James Smythe - I Still Dream

Rating: 3/5

Review:
A bit of a struggle

I struggled a bit with I Still Dream.  James Smythe is a very fine writer and I thought that The Machine was an outstanding book.  This didn't feel nearly as original or interesting to me.

The narrative begins in 1997 when Laura Bow is seventeen and a computer genius like her late father.  She begins to create Organon, a form of Artificial Intelligence which can learn and which she tries to imbue with her own human values.  Meanwhile, others have appropriated her father's work on SCION, a similar program but which has been "raised" very differently.  The narrative jumps a decade at a time and changes narrators as we see the way in which the two programs develop and each has a profound influence on the world, eventually ending up in an undisclosed year in the far future.  Smythe deals with important issues like the uses and abuses of data, the meaning of sentience and humanity and so on, but in spite of some very good writing and some interesting takes on human and artificial memory, it dragged very badly for quite long periods.

The book is too long, for one thing and sometimes felt more like a lecture on the potential of AI than a novel. The characters and human aspects of the story weren't really strong enough to carry the book and – surprisingly to me – it all felt a little familiar from other novels and programmes like Black Mirror.  It's readable enough, but I wasn't sure it was worth it in the end and I can only give I Still Dream a very qualified recommendation.

(My thanks to HarperCollins for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Colin Watson - The Flaxborough Crab

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another gem from Watson

The discovery of Colin Watson's Flaxborough novels has been a joy.   They are compact gems of wit, acute observation and plotting and every one so far has been an absolute pleasure.

The Flaxborough Crab is the sixth in the series, in which women of the town are subjected to thoroughly inept attempted sexual assaults (which they are often amusingly well able to deal with), apparently by an elderly perpetrator.  Things, naturally, become more complex and Purbright and Love find themselves widening their investigation as the magnificent Miss Lucy Teatime also becomes involved.

It's typical Watson – and I mean that as the highest compliment.  His portraits of the characters of the town are as shrewd and acerbic as ever and the writing is a masterclass in beautifully crafted prose and dry wit.  This, as a "Treat" is being inflicted on the elderly by some of the town's worthies, will give a flavour:

"The chief organiser of the treat bustled into the room, rubbing his hands and saying "Fine! Fine!" over and over again.  He hosed the Darbys and Joans with his smile and inflicted a vigorous handshake upon as many as lacked the presence of mind to feign earnest search for something on the floor."  ("Hosed".  Brilliant!)

Flaxborough Crab is a hugely enjoyable instalment in a wonderful series.  Very warmly recommended.

(My thanks to Farrago Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Terry Pratchett - Night Watch

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Possibly Pratchett's finest book

Terry Pratchett wrote a lot of truly excellent books, but if I had to choose one as his masterpiece, this would be it.  Night Watch has all his qualities in abundance: wit, an engrossing story, wonderful characters, deep insight and a great, great humanity.  (It really helps to be familiar with The Watch so I'd recommend reading the preceding Watch books first.)

In Night Watch, Commander Vimes gets caught in a temporal event (and quantum, of course) which transports him and the vicious criminal he is pursuing back to the time when the young Sam Vimes has just joined the Watch.  It's a clever and incredibly thoughtful story about power and its abuses, the moral complexities of policing and the law, and about decency, humanity and inhumanity.  There are scenes in a corrupt Watch House here which, even though they are not at all graphic, still haunt me and I have cherished for years the exchange between Vimes and his enraged, vengeance-bent younger self:

"You *don't* bash a man' brains out when he's tied to a chair!"

"He did!"

"And you don't.  That’s because you're not him."

That sums up the moral situation as pithily as I've ever heard it.

Night Watch has everything for me; it's a great, involving read, it's funny at times, it's very affecting at others and it says some very important things in a way which allows you to hear them easily and enjoyably.  Very warmly recommended.

Damon Runyon - Guys & Dolls

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Comic genius

This is a decent selection of twenty of Runyon's Broadway stories and would serve as a good introduction to one of the truly great comic writers of the 20^th Century. 

