Briefly, Isaac flees from South Africa after his friend is arbitrarily murdered by members of the South African Defence Force, and he fears they may decide to kill him too. (This is the reason given, but it is incredibly weak. The soldiers don’t know or recognise him, so why run?) He gets into Botswana by hiding in the base of a coffin and awakes on the other side of the border in a country with no apartheid. There’s also the eponymous white dog, a sledgehammer of a metaphor that starts off being cute and gets pretty tired by the end. 

Now, Isaac is a fourth-year medical student and capable of rational, intelligent thought, but the narrator feels that he should have a dumbed-down, ‘look at the native storyteller’ cadence despite his advanced education. The level of what is rightly called pathetic fallacy is rather insulting. The two protagonists are not far apart in education, but the white female protagonist Alice enjoys the full expressive powers of the author whereas Isaac is only able to relate his pain to basic human anatomy. “The sadness told his belly not to eat”, or “He was a monkey, cornered by a lion”. (I thought it was universally acknowledged that it is pretty racist to call people monkeys.) This may sound like a minor hiccup, but this makes up nearly half of the book. Add to this the subtle undertones of white people saving the !Kung people and poor people like Isaac, and it just rings hollow for South African readers. All of the gushing reviews seem to be from the US or the UK, and only Kirkus touches on the treatment of the black characters as noble victims while all of the white characters enjoy both agency and full characterisation. To illustrate my point, the white pharmacist gets more characterisation in five pages than Itumeleng, Alice’s housekeeper, who is present throughout the novel.

After the kind of truly brilliant anti-apartheid novels our own authors have produced, this seems flat and forced. No doubt Morse is a gifted writer – the book does have moments of stunning description. Still, it feels like the tourist’s view that it is, and while undoubtedly authors can write about places they’ve never visited, the subject of apartheid must always be afforded full gravitas, especially when told from the views of those oppressed by it. Compared to authors such as Zakes Mda, Athol Fugard, Ingrid Jonker, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, this is just a bookclubby attempt at handling delicate material, weighed down by its sentimental treatment and white messiah complex. Ultimately, Morse fails to give her African characters the depth they require for her story to really have authenticity.

Emma Caine’s life is hardly glamorous. She’s on the wrong side of forty, ten kilos too heavy with a physically disabled husband, mounting debt and a half-finished home. With the bank knocking on her door, she decides to use the experiences of her youth to open a sex dungeon and hopefully generate some income. Through it she meets the handsome Simon Nel, and as the blurb goes, is drawn into a twisted and potential doomed relationship. I didn’t think it was a particularly twisted relationship: there’s no abuse and while there are some untruths involved, it was more complicated than anything else. But hey, blurbs have to sell books after all.

Emma herself is the closest thing to an everywoman than I’ve read in a good while. She’s a woman in an abysmal situation and instead of crying and waiting for help, she bravely steps out of her comfort zone and finds a way to get back on her feet. She is a kind, funny and resourceful woman, and it makes a great change from the usual protagonists in erotica. She meets a variety of fantastic Joburg people, and it brought me such joy to see a book being set in Joburg instead of Cape Town. (No, really, I’d wager that most local books are set in Cape Town.) MacKenzie especially captures the tedious horror of the Sandton set, with their giant cars, privately-schooled children and whining about how ‘the girl’ dares to ask for more money. Yes, it is a book about sex, but it also very much about people, about South Africa, and relationships.

So, onto the juicy sex bits, then. There isn’t really anything that should shock anyone over the age of twenty with an open mind and an internet connection, but that isn’t to say that it isn’t well done. I’ll reiterate how vital it is that books explore alternative sexual identities with intelligence and understanding. Emma herself learns to see that submissive men aren’t weak and pitiful, and hopefully the reader will come to understand that a BDSM lifestyle is not the domain of sick, broken people. It is simply a form of sexual expression, and not a way for certain young businessmen to deal with their awful pasts.

I do wish the book had taken more time to explore Simon Nel, who is drawn in very broad strokes. Emma is obviously drawn in a great of detail, but Simon seems to be just too perfect. I would have liked the book to be longer – more detail about the BDSM lifestyle, more time spent with the lovely Thandeka and maybe a few more stories of Mistress Caine’s slaves. But in terms of a love story with some hot, decently written sex scenes, it definitely meets that particular market.  And there’s nothing wrong with that: just by dint of having a strong female protagonist it already stands out in its genre.

