Steve Voake - The Dreamwalker's Child

Acquiring books is often more fun than reading them. I got my hands on this one at an author’s reading, where there was wine, and I had it signed by the author, making it my first ever signed book.

There are a lot of good things to be said about The Dreamwalker’s Child. It has an original story, (insects being piloted by tiny people from another world,) believable characters (which is an excellent achievement considering the influx of child characters who act older than their age) and it’s very clean and well written (in fact, easily the best on this list so far).

However, with all the good bits, (and I will say now that I enjoyed the book), my cynical side came up with a few things worth mentioning.

Firstly, the opening chapter is written in a way more suited to a young audience compared to the rest of the book. The audience seems to be between four and seven judging from the opening page, but later in the novel, a man is torn apart by a giant ant! It’s a bit distant from the ‘colours and sounds and wonderful things’ from the first page.

Early on, there is a formatting mistake with line spacing. This isn’t Steve’s fault, but it does look odd. What is Steve’s fault though, is a line from the lead bad guy Odoursin, where he speaks over a loud speaker to the main protagonist Sam: ‘I know you’re here Sam... I can feel it.’ After I’d gotten over my initial fit of laughter, I was reminded of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker... only we already know who Sam’s father is so unless there is some other deep connection between the two, Odoursin being able to ‘feel it’ is an unnecessary cliché.

Odoursin can also be likened to Hitler with the amount of Nazi symbolism thrown into the bad guys. They dress like the SS and I swear one of them even had blonde hair and blue eyes. This almost led me to believe Odoursin’s main evil motive was to propagate the master race, but that’s a bit heavy for a kid’s book.

As far as the length of the book goes, it’s well paced and spread out evenly over the 300 pages. The only cut I would make would be removing chapter 25 as the stuff about Sam’s parents doesn’t add anything to the story.

The setting was another thing that puzzled me. I had no idea when the book was set and looking at all the cultural references, there is only one that really places the book in any era. It’s really cleverly put in and shows the skill of the author as he doesn’t make any slips regarding setting ambiguity.

I would recommend The Dreamwalker’s Child to any parents with children aged nine plus. And there are some enjoyable bits for adults too. It’s acclaimed to be one of the best books for its target audience and I would agree. Or suffer the wrath of Darth Voake.

The Dreamwalker’s Child by Steve Voake was published by Faber and Faber in 2005. RRP £6.99 (Paperback)

Luke and Darth's faces - The force is strong with Luke... he can feel it

William Horwood - Duncton Wood

I found this book on my Mother’s bookshelf, which maybe should have been a warning but the back of the book sold it to me. ‘Lord of the Rings out of Watership Down.’ I liked Lord of the Rings so I thought that Dunction Wood could have a lot for me to enjoy. However, I failed to acknowledge the fact that Watership Down scared the crap out of me as a child and my common sense must have abandoned me because moles can’t use swords or bows.

Dunction Wood deals with a lot of issues including but not limited to: childhood isolation, parental abandonment, bereavement, disability discrimination, the difficulties of puberty, baby murder, building your own home, rape, incest and incest rape. You would think with this list of things that the book spreads itself too thin. This is exactly the case because, at 730 pages, it’s unnecessarily long. With the book’s over ambitious approach to getting so much in, it has a lot wrong with it, so much so that I probably couldn’t list them all in a 10,000 word dissertation, so here is my top 5, in reverse order.

Number 5: Length. I’ve already mentioned the length of the book. Out of the 730 pages, 300 could be cut due to unnecessary details, a further 200 for over-description and the remaining 230 would make quite a fantastic read. If not for my other 4 issues...

Number 4: Using ‘mole’ instead of ‘one.’ This is a personal thing and it only made me angry after reading the afterword. Horwood says he describes the mole as ‘seeing’ when they are seeing with their sense of smell and hearing. But he still refers to them as ‘somemole, nomole, anymole.’ It doesn’t make sense that the author is worried about moles not seeing, reading or writing when the characters don’t consider themselves beings. Humans don’t walk around saying things like, ‘is anyperson there?’ so why the hell would a mole say it?

