I found Robin Hawdon’s novel A Rustle in the Grass quite serendipitously at a second-hand bookstore, and was immediately intrigued by the idea of a serious novel set in an ant colony.
The book is fast-paced and reads easily, but still presents a remarkably deep and interesting story with excellent analogies relating to our own society and lives.
This was an unexpected gem of a novel, and one I thoroughly enjoyed (I read it almost continuously in a single day).
Having thoroughly enjoyed The Gathering Storm, the previous installment in the Wheel of Time and the first to be published after Robert Jordan’s passing (having been co-written by Brian Sanderson), I was extremely excited to get my hands on Towers of Midnight, the latest and penultimate book in this truly epic series.
This novel more than lived up to my expectations. It is perhaps the most exciting and fast-paced fantasy novel I’ve read in a long time, and I flew through its more than 800 pages in just a few days. The scope of the series (this is book 13) is truly brought home, and as all the various plot lines are brought back together, it becomes clear that this is not the story of just a few characters, but of the end of an age. The story of an entire world.
This is a breathtaking masterpiece, and I cannot wait to finally read the last book (although it is only scheduled for publication in 2012, so I will have to…)
I have read and thoroughly enjoyed a number of China Miéville’s previous novels, so it was with some excitement that I got hold of his latest book, The City & The City.
In this, as in his other works, Miéville’s greatest strength lies in his ability to create a fantastical setting that is absolutely real, functioning and solid. The City & The City is a murder mystery set in a pair of cities that, somehow, share a physical location, overlapping in some streets while being totally distinct in others. It is a gritty, modern fantasy tale that investigates a fascinating world.
An excellent read: well-written, intelligent and thought-provoking.
I was pleasantly surprised by Naomi Novik’s Empire of Ivory. It is the fourth installment in her Temeraire series (as I discovered some way into the book), which presents an alternate world history, around the time of Napolean, in which there are a plethora of dragons existing in the world and forming part of society and, notably, the military.
This novel sees the characters spend time in the fledgling Cape Colony, as well as a few regions further into Africa. I was impressed with Novik’s research, as she presented Africa of the early nineteenth century quite convincingly. Given my recent interest in South African history, this greatly increased my enjoyment of the novel.
As for her writing, it is decidedly average. Novik’s prose is easily read, but contributes little to the overall experience and leaves it to the plot to carry the reader along. That said, the book is well thought out, and the plot believable enough to enable this.
A Thousand Words 