Martin, Gould, and Austen (sort of)

Fevre Dream by George R R Martin was an interesting read, not least because I wanted to try something of his that wasn’t A Song of Ice and Fire. The writing is richly descriptive, but in a way that always gives important information about the things being described. So, it’s very easy to visualise everything, but the narrative isn’t bogged down with unnecessary detail. There’s a lot of intrigue because it’s clear from early on what’s going on, but not what’s going to happen, and the set-up is such that it could go in quite a few directions. Martin plays very cleverly with reader expectations in taking a familiar subject but then twisting it in unexpected ways. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and going on the journey of discovery and attitudinal change with Abner Marsh, who makes for a good companion along the way. The book isn’t exactly jolly to begin with, but it definitely takes a turn for the unpleasant about half way through. The plot got less interesting as the grimness increased, but I was fully invested in Marsh’s fate by then, and did still want to know how things would turn out. The climax was a bit weird because it involved a large section of ‘telling’, where another character updated Marsh on a whole load of things that had happened off-page over a number of years, and the ending after that was quite abrupt. But overall I enjoyed it, and I was impressed by Martin’s narrative skill in how the story unfolded over the course of the book.

Reflex by Steven Gould is the sequel to Jumper, and available in audiobook format, so I listened to it this month. The narrator was good, and stopped me skimming the way I had with the text version of the first book. I really liked the way Millie got equal time as the POV character along with Davy, as she is an excellent character and it was great to get her side of things. I like how proactive she is, but that she’s also allowed to be emotionally vulnerable in difficult situations. The story is good and the characters are well-drawn, and I particularly liked the exploration into how the teleportation works. But there’s not really enough plot to fill a whole novel. Basically, Davy gets kidnapped and Millie looks for him while trying to avoid capture herself - and that’s it. The sections detailing Davy’s captivity are very repetitive and quite tedious in places, so I was always much more interested when the story got back to what Millie was doing. There was some pretty clever stuff in the climax and resolution, though, and it looked at a lot of interesting ideas, so I’m going to persevere with the series for the time being.

This month, I also read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, adapted from the original Austen by Seth Grahame-Smith. Or, at least, I tried to. At the start, I thought the inclusion of all the zombie stuff was absolute genius. It was woven into the original story very skilfully, with the minutiae of life after the zombie apocalypse detailed in the same way as the characters’ more mundane activities. However, other changes were made that I didn’t really understand, and that I found very off-putting. I can go along with the increased propensity for violence in the characters, as it makes sense in the circumstances, but the strict adherence to manners was also compromised and I didn’t see why. It was jarring for the characters to speak in a way so out of keeping with the society of the time, and it also diminished the impact of the contrast between dealing with polite society and dealing with zombies. When Darcy starting making inappropriate comments about balls, I couldn’t take it, and had to give up. Which was a shame, because there was a lot to like in the adaptation otherwise.