Books read in May / June / July / August

[gervase_fen]

13) Bleeding Heart Square, by Andrew Taylor
14) The Reader is Warned, by Carter Dickson
15) Doctor Who : Shada, by Gareth Roberts
16) Moonlight Mile, by Dennis Lehane
17) Redshirts, by John Scalzi
18) The Past Through Tomorrow, by Robert Heinlein
19) Expanded Universe, by Robert Heinlein

Reactivating the reading log... Andrew Taylor's 1930s set crime novel is crying out for the BBC to adapt it in three or four episodes - perhaps they could also improve the ending that comes out of the blue somewhat. I liked it a lot (it could almost be a prequel to Jo Walton's Small Change trilogy). The intrigues in a shabby genteel lodging house, the psychogeography of the locale, the Blackshirts on the march... it's all very involving, and then it ends perfunctorily.

John Dickson Carr's puzzler is light entertainment, and only the dodgy racial profiling key to solving the case would prevent David Renwick reworking it wholesale for Jonathan Creek.

Twenty or thirty years ago a novelisation of Shada would have been unmissable for me. But, as Gareth Roberts points out, Douglas Adams was perfectly happy for his lost Doctor Who story to remain lost; the noveliser has done his best but I agree with the original scriptwriter in this instance.

Dennis Lehane's return to his series regulars Kenzie and Gennaro after a decade - with a sequel to Gone Baby Gone - is a misfire, a reunion episode of a favourite TV show where everyone's a little bit too old to recapture their previous magic. Disappointing.

Redshirts narrative voice has a faux simplicity which I think is meant to make the reader feel even more sympathy for the metafictional plight of the characters, but just seemed glib to me.  The 'three codas' at the end change this voice but don't change my experience of the book - Galaxy Quest did this story perfectly well as a comedy in a different medium over ten years ago, so why rework it now?

Finally, lots of wonderfully readable pulp SF from the 40s and 50s ; "The Menace from Earth", "Solution Unsatisfactory" and "The Roads Must Roll" were my favourites.

Comments

[davidbrider.livejournal.com]

I've found what I've heard of Shada (the Lalla Ward audiobook, although I've got the hardback as well) pleasantly enjoyable, particularly in the way Roberts weaves lots of miscellaneous Doctor Who continuity from over the decades into Adams' original story. But yes, it's pleasant but non-essential, really. Mind you, Adams may have said he was happy for it to be lost, but he was also quite happy to revive whole chunks of it for the first Dirk Gently novel... :-)

I may have to check out some of John Dickson Carr's novels - I'm quite a fan of Jonathan Creek, and am intrigued by the whole notion of the locked room mystery...

[gervase-fen.livejournal.com]

I haven't read much John Dickson Carr myself - The Reader is Warned was picked up for £2 in its green Penguin crime livery in Alton's amazing second hand bookshop at the top of Normandy Street.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the Roberts Shada a great deal, though it's as much a commentary on the experience of growing up with Doctor Who at the end of the 1970s and the gap between then and contemporary Who as it is a novelisation.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I think Jo Walton has recommended Andrew Taylor as worth reading over on the Tor.com blog, and I am usually willing to try anything she recommends unless the review makes it clear it isn't my kind of thing, but I didn't think he was in print so I haven't got my hands on any of his books yet.