Quoth the Scotsman: Charles Yu on Memes

A couple of caveats to bear in mind before we start. Unless otherwise indicated, none of the quotes quoted in the following article are representative of the beliefs of the person in question quoted nor those the person quoting the person in question. Additionally, any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental... or so I'm saying.

In short, Quoth the Scotsman is just a space here on TSS for me to post neat quotes as and when I come across them. Simple. As. That.

***

 

How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe came out to much ado a few months ago, and not for nothing. I've finally gotten to it - take that, timeliness! - and however much of Yu's novel I fear has gone cleanly over my head, it's been a delight. Funny, sad and smart; smart as a new school uniform (and just as totty, at that).

The following quote resonated with me because it's both telling of Yu's frenetic prose style and because I think it speaks to a couple of things that have come up of late as regards the blogosphere; come to that, I'm of the mind that you can read this brief excerpt as an indictment of the internet entire.

Over to you, Yu:

From How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

Published in October by Corvus

"My thoughts, normally bunched together, wrapped in guaze, insistent, urgent, patient, one moment to the next, living in what I now realize is, in essence, a constate state of emergency (as if my evolutionary instincts of fight or flight have gone haywire, leading me to spend each morning, noon, and evening in a low-grade but absolutely never-ceasing muted form of panic), those rushed and ragged thoughts are now falling away, one by one, revealing themselves for what they are: the same thought over and over again. And once revealed for what they are, these hollow thoughts, these impostors, non-thoughts masquerading as thoughts, memes, viruses, signals fired off, white noise generated by my brain, they are gone.

"And it is quiet. Quiet in a way I have never experienced before. As if quiet were a substance, and it were thick, as if that substance were now in my head, filling it like a viscous fluid..." (p.122)

Opinionated Speculations: On The Polity of Politics

So this thing came up on Twitter last weekend. A few particularly droll twitterers twittered that they'd twittered about it before, so I'll make no claims as to - God forbid - original thought, or even framing the argument in a way it hasn't been presented before. Make no mistake: I'm sure other people have said these very things, and perhaps in this very way!

So as I was saying, this thing came up on Twitter the other day. Except it didn't really come up on Twitter at all; I guess that was just where I thought out loud about it. It came up here, on Mark Charan Newton's blog - as, I might add, thoughtful and interesting things are often wont to. Mark begins with a disclaimer, saying "Neal [Asher] has been a science fiction writer for several years, and the quality of his books are not in dispute here," and that seems to me symptomatic of the thing that bothers me most about the whole discussion: the fear of stepping on a toe, of infringing on another's territory: of the mincing of words in a space that should be all about words, shouldn't it?

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Mark's post is a systematic rebuttal of a blog post written by Neal Asher - author of (among many other novels) The Technician, one of Amazon UK's top ten bestselling SF&F books throughout 2010. Asher, as Mark asserted, "wishes to discredit Global Warming." And you know, it really seems he does. His argument is here, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to Mark for caring to demonstrate its inadequacies; I for one applaud the fellow.

Asher is an influential gentleman, after all. The Technician is sandwiched between China Mieville's Kraken and The Passage by Justin Cronin in the aforementioned end-of-year list (published somewhat sickeningly before November's even upon us - though I suppose the advent calendars are out, and there's no sense fighting a losing battle). Those are some stonking good books - full reviews of each here and here - not to speak of bestselling, and for a bit there I was thinking perhaps I'd give Asher's latest a shot before the year's out. I've got a copy and The Technician's success teased full-blown curiosity from my mild intrigue... why not?

Why not indeed. Because it seems Neal Asher's politics - at least in terms of his opinion as regards climate change, which he gives every impression of believing to be left-wing bullshit - bother me. Of course, the politics, ideologies and prejudices of plenty of my friends and even (dare I say particularly) my family members bother me too. I'm not suddenly going to drop a mate or a mother because they think a thing I don't; a lonely life that would be...

But.

It's one thing to have an opinion. It's another to have an opinion, particularly as regards a hot-button issue like global warming, that you can back up. It's still another thing to perpetuate misinformation as if it were the truth because it fits with your perspective and to do so from a position of considerable influence.

