The books of 2018

1. Revenger - Alastair Reynolds

This book was called "Treasure Island 10 millions years in the future". While I can see the commonalities with naval adventure, the gothic is never totally absent in Reynold's work. We see the grotesque and the deadly as well as the grand adventure. I think the treasure hunt was fun, and I really sympathized with the protagonist. I almost feared Al would leave us hanging, delivering the titular revenge in a follow up volume, but he tied it all together and the ending felt satisfying while still opening up the possibilities for future adventure. I'm not fooling myself, I will read on.

2. The Ocean At the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman

This was a book I really liked. It's a story about a man who comes home to where he grew up, and staring at a pond he goes down memory lane. That lane included monsters from other worlds masquerading as house keepers, weird birdlike shadow creatures that can consume creation and other odd stuff. Was this a very male story, perhaps? It felt a lot like all female presence was of a very mythic kind. I think I really liked it, and I can see echoes of Proust as well as the usual mythological themes so common for Gaiman. I really liked it.

3. A Wizard of Earthsea [Trans: Trollkarlen från Övärlden] - Ursula K. LeGuin

I read this book ages ago and loved it, and felt it deserved going back to. If nothing else prompted me, the idea to read it with all the knowledge I now have of representation of people of all genders and skin colours in fiction, felt like a good one. It's quite telling how few women there are in this book, and how they don't come across as very flattering at all. I think I would like to read some of her later books in this cycle, for comparison. Also, I have never read any but the first three ones! Today we heard that Ursula K. LeGuin had passed away. A very fitting day to read a book about how to become whole, and how to embrace life and death as part of a natural order of things.

4. Bring the Jubilee - Ward Moore

This book is a key work in the field of alternate history, and I felt I had to read it. Having done so I must confess the setting to be well enough crafted, but the main character to be a bore, a coward, more than a bit slow and having a not very pleasant attitude towards women. Frankly, if it had not been so short and would have quit half way through as the story slogs along without much action or things happening at all. Also, did I say I found the main character to be anything but likable?

5. The Loney - Andrew Michael Hurley

This novel was sold to me as folk horror, and having read it I'm not sure it is horror, but also not sure what else it is. Basically it's a selection of people who goes to a retreat over easter, and through murky circumstances a mute boy suddenly becomes able to speak. It was very English, and very catholic. I could almost hear people speak, and see the sight of the bleak surroundings. The author is using his expert command of language to create a very dense atmosphere, and a sense of foreboding and that something is out of kilter. After having read it, I found myself think back on the feel of the place, and that for me was a sign that it had found its way under my skin. I think I really liked it.

6. Beasts - John Crowley

This book was not a read that engaged me, but it was still a good book. The language is sharp, clear and elegant but nothing is close or emotional. The structure is fractured, fragmented and just as society is breaking down, so is the narrative. But behind it was a tight plot, that I failed to navigate clearly. I was never really sure who betrayed whom. This was the triumph of show not tell, and throughout I felt there were symbolism being played on on a big canvas between humans that acted like beasts, and beasts like the leo and the dog and the hawk that acted so humane. Crowley is too good to write bad, but I wonder if I need to re-read it to also feel immersed?

7. Special Deliverance - Clifford D. Simak

Way back when I looked for sf in my local public library, I stumbled upon a book with a UFO on the cover, called Andra Chansen, and for some reason I picked it up and read it. After that Simak became my favourite authors, even though I found the book quite puzzling. Now I finally re-read the book. It is a very old school sf, as the characters are all very agitated and really show their feelings on evey occation. The story is really basic, with some characters plucked form their lives to pass some tests as the second try at human civilization. I'm not sure I would be as enchanted today if I read it fresh. Some of the characters apart from the main protagonist are really annoying caricatures, and the plot is mostly people travelling and then seeing things they can not interact with. The best parts are probably the main character, Lansing, chatting with the robot. Simak's writing do contain some very charming robots, and I liked that from the start. There is a theme of stiff upper lip, being courteous to women and self-sufficiency in Simak's books that I think now feels very rooted in his mid-west upbringing. It's qualities that are not toally unpleasant. Even though this book lack some of his other stories' cosmic vistas it's very characteristically his style. It was interesting to re-visit it after all these years.

