More of wot I have read…

Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott

This was an unusual book that had an interesting premise, but I was not captured by the execution of it.

‘The town of Rotherweird stands alone – there are no guidebooks, despite the fascinating and diverse architectural styles cramming the narrow streets, the avant garde science and offbeat customs. Cast adrift from the rest of England by Elizabeth I, Rotherweird's independence is subject to one disturbing condition: nobody, but nobody, studies the town or its history.

For beneath the enchanting surface lurks a secret so dark that it must never be rediscovered, still less reused.

But secrets have a way of leaking out.

Two inquisitive outsiders have arrived: Jonah Oblong, to teach modern history at Rotherweird School (nothing local and nothing before 1800), and the sinister billionaire Sir Veronal Slickstone, who has somehow got permission to renovate the town's long-derelict Manor House.

Slickstone and Oblong, though driven by conflicting motives, both strive to connect past and present, until they and their allies are drawn into a race against time – and each other. The consequences will be lethal and apocalyptic.

Welcome to Rotherweird!’

Ballad of Halo Jones volume 1 - by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson

First in the trilogy of re-released 2000AD comic story about an unlikely heroine and her adventures through a far future dystopian universe. I great nostalgic read.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

I thoroughly enjoyed this book for its in-depth, touching tale of a world I knew nothing about. The epic story stretches across generations of the same family as they dragged through challenging experiences each trying to cope as best they can. It is quite an eye opener to read about the terrible treatment Koreans had under Japanese rule, and for how long.

‘Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan.

So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.’

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

This is an entertaining if somewhat silly romp through a near future of collapse in society and advances in technical/bioengineering/genetics has stratified the haves and have-nots. Essentially it is a story about rights (rights if individual verses corporations, robots verses humans, and individual freedoms).  

‘Autonomous features a rakish female pharmaceutical pirate named Jack who traverses the world in her own submarine. A notorious anti-patent scientist who has styled herself as a Robin Hood heroine fighting to bring cheap drugs to the poor, Jack’s latest drug is leaving a trail of lethal overdoses across what used to be North America—a drug that compels people to become addicted to their work.

On Jack’s trail are an unlikely pair: an emotionally shut-down military agent and his partner, Paladin, a young military robot, who fall in love against all expectations. Autonomous alternates between the activities of Jack and her co-conspirators, and Elias and Paladin, as they all race to stop a bizarre drug epidemic that is tearing apart lives, causing trains to crash, and flooding New York City.’

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arunshati Roy

Another novel about a world I didn’t know anything about – India and its many fractured and conflicting peoples. An often rambling (occasionally seemingly randomly so) collection of connected (often unlikely so) tales of various individuals who through them we see a part of the mindbogglingly (self) destructive environment that pervades this continent. A fascinating read.

‘By slowly becoming everything.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness takes us on a journey of many years – the story spooling outwards from the cramped neighbourhoods of Old Delhi into the burgeoning new metropolis and beyond, to the Valley of Kashmir and the forests of Central India, where war is peace and peace is war, and where, from time to time, ‘normalcy’ is declared.

Anjum, who used to be Aftab, unrolls a threadbare carpet in a city graveyard that she calls home. A baby appears quite suddenly on a pavement, a little after midnight, in a crib of litter. The enigmatic S. Tilottama is as much of a presence as she is an absence in the lives of the three men who love her.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is at once an aching love story and a decisive remonstration. It is told in a whisper, in a shout, through tears and sometimes with a laugh. Its heroes are people who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued, mended by love – and by hope. For this reason, they are as steely as they are fragile, and they never surrender. This ravishing, magnificent book reinvents what a novel can do and can be. And it demonstrates on every page the miracle of Arundhati Roy’s storytelling gifts.’