Still around folks… just a bit busy (with a smattering of proscratination)! I’m reading  a whole lot more of other people’s blogs and not keeping up with my own

I finally got my second huge book haul! I waited a whole extra week to get it, since it was sent home and I live on campus. But, oh, that wonderful feeling! For me? A package? Why, thank you! (proceed with decimation of cardboard box in which the books were nestled)

Thanks to your dedicated efforts at reviewing some of these books, I have spent quite a hefty sum on internet shopping. Then, waiting with increasing impatience for the package to arrive (literally, I waited a whole MONTH, by then, some of the books had already arrived at the local bookstore…*sigh* I am a victim of my own impatience).

Some of the goodies I got:

-          Lonely werewolf girl by Martin Millar

-          The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

-          The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt

-          Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling

-          After Dark by Haruki Murakami

-          The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

-          The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

-          Graceling by Kristin Cashore

-          Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliasotti

So lovely! Such intriguing plots and deep thoughts! Such pretty covers for book lovers!

And, also, I won by first book – Prospero Lost! From Graeme, at Graeme’s Fantasy. I checked my email at the wee hours of the morning, just before class, and quietly shrieked with delight so as not to wake any of my roomates up (they’re all lazy bums and wake up 5 mins before class ) Ah, the joy of winning a free book!

So expect a nice, slow, leisurely trickle of book reviews but lots of obsessive comments and blog visiting from me for a while!

I have said before that I love both Martin Millar and Douglas Coupland quite a lot.  Well, Matt Ruff’s Fool on the Hill is like if Martin Millar and Douglas Coupland had a love child, and Douglas Coupland  raised the kid because Martin Millar lived too far away, but the kid  grew up reading Martin Millar’s books obsessively, and then the kid  went to Cornell for college.  I feel like that sequence of events  could have produced Fool on the Hill.

Fool on the Hill is a story about Cornell University (ever heard of it?), if Cornell University had fairies and sword-fighting rats.  There are oodles of characters, and they are all amusing, and the different sets of characters eventually come together – much like in Lonely Werewolf Girl, so in case you are thinking that I’m only making the Martin Millar comparison because of the  fairies I AM NOT.  There’s Stephen George, a writer; his muse,  Calliope, who comes and goes; the beautiful Aurora Borealis Smith and her revolutionary father; Luther and Blackjack, a dog and cat on a quest to find Heaven; Ragnarok and the Bohemians, with an unimpeachable sense of justice; a wicked fraternity that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize didn’t actually exist; and Cornell fairies prepared to fight a war for Cornell against a foe they all thought to be dead.

I won this book from Nicki at Fyrefly’s Book Blog (thank you!), and she most brilliantly sent me along a map of Cornell to go with it, with relevant locations circled in aquamarine-colored pen.  Possibly the reason I read it so gradually is that I was constantly putting the book down and inspecting the map to orient myself on the campus.  That, and the fact that it was on my bedside table.  For some reason I never fetch books from my bedside table and curl up with them downstairs to finish them. Once they are on my bedside table they are only going to get read for about twenty minutes each night before I fall asleep.

But that is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, because I really did.  I was making it last by reading it slowly.  It’s such a lark that it’s fun to make it last: how there’s a “writer” called Mr. Sunshine inventing the whole story as they go, and that makes it possible for Matt Ruff to toss in little remarks about antiheroes and dei ex machinis (oo, useful Latin there).  I loved Jinsei & Ragnarok – because Matt Ruff is right, you need a hero that’s not all sweetness and light sometimes – and the whole thing of Tolkien House and their Lothlorien.  Fun.  Read it!  (But you can’t have my copy.  I’m greedy and I’m keeping it.)

(Maybe the ending is a little rushed.  But it is so much fun that I don’t mind.)

Link me if you reviewed it too!

Kalix, 17jähriges Mitglied einer Werwolfdynastie, wurde nach einem Angriff auf ihren Vater – den Fürsten – verstoßen und ist nun auf der Flucht vor ihrer Familie. Depressiv, magersüchtig – kurzum ein Wrack – so lernt sie die jungen Menschen Moonglow und Daniel kennen und findet in ihnen Freunde. Derweil entbrennt nach dem Tod des Fürsten ein erbitterter Krieg um die neue Führung des Werwolfclans.

Martin Millar ist mit diesem Buch eine spannende, interessante und seitenweise sogar humorvolle Story gelungen. Durch die kurzen Kapitel liest es sich sehr zügig. Auch die Sprache ist sehr bildlich, kurz und einfach. Millar hat in seiner Story außergewöhnliche, interessante und sehr verschiedene Charaktäre zusammen gefasst, die aber jeder für sich fazettenreich und durchaus nachvollziehbar beschrieben werden. Auch die Beschreibung der Zwilling oder die der modebegeisterten Feuerkönigin sind grandios gelungen.

Die Dialoge zwischen den Figuren sind zeilenweise sehr humorvoll und ließen mich immer wieder schmunzeln.

