Harry's War

By Harry Drinkwater

This is the real deal; a day to day diary of a British soldier who fought in World War One, and who took part in some of the biggest and bloodiest battles of the war, including the Somme and Passchendaele and who survived, more or less intact. Books like this are said to be rare, and I've certainly never come across one before, as it was against regulations for the soldiers to keep diaries lest their writings fall into enemy hands. Other soldiers wrote memoirs (and I'm reading one such now) but this is different in that it documents things as they happened. Drinkwater's account doesn't gloss over the boring bits, but records them, in all their seemingly dull detail. To get a clear idea of what the war must have been like, this is invaluable. There is no drama or glorification, either of the violence or of the horror. Drinkwater simply records events, and some of his own thoughts accordingly.

In many ways, this book reminded me of another; Trafalgar: an eye witness history, though there are some major differences, the most obvious being the difference in time. This book is also a single man's perspective, so you can only really see the war thorugh Harry Drinkwater's eyes. There isn't a lot of historical context offered as Drinkwater himself barely knew what was going on in the world beyond the battlefield.

This is an excellent book for any one interested in the First World War.
4/5

The Mongoliad

--

By Neal Stephenson, Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, Cooper Moo and Mark Teppo.

As is obvious from the list of authors, this is a collaborator undertaken by several writers together, and as explained on Wikipedia, it is a part of a bigger project, though it can be read as a stond alone work (which is what I have done). I'd been hearing hints and been reading people rave about this trilogy for quite a while, and since I have enjoyed several of Neal Stephenson's books, I ordered them (used) from Amazon and looked forward with some eager anticipation.

The rumour mill would have it that given an interest in reenacting mdieval European fighting techniques, Stephenson, Bear etc were creating a work which would shed light on the forgotten aspects of European fighting history. This alone was a warning light so brght that for a long while I hesitated to buy the books. I don't mind North Americans enjoying their fantasies, but I am very sceptical when it comes to Americans percpetions of history - they always seem to view the past as a variation of their own present, cherry picking odd facts from here and there to create an illusion of the past which fits their preconceptions. For some reason I thought perhaps Neal Stephenson had risen above this. Either I was wrong, or he was swamped by his co-collaborators. Either way, this trilogy (and the length of it should have been warning enough) is yet another American confusion.

Don't get me wrong, the story isn't terrible, its just very long winded, rather pointless as a consequence, and it cherry picks shamelessly. For my own part, I was partially entertained by the inclusion of several of my own subjects of interest; historical groups, facts and dates that I have explored in books and on Wikipedia - for the creation of role playing games and skirmish battles. Since I already knew who the Livonian Sword Brothers were, I didn't need to be introduced to them, nor did I much care for the way they were portrayed. I didn't mind it, but I wasn't impressed either. There were other details liek this, dotted through out the book, which whilst I understood why they were there and why the authors had chosen them, the execution of the story was not good enough to justify all the historical hacking and short cuts.

In short, this trilogy is a good enough read unless you are expecting it to deliver what it promises.

The Lady for Ransom

By Alfred Duggan

Every time I see Duggan's name I am reminded of 'The Day of the Jackal'.

This is the third book I've read by Duggan, and like the first, it concentrates it's story in the period of the First Crusade, in and around Byzantium, dealing with the various historical events and the political intrigue which led to the eventual fall of the Eastern Roman empire. QUite whether or not Duggan hits the nail on the head with regards the latter I can't say but there is no doubt that he knows his history well enough to carve a story from it. Of the three books, this one is marginally better than the other two, largely I think because it doesn't rely on established historical events. The story functions well enough on its own merits. That is to say, for about as far as it is an entertainig story, which it barely is.

The book is centred on the testimony of the aging monk Roger looking back over his life in the employ of the Norman noble Roussel de Balliol and his wife Matilda. As a translator, Roger is witness to various events which his station in life would ordinarily keep from him, and as Roussel and Matilda make their way through a tricky campaign as mercenaries, Roger is able to look back with a clear memory and relate their fortune.

This is an small, but moderately entertaining read, but it should be noted that the title is misleading.

The Incal: Classic Collection

By Moebius and Alejandro Jodorowsky

If you like French space opera style comic art, then this is the graphic novel for you. This is one of Moebius's most popular series, combined into a single hardback binding and at 307 pages its a riot of tongue in cheek high adventure. Its not the best of its kind, but given its popularity in Western Europe at least 'The Incal' is certainly iconic.