Number 3: POV. Sometimes the point of view changes three times in the same paragraph which would be fine if it was done for a reason or there was some kind of control involved, but it reads like lazy writing and can become quite confusing. At one point I read on for a page after the POV changed thinking I was still with the mole, when actually, it was a dog lash wolf thing. Oh, the dogwolf was afraid of the mole. But that’s believable because these moles can read (William Horwood would like to state that when he says ‘read’ he actually means, ‘read brail through touch.’)

Number 2: Poetic language. Poetic language can be excellent if used well and in the right places. However, Horwood uses it sporadically and while this could be to highlight the mood in the Dunction System, it’s used too far apart to be the case. There is a lot of it in the beginning, with alliteration and colourful language but as the novel grows longer, Horwood seems to lose interest in it which, again, is a sign of laziness. Because of its inconsistency, it has a negative effect on the flow and pace of the novel.

Number 1: General writing style. Out of the books I’ve already looked at on here, Dunction Wood is a cross between A Cavern of Black Ice and The Book of Mormon. It’s not a great combination. The two aspects don’t work well together and over the last 300 pages, I was literally dragging myself to the end, not completely kicking and screaming but it felt more like hard work than anything else. The narrative is so distant for such a long time it’s hard to empathise with any of the moles/characters/dogwolves.

If you love moles and want to hear about mole love, mole hills and mole rape this book is definitely for you. My summary of the book? ‘Here are some moles.’ Enjoy.

Dunction Wood by William Horwood was published by somemole at Country Life Books in 1980. The paperback edition was published by another mole at Hamlyn in 1981. RRP £1.95 (1981) Book is currently out of print.

This is not my face... it's a mole's face!

Clive Cussler - Pacific Vortex!

Okay so now that university is over, I can branch away from the constraints of reading for course related purposes and move on to random books I find places. Pacific Vortex! is one that I found in Sainsbury’s for two pounds next to the check-outs. Yes, it was an impulse buy, along with Slumdog Millionaire.

As I bought the two things are the same time, I must resist the urge to write a comparative review, stating which item I got the most enjoyment out of as this is not a movie review blog. So, without further a dew, let’s dive right into Cussler’s first Dirk Pitt adventure.

The first thing that rang the 'stop reading' warning bells was the title. I’m looking directly at you Mr Exclamation Mark. What on Earth are you doing punctuating this novel title? You certainly aren’t making me afraid of the said vortex, but it does conjure images of the hapless blond, mid-scream with her hands raised as if in fear of her life from some kind of monster.

I’ve never agreed with punctuation in titles. The title should speak for itself without the need of any help from over-the-top articles. However, the title was the not the main thing that would discourage readers from carrying on with the book. In the first sentence of the Foreword there is a missing word. Can you fill the gap? ‘This the first Dirk Pitt adventure.’ No Clive! (I believe here the exclamation mark highlights the extent of my anguish.)

However, once I had braved the title and gotten over the initial shock of the missing word in the first line, I found the book to be very compelling. And Dirk Pitt to be a James Bond clone. Cussler even goes as far as giving him a few cheesy one-liners, including, ‘I always wondered how I’d bear up under torture.’

To be honest, what I’ve said about the book is a little picky. It’s a good entertaining read with some genuinely funny moments. Pitt is a believable hero, if also a male chauvinist and the other characters work well around him. He has also researched the maritime aspects of the book meticulously which helps with its authenticity.

I also like a book that can teach me things. Before reading Pacific Vortex! I had no idea there were only seven consonants in the Hawaiian language, in fact I had no idea Hawaii even had its own language. I have also learned how fog is formed over the sea. How do I know these things? Because characters explain them to Pitt as if they are talking to a child. The dialogue reads almost as if it's been copy and pasted from a text book. It seems Cussler struggles to hide his research within his work because it’s right there, almost slapping you in the face.

I would recommend this book to a variety of different people. Those who enjoy Ian Fleming would be top of the list, closely followed by fans of adventure and manliness, and sea lovers. I will definitely be reading another Dirk Pitt adventure the next time I find myself impulsively buying things near check-outs.

