May 1, 2014 Eimear Fallon

Read: The Death Cure, by James Dashner
This is the third of three books in a young adult trilogy (my review of the first; my review of the second), and was definitely the hardest to swallow. Not because it’s terrible, but because - well. Early… — **Read:** *The Death Cure*, by James Dashner

This is the third of three books in a young adult trilogy (my review of the first; my review of the second), and was definitely the hardest to swallow. Not because it’s terrible, but because - well. Early on in the book, in one of many moments of frustration over the way the narrative was behaving, I had this brief exchange:

Which - yes - I wasn’t exactly a hive of positivity, but the level of snark in the author’s reply (he had to specifically hunt down that tweet too, given I didn’t mention him) tinged the rest of the book a little. You want to think that the people with big-money publishing deals are better than you, even if their writing isn’t. That was probably mistake number one.

But, okay - moving beyond that - I’m pretty sure that this book is frustratingly bad, regardless of personal issues. *The Maze Runner* trilogy works on the basis of a slow burn of information, a series of machine-gun revelations that are so aggressively full of twists and turns that you find yourself skimming over the sometimes-lazy characterisation and an almost complete lack of female characters (this is justified in the narrative by the revelation that a parallel experiment is being conducted on a group of girls elsewhere, but it *sure is* an easy excuse to make the female characters little more than ciphers), but in the third novel the formula is tested far beyond its breaking point.

Adding another insult is the ending, where (and spoilers follow here, obviously) Dashner avoids tying up his narrative and instead opts to create a *magic door to paradise*. It’s as if he saw the ending of the Battlestar Galactica reboot, ignored that everyone hated it, and chose to copy it. It’s not that there are unanswered questions - in terms of tying up the exposition, he does a pretty good job - but in providing such an undeserved and unprompted happy ending, there’s no personal reconciliation with the awful, traumatic shit that happens to the protagonist, Thomas. We’re told to focus on the fact that he’s finally found somewhere safe, rather than get to grips with the fact that a child has literally had to kill other human beings to survive.

I’ve got in trouble before for unfavourably comparing this to *The Hunger Games* trilogy, but it’s in this third book that the degree to which this book pales in comparison really shows. Thomas has lots of dreams, and passes out a lot, and gets stubborn from time to time, but in terms of an honest examination of the mental trauma caused by the things that happen to him, it’s painfully lazy. And Thomas is such an archetype - a cardboard cut-out of a hero, hardly ever doing anything inconsistent with the reader’s desires and often thinking in the sort of patterns that fit a fast-moving plot, but not a human mind.

None of this means that it’s terrible, of course. It’s not! Look - what this series does in terms of building a world is sometimes brilliant and almost always good, and in this novel Dashner really lets the world breathe by moving across multiple locations and adding a ton of neat flourishes that bring the environments to life. It’s clear that he’s spent time crafting the places the characters are dumped in, and quite often this redeems the exasperating plot. Even by the end of this book, I wanted to explore the world more. I just didn’t want to see it through the eyes of such an insufferably dull cast of characters.

Sorry, James. I know you have tons of teenage fans, and I’m sure you’re sleeping comfortably on your king-size bed made of money, but even after I *tried* to like this, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

April 24, 2014 Eimear Fallon

Read: The Scorch Trials, by James Dashner

In a way, I think James Dashner’s greatest strength unfortunately becomes his biggest weakness - in creating a narrative that is constantly building to the next slice of exposition, and a world that bleeds … — **Read:** *The Scorch Trials*, by James Dashner

In a way, I think James Dashner’s greatest strength unfortunately becomes his biggest weakness - in creating a narrative that is constantly building to the next slice of exposition, and a world that bleeds right into your consciousness, his characters often get left by the wayside. What you’re left with is a curious phenomenon - horrifying things happen to the characters in these books, but they rarely carry the emotional heft that comparable works inspire. There is very little existential angst here - the mental wounds are present, but rarely very deep.

That world, though - the reality-bending nature of the environments Thomas finds himself in is ramped up here, and events and environments fade out of the dust in an almost dreamlike way. The current sweeps you along, before you really have time to question if what’s happening makes any sense. That’s probably a good thing - part of the novel’s delight is in spinning a grand conspiracy narrative, and at times the plausibility of it all would likely buckle under any rational pressure. It’s all good fun, though, and going in without an analytical eye is probably the best course of action.