Neal Asher can believe I and the others who share my beliefs a gaggle of liberal twits. That's fine. That wouldn't dissuade me from reading The Technician. But to assert that we're such because he's heard a bit of knock-off knowledge in the pub one night and deemed it absolute truth; to then use his status as a bestselling author in this climate of exponentially more intimate interaction between reader and writer to preach a bunch of potentially very harmful claptrap; and to do so without fact-checking his inherently controversial assertions even in the least... that does the trick, you know?

And I'm forthright enough to say so. Well blow me down.

You hear a lot of talk about objectivity, about consummate professionalism in what is - let's face it - an amateur arena, and I'm sorry, but I simply don't buy into it. Objectivity, as I tend to think I've said before, is a lovely idea, but be you a blogger, an author, a paid critic or an awards judge, who you are plays some part in what you read and do and say and think, what you like and dislike. I wouldn't have it any other way, for myself. When I read a person's thoughts and opinions, I'm buying into that person as much as the thing they're thinking and opining about. And I don't believe I'm alone in that. Particularly in this climate, where you can tweet Brandon Sanderson out of nowhere and HE GIVES YOU THE TIME OF DAY, by God.

I said it on Twitter, I'll say it again: I have to wonder, would I have given Tome of the Undergates a chance if it hadn't been for Sam Sykes seeming such an upstanding fellow on Twitter? Well, maybe. Probably, even; it was right up my street. But the fact that he said a few nice things, or funny things, the fact that from what I could see of him - as perceived through the filter of social media - he seemed a clever guy and a right nice bloke at that made me that much more amenable to cracking the covers of his (needless to say very fine) first novel.

Why, then, does it seem so very unacceptable to take into account the more negative stuff that Twitter and its ilk have opened the door to inasmuch as one absorbs the good? Can those authors employing social networking primarily to publicise and promote really have it both ways? Or is it that because we're so near to reaching out and touching these people who'd have been as good as Gods a decade ago, we're afraid to say a thing that might rub a dude whose books we respect the wrong way?

Don't misunderstand me. The Technician might be a brilliant book. I didn't think it was likely to be when my review copy came through the door a couple months ago - but I'm wrong, let's face it, rather a lot. It sure sounded like a lark. At this point, though, having read Neal Asher wax on about his own inconvenient truth - crucially in the face of the facts (such as they are) - makes me that much less likely to give his bestselling novel more than the time of day.

It could still happen.

If I'm honest, though, it probably won't. Not now.

Tell me: does that make me judgmental? Do I need, mayhap, to be reminded that in the end, the books are all that matters? Perhaps they were a decade ago, but can one really sustain such an isolationist perspective in this climate?

Book Review: Dreadnought by Cherie Priest

Buy this book from

Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com /

IndieBound / The Book Depository

Nurse Mercy Lynch is elbows deep in bloody laundry at a war hospital in Richmond, Virginia, when Clara Barton comes bearing bad news: Mercy's husband has died in a POW camp. On top of that, a telegram from the west coast declares that her estranged father is gravely injured, and he wishes to see her. Mercy sets out toward the Mississippi River. Once there, she'll catch a train over the Rockies and - if the telegram can be believed - be greeted in Washington Territory by the sheriff, who will take her to see her father in Seattle. Reaching the Mississippi is a harrowing adventure by dirigible and rail through war-torn border states.

When Mercy finally arrives in St. Louis, the only Tacoma-bound train is pulled by a terrifying Union-operated steam engine called the Dreadnought. Reluctantly, Mercy buys a ticket and climbs aboard. What ought to be a quiet trip turns deadly when the train is beset by bushwhackers, then vigorously attacked by a band of Rebel soldiers. The train is moving away from battle lines into the vast, unincorporated west, so Mercy can't imagine why they're so interested. Perhaps the mysterious cargo secreted in the second and last train cars has something to do with it? Mercy is just a frustrated nurse who wants to see her father before he dies. But she'll have to survive both Union intrigue and Confederate opposition if she wants to make it off the Dreadnought alive.

***

You know, I didn't love Boneshaker.

Boneshaker, remember? Book one of The Clockwork Century series by Cherie Priest... nominated for a Hugo, one of genre fiction's most prestigious awards - and for best novel no less. You might know it as Steampunk in Seattle. Ringing any bells yet?

Of course it does - forgive my dubious attempt at humour. All I mean to say is: as fine a time as I had with it then, a year on from Boneshaker, I'm sure finding it tough to remember. As a matter of fact, I thought it sort of forgettable then, too, particularly after all the early word I'd heard praising it to the nines. Rather than the "hollering, stamping, crackling thing" Warren Ellis and an assortment of other names I respect indicated, I found it a flat and largely ill-considered thing only made worthwhile by an admittedly rollicking last act.

