Half Way Home – a review

For days now, I’ve been feeling the need to write another review, but none of the books I’ve read recently has had that little something extra that makes writing a review a joy instead of a chore. Many were interesting, and provided an enjoyable read, but if I were into rankings, they’d be a 4 out of 5.

Today I’m pleased to announce that Hugh Howey’s science fiction novel, ‘Half Way Home’, finally woke the delighted child in my head. You know the one, it’s that little voice that jumps up and down, pumps the air and shrieks ‘Yes!’ without any thought to dignity. Well, my inner child is bubbling with happiness at the moment, and like it or not, I’m going to tell you why.

‘Half Way Home’ begins with a rather dark soliloquy, some would call it a prologue, and right there I knew this novel would be brave.

In classical fiction, writers were allowed to  introduce place, time and characters gently. Modern style pundits however, are adamant that stories must jump straight into the action, hooking the reader in the very first paragraph.

Why? Because readers are supposed to have the attention span of a gnat. If you don’t hook them early, you will lose them.

Hugh Howey ignored that commandment, and that is why I say he is brave. The soliloquy/prologue is more than interesting in its own right, and I loved it, but I can see how it might not appeal to readers who just want to get stuck into the action.

The story unfolds in the first person, and we learn that the protagonist, Porter, is a colonist who was born when he was fifteen – fifteen years too early. Bear with me here.

Along with the other 499 fertilized eggs sent out from Earth, Porter’s development was suspended until the AI controlling the colony ship learned their destination was a viable planet. After that the eggs were allowed to develop, and the new colonists  spent fifteen years in vats, living digital lives while they learned the professions that would be needed by the new colony.

The technology and logic behind this vision of future colonization is spot on. When just reaching the nearest star system will take multiple generations, the most logical and cost effective way of reaching the stars is to send eggs rather than fully grown humans.

Unfortunately, the corporations sending out these colony ships are seeking to maximize their profits, so if the AI controlling a colony ship discovers its assigned planet is unviable, it aborts the mission. In this context abort means destroy. The ship, the eggs, and the AI itself are nuked to ensure no rival corporation can learn any patented secrets.

But sometimes things don’t go to plan.

The action part of the story begins when Porter and the others are decanted from their vats. They take their first real breaths in a world of nightmare. The vat module is on fire, and of the original 500 colonists stored in the vats, only 50 odd manage to find the exit in time. The rest die in the aborted abort. Apparently the AI began the abort sequence but changed its mind.

Why? And what will happen to Porter and the other survivors now? With all their supplies gone, they are naked and starving on a world that is very different to Earth.

Before I continue with the plot, I have to say a word or two about the world the author created. Imagine a forest where the trees are as big as skyscrapers, and the canopy is two kilometres high. Now imagine the size of the ‘bombfruit’ that falls from those trees, and the pony-sized caterpillars that chew on them. This is science fiction at its most inventive!

The rest of the story follows the lives of Porter, and the other survivors as they unravel the mystery of their birth. The plot is strong, and I did not notice any niggling inconsistencies that can ruin an otherwise good story. Nonetheless,  it is the characters who make it come alive.

As the survivors begin forming friendships, and relationships, we discover that Porter is gay, and like most fifteen year olds, he is bewildered by his feelings. He loves Tarsi, the girl who was born in the vat next to his, but he is attracted to Kelvin, a boy destined to be a farmer.

On the face of it, this eternal triangle should be trite, but the author never lets the relationships between the characters overshadow the rest of the story. This is not a romance thinly disguised as science fiction!

Porter’s secret feelings remain a side-note to the far more immediate needs of survival. In a very real sense they don’t matter. Who Porter is as a person, is far more important than his sexual orientation.

The whole issue of Porter’s sexual orientation was handled so well, I assumed the author must be gay. Wrong. If you read the acknowledgements at the end of the novel you will discover that Hugh Howey is a straight, married man with gay friends.

I’m female and straight, so I can’t attest to how accurately Howey portrays the thoughts and feelings of a young gay man, but I have gay friends too, and I think he does it well. More importantly, I believe Howey is a humanist who relates to people as people rather than as males, females or gays, and this comes through in his writing.

