Chocky
By John Wyndham

John Wyndham's 1963 novella (it's a slight book) is about a twelve year old boy, Matthew, who has a friend he talks to: however, this conversation is only inside his head. The friend is called Chocky.

Not completely unusual in a child (the imaginary friend) but Chocky is unusual. Leaving aside the indeterminate sex (Matthew settles on "she"), Chocky asks some very strange questions, such as why are there two sexes? "She" also has some very odd views of the world. Matthew's parents become very concerned but are not sure what to do exactly. In situations like this, you can do a lot of harm trying to do the right thing.

This is a short read but a good one. The family (two parents and two children) are perfectly normal other than the fact of this strange unwanted interloper to Matthew's head. This is a long way from a story of a "demon" child or one of "possession" and it is all the better for that. Another worthwhile Wyndham read.

A Room with a View
By E. M. Forster

E. M. Forster's 1908 novel is a completely different book to the last one I read. It is full of human emotion and human relationships.

Set in the early 1900's, Lucy Honeychurch is on holiday in Florence, chaperoned by her cousin Miss Barnett. They meet the Emersons, father and son, who give up their own rooms because they have a view, which the women had been promised. From there, it becomes a story of the boy's attraction to the girl and if this is reciprocated. It is a familiar enough story (girl meets boy etc.) but written well and told in a very witty way. There is plenty of good old-fashioned class based prejudice of course, but overcome in the end. Oddly, it is clear that tourism was a bit of an affliction even back in the 19th Century. Forster would be speechless at the sort of things that go on now.

Beautifully written and sharp, my one main fault would be with the older Mr Emerson's speech at the end to Lucy, explaining his son's predicament. It was a little too flowery and overwrought to be natural. Other than that, a book I thoroughly enjoyed. The Merchant/Ivory film adaptation is also supposed to be good.

The Voyage of the Space Beagle
By A. E. van Vogt

This book comes from the "Golden Age" of science-fiction - a period usually thought of as being the 1940's. The novel itself was published in 1950 but is composed of four stories published the previous decade (a so-called "fix-up" novel). Van Vogt is a new author to me.

The Voyage of the Space Beagle is considered a classic of the science-fiction genre and contains some of his first or earliest published work. It has had a significant influence on later science-fiction, especially films like Forbidden Planet and Alien, as well as TV series like Star Trek. The setting is a spaceship on a scientific survey mission, much like Darwin's original Beagle. It encounters some alien creatures, most of whom are hostile and dangerous. As well as some exciting action, the book explores the workings of science, in particular, Vogt's ideas of the compartmentalisation of the various scientific fields - his "nexialism" discipline aims to bring them together as a whole. The book also explores relations on board between the scientists and their leadership. There is a form of democracy on the ship but also a surprising amount of discord between some members of the scientific body.

This is a short read and one that contains plenty of action, even though some of it feels slightly dated. The "Discord in Scarlet" section includes a particularly horrifying and dangerous alien, one that could inspire some nightmares in a reader less inured to modern science-fiction horror (like Alien). It might be a little old-fashioned sometimes but this is mainly the way the men (there are only men on board!) interact and think: the civilian scientists have a somewhat military bearing as well. In some ways it is refreshing: direct and to the point. Like an older black and white film, men are in suits perhaps but the film is still great. I will read more van Vogt.

As a last word: it is not uncommon for people to believe that we're cleverer today, more intelligent and sophisticated than those that came before us. At least those before the twentieth century. But this is not true. People of the Middle Ages, for instance, certainly had less scientific or technological knowledge, but were no less intelligent. I had a slight prejudice against older science-fiction in the same way but realise now how wrong this is, having read a bit now and thought about it. It is a genre of ideas and the science or technology is just one aspect, and not necessarily an important one.

The Science Fiction Encyclopedia has an entry on the Golden Age of science-fiction. This is a great resource. Online only now but I was very lucky to find a paperback copy going cheaply in a charity shop a few months ago.

Helix
By Eric Brown

British author Eric Brown was new to me, until a brief mention on the Outlaw Bookseller's YouTube channel a while ago and then a recommendation by the owner of Transreal Fiction. His 2007 novel Helix was described as a good introduction.

Well, this was a great read: an exciting and action packed science-fiction adventure story.

