Source: Library Book

Skinner by Charlie Huston

Posted October 11, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Thriller / 0 Comments

Title: Skinner (Goodreads)
Author: Charlie Huston
Published: Orion, 2013
Pages: 400
Genres: Thriller
My Copy: Library Book

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Skinner is in the ‘asset protection’ game and he was really good at it. His method was fear, he believed the only way to truly protect someone is to make the cost of acquiring an asset far greater than the asset themselves. His employees were uncomfortable with his methods and eventually burnt him; now he is needed again and Skinner needs to re-establish his reputation once again.

I’ve not read Charlie Huston before; I knew he wrote the noir novels featuring Hank Thompson and the supernatural vampiric private eye Joe Pitt series. Both series sound right up my avenue, so why did I start with Skinner? Availability. I went into this novel not really knowing what to expect but hoping for a dark spy thriller; what I got was so much more.

While Skinner is written as a modern day spy thriller the complexity behind the espionage reminds me of the hey days of John le Carré. Skinner has been asked to come back, working for Kestrel which is a private offshoot of the CIA. The whole concept of a corporate owned intelligence agency is no new concept but it leaves Huston with the ability to blur the lines and keep the reader wondering if what is happening is on the level. Skinner’s asset, Jae, is a robotics expert and data analyst which gives us the predictable romantic interest, something that worried me the most within the book.

What I like most about this novel, apart from the complexity, is the way Charlie Huston throws the reader into the story, slowly revealing backstory and small clues into what is happening. This technique leaves the reader guessing about the missions and the characters involved. While this reads as a spy thriller, the way Huston works the characters is masterfully executed and left me wondering, and often not seeing a twist until it is happening.

Skinner is a cutting edge thriller; a novel I had so much fun reading and couldn’t recommend enough for anyone interested in books about espionage. The novel will keep you guessing, leave you thinking and the characters are great, I hope this is the start of a new series because I want Skinner to return. Exploring the terrors of modern warfare and cyber terrorism, you will fly through Skinner but then you won’t stop thinking about it.

London Falling by Paul Cornell

Posted October 7, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Fantasy / 0 Comments

Title: London Falling (Goodreads)
Author: Paul Cornell
Series: Shadow Police #1
Published: Tor, 2012
Pages: 400
Genres: Fantasy
My Copy: Library Book

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Detective Inspector James Quill is about to complete a major drag bust, the type of bust that will launch his career. Then his prize witness went and got himself killed in custody. This mysterious death leads Quill to be recruited by intelligence analyst Lisa Ross into a special CID unit. The murder of his witness suspect Rob Toshack was not a normal one and soon Quill and the team find themselves investigating London’s sinister magical underground.

I’ve said this before, I have a hard time with fantasy but I overcome that by reading books like London Falling. This is a dark and gritty London police procedural/urban fantasy novel; I read it for the mystery and it’s an easy way into the world of fantasy. I’ve had some decent success with this tactic and now I’m faced with the problem of reading urban fantasy and not fantasy.

Let’s get all excited about the author for a moment. For those who don’t know who Paul Cornell is, he has written for Marvel and DC comic books as well as on the TV shows Robin Hood, Primeval, Casualty, Holby City and Coronation Street. The most important achievement and all that really matters is his involvement on Doctor Who; even writing a number of the novels and creating a spin off companion in Bernice Summerfield.

I will admit that I picked this book up solely based on the Doctor Who involvement but I read it because of the dark mystery. I don’t know what it is about English police procedures but for me I think they are far superior; they are not afraid to go dark and the whole police culture over in London in particular is fascinating. With so many cameras filming people’s every move it is interesting to see that the crime rate is still high. I suppose there are not enough men to watch and police every camera but the whole scene fascinates me.

I’ve read the first book in the Ben Aaronovitch series and while that was good, I found this was better. Aaronovitch adds humour to his novel and Peter Grant is a blundering rookie, whereas James Quill is as hard-boiled as they come and you know how much I enjoy that. The only major issue I had was because this novel tells the story of the CID unit of four people, it is told in a third person perspective and I like the first person perspective in a novel like this just so I can get into the protagonist’s head. This wasn’t a major problem, more of a personal preference.