I’ve spoken at length about the gay element in ‘Half Way Home’ because it is one of the major themes of the novel, but it is not the only one. Uncaring corporate greed is another, and Howey pulls no punches in condemning it. I agree with him wholeheartedly, but… I think he could have been a tiny bit more subtle with the ending. It is a very uplifting ending, and I wouldn’t call it preachy, but I suspect ‘less’ would have been just as effective as ‘more’.

‘Half Way Home’ is not the novel that catapulted Hugh Howey to fame as an indie author, ‘Wool’ is the book which did that. Nonetheless I loved ‘Half Way Home’ because, for me, it had everything I look for in any novel – strong plot, strong prose, strong characters. But best of all, it had strong cultural and philosophical themes that made me think.

One of the reasons I love science fiction is because it allows authors to explore controversial themes in extreme settings that bring out the best and worst in all of us. We all believe we would be honourable and altruistic if push came to shove, but we are rarely put to the test. When we read good science fiction, it allows us to experience such extremes, at least vicariously. And it can make us question many of the attitudes we take for granted.

Having read ‘Half Way Home’, I intend to read everything Hugh Howey has written. Nonetheless, I am very glad I read this novel first. It has given me an insight into the thinking of the author, and demonstrated the calibre of his writing. I would recommend it to all fans of quality science fiction.

4.999/5

The Ups and Downs of Being Dead – a review

Back in December 2012, I wrote a review on a feel-good novel about dying. That novel was ‘Don’t Tell Anyone’, by Laurie Boris, and it’s still one of my favourite stories, but today’s novel comes a close second. It’s all about being dead.

‘The Ups and Downs of Being Dead’ was written by M.R. Cornelius,  and is a hard novel to categorize. Part science fiction, part ghost story and part love story,  it fuses all three categories into a seamless whole because the core theme is about personal growth.

Confused you yet? I thought so. Let’s go back and start at the beginning.

The story begins with the death of Robert Malone, a successful, 57 year old businessman. As Robert detaches from his body, he sees the cryonics team get to work preparing his corpse for freezing.  But there is one slight problem. Robert was not supposed to be awake to see any of this. He assumed he would die and wake up decades later, when technology was sufficiently advanced to thaw him and cure his cancer.

What is he supposed to do for the next seventy odd years while he waits for technology to catch up? As a ghost, he can’t work a computer, drink a scotch or influence the world of the living in any way. All he can do is sulk,  until two ‘greeters’ take him under their wing.

Greeters are the ghosts of earlier cryonics patients who volunteer to show new arrivals the ropes. They teach Robert how to walk through walls and doors, catch buses and survive in his new, unwelcome state of ghosthood.

Maggie, a dear little-old-lady of a ghost with a will of iron, is determined to help Robert accept the possibilities of his new ‘life’. But first he has to come to terms with his old life, which was less than happy.

And so Robert’s journey begins. Along the way he discovers his wife has been unfaithful to him, and then has to stand in impotent horror as their drug addicted son shoots her. How much responsibility should Robert shoulder for the way his family has turned out?

As a woman who used to be married to a driven entrepreneur, I found myself nodding an awful lot during Robert’s soul-searching. However if  ’Ups and Downs’ had been about nothing but finger wagging, I would have lost interest very quickly. Luckily, ‘Ups and Downs’ was also incredibly funny in spots, and the love story that develops between Robert, and an ordinary ghost called Suzanne, really touched me.  You see Suzanne has no body to reanimate, so when Robert is thawed, their time together will be over.

If you want to know how the story ends you’ll have to buy the book. For now I’d like to say a few things about the science fiction elements. The story spans 70 odd years so you would expect everyday consumer technology to change, and it does. The author weaves the technology into the story so cleverly that it never overshadows the characters, but it is there, and as a sci-fi buff I was delighted with some of the gadgets Cornelius comes up with. The all seems quite… plausible.