Einzig für das meiner Meinung nach offene Ende gibt es einen Punkt Abzug. Aber dafür freu ich mich jetzt schon auf die Fortsetzung.

Nein, ich habe nichts verbrochen und musste festgenommen werden. xD
Allerdings sind Klein-Saskia und Kleiner-Brüderchen zusammen – und mal nicht streitend – zum Kaufland gelaufen, um Süßigkeiten zu kaufen, die sie dann später mit Groß-Ma und Größer-Pa würden essen können.
… Und ein Spiel, das Kleiner-Brüderchen haben will, für das er aber zu jung ist, um es zu kaufen. Klein-Saskia nicht.

Nun, wir kamen dort, lustig redend bzw. debattierend, ob wir Adrians Computer auseinander nehmen sollten, damit ich mal sehe, wo was ist (ich war dagegen), als wir allmählich langsamer wurden und uns fragten, ob nun auch Kaufland streikt. Denn vor uns saßen so einige Leute in roten Kaufland-Westen oder anderer Geschäfte, die mit im Gebäude sind.
Doch es fehlten so irgendwie die Proteste.
Außerdem war der Bereich um das Kauflandgebäude herum abgesperrt, Polizei war auch anwesend oo’
Wir waren jetzt nicht sonderlich erpicht darauf, nachzufragen, was denn los sei und sind wieder gegangen (und werden in einer Stunde gucken, ob wir wieder rein kommen xD), aber neugierig bin ich ja doch. Wird wohl morgen in der Zeitung stehen, wenn was war -grübel-

Aber da fällt mir bei Polizei doch das Wort “Überwachungsstaat” ein xD
[Nichts gegen euch, Kumpels. Ihr macht auch nur euren Job.]
Langsam fühl ich mich wirklich überwacht. Nicht vom Staat – sondern von den Lehrern [von einer nichtstaatlichen Schule xD].
Das mein Klassenlehrer aus den Klassen 9 und 10 nahezu um die Ecke wohnt – daran hab ich mich ja gewöhnt. Und dass seine Frau und meine ehemalige Lateinlehrerin dort auch wohnt, ist wohl kaum verwunderlich.
Aber irgendwann wandere ich nichts ahnend durchs Viertel und wer begegnet mir? Eine weitere Lehrerin der Schule, die ich glücklicherweise noch nicht im Unterricht hatte.
Dann vor einer Weile: Ein Lehrer, der sehr nett ist, den ich allerdings erst in einer Art Projektwoche mal hatte.
Und heute wurde der Vogel abgeschossen: Die Oberstufenleiterin!
Ich krieg’s langsam echt mit der Angst zu tun y.y
Und wenn ich zu meiner Freundin fahre … dann wohnt dort der Schulleiter.
Soviel zum Thema Ferien.
-hust-

Noch nebenbei: Im Vorbeigehen bemerkt und durchs Cover doch glatt interessiert:

Werwölfin Kalix MacRinnalch ist auf der Flucht. Von ihrem Clan geächtet und von Werwolfjägern verfolgt, streift sie durch London. Als sie Unterschlupf bei zwei Fremden findet, scheint Kalix vorerst sicher zu sein. Doch sie kann die Ereignisse der Vergangenheit nicht einfach abschütteln…

Beziehungsweise die Beschreibung von Thalia.de:

London: Werwolf Kalix MacRinnalch streift allein durch die Stadt. Sie hat ihren Vater, den Anführer des Werwolfclans, attackiert – eine unverzeihliche Tat. Nun wird sie nicht nur von mörderischen Werwolfjägern verfolgt, sondern auch von ihren rachsüchtigen Verwandten. Kalix findet jedoch Unterschlupf bei den Studenten Daniel und Moonglow. Diese werden dadurch in einen Konflikt hineingezogen, der vom schottischen Hochland bis nach London reicht und noch ein paar Dimensionen weiter. Denn die Werwölfe rüsten sich zum Krieg um die Führung des Klans, und Kalix steht im Zentrum des Geschehens.

Leseprobe gibt es hier.
Zugegeben, der Schreibstil ist bis jetzt nicht irgendwie herausragend, der Inhalt klingt interessant, aber auch nicht komplett neu.
Allerdings … ich hab zu Hause viel zu wenige Werwolf-Romane [Lori Handeland, bald bist auch du dran! xD] und mal ehrlich: Wie kann ich einem Buch widerstehen, das im Original dieses Cover hat:

[Auch wenn der Originaltitel bescheuert klingt ...]

Es wird wohl definitiv auf meine Liste kommen. Mal sehen, wann ich es mir kaufen kann.
Vielleicht gibt es dann schon einen zweiten Teil? Zumindest soll es einen geben:

Here’s the cover for Piatkus’s edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl, due to be released in Britain in October, I think. I like this cover a lot. Meanwhile I’m working away on the sequel, which is due to be released next year.

[Quelle]

Nun ja. Ich verabschiede mich für heute!

