The books
Being an ex-librarian (but the librarian spirit still lives on in me) I read lots of books. These are them:
The Deptford Mice Trilogy
Robin Jarvis
The Dark Portal
The first part in the seriees starts the whole thing off in a pretty simple way. Albert gets lost in the sewers and meets Picadilly, who then sees Albert get killed and goes to tell his family.
Audrey however, goes into the sewrs to look for a phoney fortune teller called Madame Akkikuyu (A rat) to find out where her father is.
It is then when Akkikuyu has her first true burst of clairevoyancy and sees the battle between Audrey and Jupiter (God of the rats).
Obviously she doesn't want to tell anyone so she just tells Audrey that albert is dea andgoes off to find the altar of Jupiter.
It's then that Picadilly meets Adurey in the sewers and on the way out they meet Arthur, Oswald (friend of Arthur) and Twit (Real name William, cousin of Oswald). Who have been looking for them.
After a quick scuffle with some rats, they get back out of the sewrs only to realise that audrey has loster her mousebrass (symbol of maturity).
So Oswald (who has powers of divination) and Picadilly go back in to find it. While audreys waitign outside, The rats come and snatch her and Artuher thinks she's gone back in of her on accord, so he seeks help from thebats Orpheo and Eldritch along with Twit who the bats carry away to meet Thomas Triton.
Oswald ends up right inthe middle of the rats' lair and to prevent his death, he manages to pass himself off as a rat.
Picadilly makes it back, meeting Thomas (who prior to his return went to see Morgan (Jupiters head rat) doing an occult ritual on blackheath) and Twit (who went with him) Then alongwith Gwen (Audrey and Arthuer's mother) They all go int othe sewrs to find out what's happenign down there.
It's all rouunded off with the final battle on the altar ofJupiter.
All in all, A bloody god book.
The Crystal Prison
After returning from the sewers, Oswald is foudnt ohave contracted an incurable disease (probably the black death - read the Dark Portal to find out why) which the starwife (a magickal squirrel) offers to cure on one condition.
The condition is that Audrey goes to live in the Fennywolde (the home of Twit) with madame Akkikuyu (who went insane when she saw what Jupiter really was).
So she goes (after a moving scene where she parts from Picadilly), and on the way, Akkikuyu gets more and more distracted by a pain i nher ear and a distant voice that calls her.
On arrival, Audrey immediately makes an enemy in the form of Alison Sedge (local Beauty and proud of it) whi si jealous of the silver bells which Audrey always carries with her.
So Alison gets Audrey in trouble fro mthe local evangelist by accusing her of blasphemy and the creation of false idols i nthe form of a corn dolly that audrey makes to decorate the midsummer halls.
All the time Akkikuyu is still distracted by a voice in her ear and a trobbing pain that comes with it and hn Audrey tells her to go away and bothersomeone else, Akkikuyu goes off to sulk makes contact with the voice.
Nicodemus (the name of the voice) tells her that he is a friendly nature spirit contacting her from the void - where he is trapped - and asks Akkikuyu to help him out.
Nicodemus begins to teach Akkikuyu spells and potions and while she becomes more and more the local hero, Audrey becomes more and more hated by all except her friends and Jenkin Nettle - son of the evangelist.
Suddenly a series of strange murders - all by strangulation - begin to occur and alision becomes transfixed with the idea that the murderer is audrey
Audrey turns him down at the realisation that she really loves Picadilly. Jenki nis upset and as he leave,s he stumbles straight int owhat's been doignthe murders!
After a lot of unsual happenings that would spoil the plot if I told you, Audrey gets accused of witchcraft aand is going to be hung until Twit saves her by marryingher and therfore binding her by the greenlaws.
Akkikuyu then starts her final spell andrelises who Nicodemus really is - Jupiter. He get's trapped with her crystal ball when Akkikuyu purpusfully ruins the spell but is released at the very end by the heartborken Alison Sedge who insists that audreyy killed Jenkin.
Complex plot but still a bloody good book.
The Final Reckoning
Jupiter comes back fom the void as an 'unbeest' neither living nor dead, spreadin cold and death wherever he goes -which is directly to find Audrey who finally destoryed him in The Dark Portal.
The plot is far too precise for me to explain but features a number of unexpected occurences and the onyl ending in existance when up to the final chaper you think that the bad guy's going to win.
It doesn't have a happy ending - I'll warn you now. The one thing I hate is stories that tell you that the heros always get happiness in the end - They don't and this book p[roves it. The heros either get killed or parted from those who they love.
A real tear jerker and a bloody good book.
