one or other of Mantel's heroes. This doesn't denigrate the story, but it means that those trying to understand the dynamics of the revolution may find the twists and turns of history hard to follow.

Ultimately the revolutionary leadership was successful or unsuccessful dependent on what the masses thought of their actions. That they remain a hazy mass off stage in this novel undermines the historical story.

Mantel remains ambiguous on the Revolution itself. Was it good or bad? Much ink is spilt telling the story (the King isn't even executed until page 604) but the reader is left to judge history on very much a personal level. Having made such excellent use of the historical material, famously writing that the more unlikely something seems to be, the more accurate it is, Mantel left me wanting more on what took place and why. For that, the reader should turn elsewhere.

Related Reviews

Jaures - A Socialist History of the French Revolution

McGarr and Callinicos - Marxism and the Great French Revolution

Basma Abdel Aziz - The Queue

**Spoilers**

This is one of the most extraordinary novels that I have read in many years. It is being favourably compared to Orwell's 1984 or Kafka's The Trial. Certainly there are many similarities with these works that depict the difficulties faced by individuals confronted by brutal authoritarian rule and faceless bureaucracy. But to simply see this novel as being a Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy gone mad is, in my opinion, too miss its essential context. This is, of course, the Egyptian Revolution.

First published in 2013 and only recently translated here, the book fits the period after Mubarak had been overthrown and anticipates the fall of Morsi and the rise of el-Sisi. As such we get a novel depicting the country in a state of political and economic uncertainty, easily exploited by the new order.

Set in a nameless Middle Eastern country in the aftermath of the "Disgraceful Events" when protests and riots against the country's dictatorship were brutally suppressed. Immediately after these "events", a new, faceless authority "The Gate" appears and from it an endless stream of commands, decrees and laws are made. At first these seem relatively benign, but as the Gate imposes its will it becomes harder and harder to function without the right paperwork.

Then the Gate closes. And the story centres on those who end up queueing outside waiting for the Gate to open. In particular we follow those trying to help their friend, Yehya, who was injured during the Disgraceful Events, and who has a bullet lodged inside him. His friends struggle to get help from the doctors, who are themselves trapped by rules that prevent them assisting. The bureaucracy clamps down harder and harder, statements follow statements. "Bullets were used by the protesters, not the security forces" the Gate declares. "Bullets were not used at all", "Foreigners are to blame", "There was no Disgraceful Event".

Various characters in the Queue represent different forces in the Revolution. There's the religious activist, convinced that only a strict adherence to religion will prevent social decay. There's young women who are fighting sexism and harassment and trying to organise against the state, and there is a man who truly believes his cousin who died in the security forces was actually a hero. There's even a brilliant little discussion about the role of social media as an organising tool.

But behind all this is the imposing monolith of The Gate. As a metaphor for an authoritarian state it's perfect. But the brilliance of this novel isn't this idea alone, nor the depiction of the un-moving queue of increasingly desperate people waiting outside - though the descriptions of the interactions in the queue are wonderful. What is fantastic in the way the author shows how the authoritarian state serves only its interests, and how this destroys some people's illusions, makes some people give up hope and forces others to try and fight back.

Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven

Station Eleven is one of the best post-apocalyptic novels I have ever read. Perhaps second only to George R. Stewart's ecological classic Earth Abides, in my personal list of favourites. Unusually the novel doesn't just tell the story of what happens to those who survive the end of civilisation, instead Mandel opts to tell the story in part through flashback. Contrasting the lives of those who survive with events from before the tragedy.

Central to the story are actors, plays and the theatre. In the modern world, the story and the characters themselves revolve around Arthur Leander. His wives, friends, and the medics who try to save him form characters in the aftermath of a rapidly spreading flu that decimates the population.

