2026/144: Little, Big — John Crowley

...down the twists and turns of a long, long story, a boundless and-then... [p. 266]

A novel that starts with a marriage and ends with a death; that begins with something like the Cottingley Fairies and climaxes in dystopia; that is subtitled 'or, The Fairies' Parliament', but does not (perhaps) include any such event. It took me a long time to read Little, Big: I don't mean the multiple attempts that ended in putting it aside for another time, or even my sense of resistance to this acclaimed classic, but the six weeks from beginning to end. I liked it (most of it) a great deal. And I'm still not sure I have understood every aspect of the story.

Little, Big starts with Smoky Barnable walking from New York City to an estate named Edgewood to marry a woman known as Daily Alice. Or perhaps it begins well before this, with an American architect named John Drinkwater getting lost on a walking tour of Cheshire, and falling in love with a woman named Violet. The modern inhabitants of Edgewater and its environs, mostly descended from John and Violet, believe in a Tale, and in a nested series of larger worlds within our own world: one of these is Faerie. (It's worth noting that the word 'faerie' appears only three times in all 500+ pages of the novel.) And they are familiar with the inhabitants of that realm, who occasionally venture into the human world. We (perhaps) meet some of them, though their nature is never explicit.

A great deal happens: read the book, or the Wikipedia article. It happens Somehow (this word is almost always capitalised, to indicate the Tale): it happens in lexical fireworks (phthisically, squites, orgulous, ogive, mathesis, medicus, borborygmic, hortatory, gonfalon, operose, cerement, epops, gerb ...) and in sly allusions, in misdirection and in rambling non-linear accounts, in Nora Cloud's cards -- which are not traditional Tarot cards -- and the stories they tell, in photographs and in letters to Santa Claus. Which is not to say that it's wholly grounded in the mythic or fantastical: there are also soap operas,  alcoholism and Grand Central Station.

I note that the family tree at the front of the book (incredibly useful for determining the relationships within) is almost illegible in the ebook. Luckily a friend sent me a photo of it.

Read because: online book club, plus the fact that I have never read it despite repeatedly being told (by people whose tastes I share) how good it is. The online discussion has not yet concluded (Book Five, of six, is next as I write) and I may well have further, or different, thoughts later on.

... another story, a story about a world elsewhere, and a family whose names many knew, whose house had been large and populous with griefs and happinesses that had once seemed endless, but had ended, or had stopped ... [p. 537]

2026/143: The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood — H G Parry

A house named for Arthur’s last battle, passing down from guardian to guardian across centuries. A housekeeper whose appearance changed in different lights, and whose name echoed that of Arthur’s great enemy. A professor who neither she nor Tom had ever seen, whose name echoed Merlin. And all the while, the world at war, and the dreams coming faster and brighter and increasingly slipping through to the waking world. [loc. 3474]

Second Arthurian novel in a row, (though that was unintentional!), which like The Everlasting explores whether myths can be challenged or changed: "As long as the right stories were told afterwards, perhaps the truth could be whatever we were able to bring about."

Ellie Ambrose, a librarian at the British Museum Library, saw a quarter of a million books destroyed in the Blitz. Her superior, perhaps taking pity on Ellie's distress, sends her away from London to catalogue a private library in Wales. The only people at Camlann House are the housekeeper, Mrs Leaf, and the groundsman, Tom Wilder: the latter was a pilot, but was badly injured in a crash. People all over Britain are dreaming about King Arthur, but once Ellie's at Camlann House she starts dreaming instead about Nimue, Merlin's nemesis.

The second narrative voice is Nimue's own -- first-person, rather than Ellie's third person -- beginning with her childhood under the Lake, on the borders of the Otherworld. She, along with Lancelot du Lac and Mordred, was adopted by Morgan Le Fay, who tells the children bedtime stories about the people they will doom: Merlin, Guinevere and Arthur himself. But when Nimue (calling herself Viviane) arrives at Camelot and meets Merlin, he seems unwilling to fall in love with her...

