2025/206: The Children of God — Mary Doria Russell

What is it in humans that makes us so eager to believe ill of one another? ... What makes us so hungry for it? Failed idealism, he suspected. We disappoint ourselves and then look around for other failures to convince ourselves: it's not just me. [Prologue]

Audiobook reread, after listening to The Sparrow. It's many years since I last reread: here are my brief notes from 2007 reread. I stand by my original opinion, that this is not nearly as good or as well-structured a novel as The Sparrow. There is gorgeous prose, interesting ideas and a crowd of new characters: but there is also uneven pacing, political manoeuvring, and outright war.  There are, possibly, too many viewpoint characters, and a lack of the precise focus of the first novel. And there are several developments which felt unnecessarily cruel. ('She died last year.')

Narrated by Anna Fields, who manages the many accents and character voices -- across three species and a dozen nationalities -- admirably, with the sole exception of Northern Irish priest Sean Fein. I was especially impressed by her range of masculine voices.

I still hope for more SF from Mary Doria Russell, and I wish more of her books were available as ebooks in the UK.

2025/205: Nonesuch — Francis Spufford

...it had to be done whole-heartedly or not at all. Not at all! voted Iris the chief clerk, Iris the careful calculator of odds, Iris the prudent investor. All in, all at once, and fuck it, voted the bad girl, and the lover, and the risk-taker, and the suburban slut not willing to be defeated by some whey-faced bitch of a fascist. [loc. 3855]

Another alternate history, in a sense, from Francis Spufford. Set in London during the Blitz, it focusses on Iris Hawkins, an ambitious young woman prevented from success in business by her gender, but determined to make the most of her natural gift for finance. She's also determined to enjoy life: she's sexually active, self-sufficient and eminently pragmatic. She hooks up with Geoff, a young and innocent BBC engineer, on a night out, and finds herself drawn into an occult underworld, an anti-fascist plot, and some unexpected statues.

On the one hand, my favourite read in December and one of my favourites of 2025: on the other, these terrible words which I was not expecting: 'To be continued'. Woe!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers! Proper review nearer publication, which is due 26 FEB 26.

Read an excerpt here, and listen to The Coode Street Podcast featuring Spufford.

2025/204: Crypt — Alice Roberts

In politically tense times, differences – rather than similarities – can easily be brought into sharp focus. And such differences can be exploited by any politician who ultimately cares more about their own power, or indeed some abstract idea of nationhood, than about the lives of ordinary people and the ordinary communities that they govern. [loc. 317]

Following Ancestors (which examined several prehistoric burials) and Buried (ditto, but Roman and early medieval), Crypt explores the discovery, social context and archaeological significance of a number of burials that date to between 1000 AD and about 1500 AD. There's a mass grave in Oxford: not fighters, but likely settled Danes slaughtered as a result of Æthelred the Unready's 1002 edict that “all the Danes who had sprung up in this island are to be destroyed by a most just extermination". There's a medieval hospital where 85% of the skeletons excavated showed signs of leprosy. There's Thomas Beckett, assassinated at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral and later beatified. There is the Justinian Plague, which -- contrary to usual narratives -- does seem to have reached Britain; an anchorite with syphilis; the sailors on the Mary Rose; and a cluster of skeletons in a cemetery near Runcorn, showing signs of Paget's Disease -- a disease now on the wane.

Some of the chapters interested me more than others: the chapter on Beckett, for instance, focussed mostly on the history of the assassination and subsequent relgious controversy, as -- thanks to Henry VIII's destruction of Beckett's tomb and suppression of his cult -- there were no actual remains to examine. I was fascinated, though, by the ecology of M. leprae, the mycobacterium that causes leprosy: apparently it is completely unable to survive on its own, and can't even be grown in a laboratory. The descriptions of the damage it inflicted on sufferers were horrendous, but I am thankful that it's not more infectious. Happy news: 40% fewer new cases of leprosy in 2019 than in 2014!

I found the discussion of archaeogenetics really interesting: not only the detection and evolution of various pathogens, but also the new method for detecting biological sex: 'the amelogenin gene appears on both the X and Y chromosomes, in slightly different forms on each. DNA analysis focusing on the amelogenin gene has become a standard method for determining sex in forensic cases' [loc. 1085]. And I applaud the ways in which Roberts brings past lives to life.

2025/203: The Sparrow — Mary Doria Russell

‘At the end of his description of the first contact, in a locked file, Father Yarbrough ... wrote of you, “I believe that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Today I may have looked upon the face of a saint.”’
‘Stop it. Leave me something.’ [p. 298]

Audiobook reread on a lazy Boxing Day -- perhaps inspired by the excellent Jesuit priest in Snake-Eater. I first read this novel in 1997, when it was a submission for the Arthur C Clarke Award (which it won): some thoughts from an informal review back then. I hadn't reread since 2007, and was surprised at how much I remembered -- mostly about the humans, rather than the Runa and the Jana'ata.

The audiobook is splendidly narrated by David Colacci, who manages a huge range of character voices. Listening to the novel gave me a better appreciation of its structure: the pacing, the braided timelines, the suspense. And the pivotal scene, the scene where Sandoz's eager anticipation is destroyed, is incredibly powerful when experienced at speaking-pace rather than reading-pace.

I had a big argument with a well-known genre writer about this novel. He dismissed it as 'homophobic': I countered that the worst thing that happens to Sandoz is not with Hlavin Kitheri, but with Askama.

In some ways the novel is dated: AI is depicted positively, climate change is barely mentioned, and of course SETI has not picked up any songs: nor are we asteroid-mining. But the emotional and spiritual elements are timeless, precise and profoundly moving. Still one of my favourite SF novels ever, though often harrowing.

2025/202: The Riddle of the Labyrinth — Margalit Fox

The pull of an undeciphered ancient script comes not only from the fact that its discoverer cannot read it, but also from the knowledge that once, long ago, someone could. [p. 38]

Margalit Fox offers the 'first complete account' of the decipherment of Linear B, the earliest Greek script, which was first identified on tablets excavated by Arthur Evans at Knossos. Fox worked with the newly-opened archive of classicist Alice Kober's papers to uncover her role in decoding an unknown language, written in an unknown script, with unknown meaning. 

 Credit for Linear B's decipherment is generally given to gifted amateur Michael Ventris, whose debt to Kober's work -- as Fox puts it -- 'he acknowledged less conspicuously than he might have' [p. 262]. It was Kober who determined that Linear B was a syllabary script rather than an alphabet; that it was inflected; that it was possible to distinguish relationships between the characters without any knowledge of their meaning. It was also Kober who worked extensively on Arthur Evans' Scripta Minoa, at the expense of her own work and her health: it's tempting to see Evans as a dragon hoarding his treasure, not allowing anyone to publish work on, or even view original photographs of, the thousands of tablets he'd discovered.

Kober was hampered by class, gender and the need to support her widowed mother (who, in the end, outlived her). She never married, and there is no indication of any romantic relationship, though she had a close scholarly friendship with archaeologist John Franklin Daniel: when he died at the age of 38, she was devastated. Despite her gifts as a classicist and a linguist, she was only awarded the rank of full professor a few months before her death. And she was rejected by academia in favour of less-qualified men. Grr.

Fox brackets her account of Kober's life and work with sections on Evans (apparently incredibly near-sighted, a huge advantage for an archaeologist) and Ventris (who was a navigator during WWII and was known for working on Linear B on the way home from bombing raids). Fox is at pains to be fair to them, but it's clear that her sympathies are with Kober: as are mine.

A fascinating book with clear explanations of linguistic theory for the non-technical reader. And the whole story of Linear B and the tablets, baked to clay, which record slaves and stores, rations and resources, ties in very well with some of my other reading, from 1177 BC: The Year Civilisation Collapsed to The Hymn to Dionysus.

...what we have, then (and all we will ever have), are the records of the final year of each palatial center before some cataclysm—invasion, earthquake, lightning strike—and the subsequent fire reduced the Mycenaean Age to ash. [p. 272]

2025/201: Skyward Inn — Alisa Whiteley

‘I put my hands in the mud and it said to come here. Mud, speaking to me in my head. They had a word for that when I was young: touched, they would have said. But here I am, and I’ll be touched if that is what’s next, because I felt certain it was Tom’s voice. Can you tell me—was it Tom’s voice? I suppose it couldn’t have been.’ [loc. 2155]

By the author of Three Eight One, this novel is set in the aftermath of interplanetary war. Two veterans of the war, Isley and Jem, have returned to the Western Protectorate (Devon and Cornwall: 'a small area of a small country that decided to secede from modern life, from space flight, from the Coalition and the conquering spirit of the new age') to run the Skyward Inn, née the Lamb and Flag. Jem is human, and comes from the nearby town, where her brother Dom (the Mayor) looks after her estranged son Fosse. Isley is a Qitan, from the side that lost: he's in charge of preparing the Qitan drink, 'brew', that the pub serves. It may be addictive, and it is certainly popular.

