This Year's Reading
#27 Pretty Little Things To Fill Up The Void by Simon Logan
Read for review for Vector.
#28 The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and KM Kornbluth
This came second in the poll (the Murakami was too fat but will be started soon.) On the back Kingsley Amis says it "has many claims to being the best science fiction novel so far." Christ. This is a half-arsed satire with very little to recommend it.
What were you lot thinking, eh?
29 The Electric Church by Jeff Somers
This, on the other hand, got precisely zero votes in the poll and was therefore read as the booby prize. This means I have only myself to blame.
It is another entry in the generally appalling "nice hitman" genre, that class of books that are hamstring from conception by the fact that murder is cool but, you know, immoral. Somers hardly even bothers to pay lipservice to this. Basically if you are going to write this sort of book you have to be Richard Morgan, not Jeff Somers. That aside, the prose aspires to the level of being competently written but is only occasionally sucessful and the most charitable thing you can about the plot is that it is stupid. This entry in the generally appalling "nice hitman" genre also has the tedious habit of constantly repeating itself.
Read for review for Vector.
#28 The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and KM Kornbluth
This came second in the poll (the Murakami was too fat but will be started soon.) On the back Kingsley Amis says it "has many claims to being the best science fiction novel so far." Christ. This is a half-arsed satire with very little to recommend it.
What were you lot thinking, eh?
29 The Electric Church by Jeff Somers
This, on the other hand, got precisely zero votes in the poll and was therefore read as the booby prize. This means I have only myself to blame.
It is another entry in the generally appalling "nice hitman" genre, that class of books that are hamstring from conception by the fact that murder is cool but, you know, immoral. Somers hardly even bothers to pay lipservice to this. Basically if you are going to write this sort of book you have to be Richard Morgan, not Jeff Somers. That aside, the prose aspires to the level of being competently written but is only occasionally sucessful and the most charitable thing you can about the plot is that it is stupid. This entry in the generally appalling "nice hitman" genre also has the tedious habit of constantly repeating itself.