As always in this novel what is fascinating is what happens after the fall of civilisation. One of the central characters in the post-apocalyptic world, Kirsten, a child actor on stage with Arthur Leander at the point when the flu arrives in Toronto, cannot remember the "first year". She's considered lucky. But like many other survivors she remains obsessed with the old world, collecting pictures and stories about Leander from old gossip magazines. With nothing left of the old world, all she can hold on to is the the famous old actor, and the enigmatic graphic novels he gave her - the Station Eleven of the title.

This obsession with the past is true of others too, there's a brief encounter with a scientist trying to find "the internet". Having rigged up a bicycle generator, he peddles furiously and the youngsters are amazed to see a laptop screen light up. Alas, Page Not Found. There are moments too when Mandel's writing gives us real insights into her characters, like the argument about the rudimentary lessons given to children in the new order. At what point should the adults simply stop teaching them about how things were? What's the use of telling them about aeroplanes and mobile phones when they cannot comprehend them?

Beautifully written, with detailed well rounded characters and a plot that never falls into cliche. This is a novel that should become a classic and I highly recommend it.

Colin Forbes - Tramp in Armour

Colin Forbes was the pseudonym of Raymond Sawkins, a prolific writer of thrillers and war novels Tramp in Armour was one of his first, and in its time was an extremely popular novel. Like many war novels of the 1970s it is an improbable tale of daring British soldiers pitted against a ruthless enemy. Forbes spares no blushes in telling his tale, characters are introduced and killed off in a relentless series of set-pieces.

Sargent Barnes, the commander of one of the British Expeditionary Forces few Matilda tanks is trapped behind enemy lines as German panzers' sweep across Belgium and France. Desperately trying to regain contact with the British, Barnes and his crew must make their way to Dunkirk. So far, so good, but Forbes keeps the story running by giving the reader a series of near unbelievable adventures. Barnes' tank must hide under a bridge as a German convoy drives overhead; Barnes has to hide a tank in a haystack as a German convoy drives past; Barnes has to avoid detection by over-flying German planes.

All of this might seem quite silly. Yet Forbes' story telling is surprisingly compelling, even if at times somewhat laughable (at one point Barnes swims in ice-cold water with "clenched teeth" as a result of his wounds). I was surprised to remember much of the plot from reading this as a boy, testament to Forbes' storytelling - or maybe the mindbogglingly unlikely events.

Oddly the book reminded me most of a computer game. In fact the climax is rather like the final boss in some first-person shooter, where the player has mown down hordes of identikit troops and suffered unbelievable injuries, but still continues. I'm surprised it was never made into a film in that era when war-films were simply "goodies" versus "badies". It's no work of art, but it has a certain something... you'll probably find it on the shelf of a tired hotel somewhere in Yorkshire... you could do worse than read it on a rainy Sunday.

Arthur Ransome - Missee Lee

Re-reading Missee Lee after a break of perhaps 30 years, I am struck by how very different it is from the other books in Ransomes' children's novels. This is not simply because it is not a "real" story, in the sense that it is the imaginations of the Swallows and Amazons, rather than an account of their adventures. But its more because the story is centered in an adult world, which intrudes closely upon the enclosed stories that the Swallows and Amazons normally have. For instance, in Missee Lee the "natives" have guns and shots are fired. Execution and imprisonment are real, and the children face real peril that is beyond anything experienced in other stories.

The other great shock is the appalling stereotypical behaviour and speech of the Chinese characters. Ransome was writing in a period when such stereotypes were considered acceptable, but read today the language jars horribly. I don't recollect any such feelings when I read it as a boy, but that's perhaps a reflection on England in the 1970s more than anything else.

The story itself is centered on the events that follow the destruction of the Wild Cat, Captain Flint's sailing ship. He and the children are on a round the world tour, and they abandon ship to land on a hidden group of islands ruled by the pirate Missee Lee. Lee herself is an interesting character, her power stems from being the daughter of the pirate who united the islands, and she plays a careful role, balancing the interests of the other rulers. Educated in Cambridge, she aches for the idolised past that she left behind, and imprisons the children with Latin lessons. Ransome cleverly inverts the roles of the Swallows and Amazons themselves, making childish Roger the expert in Latin who shows up the others.