The only part of the story I thought I might have trouble with was the whole ‘ghost’ thing. I don’t believe in ghosts, at all. Yet despite my skepticism, I found myself accepting the supernatural aspects of the story without feeling uneasy. Part of the reason for that was because the author did not indulge in any metaphysical mumbo jumbo. Being a ghost was just something that happened. There are a couple of nice passages where the ghosts discuss how becoming a ghost might happen, but it is done in a natural way, as if they’re discussing a dip in the stock market, or a spate of bad weather.

And finally a word about that character development/personal growth I mentioned. There were a couple of small areas where the author could have been a tiny bit more subtle, but overall, Robert’s growth over the decades of waiting feels right. And makes the ending such a pleasurable, uplifting climax to the story.

There is nothing average about ‘The Ups and Downs of Being Dead’. In fact I’d call it a must-read for anyone who is sick of the same, tired old themes. I loved it.

cheers

Meeks

 

 

Doors of Pine – Reader beware!

As most of you know I’m an avid reader of ebooks thanks to the low cost. I’m still picky though, so this post is not so much a review as a warning – ‘Doors of Pine’, by Mark Williams, is not a novel, it’s just the introduction to something that may, eventually, become a novel.

At the end of this snippet of a story, the author wrote this :

“Visit:

http://doorsofpinenovel.blogspot.com/ for updates.”

Excuse me?

Despite being a Kindle user for a year now, it still took me a while to realise Mark Williams must be serializing his novel. [Believe me, that was the kindest interpretation I could come up with].

Now I know that Dickens serialized most of his novels, so there is nothing new about the concept. John Scalzi is doing the same with one of his stories, perhaps to counterbalance the outrageous prices his publisher charges for his ebooks. So I can’t really argue about serialization being a scam. It’s not. However a serialization should be advertised as such.

I couldn’t remember seeing anything to that effect when I bought Doors of Pine [$0.99], so I went back to double check. This is what the blurb says :

“Doorways separate one space from another. Open a door and enter another dimension. We’re not alone in the Universe, just in our dimension. This is a preview to the beginning of Earth’s awakening to inter-dimensional travel.”

The bold on the word ‘preview’ is mine.

I guess I’m a bit of a purist, but to me, preview does not mean serialization. I certainly interpreted it to mean something like ‘first book of a series’ rather than ‘first chapter[s] of a book’.

With the wisdom of hindsight I’d have to concede that the author ‘sort of’ told the truth, but I’m still very annoyed. $0.99 is not much to waste on an ebook, but my time is a great deal more valuable than that, so I resent having my expectations dashed. This is not a good way to market a book, especially when the author is an unknown.

Publishing-as-you-go is also not a great way to write a book. Some of the concepts underlying Doors of Pine [what there is of it] were interesting, however the writing itself could have done with a good edit by a professional editor. But of course no indie can afford to hire an editor for one chapter at a time.

Essentially then, Mark Williams is asking readers to pay for the serialization of a first draft. It’s not illegal by any stretch of the imagination, but it left me with a sour taste in my mouth, and enough anger to write a very negative post.

Not a great way to market a book. Sorry.

 

 

 

Hope Road – a review

I read somewhere recently that it takes about six or seven exposures to an author’s name for that name to register with readers. Well, I’m living proof that theory is correct!

John Barlow, the author of Hope Road, writes the odd post for Indies Unlimited, and I must have enjoyed those posts, because when I stumbled across his name in the Amazon ‘readers who bought X also bought Y‘ list, a little light bulb went off in my head.

Needless to say I bought Hope Road, and read it. What the theory did not predict, however, was that I would fall head over heels in love with the main character, John Ray!

Hope Road is a quasi police procedural, but told through the eyes of John Ray, a character who is definitely not a policeman. Hope Road is also a bit of a thriller,  a bit of a mystery, and a lovely character study of John Ray. In short, it is exactly the kind of book I love. And I did love it.

The story is set in a seedy part of Leeds, [England] where John Ray, the prodigal son, has returned to take over the second-hand car business belonging to his family. But selling second-hand cars was only ever a front for the real family business, which was crime.