Folly is an easy, charming and interesting read, and while it could have used more depth it still breaches new territory (at least in the local market). It has moments of sadness, of hilariously awkward situations and it resonates well, because even if the reader hasn’t been in Emma’s situation exactly, we’ve all been there in some way.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Does Twelve Tribes of Hattie live up to these extraordinary claims? This book is an easy shoo-in for my top 13 for 2013, and is unlikely to be booted out of that list any time soon. While the Toni Morrison comparisons are not unfounded, I feel this book deserves more than being lumped in the ‘black female writer’ bracket and being treated as a progressive read by lily-white book clubs. This book, while touching on race, also deals with everything from family to gender to psychosis, while stopping by to discuss religion as well as music. There’s even a brush through midwifery and traditional healing. It is, quite surprisingly, more of a collection of short stories than it is a traditional novel. Through the twelve children of Hattie we discover twelve stories of twelve people, beginning with the heartbreaking departure of Philadelphia and Jubilee and the salvation of Sala.

Eponymous Hattie is triumphantly drawn, though her life is a wide collection of pain and sacrifice. Called The General by her children, she is a hard, tough, strong woman who bears the pain of losing her children in every manner, who has a husband who is “the greatest mistake of her life”, who somehow manages to feed and clothe and raise a veritable horde of children, each of which grows into and inherits their share of trouble. Each chapter is a look through a prism at Hattie, and her impact on the lives of her children. She is never far from the foreground, and even if she doesn’t appear in the action, she appears in every chapter. Mathis has drawn a remarkably complex woman that one struggles to like or hate, though her strength is easy enough to love.

Ayana Mathis

The novel asks: how do you prepare your children for a world you know is cruel? Through Hattie the reader explores the burdens of parenting, of growing up in the shadow of a mother’s pain and how even the very best intentions can go horribly awry. Add to this the difficulties of racial tensions and outright hatred in America between 1925 – 1980, of being black and gay, of being black and ill, and the novel is filled with complicated troubles and unsentimental discussion. This isn’t a misery memoir but it is filled with great sadness, as it is also lightened by moments of happiness and growth.

Pick this up because you will weep for Hattie, and all she endures for so little thanks. For all she loses, and for all that her children suffer, and for the outstanding depth and maturity of this debut author’s prose.

Read more:

Oprah Interviews Ayana Mathis

Sarah Churchill reviews Twelve Tribes for The Guardian

 The Sunday Times: Three Writers to Watch

 The Atlantic: The Russian Poetry that Inspires Ayana Mathis

A Stirring Portrait of Family, Loss, and Endurance: The Everyday E-Book

The New York Times Sunday Review

VIDEO: Ayana Mathis’ 3 Greatest Writing Lessons

Knowing that the fans who love it will never think otherwise, I have instead decided to share the best the internet has to offer the non-believers. Because the Shades trilogy has induced the kind of fanaticism the churches wish they still had, it is deserving of all the shame heaped upon it by the best and smartest of the internet. That this book has been considered uplifting for women is as offensive as it is misguided and therefore I am exonerated from any guilt.

Let’s start with the brilliant minds of Tiger Beatdown, best known for their criticism of the overrated Game of Thrones series. While they have not done an entire post revolving around Shades of Vomit, they do bring up a valid point: everything in Shades of Idiocy is cock-centric. It is not about Ana’s pleasure, or her growth or even learning to earn her orgasm, it is about the grating Grey and his penis enjoying all the fun times.

My issue with Fifty Shades of Grey is not that it is badly written, though. Neither is it that it once was a Twilight fanfiction onto which the author pressed “Control F” and then replaced the vampire and werewolf names with those of the current characters. I could easily overlook all of that if the prose was riveting. My issue with Fifty Shades of Grey is that it belongs to the tired, boring, overused sub genre I like to call “penis centric erotica”. Which is to say, practically the only kind of erotica marketed for cis, straight women.

It is a point that many people have missed. The post is available here, amongst many other gems.

Next stop, Jenny Trout. She has bravely, nobly and wryly undergone the torture of reading and recapping every chapter of the series so that we don’t have to. Her commentary is filled with some of the best one liners ever, but her reason for doing it is truly fantastic:

I was honestly almost too furious to continue reading this book once I got to this chapter. In fact, it was this chapter that led me to want to dissect the book piece by piece in the public eye. Because this shit is dangerous. This is dangerous the way I found Twilight dangerous in the last two books. It’s dangerous because it tells women, possibly young, innocent women who are just like Ana, that it’s okay for a man to treat you like garbage if he really, really loves you, or if you want him to really, really love you, you need to put up with it.

