I managed to finish a book last night and another this morning, something that always makes me feel good. I am still reading 'The Old Bailey' (upstairs) but I started 'City of Night' by John Rechy to be my downstairs book. What I have read so far is very well written but I am looking forward to getting to the bits that caused all the outrage and uproar when it was first published!

The book I finished last night was called 'The Fall of Tartarus' by Eric Brown. It was a Sci-Fi I picked up on impulse at a library booksale at the beginning of the month for the princely sum of 20p. It is set on the planet of Tartarus; a strange place under the control of a backwards and unpleasant church, where the population mingle with genetically engineered lifeforms and ancient alien beings under a sun which is gearing up for a supernova which will destroy the planet. Brown has put together eight stories from the planet, beginning with 50 years before the supernova and ending with the catastrophe itself. None of the stories are interlinked so I found it quite difficult to follow what was going on at first, especially as the first few stories seemed to promise more detail and further revelations. I quite enjoyed the stories when I was reading them but I dont think I could tell you what happened in more than 2 or 3 and I only finished the book last night. Brown misses his chance to tell the stories from the point of view of the planets more interesting inhabitants, the Blackmen, the Messengers, monks of the Church of Ultimate Sacrifice or the Slarque, instead focusing on the human characters. I would have loved to have known more about these characters, to fill in the gaps in Brown's storytelling. Ultimately I felt that the planet was merely a cardboard background against which the simplest of themes were played out e.g. son searching for father, old man returning to childhood haunts, lost love (at least three of the stories took this theme). The alienness of the planet seemed somewhat separate, intriguing but not unique or particularly compelling. I wont be keeping this one and will list it on Bookmooch once I have finished this post.

The other book I finished was the Simon Garfield collection of post-second-world-war Mass Observation diaries. This was so fascinating and I really enjoyed it but it is not something that you can skim at all! With usually three short entries on each page, generally from different people I kept losing track of who was writing and saying what, what year it was and what else was happening at the same time. I also didnt really like any of the five diarists personally, so I had no connection to what was being written and no impetus to follow a particular story or empathise. I do recommend it though, super read (although not as good as Can any mother help me? which appealed more to me on a personal level)

Postman just came with two more parcels for me:

Wolf and Iron by Gordon. R. Dickson - Post-apocalyptic pulp. So excited to get this, love this stuff!

Firebird by Mercedes Lackey - Retelling of the Russian firebird myth. I quite enjoy Lackey's retellings of old fairy tales, the Black Swan was enjoyable slush that was easy to read and kept my attention.