John’s father was a local crime-lord until his retirement due to ill-health, and John’s brother was murdered in an apparent gangland ‘hit’. But John has always been clean. He is the one who left, the one who went to university and became a solid citizen. So why has he returned? And why is he now selling used cars from the old showroom that used to be headquarters for his father’s criminal operations?

The natural suspicion surrounding John’s return is only exacerbated by the discovery of a dead girl in one of his cars, along with 50,000 pounds in counterfeit bills.

The police know the murderer could not have been John because he has a water-tight alibi – he was in bed with Detective Constable [DC] Denise Danson at the time. However the car was being driven by John’s protégé, and employee, Freddy, and the family business used to be in counterfeiting, so John is definitely a person-of-interest. But is he actually guilty of anything?

I was intrigued, to say the least, because right from the beginning, John Ray exudes the kind of charisma that is usually reserved for sexy villains, yet he also seems to be a genuinely caring person who puts himself at risk trying to prove that Freddy was not the murderer.

So how did Barlow create this charismatic character?

John Ray is not stereotypically handsome. He is described as a big man in his forties with a shock of black hair, and a physical ‘presence’, but he is not a James Bond, although it seems he is good in bed. Nor is he one of those angst-ridden types who introspects ad nauseum.

So what is it about John Ray that makes him so appealing?

I suspect the answer to that question lies in the character’s potential to be bad. In a sense, this potential is the mirror image of what makes a villain sexy – the potential to be good. A villain who is all bad generally comes across as boring. Most heroes suffer from the same 2D malaise. Sexy villains and heroes, however, have the potential to be both good and bad, or at least to swing between the two, so we are left wondering how they will end up.  That is my theory at any rate.

All theorizing aside, however, the one thing I am quite certain about is that I will be reading more about John Ray, and I hope you do too. Very highly recommended.

cheers

Meeks

Don’t tell anyone – a most surprised review

I had Laurie Boris’ third novel – Don’t tell anyone – sitting on my Kindle for over a week before I started reading it. Why? Because of the elephant in the room called cancer.

Cancer is one of those taboo topics none of us want to think about, and I knew one of the characters in ‘Don’t tell anyone’, would have breast cancer.

My hesitation was further complicated by the fact that I’ve had my own brush with cancer. All my tests have been negative for over two and a half years, but it just so happened that I was waiting on the results of my latest tests last week, so…

I’m happy to say the test results were all negative, but even if they had not been,  ’Don’t tell anyone’ would have cheered me up!

I can see a lot of you re-reading that last sentence with puzzled expressions. Why would a book that talks about cancer cheer anyone up?

The answer, as they say in the classics, “is complicated”.

‘Don’t tell anyone’ is a character driven story that revolves around the relationships between Liza, a thirty-something woman, her husband Adam, her sixty-five year old Jewish mother-in-law, Estelle, and her gay brother-in-law Charlie.

All four characters are immensely likable, although I have to say that Charlie was my favourite, by far. He’s sexy, funny and lovable, all in one. He and Liza have been friends since college but there are things in their shared past that need to be resolved. In fact, resolving the past is key to the relationships in this family.

All of us have issues with family members. Most of those issues get swept under the carpet, year after year, because they are too hard to resolve without a huge fight, and the potential of destroying the family in the process. But when someone in your family is diagnosed with a life-threatening cancer, everything changes.

The discovery that Estelle has lumps in both breasts, and didn’t do anything about them for five years, turns the family dynamic on its head, undermining the comfortable assumptions they had all been living with for so long.  In the process, long-held secrets are exposed, secrets like the fact that Estelle’s mother and grandmother, both died of breast cancer.

But while the discovery of Estelle’s cancer exposes some secrets, it also breeds new ones. How can Liza tell her husband that his mother wants to commit suicide rather than suffer the fate of her own mother and grandmother? Worse still, how can Liza reveal that Estelle has asked her to help with the suicide?

That particular secret eventually leads to a revelation which almost destroys Liza’s marriage. But not for the reason you might think. I can’t tell you any more because that would spoil some of the best parts of the story. What I can say, however, is that lancing all these boils leads to both growth, and resolution, and that is part of the reason I loved the story so very much.