Nothing says June quite like cold, rainy weather.  I was reminded once again at lunch that “June weather is so unpredictable.”  As far as I can tell, Minnesota weather is unpredictable.  The problem is that it isn’t fantastically unpredictable.  In Colorado, it might snow on July 4.  Here, it’s just going to be gloomy and unseasonably cool.

I suppose I’m still reeling from my last-minute trip to New Orleans over Memorial Day weekend.  The weather there was gorgeous.  I helped my dad put together his new tiller, and then watched him mow down the hummingbird feeder with it during the trial run.  We worked in the garden with Alana.  I had a good time.  Even when it was raining, it was warm.

I’m reading a really funny book right now.  It’s called Lux the Poet by Martin Millar.  Millar is a great British sci/fi writer.  He has a very wry sense of humor.  I also recommend his books Lonely Werewolf Girl and The Good Fairies of New York.

One movie I do not suggest you rent is He’s Just Not That Into You.  S checked it out this weekend, thinking it would be an innocuous romantic comedy, but we turned it off 30 minutes into it.  You know something is wrong when Ben Affleck starts using your own anti-marriage reasoning.  It made me re-think my position on marriage.  The jury is still out on my conclusion.

I have a terrifying mail merge coming up at work.  It isn’t as though I haven’t done a mail merge before.  I do them every month.  However, I’ve never done such a large merge before, and it’s imperative that I don’t screw this up.  I had a dream about it last night, and woke up in a cold sweat.  Dreaming about work is never a good sign.  

  I’m slowly working myself around my writer’s block, so I may compose more than one post this month.  We’ll see.

I hope Martin Millar never reads this blog post and decides that I’m a jerk, but I’m going to go ahead and say it anyway: Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation is his first book and you can tell.  I wish you could not tell – I love it when I can’t tell – but you could tell.  You could also tell it was absolutely definitely Martin Millar and nobody else whatsoever, what with all the shifts in point of view, and the brief, brief little snippets of action at one time.  (My short attention span thanks you for that, Martin Millar.)  Like all of Martin Millar’s books, Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation was amusing and enjoyable and a bit frenetic.  It was just a smidge rougher than his others.  Lux the Poet was the same.  I still liked them both.

Martin Millar is the author of several novels, including The Good Fairies of New York, Lonely Werewolf Girl, Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me and his newest, Lux the Poet, available May 2009. While Millar’s fiction displays a wide range in style, from fantasy to gritty realism, funny to funereal, all his works hold up a fun-house mirror to society with fascinating results.

This is Installment 3 of 3 of our exclusive interview with Martin Millar. Missed an earlier post? Read Installment 1 and Installment 2.

JENN NORTHINGTON: Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me feels more like a memoir than a fantasy novel, although it does contain fantastical elements. How much of the main character is you? What about the “autobiographical novel” format do you find most interesting/stimulating?

MARTIN MILLAR: It is very autobiographical in one way – I did go to that Led Zeppelin gig in Glasgow – however I did think of it as a novel rather than an autobiography, because I added events, moved events around in time, added and merged characters and so on, to make it a better story.  Writing it in the first person seemed the best way to describe the events because it was difficult for me to imagine anyone else except myself being so excited about that gig.I’ve never dealt with any aspects of my own childhood/teenage years before, and I felt like having a look at that time in my life.

JN: Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation, which I often characterize as the love child of Trainspotting and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (enjoyably seedy and offhandedly hilarious), takes place in your former place of residence, Brixton, as do several of your other novels. What about Brixton lends itself as a setting to your work?

MM: When I first I moved there at the end of the 70s, Brixton would have been known for two things. Firstly, it was one of the parts of London that had a large black population, and secondly it was poor. Really, in these days it was a place you ended up if you were poor. However, it always seemed like a very creative place as well, and many musicians would end up there, playing in bands, and artists and so on. It was the sort of place where people were free to get on with their own projects and ideas, as long as they could get on with them without having much money. My novels reflected that. Later, Brixton became a bit more up-market, after some urban re-development, as happened to a lot of inner city areas.

JN: Your next novel, Lux the Poet, comes out in May of this year. Is there anything you’d like to tell us about it ahead of time?

I’m tempted just to answer ‘I can write better these days.’ Which I can. However, Lux the Poet has an interesting background, being set among the riots that happened in Brixton in the 80s. Lux himself in a funny character, I always liked him. I admire his confidence, cheerfulness, and good looks. He’s sort of the opposite of Alby Starvation.

I got this book out of the library because I put Martin Millar’s name into the Literature-Map website, and Caitlin Kiernan’s name was close to his.  This is one of those things that I should know straight away isn’t going to work out for me: every time I do this, I find that the closest authors to the name I’ve entered are people I either haven’t heard of or don’t like, whereas the names of authors I do like are farther out to the perimeter.  Douglas Coupland, Neil Gaiman, T.S. Eliot, and Alexandre Dumas are all well out at the borders of Martin Millar.

Threshold is about an unhappy geologist called Chance, and her unhappy psychic alcoholic ex-boyfriend, Deacon; and how an albino teenager called Dancy finds them and asks for their help fighting monsters.  They are not really into this because they are busy being unhappy, but eventually the evidence that monsters are happening becomes overwhelming.