And then, add to that lines like this:

I think that if Ana were a real person, every time she opened her mouth to speak, it would just make a sad trombone noise. Every time.

For lines like this, you need to set aside five hours and read all the recaps.

Possibly the most famous is this gif-laden review on Goodreads by Katrina Passick Lumsden:

About halfway through, I wished I’d been keeping track of the word “crap” because Ana is constantly saying/thinking it. Crap, Holy Crap, Double and Triple Crap, Oh Crap, This Crap, That Crap, any and all Crap. Speaking of crap, if I ever, ever ever have to hear/read the words “inner goddess” again, I’m going to construct a pyre out of tampons and maxi pads, light it, and toss unsuspecting women into it.

From the second book:

It went from all-out rage-inducing (like the first book), to incomprehensible hilarity. I had thought the first line was good, but in comparison, lines like this are pure comedic gold:

“I want you, and the thought of anyone else having you is like a knife twisting in my dark soul.” 

Oh my, it’s my dream man. He’s crazy with a side of fries and he utters the worst romanticisms this side of a Nicholas Sparks novel.

And this about the third book:

The temerity of this character is astounding. E.L. James has managed to create one of the most blatantly antagonistic sociopaths I’ve ever seen, yet women everywhere are gobbling it up like he’s the best thing since the vibrator.

Good times with gifs, and a sublime summary of all that is wrong and hilarious.

Here are some quick links for your further amusement:

• It’s Dangerous To Go Alone reviewed all the food weirdness in the books, and makes excellent points regarding attempts at defiance and how this is a weak hook for even weaker writing
• Here’s Gilbert Gottfried reading Shades of Grey in the voice it was totally meant to be read in
• Fifty Shades of Blue with Selena Gomez
• Alex Reads Fifty Shades of Grey
• The spoof Amazon ad about 50 Shades of Grey on sale for moms
• The Fifty Worst Synonyms in Shades of Grey
• 11 Things about 50 Shades

If you’d like something truly meaty and BA for your repetoire, add to it ‘Anti-Feminist Ideals in Fifty Shades of Grey‘. And to end on a genuinely serious note:

You can get the original here, and it pretty much sums up how dangerous this shit is.

I don’t usually dip into historical fiction, as the writers often hide poor character-building behind supposed historical accuracy instead. Often the books are unreadable due to their saturation of research and lack of coherent plot or technical ability. But Two Brothers is not ruined by either of these things: instead it manages to capture madness rather than shoving it in the face of the reader.

Undoubtedly, any story with Nazis in it treads a fine line between being comically grotesque or insultingly dramatic. While the Nazi regime was undoubtedly hideous, boundless in depravity and as insane as it was ruthless, it is still possible for an author to trip over this into ridiculous territory. Every sane person knows the Nazis were evil. But it takes a talented author to shade in the madness at all of its levels rather than creating a caricature that strips it of its terror. And, too often, books rely on ‘here’s a Nazi thing, so terrible so terrible’ without taking the time to put the horror in context and give it the appropriate death.

Two Brothers follows the story of a family from Berlin 1920 right through to 2006 (but without being one of those tedious ‘the story of three generations, family, love, wark wark’ efforts). When Frieda gives birth to twins and one dies, she immediately adopts another son whose mother dies in childbirth. That the child is German is unimportant to this Jewish mother, and the first quarter of the book is filled with the loveliest of stories of the boys Otto and Paulus, as well as the charming father Wolfgang and beautiful, kind mother Frieda. One becomes grateful for this time setting up the characters and their personalities, because by the end of it I truly cared for this family, ruined by the Nazis. (This isn’t really a spoiler – it is a book about a Jewish family in Nazi Berlin, after all.)

I enjoyed this book particularly because it combined outstanding research with several levels of human pain – from petty teenage fighting to full-scale war, from unrequited love to suicide to being rounded up and taken away. The insanity of the regime, often forgotten amongst the industrial scale of its cruelty, is looked at in the Nazi schooling, the petty laws (so similar to Apartheid) and in two key events in German history: The Night of the Long Knives and The Night of Broken Glass.

