The Stepford Wives (1972)

Author: Ira Levin  |  Page Count: 139

“It’s not a town where reactions can develop to anything.  There’s no place where people really intersect, except the Men’s Association.”

Joanna Eberhart is a wife and mother; she’s a photographer, an observer of life; and she’s a feminist. When she moves with her husband and two children to the seemingly utopian town of Stepford, the male-centric activities of the Men’s Association really get her goat. What’s worse is that the women, the other wives, are like picture book clichés, prime candidates for the Cult of Domesticity annual calendar, with perfect smiles and perfect tits. Joanna tries to initiate change but meets opposition; she then decides to make everyone else's business her own.

I didn't much like The Stepford Wives.  I found it tedious and lacking drive.  It didn't get even vaguely interesting until after page 100, and there are only 139 pages in the entire book.  But it wasn't badly written.  It wasn't wasteful.  It was just dull.

It works perfectly as a satire of deeper concerns, a focus upon which was much more politically stirring in the 70s when it was written, but as an enjoyable novel not so much. The term ‘Stepford Wife’ has entered the vernacular of popular culture, so I'm going to assume most of you will be able to garner what those concerns are. That knowledge may have been part of my problem: knowing in advance what the big twist was left me with nothing to get excited about.

Joanna and Walter exist separately most of the time, so we never really get an in-depth view of how loving their relationship is or isn't. He supports her, they sleep together and they appear to share some beliefs, but there was no evidence of love or even desire for each other in their daily lives. They were flat, lifeless characters, which left me indifferent to their individual plights.

I'm one of those people whose inner-voice emphasises italics whilst reading because that’s what they’re there to denote, an emphasis, but they were so abundant that doing so got to be a real pain. If you do the same thing with this sentence, you’ll understand perhaps what I mean when I say italics should be used in moderation. Now, wasn't that a pain in the ass?!

I acknowledge that it’s achieved ‘classic’ status, but there’s no right or wrong where subjectivity is concerned, and we don’t all like the same things.

2½ notes on newcomers out of 5

The Night Watch (1998)

Author: Sergei Lukyanenko  |  Translator: Andrew Bromfield  |  Page Count: 489

'Many years ago someone told me something that I flatly refused to accept.  And I still don't accept it now, despite all the times I've seen it proved right.'

Night Watch are the good guys; up to a point.  They have their own agenda, like any organisation, but on a day-to-day basis they’re responsible for policing the actions of their opposites, the Dark Others.  The Dark ones draw their power from the negative feelings of mankind; some even feed on mankind itself, but that requires special dispensation.  Balance is all important.  If the evil should outweigh the good, the world is screwed.  If the good should outweigh the evil, the world is screwed from the other side.  But knowing that doesn't stop either side from trying to achieve dominance.  Among the casualties will be us, the humans.

Both the Light and Dark Others, irrespective of rank, have access to a deeper level of reality known as the Twilight, a place that exists beneath the fragile top skin of our own world.  The Twilight has many uses but equally as many dangers.  It's not a place for sparkly vampires who like to sniff girls.

Much like the Twilight, the events in the novel take place on a number of layers: there’s the familiar world we know; the unfamiliar world of the Watches; and the fantastical world that we can imagine exists all around us, separate from but wholly dependent on the other two for its contrasts and sense of magical realism.

Anton Gorodetsky exists in all three of those worlds; he's our guide.  Anton is a Light Other, relatively new to field work.  He patrols the night, hoping to catch the Dark ones doing something they ought not be doing so that he, and his organisation by extension, can gain an advantage in the inevitable war.  He knows that even little things, if left unchecked, can develop into catastrophic things.

The urge to read faster almost overwhelmed me as I neared the end of the novel, as the layering increased even more, but I knew I had to keep pace or risk overlooking something crucial.  Only the best stories have that quality.

4½ divergences in the probability field out of 5

The Girl with All the Gifts (2014)

Author: M.R. Carey  |  Page Count: 460

'[S]ome things become true simply by being spoken. When she said to the little girl "I'm here for you", the architecture of her mind, her definition of herself, shifted and reconfigured around that statement.'

The only thing I knew about the book before picking it up was that the author M.R. Carey was a pen name of Mike Carey, and seeing as how I'm a huge fan of the author's work in comics I bought it. I didn't even read the blurb on the back, not that it would have helped any. In truth, if I'd known what genre the novel fell into, then I'd probably have placed it back on the shelf. But then I'd have missed out on solid worldbuilding and characters that had more to say than it seemed at first.

The post-apocalyptic setting isn't very original and many of the events will be recognisable to fans of that kind of cinema, but woven within the familiar encounters are some thoroughly engaging stand-off and bonding moments.

The narrative voice is present tense, split between that of a young girl, Melanie, and a small number of very different adults. Melanie's education is limited, for reasons I won't divulge, but she's intelligent with well-developed cognitive abilities, so her responses and judgements aren't typically childish. Furthermore, there's both a sympathetic, fragile tenderness and a contrasting savage darkness lingering at the edge of each of them. What that means for the reader is that even mundane events take on a special kind of observational critique.

In many ways it's a road movie (okay, road book) in which the road is fraught with danger and overrun with visible reminders of why each character is wired the way they are. It forces us to ask if they would be much different if the circumstances weren't so grave. Also, for a child trust and love are connected, two halves of the same treasure, is that something we outgrow as adults, or does it just become greyer, more complex? Those questions, and more, linger after each encounter and are the meat of what kept me page-turning into the small hours.

