I, Robot - Isaac Asimov

"Isaac Asimov's I, Robot launches readers on an adventure into a not-
so-distant future where man and machine , struggle to redefine life, love, and consciousness—and where the stakes are nothing less than survival. Filled with unforgettable characters, mind-bending speculation, and nonstop action, I, Robot is a powerful reading experience from one of the master storytellers of our time."

An undeniable classic in the Sci-fi genre, written by an incredibly famous and influential author. Written during the 50's the story does show it's age occasionally. It is quite amusing for a modern reader to read about people in spaceships all acting like they are in the 50's with constant smoking and outdated dialogue. However, this does not detract from the book. It merely serves to highlight how ahead of his time Asimov was. 

This is actually a collection of robot-centred short stories that eventually are shown to be connected in a large world building arc. I personally enjoyed this structure as it gave Asimov the scope to explore many different possibilities and themes. Asimov's delightful wit pokes through in unexpected places, with some really laugh out loud moments interspersed between all of the philosophy. Robots spout Gilbert and Sullivan, one believes it is a Prophet and refuse to believe it was made by inferior humans, one takes literally the directive to "Get lost!" And then there the ones who use logic to avoid following the first rule about not harming, or allowing harm to come to any human. 

The narrative flows so effortlessly and every story adds new depth to the question of humanity. I do think it is as much about humans as about robots. What makes us human is a common question in Asimov's work....Moreover, I have a feeling that he puts forward a rather bold question: is humanity an answer to everything? Should it be?

There is much room for debate and intellectual musings within this book. How much do we control ourselves outside of biology, society and psychology? Are we really superior because we are organic? Is being ruled by something you mentally cannot comprehend a good idea or a bad one? Is emotion necessary to govern? 

However I must say, while still being incredibly interesting, quite a bit of the conundrums that Asimov brought up have been further explored in popular media. I am not saying that the book is no longer worth a read, merely that some of the material wont feel and inventive or groundbreaking to modern audiences then I am sure it did to the original readers. 

Age rating 13+. Nothing untoward and could be an interesting conversation starter. 

The Goddess Chronicles - Natsuo Kirino

"In a place like no other, on a mystical island in the shape of tear
drop, two sisters are born into a family of oracles. Kamikuu is admired far and wide for her otherworldly beauty; small and headstrong Namima learns to live in her sister’s shadow. On her sixth birthday, Kamikuu is chosen to become the next Oracle, serving the realm of light, while Namima is forced to serve the realm of darkness—destined to spend eternity guiding the spirits of the deceased to the underworld.

As the sisters serve opposite fates, Namima embarks on a journey that takes her from the experience of first love to the aftermath of scalding betrayal. Caught in an elaborate web of treachery, she travels between the land of the living and the Realm of the Dead, seeking vengeance and closure.

At the heart of this exquisitely dark tale, Kirino masterfully reimagines the ancient Japanese creation myth of Izanami and Izanaki. A provocative, fantastical saga, The Goddess Chronicle tells a sumptuous story of sex, murder, gods and goddesses, and bittersweet revenge."

It's always difficult to review a translated work, because when you come across either brilliance or lack of lustre, it's difficult to assess whether that boon or bane is attributable to the author or the translator.

Such is the case with The Goddess Chronicle, by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Rebecca Copeland.

The story is a retelling of the original Japanese creation story. I suspect the original work by Kirino is a charged, tight story. Copeland's translation, however, lacks passion, and certainly this is a story about passion, in fact eons of passion as we trace the history of the Yin/Yang gods of Izanami and Izanaki reflected through the mortal lives of Namima and her unscrupulous lover.

There is much here to be said of sibling rivalry and betrayal of sacred trusts, of epic journeys both temporal and spiritual. There is a genesis story, a parallel to the Greek Eurydice and Orpheus myth. There is the struggle of the desperately poor serving religious tenets that serve only to embed their poverty and keep certain people in there place. Of female suffering and betrayal. 

It's all there. Yet not a single phrase of elegance or startling insight to lift the reader from a grey narrative to the chiaroscuro the story demands. Lack lustre characterisation leaves me emotionally detached from the story. There is no final message, no meaning to the story, no insight into the collective female experience. While all these themes are set up, not one comes to any meaningful fruition. This causes the book to feel hollow and deeply, ironically, unemotional. A real disappointment that I am not sure who to attribute blame to. 

Age Rating 15+. Sexual detail, death and certain cultural abuses. 

Honeycomb - Joanne M Harris

"A lushly illustrated set of dark, captivating fairy tales

The beauty of stories; you never know where they will take you. Full of dreams and nightmares, Honeycomb is an entrancing mosaic novel of original fairy tales from bestselling author Joanne M. Harris and legendary artist Charles Vess in a collaboration that’s been years in the making. The toy-maker who wants to create the perfect wife; the princess whose heart is won by words, not actions; the tiny dog whose confidence far outweighs his size; and the sinister Lacewing King who rules over the Silken Folk. These are just a few of the weird and wonderful creatures who populate Joanne Harris’s first collection of fairy tales."