The primary character is a small time detective named John Difool who becomes embroiled in a galactic struggle between the forces of light and darkness when a mysterious object named the Incal chooses him as its vessel. Difool is quickly cataputed through a series of ever greater events which will have a profound impact on the universe, and on his own destiny.

'The Incal' is one of those graphic novels I expect to become a film at some point, and I hope if it does, it will be a Fench film because I doubt Hollywood could pull it off.

Mechanised Force: British tanks between the wars

By David Fletcher

David Fletcher is a noted historian, an expert on armoured warfare and the longest serving employee of Bovington Tank Museum. This is the first of his books I have read and although it was quite dense, I enjoyed it nonetheless. Fletcher lays out the history of British tanks in the mid war period, that is to say from between the first and second world wars when tank designs were prone to wild experimentation, not least in the United Kingdom.

Having more or less invented the tank as a fighting concept, the British had produced hundreds of tanks, in several different designs and types by the end of World War One. Throughout the 1920s and 30s British tank designs came thick and fast and with great innovation, but when the Second World War began, the British had largely been eclipsed by the Germans. In this book, Fletcher touches on how this happened, and to some degree, why. My impression, founded on this book and my general perception of the period, is that the Germans succeeded for the simple reason that they had an overall plan and all their designs worked towards it, where as the British (much like the French) were largely working theoretically. It is interesting to note how often Fletcher describes British design innovations which were picked up by the Germans and developed whilst being ignored by the British government due to costs and/or the problem of having so many conflicting projects with each their own advantages and disadvantages.

Another interesting point raised in the book, at some considerable length, is the small matter of 'technical tunnel vision'. The British it seems were obsessed with engine possibilities, gear boxes, suspensions and transmissions. Throughout the entire twenty year period the British paid very little attention to weaponry or armour. They stuck with 14mm hardened steel for almost every single design, and were disinclined to employ any gun bigger than 47mm. Perhaps most interesting of all is how the only British tank of any distintion in the period, the Vickers Medmium Mk II (as seen on the cover of the book) was quickly cobbled together from various other designs and seems to have existed outside the evolution of British tank design in the mid war period. I have always assumed the Mk II was part of an overall design philosophy and the Mk III was a continuation of it. Not so. The Mk II had very little to do with any other design at all.

An interesting read, I've already ordered three more of Fletcher's books!
4/5

Goldfinger

By Ian Fleming

There is something very strange about these old Bond novels. It isn't the fact that they are old, or strangely written, but rather because their style is so close but yet so very different from the films. Connery established himself so well as Bond that every one else, has to endure comparison and this also seems to apply to Bond in the novels, even though he is the true original. When ever Bond in the novels deviates in any way from Connery's depiction of Bond, it creates a sense of temporal distortion in my minds eye. I see this older Bond, a product of the Second World War and sometimes he seems to be an imposter. This is a tad annoying as I've never really cared all that much about Connery (who always seems to me like he was just acting), and I really like original Bond who is much more human with all his doubts, insecurities and foibles. I also like the fact that Bond is grounded in the Second World War. Somehow this makes him more believable than the Bonds of the later film creations.

Like 'Dr. No', this novel is about a weird megalomaniac, whom Bond defeats by a combination of stubborness and a stroke of luck.If you've seen the film, then you'll not be much surprised by the novel. There is some deviation but on the whole this is probably because the film was set a decade or so further back in time.
3/5

Dr. No

By Ian Fleming.

When I read about how this book was originally received, I have to chuckle. The ardent accusations of voyeurism, sadism etc, have become so dated that they lend the book a reputation which it can no longer fulfill in an age where a Google search will show you any manner of perversion you care to see. To think that people once felt so strongly about this book. By my standards this book is not only toothless, but also rather amusing in its archaic values and faux-sexual antics.

I rather liked the book, not least in where it deviates from the film, most especially with regards to the character of Honeychile Rider. I can only imagine how an audience in the 1960's would have reacted to the sight of a beautiful woman emerging from the sea, with a broken nose. It was a good read, but it didn't capture my imagination quite as much as I'd hoped. There was a lot I'd have written differently, but to be honest, I very much doubt I could do better.

By comparison with other old books I've read, Fleming seems, to me, to be rather primitive. I can't quite think why his work stood out so much when it seems so old hat to me. I suppose I'm missing those contemporary subtlties which so assaulted the literay critic's sensibities, but I can't see why Bond is so much more famous than half a dozen other spy/agent characters from the same genre/period.
3/5

Count Bohemond

By Alfred Duggan

Bohemond is one of those larger than life figures who permeate recorded history, and yet who have become more or less forgotten in the collective perspective, having become eclipsed by more popular figures, such as King Richard the Lion Heart. The fact that the crusades are currently regarded in a negative light, and Bohemond was a renowned crusader probably hasn't helped his fame much, nor the fact that his people, the Normans, have been extinguished by time, leaving no nation to claim him as a hero figure.