I believe anyone reading ‘Don’t tell anyone’ will be able to relate to Liza, Adam and Charlie. However I, personally, related to Estelle the most, and her part of this finely crafted story was what cheered me. There is a rightness to Estelle’s life that touched me on so many levels, and that rightness permeates the story.

As a writer myself, I feel an enormous respect for Laurie Boris, and more than a little envy. Her understanding of the human psyche is exceptional, and her mastery of the craft of writing is flawless. It could not have been easy weaving all these complex characters and relationships into something that reads, and feels, so right, and yet she makes it look easy. I wish I could write like this, I truly do.

In my not-so-humble opinion, ‘Don’t tell anyone’ is a story that everyone should read. No ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ or ‘maybes’. Read it you lot, or miss out on a novel that is at least 6 stars out of 5.

Flee – a review

‘Flee’ is a spy thriller by JA Konrath & Ann Voss Peterson. It also happens to be the first Konrath novel I have read. I knew he was one of the most successful – and militant- indie author out there, but I had no idea what kind of a writer he was. Now I know, and I have to say he’s good. Flee was very fast paced, tight, well-written and yes, enjoyable. But…

Okay, here comes the big disclaimer : as a writer I’m sure Konrath has me beat, and so it’s highly presumptuous of me to criticize, however as a reader I am entitled to use the great writers as my benchmark for what I consider to be ‘great’.

So… back to that ‘but’. The first ‘but’ relates to the main character ‘Chandler’. Chandler is a woman. She is also like a cross between the character of Trinity in the Matrix and Martin Q. Blank,  from Grosse Point Blank. And yes, you read that correctly, Martin Q. Blank is a male character. That is the problem. The female protagonist in Flee came across as somehow asexual, despite a quite graphic [but well done] sex scene.

Now, to be fair it is always difficult to write believable cross gender characters. Female writers tend to write males who are way too sensitive. Males tend to write females who come across as guys with boobs and hyper-drive libidos. In other words we tend to write what we know and most guys don’t know what it feels like to be a female [and visa versa]. Stephen King achieved this holy grail in ‘Dolores Claiborne’, and Mark Beyer did a creditable job getting inside the head of his main female character in ‘The Village Wit’. As a general rule though, the failures far out-weight the successes.

Having said all that, perhaps creating an asexual female character is success, of sorts, however as Konrath collaborated with Ann Voss Peterson I find it odd that between the two of them they couldn’t make Chandler feel more like a woman, especially as her backstory was very good. Perhaps the lack I felt came from the basic premise of the novel – that a woman could be made into one of the best assassins in the world. -shrug- Or perhaps that is my own, personal bias coming through.

Another ‘but’ was the sheer number of near-death experiences Chandler survived. After a while they became rather surreal.

The biggest ‘but’ however, was the lack of something else, something that would have pushed Flee over the edge from good to great, had it been there.  ’The spy who came in from the cold’, by John Le Carre, had that elusive something. It touched a level of humanity beyond gender, and that made it great in my eyes. There were elements in Flee that could have triggered something similar, but the pace was too swift to allow for the kind of digression that would have required.

Again, to be fair, Konrath was not aiming for that sort of a story, so boo hooing over the fact that I didn’t get it seems silly, even to me. The only reason I mention it is because, for me, that level of depth is necessary for any book to be ‘great’.

Summing up, I really enjoyed Flee, and I am glad I read it, however it’s not a book I will suddenly find myself thinking about at odd moments. It is good rather than great, but please don’t let my pickiness stop you from reading it!

cheers

Meeks

 

NEWSFLASH! StoryBox @ $14.95 until end of nanowrimo 2012

Apologies! I only just found out that the developer, Mark Fassett, had this special on. He is a great developer, but seriously needs to work on his marketing! He doesn’t even have this great deal on his front page, I had to dig to find the direct url for this Nanowrimo 2012 StoryBox special offer.

Or if you prefer to see where you’re going before you go there :

http://www.storyboxsoftware.com/buynow.htm?i4#ecwid:category=0&mode=product&product=15895022

I reviewed StoryBox ages ago and I’m still using it and loving it. I won’t go so far as to say it made me win this year’s nano [although it helped], but it did make getting my thoughts/plot in order easier, and it definitely made posting my excerpts a lot easier.