The danger to the children lies in that they represent England's colonial power. Hearing that John's father is a Captain in the navy panics the pirates who fear that a gunboat will be sent to destroy their island base. Missee Lee wants to keep them forever, and the tensions break open the truce by which the islands remain united.

As a children's novel this is perhaps the least satisfying of the series. The magic of the others was that the children remain mostly closeted from the adult world. Even Peter Duck the other "non-real" fantasy story mostly separates the children's adventure with Captain Flint from the usually distant threat of their pursuers. Instead here the story is all too real, and while there's actually more to it than the other books, I suspect it was a disappointment to the intended audience. As a boy Missee Lee was my least favourite of the series, read only once, while others were repeatedly devoured. Today it feels disjointed and racist, and I suspect will be read far less than many other Ransome tales.

Related Reviews

Chambers - The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome
Hardyment - Arthur Ransom and Captain Flint's Trunk
Ransome - Peter Duck
Ransome - We Didn't Mean to go to Sea

Julian Rathbone - A Very English Agent

Throughout much of the 19th century the British government was fearful of revolution. In every dark corner, every working men's pub and every rural village they imagined agitators plotting the violent over-throw of their order. There was, of course, some substance to these fears. There were plenty of people who had reason to despise those at the top of society. Poverty, unemployment and underemployment, hunger and fear of the future were the reality for most working people. Which is why mass movements arose, and why localised rebellions did occur. People burnt hayricks and threshing machines to defend their jobs; attended protest meetings to demand the right to vote and have some say in politics and some, went further and plotted revolution.

The British government had a extensive network of agents. These fed back news to London, and often helped inflame the fears of the ruling classes. But these spies might also have had darker, nastier roles than simply gathering information. We only have to look at recent undercover activity by British police to know that this was likely true back in the 1800s.

Julian Rathbone's romp though the underbelly of British 19th century social history focuses on the life of one of these agents. Charlie Boylan arrested attempting to break into Parliament with a loaded gun claims that he is owed a pension and some money for services rendered to the Crown.  A hired thug, assassin and agent provocateur he helped undermine and finish off rebellious movements and uprising; and in this version of history, he did for some of history's greatest revolutionary minds. The problem is that Boylan's role was never really recorded, so know one is quite sure whether to believe him. And Boylan's role in undermining social movements and being a hired gun also meant he had some insights into the darker side of the lives of the rich and famous.

Its an enjoyable book, though Rathbone works too hard to entertain the reader with knowing puns and historical jokes. Saying that though, Rathbone knew his stuff and there is a surprising amount of forgotten history here, with the occasional cynical comment on the fate of revolution and rebellion. Lefty readers who know their history might raise the odd wry smile and have to ignore the fact that they are reading a book whose central character spent his life helping deny freedom and democracy to ordinary people. But the book might also encourage the reader to explore further the forgotten radical history of Britain, that is just as exciting as any novel can make it. That said, A Very English Agent is well written and quite amusing in places.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

There's little to cheer the reader of Solzhenitsyn's account of a single day in a Soviet gulag. It's a stark, brutal tale of a daily struggle for existence that lives the reader with little hope and a grim sense of hopelessness. Solzhenitsyn's writing is tight and evocative. The detail he uses clearly draws heavily on personal experience, the rolling of a cigarette,

Eino got out a pouch embroidered with pink thread. He took from it a pinch of factory-cut tobacco, put it on Shukhov's pal, sized it up, and added a few wisps. Just enough for one roll-up, not a scrap more. Shukhov had newspaper of his own. He tore a bit off, rolled his cigarette, picked up a hot ember that had landed between the foreman's feet, took a long drag, another long drag and felt a sort of dizziness all over hi body, as though drink had gone to his head and his legs.