The book starts off as a police procedural and near the start I was hoping it would turn into something like The Wire but as the magical elements slowly got introduced the book departed from that whole feel and turned into a real urban fantasy affair. The book has a lot of flaws but I enjoyed the noir-ish style and was willing to forgive any shortcomings.

I believe this is the making of a new urban fantasy series and book two, The Severed Streets comes out in April next year. If you are interested in London based police procedurals and want to try an urban fantasy novel then this is the one to go for you and obviously if you enjoy The Dresden Files series, I would recommend this one as well. It is rare for me to find a series to be excited about, I thought I had that in the Bobby Dollar series but I was disappointed with the second book, let’s hope this isn’t the case with this series too.

Player One by Douglas Coupland

Posted October 6, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Speculative Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: Player One (Goodreads)
Author: Douglas Coupland
Published: Windmill Books, 2011
Pages: 246
Genres: Speculative Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

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Player One tells the story of five people trapped in an international airport during a global disaster. Over the next five hours, these lives are changed forever; a single mother waiting for an online date, an airport cocktail lounge bartender, a pastor on the run, a cool blonde bombshell incapable of love and a mysterious person known as Player One. The novel follows the interactions of these five people as they react to the chaos as we slowly find out just what happened.

Douglas Coupland masterfully explores human interactions in the midst of a disaster as well as looking at things like human identity, religion and sociology in this sharp and to-the-point novel. Coupland is a bestselling author that writes some very easy to read post modernism and is often dealing with topics such as religion, Web 2.0 technology, human sexuality, and pop culture. This is my first Douglas Coupland novel but it isn’t the last of them. He reminds me a little of a modern Kurt Vonnegut with his philosophical approach to science fiction. Think a modern Cat’s Cradle where the disaster dealing with modern issues rather than those of the atomic age.

I’m finding this novel really hard to review because honestly, I don’t want to give anything away. This is the kind of novel you enjoy more if you don’t know too much about it. I don’t want to give the impression that this is a heavily philosophical novel, Coupland writes in a way that is accessible for readers of all ages. Almost like a YA novel but for a more serious reader you have all these ideas worth exploring; this is the stuff I have the most fun with. I just love a complex novel that seems basic on the surface but if you are willing, you can spend hours trying to analyse.

I don’t think this reads like a post-apocalyptic fiction, but it does feel like this is the right genre. The entire novel takes place in a bar over five hours and feels more like a postmodernist novel rather than anything else. I’m not going to spend time trying to work out what genres to fit this into but rather just wrap up this review.

I know this is a little short but I really don’t want to give too much away. Just tell people to try it, maybe not the type of novel for females but if you like Vonnegut or like the sound of this novel then maybe this is for you. I’ll be interested in hearing people’s thoughts on this book. I’m sorry this is a weird review but better to say too little than too much. It’s only 200 pages long so won’t take too much effort to try.

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Posted October 4, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic, Gothic / 0 Comments

Title: The Mysteries of Udolpho (Goodreads)
Author: Ann Radcliffe
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1794
Pages: 693
Genres: Classic, Gothic
My Copy: Library Book

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Emily St. Aubuert was imprisoned by her evil guardian, Signor Montoni. We follow her misadventures from his dark fortress in the Apennines as she suffers physical and psychological terror. The Mysteries of Udolpho is told in a dream-like hallucination that gives the reader a sense of Emily’s psychological state.

Writing a synopsis for this novel was one of the hardest things about this review. There are so many fragments in this book which makes it difficult to summarise what this book is about. Written in four volumes, Ann Radcliffe’s gothic romance manuscript has reported to have been brought for £500 in 1794, I’m not sure if that takes into account the inflation, if not that seems huge I can’t imagine an author receiving that much for a book nowadays.