History as we know it, and as we all know, was written by the winners, and in our time, that means the anglophones. No surprise then, that this book about Count Bohemond, whilst leaning heavily on recorded facts, was written by an anglophonic historian and contains a great deal of emphasis on Bohemond's Norman heritage and very little on the fact that he was, essentially an Italian. I don't know if this is because Duggan believed the Normans held themselves entirely aloof from their Italian subjects or because the British have such a strong sense of identity stemming from their own Norman heritage, but it does make for an interesting read-between-the-lines as the English are the only people I know of who make any kind of a claim to the Normans as heroic ancestors.

Duggan already explored the First Crusade in his first novel, 'Knight with Armour', and that too was from an English perspective, and with a Norman/English knight as the protagonist. Since I grew up in England, went to school in England and had history lessons in an English high school, I also have a deep fascination with the Normans and this is probably why I was drawn to these two books Duggan wrote about Normans whilst I am largely uninterested in his other novels, most of which deal with Romans, or with other periods of British history that I did not learn about in school. My next purchase will undoubtably be is 'Lady for Ransom' which Wikipedia informs me is about Norman mercenaries from the West serving the Byzantine Empire during the 11th century. Sounds great, and if it is anything like this novel, then it should prove to be a good read, full of interesting historical accuracy, though perhaps not with a compelling story.

Duggan isn't the best writer of fiction, it has to be admitted. His characterisations are rather primitive and (since he doesn't divert from history much) his plot lines can best be described as simple. This isn't as bad as it could be however, since I'm not reading these books for any other reason than to get a good perspective from a historian. Duggan provides that, even though his point of view came from the 1950's -60's, and for any one who has an interest in understanding how the crusades, or medieval warfare may have been, Duggan is a good choice.

The Children of the Sky

By Vernor Vinge

Here is a novel I'd been waiting for with impatience ever since I saw it came out in hardback (why do they still do that?) as it is a direct sequel to Vinge's excellent 1992 novel, 'A Fire upon the Deep'. Unfortunately, many reviews across the internet panned the novel and expressed extreme dissatisfaction with it, and I'm not big on sequels as a principle, so I was almost scared to touch it lest it ruined the previous stories. Vinge's ex wife already soured me on sequels when I read one of hers to 'The Snow Queen'. Way to ruin a good story!

Oleg was also a Vinge fan and had also wanted to read it, and with hindsight I guess I ought to have let him read it first whilst I worked my way through the pile of books I had in line. The sad part is, 'The Children of the Sky' is not as good as Vinge's other books in the Zone of Thought series, but the novel isn't nearly as bad as the reviews claimed, and I think Oleg would have enjoyed it. I should just point out that the current batch of books I'm reading were all bought with either Oleg's recommendations, or with the knowledge that he'd probably read the after me.

'The Children of the Sky'is about the struggles of a group of human's who have been stranded on a planet populated by an alien race known as the 'Tines'. Tines a small packs of dog like creatures with a shared intelligence. Each pack is therefore a person. Vinge obviously enjoys his pack/intelligence idea and I think he must have given it a lot of play time thought over the last few decades. He makes constant comparisons between people as individuals and as packs and sometimes this seems to be the actual point of the book. I'm not sure why it would take any one tweny years to write a sequel like this one, but as it has a rather open ending, I guess there will be another one coming at some point, unless of course it takes Vinge another twenty years to produce the next book, in which case I doubt he'll live long enough! Get on with it Vernor. 

I liked the story, even though it was fairly unremarkable. Perhaps best of all was the missing character of Pham Nuwen whose cloying omnipotent presence was the least attractive element of the previous books. With Nuwen now just a fading memory, he was tolerable part of the plot.
3/5

The Warden

By Anthony Trollope

I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to get into Trollope as I had a vague idea that his work was overly sentimental, similar in style to a male Jane Austin perhaps. I asked Oleg if he'd ever read any of it, which he said he had, many years previously, and he remembered it as being 'interesting'. Fair enough, I did a Wikipedia search and ordered the first of the 'Barchester novels'. My brief research had left me with a new impression, that Trollope might bear some smiliarities with Mervyn Peake, but it quickly became apparent that this was not the case. Trollope is good, but he's no Peake!