8. Frostskymning - Anders Björkelid

This must be one of the most depressing books I ever read. The first book in the series was just mysterious adventure with s very nordic feel to it. The following books piled on mysteries and ancient debts, rules and rituals nobody understood and an icy cold fate that was gripping the world in the bondage of ice, frost, despair and convoluted plotting. Now at the end I figured it could not get any worse, but it did. Again and again. I started this book three times before I finished it. Finally we got the story of where the People of the Blood comes from, we got the story of what happen at the regicide and after. Finally we saw the icy cold fate vanquished. I am not sure I realy understood the epilogue, and if I liked it. The themes in the book, and some of the very interesting ideas of sexual politics and gender was true gems. Those parts I really liked, and will probably value as the great takeaway from these books.

9. The other log of Phileas Fogg - Philip Jose Farmer

On paper this looks like a good yarn, and some two fisted action or secret history shenanigans. In reality it's stilted, boring and it feels oddly out of place. Apparently the Capellans are fighting some kind of undercover war against some other aliens among us in the Victorian world. Sadly I think Farmer is fading into obscurity because he was not not a very good writer to begin with. Just look at that sentence above, surely you could make something exciting with that? But, he just states matter of factly that the Capellans did that, and did you think Fogg did this while he really was thinking this? It's just too distanced to be very interesting. Show don't tell, man! I'm done with Farmer.

10. The Ritual - Adam Nevill

This was some seriously creepy shit! The great dark northern woods, the uncaring nature filled with gnats, cold rain and bristling undergrowth that care nothing for you. The setting was so bleak. Survival horror of four old friends hiking in the wilds, taking a short cut and being hunted by something dark and wild. The fascistic core of those beliefs, and felt oddly fitting for the setting. It was a real page turner, and as good as horror gets. It was an uppercut on the first page and it never let up. It kind of remembered me of the oppressive feel I got from Hell House by Matheson. I think there were some really touching moments in there as well of Luke's inner debate with himself of what kind of things we value in life, and how the friends had grown apart but somehow still found that core of caring as they felt they approached doom.

11. Den törstige munken och hans dryckesbröder - N/A

The Chinese classic, Tales from the watermagin/Tales from the marshes, is something I've been meaning to read for ages, and I finally collected all four volumes of the Swedish translation. It's rough and rowdy, with lot of violence. You note that this really is the jianghu, where some people really play by their own rules. But, apart from the just fight against corrupt government offcials, the heroes also clearly fight for themself. It's realistic in that way. You sometimes cheer for a brave xia, and then chuckle when he gets what he deserves.

12. Tigerdödaren Wu Song och hans vapenbröder - N/A

It continues, and now the warriors on Mnt. Liang have assembled quite a force, and lot of silver. I'm kind of happy to read of someone else than Wu Song for a while though, as he is kind of full of himself after he killed the tiger. It's clear why there have been made so many movies about these people, as many scenes are very visual and you feel would look spectacular on the big screen.

13. House of Suns - Alastair Reynolds

This is space opera on the gigantic scale! I remembered them being cool, but being a bit let down by the ending. Now I felt it did open up vaster vistas, and that was kind of a sensewunda ending, even though the big showdown was deflated. Re-reading I think I noticed the epicness a bit more, even though I did remember very litttle, and nothing at all about the fate of the First Machine People. I wondered a bit about the flashback sections, and to what extent they played a part in the main story. Was it an allegory over repression and losing sight of yourself, or a psychological defense mechanism playing out in the unconsciousness of Purslane, who I consider to be the original Abigail? Trying to surpress the truth will come around and bite you, on a personal and a galactic scale. I guess I liked the moral of the conclusion, to take responsibility for your actions, even when you have done wrong.

14. Den svarta virvelvinden och hans kumpaner - N/A

By now the posse at the mountain has grown quite large. In this volume we get to know the most brutal and murderous of the rowdy bunch. After a while I was actually wishing he would get a thrashing by his peers or something similar. But, he does get to act as comedic relief sometimes. Now the book goes up in scale with the martial conflicts as well, as now they are laying siege to cities.