Things are changing, though. There are incomers at the deserted farm where Fosse hangs out, and they claim they can do magic. There's another stranger, a friend of Isley's, stranded and hiding in the cellar of the Skyward Inn. Outsiders threaten the precarious post-apocalyptic peace of the Protectorate, and raise issues of xenophobia, isolation, colonialism and the impossibility of communication between species -- or even between people, human people, who have every reason to yearn for mutual understanding.

I loved the wildness of the setting; was uneasy at the invasion of Fosse's private place, because it reminded me of my own childhood; and was deeply unsettled by the climax of the novel. Whiteley's prose is beautiful and her characters, though not always likeable, are solidly constructed with emotional depth and unspoken histories. I'm still not sure I liked this book but I found it fascinating and impressively understated.

2025/200: Unaccustomed Spirits — Elizabeth Pewsey

‘That’s no guitar, ignorant and misguided girl,’ said Sylvester. ‘That’s a lute. Strange tuning; it must be one of these authentic renderings.’
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Adele.
‘Of course, the house is haunted,’ said Lily in matter-of-fact tones ...[loc. 578]

Comfort reread, which also fulfils my "reread beginning with 'U'" challenge. This is a very Christmassy romantic comedy, set in haunted Haphazard House, in Pewsey's imaginary northern county of Eyotshire. Familiar characters from the Mountjoy series (famous cellist Sylvester, his witchy housekeeper Lily, Val's son Thomas) appear, along with protagonist Cleo, her dastardly cousin Henry who wants to demolish the house but needs someone to housesit over Christmas, and Henry's Gothic housekeeper Mrs Grigson. 

Not to mention Lambert and Giles, the ghosts of the house, who (between eavesdropping on phone conversations and watching Star Trek) provide a running commmentary on Cleo, her friends and her dull fiance Perry. Giles is the lutenist, banished by Queen Elizabeth for ogling one of her favourites; Lambert the Roundhead, granted the house and the title after harrying the original occupants. 

There's some excitement in Cleo's trip to Hungary to rescue Prue, whose husband has fallen foul of the Party; there is amusement as dressmaker Adele and ghost-hunter Will negotiate a relationship; and there is unexpected romance, and Sylvester being awesome. Still a delight!

2025/199: How to Fake It In Society — K J Charles

To marry a woman close to fifty years his senior, on her deathbed, for no better reason than money on his side and malice on hers -- it was contemptible. He'd be a laughing stock.
He'd be a rich contemptible laughing stock.
'All right,' he said. [loc. 131]

ARC provided out of the blue, waaaay before publication, with ideal timing as year-end werk-stress hit and several book-disappointments triggered a reading slump. This was a complete and utter delight, and cheered me immensely. John Julius Angerstein! Marie Antoinette! Diamonds! Painter's colours! Actors! Punctuation marks! Dashing rogues! Non-binary character! And a flawed and difficult romance that came right in the end...

Full review nearer publication date, which is 30th April 2026.

2025/198: Snake-Eater — T Kingfisher

Walter would . . . Her thoughts stopped there, because Walter would already have dropped dead of shock weeks ago. She was in a world where Walter no longer applied. [loc. 3355]

Selena is down on her luck when she heads, with her beloved dog Copper, to the remote desert town of Quartz Creek. She has $27 to her name, and has left behind a job in a deli and a gaslighting ex who's destroyed Selena's self-confidence. She's searching for her Aunt Amelia -- but Amelia, says the nice lady at the post office, died last year. No reason why Selena shouldn't stay in town for a couple of days, though...

The folk of Quartz Creek are odd but friendly, and Selena's new neighbour Grandma Billy is keen for Selena to move into her aunt's abandoned house. Grandma Billy is splendidly competent, despite some unsettling observations about Selena's glimpse of a man in green in her garden: a squash god, apparently, quite normal for Quartz Creek. And it turns out that Aunt Amelia had some connection with another god: a roadrunner spirit. As a Brit, I have no direct experience of roadrunners apart from the Loony Tunes cartoons. Apparently they are not at all cute, and they kill rattlesnakes. Selena is also ignorant of the species, which causes Plot.

Snake-Eater may have a setup reminiscent of The Twisted Ones (dead relative, abandoned house, faithful hound, increasing weirdness) but it's a much kinder novel, more about Selena regaining her strength and self-esteem and finding a different sort of family. It's also set in a lightly-sketched future, probably about fifty years from now: there's a moon colony, and rural depopulation means there's more space in the desert for non-human people. (That said, there's still the internet and mobile phones -- though Selena never switches on her phone in case the ex tracks her down, and she avoids the internet connection at the library because she can barely manage her own issues, never mind the world's.) And there's more humour than in Kingfisher's horror-oriented novels: I found myself laughing out loud more than once, not least at the perils of reading Clan of the Cave Bear at an impressionable age.

Love (but no romance), loyalty, an excellent Jesuit priest, and the importance of kindness to animals, plus some truly likeable characters: may we all land as softly as Selena, when we fall.

2025/197: The Listeners — Maggie Stiefvater

Luxury felt like a different game when the people involved were officially enemies of the state. [loc. 1328]

Appalachia, 1942: the luxe Avallon hotel has been designated as an 'assembly point for Axis diplomats and their families' -- an arrangement made by the Gilfoyles. who own the hotel. June Hudson just runs it (and is conducting an ongoing clandestine affair with Gilfoyle heir Edgar: clandestine because she comes from an unsuitable, i.e. poor, background). The luxuries of the hotel, and the benefits of the mysterious 'sweetwaters' that bubble and flow beneath it, are turned to the service of Nazis and fascists, and it's up to June to keep the peace between the various Japanese and German factions, the hotel's staff, and the FBI.

June is one of the titular 'listeners', always aware of her guests' (and the staff's) emotional state, balancing the demands of the waters (which must not turn) with those of the people around her. Other listeners include Edgar Gilfoyle's younger brother Sandy, confined silently in a wheelchair by his war wounds; Hannelore, the adolescent daughter of a German cultural attache; the nameless resident of room 411, who refuses to leave when the other guests are asked to make way for the Axis diplomats. And, of course, Tucker Minnick, the FBI agent who comes from the same places as June, and shares her awareness of the waters -- which are, in a way, also listening, soaking up the emotions of the humans nearby.

It's hard to write about my reaction to this novel because I didn't really engage with it. I love Stiefvater's YA writing -- especially the Raven Cycle (starting with The Raven Boys) -- and had expected something more fantastical from The Listeners. I kept waiting for something ... something more to happen: perhaps it did, but too subtly for my increasing disengagement. As a character study of June Hudson, it's splendid: as a novel, it didn't work for me.

2025/196: The Naughty List Manager — Remy Fable

"...Go see what this young man is really like. Then come back and tell me if he truly deserves coal in his stocking."
It was absolutely against protocol. It was wildly inefficient. It was a complete deviation from two centuries of procedure.
"I could leave tomorrow," Noel heard himself say.[loc. 61]

Short sweet Christmas m/m romance novella: Noel Frost, an elf, has been managing the Naughty List Department for over two hundred years. For the last decade, he's pulled the file of Ezra Vince, street artist and befriender of stray cats, who's been on the Naughty List for the last ten years. Noel is something of a stickler for the rules, but Mrs Claus sends him to investigate whether Ezra is actually Naughty or ... the other thing.

I was suffering from a surfeit of pre-Christmas crowds and hecticity: this was the perfect antidote. Nicely written, sweet, humorous and fun. There are more in the 'Claus Encounters' series...

2025/195: Voyage of the Damned — Frances White

She’s cutting off the weak to save the strong. No, not even that. Cutting off the poor to save the rich. [loc. 6441]

There has been peace in Concordia for a thousand years: the twelve provinces are united against the threat of invasion, and each province has an heir who's been granted a magical gift, a Blessing, by the Goddess Herself. Voyage of the Damned begins just as Ganymedes ('Dee'), the representative of Fish province, is desperately trying to avoid embarking on the eponymous voyage -- to a sacred mountain, on the Emperor's own ship -- with the other eleven Blesseds. Dee has spent most of his time as Blessed playing the clown, alienating his peers, and overeating. Also, he has a secret which mustn't come out: he doesn't actually have a Blessing.

On board despite his best efforts, Dee comforts himself with the thought that at least he'll get to spend time with his love interest Ravi, the Crow Blessed. But on the very first night of the journey, one of the most popular of the twelve is murdered ... and she's only the first of the victims.

Aided by the six-year-old, sugar-crazed Grasshopper Blessed and the terminally-ill Bear Blessed, Dee is determined to unmask the killer -- if only to save his own life. He's not cut out to be a hero, he insists: but perhaps heroism is in the eye of the beholder.

