What I've Been Reading Recently

It's been some time since we last had one of these, so rather than a mega list here's a more manageable chunk: the books I got through in January.

Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession
The Transparency of Evil by Jean Baudrillard
The Gulf War Did Not Take Place by Jean Baudrillard
The Illusion of the End by Jean Baudrillard
Cold Allies by Patricia Anthony
The Food of the Gods by HG Wells
Baudrillard Live edited by Mike Gane
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
Clash by Night by Henry Kuttner and CL Moore
The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis
Baudrillard's Challenge by Victoria Grace
The Forge of God by Greg Bear

Once again, Baudrillard is gently simmering on the back burner, so no commentary about these works here. But I will say the book by Victoria Grace is by far the best one-volume treatment our hyperreal hero has received. At least among the not inconsiderable secondary literature I've read. Her target are the feminist debates around subjectivity that dominated proceedings in the 1990s, and makes a cogent and compelling case that Baudrillard offers a way out of the impasse it butted up against. Yes, really. Baudrillard, by way of Haraway, opened a path to a materialist feminism of the 21st century - one that could grasp the specificities and new patterns of power in the postmodern era. Published in the futuristic year of 2000, it's now a very old book, but its relevance lies not only in the feminist case for Baudrillard, and the fact much contemporary feminism did take the Harawayan road. The possibility of a fruitful engagement remains.

As mainstream novels went in January, it's a real case of chalk and cheese. Leonard and Hungry Paul was the sort of book that made me want to hulk out and rip in half. A twee story of friendship between two socially awkward, and implicitly autistic men, it inspired nothing but hostility in me. It would have been a DNF were it not a book group read so I endured ... and then couldn't go because of illness anyway. I don't mind plodding and inconsequential as long as it's done well, but this was an irritant. The very opposite of calming. And now it's been filmed as a TV series. I won't be watching. What a welcome difference Young Mungo made. About the titular Mungo, this is a coming-of-age story about a young, gay working-class Glaswegian. The ever present backdrop is alcoholism, child neglect, violence, abuse, and sectarianism. Life is brutal, and it's as far from a cosy read you can get. Yet it's a novel full of love as well. A shocker it never made the Booker short list.

Up there this month with Young Mungo is The Man Who Fell to Earth, a stunning work of loneliness and despair. What a cheery read! Thomas Newton is on a mission from Mars, and that's to save his people! He uses their advanced technology to make millions so he can build a fleet of ships and ferry what's left of his civilisation to Earth. But nothing is ever straightforward. The preceding sentence does not do this book justice. It's one of the greatest SF novels I've read, and sure to be on the year-end list. A good way for the mainstream literary reader to sample science fiction without the tropy stuff getting in the way. Also very good, but this time super-tropy was Chasm City, a slab of a book typical of British new space opera, but one that is extremely polished and compelling. Chasm City is an exciting mix of generation ship, spy, and hard-boiled SF noir. A recommend if you like that sort of thing.

And the rest, sadly, was quite average. Bear's The Forge of God was over long, and half-way through I couldn't wait to see the Earth destroyed. Clash by Night by golden age power couple, Kuttner and Moore was high seas hi-jinks on Venus. It had a certain sharpness and quality, but by the same token it didn't grab me. Mercifully, it was short. I was expecting good things from The Food of the Gods, Wells's tale of oversized plants, animals, and (eventually) humans, and how Edwardian society dealt with them. Not a patch on his better known stuff. And lastly was Patricia Anthony's future war novel, Cold Allies. Europe is fending of invading Arab armies, driven north by run away climate change. And as the former teeters on the brink of defeat, a set of mysterious aliens show up. Friend? Foe? Sadly, you'll be indifferent to the answer by about a third of the way through.

What have you been reading recently?