There are thousands of books about the Nazis, and about the lives they ruined. I have read a few, key of them being Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, Maus by Art Spiegelman and Night by Elie Wiesel. The good ones are the ones that balance horror with hope, which is hard to do with such heart-rending material. This book has stayed with me since I finished it, which doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should. I felt such anger towards the character of Dagmar, who is selfish and beautiful and doesn’t deserve the love of the wonderful Stengel twins. Poor Silke, who is kind and loyal and never gets rewarded for it. Frieda, the brave Jewish doctor who was filled with kindness and strength until the very end, and who I will remember through many books, and her musical, ruined husband Wolfgang, who goes through more than any one should have to endure. Through them, and those they meet, the true horror of the Nazi regime is delivered right into the reader’s heart. In the sixty-odd years since the Holocaust, that entire terrible time has become so caricatured, appropriated and simplified that sometimes we need a book that explains the extent of Nazi crime, the slow, fine grinding of Jewish lives into something approximating oblivion and the people caught up in it.

Read this because it is a wonderfully detailed, wide-ranging story of a family you will come to adore within an exquisitely, carefully detailed setting. It does not trivialise violence by putting it at the very front and centre, but keeps it constantly  menacingly in the background. I would give this to my children one day as part of their reading, to help them understand the nature of the Nazi regime, in all of its howling, murderous insanity.

Want to read what others think? Head on here:

The Independent.ie

Jenny Colgan at the Guardian.co.uk

Elena Seymenliyska for The Telegraph

Liked this? Try these:

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Night by Elie Wiesel

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank

Surviving the Angel of Death – Eva Mozes Kor and Lisa Rojany Buccieri

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis

If This is a Man by Primo Levi

Pictured: manliness, circa 1900

Far be it from me to piss on the writing parade of someone who likes to scribble cowboy fiction. After all, I suppose it has its place, much like bric-a-brac in the glorious, universe-spanning world of literature. While undoubtedly a genre that pretty much reinforces every heterosexual norm you can think of (the manly man that provides manly protection for his lone bride wasting away on the farm and too lady-like to fight the bison etc), it bakes someone’s cake. And I suppose there is the chance that it can be an intellectual, egalitarian, tasteful discussion of body politics, cattle and sex. A tiny chance, but a chance nonetheless.

Gaze upon the entry conditions for this cowboy anthology, and when you’re done, come back here and laugh with me.

And cry a little.

You see, I find these kind of anthologies more than just mildly offensive. Look at this clause:

Material that includes the following will be summarily rejected:

Necrophilia (sex with dead bodies—vampires don’t count)

Bestiality (sex with non-sentient animals)

Rape intended to arouse (though we will consider forced seduction or dubious consent if it is respectfully handled)

What does that even mean, ‘forced seduction’? Is this just another way of writing non-con? I don’t think its possible to tastefully handle ‘dubious consent’, that euphemism for rape. Rape is inherently distasteful, and to try write it as ‘they actually are really into each other, she just doesn’t know it, the bint’ is as offensive as it is misguided. And how do vampires not count? They’re undead, is anyone fooled by this? (And why are there vampires in a cowboy story? Isn’t that the worst combination of genres ever?) And sentient animals are somehow not animals, so it’s fine to hump them? (Stephenie Meyer, I blame you for this shit.) My cats are pretty sentient, able to make decisions and unlock doors and manipulate humans. I guess that means it’s okay to sex them up.

And add to it this shamefully sexist tripe:

Their rugged masculinity make us feel attractive, protected, womanly and pursued. They are the perfect antidote to the glut of androgynous and metrosexual men the media is saturated with. Sun-bronzed skin stretched taught over work-hardened muscles, and the soft sound of a deep Texan drawl, is enough to quieten the wildest of women.

‘Quieten the wildest of women’. I see. I wasn’t aware that we were meant to offended by men who have better things to do than beat up animals, bench-press and belch. A man who dresses well, takes the time to groom himself and who doesn’t want to go camping is definitely an upgrade on the ultra-boring Camel Man as described above (and so perfect for a smoking ad! Don Draper would be proud.) But maybe I’m just a crazy person. Millions of Shades-reading women can’t be wrong (oh but I think they are.)