Dreadnought touches down near-enough a year to the day of Boneshaker's release, and it's evident from the outset that not a lot has changed. Forgive me for stating the bleeding obvious, but if Boneshaker wasn't for you, nor will this be - though I should say, it's at least the equal of that narrative. Take that as you may. Priest conjures up another Strong Female Character: this iteration's Briar Wilkes is Vinita 'Mercy' Lynch, a nurse who gives up the grind to shed her blood, sweat and tears on a missing man. In Dreadnought, that's Mercy's absent biological father, Jeremiah Swakhammer, who after his heroism in Boneshaker seems to be on the way out. Lately bereft of her soldier husband, news of whose death in the civil war which rages across the heartlands of The Clockwork Century's alt-America has only just reached her, Mercy means to reconnect with her daddy while she still can - or perhaps she simply needs direction. As she admits "to the small piles of money, and the new stockings and gloves and toiletries laid out across the bed, 'I guess now that Phillip's gone, I just don't have anywhere to go. Or, at least,' she amended the sentiment with a catch in her throat, 'I don't have anywhere I've gotta be.'" (p.120)

After rather a lot of faffing, Mercy takes passage to the very other end of the continental United States on a behemoth of a train: massively armoured, heavily defended and carrying a need-to-know cargo, time is very much of the essence, and Dreadnought is her only hope of getting to her daddy while the getting's good.

The ride's a bumpy one in more ways than one. Early readers of Priest's latest have brought to light certain issues with the time it takes Mercy to hitch from Richmond to Tacoma. Let me say this: I could care less. Improbable distances are travelled - fine. In the interests of pacing, the disparity is hardly a show-stopper. But surely there are more noteworthy incidents for Priest to recount along the road than those she does. Dreadnought seems a narrative in search of some driving force for the larger part. For one thing, Mercy takes a long-ass time getting onboard the titular train; for another, both before, during and after she encounters an array of characters who come and go (would that they would only go a little quicker) with absolutely nothing of note to say for themselves - nor to add to the grander narrative, such as it is.

Dreadnought entertains in all the same ways Boneshaker did, in the end - the denouement is neat, make no mistake, and the climax which anticipates it functions as an exciting and satisfying throwback to Westerns of yore - but as with the first novel of The Clockwork Century series, the getting there can be trying. Improbable situations, perfunctory if not blindingly obvious dialogue and repetition, repetition - golly-gosh the repetition! - leave Dreadnought feeling like a fine novella bloated into a longer thing which does little other than tread water before the good times finally roll.

When they do, though...

***

Dreadnought

by Cherie Priest

US Publication: November 2010, Tor / Seven Seas

Buy this book from
Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com /
IndieBound / The Book Depository

Recommended and Related Reading

Factory of Frey

This post over at io9 just about makes me nauseous:

James Frey's new publishing model:

A factory for Hollywood-friendly books

At least the article serves to clarify whose work the disappointing next Next Big Thing - also know as I Am Number Four - actually was. Good on io9's Charlie Jane Anders for bringing the particulars of this monstrosity in-the-making to light, though for once I could have done with a little more personality in the reportage... a little less objectivity.

I mean, this is disgusting, isn't it? Have a gander at the machinations of the Factory of Frey:

"Frey comes up with commercial book ideas and then farms them out to young, hungry writers whom he finds in writing programs and elsewhere. Among other things: an author of one of these books may get paid as little as $500 ($250 on signing, $250 after completion of the book) in exchange for a percentage of eventual royalties. The author may not get their name on the book — as Jobie Hughes found when he wrote I Am Number Four based on Frey's idea [...] and in the case of I Am Number Four, the book was even rewritten to match some decisions that were made on the film, and Frey created a new emblem for the series, a crop circle, after movie producers said they wanted something along the lines of Harry Potter's lightning bolt to put on marketing materials."

Apparently, at the moment "Frey has 27 [such] writers working on a total of 28 series," each presumably with an eye to eventual adaptation.

Blech.