I didn't quite get the hang of this novel. It was fun and twisty, but sometimes too silly: Dee is rather annoying at times, but more likeable as he opens up and displays his vulnerabilities: the worldbuilding is fairly basic, but there are lots of fascinating details. Not all of the characters are especially rounded, but each has secrets, flaws, allegiances and handicaps. It's a novel about outsiders -- being one, helping others -- and about self-doubt: and it's very much about class.

Despite my reservations, I did enjoy this novel, and I shall look forward to White's next book, due next year.

2025/194: The Year's Midnight — Rachel Neumeier

Tenai had come into Dr. Dodson's care raging with a fury so tightly contained that a casual glance might have judged her calm. She was not calm. Daniel did not need to be told this. He knew it from the first moment he saw her. [p.2]

Daniel Dodson is a gifted psychiatrist who's mourning the death of his wife, and struggling to raise their daughter Jenna. He's also fouled his professional record by whistleblowing an abusive colleague. Now he's working at a smaller institution, Lindenwood, where his first patient is a mute 'Jane Doe' who was found on the highway, threatening vehicles with a sword. She cannot be identified, and nobody can communicate with her.

Daniel persuades her to speak. Her name is Tenai, and the tale she tells is a fantastical account of another world where she made a bargain with Lord Death and avenged her family over a lifespan of centuries. Dr Dodson, eminently sensible, diagnoses her thus: "I think you encountered something in this world that you couldn’t live with, and so you invented another world to be from." He doesn't seem to notice the bursts of static that accompany her flashes of rage, or the way she only picks red flowers, from beds where no red flowers are planted. But the reader knows more than Daniel from the very first page... I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or not!

I was drawn into Tenai's story, and into her therapy, and into her growing respect and liking for Daniel Dodson. Sadly, that's only the first half of the book: the second half, though interesting -- Tenai, released from Lindenwood, becomes a martial arts instructor -- wasn't as interesting to me. I think what I liked most was the sense of worlds colliding, of Daniel's mild-mannered rationalism and Tenai's dark, epic history. She was less interesting when she'd faced the truth about her emotions.

I'd read more, though: there are another five books in the series, and from the brief excerpt included with The Year's Midnight, I believe Tenai will be going home. Or back.

2025/193: The Darkness Outside Us — Eliot Schrefer

Nowhere is truly empty. The thought makes me feel lavishly alone. Somehow, space is so deeply melancholy that it’s not at all sad, like a note so low it ceases to sound. Even my sorrow about my insignificance feels insignificant. [loc. 161]

Ambrose Cusk wakes up on a spaceship, the Coordinated Endeavor. The ship's operating system (OS) informs him, in his mother's voice, that the ship is well on its way towards his sister's distress beacon, on Saturn's moon Titan. Ambrose has been in a coma for two weeks, says OS, and has fallen behind on important maintenance tasks. Ambrose, who feels dreadful, can't remember anything about the launch.

But as he regains mobility and memory, he realises that OS is not being completely honest and open. For instance, he's not alone on the ship as he expected: the Fédération ship Endeavor has been connected to another ship, the Aurora, funded by the Dimokratía -- a rival nation, which seems to have evolved from Russia/China. Ambrose's fellow (rival?) spacefarer is Kodiak, who is laconic and imposing and has some amusingly retro ideas. Opposites, as they say, attract.

From the cover, I imagined I was getting an 'enemies-to-lovers' M/M romance in an SFnal setting. The hints and clues of wrongness (ancient blood traces on a dented panel, oddities during a space walk) just served to bring Ambrose and Kodiak together. Only when something truly catastrophic happened did I realise that there was also a serious SF thriller happening. I was surprised by the twist, and impressed by the ways in which the two protagonists (three, if you count OS) reacted to further developments. And though I initially found Ambrose rather annoying (he is a teenage boy) he did develop and mature over the course of the novel. Lovely prose and poignant details: I especially liked Ambrose's violin, of which Kodiak says "You were wise to bring this violin to remember Earth. To remember forests." [loc. 1397]

Recommended: I will probably read the sequel quite soon: but I'm not going to link to it here, because the blurb is a massive spoiler for The Darkness Outside Us.

2025/192: The Summer War — Naomi Novik

Summer stories had a rhythm and a pattern to them, and she knew in her belly exactly how that one should have ended: with the summer lord rising healed and radiant from his bed to catch the hand of the heroic knight who had saved him... [loc. 556]

The Summer War has the beats and the ambience of the most classic fairytales: a king with three children, a curse with unexpected consequences, a bargain with the fae (in this world known as 'summerlings') that hinges on wording, a heroic princess. Celia -- the youngest of King Veris' three children -- accidentally curses her eldest brother, Argent, after he declares that he's leaving home and going to the Summerlands. The middle brother, Roric, has been the odd one out: as King Veris sinks into depression, Celia and Roric vow to care about one another. And when Celia sets out to marry a prince, it's Roric whose music and wit comes to the rescue.

Hard to discuss this one without spoilers! It's a story about the stories we tell ourselves and one another: right from the start, with Veris paying a songwright to write a romantic song that reinvents his story, there's a theme of propaganda, (mis)interpretation, the pattern of stories and how to fit one's life inside those patterns. Told in third person from Celia's point of view, we come to understand what's happening as slowly as Celia herself. And it subverts several fairytale tropes: there is no triumphant wedding, and no punishment of the villains. (Indeed, as a friend observed, no actual villains.)

A gorgeous novella, with a fascinating world lightly sketched, a queer love story, and an eminently capable heroine. 

2025/191: The Future Starts Here — John Higgs

The real problem is that a species that lives inside its own fictions can no longer imagine a healthy fiction to live inside, and this failure of the imagination stops us from steering towards the better versions of our potential futures. [p. 19]

The Future Starts Here: An Optimistic Guide to What Comes Next is a cultural analysis of how we view the future, focussing very much on the positive. The book ranges from an overview of why colonising Mars is a daft idea to explorations of the Knebb rewilding project, of natural versus artificial intelligence (and why Higgs feels his cat is smarter than Alexa), and of the ways in which virtual reality can be more than just entertainment. Higgs explores ideas such as reality tunnels, emotional intelligence, the Half-Earth biodiversity project, the utopian tropes of Star Trek and the benefits of Universal Basic Income.

I particularly liked the explanation of the 'circumambient mythos', the underlying narrative mode of a civilisation. He suggests that medieval Western culture's narrative was 'Voyage and Return' (coming from and returning to God); that was replaced by 'The Quest', a journey to a better place (via technological advancement), from the Renaissance onwards. Now, he thinks, our mode is Tragedy: doomed by a fatal flaw. 'But there is also a narrative plot which, for the characters living it, appears to be identical to Tragedy. That plot is Comedy.' [p. 16] Comedy, unlike tragedy, isn't fatal: it can be resolved. Much later in the book, he writes: 'Sitcom, then, is the best metaphor for our future. Humanity, our digital creations and mother nature attempt to get along, while trapped together on the third rock from the sun for untold years to come.' [p. 210]

Higgs is more or less my contemporary; we probably know some of the same people. I certainly felt seen by some of the anecdotes, such as the one where he uncovers 'a box of abandoned gadgets and pieces of technology, which were about 10–15 years old... None of this was cheap to buy at the time, so it wasn’t thrown away when it became redundant. Instead, it was carefully stored away for years, until the day finally came when it was rediscovered in the back of the wardrobe. Then it was thrown away.' [p. 298] Higgs makes much of generational change, and how differently the 'digital natives' of Generation Z view the world: the importance of networks, communication, self-definition. Writing this book, Higgs experimented with his own network: he only talked to people he knew well enough to meet for a drink regularly, and who lived within walking distance from his house.

It's worth noting that The Future Starts Here: An Optimistic Guide to What Comes Next was published in 2018, pre-Covid, pre-Trump2, pre-Ukraine, pre-Gaza, pre-Starmer... It feels to me as though the world has got worse: but I still want to hope for a better future, and so does Higgs.

2025/190: Yvgenie — C J Cherryh

... wizards he knew about sold curses and told fortunes. They did not crawl about inside one's heart and talk from other people's mouths and compel them... [loc. 2560]

Reread: I first read this in the 1990s, I think, and recall liking it: this was before I reviewed everything I read, so I don't know what I thought about it then. This time around, without having reread the two preceding novels of the 'Rusalka' trilogy, I was confused and unengaged.

Ilyana is fifteen and has a secret friend, of whom her overprotective mother Eveshka (a wizard) would absolutely not approve. The friend happens to be a ghost, and he has history with Ilyana's parents and her uncle Sasha. Meanwhile, a young aristocrat -- the eponymous Yvgenie -- appears in the middle of a storm, just as Sasha's house burns down.

Cue lots of running around in dark woods and 'wishing' -- magicking -- possibilities. The novel seemed to ... just stop, and there were some rather troubling plot developments, too, including a potential romance between Sasha and a very young woman connected to Ilyana's family.

