Author: Portable Wonderland

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

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PREMISE: Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, travelling the globe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the earth’s first life forms – what she instead finds calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings.

Her discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave desert and an ambitious new space agency. Drawn deeper into the agency’s work, she learns that the Atlantic trench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, each piece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Leigh knows that to continue working with the agency will mean leaving behind her declining mother and her younger sister, and faces an impossible choice: to remain with her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.

You ever read a book where every word feels important? Not just well thought out or well written, but actually critical to the story in a way that kind of carries a gargantuan weight. That’s what Martin MacInnes does. Across all three books he’s written he has a way of writing that is not just addictive in terms of the prose and the beauty of reading but somehow it’s as if every single word is of vital significance.

Unlike me, as I clearly can’t even explain why I like something. Good job I don’t do this book review (not that these are reviews) shit for a living. I’d have been sacked long ago.

I loved MacInnes’ first two books but this felt like a real step up and I think of it within a bracket of books I’ve read that have something cerebral, wondrous and magical about them. Very much looking forward to book no.4.

Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen

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PREMISE: When jumped-up reality TV star Buck Nance aggravates the crowd in a Key West bar, he incites a riot and vanishes in the melee. His hapless agent Lane Coolman should have been by Buck’s side, but has been accidentally taken hostage by two petty criminals who now think they can turn a quick profit by ransoming an LA talent agent. 

As the search for Buck continues, the mystery draws in a broad cast of characters from across the island including Andrew Yancy, the disgraced cop who now works restaurants on roach patrol; a delusional fan of Buck’s show; the local sheriff who’s desperate for re-election; a shady lawyer and his gold-digging fiancée; the gay mayor and his restauranteur partner; a Mafioso hotelier; and a redheaded con artist named Merry who, using a razor blade and a high-speed car, has developed a signature way of luring in her victims.

I feel like I’m starting to judge these forays into the Goodreads 1-starrers pretty well now. Surely no one can have a bad word to say about this baby? But yes…yes they can.

Kristin got to 70% before calling it quits. You’re so close Kristin and have come such a long way. I get quitting a book early because it’s just not working but why read 70% of a book you clearly hated?

Vio commented “I’m so tired of florida man humor”. Can’t help but think Carl Hiaasen is bearing the brunt of Vio’s failed Floridian relationships here. Hey Vio, it’s not Carl’s fault…

Liz gave us the cryptic, anti-American “Too American, too brash, too strange compared to my life. And it wasn’t”. And it wasn’t what? Don’t leave us hanging Liz.

Clare minced no words at all by simply stating “hate.”. No capital H but a full stop. Curious grammar.

My favourite though is from Sandy, with the insightful “Written by a man, edited by a man…obviously knows zero about shaving pubs” (sic). I don’t even know where to start with this one but if you’re going to knock the editorial work then at least get your own right.

I love Carl Hiaasen’s books and, in particular, his sense of humour. He is one funny man and I laughed out loud so much throughout this novel (as I do with all his books). Hilarious, sharp, stupid, entertaining, very easy to read. What’s not to like?

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

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PREMISE: In an alternate 1985 America, costumed superheroes are part of everyday life. When one of his former comrades is murdered, masked vigilante Rorschach uncovers a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his retired associates, only one of which has true powers, Rorschach glimpses a far-reaching conspiracy involving their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the world’s future.

I’d imagine I don’t have to say too much about this by way of an introduction but just in case you haven’t heard of it, it’s essentially the greatest graphic novel ever written and even if you’re not into graphic novels, comics, superheroes, you should just forget all about that and read this. The story is top notch, the ‘superheroes’ are all great and well thought out (Rorschach is one of the best and most intriguing characters I’ve read in ANY book and Doctor Manhattan’s powers are beyond anything you’ll read in the rest of DC or Marvel) and even the story-within-the-story Tales of the Black Freighter is awesome and just adds to the overall package.

Without doubt one of the best novels I’ve read. I’d heartily recommend reading the hardback deluxe edition which features sketches and bonus material.

Just as an aside…contrary to most Watchmen fanboys (and Alan Moore himself) I personally thought Zack Snyder’s film adaptation of this was amazing and really faithful to the look and feel of the novel. And the TV series of the same name, albeit with a different story but set in the Watchmen ‘world’ is also brilliant and well worth checking out.

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

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PREMISE: Rumors begin to spread of a species of hyperintelligent, dangerous octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. Marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them.