Now I'm not often one to wish failure on anyone. If and when I don't like a thing, fine, it's not for me - but it may yet be for others. This news, however, sickens the very soul, such that now I'm hoping the impending movie adaptation of I Am Number Four - though can one even call it that, given the cross-media calculation that is the very baseline of this insulting equation? - goes down like a lead balloon, thereby ruining the chances of any further such offenses against freedom, creativity and honesty everywhere.

Frey, if you're even out there? Away and shite, why don't you.

Or am I taking this too personally?

The BoSS for 14/11/10

A care package from the British arm of Tor dominates this week, and boy oh boy was it bursting full of good stuff. Best of the lot? Excepting the surprise awaiting me in the paperback edition of Kraken we're going to kick things off with? A very early proof of Sea of Ghosts, the new book from Alan Cambell, which, uh... I've already reviewed.

Yes indeed. :)

Oh! And getting its toe through the door right at the last minute, another big 'un: Dreadnought by Cherie Priest. What a week.

For the moment, click through to Meet the BoSS for an introduction and an explanation as to why you should care about the Bag o' Speculative Swag, or read on for a sneak peek at some of the books - past, present and future - you can expect to see coverage of here on The Speculative Scotsman in the coming weeks and months.

***

Kraken
by China Mieville

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
05/11/10 by Tor / Macmillan

Review Priority:

N/A (Reviewed Already)

Plot Synopsis: "Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears?

"For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god.

"A god that someone is hoping will end the world..."

Commentary: I'll be writing something more substantial than a bit of commentary in The BoSS about my experiences with and without Kraken soon - 's already on the drawing board, folks - but forgive me, I'm of the mind that one little tidbit could do with foregrounding sooner rather than later...

Folks, I got a pull-quote!

Back in the distant past I called Kraken "poetic, demented, surprisingly approachable and seething with intelligence" - not to mention "a cracking good read" (har har indeed) - and the next thing I know, the paperback's out and the folks at Tor have decided to pilfer a paragraph from the piece and slap it right next to excerpts from The Guardian and Speculative Horizons.

Have I arrived, or have I arrived? :D

The paperback edition of China Mieville's latest was released on (remember remember) the 5th of November. I will be buying several copies. You also should - at least the one, alright? - if'n you haven't already.

The Flock

by James Robert Smith

Release Details:

Published in the US on
09/11/09 by Tor / Forge

Review Priority:

3 (Moderate)

Plot Synopsis: "A remote Florida swamp has been targeted for theme-park development, and the swamp’s inhabitants are none too happy. It doesn’t help that the residents are a colony of intelligent, prehistoric, dinosaur-like birds. This flock of beasts has escaped the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs, relying on stealth, cunning, and killer instinct. The creatures have been living in secret, just outside our developed world.

"As the developers push to have the recently-discovered animals exterminated, a billionaire rogue environmentalist step in to protect these rare, predatory creatures. A naïve young Fish and Wildlife officer finds himself caught in between these two incredibly powerful forces, and may find out the hard way that man is the most dangerous predator of them all..."

Commentary: For whatever reason I'm possessed by the conviction that The Flock is comic-book-dude Bob Gale's first novel. Because he's called Bob, for one. And because The Flock, in its original (now out of print) iteration, was published by Gale / Five Star books. But whatever. It's very likely I'm crossing my wires. This is, in any case, a fun sounding eco-thriller, worth the old once-over at the very least. I only wish nature would fight back in life as so often it tends to in art and literature...

Sea of Ghosts

by Alan Campbell

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
01/04/11 by Tor / Macmillan

Review Priority:

N/A (Reviewed Already)

Plot Synopsis: "When the last of the Gravediggers, an elite imperial infiltration unit, are disbanded and hunted down by the emperor they once served, munitions expert Colonel Thomas Granger takes refuge in the unlikeliest of places. He becomes a jailer in Ethugra – a prison city of poison-flooded streets and gaols in which a million enemies of the empire are held captive. But when Granger takes possession of two new prisoners, he realises that he can’t escape his past so readily.

"Ianthe is a young girl with an extraordinary psychic talent. A gift that makes her unique in a world held to ransom by the powerful Haurstaf – the sisterhood of telepaths who are all that stand between the Empire and the threat of the Unmer, the powerful civilization of entropic sorcerers and dragon-mounted warriors. In this war-torn land, she promises to make Granger an extremely wealthy man, if he can only keep her safe from harm.

