I just about read three books in November, but one of them was an absolute stonker. It took me a month to read it, with short breaks to read the other two books. Neal Stephenson’s ‘Fall, or Dodge in Hell’ is a big book, with big themes. It felt, as I made my way through it, like several books, many stories. An anthology, a bible maybe? It’s a sequel to Reamde, which I didn’t realise until I was a good quarter of the book in. I would probably have re-read Reamde if I’d known, because it’s been a while. So, what happens when a famous and wealthy game designer, along with his game designer friends, die, have their brains scanned, and have those scans uploaded to a quantum computer?
Drawing on the mythology of many civilisations, Fall tells the story of the evolution of a world. Fans of Stephenson’s earlier work will be interested to know that Enoch Root drops in from time to time.
Like most of Stephenson’s longer books, this story takes its time, with lots and lots of exposition. At times it feels like that first episode of Star Trek DS9, with all that ‘What is Love’ stuff going on, but it does pick up. If you like Neal Stephenson’s books, you’ll probably enjoy this. I did. If you don’t like long books where nothing much happens for several chapters, this isn’t for you.
I also read and very much enjoyed ‘Ludluda’ by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard, which is reviewed separately.
My third book of November was Alix E Harrow’s ‘The Starling House’ I’ve read a short story and two novels by this author, and have been waiting for the paperback of Starling House for a long time now. And then, because I’m me, I left it on the table until I deserved it.
At some point the week before last, I decided that I did. I decided that I definitely deserved it, and would take it out with me to read whilst I tried to raise funds for a cat charity at a craft fair, and to sell my own books too, on the next stall. It was a cold room, and there were interesting people to listen to, and I didn’t get quite as far as I wanted to with the book, but I did annoy some of my neighbouring stallholders when I laughed out loud, and read a short passage to them. They didn’t ask for any of that, did they?
I was captured by the book, as I have been by every other thing I’ve read by Alix Harrow, but then something went wrong. I lost my way. I got bogged down, the mist hid the story, the river dragged me down, and I got distracted.
Of course, I’ve been busy editing my own fourth novel, so it would take a LOT to keep me interested at this point, but still, I found myself too tired at bedtime to manage a chapter or two.
And today, with my own novel almost finished, I gave myself the gift of GETTING THINGS DONE. I sewed up the zip on those jeans. I ironed a lot of things. I listened to some music. I hunted out those toddler shoes that I’d promised to clean up and donate, and I put them in the wash. I went shopping for food. And once those things were done, I could read, for fun and for love, because once I was out of the mist and the mire, I could relax and enjoy this gorgeous story about a house and a girl and a boy.
Shall I tell you about it? Because, you know, spoilers? No, I’ll just say that it’s about the best kind of American Gothic, the best kind of haunting house, the best kind of weird book that defines your life, and the best kind of boy and girl fighting and fainting and telling each other to GO AWAY. I loved it.