All of this series are available on tape and although I haven't heard any of them, anyone who has reading difficulty ought to thinkabout it because they are read by John Pertwee, Tom Baker (both former Doctor Who stars) and Martin Shaw (I'm positive I've heard this name somewhere but I cant remember where).
This is the only set of books I have ever encountered which are marketed for children, claim to be suitable for peopel of al ages and can actually only be appreciated fully by people who are at least sixteen or over.
Kids can read them, and probably enjoy them, but not half as much as an adult could and nowher near as much as I did.
Ratings:
plot twist ;^)
Atmosphere ;^)
Characters :^)
Continuity ;^)
Comments:
Fantastically written, well woven together and the only book I've ever read where you actually thought the bad guys were going to win. After Readingthe histories, the whole story adds up and patterns of time can be figured out. By the end you know exactly what it's all about and the destiny seems to tie in withevery single character.
Redwall
Brian Jaques
Martin the warrior
Mossflower
Outcast of Redwall
Salamandastron
Mariel the warrior
The Bellmaker
Redwall
Mattimeo
The pears of lutra
The long patrol
There Are far too many of these to give the plots of them all but luckily they can all be summed up with a pretty similar plot.
Problem in redwall, problem somewhere else, both places send out warriors to deal with it, another problem at redwall, the two groups of warriors meet and find that there problems are connected, the redwallers fight off the current problem using advice from the ghost of Martin and solving riddles, the two groups of warriors solve their problems, all the warriors go back to redwall and have a bloody big feast, lots of new friends made, a new abbot/warrrior is named and the books is over- leaving you with a sort of empty feeling and a distinct feeling that something should have happened but you don't know what and in the end it didn't.
A few of them have some quite good plot twitsts.
Quite a good series of books. Each of them works as an indiviaual story and as you read the whole series (Which was actually written out of order- the time line jumps about all over the place) you get this underlying feeling that Brian Jaques has written it as if Redwall was a real place with proper history.
And as everyone knows, a proper history is a a series of wars which always get won by the good guys.
It's a fantastic thing to be a fan of because there isn't too much to remember.
It features animals as a replacement for humans (which I count as a minus factor - you might not) and each species get's it's own dialect.
Moles speak with west country accents, mice are well spoken English, otters get seafaring talk, rats get pirate speech, aares have posh southern upper class eccentricity, hedgehogs speak yorkshire, sparrows have a native American ring to them, hawks speak scottish, owls speak irish and snakes spekwith the general unclassified hissing noise achieved by hodlign onto Rs and Ss too much.
It's bloody confusing at times trying to remember what species some of the characters are and there are many battles fought out of scale (see Mossflower- Martin the Warrior VS Queen Tsarmina).
These books really shine out in the fact that they were written for children but if you can see past it, some of them are gems of literature.
If you ask me the best ones are Mariel The Warrior, The Bellmaker, The Pearls of Lutra and Martin The Warrior.
There's a lot more behind these books than you might imagine and the shortcomings may be explained b the fact that the author, Brian Jaques (pronounced Jakes), used to be a docker.
Some of his books are available ontapes read by Brian and I wouldn't advise anyone buying them - I've seen film footage of him as a docker which was featured on room 101 as an exmaple of the classic liverppol/newcastle dockers accent. Unless his voice has changed I'd steer well clear
Ratings:
plot twist :^| predicatble at times
Atmosphere :^( too much of the wrong sort!
Characters :^) some are well wirtten, others are like cardboard cut outs.
Continuity ;^) It's like a real historical story.
Comments:
Well written but all together too samey. I do like these books and I'm a emember ofthe fna club but I would jump out of my seat to buy the next in the series. At the end of each books, the emotions of the characters are pretty much ignored in favour of a heroic ending - Eg, not wanting to spoil anything but in outcast of redwall, Byrony shows this deep metrnal instinct for veil all the way through but at the end she just agrees with everyone else that he was evil and when he gave his life for her it was a mistake, not an intention. Which spoilt a good chance of a bit of true emotion like the endings of the deptford books.
Discworld
Terry Pratchett
Rincewind's series:
The Colour Of Magic
The Light Fantastic
Sourcery
Eric
Interesting Times
The Last Continent
The witches series:
Equal Rites
Wyrd Sisters
Witches Abroad
Lords and Ladies
Maskerade
Death's series:
Reaper Man
Mort
Soul Music
Hogfather
The nightwatch series:
Guards Guards
Men At Arms
Feet of Clay
The others:
Jingo
Pyramids
Small Gods
Moving Pictures
Related material:
The Discworld Map
The Streets of Ankh Morpork(another map)
The lancre map
From the discword(Music by Dave GreenSlade)
Wyrd sisters the Video
Soul music The video
The Soul Music soundtrack
The Discworld companion
Unseen University Challange (the discworld quiz book)
There isn't really anything you can say against Terry, he's got fans all over thewrold fro mchildren to pensioners and there is a simple reason behind it: He writes fantastic books
I haven't read all of them. I've read most of them and I've got most of the related material.