I first read some Runyon about 35 years ago and after a page or two of him was completely hooked.  It's a joy throughout with very neatly constructed short stories, memorable characters and, above all, writing which can make me laugh out loud just through its style.  If you need a sample of Runyon's wonderful, utterly distinctive prose, try this paragraph from the classic The Brain Goes Home:

"I once read a story about a guy by the name of King Solomon who lives a long time ago and who has a thousand dolls all at once, which is going in for dolls on a very large scale indeed, but I guarantee that all of King Solomon's dolls put together are not as expensive as any one of The Brain's dolls. The overhead on Doris Clare alone will drive an ordinary guy daffy, and Doris is practically frugal compared to Cynthia Harris and Bobby Baker."

Damon Runyon has been one of the joys of my life and, if you haven't already, I would urge you to try him.  For a much fuller selection, my advice is to get hold of a copy of the Picador paperback, On Broadway.  It's out of print (scandalously, in my view) but used copies are still readily available.  Failing that, you won’t be disappointed with the little gems in this Penguin selection.  Very warmly recommended.

Emma Healey - Whistle In The Dark

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Not for me

I'm afraid I didn't get on at all well with Whistle In The Dark.  Plainly a lot of other readers did and I'm in a small minority, but I found it rather clunky, needlessly slow and not very original in its insights.

The book opens with Jen and Hugh's daughter Lana arriving at hospital after having gone missing for four days while on holiday in the Peak District.  Lana insists that she cannot remember anything about what has happened and we are left guessing about whether this is true or not.  Oh, and their other daughter chooses that day to announce that she is pregnant by donor insemination and that she has split up with her (female) partner.

The book develops primarily into an examination of the relationship between insecure, emotionally clumsy Jen and Lana, the classic rude, recalcitrant teenager with a history of depression, self-harm etc. for good measure.  There is also some sisterly infighting to help things along.  Meanwhile Jen intrudes further and further into Lana's life to try to find out what has happened to her as the narrative jumps back and forth in time (as seems near-compulsory these days) and a rather tame story eventually emerges.

I'm afraid I found it dull and unoriginal.  The relationships and characters seemed very familiar to me from other books and the story certainly didn't hold my attention.  It seems to me that there was an awful lot of Creative Writing but not much in the way of worthwhile content.  Plenty of others have enjoyed this very much, but I'm sorry to say that I really didn't.

(My thanks to Penguin Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Simon Brett - A Deadly Habit

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very enjoyable

I enjoyed A Deadly Habit very much.  Let's face it, you know pretty much what you're going to get from a Charles Paris mystery: a slightly implausible plot in which someone involved with Charles's current production mysteriously dies, some shrewd and often acerbic observations of theatrical characters and their behaviour, some slightly inept investigation by Charles himself and a lot of unflashy but very good writing.  This doesn’t disappoint at all.

This time, Charles is invited to appear in a West End production of a not-very-good play which is a vehicle for a big movie star whom Charles knew when they were both fresh out of drama school.  Sure enough, someone dies and Charles eventually pieces together what happened.  There is also a lot of background about alcoholism and its struggles, which I thought was well done; Brett is very good at tackling this sort of thing with a little wit but never trivialising, so it is honest without being too grim or sentimental.  The whole thing is a very easy, pleasurable read with a little more substance than many books in this genre – and one scene where Charles speaks to a retired, waspishly camp director made me laugh out loud more than once.

Simon Brett is a master at this sort of thing and he has done it yet again.  If you want an amusing, enjoyable read which nonetheless has a bit of substance to it, I'd recommend giving this a try.

Terry Pratchett - Making Money

Rating: 5/5

Review:
One of Pratchett's best

This is another Pratchett classic, I think.  It's best to read Going Postal first but it can be read on its own; here Moist von Lipwig takes on the finance sector and Pratchett gives us a typically witty but penetrating look at what banking and money are and how they work, wrapped in a hugely enjoyable and often very funny narrative.  Moist himself is a wonderful character, as is Adora Belle Dearheart, Vetinari is on outstanding form, there's an Igor and even cameo appearances from Carrot and Detritus…what more could you possibly want?

After at least two re-reads, this is still one of Sir Terry's best, in my view.  There isn't a much higher recommendation than that.