[books 2011] fluff fiction
66. Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R Green
Many thanks to human_racer for sending me this little gem.
It's yet another supernatural detective series - set in the Nightside, an alternative darkly magical London where it's always 3 am, and anything and everything is out to kill you. John Taylor has a gift - he can find anything. So when the Unholy Grail (the cup that Judas drank out of at the last supper) goes missing, all parties concerned want John to find it. Mayhem ensues, with angels from both sides running amok.
It's predictable and formulaic, but ever so much fun. Green has some lovely turns of phrase - my favourite being that when Elvis died he was so full of pills his coffin needed a child-proof lid.
Minimal web searching tells me that Green is a pulp hack who has half a dozen series on the go - some are Terry Pratchett-esque pisstakes of certainly sci fi and fantasy genres, a couple are supernatural detective things. While he hasn't gone to the top of the list of authors I must search out immediately, I'd like a few of his books on hand for the next time I'm feeling down or full of snot.
67. Savage: From Whitechapel to the Wild West on the Trail of Jack the Ripper by Richard Laymon
I've never read a Richard Laymon book before but I was given this one, and too full of cold to read anything I cared about, so I thought I'd give this a go.
The subtitle pretty much sums it up - a 15 year old boy accidentally comes across Jack the Ripper killing Mary Kelly and pursues him to the New World, in the process becoming a Wild West outlaw himself.
Mostly, it's pretty generic and interesting to me only because I'm interested in voice at the moment, and the whole is told as by an old man looking back on his youth in Wild West vocabulary, and it's done consistently.
The thing that put me off was the descriptions of how the Ripper tortures and kills everyone on the yacht they use to cross the Atlantic. Those of you who have been paying attention know that I read all of the gory Scandinavian and forensic thrillers, but in those the violence either takes place off stage and what you see is the aftermath; or it's in snippets while the main narrative is on what the detectives are doing. This was unrelenting, mostly about the torture of a young woman, and while some people might not see the difference between this and what I usually read; and I can't necessarily justify it myself, this I found anti-woman and off-putting. But I've never been a fan of slasher horror, so there you go. I can safely say that I won't be looking out any more of Laymon's works any time soon.
It's going straight to the charity shop unless anyone else wants it.
Many thanks to human_racer for sending me this little gem.
It's yet another supernatural detective series - set in the Nightside, an alternative darkly magical London where it's always 3 am, and anything and everything is out to kill you. John Taylor has a gift - he can find anything. So when the Unholy Grail (the cup that Judas drank out of at the last supper) goes missing, all parties concerned want John to find it. Mayhem ensues, with angels from both sides running amok.
It's predictable and formulaic, but ever so much fun. Green has some lovely turns of phrase - my favourite being that when Elvis died he was so full of pills his coffin needed a child-proof lid.
Minimal web searching tells me that Green is a pulp hack who has half a dozen series on the go - some are Terry Pratchett-esque pisstakes of certainly sci fi and fantasy genres, a couple are supernatural detective things. While he hasn't gone to the top of the list of authors I must search out immediately, I'd like a few of his books on hand for the next time I'm feeling down or full of snot.
67. Savage: From Whitechapel to the Wild West on the Trail of Jack the Ripper by Richard Laymon
I've never read a Richard Laymon book before but I was given this one, and too full of cold to read anything I cared about, so I thought I'd give this a go.
The subtitle pretty much sums it up - a 15 year old boy accidentally comes across Jack the Ripper killing Mary Kelly and pursues him to the New World, in the process becoming a Wild West outlaw himself.
Mostly, it's pretty generic and interesting to me only because I'm interested in voice at the moment, and the whole is told as by an old man looking back on his youth in Wild West vocabulary, and it's done consistently.
The thing that put me off was the descriptions of how the Ripper tortures and kills everyone on the yacht they use to cross the Atlantic. Those of you who have been paying attention know that I read all of the gory Scandinavian and forensic thrillers, but in those the violence either takes place off stage and what you see is the aftermath; or it's in snippets while the main narrative is on what the detectives are doing. This was unrelenting, mostly about the torture of a young woman, and while some people might not see the difference between this and what I usually read; and I can't necessarily justify it myself, this I found anti-woman and off-putting. But I've never been a fan of slasher horror, so there you go. I can safely say that I won't be looking out any more of Laymon's works any time soon.
It's going straight to the charity shop unless anyone else wants it.