I do not like scary stories.  I don’t need films and books to scare me – I already scare me plenty.  It’s not the fantasy parts of this book that frighten me, it’s the real-life parts.  (That is almost always the case.)  I couldn’t decide how I felt about the writing in the book either.  It’s nonlinear, and a tiny bit like Rumer Godden (whom I love), and there are bits that you aren’t sure at first whether it’s dreams or really happening.  And there are lines I really liked, like “arguing in smaller and smaller circles, and Chance always wrong, always the one who isn’t making sense”, and “the truth and her mind push each other away, opposing magnetic poles”.

Possibly because the book was frightening, I never really engaged with any of the characters.  I actively didn’t engage with them, which is my fault, not the book’s, but I was feeling jumpy when I was reading it, and I didn’t want to fall too far in.  (Like I do when I read The Scarlet Pimpernel, for example.)  The end was strange and unresolved, and I feel very ambivalent about this book, and I can’t decide if I want to read more of Caitlin Kiernan’s books.

I’ve recently returned home from a weekend trip to Portland, Oregon.  I quite enjoy Portland.  The city is clean, pretty friendly, and I feel comfortable there.  For me, one of the biggest draws is Powell’s City of Books.

There are actually several locations of Powell’s, but the main one covers a Portland city block.  I love a store that makes maps available for shoppers.  This latest trip also saw me being the recipient of an “I got lost in Powell’s books” sticker.  If you are a book lover at all, you should enjoy Powell’s.  Although it can be a bit overwhelming at first.  If you need to take a break, there’s a convenient coffee shop in the store.  Powell’s grew out of a small used-book store.   You can see this heritage in the plywood shelves in some rooms and the large number of used books that are for sale.  The best part is that used and new books are shelved together.  I love this system.  As much as I enjoy the discovery of an author that is new to me, sometimes I find it difficult to take a $10 risk.  Considering the volume of books that I buy when I visit Powell’s (good thing I don’t live in Portland!) that could really add up.  I do buy new books as well, so don’t worry that I’m cheating an author out of a royalty or two.

Looking back on the few posts I’ve made, it is starting to look like I only read books that are well reviewed or of redeeming social value.  (Sidebar: I once met a man who told me that he only read Booker or other prize winning novels.  While I applaud that he read novels at all, how limiting is that?)  Not true.  I am as fond of what I like to call literary cotton candy as much as the next person.  You know what I mean?  No nutritional value, but kind of fun once in a while?  I just finished a wee book that at first glance looked like it might be one of these: The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar.  A staff note under the Neil Gaiman books at Powell’s suggested I might like Millar’s work.  And Gaiman had written the forward, so I was happy to try it out.  The back suggested a silly, fantasy romp about drunken fairies getting lost after a magic mushroom binge and ending up in New York.  Which was true.  However, it also turned out to be a somewhat Swiftian social satire about the lack of health insurance for the average American, the dangers of reckless expansionism, and the plight of the homeless.  A morality story wrapped in cotton candy.  Fun book, though.  And thought provoking.  Thanks nameless Powell’s staff for the recommendation!

Martin Millar is the author of several novels, including The Good Fairies of New York, Lonely Werewolf Girl, Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me and his newest, Lux the Poet, available May 2009. While Millar’s fiction displays a wide range in style, from fantasy to gritty realism, funny to funereal, all his works hold up a fun-house mirror to society with fascinating results.

This is Installment 1 of 3 of our exclusive interview with Martin Millar.

JENN NORTHINGTON: Your novels defy simple genre classification. I’ve been known to refer to them (particularly Lonely Werewolf Girl and Good Fairies of New York) as “punk fantasy,” although I’m pretty sure that category only exists in my mind. Others have called your work urban fantasy, magical realism, or pulp noir, and some are clearly semi-autobiographical. How would you classify them?

MARTIN MILLAR: If I was classifying them, I’d probably say they belonged to different genres. I started off writing about my own circumstances, and the people around me, in post-punk times in Brixton, South London. The novels then weren’t really meant to be fantasy, though there were some fantastic elements. They were more meant to reflect my own circumstances, particularly in the large squatting community that existed in Sough London at that time. I’d written a few things before, which hadn’t come out right, and it was only when I started writing about things I really knew about that I wrote anything that was any good.

That changed  with The Good Fairies of New York, which introduced a stronger fantasy element as a main element, though I kept on setting the story among the sort of people I knew.

I suppose The Good Fairies of New York shares this fantasy element with the much later Lonely Werewolf Girl, but I think of the two books as very different in tone. Lonely Werewolf Girl is more of a genre novel than anything else I’ve written.

It strikes me that in Canada and the USA, people might look at my work a little differently, because The Good Fairies of New York was the first book to be published, followed by Lonely Werewolf Girl. So the fantasy novels came first, followed by books which don’t contain such strong elements of fantasy. But really, that’s my career backwards. I started of writing in a more realistic vein, and the fantasy element grew stronger as I continued.