At first, this novel started slowly and as I was already struggling with my various preconceptions, I almost gave up on it. Happily though, I kept at it and as the story unfolded I realised that there was a very good reason why Trollope has stood the test of time. 'The Warden' turned out to be a very interesting examination of contradicting human characters, and written with thankful brevity and entertaining wit. This certainly won't be the last Trollope I read, if I can help it.

The story is set in a fictious town called Barchester, where a local church warden's income comes under public scrutiny and debate. As the story unfolds, the warden finds himself ever more unhappy and eventually he must take matters in hand to preserve his own sense of contentment. It sounds pretty dire when described like that, but its actually worth reading if you like stories which place a strong emphasis on character. 
4/5

Hull Zero Three

By Greg Bear

I chose this book at random whilst shopping on Amazon, and as usual, it was the cover illustration that grabbed my attention. Simple and bold, it conveyed just enough information to get my curiosity aroused, and this is just as well, since the story was better served by an ambiguous image. I'm not all that familiar with Greg Bear though I read a couple of his books a while back ('The Forge of God' and 'Anvil of the Stars'). Neither of which I cared for at all.

'Hull Zero Three' is a nice, small story, with some interesting ideas and easy to read. The story unfolds gradually, so the reader isn't completely underwhelmed, but at no point does the plot suddenly spring any traps and the conclusion comes as a natural evolution. This would be a good book for a long train ride, or a slow rainy day perhaps.

The story is about a man who wakes up aboard a large interstellar spaceship but with no real memories as to who he is. The ship is in a serious state of disrepair and their are monsters roaming the corridors. It sounds tacky, but it turns out okay.
3/5

The Grand Duke

By Berthet Yann and Romain Hugault

This graphic novel was recommended to me by my friend Andreas, who assumed (correctly) that I might like it.
In three parts, combined, this is a story revolving around two fighter pilots on the Eastern front, one a German man and the other a Russian woman. Both go through various trials by combat in differing aircraft and it isn't hard to see how much Romain Hugault loves his aircraft! (Examples of this can be seen on his blog).
The story itself is not as interesting as the images, but it does the job. There are the usual post-modern dissaociations to contemporary political ideologies, with both pilots demonstrating contempt for their own political leadership, but given the awful times in which the novel is set, this is probably necessary for a modern audience to appreciate the unlikely romance which evolves between the two. Most of us need a means by which to suspend our disbelief after all.

The art work is very well done, with meticulous attention to the technical aspects of Second World War aviation (though I spy an understandable emphasis on the German aircraft) and there is no end of details for aeroheads to obsess over. The images appear to be hand drawn line art, coloured in photoshop, and are technically much the same as some of the images I've done in the past. These are just far better than anything I've produced and are so obviously a labour of love that its imposible for me (not least as a aeroplane fan) to not like them.

Knight with Armour

By Alfred Duggan

I forget which, but one of the many wargamers-with-blog posted a review of this novel and it sounded like something I ought to pick up, so I did. I've never heard of Alfred Duggan and I wasn't sure what to expect, but I read the review and a few online comments, and I was quite encouraged. When the blurb on the back of the novel told me that 'Duggan looks upon the past with a connoisseur's relish of villainy and violence', I was impatient to begin.

It must be taken into account that Duggan lived in an age before re-enactment had cleared up a few erroneous ideas regarding armour, but once that's taken care of, 'Knight with armour' is a very nice little tale, packed with interesting details, and told, as the blurb stated, with a relish of villainy (the violence is neither here nor there when compared to contemporary films and novels).

The story tells of protagonist Roger de Bodeham who starts out on the first crusade to liberate the Eastern Christians, taking with him the meager assets afforded by his father and elder brother and the many hardships and difficulties he meets along the way, not least with his conscience and the oaths he undertakes in the name of his pilgrimage. The novel contains several accounts of sieges undertaken during the campaign, but never really gets into the nitty gritty, and some of the assumptions regarding siege towers seem a bit dated to me.
3/5

The Quantum Thief

By Hannu Rajaniemi.

As I was on Amazon buying books I came across this one in the ads and the cover illustration was sufficiently interesting to motivate a purchase. I don't often buy random books from Amazon, and for good reason, but sometimes you get lucky, much as you might in an old fashioned book store (and when was the last time I bought a book from a regular shop?).