Now I’m going to shut up so you can grab StoryBox as time is literally running out. Trust me, you do want this software!

Ghost in the Machine – a review

A woman is sitting in a bar, waiting for someone, presumably her date, to arrive :

“She looked for anyone vaguely resembling Martin’s photo on Schoolbook. Nobody even came close.”

And there you have the two, short sentences that convinced me to buy Ed James’ ‘Ghost in the Machine.”

Like a lot of Kindle owners, many of my ebook purchases are fairly impulsive and this book was no exception. It caught my interest so I bought it. Only later, when I began reading it did I realise that this was a police procedural. And that it was set in Edinburgh, with many of the place names I’d grown used to from reading Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus series.

And right there is the one real problem I have with the Ghost in the Machine – I can’t help comparing it to Ian Rankin’s creation, even though Scott Cullen, the young policeman in Ghost in the Machine, is nothing like Inspector Rebus. Or perhaps because he is like the person Rebus might have been in his youth, before disillusionment and alcohol killed his joie de vivre [love of life for those who don't want to look it up] and turned him into such a complex and compelling character.

Sadly, Scott Cullen is not all that compelling. He is likable, and just as smart as Rebus, but he lacks the depth that makes Rebus someone who tugs at the heart strings.  I care about Rebus. I’m not sure I care about Scott Cullen, however as this is book 1 of the series the author may develop Cullen a little more in the later books.

So, the worst thing I can say about Ghost in the Machine is that it lacks the character development of one of my favourite fictional characters. Everything else, however, is excellent. The plot is tight and kept me guessing right till the end. The background feels authentic, and the cast of supporting characters often seem to be more vivid than the main character himself. The dialogue, too, is good. Every so often the author reproduces an accent in the dialogue, if it is particularly relevant, and I found it was just enough to add flavour without becoming difficult to read. Others may disagree with me on that one, but I loathe flat dialogue where everyone sounds the same.

Now to the big question : did I enjoy Ghost in the Machine?

The answer is a surprising ‘Yes’.

Despite the fact that Ghost in the Machine was written by an indie author, instead of a famous one, did not have the benefit of a professional editor [yes, there are a few typos but only a few], and did not quite have enough character development for my tastes, the story was such a good read that I intend to buy the next book in the series.

I’m also putting Ed James on my Watch List because he is a young author going places. Highly recommended.

POED – a review

I’m one of those people who only ‘know’ Edgar Allan Poe by a sort of cultural osmosis, so I can’t give you an expert’s perspective on Candy Korman’s third monster story, POED. I can’t even give you a horror fan’s view of the story because I don’t like horror. But I can tell you that POED is a dark story indeed. In fact it is easily the darkest of Candy’s three monsters to date.

POED is not a retelling of any of Poe’s stories, however it does contain many references to them. Those familiar with Poe’s work will recognize The Usher Institute for the Study of Criminal Psychopathology, the setting of the story, as a nod to Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.

The story of POED is told in the first person by the unnamed Director of the Institute, another nod to Poe’s style. For most of the story the Director appears to be speaking to a character named Edgar Allan who, we are told, is a journalist. As the story unfolds we learn that the Usher is not only a research institute, it is also the repository for a number of criminally insane inmates whose family connections guarantee they receive the very best of care, far from the eyes of both the public and the law.

The reason the Director is now revealing this information to a journalist is that he is in fear of his life. He has reason to believe that one of the three most powerful families with relatives in the Usher is moving to have him ‘disappeared’ out of fear that he may reveal their secrets and those of their murderous relatives.

Although the story is set in the modern day, the Director speaks in a mannered, almost prissy fashion that is reminiscent of earlier times. Yet despite this apparent affectation, his claims sound quite rational. At first. However as he reveals the horrific stories of these three inmates, his paranoia seems to deepen until the moment when he catches the journalist going through his files and accuses him of being in league with his enemies.