I considered rereading the first two -- which I also recall enjoying -- and then giving this another try. Frustratingly, I then discovered that Cherryh effectively rewrote this novel back in 2012. But... the publisher website is 'offline indefinitely': and Cherryh (who's in her eighties now) has posted about illness: and there is no trace on the internet of this new revised version, for which I would happily pay money.

sob

2025/189: Breed to Come — Andre Norton

There had always been Puttis -- round and soft, made for children. She had kept hers because it was the last thing her mother had made... Puttis were four-legged and tailed. Their heads were round, with shining eyes made of buttons or beads, upstanding ears, whiskers above the small mouth. Puttis were loved, played with, adored in the child world; their origin was those brought by children on the First Ships. [loc. 2219]

This was the first science fiction book I remember reading, from Rochford Library, probably pre-1975. I don't think I've read it since, though I did briefly own a paperback copy. Apparently the blurbs of newer editions mention 'university complex' and 'epidemic virus': aged <10, I was hooked by the cat on the front.

Furtig is one of the People, who are mutated and uplifted cats. The People have a truce with the Tuskers, and a standoff with the Barkers. All are united in their hatred and disgust for the Rattons, who torture and eat their captives. When Furtig fails to win a mate at the Trials, he heads for the Lairs -- the place where the Demons once lived, and where his relative Gammage has been discovering new technologies. Those who dwell in the Lairs now are the Inborn, even more mutated / uplifted than the People: often they have little or no fur, but their paws are much more handlike and agile. They are learning to use some delightfully retro tech, including tape drives ...

Gammage warns that the Demons might return -- and, quite a long way into the novel, we encounter Ayana, a human, who's on a spaceship nearing Earth. How Ayana and her crew react to and interact with the mutated animals, and with Earth itself, forms the rest of the story, though the focus remains firmly on Furtig and his friends and relations.

I remembered quite a bit about Furtig and his adventures, but very little about the humans (or Demons). One thing that did stick in my pre-adolescent mind, though, was how Ayana recognised what she was seeing. 'Not Putti but cat!'... Ayana is open-minded and well-meaning, but her society doesn't seem that great. The crew of her ship consists of two heterosexual couples, whose various skills fulfil all the requirements of the mission. There are hints that Ayana, at least, was psychologically manipulated into pairing with Tan. When they reach Earth, Tan seems to change -- could it be the plague that killed off the human race, apart from a few who escaped to space 500 years ago? -- and becomes abusive, cruel and physically violent. No wonder Ayana sides with the People.

Breed to Come is a darker story than I remember, but it has a happy ending (at least for Furtig and the People) and some intriguing ideas. And it was the novel that started me on the path to where, and who, and what I am today.

2025/188: A Drop of Corruption — Robert Jackson Bennett

“... they began to exhibit afflictions.”
“Apophenia being the worst, and most notable,” said Ghrelin. “An uncontrollable, debilitating impulse to spy patterns in everything.”
I glanced at Ana, but she only smiled and wryly said, “Oh, I’m familiar with that one..." [loc. 3361]

Sequel to The Tainted Cup, and second in Bennett's 'Shadow of the Leviathan' trilogy. While this didn't wow me quite as much as the first book -- which was so utterly novel in setting and ambience -- it's still a marvellous read. Bennett continues to explore the Empire of Khanum, in this case by venturing outside it. The kingdom of Yarrow trades with the Empire, and is politically unstable: it's also on the coast, a high-risk location because the Leviathans come from the ocean. Much of the Empire's research on leviathans takes place in a facility known as the Shroud, in the Bay of Yarrow.

Engraver Dinias Kol (who can, with the right stimuli, remember everything) and investigator Ana Dolabra (who is wildly eccentric but a brilliant investigator) are sent to Yarrow to investigate the death of a Treasury official. What they uncover is a complex scheme of murder, theft, and insurrection. Ana is delighted, because she's found an opponent whose cunning and misdirection she can respect. Din is ... less delighted, and missing his lover, and worried about the debt he's inherited: he also has to work with a local Apothetikal, Tira Malo, who has greatly enhanced senses and works as a warden. Into the wilderness they go...

This is a novel that works on many levels: a locked-room murder mystery in a world sufficiently alien that the usual deductive process isn't wholly relevant; an examination of kings and why they are not a stable form of government; a story about experimentation and about science... It's great fun, well-paced, and we discover tantalising scraps about Ana's background. (Din is likeable, but Ana is fascinating, and often repulsive.) I'm very much looking forward to the third in the series, due in 2026.

2025/187: The Fall of Troy — Peter Ackroyd

There are many Turks who believe that the capture of Constantinople was a just vengeance for the fall of Troy. The Greeks were at last made to pay for their perfidy. [loc. 2376]

Reread: my review from 2010 is here. I remembered nothing at all about this novel! Apparently I purchased a paperback copy in 2007: as with almost all of his other novels, no Kindle edition is available.

Ackroyd bases his novel on the life of Heinrich Schliemann, who first excavated Troy, and his marriage to a much younger woman, a Greek (famously chosen on the basis of a photograph and 'Homeric spirit'). Ackroyd's fictional archaeologist is named Heinrich Obermann, and he has all of Schliemann's flaws and more: he's avaricious, racist, an intellectual fraud and a bigamist. He goes by his gut feeling rather than solid archaeological methodology, and he refuses to accept evidence which contradicts his own opinions.

We see him from his wife Sophia's perspective: she doesn't love him, but is determined to make the marriage work. She finds purpose in the excavation of the ancient city, and colludes with Obermann's deceits -- until she discovers that he has lied to her, as well as to everyone else.

I liked the way that Ackroyd wove in some of Schliemann's tall stories (smuggling Priam's treasure away from the site in Sophia's shawl) and I found Obermann's fate rather more satisfactory than Schliemann's: hubris and nemesis.

2025/186: Hitwoman — Elsie Marks

...that’s the problem with rich people in the UK – not only are half of them clinically evil, they’re clinically evil bastards who all went to school together and still haven’t grown up. [loc. 2457]

Maisie Baxter works for Novum, a boutique ethical assassination agency. Her boss is the charismatic Gabby Hawthorne (played, in my head, by Helen Mirren); she shares a flat with Beth, who knows nothing about Maisie's job; she's been single for a while, because she can't have a relationship without revealing her secret double life.

But when a man named Will shows up at two of her jobs, and the target is killed before she can take care of business, she becomes suspicious -- not least because, on the first of those jobs, the two of them hooked up for a steamy one-night stand. Will works for a rival agency, but is he the real enemy, or is there something more sinister afoot?

Fun, funny and -- refreshingly -- set in the UK rather than the US, this is classic romcom. I liked Maisie, who is competent and witty and loyal: Will grew on me: the secondary characters, such as Jason the IT guy and Beth the flatmate, felt like people I know. Hitwoman was much-needed light relief after recent reading. Despite its innately violent subject matter, it's a cheering and life-affirming novel, and I hope very much that it's the start of a series.

2025/185: The Rose Field — Philip Pullman

I’m a grown woman now, and it’s about time I heard the truth. Because I know that whatever the imagination is, it isn’t just inventing things. Making things up and pretending they’re real is not enough. [loc. 4915]

Twenty-five years ago, in Oxford in August 2000, I interviewed a best-selling fantasy author, who said (among many more interesting things) that he shared an editor with J K Rowling and that this editor had claimed not to be able to contact Rowling. (I suggested that this might explain the length of the fourth HP novel.) That author was Philip Pullman, and I can't help wondering whether his current editor is having a similar issue with Pullman himself. I found this novel overlong, self-contradictory, sprawling, and ultimately unsatisfying.

Which is not to say it's awful: there were likeable new characters, fascinating side-quests and some intriguing hints at how Lyra's world differs from our own. But a long-awaited reunion was described very briefly; a much-signalled romance fizzled out in the final chapters (which was a relief... but it was still a possibility for most of the book); and there is a conversation which basically negates a pivotal scene in the previous trilogy.

I'm not going to go into detail: others have done so, at length. There was a lot to like (such as Lyra's relationship with Asta; Ionides; the gryphons) and I did get caught up in the story. But there are also a lot of loose threads, unresolved subplots, throwaway resolutions. And one key character from the His Dark Materials trilogy is ... changed, shall we say, by revelations in The Rose Field.

It's six years since I read The Secret Commonwealth, and perhaps I should have reread it before starting The Rose Field. But that is a sad and dispiriting novel: this one was simply disappointing.

Edit to add: I was wrong about the editor issue. Apparently there's an interview with Pullman in the audiobook, in which he says that his editor made him change his original ending. Perhaps that ending would have provided more resolution.

