Book Review: Warwick Collins — Gents

Another one from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme.

This is a short tale in what might seem an unsalubrious setting, but it’s a small gem of a book that’s well worth reading. It was first published in 1997, but went out of print, before being republished in 2007 by The Friday Project. The republication is well deserved.

Gents is the tale of Ezekiel Murphy, a West Indian immigrant, and the job he takes as an attendant in a public lavatory in London. The supervisor, Josiah Reynolds, and the other cleaner, Jason, teach him the job, which includes more than he had expected. As Ez soon discovers, the facility is popular with cottagers — men using the cubicles for fast, anonymous sex with other men. The attendants discourage it as best they can, but tolerate a certain amount of activity, because as Reynolds points out, the ‘reptiles’ are no threat to anyone.

There are still complaints to the council about the goings-on, and the crew are told that they must clamp down on the cottaging or the facility will be shut. Alas, they’re too successful for their own good, and takings from the small cover charge that covers the facility’s running costs drop precipitously, leading to renewed threats of job cuts, and a dilemma for the attendants…

Gents is a gentle, funny and subtle parable about tolerance, on more levels and subjects than the obvious one. The characters and situations are sketched lightly but deftly, in a lovely display of showing rather than telling, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that Collins originally conceived the story as a screenplay. The three West Indian attendants have much in common through their common background, but are still very different people with different attitudes and prejudices. They have an outsider’s view of the society they live in, and see it from underneath. Through Ez the book touches on issues of race, class, homophobia, religion and culture, without ever being heavy-handed or one-sided.

There are stunningly good descriptive passages about the men and their world, and the characters are likeable and sympathetic, without being unbelievable saints. The main characters are the three men, but they also all have wives (two in Jason’s case), and Ez’s wife Martha and his relationship with her is a particular strength of the book.

One minor problem for some readers will be the Jamaican patois in the dialogue, which does take a few pages to get used to if you’re not familiar with it. But it’s appropriate for the characters and not pushed to the point where it’s hard to follow.

This is a much shorter read than its 172 pages might suggest, as a large font and plenty of white space mean that there aren’t many words per page. At 25,000 words or so, this is a novella rather than a full-length novel, and you get around an hour’s reading for your eight pounds. But it’s beautifully written and a joy to read. It may be short but there’s plenty of depth, and it will stand up well to re-reading. Even if you feel that the book is too pricy for the word count, it’s well worth checking it out from your library.

ISBN: 9781905548767

LibraryThing entry
Gents at Amazon UK
Gents at Amazon US

Book review: Andy Lane — Slow Decay (Torchwood)

This is one of the trio of tie-in novels released for the first season of Torchwood, and is set early in that season, after Gwen’s settled in but before Cyberwoman. Tie-in novels can disappoint, but this is a solid story that’s well-written and that fits the Torchwood universe well; a dark tale about the things that come through the Rift and their misuse by the locals. It’s actually better than the first couple of tv episodes, because the sex and violence is used to good effect in the story, rather than feeling as if it’s tossed in just to see how far the show can go in a post-watershed slot.

There are two interweaving plots here. The main plot concerns an outbreak of killings involving cannibalism, and their link to a very dubious weight-loss clinic. The team’s hunt for the solution is given added urgency when Gwen realises that Rhys has taken one of the clinic’s pills. The minor plot concerns Tosh’s research into a series of alien devices.

There’s good exposition and world-building, and I think this book will work for someone who hasn’t yet seen the show. The characterisation’s not that deep, but it’s not bad for an early tie-in where even an author who’s a fan or involved with the show’s production wouldn’t have had much to go on, and it’s accurate. With one exception there’s not much reference to specific events in the tv series, and even the exception is blended in nicely as something that will be simply a character quirk to people who haven’t seen the relevant episode.

The book focuses strongly on the relationship between Gwen and Rhys (and does so very nicely), but generally doesn’t neglect the rest of the team. There are some decent bits for particular characters: Tosh gets a decent word count, even if she spends it being girl geek as usual; there’s a good storyline for Owen where circumstances force him to interact with an attractive woman as a person, rather than just a shag. On the other hand, Ianto’s barely mentioned; but when you do see him he’s spending a lot of time lurking in the remote archives and discouraging other team members from wandering into them, which is appropriate for this point in his storyline, and he gets some good interaction with Tosh.