The casual treatment of the lack of basics, newspaper instead of rolling papers, and the concern over wisps of tobacco tells us everything we need to know about inmates lives. Shortages of tobacco products are mirrored by the constant quest for food, and more food. The central character declares the day a good one, at the end of the novel, mostly because he'd got himself a couple of extra bites of food.

All you'' get is an extra two hundred grammes of bread of an evening. Bit your life can depend on those two hundred grammes. Two-hundred-gramme portions built the Belomor Canal.

But shortages are nothing compared to the hard work in appalling conditions, and the casual violence for rule-breaking. The isolation, the physical punishment and the bullying of the guards, means making it to the end of the sentence is hard enough. But the real punch in the stomach is the realisation that this is simply one day, in thousands for Ivan Denisovich and his fellow inmates.

The power of One Day is its expose of the reality of the prison camp. Solzhenitsyn's saying little here about why those camps exist, though we get insights into the changes that have taken place in Soviet society. From revolutionary optimism, to the brutal dictatorship of the Stalin era that still uses the language of socialism to justify its rule. One Day caused a shock when first published, alerting the world to the reality of what many knew was taking place.

My edition has a terrible introduction by one John Bayley which seeks to use the novel as a denunciation of all things socialist. While Solzhenitsyn may have had that in his mind as well, this is far from a crude propaganda tract. It's an honest account of what happens when revolutions are destroyed, not an argument against changing the world.

Thomas Keneally - The People's Train

This fictionalised account of the life of Russian Revolutionary Fyodor Sergeyev is one of the best portrayals I have read of the experiences of those taking part in the Russian Revolution. Renamed Artem Samsurov, the novel covers much of his incredible life. Imprisoned for his roll in the 1905 uprising, Artem escapes and travels across Russia in disguise, into China and eventually finds his way to Australia. Australia is viewed by many as a workers' paradise, because workers' parties are in government. But Artem quickly discovers the reality is different. Artem quickly gets to organising the Russian emigre community, building unions and discussing politics. The Australian police quickly try to suppress the socialists, and Artem experiences an Australian prison - his time in Russian prisons serving him well. When the Russian Revolution breaks out in February 1917, Artem returns, quickly being elevated to the ranks of the Bolshevik Central Committee. The final part of the book, dealing with the turbulent times running up to the October insurrection are through the eyes of Artem's friend and comrade Paddy Dykes, an Australian union journalist who reports on what he sees.

Keneally's novel is a detailed and faithful account of events, as well as the politics of the Russian socialist movement. Pitching the novel like this however implies it is some sort of dry historical tome. But the opposite is the case. Keneally's writing is brilliantly clear, his characters beautifully portrayed and their discussion of politics is less about Marxist pedantry, than their attempts to understand, and explain the world. Few novels have got to the heart of what motivated Russian revolutionaries to risk life or imprisonment. When Artem discusses Lenin, he can't imagine him being motivated by romance, rather a dedication to the cause. But all the characters here are actually motivated to fight revolution, because of their intense love for people and their desire for a better world. Indeed, the love stories at the heart of the book are very much an exploration of the way powerful and intense events bring individuals together, for good or bad, and how they must sometimes be put to one side for the sake of a bigger cause. The novel ends with the seizure of the Winter Palace and the muddied confusion of actual revolution. The insurrection itself is not the clean, romantic ideal, but is uneven and on-occasion unpleasant. I do hope that Keneally writes the promised sequel - Artem, or Fyodor's post revolutionary life was shaped by the rise of Stalin and the defeat of internationalism. It will be fascinating to see whether Keneally does this period as much justice as he with his portrayal of Russian revolutionaries and life before 1917.

Karen Maitland - Company of Liars

Having thoroughly enjoyed Karen Maitland's novel The Owl Killers I thought I'd try her earlier book, Company of Liars, set during the Plague. Once again Maitland concentrates on the ordinary people of medieval England, in this case a group of travellers trying to escape the Plague, and their own pasts. Each member of the party brings their story to the group, but, as the title suggests, its not necessarily clear how true that story is.