The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood has a twisty plot, intrusions of myth and legend, a questing beast far from home, and a centuries-long plan. The dual narratives have different ambiences, with Nimue's evoking a post-Roman past populated by flawed heroes and very human myths, while Ellie's is peppered with the practicalities and horrors of a world at war. Ellie herself is pragmatic and unmystical, but has a mysterious past. Tom, the former pilot, was especially interesting as an exemplar of cowardice and courage. (I half-expected a romance between Ellie and Tom and was pleased not to encounter one.) I'd have liked more of wartorn Britain, but I think the two narratives were nicely balanced -- though I'm still not quite sure why more recent myths entered the story.

Read because: I've enjoyed other novels by Parry (A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, A Radical Act of Free Magic, The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door.

2026/142: The Everlasting — Alix E Harrow

... you had already strayed far from the path of your story; if I told you how it ended, you would never return to it. You would never slay the dragon or fetch the grail. [p. 59]

The nation of Dominion has recently emerged from a terrible war. Historian Owen Mallory, certified coward and former Corporal, is relieved to be back at the Cantford College Department of History, working on his book about the legendary hero Sir Una Everlasting. One day a long-lost manuscript arrives in the mail, purporting to be an early account of the Everlasting's life and death, and leads Owen to an interview with Minister of War Vivian Rolfe. And thence to a time a thousand years before his birth, where a legend is waiting to be recorded.

Of course it is not quite that simple. Owen meets Una, who is huge and fearsome and unaware of her fate: he also meets the queen she serves, Yvanne, who has an eye for dramatic presentation and is using Una to forge a national myth. “In order to have a future worth fighting for, you must have a past worth remembering.” But the story is never that simple, and Owen and Una are tools as well as protagonists.

This is a story about courage and cowardice, about how legends are shaped and about two people (and a foul-tempered warhorse) trying to seize control of their own stories. It's also about PTSD and heroism, love and grief, violence and kindness -- and about trying to build a better world out of violence and betrayal. There are distinct Arthurian echoes, but the legends differ sufficiently -- not least in the gender-switching of the king and the knight -- to minimise expectations. And it's a very twisty time-travel story with a unique and unexpected mechanism. I also found Harrow's technique of repeating passages, with variations, immensely effective as a way of showing the circularity of the story.

The novel is mostly told in alternating second person singular: Owen to Una, Una to Owen. This was also effective, though I note that while I did feel compassion for the characters I did not always like them, certainly not as much as they liked each other.

Read because: it won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, 2026. For what it's worth, I have read four of the other five shortlisted titles: A Drop of Corruption, Death of the Author, The Incandescent, The Raven Scholar. I did not vote.

2026/140,141: The Clocktaur War — T Kingfisher

“What? If I wanted a lot of corpses nobody’d miss, I’d start a plague too.”
“Such a crime would be considered monstrous by all known authorities,” said Caliban.
“Yeah, the people generating unstoppable giant killing machines are probably real concerned about that.” [The Wonder Engine, p. 118]

'The Clocktaur War' is a duology -- The Clockwork Boys and The Wonder Engine) about a terrible mechanical army, and the attempts of a ragtag band of anitheroes to combat it. I read The Clocktaur Boys back in, er, 2017, and liked it, but also noted a lot of unanswered questions. (My original review of The Clockwork Boys.) "I'll definitely read the second half of the story," I vowed. But someone spoilt me for an event in the second book, The Wonder Engine, and I never got around to it. Until now... Turns out those unanswered questions are (mostly) answered, though I'd have liked more about Caliban's history. And the event for which I heard unwanted spoilers didn't turn out at all as I'd expected, which was a pleasant surprise.

More about gnole pronouns than I remembered, and a convincing romance between world-weary adults. Kingfisher's fiction is always cheering and I think she's improving as she goes -- or maybe just as she fleshes out the world of the White Rat.

Read because: When I read Daggerbound recently, the author's afterword indicated that one of the protagonists, Edmund, also appears in the Clocktaur War books. I decided it was about time I got around to the second volume of that duology ... and a reread of the first. And yes, a callow Learned Edmund is a major character -- and Learns a lot.

