Basic Plot: It’s been quite a while since the first drop landed on the planet of Bontany. The humans, Deski, Rugarians and the sole Catteni alike were managing to live in relative peace, especially with the protective ‘bubble’ around the planet, placed there by the mysterious ‘farmers’. Then an idea is formed to help to free the Catteni from the subtle enslavement of the powerful Eosi…but to do so would mean a dangerous mission. One that the chance of survival for those involved is very, very slim.

Characters: With the characters in this book already being established in the previous two of the ‘Freedom’s’ series, the reader doesn’t really get to know much more than they did already. This isn’t to say that there’s stagnation, whereupon the reader ceases to care what happens to the characters. Like any real person, the challenges that are faced by the characters – and in particular the protagonist Kris – are able to show the reader different facets of their personalities. There were a few occasions where reactions seemed to be a little contrived to fit in with the story, but they’re easily forgiven.

Style: Fast paced but comprehensive, this book doesn’t make you have to re-read every second page in order to keep up with it, despite the speed at which the story progresses. In one or two places the action does seem to be almost paraphrased, as though the author was trying too quickly to get onto the next part. Despite this, the book flows well and certainly keeps a firm grasp of the reader’s attention, making it a book that’s difficult to put down.

Opinions: Another great novel by Ms. McCaffrey. The great thing about this particular instalment is the fact that although it’s certainly better to have read the previous two books of the series, it isn’t imperative that the reader does so. I also found it to be one of those books that you can keep and re-read. It certainly falls into the category of; ‘if you see it around, pick it up and give it a go’.

Audience: Teenagers +

How on earth this booklet (at 48 pages, it’s not even half as lengthy as a novella) got into hardcover print is absolutely beyond me. I wholly understand that scholarly writing can be both dry and verbose at times, but that would have been preferable to this piece of work. The style I encountered whilst struggling through this book was erratic. Different points were repeated over and again with slightly different wording, the punctuation made the flow of the work about as smooth to read as a porcupine’s back, and I found a number of pieces of absolute conjecture, with no evidence or even reasoning to back up his claims. Finally (and I know that this isn’t limited to necessarily bad works of criticism, especially in the arts, but I’m going to add it here anyway) Tindall refuses to use two or three words when one long, run on sentence will do. Yes, Mr. Critic, thank you for telling me in detail what happens in Beckett’s work…now do what you’re supposed to and impart some sort of knowledge that I /cant/ look up on Wikipedia.

As scathing as my last paragraph comes across, I cannot deny the fact that there are some parts of this critical analysis of Beckett that are genuinely interesting and informative. Unfortunately, they seem to be anti-social, hiding behind verbose, dry sentences which add very little to the overall reading. It’s clear that Tindall knows a great deal about the subject (and so he should, having been published), but it’s as though he wrote the entire thing without properly formulating what he was going to talk about when. The points flow from one to the other almost as though it’s a train of thought, and so information is lost behind sentences which cry out for a decent editor.

The lack of succinct information would have been largely remedied if the writing had been presented in a more accessible manner. Within this piece, I wouldn’t expect chapters, per say, but subheadings would have been more preferable than having to trawl through all forty-something pages of information and stumble unexpectedly on the types of quotations I wanted to reference just after another paragraph which had nothing to do with the later topic. The paragraphs themselves were of a decent length however, with none of them being over about half a page long (which in a critical companion is a rare treat). This at least made it easier to speed-read and skim across sections.

The added Beckett bibliography at the end of the book spans two and a half pages, and is relatively informative, even offering to the reader some of Beckett’s translated works. I certainly can’t fault the succinctness of this part of the book, but I was disappointed that there wasn’t an index. Even with no sub-headings, knowing whereabouts in the book each of the plays and suchlike were mentioned would have gone a long way to help with speed of referencing.

In short, although this book does have some redeeming qualities, they are rather firmly lost in the myriad of verbosity (this is my new favourite word, can you tell?) thanks to the structure and layout. It’s not the best thing to try and read, there are far, far better critical companions to Samuel Beckett out there. If you can, let this one remain on the bookshelf and pick up a different one instead. Especially if you’re in a hurry and don’t want to wade through a lot of unnecessary padding in order to get to the few shards of decent criticism.

U

• Uncut – Edges of a book which are left raw instead of being trimmed.

V

• Vellum – A type of parchment/paper made from animal skin (usually that of a calf). It iwas primarily used in the middle ages in single pages for writing and printing, as well a the as material for binding books.

W

• Woodcut – An early method of illustration dating back to 8th century China. A picture or some text is carved into a piece of wood which is then rolled over with an ink and pressed onto a surface in order to make a print.

I suppose I’ve written this article as a bit of light-heartedness. Although admittedly, it does hold some semblance of truth at its core. So without further ado…let us make our careful way through the ‘Ugly’ truths of Fan Fiction.