Maitland brilliantly portrays a society permanently on the edge. The vast majority of people struggling to get by, constantly under the threat of failing crops, hard taxes, and poverty. None of her characters are peasants, but they are all tied to the land in the sense that their existence is very much on a day to day basis. As they travel, the food they can buy, beg, borrow or steal becomes increasingly important, particularly as crops fail from the combination of bad weather and the decimation of the peasantry through disease.

Maitland says that she is particularly fascinated by the links between myth and reality in medieval England. The novel's narrator is carefully drawn. They speak with the knowledge of a medieval person for whom werewolves, spirits, magic and religion are part of life. Thus while the story presents enough evidence for the reader to rationally explain some of the more unusual happenings, the characters themselves can never be sure. Here to, the complexities of medieval Christianity are laid bare - the multiple interpretations of biblical passages, the behaviour of monks and nuns, the contradictions between the needs of society and a strict understanding of religious doctrine.

Knowing what took place during the Plague years, and the lack of comprehension of anyone about how to avoid or deal with the disaster makes the novel poignant. But Maitland doesn't mistake lack of scientific knowledge for ignorance. Her medieval characters are extremely knowledgeable about the world around them. Where and how to get food from the woods and countryside, about healing herbs and so on. Society itself is complex with traditions, customs and work described brilliantly.

As with Owl Killers I thought the novels ending let the rest of the story down. But nonetheless this is an excellent work of historical fiction which vividly brings to life a very different society and the struggle of ordinary people to survive.

Related Reviews

Maitland - The Owl Killers

Mal Jones - Can Openers

Those of us who have been campaigning over the last few years to save public services from government cuts and austerity have been known to say, only half jokingly, that when the Tories are done, there will be "nothing left". But this isn't true. Tory austerity measures are a full on ideological assault. Their economic policy masks a concerted attempt to demonise the poorest and encourage people to think that the unemployed, the ill, the disabled, immigrants, asylum seekers and the old aren't "deserving". Thus the future is not one without public services. It is one were minimal services are delivered, by privatised corporations, to those who are deemed worthy.

It is this sort of future that provides the backdrop for Mal Jones' first novel Can Openers. Jones is a social services worker and his vision of the future is clearly informed by what he has experienced in recent years as social services are gutted by funding cuts and staff shortages.

The novel begins with the death of an older woman, whose time in a privatised care home is cut short to save money, and to make sure that the all embracing multinational Dibble Corporation gets the most out of what little money she has left.

But the bulk of the story centres on a group of individuals who are working for, or are under the ever-watchful eye of the Dependency Unit. This body tests, checks and re-tests whether or not the poor are entitled to help. Its teams pry into every aspect of peoples' lives, to see if they are worthy of some support from the government.

Frederick Smyth heads the local department. He has swallowed every right-wing ideological argument, believing the poor to be lazy, feckless and wasteful. As his staff quiz and examine he is rapidly approaching the magical target figure that will ensure he gets a place on the board of Dibble.

If this dystopian future were all there was, this would be a completely bleak future. But even in this future where privatised police forces have enormous powers, there is hope. The hope lies in resistance, and the best parts of this novel are those when ordinary people discuss how they can fight back. Groups of friends, for instance, who study the law and Dibbles' procedures to give each other an edge in the face of a system geared towards entrapment. Workers at a local canning plant also owned by Dibble, begin to organise to get a pay increase. They rapidly expose the weaknesses of the multinational and give confidence to workers across the country.

Frederick Smyth himself finds his life falling apart as an apparent bureaucratic mistake can't be sorted out. As his life unravels, he gets an insight into what his Dependency Unit has been doing to thousands of ordinary people. But there is no easy happy ending here. Jones resists the easy way out and instead puts the solution into the uncertain hands of the struggle by ordinary people to change things. The ending is optimistic rather than settled.

