Books

Since my movies are all Christmas movies, I’m saving them for a Christmas viewing post, so … A TALE OF TIME CITY was Diana Wynne Jones first SF novel (for various reasons, I wonder if it isn’t a Doctor Who riff) wherein a young Brit girl sent out to the country during the Blitz is kidnapped by a couple of kids mistakenly convinced she’s the one person who can save Time City from a temporal collapse. Unusual for being at least partly set in real history (Jones has admitted she can’t get into the minds of people outside her own time—but as she lived through the Blitz, I guess this would be an exception) and a protagonist who doesn’t really have any of the personal or family issues so many DWJ lead characters do. In any case, works much better than when I first read it.
Having read several of Amanda Hemingway’s recent works, thought I’d explore her first—PZYCHE is a young woman growing up in near total isolation on the fringe of the universe, only to have her world shaken by the arrival of the sister she never knew, a strike force hunting the Ultimate McGuffin and handful of nominal good guys trying to stop them. Nicely written, but not quite strong enough—for one thing, Pzyche’s one of those heroines whose job is solely to inspire the men to do everything.
GHOSTS AND GHASTLY THINGS is a Ramsey Campbell collection that shows, as he notes in the intro, that he doesn’t want to repeat himself—thus along with straight terror we get quirky black comedy (“McGonnigall in the Head”), social drama (“Where they Lived”) bizarre mind-games (“A Street Was Chosen”) and the acid-trippish “Through the Walls.” Not entirely successful as a result, though the best ones (“A Street was Chosen” and the creepy “Welcomeland”) are certainly fine
100 BULLETS: Hang up on the Hang Low has Agent Graves’ pick a black teen for his latest project, giving him the chance to murder his estranged father (and a former Minute Man) with one of the untraceable guns. Instead, the kid winds up bonding with the father, then taking drastic action when Dad winds up dead. Stock in many ways, but still pretty absorbing.
GREASE MONKEY by Tim Eldred is an excellent graphic novel set in a future where genetically accelerated gorillas work alongside humanity in the space program; the protagonist is a teenage geek and mechanic who winds up getting mentored by a gruff gorilla technican. Quite charming—I hope we get a sequel some day.