Lately I’ve read some very good books. So I thought I’d throw them out there and recommend them, along with a few ones I’ve read in the past.

Madapple- Christina Meldrum

Sweet Blood, Godless, Invisible- Pete Hautman (They’re easy reads, but quite good)

Hearts in Atlantis- Stephen King

Dead Connection (Sorry, I can’t remember who wrote it)

Wither, Wither’s Rain- John Pasarella

Dragonfly- John Ferris

And some older ones:

Cry of the Icemark- Stuart Hill

Good Omens- Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Just Listen- Sarah Dessen (Another easy but good read)

Lonely Werewolf Girl- Martin Millar (Highly recommended for werewolf fans)

Interview with the Vampire- Anne Rice

You’ve got to admire Martin Millar’s creative powers. He can spin a tall tale with the best of them, and leave you hiccuping with laughter and smiling ruefully in recognition. Millar is the creative genius who brought us the irreverent and hilarious Good Fairies of New York. His second book to be publishing in the US, Lonely Werewolf Girl is about a confused young werewolf overwhelmed by the pressures of life, who gets taken under the wings of two well-meaning, but very naive students. One is an obsessive record collector, the other a romantic, new age Goth. Both are blissfully unaware that their exotic new friend is under sentence of death from her werewolf family, and that the werewolf world is just about to be torn apart by civil war.

As usual, Millar’s focus is on the outsiders, the uncool, and the clueless. His werewolves have flaws, vices and addictions, and they’re all the more human because of them. On the one hand, Lonely Werewolf Girl concerns a feud between two brothers, the heirs to the Thane of the werewolves. On the other, it’s a book about family, about fractured, flawed people trying to find their place in the world and most often finding that the obstacles they must overcome are the expectations, theirs and others’, of what they should do or be. Happily, Millar is well aware that laughter is the best medicine, and he ensures that his books are above all fast, funny romps populated by vivid characters.

Lonely Werewolf Girl is just as offbeat and wonderful as Good Fairies, and displays a sympathy and understanding for outsiders, the lost and the lonely that reminds us that seriousness and sobriety are often the enemies of great writing. Fans of Terry Pratchett take note, the heir is at hand.

An excerpt from this review appeared in the Book Sense Spring – Summer 2008 Reading Group Picks list.

Alby Starvation is a low-level speed dealer on the dole, a hypochondriac and dyed-in-the-wool neurotic who is absolutely convinced that someone is out to kill him. Unfortunately for Alby, he’s absolutely correct.

After deciding that milk is responsible for his poor health,  people begin to turn to Alby for diet advice and the media begins to portray him as an anti-milk crusader. This earns him the ire of the milk marketing board. Fearing the impact that “The Starvation Method” could have on their business,  they hire a cold-blooded female assassin to shut him up once and for all.

Alby learns of the plot through a repentant born-again contract killer and goes on the run with only his hamster Happy and his precious comic book collection, crossing paths with a strange cast of characters including a videogame playing zen master, a crooked professor in search of a magic crown and a fugitive Kung Fu artist.

Millar seems to know intimately the dreamers, outcasts and misfits that inhabit his novels,  casting them in stories composed equally of faerie glamour, absurd humor and working-class grime. His first novel, Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation bears all the characteristics that would make his later works the classics of urban fantasy that they are.

Green by Jay Lake. Tor. June, 2009.

Her exquisite beauty and brilliant mind were not enough tofree her form captivity. That took her skills with a knife, and the power of a goddess.

She was born in poverty, in a dusty village under the equatorial sun. She does not remember her mother, she does not remember her own name – her earliest clear memory is of hte day her father solder her to the tall pale man. In the Court of the Pomegranate Tree, where she was taught the ways of a courtesan…and the skills of an assassin…she was named Emerald, the precious jewel of the Undying Duke’s collection of beauties. She calls herself Green.

The world she inhabits is one of political power and magic, where Gods meddle in the affairs of mortals. At the center of it is the immortal Duke’s city of Copper Downs, which controls all of the trade on the Storm Sea. Green has made many enemies, and some secret friends, and she has become a very dangerous woman indeed.

Acclaimed author Jay Lake has created a remarkable character in Green, and evokes a remarkable world in this novel. Green and her struggle to survive and find her own past will live in the reader’s mind for a long time after closing the book.

Gears of the City by Felix Gilman. Bantam. December 30, 2008

In this stunning follow-up to his acclaimed debut, Thunderer, Felix Gilman’s brave hero returns from one thrilling and dangerous quest only to confront another. In a magical landscape where time is meaningless, reality precarious, and countless selves work toward countless possible futures, one man must seek a city’s truth—and rediscover his own.

Imprisoned with a prophetic half human, half beast, the lost man learns his name: Arjun. Slowly the terrible memories emerge, and at last he remembers where—and when—he has been. . . .

In the last days of the once great city of Ararat, Arjun is just another ghost lost in the shadows of the Mountain. To some, the Mountain is a myth, to others, a weapon. Above all, it is a dark palace leaving its seekers to wander the city below. For no matter how far one walks, the Mountain never draws closer, and time itself becomes another trap.

