Book #49 Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

Station Eleven

Station Eleven begins with the death, onstage, of the actor Arthur Leander during a performance of King Lear. He died of a heart attack, but pretty soon almost everyone who attended that performance is dead too. There has been an outbreak of "Georgia Flu" which has caused a catastrophic loss of life on a global scale.

The novel flashes forward to Year Twenty (post flu) and Kirsten, who was on stage in King Lear that night, and is now part of The Traveling Symphony, a band of actors and musicians who travel from one settlement to another entertaining survivors.

Station Eleven has seen a lot of high praise, of the 80+ reviews on Amazon UK, 50+ have given it 5 stars, and really, you can consider me baffled about this, really you can.

Potentially my apathy towards this book has something to do with the sheer number of books of this sort out there, I've read quite a lot of this type in the last few years, which if they don't have a flu virus at the centre, have zombies instead. There wasn't really a yawning gap in this market, at all.

It is reminiscent of both The Stand with its sinister religious aspect and Warm Bodies seeing as one large settlement lives in an airport. One of the most cringeworthy moments comes when a character directly references Justin Cronin's novel The Passage, which did the apocalypse so well, I thought. So, my point is it's derivative, and unoriginal. Yet a lot of the reviews say the opposite and rave about this "bleak new world" she paints.

But most of what I disliked about this book came down to the choices she made regarding her characters, and their generally implausibility both as people and in their story journeys.

A very large section of the novel focuses in on Arthur Leander, an egotistical, obnoxious smugster and the tale of how famed changed him so much he alienated his friends as he ran through various wives and so on.

But Arthur dies at the start of the book and so has no connection to what came after. This is to show the total shift from the old world to the new, I think, but it doesn't work and is forced  and so we get these swathes of information about his affair and his dinner party and his ugly divorces.
Yes, there could be a comparison between Arthur and King Lear, but it's a different story - the two don't gel, it's a separate novel melded into another.   

An extremely forced connection between the past narrative of Arthur and Year Twenty narrative of Kirsten is forged through her possession of the comic Station Eleven which was the brainchild of his first wife. Then several other characters from all areas of the globe, with some connection to Arthur who happen to all be alive for a start,  have all ended up in North America meeting each other along the way.  This feels like a failed attempt to give the book some level of emotional depth, but there's zero subtlety, all it provoked in me was a feeling of both annoyance and disbelief. You couldn't forget it was a story.

Arthur is the main problem here, I found that I thought that had the entire narrative belonged to Kirsten with a shaky recollection of some man who once gave her the treasured comic, it would have worked,  but such an emphasis upon the dead mans narrative made no sense. It also might have worked better if Arthur had lived - for a famous actor to have been forced to survive in a world where fame has lost all meaning.

The cherry on top of the ice cream that's already melted here is a character called Jayveen, who is the first character we meet. I say "character" but his entire existence is an exposition device and nothing else.

At one point he's a paramedic, another a paparazzi, then he's graduated to an entertainment journalist all at extremely convenient times for the current stage of the plot.        

His ONLY FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD is an ER doctor who luckily promised to call him if ever one of these virus scares TURNED OUT TO BE THE REAL THING.  And then....then he vanishes into a mist, reappearing to reveal he ended up setting out alone after  wasting a whole load of his time answering the question What Will Happen To Wheelchair Users In The Event Of An Apocalypse? Answer : They'll realise that they are a burden to the rest of society and politely do everyone a favour by committing suicide. We'll eventually meet him again briefly when he's completely settled somewhere with barely any connective journey in between.  

This book simply is not very good, where has all the praise come from? What on earth am I missing here? If you've read this and disagree, feel free to argue. But seriously, read The Stand, read Warm Bodies, read World War Z, read The Passage, watch Series 1 of Survivors. Don't read this.

4/10 

          

Book #58 The Rapture by Liz Jensen

The Rapture

Length Of Time In Possession : 1 year

The Rapture by Liz Jensen is the second of her novels I have read after the Ninth Life Of Louis Drax which I read two years ago and greatly enjoyed.

Set in a none too distant future, in The Rapture art therapist Gabrielle Fox is trying to have a fresh start following becoming paralysed in an accident. She takes a job at a psychiatric institution for disturbed children and patient Bethany Krall becomes her client. Bethany is already notorious, a child who murdered her own mother and Bethany also has visions, visions which she claims are of the coming rapture. 