Physically, it’s a hardcover with a perfect-bound book block, which is what you’d expect at this price point for a hardback. It’s solidly constructed with no loose pages, and there’s a good cover design which links in with the other two books in the set. Designer Lee Binding’s done a nice job with stock art here.

Slow Decay is a good read for both the plot and the characterisation, and I expect I’ll be re-reading it soon. Well worth the money.

at Play.com
at Powell’s

Book review: Albert Sanchez Pinol — Pandora in the Congo

I got this book as part of LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer programme, and probably wouldn’t have picked it up if I’d simply seen it in the bookshop. But the description in the ER programme intrigued me, and I’m glad I read it.

It’s a multi-layered pastiche and parody of the old pulp African adventure stories, with two interlocking stories set early in the twentieth century, narrated by one of the protagonists as an old man late in the twentieth century. As the novel opens the narrator, Tommy Thomson, is scraping a living as a young man by ghost writing pulp adventure stories. He’s frustrated by the need to pander to the extreme racism and disregard for facts of the pulp market. He loses the ghost writing job, but is offered the chance to write a true African adventure story — ghost-writing the story of a man who is awaiting trial for the murder of his two employers on a gold-hunting expedition in the Congo.

Tommy is drawn ever deeper into Marcus Garvey’s story. It’s very like the pulp adventures he’s written before, but with one twist — this time it’s a tale of brutal and amoral English aristocrats abusing first the black Africans and then a strange race of underground people, white but not entirely human, with a low-class servant who is the flawed hero. This tale of derring-do is interwoven with the story of Tommy’s own life over the course of the years he writes Garvey’s story, interrupted by his service in the First World War. Tommy thinks of his own life as boring and humdrum, but it’s an enchanting read with some fascinating secondary characters.

There are multiple levels of unreliable narration, so things aren’t quite as they seem. Part of the game is deciding who is unreliable and how far, and the author plays fair in the end. In the meantime you get a cracking read, with a lot of homages to other works.

I enjoyed the book a great deal, but I did have some minor problems with it. There are a lot of anachronisms, a couple of which threw me out of the story (in particular, singing “God save the Queen” in court at a time when a King was on the throne). These felt like mistakes by the author rather than being deliberate. One of the signals that part of the story is unreliable simply doesn’t work if you’re used to reading science fiction or magic realism. If you’re an sf fan, switch into mainstream reading protocols when you’re reading this book. And be warned that there is some gruesome imagery which might be a bit much for some readers.

One particular point — this is a translation of a novel written in Catalan. Translations vary a lot in quality and can sometimes feel stiff and lifeless, but this one is excellent. It flows very well and is a joy to read.

Enormous fun, and well worth the time.

Pubisher’s website
Pandora In The Congo at amazon.uk
at Powells

Book review: John Scalzi — Old Man’s War

I’d been hearing good things about this book for a while, so when it was mentioned as one of the incentives to sign up for Tor’s new online promotion material, I went straight over to give them my email address. The link for the OMW download arrived just before lunch yesterday. I didn’t intend to read it then and there, but flicked through the file to make sure it had downloaded properly. Had my attention snagged by some of the dialogue in the first chapter. Decided to read the first chapter while I was eating lunch.

I read the whole book. It’s *that* good at getting you to turn the pages.

It’s a Heinlein pastiche, primarily influenced by Starship Troopers but with significant nods to some other books, particularly Space Cadet. But it’s an original and interesting riff on those themes, not a knock-off. Here it’s not the young men but the old men who go to war, and there are some well thought out reasons as to why.

The basis of the book is that the Colonial Defense Force has rejuvenation technology, and if you live on Earth the only way you can get access to it is to sign up to be a soldier when you turn 75. One-time only offer, use it or lose it. Nobody on Earth knows exactly what the technology is or does, because part of the sign-up deal is that you are declared legally dead on Earth, and can never, ever return. Oh, and you’re signing for a term of at least two years, and up to ten — and while little detail comes back to Earth about the colonies, it’s clear that soldiering is a risky business.

John Perry’s got nothing to lose. He and his wife made the decision to register as potential recruits when they turned 65. She’s dead now, and there aren’t any other ties strong enough to hold him to Earth. So he enlists in the old man’s war, and finds out just what’s out there on the other side of the sky. It turns out to involve a lot of hostile aliens and a multi-way battle for territory that can get very, very nasty indeed.

