cyphomandra

I have been having problems with my hard-copy prose reading - for the last week I have been trudging through an appalling book with a horribly overentitled aggravating main character, and then I tried to get out of it into, variously, a) a Captain Alatriste novel that spends the first forty pages sacking a Dutch town in a particularly annoying manner b) China Mieville's Un Lun Dun, which is not working for me at all c) Daniel Abraham's A Shadow in Summer (first in a quartet, and the dialogue is irritating). Having failed at all of these I then went off and read vast quantities of fan fiction, which at least irks me in different ways (failure to pay attention to setting and lack of fight scenes, mostly), re-read Diana Wynne Jones' Eight Days of Luke (excellent. Am composing self-indulgent discussion post in another window) and then finally picked this up last night and read it. And I now feel less like giving up on all prose fiction published in the last twenty years, which will hopefully turn out to be the right decision in the long run.

( Nancy Farmer, The House of the Scorpion. )

I found the notebook. It listed a whole bunch of other books I'd forgotten I'd read, which is why I keep this thing in the first place...

Anyway, first up is the one I liked best. Excellent children's fantasy/historical, with a detailed world, in depth characterisation, and completely lacking in easy and simplistic answers. ( The Sea of Trolls, Nancy Farmer. )

( Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman. )

( Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, Vincent Lam. )

( Almost French, Sarah Turnbull. )

After some mild agonising, I've decided not to routinely count graphic novels, but I'll note them here anyway.

Deadline, Bill Rosemann. Marvel, about a journalist who dislikes superheroes but gets stuck doing a story about them. I liked the ghost city – much of the rest now escapes me, and the main character is less endearing than I think the author would like me to find her.

Superman-Secret Identity, Kurt Busiek. I do like Kurt Busiek, and I have Astro City on standing order, but after a strong start it felt like he'd run out of things to say. The relationship between Superman and his government observers is nicely done, but the hints at obligations to nonAmericans tails out, and the ending is weak.

David’s Story, Terry Moore. Strangers in Paradise is the sort of series that men recommend to me as having "really realistic women". I think this may be a case of wishful thinking. Anyway, this is backstory for one of the male characters. Startlingly unrealistic, in my admittedly limited experience of yakuza in incestuous relationships who give it all up after accidentally killing asthmatic teenagers, take on their victim's name and then fall hopelessly in love with one of the female protagonists at a Rodin exhibition...