Book Review Catch Up 1

My backlog of books to review is not so large as that of films or short stories but there are still quite a few to get through before the end of the year. So here are some I read back in the autumn.

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1. The Gaudi Key

This Barcelona-set occult-mystery-thriller was marketed as a Da Vinci Code clone and there’s something to learn from that. There are secrets hidden in the buildings of Gaudi, and two secret societies that want to uncover it. Maria, the granddaughter of the last student of Gaudi, finds herself propelled into conspiracy, murder and riddles.

Eight hundred years ago an order of knights discovered a relic in the holy land. Eighty years ago Gaudi died. Each of these started a clock ticking, one that finishes in six days. So far so Dan Brown; an underrated part of his plots are the time pressure he places his characters under, which makes their, shall we say, sub-optimal choices more explicable. Here Maria is caught up in grief at her grandfather’s death and doesn’t believe in the conspiracy and so the time just dribbles away as we discover how far the plots, conspiracies and decorations on Gaudi’s buildings go. A perfectly explicable and human reaction but not a good one for a fast paced thriller.

Translated from Spanish, the plot makes some decidedly political turns, expressing opinions on events and movements in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain in general and the Catholic church. If I note that the literal demon-worshipping bad guys are against liberation theology that might tell you something. Gaudi’s most famous work, the Cathedral Sagra Familia was (and is) meant to be a place valorising the poor and this is something the book is down with.

Read This: For a flawed occult thriller whose problems highlight how thrillers usually operate
Don’t Read This: It’s weird and not awfully good

2. A Brief History Of The Boxer Rebellion

After a short attempt at reform by a new emperor, in 1898 the reactionary faction under the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi seized control of China’s government. With famine, drought, economic dislocation, foreign interference and mass conversion by missionaries, a movement known as the Boxers United In Righteousness rose. Virulently anti-foreigner, anti-Christian and into mystical martial arts Tzu Hsi decided to support them rather than take the risk they might turn on the Imperial Government.

After several members of the international diplomatic community in Beijing were attacked they requested troops come to protect them. The situation worsened and they found themselves under siege. The initial attempt to relieve them was repulsed and an international force was formed to attack Beijing; false reports of the massacre of those in the legations were circulating as well as smuggled messages that said they were holding out.

Preston’s history is better on the western sources than the Chinese ones (which are sparse in any case) and on the English language than on others. This and other choices place the bulk of the history on the events in Beijing, especially the dramatic siege of the legations. And why not? The diplomats, journalists and socialites here wrote interesting and often informative accounts of what occurred. This is a brief history, and a popular one, so hitting the high notes and low hanging fruit is a perfectly good way of telling the story.

As an introduction it does a fair job of sketching in what led to the situation, how the internal problems of the Chinese Empire were turned outwards, and how the short war that followed effected what happened later. It’s interested in privileged Westerners filling sandbags and eating horsemeat, mostly pulling together. Polly Condit Smith, socialite and guest of an American diplomat who wrote a book* based on her journal and (mostly) unsent letters, is perhaps the poster child for this. She finds herself diving for cover from a sniper, and has to urge others to do so. Not because they’re any braver but because they seem stunned and depressed by the events.

Read This: For an introduction to the Boxer Rebellion with a focus on the experience of the foreign diplomatic community under siege in the legations
Don’t Read This: You already have an idea of the outline of events and want to dig into how China and the Boxers understood the events

* Under her married name Mary Hooker. I looked up Condit Smith and discovered a (premature) obituary when the world press thought the legations had been overrun and it seems she was (innocently) caught up in jewel heist scandal, which was why she was with family friends in China.

3. Team Yankee

It’s 1985 and World War III has broken out. Based on the events of a novel by General Sir John Hackett, Coyle, a US Army officer, wrote about a combat team (a company-sized unit made up of both tank and mechanised infantry platoons) and their war.

This is a novel with three pages of glossary of US military terminology and hardware and a guide to NATO unit symbols which will be used on the maps at the end of each chapter. There are passages of fairly dry matter of fact descriptions of what a US Army unit and the soldiers that make it up do. A lot of this is repair and preparation, and some of it is fighting. Between those we get moments of psychological distress, tiredness and a slightly knowing set of bad jokes.

