Book review: A Dance with Dragons I: Dreams and Dust

Well I've been reading them on and off since last October but I'm now almost up to date with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice books, at least those published so far. But not quite, as A Dance with Dragons is another one of those so long it had to be split into two parts. Reading them more or less continuously has meant individual installments haven't always stood out, and I do sometimes wish the story would move on a bit quicker. But Dreams and Dust does have one interesting development in that Melisandre has become a POV character; there's only been one chapter from her perspective so far but it's a bit of a twist to have one of the most mysterious and scary characters become the nearest thing to a narrator the books have. Already we see a bit more insecurity from her once we're in her head, but there'll need to be a lot more twists in the rest of the story if I'm going to sympathise with her. After all, she's still a religious loony whose default response to any problem is "let's burn someone alive!"

Book review: Mrs Danby and Company

Like Paul Magrs' other novel series featuring Brenda and Effie or Iris Wildthyme, Mrs Danby and Company - which also has the feel of the first in a series - takes its characters or situations from classic stories by other writers then gives them a different twist. This time three characters who seem rather familiar from Victorian adventure stories are thrown together a few years after their biggest triumphs, on a journey to New York in the early years of the 20th century: It's not hard to see who Mrs Danby, former housekeeper to a great detective, or vampire killer Abraham van Halfling could be based on, while Professor Zarathustra is every Jules Verne character in one. After an adventure on a sinking ocean liner and a voyage to an underwater city (including battle with the inevitable giant squid) the trio arrive to both unexpected celebrity, and more vampires in New York. In the usual crossover with his other series we get a brief insight into what all the fuss about Sheila Manchu's husband Mumu was, as he sends the characters into even more peril through a series of magical doors. It doesn't quite have the campness of Magrs' other series but the fun touch in Mrs Danby and Company is that the narration switches between the three lead characters, giving us a view into how differently they all view their situations, and especially each other - the unstoppably arrogant Zarathustra unable to take a honking great hint about what the other two really think of his self-proclaimed greatness. It's a fun and funny bit of steampunk but it does seem as if Magrs keeps kicking similar off new series about adventurous old ladies rather than focusing on one.

Ad break for sociopaths

Been a while since I blogged a dream but I nodded off a little while ago and ended up with a two-parter, both parts set in a dark conference centre with maze-like corridors. To start with I was there for a job interview, but after six hours of waiting it was announced that the interviewers had seen the minimum amount of people they had to so would be packing up now - there followed a frenzy of people in suits, the interviewers, trying to get out, clearing all their things and locking up behind them. I realised I'd left my bag behind, and needed to shoulder my way into the doors to get them to unlock them and let me back in.

I managed to find my bag but on the way out, although the location was the same, now I was starring in a TV advert for a hit-man service, playing the victim. A doorbell rang and I walked through a number of corridors to answer it, while a calm American woman's voice narrated "Problems with your staff? Osama & Papa Enterprises can help. This worker made jokes at work and reduced productivity." As I went through one corridor, I saw a waitress with a trolley of tinned food, all with cheap-looking labels that said "Osama & Papa Enterpises," she said to me "New supplier!" I kept going to the door where another waitress was waiting, but woke up before I found out whether she was the one who was going to kill me, or if the tins of food were poisoned or a bomb.

Book review: Trigger Warning

The third of Neil Gaiman's short story collections, Trigger Warning includes a couple of novellas set in existing fantasy universes - there's a Doctor Who story, "Nothing O'Clock," set during Eleven's first season, which comes up with some new monsters whose entire existence is based on screwing with time, so it's a satisfying little addition to the Doctor Who canon; and the finale is an enjoyable American Gods sequel, "Black Dog," with some creepy moments. Of the rest of the stories as usual I wasn't a fan of most of the poetry, and a number of the short stories did very little for me, but there's a few very strong ones in there as well: A Sherlock Holmes story, "The Case of Death and Honey," wonders why a character so easily bored chose beekeeping as his retirement pastime, and comes up with a bit of a wild answer; a pair of stories, "Observing the Formalities" and "The Sleeper and the Spindle," give different twists to the Sleeping Beauty fairytale; "The Return of the Thin White Duke" is an origin story for how David Bowie came to Earth; "The Thing About Cassandra" would make you a bit concerned if you ever had an imaginary friend. The most old-fashioned spooky tale is "Click-Clack the Rattlebag," but the one I found creepiest, and probably the one most worthy of an actual trigger warning, was "Feminine Endings." What's maybe even creepier is that in his introduction he says this is the story he wrote for his wife when he first met her.

Book review: The Silkworm

After The Cuckoo's Calling, the second "Robert Galbraith" novel is The Silkworm. J.K. Rowling has said that one of her ideas behind writing this series of crime novels was to do stories about fame - hence a detective whose father was a famous rock star, which brings him a lot of celebrity clients but also unwanted attention. This time she really goes for her specialist subject as Cormoran Strike is hired to find a missing author, so the pool of suspects and witnesses is drawn from the publishing world. Strike's assistant Robin gets increasingly caught up in the action, and the book gets a running subplot of her enthusiasm for her new job getting in the way of her relationship with her fiancé. I enjoyed the first novel but thought this was better - there were a couple of gasp-out-loud moments, and a major clue nicely disguised as a character note.

