Some reviews

I haven't written any book reviews for quite a while, so here are some brief thoughts on stuff I've read in the last few months.



Dragons of Winter Twilight, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

The second Dragonlance novel. Not as bad as I might have expected. I tolerated the first one as a good story badly written, whose origins as an AD&D campaign were all too obvious (even to the extent of telling you at the start of the book what character class and level the protagonists were and having the map in hex format). This second book continues the story but is much more competently written. It's still not exactly great fantasy literature, but it ain't bad. My biggest issue is that major events and quests happen to some of the point-of-view characters without us hearing about them. You can read about these events in much later Dragonlance books. That strikes me as a strange way to write a series of novels.



The Rituals of Infinity, Michael Moorcock

One of Moorcock's less well-known works. Novella rather than full length novel. The premise is that there are a series of parallel Earths which are being destroyed one-by-one by the mysterious 'D-squads'. Fighting against the D-Squads is a team led by enigmatic Eternal Champion incarnation Dr Faustus. Good romp that doesn't take itself too seriously.



The Blood Red Game, Michael Moorcock

Another lesser Moorcock work. Spliced together from two short works, 'The Sundered Worlds' and 'The Blood Red Game'. Tries to mix small scale space opera with grand fate-of-humanity stuff and doesn't pull it off. Not great I'm afraid. The edition I have has a bizarre cover featuring a shirtless guy wearing blue jeans and with his hair in a ginger afro. This of course has absolutely nothing to do with the book.



The City in the Autumn Stars, Michael Moorcock

This is the sequel (sort of) to The Warhound and the World's Pain, which was the best book I read in 2010. The second book features a descendant of the hero of the first, and other characters appear again. Once again it's highbrow fantasy with one foot in a historical setting (this time Reign of Terror era Europe) and one foot in the not quite so real setting of the 'Mittelmarch'. Quality stuff, if never getting to the heights of Warhound

A few more book mini-reviews

Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert

The second Dune novel. About half the size of the original. I Always thought the first one ended abruptly with Paul Atreides becoming supremely powerful in a few chapters right at the end. It was as if Herbert got bored and finished it quickly. So I half-expected this short sequel to contain the events that maybe should have gone into the end of Dune. It doesn't. In fact not that much does seem to happen, and all the epic sense of scale from the first book is gone. Disappointing.



The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown

Sequel to The da Vinci Code. Now I liked that and I'm not too snobbish to admit it. The sequel isn't bad (and is a big improvement on the rather lightweight first book in the series 'Angels and Demons'). It's more of the same really, only this time it's about Freemasons rather than the Illuminati or the Priory of Sion hoax. Another page-turner, although you wonder if there are any conspiracies left for Brown to write about. No doubt his publishers hope he will find some...



2010 Odyssey Two, Arthur C. Clarke

The sequel to 2001, although you knew that. What you might not have realised is that this is the sequel to the film, not the book (which was actually a novelisation of the film). It's very good, and I have to tip my hat to Clarke's talent as a writer and an imaginer, if that is a word. Compared to the first book, there is just one problem - it's difficult to keep up 2001's weird what-the-hell-is-going-on-ness when Mr Clarke actually tells us...




The Neutronium Alchemist, Peter F. Hamilton

Another sequel (I vowed to read only sequels this year - I have a tendency to start series and then leave them because I start another series). This is the sequel to The Reality Dysfunction. It's high-concept space opera on a truly massive scale. In truth, rather too massive - the sheer scale of each volume is somewhat off-putting at 1,200 pages plus. Can't deny that it's really very good though. Very thoroughly thought-out setting, and a sense of humour which doesn't seem out of place despite all the bad things that happen. But it's not an easy read, and the number of point-of-view characters (which seems close to one hundred) makes it the sort of book you will have to keep flicking backwards to remind yourself who x was or what y was doing when we last saw her.

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Football Manager heartbreak

2018 World Cup final, in Moscow. Russia versus Brazil (being managed by yours truly).

We go 2-0 up, with both goals coming from Porto striker Hulk. Then the Russians come back, score twice and then sneak a winner in the 88th minute. And even then, my substitute Diego hits the bar three minutes into injury time. So Russia win the World Cup on home soil. Small consolation is that Hulk won the Golden Boot.