The Rapture packs A LOT of themes into a short book : disability issues, including the sexual politics of disability, the horrific state of psychiatric care, particularly of children (I compared Bethany Krall and Louis Drax throughout) the climate change crisis & how much of that is man made, the events of the book made me consider fracking for example, and finally the rise of the religious right, probably more prevalent now in the USA than here, but having found a voice in the UK as per the parameters of this story.

I came to the Rapture from an interesting angle I suppose given that I am a wheelchair user. Though I cannot deny that some of Gabrielle's insecurities regarding her sexuality were very well drawn, I found myself irritated that as the scientists around her debated the end of the world she dwelt morosely upon whether she was still sexy, and took that out on innocent people she suspected of screwing her boyfriend. I felt like shaking her and saying "SO WHAT IF HE SHAGGED HER?! YOU'RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE YOU SILLY COW"

I suppose for one thing it did show honestly that even in big moments in life people do still focus upon their personal issues.

There was good characterisation, and I found it really easy to get into and keep reading, but it's fairly lightweight and a little bit silly, to be honest. It's not as good as Louis Drax but I would still definitely buy & read another Liz Jensen as she really does take on big, interesting ideas.

Verdict : 7/10

Destination : Charity Shop      

 

Book #24 The Stand by Stephen King

The Stand

Length Of Time In Possession Before Being Read : 2 years and 2 months

Upon reading The Stand, I had already read the following Stephen King books : Different Seasons, The Green Mile, Dolores Claiborne, and the first three (and a half) novels in The Dark Tower saga which I gave up on during Wizard and Glass. Generally speaking, I have been nonplussed by Stephen King's popularity over the years, but The Stand, because of its widely held reputation as the best of King's gargantuan output, has been on my "to read" list for some time.

In The Stand, a superflu decimates the US population, leaving a small percentage of people alive. These survivors begin to dream of two people : Mother Abigail, the eldest person left alive, a woman of strong religious conviction and Randall Flagg, a man "whose name is Legion" and is coincidentally also the destructive antagonist of The Dark Tower Saga. In a classic choice between good and evil, the survivors have to decide whether they will seek the path to Mother Abigail and her group in Colorado or follow Randall Flagg, joining his new society in Las Vegas.      


Since The Stand was first published in 1978, and re-released and re-set in 1990; (I had the 1990 version) post apocalyptic stories, which involve a virus of some kind decimating the population have become very popular. I've read several over the last few years.

Through the misfortune of reading a book which came first but proves similar to recent things, many areas of the plot feel samey, like tropes of what is expected from this kind of novel. Loss, confusion, banding together with fellow previously unknown survivors who become involved with each other, set backs on the journey, rebuilding a community. Yet this is unfair because King got there first, so others have imitated this, this and Day Of The Triffids. However, some writers have bettered this type of story, a particular example is Justin Cronin's The Passage.

For me, as is my general experience with King as a writer, I found the prose flat and felt no emotional connection to any of the imperiled characters which is a difficulty when it comes to enjoying a book. The Stand is 1,320 pages long which is a challenge for any reader, and it took me two weeks. But, it wasn't until page 700 that I engaged with the novel and started to get excited by what was happening.

In those first 700 pages there's a lot of inaction in terms of any kind of "Stand" between the two sides, just lots of council meetings and re-establishing law and order and government and utilities and stuff. Practical and honest, yet inactive: hardly a fight between good and evil. Flagg and Abigail for that they represent the polar opposites of morality are largely absent for massive chunks of the narrative.

In the second half things ramp up a bit, but the actual "Stand" between the parties ultimately amounts to a single showdown at which only a handful of the Colorado group are present. For all those pages it's a bit anticlimactical.