Everyone knows the jokes are bad but there’s a war on, it’s like the bad food and lack of sleep, there’s a shortage of supply.

For an interesting introduction to armoured and mechanised warfare at the company level, this novel will painlessly get you up to speed. There are occasional bits where characters allow themselves to see what war is actually about and it’s terror and horror, and then they get on with their jobs and this may be the truest part.

Read This: For a look back at the war we thought we might fight in the 80s
Don’t Read This: Because men being burned to death in an ITV (Improved TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) Vehicle) is not a fun thing to read

4. The Count Of Monte Cristo

Edmund Dantes is imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, spends many years locked up, escapes, finds the fortune his neighbour in prison bequeathed him (along with his enormous knowledge), becomes the Count Of Monte Cristo and goes out to seek his revenge. This much is known of one of the most famous stories in the world.

For the first 300 pages or so this is a brilliant novel as Dantes returns home from a sea voyage and the jealousy of his friends and neighbours, and the political ambitions of the prosecutor, land him in jail on the eve of Bonaparte’s return. Then he experiences depression and hope, loneliness and friendship, mystery and revelation in prison. Finally an extraordinary and epic escape.

The long middle section is less good as Dumas – paid by the line – sets up every character, relationship, and secret hidden past, every domino in its place. Which doesn’t mean it’s not of interest. A long sojourn in Rome, some amusing dinners (and a very long breakfast) in Paris, disguises and many different houses and households, a dive into finance and the telegraph, as well as many, many characters*, enough time having passed since Dantes was locked up for a new generation to have arrived on the scene.

Then just as we’re getting used to this soap opera of high class Parisian life, the dominoes start to topple. Having decided that he is an Angel Of Vengeance, the Hand Of Providence, Monte Cristo discovers the terror and horror of what he does, how it strikes down both enemies and friends, guilty and innocent, and how even the guilty might – just might – have been better served by mercy.

Anyway it wraps up almost all the loose ends nicely.

Read This: If you’ve seen a film adaption then try it out to see what more it has to offer
Don’t Read This: The outline of the story, without travelogues, culinary descriptions, theology, sailing details etc. is enough for you

* Many of whom get trimmed in adaptions. In films in particular, to cut it down to two hours running time, we get Dantes, the four men who put him away, Mercedes his fiancée and her son as the main characters. This leaves out the many and varied female secondary characters, as well as a lot of the poisoning and medicine subplots (Monte Cristo enjoys hashish) and various engagements, love affairs and a lesbian elopement.

5. Feet Of Clay

We are back in Ankh-Morpork and the Watch. There are some odd murders, one of the curator of a Dwarf Bread museum and one of a priest, or rather a theological archivist. Lord Vetinari has fallen ill, and they think he’s poisoned; various members of the city council are jockeying to take control of the city. In fact there’s a plan to bring back the king, which fits rather too neatly with the college of arms who have been very busy with newly ennobled guild leaders. And there are golems, working silently in the dirtiest jobs.

An ensemble piece as various members of the new Watch try to solve both their parts of the crimes and their own personal concerns. Vime, promoted to commander and married into the nobility, has to consider politics, a much dirtier business than policing. Carrot and Angua are working on their relationship, but Angua knows that one day a werewolf will always have to move on. Perhaps most interestingly Cheery Littlebottom, Dwarf alchemist, joins the Watch as a forensic expert, and being in the city comes out as female.

Read This: A Discworld Watch story that is very much about cities and how they work from top to bottom
Don’t Read This: Big crimes and small ones should not be funny

6. The Avalon Hayes Mysteries by Kristin Garth

Let Me Tell You About The Liars says Avalon Hayes. A blood test experiment at school has shown that her father is not her biological father. Meanwhile a racy photograph of her has circulated around the school. Her efforts to deal with these will lead her into the secrets of her mother’s past, and her own present.