I question why I’m reading these books, save for the fact that it’s all preamble to watching Dylan O’Brien perform in the upcoming film adaptation of the first in the series, *The Maze Runner*; it’s entertaining, though, and a welcome respite from the often-dry research I’m doing for my next book, not to mention a sharp reminder that if writing isn’t fun, there really isn’t any point. Maybe that’s enough. In terms of intelligence and - sorry - *quality*, though, this belongs firmly in the *Teen Wolf* camp of things I’m enjoying.

February 17, 2014 Eimear Fallon

Read: Post Office, by Charles Bukowski

Reading this novel forced me to take a critical stance, and I finally found one that I felt comfortable with; this is an excellently-written novel, with an utterly vile if sometimes compelling protagonist, and… — **Read:** *Post Office*, by Charles Bukowski

Reading this novel forced me to take a critical stance, and I finally found one that I felt comfortable with; this is an excellently-written novel, with an utterly vile if sometimes compelling protagonist, and an authorial voice that is sometimes profound and at other times profoundly misogynistic.

The narrator (presumably a cipher for Bukowski himself, though I won’t presume) has the sort of job that I was doing over Christmas - the kind of braindead but brutal easy money that starts to rot the soul after a few weeks. I couldn’t help but laugh at the steady increase in his absences from work, as it reflected my own commitment to the job; by the end, I became downright scornful of an organization that sees people as machines, and even more so of the supervisors driving that machine into total submission. Working in a data entry center is mentally numbing, physically torturous, and aggressively antisocial. It will hopefully be the worst job I’ll ever have.

For Bukowski’s protagonist, the long-term nature of his awful job feeds into a wild sense of nihilism that infects his life - he fucks his way through several women, seemingly without care for their own thoughts and feelings, and there’s one occasion in particular early on that irreparably tainted my perception of the rest of the book. (This book comes with a pretty heavy trigger warning is all that I’ll say, as I see no need to upset people by describing events in detail). Sometimes, all of this is viewed dispassionately, and it’s here where it thrives - the detached first person perspective allows you to fill in the gaps and imagine an entire depraved life for this man.

But. Then, there are moments where the voice of the novel attempts to guide you into sympathizing with the protagonist, and while he has a shitty job, the trail of human suffering and general unpleasantness he leaves in his wake means that when you’re forced to have feelings about him then you end up resenting any attempts to bring you onto his side. It’s a little as if Patrick Bateman suddenly started making an impassioned defense to the reader in favor of his way of life.

So it’s a mixed bag. A product of its time, in that it puts the quality of the writing first, and absolutely doesn’t suffer in that regard, but it’s also a novel that sees women as little more than objects you can put your penis into. And, honestly, I’m a little bored of that attitude.

February 14, 2014 Eimear Fallon

Read: Day One

This is an ongoing concern - every week, the people behind this Kindle magazine put out one story and one poem around a certain theme, and usually get the two writers to conduct an interview with each other to round it off. It’s small enough to not be overwhelming, and cheap enough (at around 37 cents an issue) to not make you think about value for money. I’ve found myself looking forward to each issue, and while there is a certain ongoing thread - the stories tend to devote themselves to small but significant moments in the lives of ordinary people, rather than anything outlandish - it’s one that stays compelling.

I plan to stay subscribed for the foreseeable future - if you want to sign up for a thirty-day free trial, you can do so here.

December 22, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read: Kafka on the Shore

This was strange, and brilliant, and utterly captivating from start to finish. Murakami has this way of writing very matter-of-factly about things that are utterly fantastical, and the resultant effect is one where even the… — **Read:** *Kafka on the Shore*

This was strange, and brilliant, and utterly captivating from start to finish. Murakami has this way of writing very matter-of-factly about things that are utterly fantastical, and the resultant effect is one where even the most surreal events feel immediate.

This is so many things: a morality play, a bildungsroman, a road book, and an in-depth character study. It glides between all of them effortlessly, telling the story in slivers that feel like gasps for air, always somehow keeping you afloat even when the idea of a tidy resolution seems impossible.

That isn’t to say that there is a tidy resolution - in the last quarter or so, the book shifts from a realist novel with a surreal edge to a surrealist masterwork with ties to the real world, but it doesn’t suffer for it. In a sense, it made me think of the frustration I’ve had with some anime in the past, particularly Miyazaki, where the relative speed at which spiritual or strange conclusions are added in often throws me out of the work; so many new concepts are introduced that it can make keeping up awkward. Here, because it all unfolds at a pace that isn’t dictated by a 90- or 25-minute running time, it all feels more earned, and left me with a sense of wonder rather than narrative frustration.