Book review: A Feast for Crows

Now this is just a wild stab in the dark here, but I think George R.R. Martin might have a thing for women with big dark nipples.

I wonder if the "generic landscape" covers for A Song of Ice and Fire have gone down like a cup of cold sick because I was browsing in Waterstones the other day and they all seemed to have vanished, with the old covers back. At least using the Giant's Causeway for A Feast for Crows is on-theme for the book, as a lot of it starts to concentrate on what's going at the Iron Islands.

As well as this shift of focus this is a particularly female-led instalment, with only two main male point-of-view characters (Jaime and Samwell) and the women really starting to take power for themselves - Cersei doing so increasingly dementedly, which is always fun. And there's a lot of Brienne of Tarth, so I was always going to like this one.

As I understand it the next season of the TV show will mix this book and the following one, but as that's another two-volume mammoth (as well as being the last of the books so far published) I'm going to take another break for something a bit different before tackling A Dance With Dragons.

Twitaceous Era 53: 21st century urchin

This week on my Twitter feed, that accent is apparently called "Multicultural London."

You know the accent Harry Melling does in peddling? What do you reckon actors call that on their Spotlight page?
10:46 AM - 11 Mar 2015

@Weez I'm basically asking what the Charmian Hoare-approved, non-offensive term for "chavvy accent" is.

11:03 AM - 11 Mar 2015

 

@Weez "21st century urchin."

11:06 AM - 11 Mar 2015

Twitaceous Era 52: Like in Tom & Jerry

This week on my Twitter feed: Some kind of mouse caper.

Pffft, he's not even wearing his pants over his trousers #intervaltweets #RalphAndSuperRalph
8:42 PM - 4 Mar 2015

Turns out what my life was missing was a Japanese cover of Shake It Off #intervaltweets
8:32 PM - 6 Mar 2015

"Sorry Ben, but I don't date men whose eyebrows are more tweezed than mine" #reveeeeenge
8:39 PM - 7 Mar 2015

Twitaceous Era 51: Am I in the queue now?

This week on my Twitter feed there were some particularly starry sleb spots, while Coveney's articles featured a particularly heavy dose of insanity.

Weirdly specific typecasting #2759056: Oliver Coopersmith, gay Jewish schoolboys #straightthroughnointervaltweets
9:34 PM - 25 Feb 2015

BREAKING: Madonna to star in remake of A Cream Cracker Under The Settee.
11:02 PM - 25 Feb 2015

I don't even know where to start on Coveney's "the lost art of disability acting" comment, so I'll just assume he's trolling.
12:25 PM - 26 Feb 2015

Book review: A Storm of Swords II: Blood and Gold

As I suspected when I read the first volume, A Storm of Swords volume II, Blood and Gold, does indeed contain a lot more action, including both the red and purple weddings. As someone who started with the Game of Thrones TV series first and then went back to the books, what's most exciting here for me is getting to parts that haven't turned up on TV yet. I'm ploughing straight on with the next one now, the only worrying thing being that I've been getting through these books a lot quicker than I expected, and there's only two more published novels (albeit another one of those is so long as to have been split into two volumes) left. Then I have to join everyone else who's grumbling to George R. R. Martin to get books 6 and 7 finished.

Twitaceous Era 50: Ooh, haze effects!

This week I was ill so my Twitter feed is likely to make even less sense than usual.

Pearce Brosnan thinks Idris Elba should be James Bond. Or Colin Salmon. Or Daniel Craig. He doesn't care, stop asking him about James Bond.
8:19 AM - 18 Feb 2015

The people who can answer any question except the one they've been asked are out in force today.
3:46 PM - 18 Feb 2015

Last night's fever was so bad my legs stopped working. Scary. But slightly like a fairground ride.
12:12 PM - 19 Feb 2015

Twitaceous Era 49: The wrong sort of terrible

This week on my Twitter feed I end up at some bad theatre I should have been able to avoid.

Things my followers might care about slightly: Simon Darwen's in The Armour at the Langham Hotel. (Also Finty Williams and Hannah Spearmint)
Retweet 1
2:48 PM - 11 Feb 2015

Appalled at man on train in lipstick, rouge and blue eye shadow. I mean, blue eye shadow? In 2015?
Favorites 2
6:46 PM - 11 Feb 2015

If this show's the wrong sort of terrible I'm blaming @OughtToBeClowns for saying I shouldn't skip it.
Retweet 1 Favorite 1
7:24 PM - 11 Feb 2015

Twitaceous Era 48: Most sharks jumped

This week let's call my Twitter feed "minimalist" or something, rather than admit I have nothing to say.

