A slight case of overblogging

I have probably forgotten a few. Rereads not included. My usual approach to actually discussing plot, or what I think of the books, or much really.

The Incandescent - Emily Tesh
The basic schtick of this is 'magic school from the point of view of the teacher'. Emily Tesh is now a full time writer I think, but was a classics teacher at an independent school. It will not surprise you that we have multiple friends who are classics teachers at independent schools, that is the milieu in which the weasel lives :-)I think this review sums it up very well https://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/non-fiction/the-incandescent-by-emily-tesh/
As you know professor I am a firm believer in the principle that one can't make magic in settings more or less our world make sense. The world would be so different if magic existed, particularly in the realm of religion. Why believe in something so marginal when there is visible proof of, say, as in this book, demons? However this goes a reasonably long way towards giving it some sort of suitable plausibility if you don't think too much about exactly how insanely powerful the magic the 6th formers are doing, sort of as if in Physics A Level you could accidentally make a small nuke. The school has safeguarding and risk assessments and lots and lots of meetings, and like all independent schools is simultaneously getting eye watering fees from the parents whilst still being short of money. You can kind of tell Emily Tesh was a classics teacher. Magic is a subject that you study more because it is complex and hard and taught mainly at independent schools and will get you into a prestigious university than because you are actually going to work as a magic user. There are 4 magic A levels, so it is a separate category from the arts and the sciences. The way it is described is that it is somewhat reminiscent of classics or maths but different from both. I thought this was probably the best thing I read last year. 

Six Lives - Lavie Tidhar
I am a big fan of Tidhar. Having said that I didn't quite see where he was going with this. There are 6 interlinked stories - linked together by a gold plated engraved watch which is passed round, not necessarily directly between characters. I mostly listened to the audiobook but bought the real book to read the last section as the narrator of that section was too irritating, probably accurately reflecting the irritating nature of the character. I quite enjoyed this but there is always the nagging doubt of 'how can anyone possibly know so much stuff and do so much research for all the historical and incidental details to be accurate'. Or to put it another way 'am I being bullshitted here?'

Golgotha - Lavie Tidhar
Tidhar famously grew up in a kibbutz near Golgotha. It is hard to come away from this book thinking that he enjoyed the experience.  This is the third book of a trilogy, though the feel is rather different from the first two volumes, the first two of which are far more episodic, the episodes moving forwards and backwards in time, and whilst this one is as violent it isn't as brutal as the first two. This however just has two stories, one set in the 19th century and one just as the British mandate over Palestine is coming to an end. There are connections between the three volumes, and indeed the Feebes family who are the motivating engine of Six Lives make an appearance too. Listening to the audiobooks of these, I am certain I missed some of the connections. Sadly Tidhar is not widely read enough for someone to have drawn a graph. I did actually buy a second hand copy of the second volume (Adama) to get the family tree as an aide memoire. 

Stone and Sky - Ben Aaronovitch
The latest Rivers of London novel. A return to form - the ones after the end of the first main story arc have been rather weak I thought, particularly the one set in the US in the 1920s which was a bit meh, and False Value, which was stupid. I think an element of 'Ben Aarnovitch ensures his trip to Scotland qualifies as a business expense'. My main criticism (mild spoiler) is it seems a bit lazy to make Abigail bi/ gay so she can have a nice girlfriend rather than trying to write a non-jerk teenage boy. 

Cahokia Jazz - Francis Spufford
This is an alt-history detective novel set in a world where the version of smallpox that got to North America first was the less virulent strain so fewer people died in the Columbian Exchange. Therefore, in particular, the civilisation in the vicinity of St Louis survived. I think this would make a good film / extruded streaming product. There is much to admire about this book.
I don't think it is a major spoiler to say that from early on the vibe is that things aren't going to end well for our protagonist, which I felt slightly sad about. You should also look up the Cahokia Mounds, which I now want to see, subject to regime change in the US and 'if we're spared' (TM), though I can see them being unbearably sad. 

Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld
This was on some list of campus novels. Though I obviously dispute that something set in a school counts. It is basically the story of a girl's 4 years at a 'prep' school in the American sense, posh boarding school. I liked it though it is quite an emotionally hard read as the first person protagonist is hard done by, hard on herself and not enormously likeable. It was interesting as it is set in a milieu of the American upper class that one comes across ambiently in Oxford, and it did clarify a few things I had never really understood. It is obviously quite autobiographical in some respects - she said in an interview I read that her parents thought various things really happened and they had forgotten them and she said no, I made them up, it's fiction.  

The Lessons - Naomi Alderman
Another book from the list. I possibly have to be careful what I say about this because I think Alderman is not that far away from us in the noosphere. There are strong resonances of Brideshead Revisited but it is set in the extended now of when it was written, 2011. To me the main failure is that the Charles Ryder character is a sad sack loser in the way that Ryder isn't.  The Charles Ryder / Nick Jenkins character has to be reasonably passive to explain them hanging round, otherwise they would go lol at these weirdos, fuck this I'm off to the college bar. However Ryder, whilst passive and a melancholic, is not a sad sack loser. Also whilst the said character is allegedly doing physics his tutorials do not remotely resemble any science tutorial known to mankind, and despite being set in the 2011 extended now the tutors are ludicrously unsympathetic to him. Maybe Alderman's PPE ones were, but they read like something from the 1950s if not earlier.  