2025/184: Ibiza Surprise — Dorothy Dunnett

I do know the look of a ruby, in the same way that I know sable and ermine and mink. One always knows where one is going, even if one doesn't quite know how to get there. [loc. 2096]

Reread of a novel first read in the 1990s, which I don't think I've revisited since. Certainly I had forgotten all but a few details: melon balls, a corpse on a horse, boring brother.

Ibiza Surprise is set in the late Sixties. Sarah Cassells is twenty years old, the daughter of impecunious Lord Forsey, and (possibly) 'the swingiest chick this side of Chelsea'. She has trained as a cook, lives in London in a flatshare, and makes a living by catering extravagant dinner parties. Her primary aim in life is to find someone 'decent' (i.e. rich) to marry. When her father is found dead in Ibiza, Sarah's financial situation worsens. Then, at the funeral, she meets the father of her schoolfriend Janey Lloyd, who invites her to stay with the Lloyds in Ibiza.

Cue mayhem, an unexpected American widow, a famous portrait painter with his yacht and his bifocals (this is Johnson Johnson, the star-at-one-remove of Dunnett's seven-book 'Dolly' series) and Easter in a small Spanish town.

Several things struck me about this novel. Firstly, how recent the war was: less than 25 years since VE Day. It's unremarkable for Johnson (who's in his forties) to explain his facility with firearms by claiming to have done Special Branch work in the war. Twenty-five years! It's longer than that since I first read this novel. And it makes me think anew about my parents and how recent it was for them.

Second, Sarah is frivolous and flirtatious and quite casual about the risk of one of her beaus assaulting her ('he could swim, too, but you can't rape anyone in deep water, or at least if you can you ought to get a certificate' [1306]). She is determined to marry well -- she thinks it's her only hope of a comfortable life -- but is also not averse to 'courtesy snogging' with a man she's just met. And though she sometimes comes across as vacuous, she is brave and intelligent, and surprisingly competent.

And third: this is Ibiza before the nightclubs and mass tourism. I loved the glimpses of local culture, the medieval town and the religious processions, the gilded statues draped with real jewellery.

Murder mystery quite twisty; Johnson quite peripheral and impenetrable; not enough sailing. I think I'd like to reread more of these, in the spirit in which Dunnett wrote them: a holiday (though not, as in her case, a tax-deductible Business Expense).

2025/183: Empire of Shadows — Jacquelyn Benson

The stela was clear evidence for the existence of a previously unknown Mesoamerican culture… and Ellie had the map to the heart of it tucked into her corset. [p. 178]

London, 1898: archivist Eleanor Mallory finds herself unemployed after a suffragette protest. ("Just one little arrest, which they aren’t even pressing charges for!") Awaiting her dismissal, she finds an ancient map concealed by her supervisor. It turns out to be a map to a lost city, and in short order Ellie is off to British Honduras, where she encounters the ruggedly-handsome and frequently-shirtless surveyor Adam Bates.

Needless to say, the path to the lost city of Tulan -- whose myths have influenced both Aztec and Mayan culture -- is fraught with peril, from dastardly upper-class Brits to the natural hazards of the jungle. There are revolutionaries, hidden villages, priests and soldiers, exotic beasties, and ancient mysteries. There is a strong fantasy element, with Ellie dreaming of a long-dead priestess and seeking the legendary Smoking Mirror. And there is Adam, who turns out to have principles as well as a knack for survival.

This is a joyous, unapologetic romcom -- it reminded me, at times, of The Mummy and Romancing the Stone -- with a light-hearted tone: it's also a critique of colonialism and an intriguing riff on the myths and legends of Central America. The history and culture of the local people is woven unobtrusively through the story. Ellie and Adam are both flawed and both likeable: the romance doesn't get very steamy in this volume, but I note that it's the first in a series. A cheering read.

2025/182: Strange Pictures — Uketsu

Adults can draw what they see, the real thing, in their pictures. Children, though, draw the “idea” of what appears in their heads. [p. 82]

Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion, this short illustrated novel seems at first to be three tenuously-connected novellas. The first begins with a blog on which a man posts some pictures drawn by his wife, who died in childbirth. Each picture has a number... The second story is about a small boy who draws a picture of the apartment block where he lives, and scribbles out the windows of his home. And the third pertains to a grisly unsolved murder mystery, and the implications of the sketch found with the corpse. Gradually, it becomes clear that these are all the same story, or at least all revolve around the same individual.

The pictures (which were clear and readable on my Kindle) definitely added to the story, and drew me into the mysteries: the prose, while simple, flowed nicely. I enjoyed this, though I found some passages disturbing -- even upsetting. And Utetsu makes it easy to sympathise with the villain, who is driven by the need to protect those they care for.

Irritatingly, the Kindle edition starts at 'Chapter One' -- but there is actually an introductory passage before that, which I only noticed when I started to write this review and opened the book in the web browser. Grrrrr. It does cast a different light on the story and provides a lot of insight into the backstory.

2025/181: Murder Most Foul — Guy Jenkin

Even in Deptford, you can’t carry bodies far in daylight... [loc. 1402]

In which William Shakespeare is suspected of the murder of Christopher Marlowe, and makes common cause with Marlowe's sister Ann (formerly Will's lover) to find out who really killed Marlowe, and why. Well-researched, witty historical whodunnit with a credible denouement and some excellent dialogue (Jenkin is an award-winning scriptwriter) and lots of period detail. Also, set in my neck of the woods...

The premise sounded excellent, but didn't quite ring true for me. Perhaps there were too many viewpoint characters -- Will, Ann, Lizzie the Dutch orphan, Bella the spy, the mysterious Widow. Perhaps some of the attitudes were slightly too modern. Perhaps I was just vexed that Marlowe, throughout, was referred to as 'Chris' rather than 'Kit'.

I was drawn into the intricacies of the plot, with all its political layers, and the subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to characters and plot elements from Shakespeare's plays. Will and Ann-without-an-e's relationship was poignant, because doomed. And Jenkin evoked 16th-century London in its stenchful, dangerous glory: an outbreak of plague, anti-immigrant sentiment, filthy streets, squalor.

Despite my reservations and criticisms, I did like it: more, in hindsight, than while I was reading! Jenkin's theory about Marlowe's murder makes a lot of sense, and his dialogue is cracking. I hope it's the first in a series.

An interesting fact I learnt from this novel: cormorants have green eyes!

2025/179-180: Plum Duff and 'The Saint of the Bookstore' — Victoria Goddard

... it had been said -- it had been believed -- that much of the old, deep magic of Alinor before the coming of the Empire was gone.
The Fall of the Empire had made it clear that that magic was only quiescent... [Plum Duff, loc. 126]

Reread, because (as per the final line of my February 2023 review of Plum Duff) the seventh book in the series really is due soon... I note that on first reading, I found this wintry novel, full of solstice cheer and ancient traditions and the threat of the Dark, less enjoyable than the 'cosier, more mannerist' novels that preceded it. I do think it feels as though the scope of the story is expanding rapidly:  but given the miracles and wonders of the previous pair of novels, that makes more sense to me this time around. And I'm more intrigued than before by the two-tailed fox, the hints of the Good Neighbours, and the penalty Mr Dart has paid for his stone arm.

And then to The Saint of the Bookstore, which is really a short story and as such probably didn't count (or wasn't counted) back in 2023. I have a feeling I read it quite a while after the novels. This time around, it felt more powerful. 

Sister Mirabelle of the Linder Church of the Lady is sent to Ragnor Bella to investigate rumours of a saint. Her job is to determine whether it's magic, trickery, or actual miracle. She finds herself in a bookstore, where a young man welcomes her -- and then turns to tending a small girl who stumbles into the shop, barefoot and shivering. Sister Mirabelle assists, and is present when two more young men turn up. The good-looking blond, she notes, has a massive crush on Jemis Greenwing...and their mutual friend, the man with what seems to be a dog but isn't, is well aware of it.

I do love to read familiar characters as seen by an outsider, and Goddard does it brilliantly here, as well as putting some of the events of the series into a wider theological context. I'd be interested to read Sister Mirabelle's report.

I am so looking forward to Bubble and Squeak...

2025/178: Nothing But Blackened Teeth — Cassandra Khaw

One girl each year. Two hundred and six bones times a thousand years. More than enough calcium to keep this house standing until the stars ate themselves clean, picked the sinew from their own shining bones. [loc. 238]

Talia has always wanted to get married in a haunted house: when she announces her marriage to Faiz, their wealthy friend Phillip flies the couple and their friends -- Cat the narrator and Lin her ex -- to Japan, and sets up a sleepover in an abandoned mansion. They have "“booze, food, sleeping bags, a youthful compulsion to do stupid shit... and a hunger for a good ghost story”" [loc. 202]. And they have a setting rich with stories about dancing girls buried in the walls, and a legend of an aborted wedding where the groom died en route.

