Category: Consumption

Thoughts on things I’ve experienced.

Book review: Hello America

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Hello AmericaHello America by J.G. Ballard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’d be a bit much to expect J.G. Ballard to write something cheerful. So here we are in disaster-town again: a North America abandoned after peak oil and climate change joined forces to ruin the landscape and the economy both. The world is a fractured, largely socialist or communist environment (you know, trains running on time, bad soup, joyless sex in afternoons off from suitably pro-community factory jobs) which keeps people alive but only just.

That kind of world. Good job there’s a steam-powered excursion to North America on the cards, hoping to explore the abandoned continent and repopulate it. Continue reading “Book review: Hello America” →

Book review: 1Q84

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1Q841Q84 by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

1Q84 is a meandering work. It’s not a quick read, though that’s not because it’s difficult: rather, it’s because Murakami takes his time savouring plot elements. He chews the characters over. In some ways, it’s Murakami-by-numbers – there’s ear fetishism, music fetishism and other standard tropes – but it also bears an unexpected shout-out to his non-fiction writing. Underground‘s explanation of cult terrorism certainly appears to have influenced the story here – it’s hard to see some of the cult imagery here without Shoko Asahara coming to mind.

At heart, this is a love story. It’s surrounded by weirdness, and it slips between worlds, but it’s the tale of two people and their journey to find each other. Sounds twee, but Murakami has always been about solitude and its alternatives. Continue reading “Book review: 1Q84” →

Chillax?

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God, I hate that word.

However, it’s the only thing which comes to mind while listening to VHS Logos. Here you go:


I came across them looking at stuff on Bandcamp tagged with the vaporwave name. Think of it as the musical equivalent of vaporware – software that there’s a bunch of buzz about only it never eventuates. This is as close to that idea in the form of music. It’s like slow jams played on a tape left in the sun too long. There’s something nostalgic about it – in a big-perm, Patrick Nagel kind of way – but also something corrupted, something rotten. It’s intangible cheese.

Listening to too much of it gives you a wicked ice-cream headache.

(More soon – playing through American McGee’s Alice and Alice: Madness Returns has taken up a bunch of my time because platforming plus 3D equals lots of dying.)

Book review: The Father Of Locks

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The Father Of Locks The Father Of Locks by Andrew Killeen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another day, another Orientalist mystery! Andrew Killeen’s book is almost custom-made for the Dedalus imprint, in its exploration of lugubrious living and the nuances of history. Set in Baghdad (largely) around 800AD, this is a very descriptive tale of poetry, rivalry and rooting with its roots in reality. Most of the characters existed, and a glossary at the end of the book provides potted histories of those mentioned.

The problem with this book is – like The One Thousand and One Nights which Killeen claims inspires him – its labyrinthine nature. The plot itself is pretty simple, really: it’s a detective story with the titular Father of Locks (Abu Nuwas, an historical poet who – here, at least – proves Byron and Shelley didn’t have the only dibs on dissolute living) and his narrator-cum-sidekick Ismail attempting to solve murders and mysteries. Except the plot is often shuffled off to the side for a round of storytelling and romance – affairs of the zabb, at least, as Killeen coyly styles the multiple penile peregrinations of the piece. Continue reading “Book review: The Father Of Locks” →

Book review: The Arabian Nightmare

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The Arabian NightmareThe Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’d been meaning to read this for a long time. When I first began to read some stranger fiction – the first time I discovered the Dedalus imprint, I think – I saw The Arabian Nightmare recommended highly. It’s one of those books which has attained cult status – and pretty reasonably, too, given that it’s part sex manual, part spy story, part meditation on dreams and part talking-animal tale, all wrapped in the patterned carpets of Orientalism and stuffed inside a shaggy dog.

I suspect it’s one of those books which, by dint of the enormously evocative descriptions and obviously well-researched background – Irwin is a scholar and Cairo is certainly in his bailiwick – dazzles readers and seems, like the rope trick, to be something more than it is.