The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Another book from the list. Noped out very early. This failed the sad sack loser protagonist criterion and the whole setup is so ludicrously contrived. Yeah, there's an academic who takes about 6 students in total and they have to only do his courses and he can teach them what they like. Yeah, right.
  
Show Don't Tell - Curtis Sittenfeld
Some short stories by Curtis Sittenfeld. Again, the American upper class and/or academic milieu, all well observed. For many readers I suspect the interest is the story of the protagonist of Prep at her 30th (?) school reunion. There is a degree of retconning but yes, you can read this and think yes she could become that person. Always dangerously close to someone writing fanfic of their own characters doing that sort of thing.

Babel - R F Kuang
Also on the list of campus novels, which again I dispute, by definition fantasy overrides campus. Lol nope. Having read the preface I thought it would be an amusing hate read but it is too stupid for that. If you have read people's criticisms of it they are probably correct. 

Magic For Liars - Sarah Gailey
Possibly on the list of campus novels? Hard boiled detective meets magic high school. Suffers the usual probably of trying to make magic in the contemporary world make sense - indeed it rather foregrounds some of the things that don't make sense. Quite enjoyable though.

Bachelor Kisses - Nick Earls
Zig Zag - Nick Earls
Perfect Skin - Nick Earls
This is a trilogy, 'Brisbane Rewound'. I found this via an article that Paul sent me about novels set in Brisbane in the 90s. The article actually recommended Zig Zag which I didn't bother getting after having read the Kindle sample, another sad sack character. I might read it at some point. Despite being mentioned in an article about things set in Brisbane I didn't really come away thinking wow I really get a sense of what living in Brisbane in the 90s would have been like. The first person narrator of the 1st and 3rd i.e. not Zig Zag are the same person. He is a resident doctor in book 1 and a practising dermatologist in book 3 which was the better of the two. I semi-skimmed the first as in that he's a somewhat tedious lad-lit style self destructive jerk. 

Dislocated To Success - Iain Bowen
Um, well. Basically Sea Lion Press produces alt history books. Some are more like novels, some are more like history books written from the point of view of the alternate worlds. This, the first of a trilogy, is set in a world where the UK (but not Republic of Ireland) is transported back from 1980 to 1730. It is 'interesting' to see which things the author is interested in and which he isn't. There are a lot of minutiae about who should be the ruler of the remaining not transported bit of Ireland. Personally if this happened the first thing I would think would be oh God I'm in a simulated world run by an alt-history nerd but this is not mentioned. There are a scarily large number of books from this press. I have downloaded a number of Kindle samples but this is the only one I actually bought. 

Radhika Rages at the Crater School - Chaz Brenchley
The elevator pitch of these is 'the chalet school on (a steampunk) Mars'. Trying not to damn with faint praise, they are much better than you would expect given that, and given that they are (to the extent that anything means anything these days) small press. Brenchley has written other short stories set in his 'Mars Imperial' setting which fill in the steampunk setting a bit more which is not necessarily an unalloyed joy, but the crater school ones wear the background very lightly. 
The BBC should do a serial of this, Sunday teatime serial style. 1976 production values, a suitable Scottish castle, loch and gravel pits. Lots of red filters.

Rowany de Vere and a fair degree of frost - Chas Brenchley
A novella in the same setting, the former head girl of the crater school having joined the British secret service. I quite liked this too. 

Sisters of the Road - Barbara Wilson
This is one of a trilogy of lesbian detective novels. The first and third are the ones that I often mention as being the ones where you have to work out which character is most out of tune with the writer's ideological beliefs - they are the murderer. This one isn't like that. I had forgotten these are set in Seattle which of course is now the home of Paul and we have visited so has an extra resonance. This one wasn't as good as the other two, I didn't think. 

Do Everything In The Dark - Gary Indiana
I started this because I had vaguely heard of Gary, who died in 2025, and read that his collection of papers etc were tragically lost in one of the LA fires. My reading of it fizzled out. https://www.artforum.com/news/gary-indianas-personal-library-incinerated-la-wildfires-1234725433/

The It Girl - Ruth Ware
Detective novel. Unmemorable. 

When There are Wolves Again - E. J. Swift
Hopepunk (derog)

Rodham - Curtis Sittenfeld
An alt history where (possibly a spoiler but I'm sure you know, or could have guessed, or don't care) Hilary doesn't marry Bill and goes on to become president, though she does get married (or at any rate gets a partner, I forget) at the end.This was well written but now we have discovered that all the much vaunted glories of the American constitution and their free and fearless press turned out to be utter bollocks I was not minded to finish this and I'm not sure I would ever have been sufficiently engaged with the minutiae of American politics to finish this. It is looooooooong.