'The Quantum Thief' is Rajaniemi's first novel, which as I read it seemed rather obvious as it was crammed with blatant attempts to create a sense of a distant future. In many ways it reminded me of 'The Golden Transcendence' trilogy, only clumsier. Being shorter it has more charm however, and that helped me read it because if this had stretched on to two more novels, I'd not have managed to gather enough interest to read them. As it is, the story is long enough to constitute a decent read and short enough to stay interesting, and that's all I ask of a story.

Though I wasn't all that impressed, the story was still enough that I may very well read the next novel Rajaniemi produces.
3/5

Cloud Atlas

By David Mitchell (not the comedian).

I bought this novel when I saw some of the enthusiasm being posted about it online. The book has been adapted by the Wachawoski siblings and will be in the cinema's soon and I thought that if the book was as good as the literary reviews indicated then better to have read it first and so not be contaminated by the film.

As it turns out however, the book isn't really that great. Average at best. The story is divided into multiple short stories with each occuring a few generations after the previous, and with some details that connect each story with the the others, but which fail to create anything that resembles an overall story arc. Each story ends before it is begun, and the next story begins, so the reader travels through time, via a series of unfinshed tales, until suddenly an event in each story arc triggers the second half of each story, and so the reader then moves back through time. This, I think, is meant to be profound, but given how most of the stories lend heavily from notable works of fiction (Bladerunner, The China Syndrome, Brideshead Revisited) the time travel idea struck me as a mere gimmick.

It will be interesting to see whether or not the Wachowski's can do anything with 'Cloud Atlas', but given their previous work, I suspect they have their own reasons for choosing this novel to adapt, and they won't have anything particularly interesting to say either.
3/5

 The trailer for the upcoming film can be seen here.

The Lost Continent

 By Edgar Rice Burroughs

I thought why not? After all, it was a slim novel and probably a classic of some kind and Burroughs was famous for his adventurous tales of other worlds. What could be more interesting than a tale about an intrepid American who returns to the lost continent of Europe? I kept my expectations low so as not to be disapointed, and yet I was still disapointed. Not because the story was bad (it was) or because the premise was laughable (this too), but because it was so poorly done. I got the distinct impression that this story was just something Burroughs pushed out over a week end when he was feeling pressured by an editor, but he'd been up all friday night at a party.

The Anubis Gates

By Tim Powers

Powers only seems to have one basic concept; that magic was once real and existed in the world of men as a form of great power, but with time, it faded and was replaced by reason, or religion, and today it has all but disapeared. Setting his novels at various interesting points of history, Powers weaves tales around various famous historical characters, casting them as crypto-magicians making use of the dying arcane arts and telling stories which put a whole new spin on events which unfolded with drab conformity in the history books.

Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. This was the third Powers novel I've read (and I've just realised that there is no blog post for the second, so see below) and in this case, it worked. The story is about soft bellied academic Brendan Doyle who is hired by an excentric billionaire to travel back throught time and visit Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but where he falls afoul of a group of magicians and ancient Egyptian 'clones' and finds himself left behind. Its a nice set up and it leads a good story. It doesn't quite have the ambience and feel of 'Declare', but its much better than 'On Stranger Tides'.
4/5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Stranger Tides

By Tim Powers

Its been a while since I read this book which I bought when I heard it would be the story upon which the latest 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie, not because I cared about the film, but because it was intolerable that there was a famous pirate novel which I'd not only not read, but never even heard of before. This was also the inspiration for the 'Monkey Island' puzzle games, which I've only ever seen the first way, but which I enjoyed immensely at the time.

This was the second Powers novel I'd read, and it was something of an anticlimax after 'Declare', not least because I had assumed that since the premise was similar (all Powers novels appear to be about the fading of magic in the world of men, in one way or another). On the whole I really didn't care much for this story. 
2/5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Drawing of the Dark

By Tim Powers

Another Powers novel which deals with an Irish protagonist in a world of fading magic. Brian Duffy is a Condottieri who has served long and hard in multiple campaigns. One day in Venice a strange man offers him a job as a bouncer at a public house in Vienna. Little does Duffy know that this man is actually an infamous wizard and his offer will catapult him in to an arcane world of mythology and folklore whose outcome will speel doom or prosperity for the western powers against the east. Set in 1529, during Suleiman the Magnificient's seige of Vienna, this story tells an alternative version of how that battle was really won (with the help of Magick, Excalibur and a few geriatric Vikings).