This classic novel is a quintessential gothic romance but there are fragments of so many other genres with the supernatural, psychological mysteries that fill the pages. I really wanted to enjoy this book but I found it incredible wordy and at the time I was not in the right frame of mind for it, but I will do my best to be fair. The major downfall for me was the extensive descriptions of the landscapes; in particular Pyrenees and Apennines which while stunning just caused the book to drag on.

Emily is orphaned after the death of her father and taken in by her aunty Madame Cheron who married an Italian brigand Count Montoni. As romance between Emily and Valancourt, Montoni became increasingly frustrated and Cheron disapproved, believing him too poor, until she realised his aunt is Madame Clairval. When Count Montoni and Madame Cheron married he refused to allow Emily to married as he figured he could sell her. The major theme I got from this novel was the idea of indifference and the cruelty that can go along with it. Count Montoni is the definition of the gothic villain archetype; evil, sinister, greedy, and motivated by money. Even his marriage to Madame Cheron is for mercenary reasons and tried to force her to sing over her estates.

The novel is not all dark and gothic, I did mention that this was a gothic romance. Emily’s devotion to Valancourt is unshakeable and his heart seems to belong to her as well. He does make some mistakes and his behaviour eventually causes Emily to renounce him but even after that her thoughts were always towards him. The devotion or loyalty is always fighting against the gothic themes of this novel as you expect from a novel like this. Even the romance between Annette and Ludovico’s is not always happy, especially when he locks her up for her safety. Gothic romance is an unusual genre and you always get a sense that the entire book is fighting to counteract the romance, but then this is the type of book I enjoy.

This is a hard novel to review, there are so many plot lines and if I go off and talk about each of them this post will just go on and on. I know trying to condense the review down to a blog post doesn’t really do the book justice but I tried to focus on the main plot line. While the book felt wordy and dragged on, this was an interesting book, one I feel needs to be revisited sometime in the future. It would be interesting what I can pull out of the book once I have improved my critical reading skills. Have you read this classic? If so I would love to know your thoughts on it.

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

Posted September 22, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: The Testament of Mary (Goodreads)
Author: Colm Tóibín
Published: Picador, 2013
Pages: 104
Genres: Literary Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

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In the town of Ephesus, Mary lived alone. She had no interest in collaborating with the authors of the gospels. For her, the crucifixion of her son years ago has left her indifferent to the rest of the world. Whether or not she believes that his death was worth it, he was still her son and witnessing the events that lead to him dying have been very emotional. This is The Testament of Mary.

I read this book on the Nativity of Mary (September 8th); while I’m not Catholic it felt like the perfect day to read this novella. The book is both bitter sweet and full of rage; not for or against Catholicism. While the author Colm Tóibín is born Irish Catholic but now identifies as an atheist. While this book isn’t theologically sound, it was an interesting look into what it might have been like to watch Jesus’s journey on earth.

I never really thought about what it might have been like to witness miracles, resurrections and the crucifixion of Jesus. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be the mother of Jesus, let alone experiencing all these unexpected events involving her son. The rage, the compassion, the isolation and pride that Mary must of experience all comes into play in this novella.

The Testament of Mary is a tender and heart breaking book, not really religious or anti religious. The balance is just right. The only problem I have is the theology but I have to let this go and remind myself that this was a work a fiction. Being raised as a Pentecostal, I never really cared too much about the life of Mary apart from her giving birth to Jesus but then going onto marry a Catholic my views have changed a little. My views towards Mary may not be in line with my wife’s but that is beside the point.

A quick and interesting work of fiction into the life of Mary; I loved the way this book was written. It really had a way of sweeping me into a story and expressing the emotions she faced in an affectionate and sour way. We have no idea what Mary would have felt but I can only imagine the fixed emotions that went through her mind. While this novella is haunting and stubborn in it’s approach, it is a compassionate and provocative read; this doesn’t work to counteract each other but only highlights the beauty of the mixed emotions.