"This is what Granger is best at. But when other factions learn about Ianthe's unique ability, even Granger's skills of warfare are tested to their limits. While, Ianthe struggles to control the powers that are growing in ways no-one thought were possible. Another threat is surfacing: out there, beyond the bitter seas, an old and familiar enemy is rising – one who, if not stopped, will drown the world and all of humanity with it..."

Commentary: As if a pull-quote inside Kraken wasn't enough of a treat, Tor also included a proof copy of the forthcoming novel from Adam Campbell - he of The Deepgate Codex fame. As a Scotsman, a gamer and a graduate, there's nothing about Campbell's mini-bio I don't adore. "Born in Falkirk and went to Edinburgh University [Alan Campbell] worked as a designer/coder on the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto video games before deciding to pursue a career in writing and photography. He now lives in Lanarkshire."

Right? ;)

Anyhow, Sea of Ghosts isn't due out till April next year, and though I'm sure it's not final the cover still has a Big Daddy on, but the hell with it: I latched onto this baby just as soon as it got here, and you can read the resulting review via the link above.

On the Many Deaths of Amanda Palmer

edited by Rohan Kriwaczek

Release Details:

Published in the UK on

26/08/10 by Duckworth

Review Priority:

4 (Very High)

Plot Synopsis: "Following the death of indie pop-star Amanda Palmer her fans and followers began posting anonymous texts on internet blogs and in chat-rooms, taking the form of stories, poems, essays, stream-of-consciousness explorations, each attempting in their own way to attribute her death with some meaning through art. Over time these writings, and the responses they generated, began to exhibit specific shared qualities that marked them out as a unique genre in their own right that, a genre that has come to be known as the Palmeresque.

"This book originally set out to be the first major study of the Palmeresque, however shortly after initial publication all copies of the book were seized by the Boston Police Department due to the incriminating content of Text Number Nine. The following investigation revealed a complex web of deceit, manipulation and literary fraud that once again raised the questions: who did kill Amanda Palmer; who were the real authors of the texts; who is Tobias James? Finally, and under strict restrictions, permission has been given for this amended edition to published, together with an extensive appendix exploring these and other issues."

Commentary: What?

No, but seriously... what the hell?

On the Many Deaths of Amanda Palmer is an utter oddity, no doubt about it; I had to check Amanda's blog to be sure it wasn't a very meta riff on contemporary culture as postulated by someone with an eye on the woman, formerly a musician I rather enjoyed, who's come to be known as The Woman Who Nearly Spoiled Neil Gaiman. Apparently not. In fact, from what little I could find about this book, it could be a bit of post-Dresden Doll propaganda for all I know...

Nevertheless, I'm taken. Somewhat perversely fascinated by this book, come to that. Thus, at some point, expect... a something.

Heart's Blood

by Juliet Marillier

Release Details:

Published in the UK on

05/11/10 by Tor / Macmillan

Review Priority:

2 (Fair)

Plot Synopsis: "Whistling Tor is a place of secrets, a mysterious, wooded hill housing the crumbling fortress of a chieftain whose name is spoken throughout the district in tones of revulsion and bitterness. A curse lies over Anluan’s family and his people; those woods hold a perilous force whose every whisper threatens doom.

"For young scribe Caitrin it is a safe haven. This place where nobody else is prepared to go seems exactly what she needs, for Caitrin is fleeing her own demons. As Caitrin comes to know Anluan and his home in more depth she realizes that it is only through her love and determination that the curse can be broken and Anluan and his people set free."

Commentary: Call me a superficial creep, but... the photo on the cover of Heart's Blood just horrifies me. Nevertheless, the reviews from this novel's hardcover release late last year are all but uniformly positive. Whatever my reservations - and I know the art means nothing, in the end - I'll have to take a look at this one, I think, see for myself.

I hear it's something of a fairy tale, and I have been known to enjoy a nice fairy tale.