Mal Jones brings these different strands of the plot together in a surprisingly neat way. There is a complex conspiracy and the author handles it well. Readers will want to keep reading though, not just because of the story, but because the world that the author has created is tragically believable. The hope that we can avoid this sort of future and defeat the attacks on our public services lies precisely in the forces that Jones describes finally getting the confidence to confront Dibble Enterprises. It is this that makes this novel worth reading, and I certainly hope the author writes more.

You can buy Can Openers direct from the publishers here.

Mal Jones is part of the Social Work Action Network (SWAN). You can find out about their campaigning work here.

Terry Pratchett - Raising Steam

Terry Pratchett has written so many good novels over the years that it is easy to hold him to incredible high standards. Unfortunately his latest novel, while entertaining, is not on a par with earlier works. In places it felt like Pratchett was simply writing by numbers, and filling in the blanks with his earlier creations and characters.

For me to Raising Steam just didn't have the underlying air of magic and mystery that other Discworld novels have. It really just felt like an amusing book about the invention of the railways, rather than an extension of other story lines and character arcs.

The jokes felt tired (the Hygienic Railway!) and the characters seemed cardboard cut outs rather than their normally rounded wholes. Unusually with a new Pratchett, I found myself uninterested and bored.

Rather unfairly I feel, some reviewers want to blame this on Pratchett's illness. But I've felt that the Discworld books of the last five or ten years have failed to match the brilliance of earlier ones in the series. Perhaps Discworld has just reached its natural end. I'll be honest though. I'll still keep buying them. Even when Pratchett's not very good, he still has moments of absolute brilliance.

David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas is a novel based on six hierarchically nested stories that stretch from the diary of a 16th century mariner in the Pacific Ocean to the life of someone living in a post apocalyptic Hawaii. To be honest, I thought the novel would be more complex, instead their appears to only be the most tenuous of links between the century spanning stories. That said, Cloud Atlas, is extremely enjoyable and very readable. With each story Mitchell uses a different style, meaning that some chapters are very funny, others tragic and some disturbing.

Reading the reviews after the book, it seems that the literary types got carried away with how unique the book is. While the idea of characters being re-incarnated through history is unusual, it isn't unique. Kim Stanley Robinson does it brilliantly in The Years of Rice and Salt for instance. But Mitchell tries to minimise the links between his stories, with characters only very occasionally having flashbacks that the reader can knowingly enjoy but which leave the characters confused. Cloud Atlas is a fun, unusual and well-written novel that will appeal to the reader looking for something different. Its prognosis for the future of humanity is notably bleak though.

Karen Maitland - The Owl Killers

The medieval period is not a common setting for novels, and when used, novels tend to concentrate on the lives of the ruling classes, kings, queens and their battles. Karen Maitland's The Owl Killers however focuses on the lives of the inhabitants of a single village in Norfolk. Maitland has an eye for period detail and the novel is extremely readable, and an excellent insight into peasant life in the early 14th century.

At the focus of the novel is a Beguine - a female only religious commune whose inhabitants have control over their own lives and money, a free space to practice religion and charity, work and help wider society. Beguines were setup on the continent from the 13th century onward, and Maitland imagines what happens when a group of women from one in Bruges attempt to setup in England.

The England in which they arrive is far from idyllic. The women are shocked by the reality of peasant life, perhaps having been hidden from the reality of it in the economically prosperous city of Bruges. The peasants are trapped by their obligations to both church and lord. Their lives are hard; taxes and tithes are high. Their lord isn't particularly benevolent, and his heir is viciously nasty. For these local rulers the peasants are a source of wealth, labour and entertainment. Rape is common, violence frequent. Religion plays an important and central role, though local customs and religious belief have created a secret society of Owl Men, who promise to protect the village in times of scarcity in exchange for yet more monies.