This is a gorgeous collection of super short (2-5 page) stories that read like a cross between fairy tales and fables, each interconnected to a larger picture. The Lacewing Prince is a selfish and cruel ruler of the Silken folk, touching many lives with his behaviour, but as time goes on he starts to face the consequences and mature.

They’re really easy to read and particularly good if you only have a couple of minutes to spend reading at a time, though I will admit that I read the whole book in a couple of settings.

The stories carry a mixture of moral messages and explore different themes. She’s unapologetic in her criticism of certain characters and themes, without ever directly even criticising them leaving it up to your interpretation. 

Honeycomb is a book that you need to take time with, but will pay back richly if you do. It mixes myth and magic, nature and fear to form an intelligent and multi-layered prose poem that both celebrates traditional dark Fairy stories and brings the style to a modern-day audience. It is one to dip into, to read and reread, and I rather suspect would be excellent read out aloud. I really can't tell you how much I loved this book, there where moments I just had to look up from my book and relish the images conjured up. This is my second of Harris's books and I must say I am really blown away by her prose. It is poetic and lyrical yet never becomes overblown or shies away from the less beautiful aspects of the stories theme. If anything, the beautiful prose serves to highlight the pain or fear or horror of what is occurring. 

As someone brought up on Fairy-tales, this had a very nostalgic air to me and accurately revived the aesthetic/feeling of the originals, though still being so unique and original. 

Age Rating 15+. These are adult fairy-tales, and while some stories are okay for children, certainly not all. There are some very dark themes that are explore such as abuse, sexism and death. 

Cat Out of Hell - Lynne Truss

"For people who both love and hate cats comes the tale of Alec
Charlesworth, a librarian who finds himself suddenly alone: he’s lost his job, his beloved wife has just died. Overcome by grief, he searches for clues about her disappearance in a file of interviews between a man called "Wiggy" and a cat, Roger. Who speaks to him...

And he’s got a tale to tell, a tale of shocking local history and dark forces that may link not only the death of Alec’s wife, but also several other local deaths. But will the cat help Alec, or is he one of the dark forces?"

This book is certainly not for those looking for a cohesive narrative or stellar plot building. It was silly and camp and an all round fun read. It seems to be classed as horror, but I think the author wrote it tongue-in-cheek. If you’re a horror fan looking for a spine-tingler you won’t find it here. 

It certainly has its issues as a book.  You can follow what’s happening but the narrative skips and jumps for no reason. When Truss builds up to an interesting scene like a heist or a murder mystery reveal, she skips it and jumps ahead to the aftermath before going back to the safety of Alec or Wiggy’s overly chatty, rather scatterbrained narration. The ending is also a let down. Events stumble clumsily to the final act and then, just when I thought it couldn’t possibly be this predictable, when Truss MUST do something a little different to make things at least a bit interesting, she opts instead for exactly the least original choice. 

However despite my grumblings, I actually did enjoy this book. I could feel that Truss was having fun writing this book and just let herself spurt all the weirdest silliest dialogue onto the page. I couldn't help but be infected by the wonderful craziness of the whole thing, and the dry, pop culture studded humour was right up my alley. 

Age Rating 17+. Some pretty graphic murder scenes, awful torture and gore. 

A Pocketful of Crows - Joanne M Harris

"I am as brown as brown can be,

And my eyes as black as sloe;

I am as brisk as brisk can be,

And wild as forest doe.

So begins a beautiful tale of love, loss and revenge. Following the seasons, A Pocketful of Crows balances youth and age, wisdom and passion and draws on nature and folklore to weave a stunning modern mythology around a nameless wild girl.

Only love could draw her into the world of named, tamed things. And it seems only revenge will be powerful enough to let her escape."

Joanne Harris has written a powerfully magical and fantastical tale brimful of folklore. It is beautifully written, poetic, lyrical, and a short read. I think it's fair to say that its whimsical, dark and gut-wrenching writing is without a doubt the main character. Poetry without poetry is my favourite. It reads like a dark fairytale, fully aware of it's pagan influence and origins. It has not been white washed, so their is sex and violence. This is the story of innocence, love, betrayal, loss and revenge. 

Our wild girl encounters William MacCormac, a man of privilege and power, the son of a influential lord and saves him. Neither can forget each other, and William persuades her to come live with him and names her Malmuira, the dark lady of the mountains. There are ominous signs and portents but the girl ignores them. Naming means taming, and despite the warnings of her community, she gives up her freedoms to stay, all for love. She is treated with contempt and fear and by others in William's household, whilst rumours abound of her being a wicked witch who has bewitched the young lord. William's love proves to be less than enduring and the girl once called Malmuira must fight to free herself of the taming influence that the name has had on her. It is a story of reclaiming yourself, your identity and your self respect. This is a wondrous and mythic story that weaves a spell over the reader. Highly recommended. 

Age Rating 16+. As I said, there is death, violence and sex though not incredibly explicit. 

The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the
sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.”

This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it."

A truly mesmerising and brilliant book. Easily one of my favourite books...ever. 

