Edition: Chivers, 1998 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 973
Each of the now lengthy list of Amelia Peabody novels is a light, enjoyable mystery set against the background of late nineteenth century archaeology in Egypt, memorable for the opinionated proto-feminist narrator. By this point, her son Ramses, for long the focal point of much of the series' humour, has nearly grown up (at sixteen), and her "memoirs" are now supplemented by excerpts from a "manuscript" by him, which gives a very different view of what is going on.
The plot bears some similarity to the story of the supposedly Persian mummy from Pakistan which turned out to be a modern body. Here, Peabody and her husband find a body which is more obviously recent, and this sets her off on a trail of detection combined with interference in the affairs of everyone around her. Enough explanation is given for cross references to make sense even to a newcomer to Peters or to someone, like myself, who has only read a selection, though it is clear that there would be something to be gained by greater familiarity with the earlier Peabody novels. All of Peters' writing is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the Peabody novels rather less so than some, and here the trademark sharp dialogue is in evidence combined with a plot complex enough for a serious thriller; it is one of the best in the series.
Thursday, 25 October 2001
Wednesday, 24 October 2001
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)
Review number: 972
The fourth Harry Potter novel, about as long as the other three put together, continues to match his increasing age by becoming more adult. A lot of The Goblet of Fire covers what is by now familiar territory; it begins with the summer holidays, and goes on to describe a school year, with elements such as the unpleasant Dursleys and Harry's fluctuating popularity at Hogwarts repeated from earlier novels. The main plot is about a competition between champions of the three schools of magic, in which Harry is entered even though below the age limit by an enemy who put his name in the magic implement which chooses the champion (the goblet of the title) in the name of a non-existent school, hoping to use the opportunity of the contest to harm Harry in the cause of dark wizard Voldemort.
There are some quite subtle differences, part of Harry's growing maturity. For example, his relationship with the Dursley's has been changing ever since he first went to Hogwarts, and now they are almost frightened of him and his friends. The changes which gained most publicity when the novel was first published, the handling of awakening sexuality and the additional seriousness brought by the death of a Hogwarts student, are more obvious, as is the increasing use of the techniques of the horror writer which begins with the introduction of the Dementors in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and which is continued in the chilling first chapter here.
Does the way that the series is developing make the fourth Harry Potter novel better than the first? The fact that it continues to grab the reader all the way through - to the extent that I stayed up all night reading it - is testimony to Rowlings' technical maturity. Like all the best children's books, the series has always included subtleties aimed at adult readers, but I suspect that younger fans are likely to find aspects of The Goblet of Fire offputting. It certainly lacks some of the freshness of The Philosopher's Stone, and is far less humorous and exciting than the other novels. On balance, I probably enjoyed it less than its predecessors but admire it as an achievement, even if I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was as good a piece of fantasy as the Hugo award it has received implies. It is also not difficult to see why Rowling is taking longer than expected over the fifth novel, especially as she cannot really allow it to get any longer this time.
Leslie Charteris: The Saint in the Sun (1964)
Review number: 971
This early sixties collection includes stories from the preceding decade, several of which were turned into scenarios for the TV series. One is set in the Bahamas, and in the TV series a gloomy Brands Hatch (I think) stood in for a race track at Nassau, cheaper but not nearly so glamorous, and that is possibly the most interesting thing to say about these stories.
Tuesday, 23 October 2001
Mary Stewart: The Crystal Cave (1970)
Edition: Coronet, 1971 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 970
Mary Stewart's Arthurian novels, particularly the first three, are her biggest selling. This is the first, a first person narrative of the childhood and early adult life of Merlin. It makes him the illegitimate child of Ambrosius, conceived when he was a fugitive long before he became High King of Britain, and a Welsh princess from Carmarthen, the town supposedly named after Merlin. (The main political events of the novel, from the reigns of Vortigern and Ambrosius, are taken directly from Geoffrey of Monmouth's "history" of the kings of Britain.)
In this novel, Stewart minimises Merlin's magical powers, allowing just some minor charms and some prophetic ability, together with intelligence and a somewhat better education than would be common at the time, even among the upper classes or in the church. It fits quite closely with the kind of minor paranormal powers given to characters in some of her later novels, particularly Touch Not the Cat and Thornyhold.
