As ever, seduced by a spine, I swooped on The Bees while passing its shelf in the bookshop, solely because of the gorgeous yellow cover. Imagine my delight when I find that this was shortlisted for the Women's Prize, and is a science fictional fantasy novel about a beehive. What could go wrong? And really, … Continue reading Laline Paull, The Bees
Sibyl Sue Blue is a sergeant in the police, a mother and a widow. (Or is she?) When she cruises bars in disguise to picks up the information she needs, she manages to look decades younger than she really is with wigs and makeup (and by choosing rather dim men). She adroitly refuses advances from … Continue reading Sibyl Sue Blue
The blurb on the back on the Panther edition promises titillation in rather 1970s Observer fashion: 'Perhaps you'd better find out what those fairies are up to at the bottom of your garden ...', assuming (a) that you have a garden, and (b) supervision of it is something you will be held to account for. … Continue reading Maureen Duffy, The Erotic World of Faery
In the seventeenth century, in the French countryside, an automaton called Rupetta is created. She has a psychic connection with her Wynder, the woman of the family who created her, who reaches into her chest to touch the mechanics of her silver and leather heart, and for whom she feels a great and powerful love. … Continue reading N K Sulway, Rupetta
Ann Leckie’s new novel, following the triumphant success of her multiple award-winning novels Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, is Provenance, and it is not at the same level. Her invention and world-building are still top quality, but the plot of Provenance sags, and the characters feel like marionettes, moving without feeling. Yet I read to … Continue reading Ann Leckie’s Provenance
Ursula Le Guin has died, and I’m currently living in a different country to all my copies of her books. So I had recourse to my reading diaries to find out what I’d read of her work in the past ten years. Lavinia (2008) This is the only one of Le Guin’s historical fantasy … Continue reading Reading some Ursula Le Guin
So many famous writers in this issue from 1949! Laurie Lee, Frank O’Connor, Anna Kavan, Patrick Leigh-Fermor and Jacquetta Hawkes! Had John Lehmann’s ship come in? Frank O’Connor’s ‘The Landlady’ is one of the most readable stories Lehmann published in Penguin New Writing, and it’s not gloomy, or cruel to women, or about tight-lipped privilege. … Continue reading Penguin New Writing 37: The embrace of the weird