I've just noticed that Gemma Whelan's wearing a shirt with butterflies on it in the Radiant Vermin poster #RidleyMemes
Favorite 1
1:58 PM - 4 Feb 2015

Slept for 15 hours. I might be turning into a cat. Which would make me allergic to myself.
11:29 AM - 7 Feb 2015

Is Supernatural trying for some kind of "most sharks jumped" record? Why yes, I have just watched the one with the talking dog.
6:44 PM - 8 Feb 2015

Book review: A Storm of Swords I: Steel and Snow

After a break I'm back to George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, hoping to get ahead of the Game of Thrones TV series. I've still got a way to go though, and the third novel A Storm of Swords is the first that was so long it got split into two volumes. The first half, Steel and Snow, comes in the wake of all the big battles at the end of A Clash of Kings, so rather than a huge amount of action there's a lot of politics and scheming. So I can see why the TV series didn't follow the same order but personally I enjoy reading about intrigues more than I do descriptions of action sequences, so I really liked this installment. I'm going straight on to the second half for the consequences of everything set up in this one.

Twitaceous Era 47: Paging Dr Morissette

This week on my Twitter feed, I'm feeling a bit sleepy.

Today I found out that the Council workers call the head office the Death Star. Which is fair enough.
6:45 PM - 28 Jan 2015

Theatres! Best avoid giving a character the line "it's so boring!" unless you're DAMN SURE the audience don't feel the same way.
Retweet 1 Favorite 1
11:06 PM - 28 Jan 2015

It's especially awkward when you say it just as @OughtToBeClowns is leaning over to look at my watch.

Favorite 1

11:08 PM - 28 Jan 2015

Twitaceous Era 46: "I take it to be music."

This week on my Twitter feed I am outraged at Hollywood stars being divas.

@webcowgirl Theatre peeps seem to be terribly touchy at the moment about being told they're anything less than perfect.
10:49 AM - 21 Jan 2015

Nice to see Indhu Rubasingham in Rufus' first season.
11:32 AM - 21 Jan 2015

I knew the Old Vic couldn't stay dark that long - Kev Stands In A Circle And Talks A Bit is coming back.
12:46 PM - 21 Jan 2015

Book review: The Boys from Brazil

The last of the classic Ira Levin books I got on a cheap kindle deal some while ago, The Boys from Brazil is another enjoyable thriller, that also serves as a sort of wish-fulfilment as it sees an elderly Nazi-hunter go after the Nazis' sadistic doctor, Josef Mengele (who in real life died before he could be captured.) It sees a mysterious plot hatched in Brazil to send assassins around the world to kill seemingly insignificant men, which will in ways not initially apparent ensure the rise of a Fourth Reich. Only a handful of people even believe in the plot's existence, but as the men do indeed start dying in "accidents" on the exact dates predicted, plans are uncovered that must make it one of the first thrillers to use cloning as a plot point. Though playing on one of the biggest fears of the 20th century it does it through an entertaining story.

Twitaceous Era 45: #friendsofNick

This week on my Twitter feed, a fan's turned on, and some shit hits it.

By all means, kiss your teeth at me when I say you've come to the wrong department, that will magically make it the right one.
10:58 AM - 15 Jan 2015

Imagine being barred from a theatre because they didn't like your reviews though.
Favorites 3
2:36 PM - 15 Jan 2015

@Weez Well they've just screamed down the phone at me WE KNOW WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE! WE KNOW WHAT YOUR FRIENDS LOOK LIKE!

Favorite 1

2:40 PM - 15 Jan 2015

Twitaceous Era 44: A failed experiment

This week on my Twitter feed, one of my tweets ends up in Metro. But nobody notices. Because it's Metro.

This summer's Swansemble: http://wos.im/1woL5gD
11:17 AM - 7 Jan 2015

I look forward to seeing them try to pull off "complex Machiavellian protagonist" rather than "jaw-droppingly offensive Jewish stereotype."
11:19 AM - 7 Jan 2015

"Pop stars are awful," says awful pop star. http://www.gigwise.com/news/97123/sam-smith-slams-awful-pop-stars-in-chaka-khan-v-magazine-interview#.VK0w_ZERhWg.twitter …
1:13 PM - 7 Jan 2015

Twitaceous Era 43: Queenie And Duckface Sass Each Other

This week on my Twitter feed, I watch TV and talk about it, because it's the tail end of the Christmas holidays, what else is there to do? Also, any negative thoughts in the direction of James Corden seem to go down quite well.

"Oh come on, 2014 wasn't as bad as everyone's sayi... What? James Corden OBE? Damn you 2014!"
FAVORITE 1
10:44 AM - 31 Dec 2014

I hope we get another series of Queenie And Duckface Sass Each Other #mappandlucia
RETWEET 1 FAVORITES 4
9:59 PM - 31 Dec 2014

I've had this cold for a week, this morning I woke up around 5am unable to breathe. Happy New Year! 🎆
12:00 PM - 1 Jan 2015