Rescued by two sisters from the mindless Know-Nothings who erode what’s left of the city, Arjun volunteers to retrieve their long-lost third sister from a ghost like himself: Brace-Bel, another man out of time. It will require a perilous trek through ruins to a decadent mansion—one surrounded by traps and devices that could not possibly exist yet. And what awaits Arjun inside is something he could not possibly have imagined.

As he struggles to recover the lost girl and piece the fragments of his life back together, Arjun knows he must finally return to the beast to hear the rest of its prophecy. But each step is more treacherous than the last . . . and the beast who knows his fate may pose the most deadly trial yet.

A spellbinding novel of imagination and intrigue, Gears of the City will propel you into an adventure like no other, in a world like no other.

Duke Elric by Michael Moorcock. Del Rey. March 24, 2009.

Elric, albino emperor of a decadent kingdom, is one of the best-known and most influential characters in the history of fantasy. His continuing adventures are lavisly illustrated in this beautiful omnibus volume, the fourth in a series. Included are the novel The Sailor on the Seas of Fate; the comic book script “Duke Elridc”; a foreword by Michael Chabon, a sleection of classic artwork that appeared on early editions of Elric novels and short stories, and much more.

Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation by Martin Millar. Soft Skull Press. January 6, 2009.

Alby’s doctor refuses to believe he’s allergic to just about everything (which he is), especially milk. But when Alby soon discovers that his ongoing ailments are directly linked to the consumption of said product, he gives it up and is cured. Only thing is, he goes on to suggest this remedy to a number of other people suffering from milk allergies. In Millar’s surreal backyard, the Milk Marketing Board sees sales slump to an alltime low. So there’s only one thing left to do: put out a contract on Alby Starvation. Now Alby must save both his life and his precious comic collection.

In Martin Millar’s surreal tale of the urban counter culture—a world full of shop-lifting, death-threats, paranoia, and video game arcades—Alby’s frantic struggle to avoid being shot falls somewhere between Irvine Welsh and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

This is Not a Game by Walter Jon Wiliams. Orbit. March 24, 2009.

Once upon a time, there were four of them. And though each was good at a number of things, all of them were very good at games…

Dagmar is a game designer trapped in Jakarta in the middle of a revolution. The city is tearing itself apart around her and she needs to get out.

Her boss Charlie has his own problems — 4.3 billion of them, to be precise, hidden in an off-shore account.

Austin is the businessman — the VC. He’s the one with the plan and the one to keep the geeks in line.

BJ was there from the start, but while Charlie’s star rose, BJ sank into the depths of customer service. He pads his hours at the call-center slaying on-line orcs, stealing your loot, and selling it on the internet.

But when one of them is gunned down in a parking lot, the survivors become players in a very different kind of game. Caught between the dangerous worlds of the Russian Mafia and international finance, Dagmar must draw on all her resources — not least millions of online gamers– to track down the killer. In this near-future thriller, Walter Jon Williams weaves a pulse-pounding tale of intrigue, murder, and games where you don’t get an extra life.

Yes, yes, I finally caved and read this.  I have been delaying gratification for quite a while, but I just couldn’t resist the siren call of this book anymore.  It has been sitting so alluringly on my bookshelf.  Last night I was reading The Sixteen Pleasures and suddenly it became clear to me that if I went another second without reading Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me, my brain would explode.  (Nothing against The Sixteen Pleasures, which I’m enjoying.)  I am beginning to entertain the notion that my great dislike of everything else I’ve been reading is all to do with the fact that I really wanted to be reading Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me.  I mean really reading it, not reading two pages and then putting it away, delaying gratification some more.

Anyway, it was definitely worth the wait.  What a totally excellent book.  Martin Millar is brilliant.  It’s weird because last year around this same time I didn’t care about Martin Millar at all, and now when people ask me who my favorite author is, Martin Millar springs immediately to mind.  I wish Neil Gaiman and Martin Millar had a Time-Turner like Hermione and they could sit around and turn back time all over the place, and write dozens and dozens of books for me to read.  That would be great.  Right now there are only, like, four?  five? books of Martin Millar’s that I haven’t read already.  Four or five is an extremely small number.  I have to dole them out to myself slowly, one by one, over several years, to prolong my enjoyment.

(But not the sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl.  When that comes out I’m going to buy it straight away.)

Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me is all about a young Martin Millar being in love with a girl called Suzy, and going to see Led Zeppelin play a gig in Glasgow, and then talking about it many years later with his friend Manx.  I liked it a lot.  (Spoilers) He mentioned Buffy and the geeky girl met Led Zeppelin and got advice about life from Robert Plant.  How good!  An altogether totally pleasing book.  And I didn’t even read the end before I got there.  (Not the right kind of book for that to be necessary.)  This book was funny and also poignant.  I like the word poignant.  I never get to use it enough.