3½ partially normalised social contexts out of 5

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search: Part 2 (2013)

Author: Gene Luen Yang | Page Count: 76

When people come to your throne room and bow, they're not bowing to you. They're bowing to what you represent.

Continuing on their quest to find the whereabouts of Ursa, the Gaang are increasingly at odds with Azula until Zuko makes a concession over Ursa's letter and a confession to Aang about his willingness to rule. With some peace between them, they make it to Ursa's hometown of Hira'a  where they meet the director of the acting troupe of which Ursa used to be a member. The director leads them towards Forgetful Valley, a dangerous place where people who enter supposedly never return.

The suspense is killing me, but leaves me giddy with excitement. The characters felt so alive, I could picture them moving like I was watching the show, especially a certain bit of Sokka making faces. The interwoven flashbacks are also deliciously revealing and contain quite a few continuity nods to the series. Azula's antagonism was a little tiresome as it was clear that she would only freak out so as to add some drama that wasn't really needed, but she is there so she needs something to do. Still a decent read with great art, characters and the reveals on a tragic and romantic story.

4 involuntary poop face out of 5

Assassin's Creed: The Chain (2012)

Authors: Cameron Stewart / Karl Kerschl  |  Illustrators: Cameron Stewart / Karl Kerschl  |  Page Count: 96

"They like to think of themselves as a Brotherhood. A family. But if that’s true, then they’re a family of wolves."

A sequel to Assassin's Creed: The Fall (2011) that continues the story of both Daniel Cross and the assassin Nikolai Orelov. In one man's world a peace time is broken, while in the other a kind of peace is attained but it’s quite possibly fallacious.

The book explores the resultant struggles of the two men, but it's difficult to say how Daniel got to where he is at the beginning without spoiling the end of the previous entry, so I’ll take the easy option and not mention him again directly. On the other hand, the Russian born Nikolai's story is easier to summarise. He's settled in a new territory but experiences the same old prejudices. It follows that where there’s hatred and men willing to do evil for money there’s often tragedy.

Central to everything, and the part that carries the most emotional weight, is the journey of a young boy who learns the difference between killing out of necessity or mercy and allowing suffering to continue by doing nothing—the understanding of which is a basic tenet of the Assassin order.

There’s a second lesson to be learned, too, that every deed has consequences even if sometimes they take years to surface or occur. How we deal with them determines what kind of man we are, and that in turn determines which side an individual is compelled to take in the Templar/Assassin war.

There are a number of pages with little or no dialogue, meaning the onus is on the art to tell the story, which it does very effectively. The changing colour palette also contributes in a clever, almost subliminal way.

3 balance adjustments out of 5

Lone Wolf and Cub: Omnibus: Volume Five (2014)

Author: Kazuo Koike | Illustrator: Goseki Kojima | Page Count: 712

"Love, affection, obligation, revenge! Joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure! Of the human emotions we choose revenge!"

Three years have passed since father and son set out on the road. In that time there's been much death and there's more to come. The Yagyū letter arc that featured in Volume Four continues into Volume Five. The Lone Wolf, Ogami Ittō, who carries the letter on his person, is hunting for his missing son Daigoro. The perspective is split between his journey and the lost and lonely Cub's search for his father. Even when separated the path on which they walk is unchanged, so neither of them neglects their other duties.

For Daigoro, even being close to death is no reason not to honour a father's teachings. For Ogami and Retsudō, history repeats. For the Yagyū clan, the retrieval of the letter is all-important because if the secret hidden within it is discovered the consequences for them would be grave. Everyone has something to lose and no one is prepared to be the one that does.

One of the things that fascinates me the most about the series, other than the two protagonists, of course, is the way Kazuo Koike is able to put us quickly and directly into the troubled mindset of the people that hire Ogami to kill on their behalf. They've reached the end of their tether and it's snapped, but does that justify paying a man with a child five hundred ryō to kill someone? If we sympathise with their situation, quite often the answer to that is a resounding yes.

The book collects together chapters 53 - 63 of the original Lone Wolf and Cub manga (the remainder of Volume 10: Hostage Child; all of Volume 11: Talisman of Hades; and all of Volume 12: Shattered Stones).

5 wild dogs out of 5

Mrs Fry's Diary (2010)

Author: Mrs Stephen Fry  | Page Count: 346

‘We told the kids a homicidal clown lives in their wardrobe today.  It wasn't an April Fool, we just thought they should know.’

Mrs Fry’s Diary is a diary by Mrs Fry, the fictional wife of the recipient of the reincarnated wit of Oscar Wilde, Stephen Fry.  Edna, as she’s also known, is oblivious to her husband's career as a television and radio personality.  She believes him to be an occasional window cleaner, taxi driver, avid collector of Razzle magazine and part-time father to her six kids.  (Or is it seven?  She’s not entirely sure.)  Her struggles and flashes of insight are recorded on a daily basis, and when read chronologically they become a kind of story.

I've read a small number of books written in a diary format, and out of curiosity have even used it myself on one occasion, but I'm definitely not a fan of it.  It's difficult to engage with the start / stop nature of the narrative.  It’s like reading twitter.  Apparently Mrs Fry is a popular tweeter.  That was news to me.  Unlike Stephen, I have nothing nice to say about Twitter at all but it doesn't look like it’s going to go away any time soon, more's the pity.

Anyhow, back to the book.  There are dozens of subtle references to Stephen’s career both past and present buried in the wordplay that long-time fans will get extra chuckles from, knowledge of which isn't a prerequisite but will definitely make a reading more enjoyable.  It’ll also help if you’re able to spot references to other famous literary works, and know what tinned Spam tastes like.

3 pitchers of Dorian Gray tea out of 5