Cat is an interesting narrator because she's not sane or sober. Talia hates her, because she once dated Faiz; but everyone in the group seems to have dated everyone else. Cat is more sensitive than the others to the ambience of the house, and to the presence there: the ghost whose kiss she feels. And she's the one thinking of ohaguro, teeth blackened with a solution of vinegar and iron filings, like the dead bride.

A novella with a slow start and a crescendo to horrific violence. Is Cat a wholly reliable narrator?

This was a Hallowe'en read which led me down various Wikipedia rabbit-holes: Khaw drops in various Japanese terms without explication, and though one can appreciate the story without understanding every nuance, my need to know distracted me from the story. I loved the prose, though, and the subversion of horror tropes was splendid.

2025/177: Starling House — Alix E Harrow

It’s something about the way the shadows fell in Eden, after Eleanor died. It’s the way everything soured: the river ran darker and the clouds hung lower; rich coal seams went dry and healthy children sickened; good luck went bad and sweet dreams spoiled. [p. 49]

When Opal's mother died, Opal lied her way into becoming her brother Jasper's legal guardian. In the decade since then, she's been working hard at awful jobs to try to raise enough money for him to go to a decent school. She's haunted by dreams of the car crash that killed her mother, and by half-forgotten fragments of the book she loved as a child: 'The Underland', by Eleanor Starling. And she's strangely drawn to Starling House, the Gothic mansion on the edge of town. 'Town', in this instance, is Eden, Kentucky: a down-on-its-luck, working-class town, blighted by the pollution from the local power plant, and suffering a statistically-unlikely number of accidental deaths.

When Opal encounters the reclusive occupant of Starling House, brooding Goth-styled Arthur Starling, he offers her the perfect job: cleaning and caring for the house. The money will pay for Jasper's education and Opal will get to explore the house that's fascinated her for years. But there's more to the house, and to Arthur, than meets the eye.

Opal is not a reliable narrator, but slowly her story -- and that of her family -- comes together. In parallel there's the story of Eleanor Starling and the house which bears her name. And the house ('a foolish old house with ambitions of sentience', according to Arthur) is wakening under Opal's ministrations, letting in the light. Like Hill House, it dreams, but its dreams are rather more pleasant. Opal isn't the only one who's interested in Starling House, though. Elizabeth Baine, who claims to be from Gravely Power (the company that runs the power plant) encourages Opal to spy and steal. She claims the house is an 'anomalous aperture'.

This is a story about stories: about the variations on a theme of Eleanor Starling, and about the Gravely family, and about dreams, and about homes. Every time Opal discovers another variation on the history of Eleanor and of Eden, her perceptions shift. As well as the obvious fairytale elements ('Beauty and the Beast', though who's who?) there are elements of Greek mythology: the rivers of the underworld, the prohibition on looking back. And there are simpler, uglier stories: 'Once there was a bad woman who ruined a good man. Once there was a witch who cursed a village. Once there was an odd, ugly girl whom everyone hated, because it was safe to hate her. [p. 275].

I am awed by Harrow's ability to make place into character. Starling House is as much a character in the novel as Baines, or Jasper, or Arthur himself. Eden, too, has an ugly kind of personhood to it. The prose is vivid and engaging, and though the focus is mostly on Opal and Arthur, there are some intriguing subplots.

Note that Amazon helpfully tells you that you've finished the ebook before you get to 'SEVEN YEARS LATER: A bonus short story set after the events of Starling House'.

2025/176: Everything I Need I Get From You — Kaitlyn Tiffany

...fans are connecting based on affinity and instinct and participating in hyperconnected networks that they built for one purpose but can use for many others. [p. 270]

The subtitle, 'How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It', is somewhat misleading. The Archive of Our Own -- built by (mostly female) fans, currently hosting over 16 million fanworks, proudly cost-free and independent since 2007 -- gets a single sentence. In contrast Tumblr (owned by a succession of big tech companies) is repeatedly lauded as an archive as well as a medium for sharing and communicating. 

The book's focus is very much on One Direction (1D) fandom, and the author's personal experience is part of the story. She explores how fandom can be a coping mechanism, a creative outlet, a way of life: and she doesn't shy away from some of the more troubling aspects of fandom, such as outspoken fannish certainty that (for instance) two members of One Direction were in a committed relationship. The prevalence of this notion affected the band, as well as the multitude of believers.

Tiffany discusses 'affirmational' vs 'transformational' fandom (terms she attributes to a Dreamwidth post from 2008): affirmational fandom celebrates the source for what it is, transformational fandom transforms it. She describes how fans use and abuse the internet and associated technology to connect and communicate, to celebrate, but also to protest and organise. The Black Lives Matter activism on various high-profile blogs is one instance of the latter: Tiffany also cites the ways in which fans use technology to circumvent local restrictions, for example spoofing IP addresses to upvote a band's singles for the Billboard charts. (Guess which band?)

My vague sense of disconnection with this book clarified on page 126, when the author says 'My mother was born in 1965'. Aha! Tiffany is very much part of a younger generation of fandom than mine: digital natives, people who grew up with the internet and with internet fan communities.

And, the excesses of 1D fandom aside (there is a thorough exegesis of the Harry Styles Vomit Shrine), I think that quite a lot of the themes discussed in this book also apply to old-school SF fandom. At the start of the book, Tiffany says 'Before most people were using the internet for anything, fans were using it for everything' [p.7]. Like many of my readers, my initial reasons for getting online included the urge to connect with other people who liked the same books. And in those long-ago days of Yahoo Groups (closed, apparently, in 2020) and that newfangled thing called LiveJournal, I discovered my tribe.

Hello, tribe.

2025/175: Love in the Time of Cholera — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

All that was needed was shrewd questioning, first of the patient and then of his mother, to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera. [loc. 1023]

Love in the Time of Cholera is the long and rambling love (or 'love') story of Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza. They fall for one another as teenagers, and have a romantic correspondence by letter and telegram -- but never a conversation. When Fermina sees Florentino again after an absence, she realises she feels nothing for him, and rejects him. Instead she marries Doctor Juvenal Urbino, a young doctor determined to eradicate cholera, and they make a life together.

Meanwhile Florentino embarks on a life of promiscuity. Six hundred and twenty two affairs, plus casual (and not always consensual) liaisons too numerous and nameless to count. His worst conquest is saved for last: his young ward América Vicuña, who's a teenager when Florentino is in his seventies. "...he won her confidence, he won her affection, he led her by the hand, with the gentle astuteness of a kind grandfather, toward his secret slaughterhouse". [loc. 4548]

Still, he has to pass the time somehow until Fermina's husband dies: then he will 'have' Fermina. (The thought that she won't 'have' him never seems to enter his daydreams.) Between affairs, he becomes President of the Caribbean Riverboat Company, which destroys the ecology of the local river system in its insatiable greed for firewood to stoke the boilers. A metaphor, you say?

Though this is not a long novel in terms of page count, it felt interminable. Fifty years of Fermina's marriage (culminating in Dr Urbino's death while trying to catch his pet parrot): fifty years of Florentino's sexual predation. It's a sweeping saga that explores love in its many forms, and how an individual's definition of and perception of love changes as they grow older. But it also 'explores' racism, promiscuity, paedophilia, murder and suicide, misogyny, illness... 

If we knew nothing of Florentino's story -- only that he reappears after Dr Urbino's death, and helps the widowed Fermina come to terms with her grief -- it would be a glorious romance. Sadly, I can't stop trying and failing to balance that romance with América Vicuña's fate.

I have never quite got around to reading Marquez, and I wonder if I would have appreciated this book more in the 1980s, when it was published. But surely even then I would have found the behaviour toxic? I will read One Hundred Years of Solitude at some point: I'm told there's more magical realism and less sleaze. Not yet, though. It'll wait.

“Love is the only thing that interests me,” he said.
“The trouble,” his uncle said to him, “is that without river navigation there is no love.” [loc. 2768]

2025/174: My Name Isn't Paul — Drew Huff

I don't want to be a sentient empathy-filament-abomination, so I only eat human food. [loc. 65]

Paul Cattaneo is dead: to begin with. He's been replaced by a Mirror Person who wears a 'skinsuit' replica of Paul Cattaneo's body. His friend 'John O'Malley' (formerly Noonie) is another Mirror Person. 'We are forty-something blue-collar human men. We aren't fuckin' bugs.' Unfortunately, (a) they are bugs and (b) they will soon go into heat, which involves fornicating with another Mirror Person, finding a human in whom to deposit the eggs, and watch the larvae feed. So, yes, fuckin' bugs.

This is the story of 'Paul', a.k.a. Uxon, who's consumed by self-loathing, mourning a friend's suicide, and trying to deny his own nature. It's about being a person as well as being an eldritch abomination: about Paul's relationship with Paul Cattaneo's wife (who spotted the change in the man who was pretending to be her husband, because he no longer beat her) and about how the other Mirror People -- refugees from another dimension, probably -- rally round to support him when he goes off the rails. It's about living in the 'wrong' body and rejecting the biology of that body.