What makes The Crystal Cave work is that it is one of the clearest and most consistent rationalisations of the strange myths created around Merlin's origins. The style is (not surprisingly) very like Stewart's thrillers, and so it is easy to read and has a convincing enough background. It certainly deserves its place as one of the best known novelisations of the legend.
Review number: 970
Mary Stewart's Arthurian novels, particularly the first three, are her biggest selling. This is the first, a first person narrative of the childhood and early adult life of Merlin. It makes him the illegitimate child of Ambrosius, conceived when he was a fugitive long before he became High King of Britain, and a Welsh princess from Carmarthen, the town supposedly named after Merlin. (The main political events of the novel, from the reigns of Vortigern and Ambrosius, are taken directly from Geoffrey of Monmouth's "history" of the kings of Britain.)
In this novel, Stewart minimises Merlin's magical powers, allowing just some minor charms and some prophetic ability, together with intelligence and a somewhat better education than would be common at the time, even among the upper classes or in the church. It fits quite closely with the kind of minor paranormal powers given to characters in some of her later novels, particularly Touch Not the Cat and Thornyhold.
What makes The Crystal Cave work is that it is one of the clearest and most consistent rationalisations of the strange myths created around Merlin's origins. The style is (not surprisingly) very like Stewart's thrillers, and so it is easy to read and has a convincing enough background. It certainly deserves its place as one of the best known novelisations of the legend.
Holly Lisle: Vengeance of Dragons (1999)
Edition: Millennium, 2000 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 969
Lisle manages to avoid the main pitfall common to mid-trilogy fantasy novels in the second of her Secret Texts series. Instead of being just a continuation of the first novel in which nothing new or surprising happens, there are interesting developments in the plot and we learn a great deal about her world and the various systems of magic which give the titles of the three novels (as practised by those nicknamed wolves, dragons, and falcons).
The story continues to revolve around the Mirror of Souls, key to releasing the souls of the dragons from the Veil (limbo) where they have been imprisoned for thousands of years since the Magicians' Wars. By deceiving living people, they manoeuvre the Mirror to the centre of the city of Calimekka, where it can restore them to bodies from which the rightful souls have been banished.
The major characters that we are meant to sympathise with, Kait Galweigh in particular, are very well drawn, their opponents somewhat less so. The background is unusual and interesting, and I look forward to reading the conclusion of this excellent trilogy.
Review number: 969
Lisle manages to avoid the main pitfall common to mid-trilogy fantasy novels in the second of her Secret Texts series. Instead of being just a continuation of the first novel in which nothing new or surprising happens, there are interesting developments in the plot and we learn a great deal about her world and the various systems of magic which give the titles of the three novels (as practised by those nicknamed wolves, dragons, and falcons).
The story continues to revolve around the Mirror of Souls, key to releasing the souls of the dragons from the Veil (limbo) where they have been imprisoned for thousands of years since the Magicians' Wars. By deceiving living people, they manoeuvre the Mirror to the centre of the city of Calimekka, where it can restore them to bodies from which the rightful souls have been banished.
The major characters that we are meant to sympathise with, Kait Galweigh in particular, are very well drawn, their opponents somewhat less so. The background is unusual and interesting, and I look forward to reading the conclusion of this excellent trilogy.
Saturday, 20 October 2001
Simon Schama: Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (1991)
Edition: Granta, 1991 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 968
A death forms the centre point of each of the two parts of this book. The first is a famous death, that of General Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham as his army was victorious. Schama looks at the way the event has been mythologised, including the completely unhistorical painting by Benjamin West and the more accurate account by American historian Francis Parkman. The second death is that of this historian's uncle, which prompted a famous murder trial in Boston in the 1850s.
The section on Wolfe is more conventional history than the other, and is rather like some of the essays on the reinterpretation of historical events in M.I. Finley's The Use and Abuse of History. It is, as one would expect from Schama, extremely well written, but it doesn't catch the interest as much as the Parkman murder.
The murder case is described as though it is a crime novel, complete with courtroom confrontation. It is a fascinating story, with circumstantial evidence the main prop of the prosecution case, the identification of the body right at the limits of the forensic science of the time, incompetent advocates, and an antagonistic judge.