My point is (and I always have one) is that this is an anthology for women written by women, and it encourages the same kind of tedious, negative crap that we should have grown out of reading round about the 1930s. We shouldn’t be encouraging anything that allows for tasteful descriptions of rape, or reinforces outdated norms of sexuality. This is 2013, a grand new millennium that is looking away from this kind of backwards thinking and towards a world with (hopefully) better literature. If we’re ever going to have anything tasteful to read, there has to be some kind of backlash against this kind of unmitigated drivel. If I am that lone person, fine, I can deal with that. Someone has to stand against the tanks of shitty literature.

So, I was fortunate enough to get a preview ticket to see The Hobbit in very sexy HFR 3D. This luxurious new 3D format actually delivers what it promises: increased depth (which sometimes creates a weird soap opera feel) and no more blurriness. Thankfully, it is also much, much easier on the eyes. I was pleased that I didn’t have a headache after nearly three hours of 3D. For that alone, the new format is worth your time, especially for epic battle scenes.

Now, onto the movie itself. I read The Hobbit a long time ago, like most people, and haven’t reread it since for a number of reasons. Mostly because a) I very rarely reread books when there’s so much out there that should be read and b) I find fantasy the most boring genre in the world. So, the movie should ideally be a distillation of the best parts of the book to encourage people to explore the book further while making the movie a manageable, digestible experience.

Does the movie deliver? The action scenes are sublime in their direction and excitement. The post-production clearly cost a great number of millions. Gollum made an excellent appearance and his facial rendering now severely dates the Lord of the Rings trilogy in comparison. Martin Freeman, while a bit stilted initially, (basically Watson with no shoes on) still makes a great action hero. The dwarfs are fun, and of course Gandalf can save the movie by himself. The art direction is outstanding, the clothes are most beautiful. Taken on the value of those things, the movie is worth watching just for how it looks.

But you knew that I was going to find something, and I hear the nitpick train coming into the station. The Hobbit is a product of the 50s, and it is going to be inherently problematic. Like Game of Thrones, it too is about a bunch of white men running around having adventures. (Thankfully, less rapey, gratuitious sex.) There is ONE speaking role for a woman in three hours. She mostly glides around like a lost bride and doesn’t really inspire much awe or even interest. As you can imagine, everyone is pretty much lily-white. Men are brave and manly and smoke a lot. It could have been mistaken for a tobacco ad, at times. I don’t see how problematic it would have been to have the dwarves being of different skin colours. (But you only have to look at the backlash about Hunger Games having a few black actors to see where the problem comes in).

So, that’s the BA part of me speaking up. Now for the writer part. Dear god, did this one average-sized book have to be split into three movies? There’s still too much walking. There are goddamn musical numbers, which should have been left in the book. They were as trite and folksy as they were in the 50s; they have no right being in a movie now. (Also, sometimes sound editing dropped the ball and the lyrics weren’t very clear.) They jar with the whole movie and should really have been left out. There’s a lot of scenes that could have been left out to make a more coherent, interesting whole. Peter Jackson, like James Cameron, is dragging the viewer into his special circle-jerk. Sure, I can imagine the hardcore fans appreciate the thousands of details in Orc costumes that are only on screen for a few minutes. But what about those of us who want a better version of the books? With less walking and tedious descriptions and complicated family trees that make reading the books like chewing concrete?

My opinion of The Lord of the Rings trilogy has always been an unpopular one, but I stand by it. And unfortunately, the problematic things about the books have made their way into the films, the one chance the books had to get better. The movies are interminably long, as are the books. More writing is not necessarily good writing. Just because I want cheesecake, it does not mean I want to eat one the size of a dustbin lid. The racism and elision of women could have been addressed. After all, the idea of some races being better or smarter qua race is at the very foundation of this. Hobbits are lazy, Elves are smart, Dwaves are drunken and strong, etc.

The best example of a canon evolving is Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes the character (as written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1880s) was a racist, misogynist asshole, for all of his smartness. But the two most recent iterations of this phenomenon have changed Holmes for the better. BBC’s Sherlock has kept the asshole tendencies but at least he isn’t hardcore racist. I’m ambivalent on the sexism issue. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes works with women and has lost the general dickishness of the character as developed in the 1960s and onwards. I don’t think this has harmed the character: if people can change and grow, why can’t characters?