2026/139: International Relations — Zac Hammett

There are going to be lies one way or another, so I might as well go all in with the big one. Difficult as it may be, it’s better than telling people the truth. [loc. 1131]

Max works for the British government in international diplomacy: he has his eye on a position at the British Embassy in Athens, but his boss advises that being single is hurting his chances. Look at Quentin, his rival, and Quentin's sleek, Greek-speaking girlfriend Flora... Max, an inveterate liar, refuses to confess that his maybe-a-date stood him up for a reception at Buckingham Palace: instead, he hires an out-of-work actor to play his boyfriend.

The out-of-work actor -- recruited via the truly delightful Doily, a name-dropping theatrical agent who knows everyone in the business -- is Hunter, a gorgeous American whose visa is due to run out. (And who starred in a gender-switched production of Grease, hence Doily's suggesting him for the role...) Can he persuade Max to marry him? And can the two keep up the pretence for long enough that Max gets the job of his dreams? Or will their very different personalities, goals and approaches to life invite disaster?

Great fun once it got going, though Max's constant lies bothered me. I liked Hunter a great deal, and really appreciated the ways in which each of the protagonists resolved one another's issues without belittling them, or compromising their own goals. Sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes really poignant (especially Max's relationship with his dad), and with an unexpected but pleasing resolution.

Read because: recommended by a friend, and I fancied a light frothy romcom.

2026/138: The Anonymous Letters of C Forestier — Felicia Davin

I know plenty of people like us—some born in the underworld, some who ended up there by exile or by choice—but it never gets old to meet another. Women with cocks, men with cunts, people who are both or neither, people who have chosen to change themselves with clothes and haircuts and new names, and those like me who use magic. [p. 80]

C Forestier has appeared in the previous two novels in the French Letters series (The Scandalous Letters of V and J and The Mischievous Letters of the Marquise de Q) but only peripherally: he's a resident of the same boarding house as Victor and Julie(n), and his work as a police officer seems to involve him in some of the same occult mysteries as the protagonists of those earlier books. In The Anonymous Letters of C Forestier, he embarks on a correspondence (and more!) with the mysterious, long-lived Isabelle de Tourzin. They seem to be hunting the same man, Malbosc, who has deceived and stolen from them both. And Isabelle and Forestier both have secrets that they'd kill to protect...

We learn rather more about Forestier's past, and their determination to find Malbosc, than about Isabelle's mysterious origins and magical nature: but Isabelle's determination and courage, and Forestier's growing respect and liking for her, are excellently paced. Nice to see how Isabelle is using Delphine's compass, too, and how Victor (who works for, or with, Isabelle) is blossoming in their new role. There are some dark elements in this novel -- kudos to Davin for including a list of trigger warnings! -- but love and diversity conquer all.

Read because: I recently read the second in the series, and then had to go back and reread the first to make sense of it -- so I felt it wise to prioritise this third (and so far final) volume, while the characters and setting were still fresh in my mind.

2026/137: Dinner with King Tut — Sam Kean

... artifacts sitting on a shelf, behind glass, can take us only so far into the minds of other people. To reach them on that deeper level, we need to inhabit their world -- to endure their frustrations and revel in their joys, to touch and smell and taste everything they took for granted.

Subtitled 'How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations', this is an account of human history which emphasises the human experiences of distant times and places. It begins seventy-five thousand years ago in Africa, and explores continents and cultures from Polynesia to Alaska. 

Kean blends archaeological evidence and practical experiments with thoughtfully-reconstructed fictions: a day in the life of a female hunter in the Andes, of a Viking leech, of a Roman slave, of a Polynesian navigator... Each detail in the stories has a sound basis in archaeology, and Kean throws himself into experiments that attempt to recreate the realities of other times. He knaps flint, drinks beer made with ancient Egyptian techniques, tans hide using urine, and collects bruises playing the Aztec ball game. There are in-depth discussions of Roman hairdressing (and concrete), giant sloths and Viking salves.

I am not 100% convinced that this constitutes 'rogue' archaeology, and I was not as surprised as the author seemed to be by some of the discoveries: but this audiobook, read by Derek Sterling (who conveys Kean's enthusiasm for his subject very well) was a delightful listening experience, and I'll likely re-listen at some point. Also, kudos to Kean for featuring so many female characters in his vignettes of ancient life.

Read because: on offer, looked interesting, and I was intrigued by the notion of blending fiction and non-fiction.