The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were discovered, off from the world. Dr. Nguyen joins DIANIMA’s team on the islands: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first android.

The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. The stakes are high: there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of the octopuses’ advancements, and as Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves.

But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.

My 20-year old self was a bit of a twat. In fact, probably anything from 10 or 11 onwards up until well into my thirties (some may argue a lot later) I would proffer I was a bit of a dick. Not that I exactly have life figured out now – absolutely far from it – but aside from my daughter, a few life events and time spent with my now-fiancee, there’s no rose-tinted spectacles when I reminisce. And that extended to my reading habits. I was very narrow-minded in terms of stuff I’d read. Unlike now where I actively search out new authors and stories and love finding something different, back then I’d read the same sort of thing by the same sort of authors. I reckon if someone had read the above premise to me and suggested I read it I’d have rolled around laughing. Like I said, bit of a twat.

So, whilst I’m sure I have a lot of twat left in me, I like to think I’ve broadened a few things in terms of my reading and that’s allowed me to find beauties like The Mountain in the Sea. In many ways, it reminded me of a Richard Powers book; intelligent, thought-provoking, fantastic ideas, so massively enjoyable. I’m not the sharpest tool in the box so any book where I’m learning while I’m enjoying a story is a literary perfect storm to me.

The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

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PREMISE: Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m. There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit. We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer. Understood? Then let’s begin . . .

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others . . .

Here’s another one. Another book with such a great premise that you wished you’d thought of it yourself. It’s kind of like Groundhog Day meets Quantum Leap meets Freaky Friday meets Miss Marple. What a film that would be. And what a book this is. I read somewhere that it took Stuart Turton three months to plan out the book on a huge spreadsheet where he detailed every two minutes of every character’s day and their location in the house at each point and when you read the book you can easily understand why he needed to do this.

This is literally a book to get lost in; a book that needs 100% of your attention every time you pick it up as the term ‘labyrinthine plotting’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. The real genius, however, is that Mr. Turton pulls it off with aplomb. Absolutely perfect reading escapism.

The Long Take by Robin Robertson

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PREMISE: Walker, a young Canadian recently demobilised after war and his active service in the Normandy landings and subsequent European operations. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and unable to face a return to his family home in rural Nova Scotia, he goes in search of freedom, change, anonymity and repair. We follow Walker through a sequence of poems as he moves through post-war American cities of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

I have a thing for poetry, albeit an annoyingly fleeting one that comes and goes every few years. For example, around five years ago I decided to start a poetry blog containing a few poems I’d written and was writing at the time for no reason whatsoever. So I did this – https://davegoldingpoetry.wordpress.com/ – and have done nothing more with it since. A true artist…

Similarly, I haven’t read any poetry since reading this book and now I’m talking about it here I can’t understand why I don’t do more of both. There’s something pretty magical about stories being told through poetry and The Long take is a fantastic example of that. Note to self (which I hope to remember and do a lot more with than my poetry blog): find more of this stuff out there and enjoy.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

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PREMISE: On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert, gunmen stormed his house, machine guns blazing. The attack nearly killed the Reggae superstar, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Marley would go on to perform at the free concert on December 5, but he left the country the next day, not to return for two years.

Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters—assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts—A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 70s, to the crack wars in 80s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 90s.

I know I said I’d never write anything negative on here but in my defence, this isn’t about books. And it’s very difficult to sustain a holier-than-thou stance across so many posts before my natural childishly sarcastic tendencies kick in. Anyway, I hate reggae music. Well, hate is a strong word. But if I’m ever jailed at Guantanamo then my captors should eschew Megadeth and Slayer, plop a red, green and yellow bobble hat on my head and torture me with Jimmy Cliff and Aswad. I’d turn snitch and spill the beans on everyone.

What I do like, however, is a fictional story based around factual events and containing real-life characters (see American Tabloid for the ultimate example of this). Particularly when there’s an air of the unknown around the specific details. I love the speculative aspect of it. The ‘this-could-easily-be-the-truth-you-know’ of it. The idea that you’re somehow learning something additional about a piece of history, whether it’s ultimately true or not.

This book, very much like American Tabloid, is pretty mind-blowing in terms of its scope and ambition and what it ultimately achieves. It’s the sort of book that leaves you so grateful that people as smart and eloquent as Marlon James are out there and devote so much of their time to writing something as breathtaking and gargantuan as this.

