You simply must!
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
There are times when one must abandon the reserve common to all English chaps and simply rave about stuff. Here, then, are the things I rave about at the moment.
The Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant
The astute, observant reader will have seen me enthralled by Feed and Deadline. Blackout is just as excellent, a genuine surprise of a book.
It's so good that I can't actually talk about the plot without giving something away and I do not wish to spoiler anything. This is actually infuriating, because there is a piece of writing that happens which is simply the best characterisation I've read in the last ten years at least, and I so hope it was deliberate.
Oh, darn it, I have no Spoiler tags and I must write. Very well, then, white on white it is:
Georgia, who dies at the end of the first book and who continues through the second book as a symptom of her devoted brother's deteriorating mental condition, is cloned and brought back. But the new Georgia isn't quite the same as the original. She has the same memories, the same basic character, but she's not the original and this comes across in a dozen tiny ways. I love this. I was really hooked by Georgia in Feed, and I worried about Shaun in Deadline, and didn't want Georgia 2 to be a lazy excuse to bring back the superb character from book one, so I was completely delighted to discover that it's Georgia alright...but not quite as we remember her.
There. Rant over. Buy this book, buy all three books and read them. Then make your friends read them, because this is outstanding Zombie fiction written by an outstanding writer and it will make you all sorts of happy.
The City's Son by Tom Pollock
If you have any pretensions toward being a writer, Tom Pollock is one of those people you should avoid reading. He'll make you want to give up.
London is apparently the world capital of odd at the moment, what with the likes of Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Ben Aaronovitch and Paul Cornell setting tales of the strange and uncanny there, reinventing the city in interesting and disturbing but enthralling ways. Tom Pollock has managed to do it again, with a mythology quite unlike any other. The oddities of the City and the way they come to life make a sort of dreamlike sense. I understood, as the story progressed, that these new and fascinating sights, characters, strangenesses were always a part of London and that I'd only never seen them myself because I was too busy doing other things to notice them.
The delights aren't restricted to the mythology either. Hurrah for interesting female characters! Hurrah for making them weak and vulnerable whilst also being strong and brave- frequently on the same page- and making them likable enough that we root for them but real enough that we question their decisions and know when they're being arses.
Read this book, it will make you happy and is the first part of a trilogy.
Can't Stop, Shan't Stop- Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer
By stealth, Mr. B has gently introduced me to hip hop. Obviously, Chap Hop really isn't the gateway musical style that introduces one to actual hip-hop or rap or anything. But he has succeeded in gently reminding me that just because I don't really understand a musical genre that doesn't make it bad.
Can't Stop Shan't Stop is an excellent example of Mr. B's wit, repartee, and knack with a tune. Listen to this on Spotify and then go and buy it, The Tweed Album and Original Gentleman!
I'm no music critic, which is just as well because I'm being entirely uncritical here, but Mr. B's occasionally ribald and occasionally satirical commentary has won me over completely.
The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing
The perfect antidote to Chap Hop, this outstanding bunch of anachronistic musicians do steampunk better than anyone else. How? By bringing back the Punk.
Let's be honest, there is only so much poncing about in airships one can do. There are only so many things you can glue a cog to before a maddened engineer grabs you by the lapels and boots you in the nuts for completely ignoring what the cogs do in the first place.
Happily, this band know what the cogs are for - or at least are happy to admire people who genuinely do - and aren't really steampunk. There's a central conceit here: what might the music scene in Whitechapel (or any other area packed to overflowing with the working class poor) have produced if only they'd had access to the musical output of the years 1975 to 2014 for inspiration and then been given some electric guitars?
Equal parts humour, satire and historical commentary make the band's output unpredictable, challenging and entertaining. They can move quite happily from a song about using Tesla Coils as contraception to something like "Mutiny Among the Common Soldiery", which has real bite and is entirely 2014 relevant.
I love a clever lyric, and I love a bit of raw anger, and talented musicians. I have all three in abundance here. This band are bloody good, and make me angry, happy, sad and slightly drunk. Buy their things.