Perry’s a decent and likeable man, and it’s fascinating to watch him go through the process of being moulded into a soldier. While this is military sf that makes no bones about it sometimes being necessary to fight to live, it isn’t a lazy glorification of the military. You could equally well read it as a subtle critique of unthinking glorification of the military. There are some significant moral issues raised in a quiet way and simply left there for the reader to think about if they notice them.

There’s a good and funny look at what it means to be old, followed by an exploration of what happens when a mind with 75 years of experience gets a new body that’s not just fifty years younger, but seriously tuned for performance. And there’s some thoughtful discussion of identity and what it means to be human that makes the book more than just a romp. But it’s also a very fine romp, and enormous fun to read.

I do have a couple of criticisms. Perry is both smart and lucky, as befits an action hero, even a 75 year old action hero. But his rapid rise through the ranks and special shininess edge a little too close to blatant Mary Sue territory in places. Yes, it’s a pastiche of the pulp style, but it broke willing suspension of disbelief a couple of times, at least for me. And I found the ending a little too abrupt, feeling as if Scalzi had simply run out of story for now. However, there are two more books in this universe, and I was left wanting to go out and buy them.

(There is also one specific issue which bothered me a *lot*, but it bothers me for personal reasons which won’t pertain to most readers — see Nicholas Whyte’s detailed post on the Bender episode: http://nhw.livejournal.com/642176.html

plus the discussion in the comments thread for why that scene is the way it is and why some of us still think it comes over as a bone tossed to the more rabid “peaceniks are dumb” milsf fans. Lots of spoilers.)

If you’re a Heinlein fan, this book’s well worth reading. But it works in its own right as well, whether or not you’ve ever read any of the books it’s influenced by. If you’re looking for some milsf with some decent science fiction speculation, this one’s worth a look.

Old Man’s War at Amazon US
Old Man’s War at Amazon UK

Tor’s sign-up page: http://www.tor.com/

Scalzi’s blog

Book Review: Pohl & Kornbluth — Gladiator-at-Law

Pohl and Kornbluth’s’s sharp satire of the consumer society and corporate corruption of government is as relevant today as when it was first published 50 years ago. “Gladiator at law” describes a possible future for the 1950s in which the working and middle classes are kept under control by the threat of losing their job and with it their tied housing–and the unemployed masses are kept quiescent with bread and circuses, Roman style. Reality tv may not have gone quite as far as the entertainment for the proles depicted in this novel, and science fiction is an exploration of possible futures rather than a prediction of an actual future, but Pohl and Kornbluth’s depiction of one of those potential futures is uncomfortably close to present day reality.

There are some nicely drawn characters, and a realistic look at the hazards of battling powerful vested interests — while there is a happy ending, it comes at a price. The novel is short by today’s standards, but a good read, and well worth hunting down a copy at a reasonable price.

GLADIATOR AT LAW at amazon.com

Gladiator-at-law (Classic Science Fiction S.) at amazon.co.uk

Gladiator-at-law (Gollancz hardcover) at amazon.co.uk

paperback at Powells

Book review — Reiko Momochi: Confidential Confessions

When I bought some second-hand copies of Fake off eBay, the same seller had a copy of Confidential Confessions 1 for a dollar, so I thought I might as well get it to try. This is a shoujo manga series and thus aimed at teenage girls, but rather than being the stereotypically light and fluffy, this one is fairly dark and tackles some serious issues. The first volume has a long story about bullying at school and teenage suicide; there’s also a shorter story about teenage prostitution.

I couldn’t get into it at all, but I think mostly because it’s not my sort of thing, and as a middle-aged Brit I’m not the target audience anyway. Skimming through it, I can see why it has great reviews on Amazon — it’s neither soap opera nor preachy, but takes a realistic look at problems that a lot of Japanese teens face in real life. That also means that it doesn’t have a guaranteed happy ending. This may be depressing for some people; for others it will be helpful, as when you’re depressed yourself it can make things worse to be reading fiction that tells you that everyone else gets a happy ending. This manga appears to be aimed at providing fiction that comforts by saying “You’re not alone in feeling this way.” As it says on the cover, “because real life doesn’t always have a happy ending.”