A colony spaceship, a crash landing, almost immediate problems with hostile aliens and then a hard journey of discovery: not new ideas and nothing groundbreaking, but Brown tells the story so well, who cares? It starts well and stays good - and then mid-way through the book is a big surprise. An unexpected twist like this can really raise everything to another level. He creates believable and sympathetic characters (both the human and non-human) and we find we care about them. In addition,the book's lean and without the usual "fat" book bloat so many of the well-known science-fiction authors tend towards nowadays. A very refreshing and pacy novel that stands on its own (even though there is a sequel I will almost certainly read).

It is such a shame that Eric died in 2023.

The Day of the Triffids
By John Wyndham

A classic novel of science-fiction. The Day of the Triffids is a thoroughly enjoyable read: well written, exciting and thought provoking.

Many (perhaps most) people will be familiar with the story but they might have it a bit wrong, as I did. I've seen at least one film or TV adaptation a long time ago and had a slightly skewed idea of the book, which turns out to be more intelligent and much better. In fact, the cause of the "Triffid" invasion and the mass blindness is either different to what I thought, or more nuanced.

The tale of the end of civilisation is still chilling, even though there have been countless other books of a similar kind since. Wyndham does not dwell on the horror but is good at making us see how bad things are and what a bleak future could be unfolding. The horror or despair is secondary to the reaction of the people that survive and how they cope: from utter despair to a glimmer of hope, and back again. Part of the story is a search for someone lost, a search in the huge deserted land turning to desolation and wilderness, with the ever increasingly threat of the alien triffids. And, what of being on your own? Bill Mazen starts to realise that threats are not all external. Loneliness is something a sociable species is also prey to :

Something that lurked inimically all around, stretching the nerves and twanging them with alarms, never letting one forget that there was no one to help, no one to care. It showed one as an atom adrift in vastness, and it waited all the time its chance to frighten and frighten horribly - that was what loneliness was really trying to do: and that was what one must never let it do ...

It is easy to see why the book was a success. Maybe post-war Britain was in a gloomy mood and people were prepared to contemplate how fragile our world is. It still is. But rather than close with a despair, one can perhaps close with some hope that there are some that will rebuild. This was written in the 50's after all, and gloomier books came later. The Day of the Triffids is a marvelous novel that I expect will be read again.

Pavane
By Keith Roberts

Pavane is Keith Roberts' best known novel and considered a classic work of alternative history. The alternative historical stream makes this "science-fiction".

The book takes place in a Britain dominated by the Roman Catholic church and there has been no Protestant Reformation (it was crushed at birth). The cause of this was the fact that the Spanish Armada managed a landing in England and there was a Catholic uprising with Queen Elizabeth assassinated. What would today's Britain be like, hundreds of years after such events?

The suggestion here is: no industrial revolution, science and technology severely circumscribed, capitalism neutered, an entrenched social hierarchy and a mighty church (including an inquisition). Before the 19th Century, people did not expect the world to change much over time, if at all. "Progress" didn't happen and change was slow: but it can happen. People are still intelligent and inventive and some want freedom to explore and think new things.

Roberts' novel is set in the South West of England, primarily Dorset and surrounds. It is suffused with a rural, old-world flavour as you would expect but, more unexpectedly, harkening back to a more distant, possibly pre-Christian, past. He has an obvious love for this countryside and perhaps the old magic still lingers here. The episodic style gives us a flavour of the state of the world through the eyes of a steam-powered business entrepreneur, a boy being trained in the Signalling guild and a high-born woman chafing at the strictures imposed by a powerful Church. They are linked by family or setting. Times are changing.

The background is believable and quite British. The tale is a realistic exploration of this possible future: not quite the novel I expected but still fresh and interesting.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
By Muriel Spark

Spark's novel is short, sharp, witty and ascerbic. She has a great ear for dialogue between the young schoolgirls under the spell of their charismatic teacher. A wonderful book.

Written in the late 1950's, it is set in the Edinburgh of the 1930's. World War One is still a presence but the effects of the depression has only a fleeting appearance in this more affluent world. Jean Brodie is a teacher at an Edinburgh girls school with a particular outlook on life. She is cultured, one could say snooty, loves High Art and looks down on science. Edinburgh is strait-laced and proper but there are some rough edges, as seen by the "Brodie Set" themselves during a walk through the Old Town. They come across a long line of men queuing in the street :

Monica Douglas whispered, "They are the Idle."
"In England they are called the Unemployed. They are waiting to get their dole from the labour bureau," said Miss Brodie.

