It's Only A Movie (Mark Kermode, 2010)

Mark Kermode has fast become my favourite critic due to his fast paced opinionated rants that make me laugh heartily (with the benefit of an uber quiff I might add). He is a man that has a vehement hatred for Pirates of the Caribbean yet digs the Twilight saga, see Basic Instinct 2 for what it is (a knowing wink at the camera) and was there when Werner Herzog was shot with an air rifle.

His memoir, named after the famous add campaign of Last House on the Left (Keep repeating…It's only a movie…only a movie...), is breezy and very funny, his prose identical to his verbal outbursts on 5 Live. The anecdotes mentioned include getting lost in Russia, his first experience with The Exorcist (his favourite film), being thrown out of the Cannes screening of Lars Von Triers' The Idiots whilst hurling obscenities in bad French and, of course, witnessing Werner Herzog getting shot, all of which is funny and self referential.

It's a little too breezy to be great but I don't think I've had so much fun reading a book in a long while. Thank-you Dr. Kermode…and Jason Issacs.

4/5

Coldheart Canyon (Clive Barker, 2001)

Much like Barker's last novel, 2007's Mister B. Gone, Coldheart Canyon suffers from writing that is sub-par compared to most of the author's earlier work. It is a book in desperate need of editing down and touching up as, despite being far from bad (in actual fact I enjoyed the hell out of it), at times it comes off as infantile, akin to the over active imagination of a teenager.

It also suffers in it's length. Unlike The Great and Secret Show (which, whilst being long, somewhat justified being epic), Canyon does not have enough ideas to warrant a length of 751 pages, thus, by page 300, it has slowed to a crawl. Barker spends needless time detailing the debauchery the Canyon has fallen into, where orgies are common place as well as extreme sadomasochism. The detail is beyond graphic. Barker clearly revels in his hedonistic side here but, in terms of serving the story, it does not further the plot in any way, making it's inclusion unnecessary.

That said, if you can muscle your way passed this 200 page lull, the rest is a belter. One thing Barker is an expert at is setting up and ending his stories, spending enough time on both that, once the novel comes to a close, there is a great wave of satisfaction. The build up to said climax is terrific and once the reader is passed the debauchery, the plot lets rip with chases and skirmishes aplenty. The story progresses naturally and whilst there is still Barker's trademark flair for gore (one poor soul has her vagina ripped open), it does not hinder the experience.

I have, however, had enough of Barker for the time being. Just looking at my copy of Imajica, a mammoth undertaking at 1200+ pages, is somewhat disconcerting.

4/5

Just After Sunset (Stephen King, 2008)

Just looking back at this blog shows me how much Stephen King I tend to read. There’s something about him that his writing, even the relatively bad stuff, that makes you keep reading.

This collection of short stories doesn’t have anything nearly as memorable as, say, The Mist, The Raft or 1408 but what is here is consistent and thoroughly enjoyable. Stand-outs include Willa (and non-horror story featuring ghosts), Graduation Afternoon, Rest Stop and N. (the latter of which s deeply disturbing).

I’m just happy to see that King is back to is old self again. Gone is the workman-like writing that plagued his post-accident work and back is a writer who has almost returned to full form.

His newest novella Blockade Billy is in the post and I’m awaiting his next book, a series of four short novels called Full Dark, No Stars with glee.

4/5

The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks (Max Brooks & Ibraim Roberson, 2009)

Very brief but enjoyable visual accompaniment to Max Brooks’ Zombie Survival guide. Taking a handful of the stories from the book’s Recorded Attacks section, illustrator Ibraim Roberson gives Brook’s prose a grotesque spectacle that make me want a faithful movie adaptation on World War Z even more.

Very quick but I like it a lot.

4/5

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson, 2005)

Whilst The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo suffers from a horridly simple, almost workman-like writing style and is let down by it’s last hundred pages, it is still hugely enjoyable and effortlessly enthralling. The premise of a recently convicted journalist for the crime of libel being hired to investigate the forty year old disappearance of a wealthy businessman’s niece is packed with enough twists and nastiness to make even the moments of downtime riveting. The late Stieg Larsson, being and investigative journalist himself, throws all he knows into the narrative, creating moments of tension out of characters sitting around chatting conspiracy and looking over forty year old evidence.