Pacific Vortex! by Clive Cussler was published by Sphere in 1983. RRP £6.99 (Paperback)

This is not my face - scared of The Pacific Vortex!

Frank Lampard - Totally Frank

Now here is subject I actually know stuff about: football. I bought this book when it came out directly after England’s exit from the 2006 World Cup and such has been my huge pile of reading to do, it has only just made its way to the top. I like to think every book comes with a lesson and Frank Lampard’s offering came with a simple one. Never read books by footballers who haven’t finished their careers.

My initial thoughts about Frank Lampard’s 424 page football extravaganza was that it could be summarized in seven words; ‘My name’s Frank Lampard, I play football.’ I wasn’t far off. Although, for all the football that Frank Lampard has played he still can’t get his facts right. On page 405 he says that Argentina beat Ukraine by six goals in the group stage of the World Cup, going into detail saying that one of the six goals was voted goal of the tournament. Argentina did win the match by six goals but they didn’t play the Ukraine. At all. In the entire tournament. It was actually Serbia and Montenegro. For a moment I thought I was reading a BBC match report, where factual errors are common place, but I don’t think I’m being too picky in complaining about an autobiography getting the facts wrong.

The book has a lot of similar grammatical errors to Cy Flood’s Sun, Sea and Sex: True Confessions of a Holiday Rep, but it’s not as bad in this respect. It reads like a transcription and if that’s the case then Ian McGarry, who I would imagine did the transcribing, really needs to sort it out. I’ve read quite a few novels over the last few weeks and only autobiographies seem to have noticeable grammar errors. I know it doesn’t apply to all autobiographies. Dave Eggers’ is good but that doesn’t really count as he’s a writer anyway.

Structure is very important when writing a book of great length and Totally Frank is written with what appears to be, a complete disregard for any kind of organisation. This goes hand-in-hand with it’s transcription like appearance and makes it out to be a horrible way of writing.

I’m not usually critical of content but there was a revelation is here that shocked me to my very core. Before England’s loss to Portugal in Euro 2004, Lampard reveals that the team was treated to a meal at McDonald’s. Lots of tasty burgers and fries were eaten by professional footballers before one of the biggest matches of their lives. Lampard goes on to say he felt sluggish during the game, but defends the meal choice, calling it ‘a treat’ for the players. By all means, have a treat, but not in the middle of a major tournament. Maybe if we won then yes, have some McDonald’s, feast on Burger King or visit The Colonel. I was hugely disappointed to find this out when I thought that professional sportsmen avoided that kind of food as part of their career; a small sacrifice surely, if you are being paid over £100,000 a week (before tax) to do something you love.

As I mentioned earlier, my main issue with this book is that it has been written by a twenty-eight year old whose football career hasn’t even finished. Over the last few years, England have failed to qualify for Euro 2008, Frank Lampard has become separated from his fiancée, with whom he now has two children (by August 2006, he has just the one) and we now face another summer where the media expects us to win the World Cup. My point being there is and will be so much more to write about by the end of his football career and he could go on to become a manager when he can‘t play anymore. Then, instead of complaining about how West Ham fans are not very nice to him, he could write about more interesting aspects of his life. The ones that haven’t happened yet. Maybe he will visit The Colonel in the future, I just hope it’s not before we play Brazil in the final of World Cup 2010.

I can’t do it. Even as a Chelsea and Lampard fan, I can’t possibly recommend this book to anyone. Ever. Maybe if he writes one at the end of his career with good grammar and structure and less whining… actually, that one will be longer. Forget it.

Totally Frank by Frank Lampard and Ian McGarry was published by HarperSport, HaperCollins in 2006. RRP varies greatly from store to store. Apparently, new copies are available on Amazon for £74.57 at the time of writing. I wonder how much I can sell my copy for?

My Face on the ball

Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart

This is a tough ask. I had very little experience of Africa, let alone African literature. I was leant this book by a friend and it’s short length - 187 pages - made it a good book to read when travelling on the train. Indeed, it took only two train journeys to go from cover to cover and I was left with a lot of questions, the biggest one being, how can I review this book?