It's a neat idea, but perhaps would have worked better as a novel than a novella. Some truly icky scenes (there are content warnings at the start of the book, hurrah!) and multiple viewpoints. For me, this was interesting rather than engaging, but your mileage may vary.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 18th November 2025.

2025/173: Slow Gods — Claire North

They like to make sure I am observed. When no one is looking, that's when I forget to be ... acceptable. Normal. Part of this world. [loc. 1116]

This is the first-person account of Mawukana Respected na-Vdnaze ('Maw'), who's born into poverty and debt in an uber-capitalist civilisation known as the Shine. When the Slow -- a huge, ancient construct that is something like a god -- sends a message warning of a future supernova that will destroy all life within a radius 100 light years, the Shine suppresses the warning. People are afraid, and furious: there is civil unrest: Maw is imprisoned, sentenced to what's effectively slave labour, and then forced to become a Pilot.

Pilots are necessary to interface with machine navigation in order for spaceships to travel through 'arc-space', where the darkness seems alive and aware, where people are haunted by hallucinations and the sense of presence. ('Various words are ascribed to the 'otherness', the unknowable 'thing' waiting in the dark. Common ones are: uncanny, malign, sinister, slippery, clawing, cruel, malevolent, mischievous...' [loc. 1686]) Most Pilots go mad or die after a few trips. Maw dies, it seems, on his first trip: but it isn't permanent. The darkness has somehow got inside him.

But he is useful. Other worlds are taking the supernova warning seriously: organising the mass evacuation of hundreds of worlds; reacting to the certain deaths of the billions who can't be saved; racing to preserve cultural treasures. Maw, the Pilot who's lasted longer than any other, is at the heart of it all.

I read Maw as being on the autism spectrum even before his first death: he talks about 'always doing something a little bit wrong', about not really having emotions but picking up on the feelings of others, about not getting the hang of smalltalk. Whatever happens to him in the dark changes a great deal about him, but at heart he is still an imperfect person -- or an imperfect copy of one.

This book has a plethora of pronouns: he and him, she and her -- but also, in the Shine, hé and hím, shé and hér, for individuals who exemplify the current concept of 'man' or 'woman' (the Shine does not accept other gender identities); qe and qim for AI individuals; xe and xer, te and ter, and more. There's an amusing interlude about pronouns and about how different cultures assign them differently and for differing periods. "So... the important thing is your genitals?" blurts one character when this is explained.

There are, to be fair, a lot of infodumps, signposted as Interludes: this is a huge and cosmopolitan universe, with many civilisations and many inhabited planets. Most of the non-AI characters are more or less humanoid, but there are aquatic and avian sentient species too. There are also sentient, organic, plant-based spaceships, like the splendid Pride of Emni. The universe-building is a delight: each culture, each society, distinct and idiosyncratic. I was reminded, at times, of Iain M. Banks' Culture: at other times, of Ursula Le Guin's gift for depicting a society.

I loved Slow Gods, even through the misery and cruelty of the first few chapters. I like Maw as a character, though I can see why he needs constant supervision so as not to become 'dysregulated'. I like his quan (AI) companions, especially Rencki, and his gentle let's-not-call-it-love affair with a curator (whose gender is never specified, because irrelevant). I like that Maw gardens, and that he learns to accept himself. I love Claire North's writing: every new project of hers is a surprise, with a different flavour and a different focus. (See Ithaca and the rest of the 'Songs of Penelope' trilogy; The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Touch, The Sudden Appearance of Hope.) And I am quietly joyful that, amid the genocide and murder, the slavery and war, this is a novel about life as a miracle and love as its guiding principle.

I don't know how you're meant to be this small in a universe this big, this insignificant in a galaxy where every decision matters, where every life is precious. I don't know how to feel so huge and so loud inside, and so small and quiet before the dark. [loc. 4061]

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 18th November 2025.

2025/170-172: Whiskeyjack, Blackcurrant Fool, Love-in-a-Mist — Victoria Goddard

Perhaps it was not the blind malignancy of fate making my life so complicated. Perhaps it was me. [Whiskeyjack, loc. 4159]

Rereads to sustain me through a bad cold and the aftermath of my birthday celebrations: I can think of few better remedies.

Whiskeyjack (original review here) introduces layers of complication, curses, several people who are not who they say they are, and Mr Dart's magic becoming more obvious to those around him. After reading Olive and the Dragon, Jemis' mother's letter has new poignancy.

Blackcurrant Fool (original review here) is the one where they all go to Tara: there are highwaymen, kittens, dens of iniquity, and Jemis' toxic ex-girlfriend. Also a devastating denouement, and some healthy post-colonialism. In some respects this is my least favourite of the novels, though it can't be because of the setting...

Love-in-a-Mist (original review here) is a country-house murder mystery, with a unicorn, the revelation of the Hunter in Green's identity, coded messages in the personal ads, and a missing heiress. I think this might be my favourite so far.

Even just rereading my old reviews is making me want to plunge on to the currently-final novel, and the novellas... but I will save those for especially awful days between now and Bubble and Squeak.

2025/169: Careless People — Sarah Wynn-Williams

...the board gets into a conversation about what other companies or industries have navigated similar challenges, where they have to change a narrative that says that they’re a danger to society, extracting large profits, pushing all the negative externalities onto society and not giving back. ... Elliot finally says out loud the one I think everyone’s already thinking about (but not saying): tobacco. That shuts down the conversation. [loc. 3242]

The subtitle is 'A Story of Where I Used to Work', but it's being sold under the strapline 'The explosive memoir that Meta doesn't want you to read' -- with good reason, as this article indicates: "Meta has served a gagging order on Sarah and is attempting to fine her $50,000 for every breach of that order.". I quit Facebook a while back (though I did miss it in the first year of the pandemic, when so much of everyone's social life was online) but if I hadn't, I would have deleted my account well before I'd finished reading this book.

Wynn-Williams survived a shark attack when she was a teenager: there's probably a metaphor about working for Facebook here, but instead it made her want to do something with her life, to make a difference. After working for the New Zealand government's diplomatic service, she identified Facebook as a powerful political force, pitched a global policy role, and was hired. Six years later, she was fired for toxicity and poor performance. Or so say Facebook. The book says something rather different, about a company with a toxic culture, a lack of accountability and a determination to grow at any cost.

I engaged with Careless People on two levels: firstly, as someone who's worked in an environment where unreasonable demands were a daily occurence; secondly, as someone who had suspected Facebook of unethical behaviour, but hadn't realised its extent. I recognise that desire to change things from the inside, the desperate hope that things will improve. I recognise a culture where the employee's personal life is regarded as something less important than work. One horrific passage about the birth of the author's first child:

Dr. Veca reaches over and gently closes my laptop. She says, “It’s a very special thing to give birth to your first child. I don’t think you should be working through it. Sheryl will understand.”
“She won’t,” I say. “Please let me push Send.” [loc. 1457]

To make it worse, 'Sheryl' is COO Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, which encourages women to assert themselves at home and at work -- though apparently not to any extent that might inconvenience Sandberg personally. Sandberg strikes me as a hellish boss, and Wynn-William's other superiors aren't much better. After the author's second pregnancy, there's a surreally negative performance review on her return from maternity leave, where she's told that colleagues found her 'challenging to engage with': “I mean, you know, I was in hospital, in a coma and near death, but I accept that this did make it hard to engage with me at times.” [loc. 3540].

It may sound as though I care more about the author's personal experiences than about the incredible damage Facebook has done to global culture and politics. Yes and no. I found Wynn-Williams' narrative easy to relate to, though magnitudes worse than anything I have experienced myself. And Facebook's crimes have been documented extensively: supporting the junta in Myanmar (while having one (1) employee -- actually a contractor in Ireland -- who was fluent in Burmese); funding and supporting Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election; supporting the Leave vote in the Brexit referendum; providing data allowing cosmetics advertisers to target girls between 13 and 17 who've posted and then deleted a selfie; misleading Congress about the extent of its (illegal) operations in China; supporting right-wing governments, viewed as less likely to impose restrictions on Facebook's operations in their countries...

Careless People is a gripping read about a company whose actions affect billions of people. It provides an insider's view of Mark Zuckerberg and his singleminded (blinkered?) drive to make his company more and more powerful. That it's also an engaging and often humorous account of one woman's loss of faith in her employer is a bonus. (And yes, she could have left: there's only so long you can keep telling yourself that you have more power to change things from the inside. But given her medical issues and the cost of US healthcare, her desire to keep her health insurance is relateable.) I suspect Wynn-Williams will not be called for interview at any tech company any time soon: but I look forward to the biopic.