So, is the Director right? Is the journalist a spy sent to trap him? Or is this a dream within a dream? Yet if it is a dream then what is the reality?

I re-read the ending three times and I’m still not sure. But the ending is chilling no matter which way you interpret it because it is either a glimpse into insanity or… something else. To find out what that something else may be you will have to read the story for yourself, however I will say this, it will keep you thinking about the Usher Institute for a very long time.

Every time I review a novel, one of the things I ask myself is ‘did I enjoy it?’ Most of the time that question is easy to answer, but POED is such a departure from what I usually read that, like the ending, I’m still a little baffled. I can’t say I liked the character of the Director, and yet I was fascinated by him. In the same way,  the story of POED gave me the creeps, and yet I could not put it down.

On a more objective level, I have to applaud the way in which Candy Korman has written this story. It is hellishly clever and I suspect that if Poe were still alive today, he would approve of POED.

If you are interested in learning something of the background to POED then I highly recommend this interview Candy did with Bookcast.

And if you’re in the middle of reading POED right now, then I wish you… pleasant dreams.

Madame Koska and the Imperial Brooch – a review

This is my 130th post on Meeka’s Mind and it seemed rather appropriate to celebrate that milestone by reviewing the book I finished reading at 1 am this morning.

I’ve know Ilil Arbel, author of Madame Koska and the Imperial Brooch, for a long time now, [by online standards], so I knew she was an accomplished artist, meticulous researcher and a prolific author, but I was not aware of her sense of fun, until now. Apologies for the back-handed compliment Ilil – it’s the aussie way!

When I finished reading Madame Koska I had a big grin on my face. This morning, the word ‘fun’ just popped into my head. Good, clean fun. The word we use to describe some of our happiest memories. You know the ones – they have a sort of warm, golden halo around them. Well, that was how Madame Koska made me feel!

Okay, I’ve probably teased long enough. You don’t want my subjective waffle, you want facts and facts you shall have!

Madame Koska is a mystery set in the flapper period of the 20th century and tells the story of a small group of Russian nobility who have been exiled from Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution. As a mystery, the story has all the elements I associate with the genre – lots of subtle clues that make you suspect literally everyone and a protagonist [Madame Koska herself] who is both likable and very clever. But not a professional sleuth.

If a comparison is needed, then Madame Koska is a little bit like Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Unlike Miss Marple though, Madame Vera Koska is both incredibly stylish and sexy. Another point of difference is that Madame Koska has forged a place for herself in a man’s world and is doing nicely, thank you very much!

Forgive me if I slip into a little subjective waffle again, but I really, really related to Madame Koska! She has all the get up and go I wish I had had, at ‘that certain age’. She is independent, brave without being a Xena-warrior-princess, and strong willed. The fact that she is also a talented fashion designer and always looks elegant is something I might dream of if I were not sitting here in my trackie daks and ugg boots*.

And then there is Mr Korolenko, a Russian émigré with a scandalous past and an ambiguous present. He is sexy in a very erudite, gentlemanly way, but could he also be a criminal? I did say Ilil kept me guessing didn’t I?

Beyond the delightful characters and the clever unravelling of ‘The Mystery’, the book has something else that truly delighted me. To explain what I mean I’m going to have to ask you to picture the setting of Jim Cameron’s Titanic. Think back to the sheer beauty of everything the camera touched. From the table settings to the lush garments of the upper crust guests, the movie shrieked style and opulence. I wanted to be there. Well, not on the ill-fated Titanic exactly, but in a time and place where such over-the-top beauty was the norm, at least for some.

Can you see it? Well, Madame Koska transported me to that world for a few short hours. I’m not saying the novel didn’t have some gritty moments – as in the opium den for example – but the overall feel was one of elegance and style. And the slightly exotic flavour imparted by the Russian-centric characters immersed me in a ‘vorld’ I had never visited before. It’s a world I would like to visit again and I truly hope Ilil continues the adventures of Madame Koska in the future! Highly recommended.

cheers

Meeks

*trackie daks = track pants

*ugg boots are sinfully warm, comfortable, sheep-skin boots. If you don’t own a pair then you don’t know what you are missing.