The main character, Okonkwo, is well respected in his village but beats his wives, of which he has three, and his children. At one point in the story, he nearly shoots his second wife for making an apparently snide remark about his gun not working properly and his ability to use it. What a great way to prove her wrong by shooting at her. He misses too.

There are two main parts to the story. At the end of the first, Okonkwo kills his adopted son. He is going to be killed anyway, such is the life and traditions out there, but Okonkwo insists on going with the killing party to prove his worth to tribe, and then showed exactly how much of an asset he is by delivering the killing blow to the child.

The second part involves ‘the white man’ coming to Africa. Despite having severe issues with Okonkwo’s behaviour up to this point, I was on his side when it came to the Christians forcing their religion on the tribes of Africa.

And this is where the book is good, in that it generates different emotions in the reader. I hated Okonkwo form start to finish but at least he had the guts to stand up for what he believed in.

Taking the writing itself into consideration is a task in itself. It has a narrative style similar to The Book of Mormon. It is well written with no mistakes and also contains a glossary explaining all the native words. For me, this wins points over Vikram Seth‘s An Equal Music, as he frequently put in bits in French and German and offered no translations, which I found annoying. A glossary would have been nice in this instance.

However, there were many characters all operating at the same time and with their unfamiliar names it all became a bit confusing. Okonkwo’s first wife is constantly referred to as ‘Nwoye’s mother’ which seems a little degrading considering his other two wives are named.

Recommendations… I would say that if you are interested in looking into African Literature, then Things Fall Apart is a pretty good place to start. If you are already interested in African Literature then you have probably already read it (Things Fall Apart is the most widely read African novel written in English.)

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe was published by Heinemann Educational Books Ltd in 1958. RRP £7.99 (Paperback)

My Face with Giraffes in the savannas of Africa
(Okay, okay it's the zoo again. I've never been to Africa, alright!)

Vikram Seth - An Equal Music

I hold my hands up, I know next to nothing about An Equal Music’s main subject matter - classical music. My only experience with instruments of any kind is playing Guitar Hero on the Xbox360, and although I can grind out most songs on expert, it’s not real music. I know that.

My lack of intellectual credibility towards classical music was made even more apparent when I read a piece of the narrative that stated a viola was bigger than a violin. I consulted the internet to check because, I swear when I was studying music in year eight, I was taught that the viola was the smallest of the string instruments. Maybe that’s why I didn’t take GSCE music. And why I can’t play guitar.

After my idiotic period, I took a little time to find out if Vikram Seth is a musician of some kind. He is not, so, for me, that makes An Equal Music an expertly researched and beautifully written novel. The amount of detail he goes into when describing the musical sections of novel show an in depth understanding of not only the mechanics of the instruments, but also the bonds formed between the musicians themselves.

The dialogue is brilliant throughout. In places, Seth has four characters talking at the same time without it getting confusing. There are also some really funny bits, especially near the end when Michael, the main character and narrative voice, gets a call from a wrong number.

Right, that’s the praise out of the way. Now for the problems, of which I had two and they are big ones. The narrative grated on me severely. In the middle section of the book, Michael and Julia and in Vienna and Venice. There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of self involved narrative about the scenery and Michael’s feelings. It seems like a cross between verse and prose and whereas it is good writing, it’s in the wrong place and totally destroys the pace of the novel. I felt I was wading through loads of unnecessary details to get to the good stuff.

My biggest issue, however, is with the relationship between Michael and Julia. I don’t think anything I’m about to say has anything to do with bad writing. He could have intended the following reaction.

Michael is a self-absorbed, selfish asshole. I accepted most of the issues he had throughout the story, his suffering over long lost love Julia, and I did feel sorry for him… Until I found out why he left Julia in the first place.

Michael fell out with his music tutor, Carl, in Vienna where he met, and fell ‘in love’ with Julia. He ups and leaves without even leaving a note for her. Ten years pass and he meets Julia again in London. She is now married, but they have an affair. Julia brings an end to the affair with a letter. Michael says, and I quote, ‘How could you say all that in a letter?’ Well Michael, let me take you back ten years when you left her without saying a word. And you’re calling her the cruel one? Fuckwit.

