Featuring: Kelley Armstrong, Greg Bear, Sandra Brown, Steven Erikson, Liu Cixin, Sergei Lukyanenko, Alexander Maskill, Amy McCulloch, David Mitchell, Joseph O’Neill, Alice Peterson, Cherie Priest, Mike Resnick, Jamie Schultz, Adam Sternbergh, Jeff VanderMeer
An amusing, epistolary novel of academia, modern life and literature
Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can’t catch a break with his brilliant (he thinks) work “Accountant in a Bordello”, based on Melville’s Bartleby. In short, his life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this droll and inventive novel uses to tell that tale is a series of hilarious letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies.
A very quick review, here. I’d heard about this novel a fair bit in the lead-up to publication, and as someone who has spent an awful lot of time at academic institutions, I was intrigued by the premise: a story told through a series of Letters of Recommendation. I was not disappointed.
I read Dear Committee Members very quickly, blitzing through the chapters. Each one is excellent – the letters are curmudgeonly, acerbic, pleading, petty, and even moving at times (especially at the end). One letter contained quite the gut-punch, after a series of more-amusing, lighthearted letters. The protagonist is a difficult bastard, and doesn’t come across as the nicest or easiest person to know or work with. He’s belittling, but also observant. He skewers his colleagues, his exes, and also the modern trends of academia (from teaching to bureaucracy). Certainly, for the latter, I agreed with him almost wholeheartedly.
The novel is filled with great comments and quotable moments, but I won’t include any here – just do yourself a favour and go read the book.
I laughed a lot, reading this. I was also somewhat moved at times. If you’re looking for something a little different, something intelligent and funny, then I would strongly recommend Dear Committee Members.
***
Dear Committee Members is published by Doubleday in the US, and the Friday Project in the UK.
I’m a big fan of John Grisham’s novels. They don’t all click for me, but many of them have been thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining. Today, details of his next thriller were unveiled! The novel, Gray Mountain, is due to be published in the US in October 2014 (not sure about the UK, yet). Here’s the description from Grisham’s website:
The Great Recession of 2008 left many young professionals out of work. Promising careers were suddenly ended as banks, hedge funds, and law firms engaged in mass lay-offs and brutal belt tightening. Samantha Kofer was a third year associate at Scully & Pershing, New York City’s largest law firm. Two weeks after Lehman Brothers collapsed, she lost her job, her security, and her future. A week later she was working as an unpaid intern in a legal aid clinic deep in small town Appalachia. There, for the first time in her career, she was confronted with real clients with real problems. She also stumbled across secrets that should have remained buried deep in the mountains forever.
Featuring: Kristen Britain, Brian Freeman, Christopher Galt, Nick Harkaway, Snorri Kristjansson, Ursula le Guin, Peter May, Karen Miller, Paul Sussman, Chris Willrich, & graphic novels
Another impressive book-haul, this month. Also rather varied, too, which is always nice. As per usual, I can’t read them all instantaneously, so here is an initial, first-look at the books that are coming soon to the blog and to bookstores/-shelves near you.
So. The Da Vinci Code. A lot of people read that book. An awful lot of vocal people despised it. The Vatican said it was blasphemy (thereby guaranteeing excellent sales worldwide).* Lots more people complained about it, and also its prequel, Angels & Demons, and follow-up, The Lost Symbol, saying it was terrible or poorly written, and any number of criticisms. They’re not high-literature, nor are they the best historical-crypto-thrillers out there. They are quick and engaging reads. And, as always, any book that sells a bajillion copies (probably the real number) is good for the publishing industry as a whole. Be it Brown’s novels, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight or E.L. James’s 50 Shades of Grey (all sneered at by people from all walks of life, most by those who haven’t read them), they all go some way to supporting other novels that will appeal more to CR readers and general SFF fans who don’t, to their detriment, read CR…
I will probably read Inferno. There’s something comfortable and reassuring about a novel that you know will give you exactly what you’re expecting. Suspend your disbelief and pathological need for realism, and I’m sure this will be a fun read. Regardless of what you may think of the author, Transworld have commissioned a pretty nice cover (above, right). The American cover, from Doubleday, isn’t too bad (left) either, but is basically a good example of the sub-genre’s standard style.