The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard

Posted September 12, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Crime / 0 Comments

Title: The Hot Kid (Goodreads)
Author: Elmore Leonard
Series: Carl Webster #1
Published: Harper Collins, 2005
Pages: 320
Genres: Crime
My Copy: Library Book

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Carl Webster was fifteen when he witnessed his first murder. Now he is the hot kid in the Marshall services; polite, respectful and can shoot a man driving away from 400 yards. He is on his way to being the most famous lawman of the 1930s. Jack Belmont wants to rob banks, become the most notorious outlaw and show his millionaire father he can live his own life. In the time of the Volstead Act comes The Hot Kid, a fast paced crime novel from a master of his craft; Elmore Leonard.

I love the Volstead Act; without it there may never have been organised crime in America and that makes for some interesting reading. Of course, love is the wrong word to describe the Volstead Act but I do have a huge interest in the era. For those who don’t know about the Volstead Act, it was the National Prohibition Act that became the Eighteenth Amendment, which established prohibition in the United States in 1919. This led to a surge in bootlegging and organised crime and made for some great stories for me to enjoy, from Boardwalk Empire (wonder if there are books that are like this show) to The Hot Kid.

I was saddened to hear about the recent loss of Elmore Leonard; though I hadn’t read anything by this crime master it really affected me. The very next day I reserved The Hot Kid from the library. I didn’t know where to start with this legend; he has written so many novels and they all looked good but a book set in the 1930s was right up my alley. Researching Elmore Leonard I realised that he was more successful that I thought. If you measure a writer’s success in adaptations (which I really don’t want to do) then you can’t go past some of his best adaptions like Jackie Brown, 3:10 to Yuma, Get Shorty, Killshot, Out of Sight and the TV show Justified.

The Hot Kid was a fast paced crime novel that I ended up reading in two sittings which is a big surprise because I feel like I’m a slow reader. I really enjoyed the way Leonard writes; it was so well plotted that he makes writing look so easy which I’m sure is very difficult to do. He is a prolific author with novels set in western times all the way up to the modern era. But I enjoy a time when organised crime reigns and tend to enjoy crime novels set there.

The only major issue I had with this book was that it never really felt like it was set in the time of speakeasies, tommy guns and organised crime. Every now and then I get a reference to the Volstead or a Thompson that pulls me back into the correct era. For the majority of the book I felt like Carl Webster was far too similar to Raylan Givens (from the TV show Justified) and that threw me off a little but didn’t really effect the overall enjoyment of the book.

Maybe this wasn’t the best place to start when exploring Elmore Leonard’s craft but I have no regrets. I will read the next book in the Carl Webster series but I think I might like to try something else by this crime master first. The problem I often face is the fact that I want to continue with an author but have so many other books I want to read and more often than not I never return to a writer I enjoy. But I’ve only been reading for a short time and I’m sure Elmore Leonard and the Carl Webster series will be read sometime in the near future.

The Unknowns by Gabriel Roth

Posted September 2, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 2 Comments

Title: The Unknowns (Goodreads)
Author: Gabriel Roth
Published: Picador, 2013
Pages: 227
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Library Book

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Eric survived high school in the mid 80’s; the nerd that spent way too much time with computers and never really having any friends. Now he has millions from selling his dot com and lives in a beautiful apartment and living the life everyone dreams of. Except he never quite found love, that was until the glamorous Maya came into his life. It’s not easy trying to get the most alluring woman in the world to pay any attention to you at all.

When I was in high school I really wanted to be a writer, this is the type of story I tried to write. Not as well as Gabriel Roth, I don’t know how to be a writer. they always ended up too short and descriptive, I never knew how to write long form and tended to rush to the end. Don’t get me wrong, The Unknowns is not a typical nerdy love story; Roth showed me just what can be done with this type of novel.

If you think this is not the type of novel I would normally pick up and enjoy then let me tell you why I picked this book up. I consider Megan Abbott the queen of contempory noir and when she blurbs and tweets about a novel, I tend to pay attention. The Unknowns starts out as a nerd falling in love but then deals with the complexity of a relationship, in a slight noirish manner.

Maya may be the most beautiful woman Eric has ever seen but she comes with her own issues she has to deal with. Humans can be fragile creatures and sometimes it is hard to know just how deep the pain runs. When Eric learns about his lover and her emotional scars he is left wondering about the truth. Life is more complex than computer code.