My major beef comes within the last hundred pages. With the main narrative concluded, Larsson insists on rounding up the libel case that opened the book and in having the epominous girl with the dragon tattoo being an expert computer hacker, our heroes not only win too easily but the manor in which they do so seems somewhat contrived. Need impossible evidence to convict the man you’re after? Lisbeth Salander to the rescue. She’s too much like hackers you see in movies like Swordfish. A couple of taps at the keyboard, the use of a back door here, the use of a decoding encryption there and viola! All the incriminating information you need. It’s weak, sloppy and a tad unnecessary. And it certainly did not need a hundred fucking pages dedicated to it.

But it did at least make me want to read the next two, which I have ready and waiting. The Girl Who Played With Fire, its immediate sequel, focuses on Salander on the run after being accused of murder. A much more bare bones and more enticing prospect after this labyrinth plot line.

4/5

Bag of Bones (Stephen King, 1998)

I actually still have about 170 pages left of this to read but, seeing as the major climactic plot development has already happened, I really don’t think there’ll be a whole lot else to say and much more before the end that will sway my opinion.

Bag of Bones is intermittently excellent but is far too long. The story of an author who suffers from severe writers block after the sudden death of his wife, the narrative is split between two concurrent plot threads: the first being our protagonist’s move to his summer lodge in Sara Laughs (just outside the fictional town of Derry, featured in It and Insomnia) and his subsequent involvement in a bitter custody battle between a billionaire software mogul and his daughter in law. The second being Sara Laugh’s dark and cursed past, a past that is visited upon our hero from the moment he arrives at the cabin.

The main problem here is the ghost story element, a superfluous story thread that feels added purely on the basis that this is a Stephen King novel, therefore necessary. It just doesn’t work. The real meat here is the custody battle. It is this stuff that saves the book from being too dull to give up on half way through. It’s compelling and tense, and, in true King fashion, goes in directions you wont see coming. In Max Devore, King gives us another villain you just love to hate, a horrid, bitter old man who is determined to gain sole custody of his granddaughter through any means.

A fair effort but definitely marks the start of King’s downfall pre and post accident. Oddly though, I’m finding I’d like to try From a Buick 8 again.

3/5

The Great and Secret Show (Clive Barker, 1989)

There’s something about Clive Barker in that something as flawed and over-written as The Great and Secret Show can still captivate me despite being overly long. The basic premise of two warring men (The Jaff and The Man Fletcher respectively) fighting over The Art, a power that can lead to the sea of Quiddity, the nexus of everything, is filled with Barker’s twisted yet limitless imagination and, for the most part, reads like a rip-roaring ride of fantasy mixed with Barker’s own take of the nature of existence (something that features heavily in his later fantasy novels like Weaveworld, Sacrament and Imajica). Yet it’s this endless imagination that is the books ultimate undoing in that, in being unable to contain himself, Barker has fashioned a narrative that seldom knows when to stop indulging.

That’s not to say The Great and Secret Show is bad, just a bit long winded. At nearly 700 pages with text to rival the Lord of the Rings in terms of size, there is much in the latter half of the book the could have been scrapped. Tommy-Ray’s escapades as the Death Boy, whilst interesting, are not needed and do little more than pepper the main narrative with extra garnish. Oddly, the same can be said for the central love story that ultimately fuels the plot but comes as nothing at the end. The main interest lies in secondary characters like Grillo and his female companion Tesla, who drive the latter half of the novel once the shit really hits the fan.

But, whilst being a tad flowery at times, Barker style is at once engaging and holds a certain air of eloquence that makes the remarkable seem as such and the grotesque something to admire. The Jaff’s main weapon is to fashion monsters by exploiting people’s fear and bleeding them out through the victim’s pours. Not as nasty as Weaveworld’s decaying witch that spits out deformed foetuses, yet is far more disturbing.

I like The Great and Secret Show very much, despite its indulgent nature. It’s brimming to the surface with ideas and would be a classic of the fantasy genre if only it kept such ideas in check. I’m hoping its sequel, the 1996 novel Everville, will do just this.

4/5