This includes a UFO hoax that had Airforcemen go AWOL from Germany (based on a real event), weird manipulative men, yet more lies, stripping and strip clubs, lawyers and fake mobsters, real family and realer family, and younger siblings reading diaries they shouldn’t. Occasionally dizzying from the frantic changes of time period and point of view, the pace keeps things moving.

Read This: For a convoluted mystery of growing up and navigating a world of deception
Don’t Read This: Just because it’s based on real events is no reason to jam all these strange things together
It Was Serialised: And can be found online
Full Disclosure: Kristin published a poem by me in her tiny journal Pink Plastic House as part of her Halloween chain

7. House Of Suns

6 million years in the future humans have spread throughout the galaxy. Constrained by the speed of light most civilisations last only a few thousand years before collapsing, a process known as turnover. However other forms of organisation exist, such as the Lines. One, the House Of Flowers, are 1000 clones of Abigail Gentian, who travel in great 200,000 year circuits around the galaxy, helping and trading.

Initially a travelogue in which two of the Gentian line have odd adventures, their greatest concern being censure for travelling together, and editing their memory records to hide it. Things go wrong swiftly though, with a guest on board one of their ships dying, and then when they arrive late at the reunion finding it has been attacked.

The plot accelerates towards the end with betrayal and million year old secrets coming to light. With the editing of memory and history the way the flashback chapters to the early life of Abigail Gentian reflect the present comes to light; perhaps these are echoes in the recording rather than straight historical fact. A clever novel full of ideas, if occasionally falling down in character and emotion.

Read This: A science fiction novel full of great and occasionally terrible ideas
Don’t Read This: If you want certainty or psychological depth

8. A Bid For Fortune

In the prologue the infamous Dr Nikola invites three other men scattered around the globe for a dinner in London, where he fails to explain his plot. Following this Dick Hatteras, who has made money pearl fishing on Thursday Island, decides to go to England, the home of his late father, and find out what’s going on. Having rescued Phyllis Wetherall from ruffians in Sydney the two fall in love but are kept apart by her father.

Nikola’s convoluted plan to get the gold stick that belonged to China Pete from Phyllis’s father then runs into Hatteras. As well as shadowing the Wetheralls it turns out Hatteras knows one of the men who Nikola recruited, and thinks him a rum chap. Hatteras keeps finding himself in Nikola’s way, having adventures from Bournemouth to the South Seas via Port Suez.

A now mostly forgotten Edwardian adventure, it was popular at the time for the mysteries, exotic locations (known personally to Boothby, the author) and the pace and excitement.

Read This: For some old school adventure fiction with a cool and mysterious bad guy
Don’t Read This: It’s been done better since and though unlike many of his contemporaries Boothby manages not to spend a chapter and a half explaining weird racial theories, there’s some rather old fashioned race, class, and gender ideas on display

9. Three Men In A Boat

Jerome K Jerome’s comic tale of three friends and a dog boating along the Thames. It is mostly told in lengthy asides, sometimes overlong and a few somewhat dated, but generally amusing and in parts hilarious. Occasional heartfelt turns to history and description of places seem out of place in a book where there is half a chapter on how uncle fails to hang a picture with the help of a dozen family members, but does fill out the story and pacing into something more than a comedy puff.

Read This: A charming comedy classic that enlightens as it gently mocks
Don’t Read This: It’s full of old rambling stories with no point

10. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Some people rate early Le Carré, with the lean but intricate plotting. Others like the post-cold-war stories, where the moral ambiguity shades into black cynicism. For me, this is the finest spy novel of the 20^th century, where George Smiley uses office politics, incomplete records and a tiny touch of insight to uncover a mole in the highest echelons of British Intelligence.

Smiley’s investigation touches lightly on the decline into irrelevance of Britain after World War 2, when the senior intelligence officers got their start. More deeply it looks into class, and sketches in the eccentric places and people. As it moves through its stages Smiley encounters and analyses the home lives of many of the characters, his own serially unfaithful wife, related to many of the highest in the British government and establishment, reflecting their irregular loves and relationships.

Read This: A powerful spy novel that captures class, duty and the material conditions of Britain in the 70s
Don’t Read This: The Cold War is over and good riddance