Read more...
The Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant
The astute, observant reader will have seen me enthralled by Feed and Deadline. Blackout is just as excellent, a genuine surprise of a book.
It's so good that I can't actually talk about the plot without giving something away and I do not wish to spoiler anything. This is actually infuriating, because there is a piece of writing that happens which is simply the best characterisation I've read in the last ten years at least, and I so hope it was deliberate.
Oh, darn it, I have no Spoiler tags and I must write. Very well, then, white on white it is:
Georgia, who dies at the end of the first book and who continues through the second book as a symptom of her devoted brother's deteriorating mental condition, is cloned and brought back. But the new Georgia isn't quite the same as the original. She has the same memories, the same basic character, but she's not the original and this comes across in a dozen tiny ways. I love this. I was really hooked by Georgia in Feed, and I worried about Shaun in Deadline, and didn't want Georgia 2 to be a lazy excuse to bring back the superb character from book one, so I was completely delighted to discover that it's Georgia alright...but not quite as we remember her.
There. Rant over. Buy this book, buy all three books and read them. Then make your friends read them, because this is outstanding Zombie fiction written by an outstanding writer and it will make you all sorts of happy.
The City's Son by Tom Pollock
If you have any pretensions toward being a writer, Tom Pollock is one of those people you should avoid reading. He'll make you want to give up.
London is apparently the world capital of odd at the moment, what with the likes of Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Ben Aaronovitch and Paul Cornell setting tales of the strange and uncanny there, reinventing the city in interesting and disturbing but enthralling ways. Tom Pollock has managed to do it again, with a mythology quite unlike any other. The oddities of the City and the way they come to life make a sort of dreamlike sense. I understood, as the story progressed, that these new and fascinating sights, characters, strangenesses were always a part of London and that I'd only never seen them myself because I was too busy doing other things to notice them.
The delights aren't restricted to the mythology either. Hurrah for interesting female characters! Hurrah for making them weak and vulnerable whilst also being strong and brave- frequently on the same page- and making them likable enough that we root for them but real enough that we question their decisions and know when they're being arses.
Read this book, it will make you happy and is the first part of a trilogy.
Can't Stop, Shan't Stop- Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer
By stealth, Mr. B has gently introduced me to hip hop. Obviously, Chap Hop really isn't the gateway musical style that introduces one to actual hip-hop or rap or anything. But he has succeeded in gently reminding me that just because I don't really understand a musical genre that doesn't make it bad.
Can't Stop Shan't Stop is an excellent example of Mr. B's wit, repartee, and knack with a tune. Listen to this on Spotify and then go and buy it, The Tweed Album and Original Gentleman!
I'm no music critic, which is just as well because I'm being entirely uncritical here, but Mr. B's occasionally ribald and occasionally satirical commentary has won me over completely.
The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing
The perfect antidote to Chap Hop, this outstanding bunch of anachronistic musicians do steampunk better than anyone else. How? By bringing back the Punk.
Let's be honest, there is only so much poncing about in airships one can do. There are only so many things you can glue a cog to before a maddened engineer grabs you by the lapels and boots you in the nuts for completely ignoring what the cogs do in the first place.
Happily, this band know what the cogs are for - or at least are happy to admire people who genuinely do - and aren't really steampunk. There's a central conceit here: what might the music scene in Whitechapel (or any other area packed to overflowing with the working class poor) have produced if only they'd had access to the musical output of the years 1975 to 2014 for inspiration and then been given some electric guitars?
Equal parts humour, satire and historical commentary make the band's output unpredictable, challenging and entertaining. They can move quite happily from a song about using Tesla Coils as contraception to something like "Mutiny Among the Common Soldiery", which has real bite and is entirely 2014 relevant.
I love a clever lyric, and I love a bit of raw anger, and talented musicians. I have all three in abundance here. This band are bloody good, and make me angry, happy, sad and slightly drunk. Buy their things.