The inhabitants of this hothouse of New York society is built on wealth, life is lavish, easy and comfortably cushioned, but this world may just as well have been covered in a blanket of cobwebs, as the lives are so sedate and uneventfully dull, despite their opulent surroundings, they appear colourless and motionless. Wharton fills the book with heavy and intricate descriptions that make you feel as oppressed by status and things as the characters are.

It is ultimately a tragic tale that Wharton weaves, and yes, as with a lot of classic fiction based around love, it's told with air of melancholy because this love is one that doesn't really get off the ground. For Newland Archer, the leading male character, there is an imagining of an alternative existence to the one that convention has pressed upon him, he has built within himself a kind of sanctuary for his secret thoughts and longings. Within these walls are his bride to be, May Welland and Countess Olenska, who would change his whole world.

Archer is a perfect product of Old New York, a member of one of the most prominent, historic families. He is engaged to the young, beautiful, and equally impeccably bred May Welland, who is sweet sweet-natured but naive. After twelve years away returns the Countess Ellen Olenska, May’s cousin, who through no fault of her own upsets the balance of Newland's life. She is beautiful, vivacious and intelligent, whose long period of living in more liberal European surroundings has made her innocent of the nonsensical, unspoken rules of the society she has reentered, and incapable of maintaining the shallow facade of her female relatives. Newland feels a life of quiet misery lies ahead, and despairs over Olenska as they grow closer and closer, because he is forced, by his own realisation, to know how Ellen will be treated if she dares to divorce her husband, and advises against it, even though he is devoured by love for her.

Wharton mesmerises with the sheer depth of emotion, pain, and frustration bearing down on Newland's shoulders. Yet much of the romance seems to by symbolic. Both Newland and Countess Olenska represent something to the other. To Newland, Olenska represents a freedom from restraints and convention that is constantly bearing down on him and suffocationg his life of any meaning. To Olenska, Newland represents her idealised comforting fantasy of the chivalrous New Yorker. They cannot be together, not only because of societies condemnation, but because if they acted on their desires the spell that each had woven around the other would snap. This this romance becomes so much more important then merely a personal experience. It is emblematic of the changes of society and the inner conflict of our own ideals. 

It's as important as it is beautifully written. Wharton casts an eye over the New York society, both disdainful and affectionate. There are truly, as strange as it sounds, laugh out loud moments in this book. Where Wharton's razor sharp wit and brilliant command of the English languages cuts through human foibles in a highly amusing way.

Incorporating issues of female emancipation into the story, never has the idea of a woman enslaved by marriage and convention seemed so unattractive from a male perspective. Newland Archer is full of modernity and the call of new ideas, while is still often trapped in the same traditions and stuffy morality.

It's hard to read the ending of this book without feeling emotional, but the exact emotion may differ with your interpretation. Ambiguity reigns supreme as this novel finds its close and even the coldest of unromantics will surely have their hearts pulled along. One of my favourite tragic love affairs.

Age Rating 14+ Nothing out of the ordinary and the language is surprisingly accessible for the time period. 

The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith

"Arguably Patricia Highsmith's finest, The Price of Salt is the story
of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose salvation arrives one day in the form of Carol Aird, an alluring suburban housewife in the throes of a divorce. They fall in love and set out across the United States, pursued by a private investigator who eventually blackmails Carol into a choice between her daughter and her lover."

The first word that comes to mind after reading this novel? Odd. A deeply moving book, however far more complex and nuanced than the lesbian romance story that it has been marketed as. 

There is an ambiguity to the relationship between the women, between love, obsession, mutual understanding and the projection of fantasies. However it stands apart from other novels of its type in the 50's as it is explicit that these women are more than friends. It allows the women to have a complicated relationship, without it being able to be brushed off as merely "galpals." 

However, this book felt more like a character study of Therese, a women so frustratingly passive that she functions more as a narrator than as an actual character at times. The relationship feels more like a first erotic awakening on Therese's part than an actual romantic meeting of souls. Now, this is by no means a bad thing and is actually something I enjoyed about the book. However I feel that this could have been further\better explored by Therese leaving Carol for a women who she could love on both an emotional and physical level. 

The writing style is something that really drew me to the novel, easily my favourite part. It is poetic and sensitively written (at times it's almost claustrophobic in its details) and an intriguing portrait of 50's repression, conformity and depression. There where some passages that, despite the time difference, so accurately evoke the feeling of helplessness and claustrophobia of normal life that you only become aware of when you are slightly apart, slightly other. However the road trip section dragged for me, it became repetitive and pointless. 

However I just can't sing this books praises. For, while on an intellectual level I could enjoy it, emotionally it was a slog. I can't read Therese as anything but a pathetic petulant child with an obsessive fixation on someone she barely knows. I don't understand the swooning over Carol when, to me, she's written so nebulously that it's almost as if she isn't even present in the novel, let alone present in the relationship with Therese. Possibly that is the point, to show that Therese is more in love with the perceived idea of Carol, rather than the actual person, however this just makes the ending all the more irritating thematically. I find both of them wholly unlikable and unrelatable. 

Age Rating 15+. Nothing untoward, however