Though I generally dislike the tone he strikes with his prose, Stephen King does occasionally have his moments as a writer. I particularly liked these quotes :

"There is really nothing so comforting to the beaten of spirit or the broken of skull, than a good strong dose of 'Thy Will Be Done"

"God was a gamesman - If He had been a mortal, He would have been at home hunkering over a checkerboard on the porch of Pop Mann's general store back in Hemingford Home. He played red to black, white to black. She thought that for Him, the game was more than worth the candle, the game was the candle. He would prevail in His own good time. But not necessarily this year or in the next thousand....and she would not overestimate the dark man's craft or cozening. If he was neon gas, then she was the tiny dark dust particle a great raincloud forms about over the parched land. Only another private soldier - long past retirement age, it was true! - in the service of the Lord."    

However, controversially I don't concur this is his best book. Though I've only read seven (and a half) The Gunslinger, the first Dark Tower novel,  is a brilliant book, a true 10/10, only disappointment is that the novels which follow in no way live up to it. I will never read the entirety of the man's output, I don't like him enough, but I also have Under The Dome on To Be Read at the moment, but of those I have read The Gunslinger is the best one.

Verdict : 7/10

Destination : ebook storage

Book #13 All Fall Down by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards

All Fall Down

Length Of Time In Possession : Roughly 1 month

All Fall Down from the Voss/Edwards writing duo is the follow up to Catch Your Death and returns to the lives of the protagonists of that novel Kate Maddox and Paul Wilson. Kate, virologist and Watoto virus expert is called upon by the FBI when a strain of the virus breaks out on a Native American reservation. Partner Paul follows her to America and does some freelance investigating of his own still seeking explanations and retribution for the death of his twin Stephen.

The third novel from the Voss/Edwards team All Fall Down shows a positive strengthening of their partnership, faster, tauter, and an improvement in terms of their prose from Catch Your Death, the two writers have obviously become more comfortable with each other and the unusual demands of writing as a double act as a continuing professional development.

I was worried that Paul would feel somehow out of place or redundant but his storyline manages to maintain plausibility within an implausible circumstance.

I say this, because in summary of All Fall Down, it is a story in which a religious cult of lesbians attempt to provoke an apocalypse by means of biological terrorism. A snuff threesome occurs before page 150.

If this sounds silly, it's because it is, but it by no means harms the fun thriller purpose of the novel, in many ways this is the product for sale, a giddy race against time with a level of James Bond esque silliness expected from an action film. The moment when the girls break into the secret lab is particularly worthy of any Hollywood blockbuster in terms of the imagery you conjur up in your mind.

I have but one criticism : Jack. Imperiled Jack in this second novel is suffering from a case of Kim Bauer Syndrome, a reference which only 24 fans will truly understand, but reminded me of the second season in which Kim is needlessly hiding behind bins, being chased by coyotes and accidentally caught up in a shop robbery. The way in which Jack collides with characters first met by Paul is overly coincidental. Let Jack be happy at home with his LEGO next time.

I would recommend making sure you've read Catch Your Death first, and hey if you don't think a mad lesbian trying to wipe out civilization is the most original premise you've heard in some time, feel free to let me know of others you have heard of! 

I really liked their novel Killing Cupid and the forthcoming novel Forward Slash looks like it is  similarly formatted so I'm really looking forward to that.

Destination : Passed on to a friend

Book #5 The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham

The Day Of The Triffids

Length Of Time In Possession Before Being Read : 1 year

The Day Of The Triffids is a 1950's apocalypse novel by John Wyndham which one of my loyal blog readers told me was one on my list I should head for first.

In The Day Of The Triffids, biologist Bill Masen wakes in hospital to find that everyone who was awake and watching during an unusual comet shower has gone blind overnight. The few remaining sighted people begin to organise themselves as chaos descends on the city, trying to decide how humanity will survive with all its infrastructures wiped out. But only Bill Masen senses the danger posed by the Triffids, an unusual plant life which began to grow on the globe some years before.

In reading the Day Of The Triffids with its publication date in mind, what surprised me most is just how many other books, films and TV series about apocalyptic scenarios have heavily plagerised this novel. Most spectacularly in this case the remake of the BBC show Survivors.

Despite it being at 62 years of age a literary pensioner, there is zero trace of it having in any way dated, instead it's rather eerie and could just as easily be Modern Britain.   At first I wasn't sure I liked it, but as I went along I got really into the characters and the prose, and was a bit gutted when it ended to be honest and really wanted to read the"History Of The Colony" he refers to, even though it doesn't exist!