Jean Brodie takes holidays in Italy and admires Mussolini. She remarks that "In Italy the unemployment problem has been solved". How is left unsaid.

Children are very impressionable. Teachers are a big influence and in a position of trust. In modern parlance, they are "influencers". Today, of course, social media presents a much larger and more powerful array of "influencers", with pernicious effects sometimes. It's clear why parents have to care a lot about who you mix with as a child because their acquaintances have a bigger impact than you do. Like Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU, we should be worried about the power of social media on children.

What I particularly liked about the book was Spark's dry and funny way with the children's dialogue. Sometimes silly, fantastical or funny. Occasionally, a little nasty (poor Mary MacGregor). She captures it beautifully.

"Miss Brodie says prime is best", Sandy said.
"Yes, but she never got married like our mothers and fathers."
"They don't have primes," said Sandy
"They have sexual intercourse," Jenny said.
The little girls paused, because this was still a stupendous thought, and one which they had only lately lit upon; the very phrase and its meaning was new. It was quite unbelievable.

A very approachable and funny book, and still relevant today.

Non-Stop
By Brian Aldiss

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive ...
R. L. Stevenson

Aldiss has this Stevenson quote front and center at the start of his first science-fiction novel: a short and pacy adventure published in 1958. By the end, you might also understand why.

The US title was "Starship", which gives some of the game away unfortunately.

Right: The cover of the old US hardback I have. Surprisingly, using the British "Non-Stop" title. The graphic design and artwork is, let us say, of its time. Publisher: Carroll & Graf 1989.

I enjoyed this book a lot: Aldiss has obviously thought through the sort of things that might happen if humans have to live on an interstellar spaceship for a very long time. Think of features of speech, custom, culture, religion and all manner of human relationships. We are a fractious people. Space travel is hard on us and our bodies.

The ship in use here would be called a "generation" ship today: a well used trope of science-fiction since this was written (Aldiss might have been the first to write about it properly). The galaxy is so big that the human brain cannot fully grasp the numbers involved; they are just so large. I am not sure we would survive such a journey, but if we did, it might end up something like this. I made some assumptions here and thought I had a good idea what the end would bring, but I was surprised and wrong. A good book, and shows you can pack a lot into less than two-hundred pages.

We are all dying, just at different speeds.
-- Thomas Crowwell in The Mirror and the Light.

The Mirror and the Light
By Hilary Mantel

We know how the story ends. Boleyn dies by the sword. Cromwell, the axe. Others die in very much worse ways as the authorities cut a swathe through the country. After some initial success, the Pilgrimage of Grace is bloodily suppressed by a vengeful King. Robert Aske, one of the leaders, was killed in a very cruel way. This episode features in H.F.M. Prescott's Man on a Donkey (a book I read a few years ago and thought good).

Cromwell keeps his own secret book about Henry where he writes down his thoughts and observations about the King in an attempt to understand him. In this final novel, Cromwell is much more introspective.

This last book did not disappoint me in any way. As a series, they are perhaps the best books I've read and have left a lasting legacy to me. I will return to them I'm sure.

The Mirror and the Light is the final volume in Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy. I savoured the text all the more as I approached the final pages, waiting for the axe to fall and wondering how such an ending would be treated in the first person she uses. There has been some criticism (see wikipedia), mostly regarding the historical accuracy, but she's mostly had high praise. This is "fiction" we must remember but it is very hard not to find the world she creates entirely believable: the food, the smell, the weather and the people. I will almost certainly re-read the whole lot sometime, once again.

Mantel died in 2022. Thank goodness she lived to complete this.

And to finish :

Below: The original axe and block used during the execution of high-profile prisoners.
Photograph : By mwanasimba from La Réunion - Tower of London, CC BY-SA 2.0, link

From atlasobscura : This particular ax was last recorded as being used in 1747 for the execution of the Scottish Baron and Jacobite Lord Simon Fraser of Lovat, who, as a Highlander, fought against the Hanoverian forces during the battle of Culloden.

Molly Zero
By Keith Roberts

Score: 4/5

Molly Zero is a slim novel first published in 1980. Classified as "science-fiction", it is an adventure story set in the near future about a young runaway from "boarding school" and her escape to London from the North. Roberts is new to me but he has been much praised by Stephen E Andrews on his YouTube channel Outlaw Bookseller. Seeing the paperback in a second-hand shop at a reasonable price, I picked it up.