Here is the (US) synopsis:
In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology, Robert Langdon, is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces... Dante’s Inferno.
Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust... before the world is irrevocably altered.
Inferno will be published in both the UK (Transworld) and the US (Doubleday) in May 2013.
* When I write my novel, and if anyone is kind enough to publish it, I will do everything I can to get the Vatican to publicly black-list it. I can’t think of a better publicity strategy…
Following on from today’s two other posts about Terry Pratchett, I reached out on Twitter to a few bloggers to get their thoughts on Sir Terry’s work. Here is what they had to say, as well as some of my own thoughts on one of the greatest, most-beloved fantasy series.
This is the first post in a mini-series focused on the work of Terry Pratchett, which will go up on the blog over the course of this week. Here, Tom Lloyd (author of the Twilight Reign series) discusses the impact of Pratchett’s writing on his own…
“On Terry Pratchett” by Tom Lloyd
Terry Pratchett has an entirely unique position in my book collection. I’ve got beautiful folio editions of Tolkien, a hardback collection of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, several first editions by BB I’m saving to read to my daughter, but the tatty, much-read Pratchett paperbacks still reign. For starters, I own more of his books than anyone else’s – they almost rival my own for the number of copies I have – and secondly, they’ve been read more than any other’s. I rarely re-read books, I’m a slow reader and simply don’t have the time, but whenever I’m stressed or too tired to keep up with a new book, I’ll grab a Pratchett as I head to bed. It’s a habit my wife’s taken up and a testament to the quality that some have had over a dozen re-reads and remain enjoyable. They’re not perfect, with fluctuations of style and missteps aplenty, but still I’m not convinced millions of readers and a knighthood is sufficient recognition for his body of work, given the sniffy attitudes of the large chunks of the reading public.
An exciting new voice in thrillers
I make things disappear. It’s what I do. This time I’m tidying up the loose ends after a casino heist gone bad. The loose ends being a million cash.
But I only have 48 hours, and there’s a guy out there who wants my head in a bag.
He’ll have to find me first.
They don’t call me the Ghostman for nothing...
This is a very promising debut novel. Set in the world of con-men and casino heists, Hobbs introduces us to a “ghostman” – the man you call if you want to clean up a heist gone wrong, or really any other criminal activity that requires subtlety and no fingerprints. The novel is fast-paced, highly-detailed, and very realistic. Despite some minor niggles at the beginning, this was a thoroughly engrossing, addictive thriller.
I’ve recently got back to Britain for a short spell. Jet-lag has finally struck, so I’m afraid there won’t be a particularly involved post for a couple of days. I hope to get some more reviews up this week, but please bear with me…
In the meantime, here are some books that were waiting for me upon my return (you can count of at least a few of them featuring more on the blog in the future):
It’s a nice little haul, actually – four of the five are really interesting, two are must-reads (no prize if you can guess which two), and only one hasn’t completely fired my interest.
Grisham’s latest legal-conspiracy thriller
Given their importance, the controversies that often surround their work, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of the United States, only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five.
Who is the Racketeer? And what does he have to do with the judge’s untimely demise? His name, for the moment, is Malcolm Bannister. Job status? Former attorney. Current residence? The Federal Prison Camp near Frostburg, Maryland. On paper, Malcolm’s situation isn’t looking too good these days, but he’s got an ace up his sleeve. He knows who killed Judge Fawcett, and he knows why. The judge’s body was found in his remote lakeside cabin. There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies: Judge Fawcett and his young secretary. And one large, state-of-the-art, extremely secure safe, opened and emptied.
What was in the safe? The FBI want to know. Bannister would love to tell them. But everything has a price…
The Racketeer is another good novel from Grisham, an author whose work has rarely disappointed me. The novel plays to some of Grisham’s strengths – particularly his commentary on the American legal and penal systems, but it is not without its minor flaws. It was enjoyable, certainly, and definitely well-written and tightly-plotted. That being said, there was a definite turning point around the middle when I went from loving the novel, to slight and momentary confusion, before coming back around to enjoying it. I am, therefore, slightly conflicted about the book.
The latest legal thriller from the master of the genre
David Zinc has it all: big firm, big salary, life is in the fast lane.
