The Reading List for August 2024

 

In spite of being driven off course by a couple of books I couldn't finish, I still managed to read eight books this month. I had attempted to read books 3 & 4 in Octavia Butler's Patternists series but I found the two books unreadable. I wouldn't attempt book #5.

I've written blog posts on six of the eight I did read

 The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
The Little Sparrow Murders by Seishi Yokomizo
A Question of Belief  by Donna Leon
The Silkworm  by Robert Galbraith (J.K.Rowling)
Rogue Male  by Geoffrey Household
Patternmaster  by Octavia Butler.

Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler made the list - but no blog post

To get back on track, I finished the month with another by Donna Leon - Drawing Conclusions. Leon is my "go to" when I really need a good book.

Octavia Butler's Patternist Series

 

When originally published in the late 1970s/early '80s, Octavia Butler's Patternest series consisted of five volumes:
1) Patternmaster (1976)
2) Mind of My Mind (1977)
3) Survivor (1978)
4) Wild Seed (1980)
and - 5) Clay's Ark (1984)

Having read the first two, I was faced with a dilemma. Butler would go on to disavow Survivor - calling it her worst novel and referring to it as "my Star Trek novel". She would not permit reprints of the novel. It is not available in any omnibus collection of the series.

Although out of print, Survivor is found in ebook format - Everything lives on in the Internet. My dilemma was, should I follow Butler's wishes and skip over book 3, or should I read Survivor in the order it was originally intended in 1978?

I began reading the book.

I immediately realized my decision was a mistake. The book most definitely does not belong. I could not get beyond the 25% mark.

I'm setting it aside and will continue on with Wild Seed.

Pattermaster by Olivia E. Butler

I first discovered Octavia Butler in 2022 when I read two of her remarkable stand -alone novels, a time travel novel, Kindred and her final novel, a so-called sci-fi vampire novel, Fledgling. I had written at the time that I had downloaded everything published by Butler and would read the collection "in the not too distant future". That was two years ago, and well things tend to get away from one. I've only just now finished Butler's first book, Patternmaster. Not only was this Butler's first novel, it was also the first in her Patternist series.

This first book depicts a distant future where the human race has been sharply divided into the dominant Patternists, their enemies the "diseased" and animalistic Clayarks, and the enslaved human mutes.

The Patternists, bred for intelligence and psychic abilities, are networked telepaths. They are ruled by the most powerful telepath, known as the Patternmaster. Although the first book to be published, Patternmaster is the last in the series' internal chronology. It is an amazing "debut novel" though, of course not flawless, by any means.

Never the less, I'm looking forward to completing the series.

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog post on a book I had just finished reading - The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. I wrote at the time that the book had shown potential, but unfortunately I didn't think the writer was quite up to the challenge.Reading other reviews of the book, I see that my opinion of the book is in the minority.

One thing did catch my notice. One of the men who had been brought into the future and been given a book to read, which, it was mentioned, he read several times - Rogue Male. I had never heard of such a book prior to this and I wasn't completely certain it was a real book. I did a search of the Internet and learned it was indeed real.

Rogue Male was written by British writer Geoffrey Household and published in 1939. In the book, an unnamed British big game hunter travels to an unnamed European country to assassinate an unnamed dictator. The would be assassin is captured by the dictator's secret police and beaten within an inch of his life. The secret police decide that, rather than provoke a war with Britain, they would throw the body over a cliff in order to have it appear that the sportsman died in an accident. Miraculously, he survives and manages to return to England.

The sportsman learns that agents of the foreign government have tracked him to England. He cannot involve the British government, which can't condone the assassination of a foreign leader.

He kills one of the foreign agents in self defense and soon discovers that not only is he being hunted by the foreign agents, he's being hunted by the police as well.

Of course, I don't provide spoilers, but this book is a top notch thriller. I highly recommend Rogue Male.

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (J.K.Rowling)

I've managed to finish reading the 2nd novel in J.K.Rowling's (written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) Cormoran Strike series The Silkworm. There were times when I wasn't at all certain I would finish this book - to say nothing of finishing all seven books in the series.

I understand that in this day and time, writers of crime/mystery novels feel the need to write in a more graphic manner. However, the amount of violence and bizarre sexual activities in The Silkworm was a bit much for me. That's not to say that the sex and violence was gratuitous....it was a necessary element to the story, but these were elements I thought were a bit over the top. It remains to be seen if I'll return to the series.

A Question of Belief by Donna Leon

As I write this post,Donna Leon has published 33 books in her Commissario Guido Brunetti series. I've just finished reading #19 in the series - A Question of Belief. Leon published the first novel in the series, Death at La Fenice in 1992 at the age of 50. Leon will turn 82 in September (2024) and by publishing #33 - A Refiner's Fire earlier this year, Leon is maintaining a pace that many younger writers would envy.

Like many of her novels, A Question of Belief contains within it more than one story line. One of the two main stories in this book revolves around a charlatan who takes advantage of susceptible individuals with claims of knowledge of astrology, palm reading and other bits of occult "wisdom". The other story deals with the murder of a court clerk. Wikipedia describes the book this way:

Brunetti learns of a curious pattern at the courthouse: cases involving a certain judge and usher are repeatedly postponed in a way that benefits a certain lawyer. What's more, the usher is leasing an apartment from the lawyer at an extremely low rent — until he is murdered.

I'm not inclined to give spoilers; like in a good many of Leon's novels, this novel ends with us knowing the outcome, but that outcome isn't resolved in a matter normally found in traditional crime fiction. It leaves one with the feeling that justice isn't necessarily served well in the Italian legal system.

The Little Sparrow Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

 

Although Seishi Yokomizo had written more that 75 mystery novels and was famous in his native Japan for creating the fictional detective Kosuke Kindaichi, he is not as well known in the English speaking world. Only six of his mystery novels have been translated into English: The Honjin Murders,The Inugami Curse,The Village of Eight Graves, Death on Gokumon Island,The Devil's Flute Murders and the one I've just finished reading, The Little Sparrow Murders.

The mystery in The Little Sparrow Murders revolves around a Japanese folk tune - a children's tune - a Temari song - wherein the Little Sparrows are three young girls, murdered in line with the words of the song.

Like all the novels by Yokomizo, this one, written in 1957, is a top notch mystery. I was kept guessing until the very end.

Sadly, Seishi Yokomizo's novels aren't translated into English fast enough to suit me....a new one comes out about once a year. I haven't read when the next one is due to be released, but I suspect it will be in 2025.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Anyone familiar with this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of books dealing with time travel. Over the past few years I've written more than two dozen blog posts covering the subject with the actual number of time travel books read totaling more than that.

It was only natural that upon learning of The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley I'd download the book and put it into the queue.

I've mixed thoughts on the novel. Overall, the book has great potential, but I'm sorry to say that Ms. Bradley doesn't live up to the challenge.

Sadly, the book seems uneven. At certain points, the book hits home only to turn unexpectedly bland.

To make things worse, the book suffers from a bit of "wokeness". The folks from the past tend to be very often "politically incorrect" which doesn't sit well with the folks in the present. With the writer being a millennial, the wokeness isn't surprising.

In an online interview, the author describes the novel as a time travel/romance. I didn't particularly care for the romance.

The book isn't a total flop, but I don't really recommend it.