Michael J. Ritchie's Blog, page 53
April 10, 2017
“Whispers Underground” by Ben Aaronovitch (2012)
[image error] “Back in the summer I’d made the mistake of telling my mum what I did for a living.”
Any review of a book that’s in the middle of an on-going series requires a certain amount of preamble, although I’m far too lazy to provide a fresh synopsis of what you’ve missed so far, so either duck out of this review now until you’ve read the series, or if you’re happy to get potential spoilers or would like a brief rundown on what came before this, then click for reviews of the first two books, Rivers of...
April 7, 2017
“A Planet For Rent” by Yoss (2001)
[image error] “Step on up, ladies and gents, right this way!”
As we sit and watch the world slide further and further into an irreparable state of being (the only thing 2017 has on 2016 so far is the lack of deaths of icons, but possibly only because there aren’t any left), perhaps we’re all just wondering if something is going to come along and save us. The premise of Yoss’s science fiction novel is that Earth was on the brink of ecological and economic collapse, and the watching aliens (“xenoids”) who ha...
April 2, 2017
“King Crow” by Michael Stewart (2011)
‘king hell…
“When I look at people, I wonder what sort of birds they are.”
It’s been a long time since I found myself close to not bothering to finish a book, so this was very overdue. I haven’t not finished a book in years, and this one was only small, but after getting only 70 pages in over three days (given I read the 600+ pages of Dead Like You in the same time), I seriously thought about not finishing. But, then today happened, the weather was nice and I had a hangover to fight off, so I...
March 29, 2017
“Dead Like You” by Peter James (2010)
Roy Grace is on the hunt of a monster…
“We all make mistakes, all of the time.”
This is another one of those reviews that focuses on a book that’s part of a series. Unfortunately, unlike Poirot which can be read in any order, Peter James’ Roy Grace novels form a coherent narrative so some of what I say may not make sense if you haven’t read the first five novels in the series, although this one is actually a bit less about the ongoing plot.
All caught up? Good, let’s carry on.
In 1997, a seri...
March 26, 2017
“Vox” by Nicholson Baker (1992)
[image error] “What are you wearing?”
I last stumbled into a Nicholson Baker novel two years ago, and admired The Mezzanine for its ability to hold together a clever and engaging narrative, despite the entire story taking place on one escalator journey. I don’t know if Baker picks small moments for all his stories, but he has done it again here. This time, we’re spending the entire novel in one phone call.
Two strangers are among the people who have called a sex chat line and, liking the sound of one anoth...
March 25, 2017
“Problem At Pollensa Bay” by Agatha Christie (1935)
[image error] “The steamer from Barcelona to Majorca landed Mr Parker Pyne at Palma in the early hours of the morning – and straightaway he met with disillusionment.”
I’ve been commuting via train this week which has certainly been a novel and tiring experience. Engaged in Catch-22 for the previous week, I finished and decided I needed something a bit less dense that was easier to read in the mornings when surrounded by other passengers. When in doubt, it’s always best to turn to Agatha Christie.
A collect...
March 22, 2017
“Catch-22” by Joseph Heller (1961)
What’s the catch?
“It was love at first sight.”
In my ongoing mission to see if reading the classics makes me a better person, I come roaring down the runway to meet Catch-22, said to be, along with To Kill A Mockingbird, one of the greatest American novels of the last century. Despite knowing it spawned a phrase from its title and that it featured army pilots, much else of the detail had escaped me.
Captain Yossarian is a pilot assigned to the Mediterranean island of Pianosa. He’s furious be...
March 15, 2017
“The Radleys” by Matt Haig (2010)
Every family has secrets.
“It is a quiet place, especially at night.”
Vampires have a long and fascinating history, from the tales of blood-sucking demons of ancient Persia, via Bram Stoker’s famous addition to the canon Dracula, up to sparkly immortal teenagers of Twilight. It’s always fun to see these kinds of monsters turn up where you least expect them too, and so suburban England is perhaps the last place you’d think there might be any vampires. Oh, how wrong you’d be…
Peter and Helen Ra...
March 11, 2017
“Lagoon” by Nnedi Okorafor (2014)
[image error] “She slices through the water, imagining herself as a deadly beam of black light.”
It’s always seemed odd to me, when I choose to not play along with the suspension of disbelief that films require of us, that whenever an alien invasion occurs on Earth, it seems to centre around New York or London, as if the aliens seem to know that those places are important somehow. When you think how big the planet is about how there are great swathes of land in, say, Siberia or Patagonia that are entirely...
March 5, 2017
“Five Rivers Met On A Wooded Plain” by Barney Norris (2016)
[image error] “Long before the steep trickle of the Channel widened to make an island of England, before the first settlers arrived and started claiming the land around, laying down tree trunks to make pathways through marshes from ridgeway to mountain to hill, something unusual happened in the green south of Wiltshire.”
Every so often you stumble across a book that feels particularly special. All the truths of the world are hidden in the lies of novels, and Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain has done somet...
