I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

ISBN: 9780385611077

It's not easy being a witch, and it's certainly not all whizzing about on broomsticks, but Tiffany Aching - teen witch - is doing her best. Until something evil wakes up, something that stirs up all the old stories about nasty old witches, so that just wearing a pointy hat suddenly seems a very bad idea. Worse still, this evil ghost from the past is hunting down one witch in particular. He's hunting for Tiffany.

Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie

ISBN: 9780007120741

Description
Poirot had been present when Jane bragged of her plan to 'get rid of' her estranged husband. Now the monstrous man was dead. And yet the great Belgian detective couldn't help feeling that he was being taken for a ride. After all, how could Jane have stabbed Lord Edgware to death in his library at exactly the same time she was seen dining with friends? And what could be her motive now that the aristocrat had finally granted her a divorce?

Reviewed on 3rd September 2010
This is one of my favourites of the Christie novels I've read so far. It's fairly traditional in its set up but keeps the reader guessing.

Poirot is hired by Lady Edgware to obtain a divorce for her, but even after the Lord grants his consent, she is still witnessed to murder him, despite also having a watertight alibi at a dinner party.

The reason I loved this book was because I found it very easy to come up with my own theory, and to adapt it as each piece of evidence came to light - ultimately resulting in my correctly identifying the murderer. Admittedly, in one or two places this made some elements feel a little to obvious for the characters to miss, but then it is written from Captain Hastings viewpoint and so Poirot's thought processes can remain a mystery.

I enjoyed it and can only hope that this signifies something of a return to form for the Poirot novels, which I am working my way through in publication order.

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Mystery Man by Colin Bateman

ISBN: 9780755346752

Description
He’s the Man With No Name and the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency’s clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases. It’s not as if there’s any danger involved. It’s an easy way to sell books to his gullible customers and Alison, the beautiful girl in the jewellery shop across the road, will surely be impressed.

Reviewed on 1st September 2010
Mystery man is an interesting book. It starts promisingly with a good set up but then falls into a bit of a pit as more detail about the main character (whose name we never learn) and his neurotic nature are revealed.

The character is the owner of a specialist crime bookshop in Belfast who takes on an investigative role when the private detective next door vanishes.

But then the character gradually reveals himself to be a repressed, almost autistic, child of neglecting parents with an absurd number of foibles that start off mild and believable but become more and more extreme as we go. Ultimately it is over the top and detracts from the focus of the novel as a crime story.

It's first person and it is well written. Some of the characters do come across as a bit stereotypical but that might just be because we are seeing through the eyes of the nameless lead. I just found that the pace of character building was slow and over-dominant.

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The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

ISBN: 9780593054277

Description
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned at the last minute to deliver an evening lecture in the Capitol Building. Within moments of his arrival, however, a disturbing object – gruesomely encoded with five symbols – is discovered at the epicentre of the Rotunda. It is, he recognises, an ancient invitation, meant to beckon its recipient towards a long-lost world of hidden esoteric wisdom.

Reviewed on 1st September 2010
The final book in the Robert Langdon trilogy (one can only hope) tries to jump the shark even more than before. This time Brown ventures too far into the realms of fantasy for my liking in what should be a mystery thriller.

Langdon is caught up in a bizarre and intricate plot to uncover the deepest secrets of the Freemasons, which apparently include ancient mysteries of telekinesis.

Unfortunately, Brown seems only able to replicate what he's done before. Racing around Washington DC is just reminiscent of racing around Paris and Rome in the previous novels, and the bad guy is a merger of the earlier albino monk and camerlengo.

My biggest problem though was the focus on pseudoscience and religion. The scientific claims made about kind control are clearly ludicrous, and Brown's idea of the scientific process seems lacking in awareness of key aspects such as collaboration and peer review. His views on religion are condescending and most likely offensive to the relevant believers as well as to me.

Overall, the writing style has improved a little, though the chapters are all about four pages long, which means that as soon as something interesting happens in a scene we cut away. There is also a really annoying tendency to describe a big reveal to one of the characters and peeve the reader hanging, unaware of what it is. Once would be okay, but Brown does it again and again.

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Daedalus by Dave Stern

ISBN: 9780743471183

Description
After a half-dozen years of research and testing, Starfleet prepares to launch its first warp 5 vessel-Daedalus. Propelled by a radical new engine designed by Earth's most brilliant warp field theorist, Victor Brodesser, the new ship will at last put the stars within mankind's reach. But on the eve of her maiden voyage, a maintenance engineer, Ensign Charles Tucker III discovers a flaw in Daedalus's design.

Reviewed on 27th August 2010
I've had this book for several years, probably since it was published, but until now had not got around to reading it. I soon found out why.