I’m a bit sad that I’ve read this book and now I haven’t got any other Martin Millar books to read.  Our library only has books I’ve already read.  But at least now I’m not yearning for it tragically, and hopefully I will be able to enjoy other books.

Or maybe I will just watch Doctor Who a lot, as it’s Christmas and I’m trying to make my big sister who is just home from law school learn to love Doctor Who like my younger sister and I do.  This would be more successful if the TV at my parents’ house were in the living room, not the bedroom, because the living room is more comfortable to watch films in.  I am pleased about starting the fourth series, as I got tired of Martha not being fierce enough (she was always much cooler when the Doctor wasn’t around), and Donna looks like she will be clever and make the Doctor laugh but not put up with any crap.

P.S. Just can’t say this enough.  Thank you, Neil Gaiman, for writing an introduction to The Good Fairies of New York and making me decide to read it.  Also, thank you, Amazon.com, for bringing up The Good Fairies of New York when I did a search for Neil Gaiman, because otherwise I wouldn’t have known it existed.

I am afraid that if I keep saying sweet to describe Martin Millar’s book, it will seem to be that I am damning him with faint praise and denying that he has any edge. Because his books contain themes about racism and drugs and sex and whatnot, and these aren’t things generally associated with books that are sweet. On the other hand, if Martin Millar didn’t want his books to be described as sweet, he should not have written such extremely sweet books. So it’s not really my fault.

Lux the Poet is about several things. It’s about a poet called Lux who is incredibly vain, and to whom nobody will listen when he tries to recite his poems. He is in love with a girl called Pearl, who has made a film and is (sort of) dating a girl called Nicky, who is manic-depressive and has irritated the vengeful leaders of a company that was trying to breed genius babies, by stealing their genetic programme so they can’t carry on with their plan to breed genius babies. Also, there is a fallen heavenly person called Kalia who has to do a million good deeds before she can get back into heaven, and she continues to be reincarnated until she has done this. Her plans are being thwarted by wicked Yasmin, who in this incarnation is hunting down Nicky and Pearl to get the genetic programme back. Um, and also Lux is being hunted down by an angry thrash metal band called the Jane Austen Mercenaries, because he stole their demo tape which is now wanted by a record company. Also there is a book reviewer trying to get back a manuscript he left with Nicky. Oh, and also – I forgot this until just now, which you wouldn’t think I would have because it’s the whole point – they are all in Brixton during the reportedly very unpleasant Brixton riot in 1981. It was a great big riot, and it contained racial tension. Apparently. I wasn’t born yet. Anyway there is a big riot and everybody is going round and round Brixton trying not to get burned up or intimidated or arrested.

And it was very sweet. Mostly. Apart from a wee bit in which this woman got raped – but because that’s upsetting to me I’ve decided to believe Nicky was hallucinating it, which, hey, she may have been – and apart from how occasionally some unpleasant people used a word I don’t use and really, really, really don’t like (it’s a racial slur – you know what I mean). It is one of very few words I actively dislike. In fact it is my least favorite word. If I ever get interviewed by James Lipton – which is unlikely – I will tell him this word is my least favorite word. Ugh, I really hate it. I decline to write it because I dislike it so much.

I read Lux the Poet in order to make myself not dislike Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me. In case I haven’t said so, I am greatly looking forward to reading Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me, but I’m holding off until I have finished reading my new Markus Zusak books (which are short), and the two Douglas Coupland books I have out of the library, and The Vampire Tapestry. It’s all about delaying gratification. However, I have noticed a trend with new authors where I really like the first two books I read by them and then the third one is a letdown (this has held true with Martine Leavitt and Salman Rushdie and Mary Renault and probably others but I can’t remember), and since I already bought Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me, I didn’t want it to be a letdown. So I read Lux the Poet as my number three Martin Millar book. It wasn’t a letdown but it was less good than the first two books I read by him, and therefore I am now safe to read Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me.

Anyway, Lux the Poet was good. Except too short. I can envision a world in which one would find Martin Millar’s writing to be choppy and disjointed, but I’m glad to report I don’t live in that unfriendly depressing world. I liked this book, and I especially liked Kalia, who was the fallen heavenly creature trying to find her way home. I liked it how Lux was very okay with discovering this about Kalia, and I liked it that major problems throughout the book sometimes got resolved suddenly and easily (it’s so relaxing). Lux reminded me a bit of the poet ghost in The Graveyard Book, one of several characters in The Graveyard Book that there was not enough of, so it was quite convenient to have read this straight away after reading The Graveyard Book. I’m sad I have to return Lux the Poet to the library. Maybe I will steal it.

I’m sort of sad that Lonely Werewolf Girl was only released last year. It appears to take four or five years for Martin Millar to write a new book, which is fine but sad for me because now I have to wait until 2012 for his next one. 2012. That is a long time away, and it seems like a very improbable year to me. 2012. Like 2012 could ever happen.

