Once again, and so on and so on, it's time to a reading roundup. On this occasion, we have three disparate, all of which are, however, intended to lighten the mood.
'The Columbo Collection' (2010) by William Link
This is a very unpredictable set of twelve stories from the surviving half of the duo that created the legendary detective Columbo. Some of the stories feel very genuine and authentic to the best of the series, and some of them authentic to the less interesting parts of the revival. It is very nice to get that Columbo paradigm in written stories, though; to get at the detective story from the murderer's point of view has always been refreshing. And it is still Columbo, because the culprit is always rich or a celebrity, and normally hoist on their own petard. In a nice twist, one of the stories involves a policeman as the culprit, who actually takes Columbo to task over his methods, and criticises 'the duel' in which our dogged sleuth customarily engages. I thought that I was going to be far more critical, but actually it's a pretty good set of stories. There aren't any particularly neat 'gotcha' moments, but it is good and solid, especially if you like 'Columbo' in general. It was one of the all time classic detective series, after all.
'Pyramids' (1989) by Terry Pratchett
'Pyramids' is one of the best Discworld books, which is natural as it's only the eighth one that he published. There's a sense of vast potential lurking around in the freshness of 'Pyramids', which has so many jokes and so many great ideas that it really should be a great novel. As with Wodehouse, however, there's a slightness that limits it to merely being an excellent comedic novel. 'Pyramids' is one of the most original of the series, features almost no overlap with any other entry, and has camels with lots of mathematics jokes. No, not serious mathematics, so don't be scared, people of the Internet, nor alarmed. The sheer scale of the lampooning of Egyptian epics is incredible, as is the expansion of the methodology of the Assassins' Guild of Ankh-Morpock. A special note should be made here for the opposing lines of Trojan Horses in the extremely brief Ephebean/Tsortean conflict, which is utter genius and completely brilliant. How stupid can opposing forces be? Exactly this stupid.
'The Kobayashi Maru' (1989) by Julia Ecklar
One of the favourites of the 'Star Trek' novels, which takes its initial cue from the Kobayashi Maru incident seen in 'Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan', and then runs with it magnificently. This is really a set of five short stories, one of which is both a framing device for the four anecdotes told and a pretty compelling narrative in itself. For background, the Kobayashi Maru was a ship inside a command school simulation, a simulation which was impossible to win and therefore constituted a vital test of character for potential future captains. Kirk, of course, cheated and reprogrammed the scenario on his third attempt, which is the first of the four anecdotes told while he and a shuttle party are trapped in a crippled craft, deep in an extremely dangerous part of space. As they go about the business of survival and trying out schemes for attracting rescue, Kirk, Chekov, a badly wounded Sulu, and even Scotty relate the events surrounding their own performances in the legendary test to an incredulous doctor McCoy. They're all different, and reveal interesting backgrounds on the three supporting characters. Julia Ecklar was one half of the writing team known as LA Graf, who paid a lot of attention to developing Chekov, Sulu and Uhura. Chekov, in particular, became a very different character in their novels, entirely disconnected to how odd he was in the show and films. Very good, and it's nice to have even more reason to be impressed by Scotty. He's a legend for more than one reason, after all. In later years, the box ticking of the Star Trek novels became a severe problem, but here it's charming and feels organic.
O.
No comments:
Post a Comment