The inherent problem with Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit is that it has one of the most puritanical fanbases (just like Jane Austen fans). They don’t like change, and they don’t like upgrades. Surely the core message can survive a little updating? Ultimately, the books are about being good, doing good and being brave regardless of size or strength. What difference does it really make if Sam had been a female hobbit? Or black? And if Tolkien couldn’t have done it then, surely Jackson could have done it now? If the characters are really defined by their personalities, there’s no reason race or gender could be an issue. Unfortunately, it is still edgy to to have a female lead. Or a gay one. Or a black one.

Alright, so segue aside, do you need to see the movie? If you can see it in HFR 3D (the Nu-Metro rep said that only four screens will have it nationally), then go see it just to enjoy the new tech and experience. If you’re a Hobbit/Lord of the Rings/fantasy fan, nothing I say here will dissuade you. The problems I have are not the ones everyone else will have. It is the holidays, and it isn’t the worst movie you will ever watch (because that movie is Sex and the City).

Read what others thought here:

Slashfilm.com – ‘Rousing, yet Repetitive’

Butter Scraped Over Too Much Bread: Robbie Collins

Variety.com – No kinder on small bladders or impressionable eyes

The Trilogy Will Test the Stamina of Non-Believers: The Guardian.co.uk 

Misty Mountain Out of a Molehill – The Daily Mail

Feels Twice As Long as Half a Movie Should – Film School Rejects

A Young Adult Anthology

The term steampunk is not as old as the literature that inspired it. A term coined in the 1980s as a tounge-in-cheek reference to the rise of cyberpunk, it was originally a shorthand for the work of three authors in the 1980s:  KW Jeter, Tim Powers and James Blaylock. While these authors were the first to consciously use the term, the work that inspired theirs is late Victorian and the rise of steampunk as a cohesive genre began in the 1960s and 70s, solidifying in the 80s. A key example of 1980s steampunk is Elementary BASIC – Learning to Program Your Computer in BASIC with Sherlock Holmes by Henry Singer and Andrew Ledgar. This may have been the first fictional work to co-opt Charles Babbage‘s Analytical Engine in an adventure story: Victorian meshed with the 80s in an educational adventure book.

The first influences of steampunk literature can be found in the scientific romances of Jules Verne, Mary Shelley and HG Wells, the precursors to the now extensive and complicated genre of science fiction. These experimental writers introduced the concepts of an alternative history where steam power had triggered a golden, mechanical age (or sometimes a post-apocalyptic dystopia caused by these wondrous machines). Steam punk is, essentially, a mash of alternative history, futurist thinking and mechanical aesthetic. Some call it speculative fiction, others retro-futuristic, and maybe even straightforward imaginative fantasy. In movies, it is adopted as an aesthetic, mostly as a Rule of Cool, but sometimes as a tidy hand wave to support plots that require certain tech in an age unlikely to have it. It can, however, imbue a movie with the freedom to speculate and create a sandbox for the director to play in.

Steampunk Jewelry

While not as mainstream as many other literary genres (most people probably can’t name a steam punk author as quickly as an American crime writer) it has nonetheless influenced genres outside its own. Consider the area of punk clothing: metal meets lace and cogs meet corsets. There are websites dedicated to such clothing, (Blue Banana, Kate’s Clothing and famously Alchemy Gothic) though it is expensive and often its adherents become adept at making their own clothing.

But most people can recognise steam punk when they see it: movies such as The Prestige, The Golden Compass, Hellboy, Hugo, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events have a clear steampunk aesthetic. I would argue that Twelve Monkeys has an element of steampunk. The first movie to showcase it was Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in 1927, and Terry Gillam’s Brazil in 1985 continued building on the tradition. There’s a blend of steam punk and the wild West, made famous in the movie Wild Wild West, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. It has also been seen recently in Doctor Who season 7 in the episode ”A Town Called Mercy”, though only in a relatively minor capacity.

Ultimately, my take on steampunk is that it is more of a tool and aesthetic more than a cohesive way of seeing the world. Steampunk means many things to many people: this article itself was germinated by an argument over whether the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies could be seen as steampunk. Considering that Arthur Conan Doyle himself wrote some of the seminal scientific romances (the Professor Challenger series), it isn’t too many steps removed to see that Ritchie may have referenced this in the Sherlock Holmes movies in very small aesthetic details. (I still don’t think it is nearly enough to be considered steampunk). But, steampunk can be whatever the author or reader want it to be: like science fiction, it is at heart a speculative genre, and that frees up the author to write in a splendid, challenging fashion. While the fashion can be a bit staid, it can still manifest in jewelery as beautiful as traction farthing pendants and the Nevermore Fob Watch. It is a remarkable genre, though often buried under disdain for the perceived geekiness of it.