This particular volume is also very, very blunt about what attempted suicide actually means, and what goes through the minds of people considering suicide. It’s going to be an emotionally tough read, and there is the possibility that it could be a trigger for someone, although I think it’s much more likely to help than to harm.

Not my thing, and I suspect that it’s not going to be one for most of the people I know, but I’ll provide the Amazon links for volume 1 anyway. There seem to be six volumes.

Confidential Confessions, Book 1 at Amazon US
Confidential Confessions at Amazon UK

Book review: Sanami Matoh — Fake

This is a yaoi manga series about a pair of New York cops, mostly UST over the course of the seven volumes, but consummated in the final volume. But there’s more than the sexual tension to sustain interest, as there’s a good chunk of plot in there as well.

Randy Maclean arrives for his first day at his new assignment to the 27th Precint, and is promptly teamed with Dee Laytner, mostly because their Captain wants both of them out of his office right now. Dee is loud, casual, and over-friendly — starting with noticing that Randy has black eyes even though he’s blond, asking if he’s part-Japanese, and then insisting on knowing Randy’s Japanese name. And from then on it’s Ryo, not Randy. Dee’s not someone the quiet, reserved Ryo would have expected to like, but there’s something about Dee that makes Ryo feel comfortable. And the feeling’s mutual. They may have been partnered purely on whim, but they make a good team.

Dee is openly bisexual, and openly interested in Ryo — mostly as a joke to begin with, but gradually becoming a lot more serious. By the end of the second volume Ryo’s realised that Dee’s interest in him isn’t a joke any more, but he’s not quite sure how he feels about it. He likes Dee, a lot, but he’s also always thought of himself as straight. As the romance plotline develops, Ryo’s no easy conquest; more or less tolerating Dee pouncing on him but pushing him away if he goes further than Ryo’s comfortable with. And for a long period he’s not even comfortable with Dee kissing him. But there’s a strong bond of friendship between them, and rather than simply freaking out about Dee’s passes, Ryo actually thinks about how he feels about Dee. For several volumes…

If that was all there was to the series it would be too thin to sustain seven volumes, but there are also strong storylines about their jobs as cops, and about their personal lives apart from the potential sexual relationship. These storylines interact with each other, and one of the notable things about this series is that while the early volumes appear to be mostly independent stories, there are details and characters which are later shown to be part of an overall story arc. This means that each volume is a satisfying read in its own right, with closure for the two to four stories included in the volume; but the series as a whole is more than just a string of unconnected episodes, and forms a complete story overall.

The series does require a lot of willing suspension of disbelief, given a setup with a New York police station full of openly gay cops, and a writer whose knowledge of New York police procedure is somewhat scatty. But it’s well worth putting aside a desire for realism, as this series has humour, interesting stories, solid plot development, and rounded characters.

As for the sexual content, the guys are hot, and the UST is played very well, with Sanami Matoh doing more with a kiss than some manage with full-on sex. When it does finally get to the sex, it’s plausible, and very hot. I was also pleased to find that while Dee can be very pushy, he accepts that no means no — unlike much yaoi manga, there’s no rape for titillation in this series. And there’s a satisfyingly romantic ending. It’s sweet, and maybe even soppy, but the guys have worked for it rather than being handed it on a plate.

The art is good, although there’s a fair bit of heavily stylised art which isn’t to my personal taste. What *is* to my personal taste is that the men are pretty, but they’re still depicted as adult men, both physically and emotionally.

If you’re looking for a yaoi manga that has both romance and action plot, you could do a lot worse than try a volume of this series to see if it’s to your taste. Ideally you should read it in order, but the first few volumes can each be read as a standalone if necessary.

Fake series from Amazon US:

Fake (Fake), Vol. 1 (Fake) | Fake Vol. 2 | Fake Vol. 3 | Fake Vol. 4 | Fake, Vol. 5 | Fake 6 (Fake) (Fake) | Fake, Vol. 7

Fake series at Amazon UK:

Fake: v. 1 (Fake) | Fake: Volume 2: v. 2 (Fake) | Fake: Volume 3: v. 3 (Fake) | Fake: Volume 4: v. 4 (Fake) | Fake: Volume 5 (Fake): v. 5 (Fake) | Fake: v. 6 (Fake) | Fake: Volume 7: v. 7 (Fake)

Book review: Chaz Brenchley — Dead of Light

Benedict Macallan doesn’t share his family’s talent — nor their taste for power and violence. He turned his back on them; walked out of the family, if not out of the town that they control. But when a cousin is murdered in a manner that promises danger to the whole family, he’s pulled back in against his will. Only for the funeral, only for long enough to say goodbye to a cousin he loved in spite of everything — but then the body count starts to mount, and whatever Ben may feel about his family, they’re his *family*.