The book focuses on Trip Tucker, as Enterprise and its crew are captured by an alien dictator who seemingly appears out of nowhere while they are investigating a spatial anomaly. Trip manages to evade capture only to find himself being drawn into the local war.

The style of writing is horrendous in its simplicity. I found it really hard to focus on the words and found I was only skim reading the entire novel, something I've never known to happen before. It's writing in a very casual manner, almost like a first draft where the author is just bashing out whatever comes to mind rather than caring about how it comes across.

I found the absence of the other main characters annoying. I like ensemble pieces from my star trek novels, and even Hoshi (who is misnamed throughout as Ensign Hoshi rather than Ensign Sato) who seems to be tagging along for the ride is soon conveniently written out. The romance sub-plot feels unnecessary and in there only to pad out the length, and the main plot itself is filled with thinly veiled coincidences. Its most redeeming feature is the end, which gives a nice 'ah-ha moment' and a lot of earlier things start to click into place. It almost makes up for some of the really bad science from earlier.

Overall I have to say I was disappointed. I'm not sure how I'm going to bring myself to read part two. This came over as a badly thought through and badly written implementation of what could have been a nice idea.


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The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan

ISBN: 9781841491653

Description
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.

Reviewed on 23rd August 2010
Book 12, which is not now the final episode, is the first Wheel of Time novel since Robert Jordan's death in 2007, and Brandon Sanderson proves himself a worthy successor.

The style is somewhat different, the chapters shorter, the viewpoint switching more frequently and the action certainly speeding up - but then it has to to fit so much in. While I would hesitate to say that this style was better, it certainly wasn't worse. The action grips the reader unlike recent books in the series - you are reading because it's exciting rather than to find out what happens.

Sanderson's use of the characters is masterful as well, continuing their storylines naturally and bringing some to their concussion quickly and easily while giving others more of a challenge. The pieces are boldly moving now towards the end game, and the tension is ramping up.

It's clear from reading that there is no way this could have fitted into a third of a book - it fits so well into this format, bringing both Rand and Egwene's plot-lines to a dramatic point for a break. The only let-down is the lack of action from Perrin, and the total absence of Elayne.

I'm glad that I've read this now rather than when released, as waiting twelve months for the next instalment would have been torturous. Easily worth five stars.

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Jennings' Diary by Anthony Buckeridge

ISBN: 9780755101634

Description
It is the Easter term at Linbury Court School and Jennings has been promised five pounds by his aunt if he keeps up his diary every day. When he and Darbishire devise a code for entries, things really start to happen - the nasty incident of Wilkins's mark book is only one of them.

Reviewed on 18th August 2010
I barely remember any of this Jennings book from when I was younger, which made it a good read today. The tale of Jennings' diary ties together four major events this term from the missing cufflink to the form three museum.

My copy was, disappointingly, the 1980s 'updated' text, which puts the coinage into metric and makes another part of the story seem less likely. However I don't imagine much else has changed, and perhaps with a goal of modern children reading for themselves it is not too bad a change to make.

I found this to be the best flowing of the Jennings books I've reread so far as an adult. The overall concept of the diary is used very well to tie what would otherwise be separate strands together. This is one of the things that makes me love Jennings far more than Just William books, which are mostly just a stream of disconnected short stories.

I think it would be fair to say this is one of the best novels in the set, although if I couldn't remember it, maybe there is better to come.

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Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years by Michael Palin

ISBN: 9780297844365

Description
Michael Palin has kept a diary since newly married in the late 1960s, when he was beginning to make a name for himself as a TV scriptwriter (for the Two Ronnies, David Frost etc). Monty Python was just around the corner. This first volume of his diaries reveals how Python emerged.

Reviewed on 16th August 2010
I've been intending to read this for some time but was intimidated by its size, however I now forced myself to give it a go and found it to be quite enjoyable.

As it says on the cover, this edition covers the period roughly from the days when Monty Python was the first inkling of an idea up until just after the release of Life of Brian. The format is literally Palin's daily diary entries, and most of the time they appear to be unedited. Footnotes abound however to explain brief bits of background or to explain who various people are.

It's a really interesting insight not only into Palin but the whole python team, especially having be written at the time rather than from hazy, rose-tinted hindsight. There is also a lot of coverage of his other activities which has prompted me to consider looking them up on DVD.

There's no way of escaping the fact though that it is a very long book, and not something that can be quickly read. My usual problem with reading diaries is that I skip over the subheadings that are the entry dates, and this is again the case here, which in places leads me to lose track of the passage of time.

A lot of the entries make mention of food. Palin takes great pains to mention what he has eaten, where and with whom. Fairly typical content for a diary I suppose but it becomes a bit like a joke to me as I read about more and more meals

A good read and well deserving of four stars. I will probably read the sequel, though this volume does end at a convenient point, but most likely not for a while, as I have lots of other books to read too.

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