Your reading list:

Steampunk - Ann VanderMeer, Jeff VanderMeer
Steampunk II 
Steampunk III
1,000 Steampunk Creations by Grymm and John
Steampunk Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos 
Steampunk! The Bestselling Anthology (Young Adult)
Steampunk Prime by Mike Ashley
The Art of Steampunk by Art Donovan
The Mammoth Book of Steampunk by Sean Wallace
Steampunk Poe by Megan Byrant
Corsets and Clockwork by Trisha Telep
Steampunk Holmes by PC Martin
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Steampunk Version by Zdenko Basic

So, it is Boeke and Booker season, and since I do try to stay au fait with what mainstream Western literature is being name-dropped, I petulantly demanded a copy of Unlikely Pilgrimage because it was nominated for the Booker and likewise was the darling of many store managers. While most of the time I believe that no one else has my taste in books, (so much solipsism) I am always curious as to why a particular book generates its own press through the love of readers rather than the marketing machines of publishers.

When one considers the sheer number of books published every month, it takes something for it to be lovingly handsold. Sometimes, it’ll only take one bookseller to promote the ink out of the damn thing to get it going amongst several bookstores. This was particularly evident with Night Circus, a debut author’s Nanowrimo work that probably would have just stayed under the radar otherwise but was picked and loved hard before its release date. (Its themes lent itself well to store decoration too. That always helps.)

Which brings me to Unlikely Pilgrimage. Don’t get me wrong; I loved this book. I polished it off in one sitting, and not just because I was avoiding housework. If it were a movie, it would be blatant Oscar bait but that isn’t a slur against the qualities of the book. Let’s look at the basic premise. An old man in an unhappy marriage with a shrew of a wife gets a letter from a friend he hasn’t seen in 20 years. She’s dying of cancer and just wanted to let him know and thank him for his past kindness. It sets off a journey of thousands of miles, which Harold starts off in yachting shoes (I didn’t know such things exist, but clearly I’m not rich enough to know that) and with his wallet and phone.

Inspired by a girl in a garage foodstop (in the movie, she’d be played by Zooey Deschanel, she of the poorly spelt first name), he decides that by walking to Queenie, he will save her. His journey is followed by thousands on social media and the news, which is a touch I rather enjoyed. He undergoes physical change (oh, Hollywood loves that) and is ultimately redeemed by the challenges he undergoes. He is as middle-class as…whatever middle-class British people love. Oxo? Downton Abbey? Tea?

Harold (who should be played by Clint Eastwood) is not an inherently loveable man. He is emotionally stunted and grew up with an absent mother who really can’t spell and a drunken father who somehow manages to bed many women despite being utterly revolting. I admit that bothered me a great deal, since non-functional alcoholics are not known for their massive charisma and desirability. Harold’s wife, Maureen (played possibly by Meryl Streep in this Oscar-nominated tale of moving courage etc), is less than impressed by his departure and blames him from afar for everything that went wrong ever. Their stories play out apart from each other for most of the book, and as Harold walks, he shares with us the many fuck-ups of his life while Maureen realises that absence makes the heart grow fonder and that maybe over the years she’s slipped into the easy groove of being a harridan of a woman. The whole ‘things don’t grow here’ metaphor was a little heavy-handed, but otherwise Harold and Maureen are fairly well fleshed out in a world of books where we don’t get treated to to this kind of thing. Which is ridiculous, since only movies have to condense characterisation to five lines.

That being out of the way, the writing really is quite tender and lovely. There are kind lines, like ‘it was as if the world only put its lights on when Harold was near’. I am a sucker for sweetness, and this book is full of it. Like Wonder it emphasises the kindness of strangers. It also has some transient characters who are genuinely moving. Take the example of the elderly man, who takes a train to see his young lover every Thursday, and weeps that the man he loves has holes in his shoes and his feet might be wet.

