by Patrick Ogle

A Summer of Drowning by John Burnside.

Like most John Burnside books this one makes you work. You have to put on your thinking cap and focus to keep up with what is going on.  You wonder; is this all supernatural or is it perfectly natural. What is “natural” can certainly be strange and disturbing. This isn't the sort of disturbing that is graphic or bloody. It is a much more subtle type of unease he calls forth.

At some point, you will ask yourself; how reliable is the narrator? If you go back through this book you will find that narrator contradicting themselves–or at least second guessing their conclusions. Which may seem confounding but in actual life we ALL do this constantly.

A Summer of Drowning may be a bit more accessible than other Burnside books I’ve read–The Glister and The Devil’s Footprints but it has been some time since I read those. This book is dark but those were even darker but there is a beauty to the language. Burnside is also a poet which isn’t surprising because there is something different about his work.  I started to write that it is “poetic” but that is more than a bit unimaginative. I would  say that it leaves options for the reader to choose what to believe, to choose what arc of the story to believe. Even before I KNEW he wrote poetry I knew there was something unique about his style. This isn’t me being clever either. I am not special. Most folks notice this when reading his work.

You will hear “prose writers cannot write poetry” (or visa versa). This is nonsense, of course, it is likely more that poets and prose writers CHOOSE to write what they are most comfortable with–and Burnside is a master of both. I’ve read three books and each stayed with me for some time after finishing. 

I immediately started looking for something else by the author.

by Patrick Ogle

Murderbot Diaries--Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry and System Collapse by Martha Wells are the last of the currently available Murderbot books (excluding some online short stories). I was going to read these slowly and in a measured way, alternating with other books.

Then I just said "fuck it" and read them all in a row. This may have been a mistake.

First of all Network Effect, the fifth book, is the first to be unassailably be a novel rather than a novella. Yes, I have seen, and am indifferent to, the arguments over what is a novella and a novel. Who cares? The first four books are relatively short, concise and therefore move at a quick pace.  Network Effect moves at a more deliberate clip. It is significantly more detailed and involved than the other books. It may even sometimes get a wee bit ponderous. This isn't to say it is ever less than entertaining. It fills in gaps and lets us know more about the important characters (and brings back some that most of us Murderbot aficionados missed).

But it is different from the first for books. Different isn't bad of course but I was slower reading this one. The story is more complex than the previous books and that is a good thing. To me not BETTER than the first four. Simply different.

Fugitive Telemetry is set on a space station that is familiar to Murderbot fans and reads more like a detective novel than the other books. It is another different direction--an interesting new direction for the series. I'm not sure I'd be thrilled if it KEPT on this trajectory (it doesn't as we will see when I get to the next book). But it is a fun, self contained, story. 

It is a good idea to, more or less, read these books in order but if you read this one after book one or two it wouldn't throw you off. It actually seems like it would fit after book one or two in some ways.

System Collapse is basically a direct sequel to Network Effect and feels almost an excised part of the earlier book. It adds together a couple groups of Murderbot's humans (as he calls them).  What that means is even more characters in a crowded book that goes back to the short format of most of these books. It basically works but is a bit less than "action packed." This story relies on suspense; what's going on in Murderbot's head? or what's around that corner?

At least to me the book provides a satisfying ending to the plot. I wonder if there isn't a bit of me wanting different things to happen going on in MY head with these last couple of books. But there is definitely a change in the pace in Network Effect and System Collapse.

Nonetheless, the series continues to impress and, to me, is sort of essential reading. It is all so smart and it tells stories fast for our newly Tik Tok shortened attention spans, while still providing intelligent writing and compelling stories.

by Patrick Ogle

Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clarke was a gift. I love books as gifts--especially from people who know the sort of books I like.  In this case it was from my son who always NAILS it.

This one is a supernatural thriller set in the post World War I American South. As you might expect from the time period (a horrible time in American history) and the cover art the Klan is involved. But what is behind the Klan in this book is a little different than what history tells us.

To me it seems...plausible but then I am baffled by virulent racism (this is a joke for those who are literal minded).

I just mentioned, in my discussion of the Murderbot books, how I am a sucker for writers who can create an alternate world. Clarke is such a writer. His topic made me think of the film, Sinners, and how Ryan Coogler could make an ass kicking movie out of this. Of course, he may want to do something a little different....but...still. I was also reminded of a number of writers, chief among them Victor Lavalle and Matt Ruuf, who write horror books with an American twist. They take the real horror of racism and combine it with the fantastical.  Clarke's novella is as good or better than the efforts of these two excellent writers.

This book also calls to mind the lofty work of African writers like Ben Okri and Ngugi Wa Thiongo in their shifting between the world we live in and a mystical realm. I don't want to put too fine a point on this assertion as Clarke's book is a much simpler version of this than either Okri or Ngugi sometimes employ and the writing styles of all three authors are wildly different. But I did think of it. I wanted more of the other world part of this. In truth I just wanted MORE of this book.

I also don't really want to give anything away about this book. Just read it. It is a novella length read. I look forward to a sequel. 

There better be a sequel.