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XXXVII: Iain M. Banks, The Algebraist (2004)
I've been reading this off (mostly) and on since mid-June - it's a non-Culture sf novel, but a space opera scale of a (for example) post Cassini Division nature. The human civilisation is scattered across the galaxies with hyperspace portals between planetary systems. When a particular portal is destroyed, the locals face being isolated from the rest of their species save for by s-l-o-w sublight travel. Protagonist Taak Seer hears of something that might save the situation, and sets off on a quest to find it. Can you say, "MacGuffin"?
Exuberant and ideas tossed around with abandon - and a variant on the Nick Bostrum simulation theorem suggesting all might be virtual after all.
XXXVIII: Ian Rankin,The Hanging Garden (1998)
I shouldn't've bought this (in Tynemouth) on the grounds I have a copy, but it was only a quid (which also netted me a copy of D* D* V*nc* C*d*, bought on the good faith corollary of a special instance of thetwo one pound rule) and I'd forgotten I'd got it.
As Rebus is assigned the job of assessing whether an old man is a Nazi war criminal, his daughter is injured in a hit and run accident. Rebus is not clear whether this is delayed revenge by jailed gangster Big Ger or a warning shot from an upcoming Glaswegian gangster. Or it might connect to an illegal immigrant prostitute he'd placed with her. Or with her boyfriend's investigative journalism. As a potential turf war breaks out, Rebus has to work out which side is using him and face demands from both sides of the criminals.
This is the most satisfying of the Rebus novels for a while - as things both dovetail together and don't - sometimes shit happens and it's not always a conspiracy. I guess for the sake of fiction we want that elegant structure, but in real life it isn't one crime rather than two.
In a coincidence territory, my Edinburgh B and B was just down the road from where Rebus's daughter was knocked down.
XXXIX: Allan Guthrie, Two-Way Split (2004)
First spotted in Fopp, then found in a charity shop, a debut from a Scottish crime writer first published in the US. When a part-time debt collector stumbles upon a hold up, his mother is accidentally killed - and he seeks revenge with the help of a private eye.
A complex narrative full of comedy and violence - think Christopher Brookmyre writes Ealing comedy - which is an interesting debut. Curiously it has the flavour of some of the Australian crime I've read - by Gary Disher, say. I wonder if it's imitative of some of the early seventies hard boiled of, say, Richard Stark/Donald E. Westlake, which gave us Payback/Point Blank. I will look out for more.
XL: Alan Garner, Thursbitch (2003)
I'm not quite reading him backwards - I've read the Elidor novels (and The Owl Service). But I suspect I should read Strandloper next before tackling Red Shift (although I've The Stone Book).
On the way back from Worldcon,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brisingamen took peake and myself on a detour to see a monument engraved HERE JOHN TURNER WAS CAST AWAY IN A HEAVY SNOW STORM IN THE NIGHT IN OR ABOUT THE YEAR 1755. On the reverse is THE PRINT OF A WOMANS SHOE WAS FOUND BY HIS SIDE IN THE SNOW WERE sic HE LAY DEAD H (sic). There's a curious mix of the general (OR ABOUT) and the specific here, and the novel is an imagined narrative of John Turner, a jagger or itinerant trader, as well as a contemporary narrative of two people walking through the landscape, a man and a woman. It emerges that Sal is slowly losing her faculties - she has more long term than short term memory, and it seems likely that this is her final trip. The two stories alternate and finally intertwine, and resonate. It's a short book, but one I need to reread, particularly with the recovered memory of the Jenkin Chapel we also passed - and which was built by the Turner family. Haunting.
I've been reading this off (mostly) and on since mid-June - it's a non-Culture sf novel, but a space opera scale of a (for example) post Cassini Division nature. The human civilisation is scattered across the galaxies with hyperspace portals between planetary systems. When a particular portal is destroyed, the locals face being isolated from the rest of their species save for by s-l-o-w sublight travel. Protagonist Taak Seer hears of something that might save the situation, and sets off on a quest to find it. Can you say, "MacGuffin"?
Exuberant and ideas tossed around with abandon - and a variant on the Nick Bostrum simulation theorem suggesting all might be virtual after all.
XXXVIII: Ian Rankin,The Hanging Garden (1998)
I shouldn't've bought this (in Tynemouth) on the grounds I have a copy, but it was only a quid (which also netted me a copy of D* D* V*nc* C*d*, bought on the good faith corollary of a special instance of the
As Rebus is assigned the job of assessing whether an old man is a Nazi war criminal, his daughter is injured in a hit and run accident. Rebus is not clear whether this is delayed revenge by jailed gangster Big Ger or a warning shot from an upcoming Glaswegian gangster. Or it might connect to an illegal immigrant prostitute he'd placed with her. Or with her boyfriend's investigative journalism. As a potential turf war breaks out, Rebus has to work out which side is using him and face demands from both sides of the criminals.
This is the most satisfying of the Rebus novels for a while - as things both dovetail together and don't - sometimes shit happens and it's not always a conspiracy. I guess for the sake of fiction we want that elegant structure, but in real life it isn't one crime rather than two.
In a coincidence territory, my Edinburgh B and B was just down the road from where Rebus's daughter was knocked down.
XXXIX: Allan Guthrie, Two-Way Split (2004)
First spotted in Fopp, then found in a charity shop, a debut from a Scottish crime writer first published in the US. When a part-time debt collector stumbles upon a hold up, his mother is accidentally killed - and he seeks revenge with the help of a private eye.
A complex narrative full of comedy and violence - think Christopher Brookmyre writes Ealing comedy - which is an interesting debut. Curiously it has the flavour of some of the Australian crime I've read - by Gary Disher, say. I wonder if it's imitative of some of the early seventies hard boiled of, say, Richard Stark/Donald E. Westlake, which gave us Payback/Point Blank. I will look out for more.
XL: Alan Garner, Thursbitch (2003)
I'm not quite reading him backwards - I've read the Elidor novels (and The Owl Service). But I suspect I should read Strandloper next before tackling Red Shift (although I've The Stone Book).
On the way back from Worldcon,
brisingamen took peake and myself on a detour to see a monument engraved HERE JOHN TURNER WAS CAST AWAY IN A HEAVY SNOW STORM IN THE NIGHT IN OR ABOUT THE YEAR 1755. On the reverse is THE PRINT OF A WOMANS SHOE WAS FOUND BY HIS SIDE IN THE SNOW WERE sic HE LAY DEAD H (sic). There's a curious mix of the general (OR ABOUT) and the specific here, and the novel is an imagined narrative of John Turner, a jagger or itinerant trader, as well as a contemporary narrative of two people walking through the landscape, a man and a woman. It emerges that Sal is slowly losing her faculties - she has more long term than short term memory, and it seems likely that this is her final trip. The two stories alternate and finally intertwine, and resonate. It's a short book, but one I need to reread, particularly with the recovered memory of the Jenkin Chapel we also passed - and which was built by the Turner family. Haunting.
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