“He was a chap like himself with a unique pain; and yet there would be no knowing that if you passed him in the street , or sat opposite him in a cafe and did not share his teacake…And what no one knew was the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The superhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that.” – pg 86

Harold walks, and I loved his determination and all the people he meets. The Slovakian woman who is a trained doctor but works as a cleaner and who is waiting for her partner to come home. The actor who may or may not be Colin Firth, the small scruffy dog that walks alongside him for a part of the way. The book is made up of many small incidents and a fairly wide cast, but ultimately it is Harold’s story and the more he walks, the more we find out about him. I won’t say more than that, other than the ending being well handled without being too saccharine, but I did cry. Especially for this part:

‘You’re right. It wasn’t even funny,’ said Harold, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. For a moment, he looked sensible again. ‘That was the thing, love. It was ordinary. It must have been funny because we were happy’.

I was finished with that line, especially when I shared it with my Handsome Physicist. Don’t let the Booker-baiting nature of this book stop you. It is a genuinely beautiful read, and it is worth getting a UK edition. It is very English and I imagine a great deal of that will be gutted to make the book palatable to an American audience. The chapter illustrations are also gorgeous. This is a book filled with kindness and the jagged edges of human pain and it is definitely one of 2012’s best offerings.

By Marco Cibola for the Washington Post

Oh, Terry. Oh, Sir Pratchett. I have read so many of your books. Sam Vimes is my very favourite character in literature. I love him indecently. I love the Discworld, and all its charming, messed-up folks. I love the subtle social commentary, the use of hard science in elaborate ways. I love the wisdom and the genuine humanism, the flavour of the characters and their adventures and trials. Your humour in the Discworld series is the kind that makes me want to phone people and read lines to them, though I can’t always finish them for the laughter.

And then, Long Earth.

I know its a co-authored work (which has been done well before with Gaiman) and I know its not Discworld. And that’s fine, because an author should always be trying something new. And I admire that, and I admired the plot of Long Earth. It involves lots of delicious what-ifs and timey-wimey stuff. Yay for that. But what happened to Pratchett?

The absence of the beloved author was made glaring by the moments in the book that were pure Pratchett, the moments that shone amongst the general pabulum of the book itself. It took me two weeks to finish this, and I had to force myself through the first 100 pages. It was like a dear friend had invited me to a party, and I was really excited to go, but then I got there and the wine was cheap, the snacks dry and the company less than stellar. And for the first two hours of the party, I wanted to fall upon a knife. But eventually it got sort of better and it didn’t feel too wasteful.

As I write this, I’m wracking my brain to try remember the names of the characters. I have since given away my proof copy (and ain’t that a sign of the times, plentiful Pratchett proofs?) and now I’m trying to remember who starred in the damn thing. It shouldn’t be this hard. Look, I think that a non-Pratchett fan might enjoy it, or a Baxter fan. He is a big-name author in his own right, though he writes in a field I generally find tedious. The thing is, this should have been the proof that Pratchett is not slipping, that he is unaffected by the onset of his Alzheimer’s (proof that there really is no god) and that he can still produce the goods.

But then, I read Snuff, and the rest of the Sam Vimes books in reverse order. And the sad part is that there is a lot of recycling going on here. The end of Snuff, with the amazing race down the river and Vimes ending up in a cave? Pretty much lifted from Thud! with Sam Vimes going crazy in a cave after being tumbled about by an underground river. That was pretty saddening. Lady Sybil is still amazing though.

But you know, even at his worst, Pratchett is still better than 90% of authors out there. I guess this is me just expecting more. Long Earth had boring characters, the female ones especially so. There’s a lesbian cop, which I thought made for a refreshing change, but she really doesn’t do much. She has a bit of a moment at the end, but she was mostly unused and ignored. The same goes for the woman who is good at stepping. (At least there wasn’t a shoehorned romance.) There’s a general menace that is explained away weirdly in something that seems suspiciously stolen from Douglas Adams (who also didn’t know when to end the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.) The ending felt rushed and a bit wobbly as well.

This really isn’t one for the fans, because fans expect more and by this point, we kind of have the right to expect that. It is hard for our favourite author to write more than 30 superb novels, and then drop this on us. I don’t even know who to recommend it to. Maybe mid to hardcore sci-fi fans? Mind you, the science isn’t really that hard and there aren’t any fantasy elements barring some interesting animals.

I know that even at my best, I can’t match Pratchett’s worst. All I’m actually saying here is that it is getting a little embarrassing being a Pratchett fan now. I will still buy every book he writes, and I will still throw my panties if he ever comes to visit here, but I am allowed to be disappointed, I think.

But! Not everyone agrees with me, so check out The Guardian’s review, The Independent’s review and what the folks at SFX.co.uk have to say.