Definitely a recommendation. I’m moving on to *The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle* next, and going in excited.

December 9, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read: Stoner, by John Williams

I went into this book blind, based purely off the back of mass recommendation; in retrospect, I think that was probably the best preparation I could have given myself. Stoner is a remarkable novel in how it covers so … — **Read:** *Stoner*, by John Williams

I went into this book blind, based purely off the back of mass recommendation; in retrospect, I think that was probably the best preparation I could have given myself. *Stoner* is a remarkable novel in how it covers so little, but in such rich detail that every tiny beat reverberates for hours afterward.

The back cover sums up the plot fairly succinctly: “William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. Later, he becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death his colleagues remember him rarely.” This has all the quiet beauty that the Paul Thomas Anderson’s *The Master* has - not much happens, but the characters are shown in such stark detail that you can’t help but be drawn in. There are entire sequences where a few men sit in a room talking that feel charged with a thrill you don’t expect. A romance halfway through is heart-wrenching to read from page to page.

This novel also contains the best description of death from a first-person perspective that I’ve ever read. It’s really quite something. You should stop reading this, and start reading that.

November 28, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read: Michigan, Ten Cents by Doctor Gaines. Also known as my friend Josh.

With that full disclosure in mind, I’m going to recommend this simply because it’s quite unlike anything I’ve read in a while. It’s largely stripped o… — **Read:** *Michigan, Ten Cents* by Doctor Gaines. Also known as my friend Josh.

With that full disclosure in mind, I’m going to recommend this simply because it’s quite unlike anything I’ve read in a while. It’s largely stripped of sentiment in a way that serves it well, putting events and dialogue front and centre; coupled with the country vibe (I still can’t bring myself to say “southern-fried”, but this is what that is), this at times comes across as a more folksy Cormac McCarthy. Which is no bad thing.

It’s a chapbook that isn’t afraid to wear its influences on its sleeve, often in a cinematic manner; the musical backdrop filters in and out at exactly the right moments, and the tone happily meanders along as a fun caper until it needs to be dark, at which point everything turns on a switchblade edge. I’m not going to call this perfect (in part because, knowing the writer, that would be unconvincing), but one thing this story excels at is keeping you hooked.

There was the occasional moment where I wasn’t sure about the narrative voice - every line of dialogue drips with Southern charm, but at times the outside commentary can’t decide whether it wants to be an eloquent observer or gleeful participant in its characters’ unique style. This doesn’t necessarily detract from the overall quality, though, and given that it’s a story with a number of tonal shifts one could even make a convincing case that it fits with the mood.

By the end, you’re left with blood on your hands and a strange sense of stillness, and I love stories that do that. This puts you through the wringer, but by the end you feel like your eyes have newly opened.

November 27, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read: Angel Dust Apocalypse, by Jeremy Robert Johnson

This was an odd little book - it belongs to the bizarro genre of fiction, though it often crosses over into out-and-out horror, usually dealing in deep piles of viscera and psychological terror.… — **Read:** *Angel Dust Apocalypse*, by Jeremy Robert Johnson

This was an odd little book - it belongs to the bizarro genre of fiction, though it often crosses over into out-and-out horror, usually dealing in deep piles of viscera and psychological terror.

I used to be obsessed with bizarro fiction. It’s a genre that spawned titles like *Foop!*, *Adolf in Wonderland*, *Satan Burger* and *Dr. Identity*, and it all heavily inspired my last book. Time has sobered me a little (though I’m not sure why, in retrospect - some disgusting impulse to be taken seriously, or something), but there’s still something incredibly exciting when reading something like this.

On more than one occasion, I found myself questioning the book’s literary merit, but it’s to the collection’s credit that immediately after I found myself questioning what “literary merit” *means*, given that I was still sucked into each story and the imagery was coming at me like a series of punches to the gut. Maybe the key thing to take away is that at times, *Angel Dust Apocalypse* is not the sort of book that feels pleasant to read - it’s gripping and powerfully evocative from start to finish, but it rarely lets up.

So. Chuck Palahniuk loved this book (even stepping in to provide a blurb, which he almost never does), and that should give you an idea of who this is for. These stories still have heart, but they’re behind a screen of awful people and horrifying events. If you can’t stomach the latter, you might struggle to get a grip on the former.