15. Hjältarna på berget Liang - N/A

The final heroes join in, and all the 108 demons released in the prologue are sitting in the hall of Righteousness at Mt. Liang. 36 heavenly stars, and 72 earthly stars collected in brotherhood. I was happy to let them go, as the emotional expressions were beginning to wear on me. You could really tell this has been a oral tradition with much repeating and formulaic phrasing. In this book there was much fighting and also some daoistic magic, and thus less of the interactions in small towns that gave the earlier volumes a grounded feel. For now I will watch the movies made with all these characters and look back at how they are portraid. There are some of them I think would be interesting to get to know better than the big names, that I have grown weary of.

16. Ask for the moon - Meredith Lewis

This is not a great book, but it's a great story about how Shaw Brothers operated and how they came to be. The biggest problem with this book is that it's not very well written. The idea to study how you could innovate as a film maker with the strict confines of the studio system at Shawà is interesting. But, what thebook does is really just delineating those confines in a very good desription of how the studio was setup and run, and how the business acument of Run Run Shaw was financially successful by a system of strict control, and a good read on the market. Even in the chapters that focus on the innovators, Chang Cheh, Lau Kar Leung and Chor Yuen the author focus more on the constraints that the so called innovations. I liked the questioning of calling the machisimo of Chang Cheh an innovation, and I think the fact he was of the same social class as the Shaw's and from the same background in Shangahi is probably his secret. But, the amount of analysis is scarce and the best indications of why things were like they were are found with in the quotes from people who worked at Movietown, like Cheh. So, a good book to get to know how the stuio system was run at Shaw Brothers, but not so good for answering the questions posed at the start of the book.

17. The Calculating Stars - Mary Robinette Kowal

Stories about social injustice is hard for me. Very often I get so agitated I can not enjoy the story. This was a book that worked. While there are obvious point about sexism, and racism in the book, it's also a good story. The idea is interesting, with a raging environmental catastrophy catapulting the space program into high gear in the fifties. But, the reason the book works is the peoples. They feel engaging and real.

18. The Broken Sword - Poul Anderson

Michael Moorcock have long claimed this book as a major inspiration for the Elric saga, and finally I got around to reading it. To say they are similar is to downplay it. Actually, it feel like Elric is so very closely modelled on this book that a less generous author than Anderson could take umbrage. It's a tale of vikings and norse gods, faeries, trolls and family relationships gone bad with deadly competition between "brothers". Then there's that demonic sword that must taste blood once drawn. What Elric has, and this book does not, is the psychadelic dressing from the multiverse. Anderson's book is brooding and dark, and in the end you are just happy for the characters to die. It was interesting, but it was not that much fun.

19. The Thief of Always - Clive Barker

This is a young adult novel, or maybe for children, but it is very readable for adults. I liked it a lot last time I read it, but now it was just good. The story is not very complicated, but engaging enough, and there are some of those glimmers of the magic of some of his other books for adults. I really enjoy how Barker can show how there's magic in everything, and how something banal and everyday habour within it the wonders a of fantasy. The kids who get stuck in the house, and their dreams fulfilled, but their life sucked out of them is something I would have liked to know more about. What where their stories? It makes me wonder, if I could live a year each day, what would I like for that year to be?

20. Atomic Blonde: The Coldest City - Antony Johnson & Sam Hart

The name is silly, and sound way too much like a schlocky comic book style publication. In fact this is a very gritty, cold and noir spy thriller. The art style is black and white, with sharp shadows and a very visual style to emphasize the subject matter. As is often the case with double agents, lies and deception you at first don't really grasp what's going on. I found it to be a very clever take on the genre tropes, and the only thing I think could have improved the book was that the characters maybe was a bit too "foggy", and the uncertainty was taken a bit to far when I could not really discern who was whom. But, maybe it was also because the plot twists where quite twisty. Everything you could ask for in a classic spy thriller, really.