Verdict : A good one, worth reading 8/10

Destination : Ebook storage

 

Book #97 Dark, As Light Fails by P. A Britton

Dark As Light Fails

As I went to provide the link for Dark As Light Fails I realised why this book was perhaps more flawed than it should have been, not published by a publisher it is part of the growing army of free or low priced self published novels for Kindle, therefore it has not gone through many of the normal editing processes novels go through. I normally entirely avoid these books believing if a publisher or several have refused it, theres a reason for that. Simply put, I had no idea when I paid for it, the cover art looks professional so congratulations to whoever created that. This is not to say it is entirely without merit, I will however start at the very beginning and highlight the better aspects later.

Elliot is married with two children, he reminisces about lost love Immy and is quietly unhappy with his life. When he wakes up, his wife is dead and so are their two girls, somehow Elliot instantly knows that a killer virus has wiped people out, he makes this conclusion rather quickly and upon visiting a surviving friend has a weird emotionless casual conversation about the death of his kids as if he's discussing his fantasy football picks or something.

The very beginning of this book (published 2010) mirrors to almost a tee the very first episode of the recent Survivors (2008) series. Person wakes up next to dead spouse, can't find help, empty streets, steals car, guy alone on the road meets other survivors, helps out others, frantic visit to hospital only to discover a single frantic doctor left......later aspects also remind you of Walking Dead or Shaun Of The Dead because there are the dead, the survivors, and the half way in between who are crazed and attack the living......if there was a way of conveying an eyeroll in this blog entry I would do so.

Where the book differs (or perhaps doesn't if you think about it) from the TV series is that in the series main character Abby Grant's mission is to search for her son and hopefully discover him living. In Dark, As Light Fails Frank's mission is to find long lost love Immy (who has also miraculously survived) in what is probably the most laughably implausible story in the whole novel, with a denouement  purchased straight from Cloverfield.

I want to be kind to P A Britton though, and say whilst his novel is entirely derivative, borderline plagerism and his dialogue is as wooden as a pine table and chairs he shows genuine promise  in his descriptive prose and action sequences, and I would tell him to keep trying to make it as a writer. It wasn't dire and it was certainly highly readable despite its many faults.

4/10

Book #58 Then by Julie Myerson

Then

I've been trying to decide why there has been a recent glut of novels and films or TV shows which depict post apocalyptic scenarios. I wonder if it is because society, having left the Cold War era behind is not living with a significant reality of this kind of disaster and therefore can fearlessly explore it as a fiction, or  whether we do live in uncertain times, and novels such as these seek to exhibit and explore our fear.

It is true that the human race faces many potential threats to its survival: Will we experience alien invasion, and if we did would it be hostile? Will an unusual illness like SARS or H1N1 become an incurable global pandemic? Will a terrorist attack plunge a nation or the world into the Dark Ages?
And then of course, there's our old friend The Zombie Apocalypse, which I discussed in my review of Justin Cronin's The Passage.

In Julie Myerson's 'Then', the event which causes widespread chaos is not made clear, potentially it's an environmental disaster of the type shown in the 2004 film 'The Day After Tomorrow' and potentially it's a nuclear winter. What is known is that one day it got very hot in February, too hot, and too bright, and then things went dark and it began to snow.

Myerson's novel is unusual in that it doesn't really focus on the disaster or on multiple survivors, just really upon one female survivor whose name we don't learn until nearly the end of the book. She has sought refuge in an office block with a handful of others, but she cannot remember who she is, or why she's there. Though her companions tell her things, she forgets again, and exists in a confused fog, seeing things that aren't always there.

'Then' is a classic case of the use of an unreliable narrator; because she can't remember her own past and questions the reality of her current experience, we cannot trust her perspective. The narrative is muddled, but deliberately so, so that you realistically experience her personal sense of confusion, though this is frustrating at times. Even near the end I was unsure about whether certain characters were real or merely figments of a broken mind.

The plot takes us backwards beginning at her current location and revealing how she got there to start with, but whilst the end has good shock value and explains her current mental fragility I questioned its plausibility. Though good techniques are shown by Myerson, I felt that there was just so much more to an event like this than one woman's plight, though I suppose that in itself is the novels Unique Selling Point.

It's not hard to read and it is "a bit different" but I thought it was good not great 7/10