Gatsby is among the best pieces of writing I've ever encountered. It reads like silk.

4. Prince of Thorns (Mark Lawrence)
5. Kingof Thorns (Mark Lawrence)
6. Emperor of Thorns (Mark Lawrence)
The broken empire trilogy, which I've read before, was the start of MLs career as a fantasy author in the gritty mould of Joe Abercrombie. He's nowhere near as good, although to be fair Abercrombies first book was at times a bit stilted. Jorg of Ancrath is an interesting character though and he exists in a very interesting world. The first book has him young, between the ages of 10 and 14, escaping his brutal father, his King, to ride with a band of road brothers. They're mostly all brutal and generally one dimensional killers, rapists and robbers and mainly exist to die off without consequence. Jorg adapts and fits right in, becoming the most brutal of the bunch and leading them across the land in pursuit of revenge for the murder of his mother and little brother. There's a lot to enjoy about this trilogy, and there's tons of imagination on offer in the characters, places and concepts. But most enjoyable for me was reading all three in a row again and seeing the writer mature with his antagonist - going from edgelord shock-jock to a more considered but no less reprehensible King.

hylian_elf wrote:

Silk eh? Funny you say that, the word smooth came to my mind when I was thinking of how it reads!

It's a master craftsman at work as far as I'm concerned.

7. Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist, translated by Marlaine Delargy

The story is set within a fishing community on a small Swedish island, and begins when a young family take a day trip to a lighthouse and their daughter inexplicably goes missing. I liked the sound of this one, and the setting certainly appealed. I’d also seen it described on Reddit (where I got the recommendation) as having an atmosphere suffused with subtle dread. Unfortunately that’s not really the case. The horror here is a little too on the nose. It’s plot is also too baggy and unfocused, and clocking in at over five hundred pages it just feels too long for what’s here. The writing is okay in a very plain-speaking, meat and potatoes sort of way. There’s just nothing here to dazzle, really; I liked the setting and that was about it. I also own Let the Right One In and Little Star by the same author, so I may end up giving one of those a try at some point, but I’m not rushing to them after reading this one.

I’m sorry The Ruins didn’t work out for you, Moot.

Yeah, there’s a film. It’s okay. Obviously I preferred the book.

7. This Twisted Earth (various authors)
So this is a kind of anthology of short stories all based in the same shared world, where there has been some kind of catastrophic collapse of time, space and dimensions that has resulted in the deaths of millions if not billions. It means that dinosaurs now roam the earth again, alongside Romans in Britain, spacefaring humans from the future, neanderthals, cowboys, super evolved evil psychic apes, Egyptian pharaohs, WW2 troops, Aztecs etc etc etc. All mashed together in one big pulpy as fuck fictional universe. I picked it up free on Kindle unlimited because Adrian Tchaikovsky wrote one of the stories (one of the best ones unsurprisingly) and it's mostly quite good. I haven't heard of 99% of the writers, but I enjoyed a lot of it - however there are a few absolute stinkers in there too. The best stories really make you want to know more about their part of the TE and the characters and biomes they inhabit. But that's the real weakness of the book - it's quite a sound concept but doesn't really go anywhere as a narrative whole and as a result is quite unsatisfying. The editor is planning more volumes and is looking for submissions from anyone and everyone, published writer or not, which I think is quite nice. I would appreciate an overarching narrative next time though.

Yeah, the next one, best served cold, is my fave (so far).

Just finished The Heroes a week or so back. Loved Whirrun of Bligh!

8. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

I have absolutely no idea what I just read, but good lord I loved it. I’ve almost certainly said this before, but I love books that challenge the reader to work out what’s actually going on in the narrative. I spent the entirety of The Unconsoled’s considerable length doing just that. I should probably feel cheated by the ending, but I just don’t. What a wonderful folly of the imagination that belongs alongside Christopher Priest’s The Affirmation and Iain Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. It’s not something I’d imagine is for everyone, but it definitely was for me.

So thanks a bunch, @Muzzy. At least on this end the virtual book swap was a great success!

acemuzzy wrote:

I did kinda pick cos it seemed like the kind of whacky narrative you enjoy

Ah man, I really appreciate that! I’m still digesting the whole thing, and it’ll take a while to get my head around it. Do you remember what you took away from it? My early take was that it’s about mental illness, which is a theme that my own fiction is deeply focused on. I want to dig around and see if there are any interviews with Ishiguro regarding the story, but I need to let it settle first.

I’ll admit that I didn’t take quite the same care as you in recommending Weaveworld. No one in my circle of friends and family reads—which is really depressing—so I’ve never been able to switch anyone on to Barker. He’s a formative author for me. He transformed how I tackle my own fiction. If you only enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed The Unconsoled then I’ll be happy.

Gremill wrote:

I've been meaning to read some Ishiguro since hearing him on the Adam Buxton podcast. That sounds like my kind of thing.

It will frustrate as much as it delights, and as I’ve already said, it’s not for everyone. But if you’re up for something fractal, with the texture of a dream, then it’s amazing. And of course, this is Ishiguro, so the prose is perfection.

I don’t know man, I thought this…



…was something that made me pick up Weaveworld in the book store way back when.

poprock wrote:

Everything I Know about Life I Learned from PowerPoint by Russell Davies.

Got this waiting to be read at the moment so may try and get into it during a few days off this week having read these reviews.

‘Interesting’ titbit…ordered direct from the author having seen it mentioned on Twitter. After it didn’t arrive I emailed him, had a very friendly to and fro and got a copy out a day later!

I also now have it on my bedside table.