...working on policy at Facebook was way less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and way more like watching a bunch of fourteen-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of money... [loc. 131]

2025/168: Stargazy Pie — Victoria Goddard

“—- This is all very civilized and delightful,” Mrs. Etaris burst in, rushing back at us like a dark blue sheepdog herding her flock, “but I’m afraid we really should be going inside if we don’t want our friends and neighbours to be sacrificed to the Dark Kings." [p. 345]

First in the Greenwing and Dart series: reread, to remind myself just how miserable, unwell and generally detached Jemis was when he first returned to Ragnor Bella (the dullest town in Northwest Oriole) after the debacle of his final term at Morrowlea. Original review here... 

This time around I appreciate Mrs Etaris much more (and wonder whatever became of her previous assistant, 'a quite lovely young man'). I'm also fascinated by the offhand mentions of life before the Fall. ('Whistle a few notes and anyone could call light into a dark room, mage or no, before the Empire fell' (p. 144)).

Anyway! A fish pie (and the Honourable Rag eating herring eyes); aphrodisiacs and a Decadent dinner party; the mysterious Miss 'Redshank'; Jemis as apprentice bookseller; and all manner of delicious references to life in Ragnor Bella.

I may now need to read another one...

2025/167: Book of Cats — Ursula Le Guin

He sent his life forth as the crippled tree
puts forth white flowers in April every year
upon the dying branch. He knew the way.[loc. 93]

A birthday gift from a dear friend: it comprises Le Guin's 1982 'The Art of Bunditsu' (a “tabbist” meditation on the arranging of cats, with Le Guin's sketches of her cat Lorenzo); two sets of poems, some of which brought tears to my eyes as they dealt with the deaths of beloved cats; and various cat-letters, anecdotes and blog posts. Even in these small pieces her prose is perfect and precise: I share her love of cats and her preference for treating them as individuals. Beautiful.

2025/166: Death of the Author — Nnedi Okorafor

The rusted robots in the story were a metaphor for wisdom, patina, acceptance, embracing that which was you, scars, pain, malfunctions, needed replacements, mistakes. What you were given. The finite. Rusted robots did not die in the way that humans did, but they celebrated mortality. [loc. 989]

Nigerian-American Zelu, at the start of the novel, is thirty two years old, paraplegic after falling out of a tree twenty years ago, a creative writing tutor, a novelist, and single At her sister's destination wedding, the last three of these change: she loses her job, her latest litfic novel is rejected, and she hooks up with Msizi. And, sitting on the beach in tears, smoking weed, she decides to write a novel about 'a world that she’d like to play in when things got to be too much, but which didn’t exist yet'. This novel -- extracts from which are intercut with the Zelu-focussed narrative -- is called Rusted Robots: it's a story of AIs ('NoBodies') and humanoid robots ('Humes') in Nigeria after the extinction of humanity, and it is wildly successful.

Not that her family believe her when she tells them she's scored a million-dollar book deal. Instead, they accuse her of being high (accurate, but not the point). Though they've protected and supported her since her accident, they also harbour very traditional Nigerian attitudes to disability: 'more interested in who was to blame than they were in how she lived her life.' They infantilise her, patronise her, try to prevent her from making choices about her own body. It's hardly surprising that Zelu is angry with everyone -- family, fans, random strangers -- though her anger does sometimes make her difficult to like.

This is a novel about family and culture, storytelling and identity, technology and how we use it. There's plenty about the publishing industry and the film industry: Zelu is horrified by and furious at the movie's Americanisation (Ankara and Ijele, her protagonists, become Yankee and Dot) and thoroughly fed up of all the fans clamouring for the sequel. There's also a strong theme of how humans use technology, and whether a 'mechanism' can truly create. And it's a novel about disability and how it shapes self-image, as well as how others behave. Having read Okorafor's account of her own disability (Broken Places and Outer Spaces) it was interesting to see how she fictionalised aspects of her experience.

Death of the Author is suffused with Nigerian, and Nigamerican, culture (including the nightmarish masquerades). Okorafor doesn't rose-tint Zelu's visit to Nigeria, which is quite a different sort of nightmare. It's clear that Zelu's success gives her a lot of options that others, especially of her background, don't have: and she is refreshingly selfish about her ability to make her own choices.

A slow novel, and one which, rather than having a dramatic denouement, simply ... ends. I really liked the different character voices -- there are excerpts from interviews with Zelu's family members, as well as from Rusted Robots -- though I wasn't wholly convinced that Zelu's novel would be that successful. (But who understands popular taste, eh?) I'm looking forward to discussing this for book club: there's a lot to think about here.

I have come to understand that author, art, and audience all adore one another. They create a tissue, a web, a network. No death is required for this form of life. [loc. 6522]

2025/165: Bee Sting Cake — Victoria Goddard

The heart of culture is taking the time to do the unnecessary in the most picturesque manner possible. [p. 204]

Reread, after reading Olive and the Dragon... my original review from the 2023 Nine Worlds rabbithole is here. This is a delightful novel with mystical bees, a baking competition, and a dragon (which may or may not be the same dragon met by Jemis Greenwing's mother Olive). There is also an inheritance, an Imperial Duke, and Jemis beginning to relax.

After this I obviously needed to reread the first in the series, Stargazy Pie... especially as there is a new Greenwing and Dart novel, Bubble and Squeak, coming in the next few months! (Also, these cosy fantasy mysteries are perfect for autumn... though they always make me want to eat cake.)

2025/164: The Atlas Complex — Olivie Blake

The point is there are no villains in this story, or maybe there are no heroes. [p. 11]

Concluding the trilogy which began with The Atlas Six (which I liked a lot) and continued with The Atlas Paradox (which I liked less). Sadly the trend has continued. Having tried and failed to read The Atlas Complex last year, I have screwed my courage to the sticking point (= reread the first two novels) and got to the end.

Lots happens, including a great deal of philosophising, some daring escapes, a plethora of melodrama and some entertaining interpersonal friction. Some people have happy endings. Some people get together romantically and / or sexually. Some people have changed dramatically (though not necessarily credibly) since the first book. Some people die -- or perhaps they don't. If a death happens off-page is it real? If a death happens on-page is it real? 

There is an ending. And then another. The Atlas Complex feels as though it can't commit: as though it needed at least one more edit to chip away the loops and possibilities and reveal something definite and climactic.

NB: 'Rhodesian', used here to mean 'like Libby Rhodes', is a word that will jar anyone old enough to remember the previous name of Zimbabwe.

I wish this had been the finale that the first novel promised. But I will keep reading Olivie Blake's work, because when it's good it's fabulous.

"How many god complexes does it take to change a lightbulb?”
“Six. Five to agree on one to die,” said Tristan. [p. 251]

2025/163: The God of the Woods — Liz Moore

“But also,” said Barbara, “if he hadn’t disappeared.” She did not finish the sentence.
“Then what?” said Tracy.
“Then I wouldn’t have been born,” said Barbara. “That would have been better, I think.” [loc. 4153]

Told from multiple viewpoints in two timelines, this is the story of the Van Laar family and their children: Bear, who goes missing aged eight in 1961, and Barbara, who goes missing aged thirteen in 1975. Are the disappearances linked? Were the children abducted? Murdered? Did they run away? One could make a good case for the latter: the family, though extremely wealthy (they own the woods, and the neighbouring campsite from which Barbara vanishes) is riddled with secrets and dysfunction. Barbara has been 'acting up', using makeup and painting a wild mural on her bedroom wall: her mother Alice is addicted to Valium and alcohol, and still doesn't quite believe that her son Bear is dead. Peter, father to Barbara and Bear, has high standards and little time for his wife.

This is a complex thriller, with themes of misogyny, class and scapegoating. I liked female cop Judyta (who's very much belittled because of being a woman, but who is key to solving the mystery) and TJ, who runs the summer camp and is distinctly queer-coded. Louise, the counselor who first notices Barbara's absence, is a working-class girl with a rich fiance and a history of abuse. Tracy, who's 12, is befriended by Barbara and asked to keep her secrets... Each of these women, as well as Alice, and Maryanne Stoddard whose husband died of a heart attack during the search for Bear and was subsequently blamed for the boy's disappearance, has to deal with sexism, powerlessness and injustice.

It's also a very interesting comparison of parenting values: between the 1960s and the 1970s, as well as between working class and upper class families. (There's a really chilling line in Alice's narrative about 'part of a mother’s duty was to be her daughter’s first, best critic'. This resonates...)

Ultimately, while I was caught up in the story and its complex relationships, I didn't find the resolution wholly satisfactory. Barbara's conclusion just wasn't credible, even for 1975. But the ways in which blame is apportioned and withheld, the ways in which gossip and bias affect everyone in the story, were very well done: and the multitude of narrators, in two different timeframes and out of sequence, maintained their individual voices and never became confusing.

I'm still thinking of the title, The God of the Woods, which refers to Pan and thus to panic. Though there are scenes of panic, it's not a defining characteristic of the novel. But a lot of people do lose their way, mostly metaphorically: and not all of them find the right path again.