In the afterword, Schama tries to show a connection between the two stories which means more than the relationship between historian and murder victim. It strikes me that he could probably be as convincing about any pair of tales of this length, and that the real connection between them is that they appealed to the historian.
The "Unwarranted Speculations" part of the title refers to the novelistic way in which the stories are told, with feelings and internal narratives attributed to the characters involved in a way that departs quite significantly from normal historiographical practice. It seems to me that this helps the stories come alive and, unlike the way in which historical novels work, it is quite easy to separate what Schama has added from the information which comes from the source documents - at least, it seemed to me to be simple.
Review number: 968
A death forms the centre point of each of the two parts of this book. The first is a famous death, that of General Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham as his army was victorious. Schama looks at the way the event has been mythologised, including the completely unhistorical painting by Benjamin West and the more accurate account by American historian Francis Parkman. The second death is that of this historian's uncle, which prompted a famous murder trial in Boston in the 1850s.
The section on Wolfe is more conventional history than the other, and is rather like some of the essays on the reinterpretation of historical events in M.I. Finley's The Use and Abuse of History. It is, as one would expect from Schama, extremely well written, but it doesn't catch the interest as much as the Parkman murder.
The murder case is described as though it is a crime novel, complete with courtroom confrontation. It is a fascinating story, with circumstantial evidence the main prop of the prosecution case, the identification of the body right at the limits of the forensic science of the time, incompetent advocates, and an antagonistic judge.
In the afterword, Schama tries to show a connection between the two stories which means more than the relationship between historian and murder victim. It strikes me that he could probably be as convincing about any pair of tales of this length, and that the real connection between them is that they appealed to the historian.
The "Unwarranted Speculations" part of the title refers to the novelistic way in which the stories are told, with feelings and internal narratives attributed to the characters involved in a way that departs quite significantly from normal historiographical practice. It seems to me that this helps the stories come alive and, unlike the way in which historical novels work, it is quite easy to separate what Schama has added from the information which comes from the source documents - at least, it seemed to me to be simple.
Cordwainer Smith: Quest of the Three Worlds (1966)
Edition: Gollancz, 1987 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 967
Four linked short stories, set later in Smith's imaginary future than any of his other completed fiction have been put together to make up this novel. They all concern the character Casher O'Neill, exiled from the planet Mizzer when his uncle, its dictator Kuraf, is deposed. (The names in the stories tend to refer to other things; Casher's sounds like a Cairo street name, Mizzer like the Arabic name for Egypt, and Kuraf is an anagram of that of Faruk, Egypt's last king.) Although Casher didn't approve of his uncle's corrupt regime, he doesn't think much of the man who has taken over either, and begins a quest to try and improve things on his home planet. This leads him to sort out bizarre problems on other worlds in the hope of obtaining help, and these problems are the subjects of the original stories.
These three stories are fascinating, and Casher is an interesting character who grows as a result of his experiences. The final story, originally entitled Three to a Given Star, does not fit in so well, Casher's involvement being tangential and the major tension of the novel already resolved. It is also one of Smith's poorest stories and by appearing as the ending of Quest of the Three Worlds, can only serve to undermine its quality as a novel.
Review number: 967
Four linked short stories, set later in Smith's imaginary future than any of his other completed fiction have been put together to make up this novel. They all concern the character Casher O'Neill, exiled from the planet Mizzer when his uncle, its dictator Kuraf, is deposed. (The names in the stories tend to refer to other things; Casher's sounds like a Cairo street name, Mizzer like the Arabic name for Egypt, and Kuraf is an anagram of that of Faruk, Egypt's last king.) Although Casher didn't approve of his uncle's corrupt regime, he doesn't think much of the man who has taken over either, and begins a quest to try and improve things on his home planet. This leads him to sort out bizarre problems on other worlds in the hope of obtaining help, and these problems are the subjects of the original stories.
These three stories are fascinating, and Casher is an interesting character who grows as a result of his experiences. The final story, originally entitled Three to a Given Star, does not fit in so well, Casher's involvement being tangential and the major tension of the novel already resolved. It is also one of Smith's poorest stories and by appearing as the ending of Quest of the Three Worlds, can only serve to undermine its quality as a novel.
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