One fantastically drawn character is Father Ulfrid. Ulfrid is triply trapped. Forced out of the big city for unacceptable crime, he is stuck in the village and hates the small minded, superstitious people who he now preaches too. But he is also trapped by the contradiction of his faith and his social position. His role as priest means he is the sharp point of the church that collects the heavy tithes owed by the peasantry. Thus he is on one hand an instrument of exploitation and with the other the person who should be helping the peasants deal with the reality of their lives. Initially a sympathetic figure, Ulfrid rapidly becomes more obnoxious as he sees the women of the beguine as the solution to his problems.

Maitland writes a complex story, using multiple view points and basing it around the crisis that ensues as heavy rains and disease cause disease and famine. There is little redemption here, the novel's concentration on reality makes a happy ending likely - peasants did die in their hundreds from hunger and oppression.

Sadly Maitland's turn towards the supernatural at the end did the story no favours at all. Those who have read the book will probably agree that it was unnecessary. The monstrous Owl Man who haunts the villagers' fears is a clear metaphor for the violent rule of the local lord, it didn't need to be made real.

That annoyance aside, this is an immensely enjoyable novel that gives the reader a real sense of the crisis inherent in 14th century England. A time when hunger was driving the peasants to question the role of their rulers, the Church's greed was creating the beginnings of religious controversy and questioning and the countryside simmered with tension and violence.

Related Reviews

Maitland - Company of Liars

Terry Pratchett - Dodger

Terry Pratchett's Dodger is a wry look at the London of Charles Dickens. Indeed, Dickens himself is a central character, as is the great chronicler of Victorian London, Henry Mayhew. Given how both these authors showed the dirty underbelly of the capital, it is no surprise that Pratchett's book too looks at life for the poorest of society.

Dodger himself spends his life underground, hunting the sewers for items of value that have been flushed down the drains and toilets of the world above. Its a life of poverty, violence and tragedy. Around this Pratchett weaves a wider story of how Dodger saves the life of a damsel in distress, while wooing the elite of Victorian London with his luck, charm and a lucky bit of rewriting of history by the newspapers. There's a great Jewish character, Solomon, who Dodger lives with, having saved him from a racist attack, who appears to know a radical named Karl (though one who hails from Russia, as opposed to Germany).

Dodger is a fun novel, it is not Pratchett's greatest, but it is aimed at young adults. Fans will enjoy it, though the younger ones will like the jokes about dirt and sewers far more than the older reader who will enjoy hunting out the Dickens references and Benjamin Disraeli exploring a sewer system with Joseph Bazalgette.

Robert Harris - Lustrum

*** Spoiler Warning ***

Volume two of Robert Harris' trilogy about ancient Rome's most famous senator, lawyer and orator is a different beast to the first novel. I remember enjoying the first because it evoked a real sense of Rome - the sights, smells, over-crowding and general atmosphere of an ancient city. Instead, volume two, concentrates on the relationships in the senate and between the most important figures


Cicero has grown self-confident and wealthy. The story begins with him helping to finish off the conspiracy of Cataline. His rhetorical skills, and cunning ability to play individuals off against each other, as well as an avowed commitment to the Republic allow Cicero to come out on top. But in doing so, he lays the seeds for his future demise.

As in the first volume the mass of the population rarely make an appearance. Usually they are there to cheer one or other of the main characters. But I did like the way that Harris uses Cicero's greed to demonstrate how ordinary Roman's could still dominate thier rulers. As Cicero glories in his victory, he over-reaches himself, purchasing an elaborate mansion on a hill overlooking the forum. Cicero is glad to be higher up and in a better place than his arch rival, Caesar. But his enemies can use the easily visible mansion as a rhetorical point. Now Cicero is classed as the wannabe dictator, gazing down on the city from on high. The seed is set for future collapse as Cicero's networks unwind.

Sadly volume three is yet to be written in this enjoyable trilogy. The outcome is well known, but Harris has a story-tellers ability to make it all quite new.

