Concentrated on novels during March to give myself a chance of making a properly informed vote before the BSFA awards.*
Embassytown by China Mieville (Pan Macmillan): for 100 pages or so I thought this was going to be it, the-Mieville-that-I-loved, but it ended up being the-Mieville-that-I-was-initially-intellectually-stimulated-by, moved on to the-Mieville-that-started-to-outstay-its-welcome, and lastly the-Mieville-that-bored-me-so-much-I-had-to-skim-the-last-bit-just-to-call-it-done-even-though-admittedly-that-last-bit-actually-had-some-action. As usual with Mieville I enjoyed a lot of the stuff and thought the alien language conceit was great, but the decision to couch the narrative as a first person memoir ultimately I think makes for an uninvolving read. Other readers’ mileage may vary of course.
Osama by Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing): this one, I really enjoyed. I enjoyed it while I read it and, weirdly, the more I think about it now I’ve finished it, the more I find to admire in it. The central conceit of a world in which bin Laden and the atrocities committed in his name exist only in a series of pulp novels is brilliant, and the execution–giving the book’s narrative a Chandleresque pulp voice and interspersing it with passages from the Osama novels which conversely are written in a curiously factual style–illustrates the concept perfectly. In fact the only thing that irked me about the book was that the gorgeous PS edition was marred by a consistent proofing glitch involving quotes. Tiny thing, otherwise perfect.
I managed to read a a handful of short stories too. The best of them were included in Iain Rowan’s ongoing, music-inspired blog: 52 songs, 52 stories. Iain includes a link to the song that inspires each story, but I choose not listen to them until I’ve read the story. And with the recent entries “The Grey Ship” and “Poems“, I think he’s really hitting his stride now. Highly recommended.
*It’s unlikely that I’ll have read all five by next Saturday as I’m now a bit into the fourth one, but I tried. I will have read all of the short fiction entries though so, you know, that’s something.
I’d like to read Osama soon. Right now I’m busy with research reading, so it’ll be a while. I liked King Rat enough to read Perdido Street Station but after that I haven’t felt like reading anything else of his.
Osama I think will appeal to you.
Mieville’s writing and I just don’t seem to get on for some reason. I didn’t even like King Rat.