As stories go, its okay. We're more in the vein of 'On Stranger Tides' than 'Declare', but the writing isn't quite as muddled and the simpler plot allows the reader to keep up with those more irrellevent details that sometimes are the fabric with which a good novel is woven.
3/5

The Ipcress File

By Len Deighton

This was certainly not the book I was expecting from my memories of the film adaptation. For a start, the scale of the story was much greater and included an extended scene which took place on an American nuclear weapons testing site in the South Pacific which I do not recall from the film. I'm guessing the film adaptation was constrained by a budget that didn't extended to shooting on the far side of the world.

The story was initially interesting in that it didn't seem to conform to a standard plot, but this turned out to be an illusion caused by the authors manner of writing, and whilst hindsight provided a view of a fairly mundane story, it was not so common place whilst I was reading it. I suppose this ought to be a boon for the reader, but in truth I found it quite difficult to engage in the novel due to many contemporary anachromisms which peppered the pages and left them almost unpalatable.

As a Cold War novel, the book succeeded in that it managed to generate a feeling of isolation and paranoia, but it failed in being interesting enough to generate any enthusiasm in me. I finished the book and felt grateful it was over with.
3/5

Catching Fire

By Suzanne Collins

The second book in the Hunger Games young adult trilogy, 'Catching Fire' takes place directly after the preceding novel and carries on the tale of the protagonist Katniss Everdeen. The story was more or less a variation of the same story told in the first book, and I found it to be equally turgid until the new hunger games tournament began and Katniss Everden was forced to relive her nightmares. Then things picked up a bit, but I was never really able to engage with the character as it was fairly obvious what was going to happen since the third book was waiting in the wings. There was a twist in the plot that made for a raised eye brow but it wasn't all that surprising, and it didn't give me pause for much thought. I guess I'm too set in my ways for this kind of angst ridden teenage escapism.
3/5

Mockingjay

By Suzanne Collins

The third book in the trilogy. I found this one to be the worst book by far. Partly because it rambled, whilst still being predictable, but mostly because it never really delivered a story. Katniss Everdeen mopes about for most of the book whilst events unfold off stage. When she finally does get to 'swing into action', the plot convulses several times in order to reach the foregone conclusion that was waiting in the wings since the love interest character Peeta was introduced. 
2/5

The Futurological Congress

By Stanislaw Lem

I first came across Ijon Tichy a few months ago when I saw a couple of German television adaptations of Lem's work (see below) and I was captivated by the thought that Germans could make something as good as 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', after all, aren't Germans supposed to be serious and devoid of humour? (My tongue is in my cheek as I write).

Obviously the Germans were on to something and then my second astounding thought occured. Stanislaw Lem wrote 'Solaris', which is about as hardcore and as deep a science fiction novel as I've ever read. Obviously there was more to Lem than I'd understood, so I decided to dig deeper.

This I believe is the first book featuring Ijon Tichy, and at this stage in the stories, he is still an Earth bound character. As a guest at a 'futurological congress' being held in Costa Rica, Tichy experiences a series of ever stranger adventures as Costa Rica is plunged into a violent revolution. Due to the use of pharamcological weaponry however, Ijon is never quite sure what is real and what is not and as he struggls to make sense of what is going on around him, things simply get more and more bizarre.

I liked the book and was impressed by the translator too. Lem makes up a lot of weird and wornderful concepts, messing about with language like a child does with play-dough, and the translation must have been interesting work.

The story also demonstrates Lem's superiority as a science fiction writer, for though it is a comical story, and short too, it is nevertheless packed with interesting ideas and concepts, many of which might be the stock for far heavier tomes. As is often the case with novels from the previous generation, this is concentrated quality over the quantity and pap we are fed today.

4/5

Panatgruel

By Rabelais

Oh dear. I had hoped for a timless jewel of classical literature, but what I got was a load of medieval drollery which had been picked over by generations of eager academics. Every page has added annotations and notes explaining the obscure references to contemporary philosophy, the Bible and Rabelais's life, but  none of these change the fact that 'Pantagruel' (the first book in a compendium of several books in one binding), is about as funny as a headache and as pointless as a third shoe.

I was hoping for something along the lines of Balzac, something which might read odd and old fashioned, but there was at least a point to it I could grasp; some fundamental idea which told a story, like a fable perhaps.

'Pantagruel' seems to be nothing more than the deranged ramblings of a man whose fame can only have come about because he was able to publish in a time before authors were two-a-penny. If there was a point to this, some punch line or other, I was utterly unable to find it. I still have several hundred pages if I care to attempt the second, third, fourth and fith books of Pantagruel, but frankly I'd rather be bored with nothing to do than bored and read a thousand academic explanations as to how or why I should find this funny.
1/5