The Zombie Survival Guide

by Max Brooks

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
27/07/04 by Duckworth

Review Priority:

3 (Moderate)

Plot Synopsis: "Drawing from reams of historical data, laboratory experiments, field research, and eyewitness accounts, this comprehensive and illustrated guide is the only book you'll need to face the greatest challenge mankind has ever encountered. Granted, you probably already know that skills such as wilderness survival, leadership, and basic first aid are important when fighting off hordes of the undead. But The Zombie Survival Guide doesn't stop there, teaching you how to: Identify cases of infection by the zombie virus, Solanum, and recognize the hourly progression of symptoms: 'Hour 8: Numbing Of Extremities And Infected Area, Increased Fever [103-106 Degrees], Increased Dementia, Loss Of Muscular Coordination'; choose the right weapon: 'A Section Of Lead Pipe Will Work For A Single Encounter But Is Too Heavy For Those On The Move'; defend your home: 'A Ten-Foot Cinder-Block Wall, Reinforced Wih Steel Rods And Filled With Concrete, Is The Safest Barrier In Both Class 1 And Class 2 Outbreaks'; and much more.

"Filled with helpful illustrations and a sample 'Outbreak Journal' that should be kept on your person at all times, The Zombie Survival Guide is the only guide you will need to survive a most certain pandemic. 'Ignorance is the undead's strongest ally, knowledge their deadliest enemy,' Brooks writes. 'Personal choice, the will to live, must be paramount when the dead begin to rise. The choice is up to you.'"

Commentary: Further to World War Z in last week's edition of The BoSS, the lovely sorts at Gerald Duckworth were kind enough to send along a copy of this companion piece of a sort too - though it's worth noting The Zombie Survival Guide was written well before the book I believe made Max Brooks' name. Seems I'm going back and back and back! Does anyone even remember 2004?

Would you credit it, I also have a copy of the companion piece to the companion piece: Recorded Attacks, which is, if I'm understanding it correctly, an abbreviated graphic novel-form adaptation of the latter chapters of The Zombie Survival Guide.


Will have to read World War Z before I get to either of these, mind you. Not that I'm complaining! Oh, what a wealth of lovely, lovely zombie books...

Dreadnought

by Cherie Priest

Release Details:

Published in the US on
28/09/10 by Tor / Forge

Review Priority:

5 (Immediate)

Plot Synopsis: "Nurse Mercy Lynch is elbows deep in bloody laundry at a war hospital in Richmond, Virginia, when Clara Barton comes bearing bad news: Mercy’s husband has died in a POW camp. On top of that, a telegram from the west coast declares that her estranged father is gravely injured, and he wishes to see her. Mercy sets out toward the Mississippi River. Once there, she’ll catch a train over the Rockies and — if the telegram can be believed — be greeted in Washington Territory by the sheriff, who will take her to see her father in Seattle.

"Reaching the Mississippi is a harrowing adventure by dirigible and rail through war-torn border states. When Mercy finally arrives in St. Louis, the only Tacoma-bound train is pulled by a terrifying Union-operated steam engine called the Dreadnought. Reluctantly, Mercy buys a ticket and climbs aboard.

"What ought to be a quiet trip turns deadly when the train is beset by bushwhackers, then vigorously attacked by a band of Rebel soldiers. The train is moving away from battle lines into the vast, unincorporated west, so Mercy can’t imagine why they’re so interested. Perhaps the mysterious cargo secreted in the second and last train cars has something to do with it?


"Mercy is just a frustrated nurse who wants to see her father before he dies. But she’ll have to survive both Union intrigue and Confederate opposition if she wants to make it off the Dreadnought alive."

Commentary: Gobbling this one up as we speak. I had high hopes, too. Though I didn't adore Boneshaker the way many did, I did have a bit of fun with it - particularly with the last act - and Dreadnought seems to be shaping up much the same in my estimation: after a load of faffing about, the train's finally full steam ahead, and though the ride's been bumpy so far, it's looking like it'll pick up in short order.

I think it's fair to say you can expect a review of Cherie Priest's latest within the week.

Promises promises, eh?

Book Review: Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

Buy this book from

Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com /

IndieBound / The Book Depository

"I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger," writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up 1922, the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife, Arlette, proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness.

In Big Driver, a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself.

Fair Extension, the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.

When her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips, Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It’s a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends a good marriage.

Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, which generated such enduring films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, Full Dark, No Stars proves Stephen King a master of the long story form.

***

Another year goes by, another notch etches itself upon the sliding scale of life, and how best to mark it?