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Graves - Claudius the God

Neal Stephenson - The System of the World

Finishing Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle feels akin to completing a long voyage. This is not simply because the trilogy weighs in at nearly three thousand pages; it also reflects the enormous scale of the work. Covering some of the most turbulent decades of European history, we see the end of the old feudal order being replaced with a mercantile, capitalist system. The kings and lords are pushed out and replaced, particularly in England, by the coiners, the merchants, the investors and the traders. This is a set of novels about the capitalism becoming entrenched.

Set mostly in England then, System of the World book covers the machinations of those caught up in the whirlpools and eddies of the time. Many of these hang around the court – the post Civil War court – aware of their diminished power, but clinging on to tradition in the hope of wealth, prosperity and promotion.  This final volume brings it all to a head. If the first volume, centred in large part, on the Royal Society dealt with the transformation of culture and science in the new era, volume II examined the impact upon the rest of the world. There we saw South America being stripped bare of precious minerals, slavery and empire.  Our heroes have traveled the globe now and in the final volume they congregate back in England. Some of them attempting, through the introduction of forged coins, to debase England's currency, undermine the economy and open the door to counter-revolutionary foes. Others to stop them, but most of them trying to make a future for themselves by fair means or foul.

The System of the World is the climax to a string of different stories, linked and inseparable, but each with their own characters and subplots. As is the nature of climaxes there is a lot of energy, excitement and drama here. Stephenson ties up lose ends and characters at the same time as taking the story forward. Unusally for the trilogy I found it slightly over long – in the early volumes the philosophical detours that took in science and alchemy, royal intrigues or historical information here seem a distraction. The book could have been a hundred or so pages shorter without losing anything.

Ultimately the book comes down to the fates of the principle characters we met in the early pages of volume one.  Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds, faces his final and greatest challenge after breaking into the world’s greatest prison. Eliza, the woman he has loved for three decades, is pulling a myriad of strings to ensure her plots and sub-plots work out. Scientists like Newton, Leibniz and the fictional Daniel Waterhouse are on the brink of new discoveries that will open up the universe to human intellect. But their fire and steam machines are also set to open up the world physically to the search for profit. The era of the human slave may be ending in some parts of the world. That of the wage slave and machine is dawning. A new World System as the title, after Newton, indicates.

Stephenson’s trilogy is a masterpiece. Each volume different yet together making an enormously satisfying whole. I marveled at the author's knowledge of the period, his grasp of science and his sense of historical change. Despite the characters frequently being kings, great men, landowners, famous scientists and merchants, the real heroes, drawn in loving detail are the ordinary people of the 17^th and 18^th century. So I recommend these books to all those who like their fantasy sprinkled with historical change, science, improbable adventure and the dirty streets of London.

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R L Stevenson - Treasure Island

While reading recently about real life pirates, I decided to read R.L. Stevenson's classic novel Treasure Island. Reading it was a fascinating experience. I'd never read it before, yet the story was as familiar as if I had read it half a dozen times. No doubt this is because it is one of the most dramatised books ever published, being made repeatedly into a film and play.

So there is little point in detailing more in this review. Though it is worth noting that many of the popular conceptions about pirates had their beginnings here. Wooden legs, parrots on shoulders, Yo Ho Hoing, black spots and treasure islands. The popularity of the book must in part lie in its writing - the story is gripping and exciting, yet the characters are also wonderfully constructed. Blind Pew is terrifying as he taps his way around, the moment he grabs Jim Hawkins genuinely scary... Long John Silver is delightfully ambiguous in his morals and Hawkin's climatic battle with Mr. Hands is as exciting as gunfight ever imagined on the silver screen. The only characters that annoyed me, are the uptight and holier-than-thou Squire and Doctor. Stevenson slotting in some minor English gentry to demonstrate how the plebs ought to behave.

So if you're only experience of Treasure Island is the Muppet version, you really should dig out a free online copy of the original and follow Jim Hawkins into the South Seas.