Martin Millar a castigat in anul 2000, sub pseudonimul de Martin Scott, World Fantasy Award pentru romanul “Traxas” o imbinare de povesti fantastice cu aventuri in care se impletesc destinele orcilor, elfilor si oamenilor. Romanul “The Good Fairies of New York” ( titlul orig. ) aparut in colectia LIT a editurii Tritonic, a fost publicat pentru prima oara in anul 1992 urmarind aventurile mai multor zîne scotiene naufragiate in aglomeratia urbana a orasului New York, putand fi etichetat ca un roman de natura fantasy-urbana. Cartea cuprinde si o introducere semnata de renumitul Neil Gaiman, stilul abordat de Millar aducandu-mi aminte de “Good Omens” a lui Terry Pratchett si Gaiman, si probabil nu am fost singurul care a observat acest lucru. Totusi, cred ca e mai aproape de stilul lui Prattchet, caruia, spre rusinea mea inca nu i-am citit romane din lumea Discworld, insa din ce am vazut la o rasfoire a  traducerii Corintice presupunerea ar sta in picioare.

Este clar inca din start ca autorul s-a concentrat, in special, asupra dialogurilor si a actiunii, urmarind antrenarea cititorului intr-un vartej de intamplari si situatii neobisnuite omului de rand cu scopul evident de a starni zambete prin orice mijloc, cuprinzand aici, discutiile dintre personaje, descrierile, situatiile prezentate. Din acest motiv atat personajele umane cat si zînele sunt schitate sumar iar intriga, uneori, are de suferit sub directa influenta a inconsistentei si a lipsei unor evenimente cu adevarat notabile.

Pe scurt, actiunea se concentreaza in jurul stradaniilor a doua zîne scotiene prietene, ce apartin unor clanuri diferite ale caror tachinari si neintelegeri le-au bagat in bucluc, silindu-le sa-si paraseasca meleagurile natale si sa se refugieze in imensitatea orasului New York. Intr-un alt plan, un alt grup de cinci zîne a fugit, de asemenea de pe plaiurile scotiene, insa din cu totul alte motive decat cele de mai sus, printre ele aflandu-se si doi reprezentanti de seama ai casei regale, baiatul si fata imparatului, fugiti ca urmare a instaurarii unui regim totalitar in regat. Savoarea cartii sta in dialogurile si intepaturile dintre cele doua zîne ce ajung deseori la cutite, si, daca mai mentionam ca acestea obisnuiesc sa traga foarte des la masea cu consecinte evident nefaste pentru ele ne dam seama ca scriitorul a sperat sa-si atraga cititorii tocmai prin imbinarea acestor elemente.

In cazul meu, schimbarile foarte dese de ritm si situatii, in mare masura repetitive, ce apar in decursul actiunii m-au solicitat in plus, iar abundenta personajelor, cel putin in partea de inceput a cartii nu m-a ajutat deloc, fiind destul de suparatoare, si, impreuna cu unele neconcordante la nivelul dialogurilor in care parca scriitorul uita ce a zis mai sus intregesc tabloul nemultumirilor personale. In ceea ce priveste conditiile grafice in care s-a publicat romanul, acestea s-au mai imbunatatit fata de anii anteriori, poate depinde si de colectie, optandu-se spre o modalitate de asezare in pagina mai aerisita.
In final, as accentua ca din cate am observat pe internet, in exterior dar si in blogosfera romaneasca, cartea a fost destul de bine apreciata de catre cititorii, insa pentru mine, nu a fost o experinta deosebita si as incadra-o in seria lecturilor usurele cu un sfarsit previzibil, ce se pot parcurge la orice ora din zi sau noapte de catre cititorii fara pretentii prea mari.

It’s Glascow, Scotland, 1972, and best friends Martin and Greg spend their time daydreaming about fighting murderous orcs from atop their faithful dragon steeds, playing air guitar to Led Zeppelin records and pining for the love of classmate Suzy, who seems to only have eyes for Zed, a Marc Bolan lookalike and the coolest boy in school. Things seem hopeless, but when the boys learn that Zeppelin will be playing a one-night show in their hometown, suddenly anything seems possible, but will their friendship survive?

Millar switches between narrating what happened in the six weeks leading up to the concert  then and what’s happening in his adult life now as he helps a friend recover from a bout of depression. Their conversations contrast and compare his youth with his adulthood and explore the things that he’s gained as well as those that he’s lost, a process that will likely prompt the reader to to do the same.

You don’t have to like Led Zeppelin to enjoy this book, just to have been a teenager at one time or another. Like Millar writes, “It might be Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, or Public Enemy. Maybe the night you heard Kemistry and Storm DJ was the best night you ever had. The Manic Street Preachers, the Smiths, the Sex Pistols, Todd Terry, Marilyn Manson or any number of people. The band who made life bearable when you were skulking in your room with the rest of the world against you. At least one time in your life everything was perfect.”

Fans of Millar’s earlier work will find a lot to love here: his charmingly self-deprecating humor and characteristically whimsical flourishes (whisky-drinking fairies, zeppelins over Glascow) are in full force, making this coming-of-age tale uniquely his own. Readers new to Millar will find this to be a fine introduction.