It is enjoyable. I can’t deny that. The beginning of the work creates atmosphere as quickly as anything I’ve read. But it doesn’t maintain interest as well as the narrative seems to think it does. Continue reading “Book review: The Arabian Nightmare” →

Book review: The Driver’s Seat

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The Driver's Seat The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Muriel Spark is pretty much synonymous with strange stories, so it’s unsurprising that The Driver’s Seat, a 1970 novella billed as a “metaphysical shocker” is deeply creepy.

It concerns the last holiday of Lise, a suicidal and lonely woman takes a holiday to an unnamed “southern” country (swarthy blokes, student riots, a couple of languages, old architecture) with the intention of being murdered. Not of killing oneself – that would be a little easy. But of becoming a murder victim.

I’m not actually giving anything away, here. The plan is revealed very early on, though we’re left guessing how and who until the very end, much as in a Christie work. Except Christie never worked macrobiotic orgasm-fanciers into her prose. Continue reading “Book review: The Driver’s Seat” →

Papo & Yo (2012)

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There’s a lot of chatter online about how games merely reinforce stereotypes and play it safe with narrative. This game – albeit a very short one – takes bold steps with narrative but is let down by the actual game experience. 

The story – an exploration of how a child hides from an abusive parent and how they must learn to let go to proceed – is a strong one. It’s also rooted in the childhood experiences of game designer Vander Cabellero. It’s a serious topic, and one not really covered in the gaming world, except when it’s providing an excuse for arse-kickery. Continue reading “Papo & Yo (2012)” →

Book review: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel

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The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet: A NovelThe Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel by David Mitchell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’d read a couple of Mitchell’s books many years ago, and it wasn’t until I picked this one up, looking for some transport reading that I realised (given its Japanese subject-matter) I was predisposed to liking it. The enjoyment it’s given has me kicking myself at leaving it on the shelf until now.

The four years of research required to create the book are well-spent; the historical verisimilitude is pretty much untouchable. Precision of detail is paramount, though it’s not forced down the reader’s throat. The Sakoku era – when foreign contact was forbidden, only ended with the arrival of Commodore Perry’s ‘Black Ships’ – is faithfully rendered. The outpost of Dejima – the only place trade was available, near Nagasaki – is brought to life without the distancing one usually finds in novels writing about the past. Some of the island’s denizens are a little more stereotypical than you’d imagine – especially the wanking monkey named after William Pitt – but nothing breaks the mood. Continue reading “Book review: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel” →

The Walking Dead: Season Two (2013-2014)

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What's that noise?

I’ll attempt to avoid spoilers if I can, but if you’ve not played the final episode of the game yet, maybe you should come back later. 

I’ve just finished playing episode five of Telltale’s second season of The Walking Dead. And I’m a little disappointed with it.

Let me back up a bit. I’m disappointed with the ending. I thought that throughout the rest of the episode – and the moments of tension which cropped up in the search for shelter and the settling of scores, up until the end – was a lot more on the money than the rest of the series had been. There were a collection of “shit, no!” moments, and the dialogue (particularly around a campfire) was exceptionally well-judged in this episode. There was some levity, which is a nice surprise in a game whose stock-in-trade is the shit’s-fucked end of the spectrum.  Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season Two (2013-2014)” →

Book review: The Mystery of a Hansom Cab

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The Mystery of a Hansom CabThe Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fergus Hume wrote something close to 130 novels in his life, but it seems none had the impact of this one, which sold 100,000 copies in its initial two print runs, then went on to sell more than a million copies internationally.

The fact he was ripped off on the international sales (fifty quid for the rights? And no other cash? Why not?) possibly explains the other 129 novels. But chicanery aside, it’s worth noting how popular the book was on release. Arthur Conan Doyle pooh-poohed it but he probably would, given that it outsold the first Holmes novel. That’s how big this thing was – a veritable blockbuster, and one noted for its importance in illustrating the transition from the sensation novel to crime fiction. Dan Brown can’t claim that. Continue reading “Book review: The Mystery of a Hansom Cab” →