Quatermass' Novel Reading Blog

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I thought I might try a little experiment: to try and read, and finish, a new book every week.

My self-assigned rules are simple:

*The books can be fiction, non-fiction, or graphic novels.

*In the case of graphic novels, it has to be a volume I haven't read in a series, or else a stand-alone graphic novel.

*In all cases, a book that I have started previous to this blog, if I finish it during this, will count.

*I must write a quick review.

I'll start with a book I finished last Sunday: Blake's 7: Scorpio Attack by Trevor Hoyle, a novelisation of the Blake's 7 episodes 'Rescue', 'Traitor', and 'Stardrive'. The review will follow in a later post.

are you the same guy that's writing his memoirs?

Wha--? Do you mean this?

No, what is that picture above, a TV show?

Your the Australian guy that was going to start writing his memoirs, right?

I may have you confused with some other Australian that has a similar name to you. I recall someone with a name similar to yours talking about writing his memoirs. He's in his mid-20's, Australian, and has a similar name to you, i believe.

I was writing a travel blog in another part of the forum. Now if you don't mind, I want to continue with writing this one.

REVIEW: Blake's 7: Scorpio Attack by Trevor Hoyle

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNPBzamwut8[/youtube]

One of my most recent interests has been in the science-fiction television series Blake's 7, whose plot might sound familiar to those of you who have watched Firefly, though Blake's 7 precedes Firefly by over two decades. Created by Terry Nation (also the man who created the Daleks in Doctor Who), it follows the adventures of a group of outlaws on the run from a corrupt interstellar power. However, despite its poor production values, Blake's 7 has remained on the top of many science-fiction fans' lists.

Although the original two series had the ensemble led by revolutionary Roj Blake, the third and fourth series had the ensemble led by the amoral Kerr Avon. In fact, this novel by Trevor Hoyle adapts three of the first four episodes of series four, Rescue, Traitor, and Stardrive, missing out on the second episode, Power.

Blake is apparently dead, and so is another revolutionary, Cally. Avon, Vila, Dayna and Tarrant are stranded on an artificial world about to be destroyed, only to hijack a salvage craft that happens upon the planet. However, the salvager, Dorian, is not who he seems. Between Dorian, a revitalised Federation, the mysterious Commissioner Sleer, and a group of homicidal delinquents with the fastest spacecraft in the galaxy, the resistance fighters, even with the help of female gunslinger Soolin, have their work cut out for them. Especially with the amoral Avon in the lead.

I am yet to see the episodes in question, barring Rescue (which was on YouTube), and reading these is not unlike the time when I read Doctor Who novelisations, although no Doctor Who novelisations (based on TV serials) have the graphic and gruesome descriptions that Trevor Hoyle puts into them (with the possible exception of Ian Marter's work). For example, from the final chapter of the Stardrive section...

The novel is an enjoyable romp, if somewhat morally questionable compared to the previous Blake's 7 stories I have seen. That being said, the moral ambiguity is what makes it interesting. Not a complex novel, but still, an enjoyable one.

7/10

First words:'There's something moving down there.'

Last words: Everyone was watching Avon. He met their stares without a flicker of emotion on his lean, saturnine face. 'Who?'

Oh, that was funny... you seriously made Quatermass stumble there.

Yes, he's been writing his memoirs and he's pretending to be Australian and young... but really, he's secretly a British professor with quite a bit of experience in rocketry. He'll be trying to sound naive when he writes his review of blake 7 but really, he probably designed the propulsion systems described in the book.

BTW: Sorry QM but that double-take made my day.

Dr Plaxton is...well, was a descendant of my cousin.

I finished the first Artemis Fowl book yesterday (expect an entry based on that soon), and have started on Mario Puzo's The Family, which is about the Borgias. Makes The Godfather look downright tame.

Besides those, books that I have been reading before I started this blog, and which will probably become entries sooner or later (when I actually finish them) include:

Wild Cards: A Mosaic Novel edited by George RR Martin (think of it as a slightly less pessimistic version of Watchmen)

God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert (fourth book in the Dune series)

Romanitas by Sophia McDougall (about an alternative timeline where the Roman Empire continued, and thrived)

REVIEW: Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer



Critics have compared Artemis Fowl, fairly or otherwise, to JK Rowling's Harry Potter series. There is some truth to these comparisons. Both stories feature an unusual boy with an unusual family legacy. Both feature a magical world lurking beneath the surface of the mundane, human world. Both are set, for the most part, in the British Isles. Both are childrens books that can be enjoyed by adults.