The publisher calls it a horror novel, but it’s more of a story about a Mafia-like family, seen through the eyes of a dropout member who understands how they look from both the inside and the outside. The horror element comes in the weapon used by the family to maintain control of their territory, one that’s only hinted at initially, and gradually revealed during the first half of the book. Power corrupts, and the Macallan clan has held power for a very long time. Now someone is reflecting that power and threat back at them, killing Macallans as casually as they’ve killed others. Ben’s left trying to protect a family he despises and that mostly despises him; and the outside friends who are afraid of him now they’ve been reminded exactly who he is; and himself. But Ben has no power of his own…

Brenchley deftly interweaves a coming of age story with a murder mystery, gradually building a picture of a strange but only too human family, and Ben’s love-hate relationship with them. There’s some fine world-building and character development to back up the rising tension as Ben tries to solve the lethal riddle. And the use of language is superb, making the book a joy to read for the pure pleasure of the prose. It’s not exactly your traditional whodunnit, but the magic elements are never used to cheat the reader, and the clues are there for those who want to play the game. Dead of Light is both lyrical and a gripping, fast-paced read.

Dead of Light — hardback at amazon uk
Dead of Light (New English Library (Hodder and Stoughton).) — paperback at amazon uk
Dead of Light (New English Library (Hodder and Stoughton).) — paperback at amazon us
Hardback and paperback direct from the author

Book review: Aoike Yasuko — From Eroica with Love – Volume 2

The second volume of the long-running manga series sees it settle down into the general series theme, with flamboyant art thief Eroica and uptight NATO intelligence agent Iron Klaus finding their paths repeatedly crossing, sometimes as opponents, sometimes having to work together. Set in the Cold War Europe of the 1970s, it shows a pair of characters who are on opposite sides of the law and very different in personality, but with some surprising things in common. Alas, one of those things is not sexual orientation, and Eroica’s romantic interest in Klaus is destined to remain unrequited, providing the source of much fun during the series.

And there’s plenty of fun to be had. The stories are completely over the top, in the same way that the Bond films are over the top — camp, very funny, and with plenty of action. In this one, Eroica and Klaus have a shared interest in a Greek shipping tycoon. Eroica wants to steal an art treasure, and Klaus wants to stop a KGB agent’s honeytrap operation. This leads on to a second adventure in which Klaus is trying to protect world leaders at a meeting which just happens to be just down the road from Eroica’s castle — and for perfectly rational reasons, Klaus ends up ordering Eroica to strip and hand over his underpants… But when they’re forced by circumstances to work together, they make a very good team.

Flawed but likeable people, they’re enormously entertaining to watch, as are the secondary characters. Both men have a team of minions, not all of whom are quite what their masters would wish for. This volume introduces Agent G, Klaus’ gay cross-dressing agent who has a crush on Eroica.

There’s also an independent story to fill out the page count, about a strait-laced young German man sent on a cultural exchange visit to a tiny island nation with a very strange navy. There’s not much plot, and there’s an awful lot of froth, but it’s a quick fun read with a serious point underneath the fluff.

From Eroica with Love – Volume 2 (From Eroica With Love (Graphic Novels)) at Amazon US
From Eroica with Love: Volume 2 (From Eroica with Love) at Amazon UK
at Powell’s

Book Review: Chaz Brenchley — Outremer series

I’ve been reviewing the individual books of the Outremer series as I finished each one, but the series could be considered as one long novel, and now I’d like to look at the series as a whole. A quick bit of background from when I asked Chaz about whether I should get the UK or US edition — the series was originally conceived as a quadrology, but part way through the UK publisher asked for it to be done as a trilogy, which led to the final volume being paced a bit differently to the original intention. When Ace bought the US rights, they chose to split the original three books into two volumes each, and issue the series as six books. Chaz took the chance to tidy up the third book of the trilogy, so apart from the splitting into two, there’s also a significant difference in the actual text. If you read the US edition, as I did, it’s worth bearing in mind that each pair of volumes is really a single book, and paced as such.