The future Britain here is much changed by some large catastrophe. The country is split into smaller units with names like Lothia, Cumbria and Wessex, each with a border but trading together. The economy is basic but technology exists, including aircraft, computers and hallmarks of a surveillance state. A government and police are ever present but in the background mostly; It is dystopian. Molly is a young girl brought up in (what appears to be) a boarding school, one of many called "Blocks". She wants to see the sea but the boy she runs away with wants to get to London and he gets his way. We follow their journey as they make their way, including a period with a Romany ("gypsy") travelling circus. There is a mystery about the source of the national damage, who is in charge, if there really are "elites" and where the young people in the Blocks fit. The novel speaks in Molly's voice throughout, the "second person present tense", an unusual choice but it works. As the tale progresses, Molly learns some hard truths about the world and how far some people will go to fight against the powers in charge.

The book is well written, short and pacy. The period spent in the circus with the Romany is very well observed and Roberts does well with the character of the young people and the society of the travellers they join. By all accounts, he was a difficult man to get on with and this seems to have negatively affected his written output (or at least the published part). I'll be reading Pavane sometime in the near future; a novel some consider his masterpiece.

Solaris
by Stanisław Lem

Score: 4/5

Solaris is generally considered one of the greatest science-fiction novels ever written. Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a Polish writer, published the novel in 1961 while the country was under Soviet control.

The story concerns the arrival of a scientist to a research station that sits above a vast ocean covering the whole of the planet Solaris. It is quickly apparent that all is not well: an unexplained death as well as erratic and unusual behaviour from the remaining two scientists. Extremely odd things are happening.

The "ocean" of Solaris is very different to anything on Earth: a chemical soup, organic, inorganic, colloidal. It displays unusual behaviour (to say the least), including forming huge structures within itself; these sometimes stretch many miles and are of huge complexity. It seems to exhibit intelligence. Is it sentient? This vast alien environment is the center of a large research effort and body of "Solarist" literature.

When you're in the mood to read a book, you are much more likely to enjoy it; something I have become much more aware of in the past few years. Being short also helps. Solaris is well written and the translation seems good (in my Faber&Faber edition the translators are Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox) but there are some sections that are more difficult. These are lengthy extracts from "Solarist" scientific research literature and are often dry and can be dull. Although my eyes glazed over occasionally, these writings did expand on the strangeness of the planet. It is still an environment I found very difficult to visualise however. This is a "first contact" story but of a "sideways" kind: the fact that the contact is with something we just cannot understand at all is the core of the book. It is eerie, even creepy, and our many questions are never really answered. Much like the scientists, we have a lot of theories about the planet, but no real idea of what is going on.

The novel is a short, sharp exploration of what a true "alien" contact might be and also a look at how humanity sees itself as it ventures out exploring the cosmos. The novel's been filmed twice now. I've seen neither film but will try to watch them sometime.

Piranesi
By Susanna Clarke

Score: 3/5

Susanna Clarke had quite a bit of success with her 2004 novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I liked it, but it's a long book and I had to slog through some of it. You need to be in the right mood to immerse yourself in an alternate magic-suffused Victorian world, with a writing style to match.

Piranesi is her most recent novel, published in 2021. This is a much shorter book, less than 300 pages, but in a similar vein to Jonathan Strange: quite strange and fantastical. A man wanders around a large, many roomed mansion "house", multi-levelled, ramshackle in parts and containing hundreds of strange statues. Some statues on plinths and some seemingly bursting through the walls. With an occasional missing roof, the rain and low cloud might chill the air, and the sea can come crashing through the building. He seems to have a rough and mean form of existence but, child-like, he seems happy enough.

It is quite hallucinatory and odd; some form of larger picture emerges slowly from Clarke's careful interleaving of fragments the "Piranesi" character puts together over the course of time. This is not reality as we know it.

What I most like about Clarke's writing is her positioning of "magic" as being something that is far from the modern conception: a bit of a conjuring trick, superficial entertainment or illusion. Magic is a more primal aspect of the natural world and something to be very wary of indeed. It can be beautiful, perhaps wondrous but also awful and frightening. A "fairy" in this world (see Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell in particular) might be intelligent as well as completely malevolent. You don't want one to take a dislike to you. There are no fairies in Piranesi but there are dark undercurrents of hidden or forgotten knowledge; perhaps best left that way. Beguiling and strange, it was short enough to stay interesting until the end. An enjoyable distraction from the modern world.