Until the day he snaps and throws it all away.
Leaving the world of corporate law far behind, he talks himself into a new job at Finley & Figg. A self-styled ‘boutique’ firm with only two partners, Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are ambulance-chasing street lawyers who hustle nickel-and-dime cases, dreaming of landing the big win.
For all his Harvard Law Degree and five years with Chicago’s top firm, Zinc has never entered a courtroom, never helped a client who really needed a lawyer, never handled a gun.
All that is about to change.
Ever since I read Grisham’s The Brethren over a decade ago, I’ve been a big fan of the author’s work. I’ve tried to read as many of his new releases as possible (one day I’ll probably try his YA thrillers), as well as catch up with his back catalogue (to date, I’ve managed to read 15 of them). There have been very few disappointments, and each new novel I’ve found addictive and engaging. In fact, there’s only been one Grisham novel that I’ve not been able to finish (The Street Lawyer), despite trying to read it twice. I have no idea why I can’t get into that one. Anyway, with The Litigators, Grisham is on good form and, despite a second-half wobble, I was not disappointed; it was a very enjoyable read.
The excellent first Low Town novel
Welcome to Low Town.
Here, the criminal is king. The streets are filled with the screeching of fish hags, the cries of swindled merchants, the inviting murmurs of working girls. Here, people can disappear, and the lacklustre efforts of the guard ensure they are never found.
Warden is an ex-soldier who has seen the worst men have to offer; now a narcotics dealer with a rich, bloody past and a way of inviting danger. You’d struggle to find someone with a soul as dark and troubled as his.
But then a missing child, murdered and horribly mutilated, is discovered in an alley.
And then another.
With a mind as sharp as a blade and an old but powerful friend in the city, he's the only man with a hope of finding the killer.
If the killer doesn’t find him first.
I put off reading this for way too long. The delay had nothing to do with perceived quality of the novel, I just never got around to it. This is a fantasy that perfectly incorporates a lot of crime thriller elements, making for a thoroughly engaging and rewarding read. Straight Razor Cure is one of my favourite reads this year. It’s gritty, engaging, cynically humorous, and everything just worked for me. This is superb. Which makes this a tricky review to write…
A prison-based extortion scam hooks an unexpected, powerful fish
Trumble is a minimum-security federal prison, a “camp,” home to the usual assortment of relatively harmless criminals – drug dealers, bank robbers, swindlers, embezzlers, tax evaders, two Wall Street crooks, one doctor, at least five lawyers.
And three former judges who call themselves “the Brethren”: one from Texas, one from California, and one from Mississippi. They meet each day in the law library, their turf at Trumble, where they write briefs, handle cases for other inmates, practice law without a license, and sometimes dispense jailhouse justice. And they spend hours writing letters. They are fine-tuning a mail scam, and it’s starting to really work. The money is pouring in.
Then their little scam goes awry. It ensnares the wrong victim, a powerful man on the outside, a man with dangerous friends, and the Brethren’s days of quietly marking time are over.
I first read this novel when it was published in 2000. It was the first novel by Grisham that I ever read, and it set me on a two-month-long Grisham-marathon. Ten years after it first appeared, I thought it would be a good candidate for the first instalment of my ‘Ten Years On’ series.
There are basically two main storylines that run concurrently: that of the Brethren at Trumble, and Aaron Lake’s presidential primary campaign. It’s not stated how they connect, but one quickly figures it out (otherwise, there would clearly be no point in having them both in the same novel).
It’s pre-9/11, and the Cold War is still on people’s minds, not to mention the fear of a renewed war – cold or otherwise – with a frustrated Russia. This is the nightmare scenario CIA chief Teddy Maynard is trying to push into the American consciousness. Maynard wants a pliable president, one with the CIA and defence department’s interests at heart. Aaron Lake is the perfect candidate – squeaky clean, respected but not flashy, and a work horse on Congressional defence committees. The political side of this novel could be characterised as the military-industrial-complex meets Wag the Dog – a distillation of everything conspiracy theorists (and, increasingly, more-sane citizens) worry about the American democratic process – that is, secret moneyed interests in the defence industry buying the election for a candidate who sells his soul for cash and political fame. Only, it’s also as if the conspiracies about the military-industrial-complex are not only real, but they’re not big enough – the CIA is trying to pick a president, and they’ll engineer international events to prove him a foreign policy visionary, and in the end scare the American public into voting for him, in return getting their increased defence budgets and an eternal state of readiness.