I really enjoyed the way this book tackled relationships; from the start you have a geeky romance and then by the end you are reading about the complex human beings. Roth blends wit with a unique view of the world and human interactions and nails home a magnificent exploration into relationships. I like the way this book is a budding romance/coming of age novel but you look a little deeper and there is so much more to discover.

While Eric isn’t too similar to me, I remember life as an outsider (I still feel that way) and the feeling of trying to navigate the social waters. As you get older, it doesn’t get any easier and you are bound to make mistakes. I’m lucky to have found my own Maya and had to learn about relationships and trying to understand all the pain from their past can be a lot to deal with when you are socially awkward. I really identified with this novel and felt inspired to write again but then I realise I can’t write anything like this and never end up trying.

The Unknowns is a witty humorous contemporary novel full of so many human truths, when Megan Abbott tweeted me to tell me that this novel won’t disappoint she wasn’t lying. I’m not trying to name drop, Abbott is fantastic on Twitter and will happily answer any questions you might have and proves Twitter is the place to be. If you are socially awkward or are interested in the exploration of relationships then this book is for you.

The Third Man by Graham Greene

Posted August 29, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic, Thriller / 0 Comments

Title: The Third Man (Goodreads)
Author: Graham Greene
Narrator: Martin Jarvis
Published: Penguin, 1943
Pages: 180
Genres: Classic, Thriller
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

American western writer Rollo Martins arrives in Post-World War II Vienna at the request of his childhood friend, Harry Lime. Lime has a job for him but when Martins arrives, he soon finds out that his friend has died. Convinced that Harry Lime’s death was no accident, Martins starts his own investigation, which leads him on a hunt to find the other witness, The Third Man.

If you are a loyal listener of The Readers or follow Simon Savidge’s blog or twitter you may know he recently lost his grandmother. To pay tribute to the memory of Dorothy Savidge he has asked people to read something by Graham Greene, as he was her favourite author. Greene for Gran (or on twitter #GreeneForGran) was born and I took this as an opportunity to try my first Graham Greene book, as well as join in this beautiful memorial to a fellow book lover.

Now The Third Man is an interesting book; it is actually written in preparation to writing the screenplay to what will become a film noir classic. Graham Greene wrote this novella and then converted it into the screenplay. I’m not sure how or why the original novella ended up being published but I suspect that the huge success of the movie may have had something to do with it. So when reading The Third Man you are basically reading the novelisation of the movie; everything is exactly the same.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, the movie was fantastic but then again I’m a fan of Orson Welles (Citizen Kane is the greatest movie of all time) so I might be biased. Who am I kidding, it’s not bias; The Third Man is a classic film noir movie and if you haven’t seen it then you are missing out. It’s hard to review a novella that is exactly the same as the movie, there may not be any point to reading the book if you can watch the movie but I wanted to see how Graham Greene wrote and I think I’m a fan.

What I found fascinating about the novella was the fact that the entire story is told from the perspective of Major Calloway and not the Rollo Martins. Just a quick side note here Rollo Martins name was changed to Holly Martins in the movie just in case you thought I made a mistake there. So I look back at the movie and try to imagine The Third Man from the perspective of Calloway and it just doesn’t seem right, but it works really well for the book. Just another example of what a novel can do that film can’t and gives the novella something unique that you wouldn’t get from the movie.

This only took me about an hour to read (I read slow) and while it is pretty much the exact same thing as the movie, I’m glad I read it. It gave me a sense of Graham Greene’s style and I know what to expect when I try another book (any suggestions). I loved the movie and I think the book is a great companion for fans of The Third Man. Now I want to rewatch the movie, sounds like a good idea right?

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Posted August 24, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic, Erotica / 0 Comments

Title: Tropic of Cancer (Goodreads)
Author: Henry Miller
Published: Harper Collins, 1934
Pages: 336
Genres: Classic, Erotica
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Tropic of Cancer is probably best known for being about sex, a book that was banned for over thirty years. An autobiographical novel of a struggling writer living in Paris in a community of bohemians. A fictionalised account of Miller’s life living underground, with prostitutes, painters and other writers.