October 25, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read: Vivian Versus The Apocalypse, by Katie Coyle

A few things, first. I had been following Katie for a while (here in Tumbletown and on Twitter, too) before this book came out, shortly before she won the Young Writer’s Prize (though, I thin… — **Read:** *Vivian Versus The Apocalypse*, by Katie Coyle

A few things, first. I had been following Katie for a while (here in Tumbletown and on Twitter, too) before this book came out, shortly before she won the Young Writer’s Prize (though, I think, a while after she entered), so I was already predisposed to like the style of the person writing it. Seriously. Katie is brilliant - go follow her.

Also, I wrote a manuscript when I was 15 about an alternate version of the UK transformed into a post-apocalyptic wasteland by evangelical Christianity. It feels stupid to say “manuscript”, because every paragraph was utter unsalvageable dreck, but it was about 40,000 words of unsalvageable dreck. I say all this because although I think I’ve gotten better at writing (and matured emotionally, hopefully), I’m still fascinated by dystopias and the effect religion has on society, and given that (in addition to *so much more*) *Vivian Versus The Apocalypse* has a liberal dose of both of those things, this already felt very close to home.

But. Even conceding both those things, this is magnificent. It’s an incredible novel that is not targeted at my age range, but never suffers for it. It has a female protagonist who was so realistically and honestly drawn that I had to stop myself every once in a while and just allow the character to sink in. There’s a love story, but it never overruns the rest of the narrative - every concern has just the amount of importance it *should* have, rather than being cynically, artifically weighted to sell more copies. Vivian is a strong female character without being a Strong Female Character, which is to say that the way she’s written demonstrates far more understanding of how human women operate than Steven Moffat and the entire AAA games industry could ever muster.

The Church of America that looms over this book is a nightmarish hybrid of Jonestown, the Church of Scientology and the Latter-Day Saints, and the fact that it takes real-world organisations and spins them out of control rather than inventing ideas about religion from scratch works massively to its credit - often, I’ve found that religion in narrative is used to create the sense of something alien and otherworldly, and it can feel a little overdone, but here the overarching rule of thumb is that it puts people first and doctrine firmly in second place.

What I’m still wrestling with is whether or not you could call this book anti-religious - there’s definitely a point to all of this, and while there’s a strong pro-human message I think it has something darker to say too. I think maybe the thing to take from it isn’t to condemn the idea of personal salvation, which can come from anywhere, but to be wary of cults of popularity and personality. It’s worth keeping in mind that those can be religiously-motivated, but not always. When you think about the fact that kids are going to be reading this, that’s a pretty fantastic message to be sending, I think.

There are too many things to list here. The supporting cast of characters is wonderful, and one in particular is going to be stuck in my mind for a long time. The story is gripping and heartfelt in equal measure, and makes for a road novel unlike any I’ve ever read. Really, though: while the plot beats fell at exactly the right moments, and packed a punch until the end, so much of this felt like a character study. The Vivian at the start of the novel is not the Vivian at the end, but her development creeps up on you. Nothing about the character feels forced, and given the dramatic twists and turns the book takes along the way, that’s quite an accomplishment.

So. Um. Buy this, basically. The book is currently absurdly cheap on Amazon. I’m trying to think of who to recommend this to, because usually I can identify potential audiences pretty quickly by singling out the people to whom this wouldn’t appeal, but I’m struggling with this one. Even if you’re a terrible human being, I feel like this book might stoke some tiny ember of decency; and if you’re craving books about women that aren’t *Twilight* clones or borderline-abusive erotic fantasies (so, *Twilight clones*), this is just about as perfect as you’re going to get.

Sorry, Katie. I’ll stop now.

(Just a formatting note - I’m stopping this format, in part because I sometimes abandon what I’m reading, creating some discontinuity, and also because I want to devote more space to what I’m reading and artifically following on to the next book creates pressure to get whatever I’m writing over and done with. There was no way I could finish writing about this in a couple of paragraphs.)

October 14, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read/reading: QI by John Lloyd (and loads of other people), Fables by Bill Willingham (and a few other people)

The QI app (collecting The Book of General Ignorance and The Book of Animal Ignorance together) eventually got a bit tiresome - there’s only really so much trivia you can consume before you stop caring altogether, and while I know exactly how to prepare worms for dinner, I can’t say I learned anything that could be delivered without the sort of smug air you’d expect on Radio 4. Time for a change of mood.