I’m not defending Julia though. She started the affair and only ends it because she thinks her husband finds out. The whole issue of love between the two characters is one I didn’t believe in. At times, it seemed that Michael only loved Julia’s music. This was hit home by his reaction to Julia saying she wasn’t going to play with other people again. Michael acted like she had torn his heart out.

Whether it was Seth’s intention to create this image of musical elitism with these two characters or not, I don’t know, but one thing is for certain: An Equal Music is quite obviously a brilliant novel. It worked me up so much, I think I need to have my blood pressure checked.

I would recommend this book to fans of classical music and avid readers alike. In fact I’ve already recommended it to a friend. At 484 pages, it’s a nice manageable length despite some of the unnecessary prose. (Vikram Seth is also the author of A Suitable Boy, the longest book written in the English language.)

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth was published Phoenix House in 1999 (Same year in a row. How random!) RRP £6.99 (Paperback)

An Unequal Music - My Face Making Music... Kind Of

J.V. Jones - A Cavern of Black Ice (Sword of Shadows, Book One)

Fantasy is a tricky thing these days. A book only seems to be classed as fantasy if there are Elves, Dwarves and Orcs in it, typically with the Elves and Dwarves killing the Orcs and then the Humans come along, kill the bad guys and everyone is happy, except the Elves who inevitably have to leave to make way for the Humans and then the evil in the land is sealed away for an indefinite amount of time, until the Orcs come back again to find The One Ring to bring back the Dark Lord - you see where I’m going? Fantasy struggles to get away from The Lord of the Rings and the connotations associated with it. It’s almost as if Mr Tolkien wrote a fantasy rule book to go with his masterpiece that states, ‘all fantasy must contain at least one of Elves, Dwarves, Rings, Dark Lords - and Humans must always win the day.’

I’m merely speaking from personal experience here, but I’ve been struggling to find any kind of original fantasy material that doesn’t contain Dark Lords and Dwarves and Elves (oh my!) That was until I decided to actively tried to find new fantasy. I went to the sacred land of Amazon.co.uk and scoured their book lists in search of the hidden fantasy scrolls… and that’s where I came across J.V. Jones’ Sword of Shadows series, of which, A Cavern of Black Ice is ‘Book One.’

The first thing I noticed about A Cavern of Black Ice was the sheer amount of text. Each page is a wall of writing and there are very few long sections of dialogue to break it up. In fact, J.V. Jones is tremendously sparing when it comes to character discussions. All her characters seem to play the strong silent type when having a conversation. However, when something needs to be explained, a character who has said no more than ‘hello’ previously, will spill two pages worth of uninterrupted dialogue directly into the reader’s face.

That said, the majority of the prose is vivid and imaginative. It brings her fictional world to life through well constructed description and emotion. There is a lot of it though, perhaps too much in places. The book extends to 804 pages and part of me feels like the story could have been told closer to 500.

One of my major issues with ACOBI is the use, or should I say abuse, of viewpoint. It changes from character to character constantly throughout the novel. By the end I’d lost count of how many perspectives I’d seen the world through and where it can be a good device for giving the reader a wider view of the world, I felt it hindered the plot drastically. There are sections where the viewpoint is with Raif, the main protagonist, and as soon as I was getting really into his journey and adventures, I reached the end of a chapter and the viewpoint switched to someone else as far away from the action as possible. It ruined the pace and suspense to the point where I was forced to take a break and let my mind adjust.

That said, it was never enough for me to lose interest completely and I ploughed through to the end. The end of the first book anyway. I’ll get around to reading the second one eventually but I feel like I need a break from snow, ice and wolves. Maybe I’ll go find some Orcs….

Recommendations, recommendations… I would recommend A Cavern of Black Ice to any fan of fantasy fiction and also fans of really good prose. But not my mum. She is still attempting to get through Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.

A Cavern of Black Ice by J.V. Jones was published by Orbit in 1999. RRP £8.99 (Paperback) - £6.96 from Amazon.co.uk. Just to clarify, I don’t work for Amazon.

A Field of White Ice - My Face in the Snow