Oh, and it’s the 2018 Portland Award winner. ‘Nuff said.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

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PREMISE: January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return–when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark…

I reckon horror is the toughest genre to write. That is, if you’re writing horror to scare people that is, rather than shock them. Any idiot can write something down that shocks people and nowadays violence is pretty much everywhere so to really shock with brutality and gore you have to go to extreme extremes, but to properly scare (or at the very least, make someone feel uneasy) with words alone is a toughie. Michelle Paver without doubt knows how to do that and, for me, Dark Matter is still her best book. Beautifully written, completely absorbing and is genuinely unsettling throughout.

Psalms For The End Of The World by Cole Haddon

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PREMISE: It’s 1962 and physics student Grace Pulansky believes she has met the man of her dreams, Robert Jones, while serving up slices of pecan pie at the local diner. But then the FBI shows up, with their fedoras and off-the-rack business suits, and accuses him of being a bomb-planting mass-murderer. 

Finding herself on the run with Jones across America’s Southwest, the discoveries awaiting Gracie will undermine everything she knows about the universe. 

Her story will reveal how scores of lives – an identity-swapping rock star, a mourning lover in ancient China, Nazi hunters in pursuit of a terrible secret, a crazed artist in pre-revolutionary France, an astronaut struggling with a turbulent interplanetary future, and many more – are interconnected across space and time by love, grief, and quantum entanglement.

Yeah, I know…what a premise. That’s exactly what I thought. Man, when I stumble across books like this on Goodreads or Amazon I swear a little bit of ‘man wee’ leaks out. This is my reading sweet spot, my narrative nirvana. I love stories with multiple strands, narrators, viewpoints etc that all come together (and sometimes don’t) at the end. And this one is an absolute beauty. His first novel, I believe (I should really research and confirm that but that sounds like something a more professional blogger would do) and hopefully the first of many. It’s such a fantastic book.

Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze

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PREMISE: The unforgettable narrator of this compelling, thought-provoking debut goes by two names in his two worlds. At the university he attends, he’s Gabriel, a seemingly ordinary, partying student learning about morality at a distance. But in his life outside the classroom, he’s Snoopz, a hard living member of London’s gangs, well-acquainted with drugs, guns, stabbings, and robbery. Navigating these sides of himself, dealing with loving parents at the same time as treacherous, endangering friends and the looming threat of prison, he is forced to come to terms with who he really is and the life he’s chosen for himself.

I’m really trying NOT to use Goodreads as the basis for each book post I do, but I was really curious about the 1-starrers on this one. Or, more accurately, I was keen for Goodreads to reaffirm my view that there’s some complete nobjockeys out there. And it didn’t let me down.

Caroline’s review starts with the startling admission that she “doesn’t like books about violence and drugs” and that she “isn’t the target audience”. Why the fuck are you reading it then Caroline? Is your junkie mobster husband forcing you to? Just think of the physical and emotional effort Caroline went through to read a book she knew she would hate just so she could then tell everyone how much she hated it. Some people just don’t help themselves.

Deborah stated “One of the least enjoyable books I think I’ve ever ploughed my way through (on audio)”. On audio? What the shit? You could have pushed the stop button at any time Deborah. That’s masochism for the digital age. And just fucking stupid.

I’ve picked on Caroline and Deborah there but there’s really three types of people who irritate me and why I think ultimately that book reviews are pointless:

  1. The people who did not finish the book but still rate it. One guy rated it 1 star and didn’t even finish the first chapter.
  2. The people who ‘struggle through’ the book just so they can bitch about it in a review.
  3. People who do either of the above and then tell people not to bother reading it.

And it’s this third bit that really gives me the shits. My intention with this blog is to talk about books that I’ve really enjoyed and that I think others will too. There’s millions of stories and authors out there and finding new ones based on other’s recommendations is one of the joys of reading. I’ve read books that were ultimately disappointing but I’d never suggest that others don’t read them. There’s an American Tabloid (or Who They Was) out there for everyone. One man’s Oscar Wilde is another man’s Oscar Pistorius. Something for those negative nonces to think about; why not expend energy on writing something positive about something you enjoyed? We can all easily find a stack of books that aren’t for us…the ones that really hit our sweet spots are usually harder to come across.

<Jumps off his high horse> Right, sorry about that. I may have digressed. I really enjoyed this book, probably due to its subject matter and the fact that it’s a difficult and divisive subject to discuss. I thought it was intelligent, engaging and well-written. But hey, that’s just me. I think Caroline and Deborah disagree.