The Dervish House
By Ian McDonald

Score: 5/5

It's sometimes the case that I read a book, want to review it but either never get round to it, or start a review and never finish it. For a book I enjoyed as much as The Dervish House by Ian McDonald, I really need to make that extra effort. This 2011 novel deserves high praise.

It is a little different from the start: the setting is a near future Istanbul, a city with a vast history and a multitude of stories. The novel has been classed as "sci-fi", even a form of "cyberpunk", but designations such as these, like so many genre pigeon-hole's, do it a disservice. Yes, there are some futuristic elements: advanced personal technology, nano-technology, AI. And we mustn't forget the shape-shifting robots! But it takes these elements and treats them the same way we treat our smart-phones, crypto-currency and AI chat-bots. They're part of the scenery, or a child's toy.

Whatever the genre, it's a thriller and adventure story. A nano startup chasing financial investment and also a missing "document" essential to this. A wheeler and dealer commodity trader trying to pull off a less than straight-up deal. A hunt for a mysterious historical artifact, perhaps only a legend. A bomb on a tram that might cause more than physical damage. A boy's dangerous game spying on people who have a monstrous plan. And an old man with a chance at getting back at a past tormentor and perhaps a reconciliation with a lost love. There is lots going on and many threads to keep our interest, with a small cast of believable, funny and colourful characters. I think I did laugh out loud at least once.

There's action, emotion and tension but what raises the book far above the average is the setting in the ancient city and our immersion in it, old meeting the new. A very good, well written novel and an author I will be sure to pick up again.

Hyperion / The Fall of Hyperion
Endymion / The Rise of Endymion
By Dan Simmons

Score: 5/5

Good Friday was a very apt time to finish reading the Hyperion/Endymion novels by Dan Simmons. There are clear parallels to Easter here that become very apparent as Endymion reaches its climax. Like the biblical story, the culmination of Rise of Endymion is horrifying and absolutely devastating.

These are long books (I read the four novels in the two volume omnibus editions): each book approaches or surpasses 400 pages, so there is a significant investment needed to read these. Following the characters over so many pages means you develop a relationship with them, perhaps love. As I reached the end, I felt a strong emotional response, even choking up to a degree. Great stories can have this effect. A very good book.

The Hyperion series is much more than a "space opera", although it spans the galaxy. As Aenea says to Raul at some point: Love is the Prime Mover of the universe. The gospel she "preaches" is one of non-violence and the core of the book is actually humanity, even humanism, but nothing supernatural. So, more than a space travel action-adventure but there is fast paced and bloody action, tremendous violence, demon-like non-human entities, "AI" and "time travel". There is something for everyone if you are in the right frame of mind. Wait until you are and you will not be disappointed.

I considered reducing the score and penalising for the length of the books (i.e. rating a 4/5). I think they are a little too long in fact. However, the final account makes up for this in my mind and deserve top marks. I do not mean to imply 5/5 makes them perfect.

Chip War
By Chris Miller

Score: 5/5

I've finished reading Chris Miller's Chip War, the history of the semiconductor industry. This is one of the best books I've read for a long time. It is much more than just a history though.

Semiconductors are a (perhaps the) foundation of modern life and are now present in almost everything manufactured, not just computer processors (CPU's). Also chips for networking (including wifi), communications, manufacturing, medical, power. And weapon systems.

So from the physics, to the engineering, manufacturing, supply chains and logistics, we have an essential technology, globalised and now wrapped up in "Great Power" competition. The book is almost up to date and climaxes with the US/China rupture over trade and technology, with the US now awake to the Chinese threat to their continued technological domination. It is almost gripping.

The technology now used to create these devices is breathtaking. Arthur C. Clarke's said :

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

Reading this book, particularly the chapter on the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Lithography process, brought this old quote to mind on a few occasions. The world is full of "magical" technology today but we barely recognise it as such because we are so used to it.

One scientist called the development of EUV as "what felt like infinite money for solving an impossible problem". This research had been going on for decades and some people didn't think it was actually possible. The scale of the latest transistors (the building block of everything) was getting so small (tens of nanometres (nm)) that the wavelength of light needed to "etch" them was also getting so tiny that quantum effects can cause problems. Some very advanced science is needed today at the cutting edge.