That specific mood is the ridiculously popular Fables series, which was completely unfamiliar to me before The Wolf Among Us and which hooked me in less than an hour of reading. I have quite a few comics queued up, but also a mountain of fiction. After all this historical dryness, I need a bit of imagination.

September 30, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read/reading: Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, QI

Pump Six was gleefully black-hearted, fascinating from one story to the next, and wonderfully apocalyptic in a way I haven’t really seen for a long time. It’s good to see violence be treated in fiction as something worth exploring for its own sake, rather than a convenient plot beat or something to heighten the mood. Bacigalupi is a master at his darkest - occasionally, the stories try and mire themselves in politics for a little too long, and that’s where the immersion’s slightly broken. But this was remarkably solid. Definitely check it out.

QI - or, specifically, the QI iOS app, comprising both The Book of General Ignorance and The Book of Animal Ignorance in a more digestible form - is something I’ve been meaning to plough through for a long time, and I’ve cleared some of the individual chapters. Given that I’ve had this for over two years, though, it’s about time I got me some learnin’. Also, I’m going to have my editing head on for the next couple of months, and I could do with having my head a little clearer.

September 22, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read/reading: Codename Prague by D. Harlan Wilson, Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi

D. Harlan Wilson is the sort of writer who’s either terrifyingly intelligent and shrouded in shocking imagery, or a nightmarish Andy Warhol - creating meaningless artifacts out of the wildest parts of pop culture. Either way, Codename Prague isn’t for everyone, and it definitely isn’t his most accessible work. He used to be my favourite writer, but as time’s gone by I’ve fallen out of love with him in favour of other, arguably more measured writers, but ones who see writing as a human project rather than a metafictional exercise.

I know absolutely nothing about Pump Six, other than it was part of the Humble eBook Bundle (which is how I got it). That’s fine with me. I’m up for something new.

July 12, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read/reading: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, a giant Instapaper queue

I’m still reeling from this book. It’s definitely cemented Eugenides as one of my favourite writers - he writes characters so finely detailed that they leap off the page, and is so invested in his world that he can make the most mundane situation seem utterly invested in magic. This was heartbreaking, and brilliant, and at once hilariously and painfully relatable, and it makes me absolutely furious that he’s only written three novels. (I still haven’t read The Virgin Suicides, but it’s on my wishlist.)

Maybe because this was so fantastic (and anything following it would be diminished), or that I’ve more or less exhausted my work’s library, or that I’m fighting off the urge to plunge into the ASOIAF series so soon after reading the first book, or the fact that I’m going to be in America for two weeks and probably won’t be reading as much, but I’m taking a break to plough through the huge reserve of articles I’ve saved in recent weeks. With any luck, I’ll come back with renewed vigour. Or something.

Seriously, read that book.

July 10, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read/read/reading: Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Rock On: An Office Power Ballad by Dan Kennedy, The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.

Stardust was lovely - criminally short, but fantasy at its best in that sense, leaving enough to the imagination and defying convention without seeming aggressively counterculture. I might even watch the film, now. Also: it’s struck me that I consider myself a huge Neil Gaiman fan, even though I’ve only read two of his books (this, and American Gods). That’s probably important.

Rock On was a bit lacking in substance - any ode to a lost heyday tends to be that way - but riotously funny, nevertheless. I came to this from The Moth, which is definitely worth listening to, and while there are probably much better books out there, this is a lot of fun.

The Marriage Plot will be my second Eugenides book (after Middlesex - I haven’t read The Virgin Suicides). I’m very excited.

June 28, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read/reading: A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

A Game of Thrones was more or less exactly what I thought it would be - four young adult novels with vastly more interesting and complex subject matter, interwoven around each other to make an 800-page behemoth. I loved it. I think I might get the rest of them.

Stardust, incredibly, is only my second Neil Gaiman novel (after American Gods. I’m very excited. I haven’t seen the film, either - I’ve been holding off.

June 19, 2013 Eimear Fallon

Read/reading: Drive by James Sallis, A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

Drive was lean, and brilliant, and reminded me that some writers can say more in ten words than others can say in a hundred. It gives me confidence. When I’m writing fiction, I try and pare things down to the essentials, but you see it so rarely that often I wonder if I’m not just doing it for simplicity’s sake. I’ll definitely be looking at more of Sallis’s work.

… you don’t need me to talk about A Game of Thrones. Its reputation more than precedes it.