That being said, the character of Artemis Fowl the Second cannot be further from that of Harry Potter's. Imagine Ernst Stavro Blofeld from the James Bond books and films as a child prodigy, and you go a little way to crystallising Artemis Fowl's nature. For a 12-year old child, he is prepared to do some very nasty things (kidnapping, murder, blackmail), although considering that his ancestors form a dynasty of criminals, it's possibly not surprising. However, little Artemis Fowl II, along with hulking bodyguard Butler, and Butler's teenage sister Juliet, have an audacious plan: to kidnap a leprechaun (or, to be more precise, a member of the fairy special forces group Lower Elements Police Recon, aka LEPRecon) and hold them to ransom for a metric ton of gold.

Although Artemis succeeds in kidnapping a LEPRecon member, an elf known as Holly Short, some parts of his kidnapping go awry, and it seems like an impossible task for Artemis to complete, as LEPRecon have every intention of killing Artemis if they can.

I once read that Artemis Fowl had been described as Die Hard with fairies, and although this is truthful to a degree, it is a little more than that. Unlike Harry Potter, which is clearly delineated between good and evil, Artemis Fowl has an impressive amount of moral ambiguity not unlike that in Blake's 7 or Death Note. In fact, Artemis Fowl reminds me of the latter, particularly because it is about a gifted, sociopathic individual versus the law. That being said, Fowl is, clearly and unashamedly doing his deeds for purely selfish reasons. But LEPRecon are also more than willing to take human lives in order to preserve peace between worlds, and we get a lot of back-biting and dirty dealings.

That being said, Artemis goes through something of a character arc in the story, albeit a small one. Upon kidnapping Holly Short, he begins to regret putting her through the lies and pain that he does so. And although one of Artemis' acts towards the end of the book is derided as being purely pragmatic in an epilogue written by another character, you get the feeling otherwise from the actual event itself.

That being said, although it is a fairly simple plot, with set pieces worthy of a good action film, the moral ambiguity and good characters make it a worthwhile read.


8.5/10

First words:How does one describe Artemis Fowl? Various psychiatrists have tried and failed. The main problem is Artemis' own intelligence. He bamboozles every test thrown at him. He has puzzled the greatest medical minds and sent many of them gibbering to their own hospitals.

Last words: Details are 94 percent accurate and 6 percent unavoidable extrapolation.

Wow... you gave Artemis Fowl a pretty high rating... I really didn't like it much.

1. The main character was unlikable in the extreme...
I'm happy to read baddie books (eg: that Unit+Roger Delgado master book... face of the Enemy) provided that the baddie has "class" and charisma...

2. I was expecting Harry Potter
The books make it look like you're in for a sweet kiddie fantasy but as you said, it comes across more like James Bond... a gadget-ridden poor man's bond.... with no girls with erm... interesting names.


Maybe one day, I'll read it again, perhaps with the right expectations, I'd like it. I don't know.

I think I'm enjoying it because I am also enjoying Blake's 7, and Avon in particular. I mean, Artemis Fowl is like a mini-Avon, only with less sardonic quips. I seem to enjoy anti-heroes lately. Light Yagami and L, Kerr Avon, Artemis Fowl, Elphaba, Gully Foyle, Rorschach...

The next review will probably be of The Family by Mario Puzo. Something beyond the science-fiction/fantasy I usually read.

And gbollard, I rate books mostly on entertainment/interest level rather than anything truly intellectual. That's why Atlas Shrugged, by way of an example, gets 2.5/10.

Well, another book finished.

REVIEW: The Family by Mario Puzo and Carol Gino



I read The Godfather well before I even thought of watching the movie. While crime and thriller novels are not exactly my thing, The Godfather was a good, if very crude (in terms of subject matter) and heartbreaking (in terms of what happens to Michael Corleone and Kay Adams, as well as Amerigo Bonasera, who I think, along with Kay and Michael, to be one of the more tragic characters in the novel) look at the Corleone Mafia family. I have also read The Sicilian, a sort of interquel to The Godfather which concentrates on the life of Sicilian bandit and wannabe revolutionary Salvatore Guiliano.

Now, I have read three Mario Puzo books, the third being completely unrelated to The Godfather, save in the fact that the family of the title is not unlike a larger scale version of the Corleones.

The Family charts the rise and rise of the Borgias (formerly the Spanish Borjas), one of the most infamous dynasties in European history, and in particular, Rodrigo Borgia, aka Pope Alexander VI, along with his bastard children, Cesare, Lucrezia, Juan and Jofre.

Now, you'll forgive me if I don't go into detail about the plot, as it is quite labyrinthian, although Italian, and in particular, Vatican politics at the time were significantly so. Needless to say that we see the events between Rodrigo Borgia's ascendancy to the Papacy, all the way to the death of Cesare. Of course, a number of historical liberties have been taken at some points, but the result is nonetheless an entertaining yarn. A cameo from Leonardo da Vinci, and a small but important role by Niccolo Machiavelli, are particularly noteworthy. And Italy (and Rome, in particular, the Vatican) comes alive, but in a way that both repels one at the sheer debauchery and hypocrisy of the time, and yet, attracts one to the complexities and intrigue.