For instance: just producing the light needed for the process now is very difficult. This development originated with a US company called Cymer; experts in laser light sources. From the book :

The company's engineers realised the best approach was to shoot a tiny ball of tin measuring thirty-millionths of a meter wide moving through a vacuum at speeds of around two hundred miles per hour. The tin is then struck twice with a laser, the first pulse to warm it up, the second to blast it into a plasma with a temperature around half a million degrees, many times hotter than the surface of the sun. This process of blasting tin is then repeated fifty-thousand times per second to produce EUV light in the quantities necessary to fabricate chips.

Approaching magic? Well, we're certainly getting close.

This laser had to be designed and built: it didn't exist. This in itself is a marvel of engineering. The people that built it: a German company called Trumpf. Their web site includes a picture of this (shown on the right).

The actual EUV machine itself is built by a Dutch company called ASML. The technology involved is well described on their own page. It is one of the most complex machines ever built and not only very expensive (we are talking hundreds of millions dollars) but increasingly wrapped up in the new hard rules on export imposed by the US.

Below: The ASML EUV Lithography system :

Although the likes of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) are the undisputed kings of silicon chip fabrication in 2023 (and this is unlikely to change in the near or even medium term), the USA still has a huge amount of leverage over the industry and many chip "choke" points. The dilemma is that Taiwan, like South Korea and Holland, are allies of the US, so to target China or claw back manufacturing onshore, means treading a very fine line.

The consequences of a Chinese war for Taiwan would likely be absolutely disastrous for the world due to the impact on the the silicon chip supply. Not just logic chips, but memory and NAND (flash) as well. A severe impact which will affect everyone very badly. This is a dangerous piece of history playing out right now, and as Miller says in the book, Taiwan is the "beating heart of the digital world".

Great book.

Quarantine
By Greg Egan

Score: 4/5

A near future Earth, cut off from the rest of the universe by a "bubble" in space blocking out the stars and any access to the universe beyond the solar system. A future Earth where brain modifications ("mods") are easily bought and installed, giving the user ways of taking a call in their sleep, suppressing boredom or even bringing a visible and audible avatar of a dead partner to life. Maybe an idea installed: something that becomes a central part of who you are. However, this is the least of it in Greg Egan's novel. It gets even stranger: quantum physics strange. What is the quantum wave function and what does it mean when it "collapses"?

If you know what Schrödinger's Cat is, or a bit about Quantum Physics (the strange and sometimes outlandish theory of the subatomic world) you might think you have an understanding of what's in store: you might need to think again.

I enjoyed reading this but must admit that the speculation was tough going on some occasions (also: I have a Physics Degree). Quantum Physics is a very successfully theory of the world but also notoriously difficult to understand on many levels (beyond the mathematical equations). This is definitely not your average "speculative" fiction book, science-fiction or otherwise and Egan has form; he is not afraid to consider the stranger aspects of science and where it leads. It can be mind-bending stuff, so great fun sometimes but also hard to follow on occasion.

This is definitely not a book everyone will like; probably a book only a few will manage to get through perhaps. But for those that like their science-fiction to have harder "science" in it, you can't beat Greg Egan's novels and I would highly recommend you have a look at Quarantine. Especially if you are interested in the ramifications of Quantum Physics.

The Book of the New Sun
by Gene Wolf

Score: 2/5

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolf is composed of four "books" that I have in two volumes. It is set on a far future Earth, with the sun dying but human kind still around. Much has changed and much forgotten, almost all history is lost or barely remembered.

In brief, we follow a young man called Severian, an apprentice torturer (the guild otherwise known as "The Seekers for Truth and Penitence"). Expelled from his guild for showing mercy, he is exiled and has to go on a journey to a far city, armed with an impressive sword and picking up a mysterious gem stone by accident on the way. We meet some odd characters who he joins or join him, and he battles some more bizarre creatures. The gem stone has some strange power and over the course of his travels he learns part of the secret to the world and its governing powers.

A number of times over the last few years I have come across people saying how great this novel was and so I added it to my reading list. The time was finally right to jump in. Or so I thought.