Unlike other series of books, these don't revolve around a single set of characters or ideas. These containa whole world with a reality threshold so low that anything can happen. As the books continue, the technology of the Disc advances and there have been inventions such as computers(Interesting Times, Hogfather and a few others), guns(Men at arms), forensic investigation (feet of clay) and hundreds of others.
Little bits of real life can be seen poking up from these books in more places than are visible. If you can find an annotation of the books on the internet, have a damn good read, I was surprised to say the least. Evrything written is in some way based upon other cultures and ideas, twistedwith classic Pratchett humour and wit to be even funnier when you find out what the idea behind it was.
The usage of alternative realities and states of mind is a big wow factor. The best example of this is Hogfather, where the idea of belief shaping reality is taken to the maximum.
The best idea ever used in this book was the tooth fairy's castle (read te book to find out why they go there) where the fact that only children believe in in makes it foram around what they think it looks like. So the landscape outside is all drawn in crayon with solid rivers that never move and a no nexistant void between the sky and the ground where the horizon should be but is never drawn in on children's drawings.
The characters are top notch and you can actually see thier lives developing as life goes on. Mort for example, starts out in Mort as a young boy, in Soul Music he's gotten married and has daughter, in Hogfather, His daughter has grown up and looks after rich children, her lineage making her the only adult able to see the bogey man.
Ratings:
plot twist :^) always something new.
Atmosphere ;^) brilliant descriptons,especially of death's house.
Characters %^) C.M.O.T. dibbler says it all.
Continuity ;^) it all follows on well.
Comments:
They're complex, they're funny, they're well written and they're almost true to life in some situations. Only on the discworld will you find dwarfs campaining for equal heights. There's nothing else on Earth like them.
The most amazing man who ever lived.
Robert Rankin
When reading a book by Robert Rankin, you must first throw away all preconceptions that it is going to make sense. Because the whoel point behind his books are the surreal backdrops to the adventures.
This is actually a sequel but I've never read the original because this o ne was quite frankly too hard to follow.
I've read other books by Robert Rankin and this one is probably the most 'Robert Rankin'ish. If you understand that.
The plot is Hugo Rune has gotten control ofthe after life and is reincarnating himself in such a away that he is reborn as himself again and can get everything rightthat he got wrong the last time and there fore, be the most amazing man who ever lived.
There are also five copies of him. four down on earth and one up in the afterlife making it all possible.
He has an evil scheme, of course, and it's up to Cornelius Murphy (Hugo's nephew) to stop him.
The basic idea is that every cubic meter of the sea contains about 90 million punds worth of gold. Hugo wants to use electrolysis to get it out. For the energy to do this he intends to use peoples souls.
Also in the story is Tuppe, Corneilius' vertically challenged sidekick and Norman, who discovers the whole sceme while working for the universal reincarnation company.
The plot has many twists, including the underwater creatures who want to prevent the plan, Mavis the alien sheep who says woof and can catch fish (don't ask) and a pair of girls by the name of Thelma and Louise (sound familiar?) who act as the prize for the lucky heros at the end.
The story is so insanely moronic that you ave to read it just for a laugh.
He actually pokes fun at his own incontinuities.
Example line from the text(slightly edited):
"We can make gunpower using carbon from this pencil, the white stuff on the walls is salt petre, and sulphur from... that place where you always get sulphur from."
"Where do we get the sulphuer from?"
"You know that handy place where the sulpher always comes from in these situations."
As you can see, it makes little sense and the continuity is challenged even more a litte further on:
"Where did you get that coat hanger from?"
"The same palce we got the sulpher, now shut up."
You see? All that was in an attempt to escape fro man abandoned lift shaft. Even worse is the part where two guards are thown i nthere and then later they are removed but during the time they are in there, some one else goes down and it is empty. Yet these points are actually picked out and mocked by Rankin himself, The books aren't supposed to make sense, they're supposed to be bloody funny, which they succeed in marvellously.
Ratings:
plot twist %^) Insanley twisted
Atmosphere :^S I think not some how
Characters ;^) Rolling o nthe floor lauging comes to mind.
Continuity %^S Forget it.
Comments:
They aren't supposed to be sensible, they're just supposed to be good - and they are.