This is an odd novel, not necessarily good but a literary landmark. Without Henry Miller we may never have books like Lolita, Naked Lunch, A Sport and a Pastime and even Tampa. On the plus side, we may never have Fifty Shades of Grey. This novel pushed the boundaries of literature in the 1930’s and found itself being banned, which developed a cult following that helped influence the future of literature. I tend to think, much like Lady’s Chatterley’s Lover, if it wasn’t for the banning of the book, this novel wouldn’t be a classic; it would have just faded away into obscurity.

There are some advantages to reading this book, there are the autobiographical elements but then Miller focuses on his friends and colleagues. Almost off topic, like he is commentating on what is happening in their lives. Then it gets a little more complex because there is a stream of consciousness reflecting on the occasional epiphany. The whole narrative gets really confusing with its non-linear approach, the tangents and reflections. It makes the whole book hard to read and in the end not really enjoyable.

I can’t help but compare this novel to The Dud Avocado, the sexual adventures in Paris is similar but Tropic of Cancer wasn’t as interesting and a female lead makes for a less sex obsessed narrative and tends to focus on life abroad as well. I can’t help thinking just how narcissistic Henry Miller must have been with all those autobiographical novels of his life; do people still do that? Or is this just a thing of the past, pushing the boundaries.

I have to give Henry Miller one thing; he doesn’t hold back, he will expose the good, the bad and the disturbing parts of his life. If I ever wrote a book like this (which I have no interest in doing anyway) I would be more inclined to hold back, to paint myself in a more favourable light; Miller doesn’t do that at all. There isn’t much I can say about this book, it’s about sex and that is about it. The stream of consciousness part was interesting but I still find that difficult to read. I would probably tell people to skip this and read The Dud Avocado or something similar but for the book snobs (like myself) if you do read this book I hope you get something out of it apart from the historical significance of a book like Tropic of Cancer.

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

Posted August 16, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Non-Fiction / 2 Comments

Title: The Lost City of Z (Goodreads)
Author: David Grann
Published: Knopf Doubleday, 2009
Pages: 351
Genres: Non-Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

The Lost City of Z tells the story of Percy Fawcett, a legendary British explorer who disappeared in 1925 along with his son looking for an ancient lost city in the Amazon. For decades explorers, archaeologists and scientists have tried to find any evidence of this lost city of El Dorado which Fawcett has called Z. it is believed that over 100 people have perished or disappeared in this search in David Grann explores this topic in the book The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.

While my wife was away in Chile and Brazil I thought I would read a book set in that continent so after a bit of research and cross checking with what my library had I decided on David Grann’s The Lost City of Z. Maybe not the best book to read while she was away but I want to read more non-fiction and this sounded really interesting. For centuries Europeans believed the Amazon concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado and they obsessed with it. Those who did go searching for El Dorado often disappeared or died. The mysteries of the Amazon remained mysteries because the explorers didn’t understand what was in the uncharted jungles of Brazil.

Percy Fawcett has been referred to as a “Nietzschean explorer” spouting “eugenic gibberish” so it was interesting to read about his obsession with finding this lost city as well as everyone else who were determined to find El Dorado. Exploring an unknown jungle without any idea of what dangerous plants, animals and maybe tribes you find doesn’t sound like a great adventure to me but it was interesting to read about mysteries surrounding these quests. For me this book makes the Amazon sound really dangerous; many disappearing or dying and some even going insane but I was fascinated by the book and enjoyed reading it (even though my wife was in Brazil at the time).

I’m never really sure how to write a review for a non-fiction book but I hope I gave you enough information and expressed my thoughts well enough for this book. I think David Grann wrote this book in a really accessible way but at times I felt like he idolised Percy Fawcett; like he was enlightened where others call him a Nietzschean explorer, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all. A book that took me out of my comfort zone and I’m thankful for that. The book gets bonus points for referencing and endnotes; I might not have used them but I respect a non-fiction book more if it offers me references to back up what it is saying.