Well, I seriously struggled to get through the books and almost gave up on multiple occasions: after the first book, then after the second. I think I decided that, like having a "sunk cost" here, I might as well push through it. It's not a bad book, and not badly written, but just quite baffling in many ways. I found the (far future Earth) world interesting but hardly revealed or explained. The same with the characters, whose motivations were obscure to me mostly. Always expecting the pace to pick up and something to happen, it mostly didn't and things plodded forward, often slowly. When things did happen, they often seemed to happen as merely a plot device: people would appear, go away and then meet later. Often a bit too much coincidence. As each book ended, I felt generally unrewarded. On to the next?

Like I say, I did read all of them and the books improved for me after the bumpy start. Maybe it was actually the wrong time for me to read the novels; maybe I was expecting something quite different. When I read many other positive reviews now I see much talk of the books needing to be read more than once, to get the nuance and pick up Wolf's cleverly constructed, but slightly obscured, meaning. However, I think a book should stand up to a first reading. Even if the novels contain a lot of not-so-obvious clues to the events and history of the place, Wolf might have been a bit too clever for me.

Leviathan Falls
by James S. A. Corey

Score: 5/5

As written on the frontispiece of the last in the series :

Nine books later and you're still here, so this one's for you.

Nine books is very impressive. They're chunky as well, but the biggest deal is how consistently good they are. And nine books later I get to the end of The Expanse and close the final book, Leviathan Falls. I've waited a long time for the last book to appear: the paperback version seemed to take forever to get released.

This has been the best action/adventure series I have read, consistently good and usually great. The series started well and stayed that way: if anything, it got better. Quite a believable future mapped out by the two authors, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck ("Corey" is a pen name), with the solar system politics and fighting looking a bit parochial as the story expanded into a huge galaxy spanning collection of worlds.

In the end though, what made these novels special were the characters, who we get to know, understand and love. With the vast distances involved, the characters age and by the final few books, they're decades older, and showing it. We've grown besides them.

It's always hard finishing a book you love reading and even if the end is somewhat bitter-sweet, Leviathan Falls does not disappoint.

Player of Games
by Iain M. Banks

Score: 4/5

Second time lucky? The last time I read Player of Games I was underwhelmed. I thought the book was okay but a little dull, perhaps a bit hard to understand and lacking in action. Over the years since, however, I keep on coming across people online who consider this book a favourite, and perhaps the best "Culture" novel he wrote. So, an impetus to give it another chance. As is increasingly clear to me, the reaction you have to a book is very dependent on when you read it.

So now I am very glad I came back to the novel because I really liked it this time. I'd forgotten almost all of the story so it felt fresh. It is not action packed, akthough it has some and is a bit more "cerebral" perhaps. The story's about a complicated game: a "game" a society uses as a part of its organising principles. So we learn about cruelty, hierarchy, equality and politics through a cast of very different, and not always very likeable, characters. This is typical Banks, as is the "Culture" culture and humour, including a malicious drone. Things are not always what they seem but we get a satisfying, dare I say, happy ending?

I think I would now consider myself a "booster" of this book.

Matter
By Iain M. Banks

Score: 4/5

Well, this was the last of Banks' Culture novels I had to read. Now I've read it and really enjoyed it so I'm sad about that.

A quick overview : The story's about a coup in a royal house on a shellworld planet, one of a number in the galaxy created aeons ago for an unknown reason by an unknown race of aliens (there is speculation). The coup takes place in an industrialising but still fairly primitive society on one of the "levels" that exist on the artificial world. This happens during a war with the next level down. We follow a prince of the fallen house and his man-servant as they search for help recovering the throne from the world's manager species, then up the chain to the management's "mentors" and beyond them to the "involved" races. The levels travelled are literal (up the "shells") as well as figurative: civilisational and technological advancement. It might not be a coincidence that an archaeological dig is uncovering something very ancient, unexpected and dangerous on the newly conquered level below.

It is a bit of a tour de force, seeing the fresh wonder of the superior technology as it gets more and more magical. Luckily, the prince has a sister, long ago apprenticed to a Culture ambassador and sent off-world for a higher education. She has many of the usual Special Circumstances agent improvements. It is all a lot of fun following it all.

In a sign of a good book, I would have liked to have known a little about the aftermath of it all. I also missed that the book had a few appendices until I got to the end. In many respects this is one of Banks' best Culture novels and it covers a lot of what's special with them. The unbelievably high technology (post singularity), the odd, interesting and often very flawed, alien species, the dynamics of a post-scarcity economy (no money needed) and the repartee (usually between an intelligent robot and human SC agent).

I will have to read some of them again I think.