Maynard is wonderfully Machiavellian. He embodies much of the contents and suggestions in The Prince, yet Grisham manages to keep him from becoming a cartoon. Lake comes across as the genuinely well-intentioned candidate who quickly becomes enamoured with the status and trappings of a political rising-star. The money is pouring into his campaign coffers in amounts as-yet unheard of (although, reading it now, the numbers are quite small compared to the 2008 election figures), and Lake is making the most of the political machine Maynard and company assemble for him. Everything is planned out – the ups and downs of Lake’s campaign, even the forthcoming general election. Everything will goes as planned. As long as there are no surprises, of course…
Meanwhile, the three judges at Trumble are working away at their mail scam, hoping to spend their remaining years of incarceration blackmailing older homosexuals still in the closet. Their scam is certainly cruel, and highlights the continued stigma attached to homosexuality in the US – even though things may have moved forward a little over the past decade, much of the sentiment described in the novel is the same as what one might hear coming out of Sarah Palin’s mouth. (Well, actually, what’s in The Brethren is far more tame than that.) When Grisham turns our attention to the judges’ victims, he deals with them in a very sympathetic way, as they struggle with the fear of their secrets being revealed.
The judges are angry at the world, and the idea for scam came from another prison and another time, when it was successfully carried out for years. There are times when the judges’ inherent concern for others does come through – particularly in the case of Buster, an extremely young prisoner sentenced to 48 years for a crime he not only didn’t commit, but had no way of committing. There is some balance between the judges – who have all the time in the world to scheme, and are surprisingly similar characters given their broad geographic origins – and their drunk attorney, who acts as their outside courier and money-man, a quite damaged character whose legal career has far from taken off.
Some things don’t change. In his announcement speech, Lake “became wonderfully angry at the Chinese”, and also “blistered the Chinese for their looting [of nuclear secrets] and their unprecedented military buildup. The strategy was Teddy’s. Use the Chinese to scare the American voters”, just as candidates on both sides of the aisle are doing today during the 2010 midterms. True, in the novel’s case, it's to distract from the activities of rogue Russian elements. Today, on the other hand, it’s to distract from US domestic problems.
The all-powerful forces of money behind politics are, as mentioned, a significant feature of the novel. Considering the recent Supreme Court ruling that officially opened up elections to seemingly endless amounts of corporate money, The Brethren was in many ways a prescient novel. The ability for corporations and special interests to buy elements of elections is frightening, and Grisham fully evokes the ease with which money can swing the course of American elections, and therefore politics as a whole.
I often forget how much social and political commentary Grisham can seamlessly cram into a novel (in just one chapter, for example, we get indictment of politics and the sorry state of daytime TV, for example). When I first read this, I missed a lot of the political commentary, not having had much exposure to US politics at the time (although, it was only a year before my professional interest in/obsession with it began). Second time around, and I know I got more out of this than before.
Despite my disappointment with The Associate, which I felt was based on a sloppy, shaky premise (and a little too transparent an attempt to recreate the feel of The Firm), Grisham remains one of the best authors writing today. Some may sneer, because he’s not producing “literature”, but his novels are original, intelligent, and exceptionally well-written and plotted thrillers.
All of Grisham’s characters are well-drawn and realistic – whether prominent in his novels or peripheral. The dialogue is natural, and the author’s prose flow perfectly. It was extremely difficult to put this novel down. Can one ask for anything more from a thriller? With a satisfying ending, The Brethren remains, for me, one of Grisham’s finest novels.
Highly recommended.
The Best of Grisham: A Time To Kill (1989), The Firm (1991), The Pelican Brief (1992), The Runaway Jury (1996), The Partner (1997), The Summons (2002), The King of Torts (2003), The Broker (2005), The Appeal (2008)
Artwork for the American 2000-edition, which I read first:
Ah, it’s that time of year again, when more information is released about Terry Pratchett’s next release. This time, it’s another Tiffany Aching novel (young adult series), and it’s called I Shall Wear Midnight. Amazon UK have the artwork, which is below (sorry for the poor quality image, it’s a screen-capture):
I’ve not been able to find a synopsis, although one frequent piece of information is that it is the “concluding” novel of the Tiffany Aching series.