Although many sequences tend to make one shudder and want to scrub oneself with steel wool (an early sequence describing Alexander VI coercing Cesare and Lucrezia to bed one another while he watches spring to mind), Puzo, despite the subject matter, succeeds in what some people would think is an impossible task. He makes the Borgias, Lucrezia in particular, sympathetic. Instead of evil monsters, he makes them conflicted characters, forced by fate, circumstance, politics and hypocrisy into bad decisions. Pope Alexander VI makes Don Corleone look like a saint, but Cesare is seen as a badly conflicted man with a genuine love for his sister. Lucrezia is perhaps the most sympathetic, being forced to go through so much.

Although not as enthralling as The Godfather, The Family is an intriguing historical novel which, once you steel yourself against the subject matter, is a moderately good yarn.

7.75/10

First words:As the black death swept through Europe, devastating half the population, many citizens in desperation turned their eyes from the Heavens to Earth. There, in order to master the physical world, the more philosophically incined tried to uncover the secrets of existence and to unravel Life's great mysteries, while the poor hoped only to overcome their suffering.

Last words: "Lucrezia d'Este, the good and merciful duchess of Ferrara," he said. "Have you never heard of her?"

The fourth book bites the dust.

REVIEW: Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire




The problem with sequels is that relying on old, tried and tested characters and settings can be seen as lazy. This is potentially doubly so when the book is a sequel to a story which takes an established story, an established setting and characters, and changes them. Unfortunately, Son of a Witch, while an intriguing sequel to Wicked, fails to be a great book.

Maybe part of the problem is that my familiarity with the Wizard of Oz mythos was limited (before I read Wicked) to the famous 1930s film and the old '80s dubbed version of the anime version. Maybe sometime I should remedy it. However, I am also not a fan of fantasy in general, usually restricted to the fantasy-comedy Discworld series (though Artemis Fowl and Harry Potter have proven interesting enough to warrant further attention).

There are some of you who might remember that I travelled to the UK earlier this year, and borrowed a copy of Wicked from the wife of the brother of my cousin's husband. I read Wicked fairly rapidly, finishing within a couple of weeks, between reading other books. Wicked was an intriguing book, but ultimately needed a little je ne sais quois to justify its explosively blockbuster reputation. It was a good, adult take on the Oz mythos, and an interesting discussion on the nature of good, evil, perception and politics. It just didn't quite live up to the reputation it had. One ends up feeling sorry, though, for Elphaba, otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of the West.

Son of a Witch picks up where Wicked, and thus, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, left off. The son (although that is in doubt) of Elphaba, Liir, decides to accompany Dorothy back to the Emerald City. This starts off an adventure where most of the characters of the original Oz take a back seat (as they had done, with the exception of Elphaba and Glinda, for most of Wicked) to a dark world of genocide, rape, and general dirty dealings.

I don't mind dark fantasy, as long as it isn't overtly horrific. But Son of a Witch was fairly tedious to read through, with less philosophical underpinnings than its predecessor (though considering the heavy philosophical nature of the extremely tedious Atlas Shrugged, that is no bad thing in some cases) and less entertainment value. If I had to boil down the plot of Son of a Witch down to a few sentences, it is the search of a young man first looking for a loved one, but which soon changes into a search for his own identity. A common enough plot. Unfortunately, Son of a Witch, despite taking some interesting twists and turns with the plot, doesn't transcend the plot until a spectacular sequence towards the end. Unfortunately for the novel, it is too little, too late.

Don't get me wrong. It is still enjoyable, especially to those who would have read Wicked, but quite frankly, there is a lot lacking here. Read Wicked first. If you hate it, don't read Son of a Witch. Things don't exactly improve.

6.5/10

First words:So the talk of random brutality wasn't just talk. At noontime they discovered the bodies of three young women, out on some mission of conversion that appeared to have gone awry. The novice maunts had been trangled by their ropes of holy beads, and their faces removed.

Last words: (Omitted because of potential spoilers*)

*Normally, I would use the final paragraph/line of the novel, hopefully something that doesn't have a spoiler attached. However, the last paragraph of Son of a Witch is an extreme spoiler, so I will refrain from doing so.

The next review will most likely be of either The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, or I, Claudius by Rupert Graves.

Last edited by Quatermass on 14 Aug 2009, 11:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Damn, 4 books in 5 days! I'm on fire!

You'll get square eyes...

They'd go well with my glasses. And I thought that was with television.