Why, it's fortuitous you should ask: with a new Stephen King, of course! These days, precious little in publishing is certain - short, perhaps, the overpowering, not to mention lamentable success of Stephanie Meyer and her ilk. In a decade, are we going to be consuming our fiction on traditional tree pulp, e-ink displays or recycled human skin? Will the great unwashed's literature of choice remain, God forbid the thought, paranormal romance? Will Robert Ludlum have written a second Millennium trilogy in the late and lamented Stieg Larsson's stead? How many more times will the so-called "modern-day Dickens" with whom we concern ourselves today have retired in the time between now and then? Who's to say? This is, needless to say, a tumultuous time for the publishing industry; a time of great change, of upheaval and reassessment. One can be sure of nothing.

But perhaps... perhaps you never could be.

Thank the powers that be, then, that there's this one thing you can count on. The turn of the year will soon be upon us - again - and like clockwork, here we have it: your annual Stephen King fix. Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of four novellas of varying lengths. Which creates certain expectations, of course; King has done this before, and very memorably.

So let's not beat around the bush. Full Dark, No Stars is not quite the equal of Different Seasons, King's first such collection, but it's a better book by a large margin than Four Past Midnight. It begins brilliantly, with '1922,' an insidious tale whose measuredness rivals even that bastion of this author's considerable accomplishments in short-form fiction, 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,' and it ends, too, with a stonker in the shape of 'A Good Marriage.' Between times Full Dark, No Stars is emblematic of one of the most problematic aspects of the tremendous professional success King and only a few other authors in this day and age enjoy: the unwillingness of editors, whose job it is to say what's good and what's not, to assert themselves in the face of such an unstoppable force. Everyone's read a story like 'Fair Extension' before, and short of bestowing upon this deal-with-the-devil narrative a sense of the affable that is characteristic of his writing, King does regrettably little to differentiate his entry into the time-honoured canon. At least it's not a long one.

'Big Driver,' on the other hand, is a long one, and it telegraphs its every beat long before the soundtrack to this dark revenge fantasy catches up with the action. That said, it remains a perfectly diverting narrative, and King approaches it with the selfsame sense of normalcy undone which help to make '1922' and 'A Good Marriage' such timeless treats. I should say, further, that nothing in Full Dark, No Stars is anything less than proficient, anything less than considered, entertaining, Stephen King to a T. It's only the contrast between the good and the great that foregrounds the relatively lesser aspects of this collection; it's only that when King's on, by God is he on.

"Here is something I learned in 1922: there are always worse things waiting. You think you have seen the most terrible thing, the one that coalesces all your nightmares into a freakish horror that actually exists, and the only consolation is that there can be nothing worse. Even if there is, your mind will snap at the sight of it, and you will know no more. But there is worse, your mind does not snap, and somehow you carry on. You might understand that all the joy has gone out of the world for you, that what you did has put all your hoped to gain out of your reach, you might wish you were the one who was dead - but you go on. You realize that you are in a hell of your own making, but you go on nevertheless. Because there is nothing else to do." (p.39)

In the year of our Lord 1922, a man kills his wife in cold blood. He cajoles his son into helping him do the dirty, come to that, and the fallout of this evil deed comes to touch on a theme that has fascinated King in recent years - and with good reason. '1922' is not alone in Full Dark, No Stars in that is shows how violence begets violence, evil begets evil, how one mistake can spell a murder of mistakes to follow. This is a motif King explored memorably only earlier this year, in 'Morality', the bonus short story included in the otherwise mediocre Blockade Billy, and in Full Dark, No Stars he wrings from it every fluid oz. of potential, tempering the forbidding (and indeed the forbidden) as ever with such touches of sweetness and kindness as to make even the most transgressive characters and acts somehow relatable. For instance:

"He threw his arms around me and kissed my cheek. For a moment it seemed like we were friends again. I even let myself believe it a little, although in my heart I knew better. The evidence might be belowground, but the truth was between us, and always would be." (p.62)

Cuddles and cornbread aside, in short order, father and son, Wilf and Hank, kill an old cow to cover up their other killing. They swallow the spider to catch the fly, as it were... perhaps they'll die?

Full Dark, No Stars is a heck of a collection, warts and all. By turns thrilling and thoughtful, '1922' alone would be worth the price of entry. But you know, I'd drop my £10 on King's latest for 'Big Driver,' too - certainly the least accomplished of the narratives contained in Full Dark, No Stars - and that's saying something. There's a reason they call Stephen King the grandmaster of horror. In this book, there are four.

***

Full Dark, No Stars

by Stephen King


UK Publication: November 2010, Hodder & Stoughton
US Publication: November 2010, Scribner

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