I’ve also managed to find the possible US artwork:
I’ve liked this series ever since the first book, The Wee Free Men. The story was great, the characters interesting and all with the Pratchett magic touch. Particularly for me, the Wee Free Men themselves – or, the Nac Mac Feegle, as they are really known – are a genius creation from an author who has already given us so many interesting creatures and so much entertainment.
I Shall Wear Midnight will apparently be released in the UK on September 2nd 2010 (Doubleday), and in the US on September 28th 2010 (HarperCollins).
So, anyway: Crivens!
[On a slightly-related note, the next Moist Van Lipwig novel will apparently be called Raising Taxes, but not sure when it will appear]
Football Comes to the Discworld, and something strange is afoot…
I suppose it was inevitable, but football has finally come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork. This is not the old fashioned, violent, grubby, pushing-and-shoving football. No, this is a new, faster football. There are proper goals, a new football that beguilingly goes ‘gloing’ when you drop it, and soars through the air, unlike the rock-solid old type which broke feet and heads equally.
Because of an obscure, old bequest made to the Unseen University (Ankh-Morpork’s school of Wizards), the wizards must win a football match, without using any magic. Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully delegates the organisation and training of UU’s team (much like he delegates everything else) to Ponder Stibbons who holds, by his own reckoning, the majority vote on any University Council meeting he must decide to hold (simply because he fulfils so many positions within the university).
The prospect of the Big Match draws in a myriad of characters from the streets of Ankh-Morpork and also the servants quarters of the University. Trev Likely, a street urchin with a talent for kicking a tin can; Glenda, who makes lots of jolly good pies for the Wizards; Juliet, Glenda’s dim but beautiful young colleague in the Night Kitchen (with an awful, Holly Golightly accent), who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been. And then there is the mysterious, erudite, and eternally eloquent Mr. Nutt. No one knows much of anything about Mr. Nutt, not even himself, worryingly. All he knows is that he must attain worth, and can do pretty much anything. Then Ponder Stibbons asks him to help with the football preparations…
Unseen Academicals, the 37th Discworld novel, is a wonderful return to Unseen University. After a considerable absence, it was nice to finally be among the wizards again. The faculty continue to amuse, parodies as they are of university Dons and Fellows. Even poor Rincewind – the star of the first handful of Discworld novels, as well as others – who, as the new “Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography” has “no students and no real duties other than to stay out of trouble”. The whole cast of them remains wonderfully inept and food-obsessed. Add to this the fact that the Dean has moved on to head a rival university, and tensions (not to mention Ridcully’s blood-pressure) are high. I was disappointed that they seemed to fade a bit out of the story in the second half, though.
The cast below-decks – Trev, Glenda, Juliet, and Mr. Nutt – provide a different approach to Unseen University, as we are given a glimpse into how things actually work, and what sort of people keep the place running. Each character is different and very well rounded. Nutt, especially, is one of the best additions to the Discworld in a long time (though, Moist Von Lipwig is pretty great, too).
I laughed a lot more while reading Unseen Academicals than I remember with some of the more recent Discworld novels. However, the plot didn’t seem as gripping as some of his previous Discworld outings. There’s a lot going on, for sure, but the story doesn’t move along at the sort of pace we’ve become used to with Pratchett’s writing. This might have something to do with the increased frequency with which we switch between perspectives, and the number of people’s eyes we see through. The characters remain intriguing and interesting – the Patrician and Librarian remaining two of the best characters ever created, by anyone. The dialogue is sharp and amusing throughout (his social commentary, certainly with regards to football fans, remains very keen also), filled with clever allusions and puns that will make you chuckle knowingly.
All in all, not one of the best Discworld novels, but Pratchett remains a superior author even with his ‘off’ days. Unseen Academicals will entertain you throughout – and that’s all we can ask from one of the UK’s greatest living writers.
Highly recommended.