Imagine this; you’re an avid fan of a book or TV series. You own everything there is to own, and know the characters better than they know themselves. At one in the morning, you stumble across a Fan Fiction and decide to read it. In the dark quiet of your room…you begin, and then throw your head back and scream in anguish…

Okay, maybe I went a little overboard with the reaction. But I hope at least it has made you curious as to what could provoke such a response. Why, the sight of your favourite characters and places being butchered by uncaring wannabe writers of course! The best character in the series has suddenly fallen in love with someone they shouldn’t have, there’s a back-story which simply doesn’t fit…and there will be at least one new character with strangely coloured hair or a sob-story background.

Unfortunately, this happens more in Fan Fiction than anyone could ever stomach. All of the established rules which work so well in some respects go out of the window, and the new writers get to work maiming the characterisation of every living thing in sight…And did you just see a dragon fly past that Star Ship?

Which brings me to another horror. Crossovers. Oh sure, it’s amusing when it happens on TV…but that’s usually because both shows are made by the same people. Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice for example…or any of the Star Trek series. But suddenly, we have Harry potter flying through the air not on a broom, but on a Pernese Dragon. (Yes, that particular crossover does exist. Google it, I dare you).

It’s this blatant disregard for even a loose cannon, as well as cliché, ‘perfect’ characters and a painfully constructed storyline and actual style that constitutes as the ‘ugly’ part of Fan Fiction. Granted, it’s the ugly part of any genre of Fiction, but in my personal opinion, these digressions are much more acute within this genre, because it’s the mauling of characters which unwitting readers already know and love.

So there you have it, dear readers! The Good, Bad and Ugly of that terrifying realm of the Fan Fiction genre. I hope you find yourselves both a little more informed and a lot more amused now you’ve read them.

The general plotline follows two men, Algernon and Jack, who both seem to lead double lives in a sort of country-mouse, town-mouse manner. Upon falling for two different women, each man confesses that his name is ‘Earnest’, since the women in question refuse to marry a man with any other name. Cue the ‘mistaken identity’ motif here for the audience to have a good laugh at, and allow the characters to have a happy ending.

It isn’t the farcical nature of the play which particularly amuses me, especially since these reviews are about the scripts themselves instead of any performances I may have seen. Rather, it’s the fact that Oscar Wilde subverts so many of the contemporary sensibilities, as well as making a statement by then rounding off with an utter subversion at the end. ‘But you said it ends happily!’ I hear you cry, dear reader. This is absolutely true. Taking the line (from the play itself, no less), “The good end happily, and the bad unhappily. This is what fiction means”, strangely shows the audience the transparent ‘fourth wall’ within the play…by making it absolutely clear that the play is a work of fiction. An odd way of doing things perhaps, but for me, it certainly shows Wilde’s penchant for being both unconventional, and also his ability to mess around with conventions instead of having to strictly adhere to them.

For the first three quarters of the play, the writing is light and witty, and even simply reading it on a page conjures up the setting and the people in the mind’s eye almost as clearly as seeing them moving about on an actual stage. I say the first three quarters of the play, because that was when it started to get a little too farcical even for me. The amusement I felt at the opening unfortunately began to turn into a sort of bafflement by the end of the piece, which was a shame considering how well I believed it had carried itself up until that point. The ‘mistaken identity’ motif gave way to actual silliness (“A handbag!?!” still rings in my mind, thank you Dr. Dawson). Perhaps this is just me, but I think it spoils it a little. Mr. Wilde, I feel, could have done a lot better.

The characters themselves have not only a levity to them (as one would expect from this work), but also a liveliness which I personally don’t see that often in such piece of literature. (Perhaps I’m reading the wrong ones? Answers on a postcard). Plays are usually brought to life by the actors, but in this particular written work, the characters seem to have a life of their own, as it were. This isn’t to necessarily say that they are ‘lifelike’, but there’s a certain vivacity there which ensures that the characters aren’t hollow ‘vessels for dialogue’ who have to be dragged along, kicking and screaming, by the plot.

In terms of readability, it’s one of those plays that you could quite comfortably read in one afternoon, reclined in an armchair with a nice cup of tea. A light, amusing foray into the almost playful subversion of Victorian sensibilities, it’s really a pleasure to read. Although I wish I had been pre-warned about just how farcical the ending finishes up being. It did leave me a little disappointed on that score, but I do believe that the rest of the play more than made up for it. I can honestly state the opinion that this piece of literature is a part of the literary canon for a very good reason.

A good read for someone who doesn’t take such things too seriously.

Written in 1951, this book tells the story of a love affair between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah Miles which ends when Sarah suddenly breaks away from her lover. Two years go by and they meet again, this time Bendrix’s love and jealousy slowly become an obsession and after the idea has been planted by Sarah’s husband – ironically Bendrix’s friend – Bendrix decides to hire a private detective to follow her movements.

A thought-provoking novel in more ways than one, my initial resignation of having to spend £7.99 on yet another course book soon vanished. One of the first things that Greene decides to do is to go up to the fourth wall and give it a good shake, not dismantling it but certainly showing the readers that it’s there. There are essentially two narrators within this novel, one of which is Bendrix himself, and the other is Sarah, through the medium of a diary which Bendrix is given by his hired help. The ability to see two different viewpoints, followed by Bendrix’s final understanding of events which he previously felt confused and betrayed by, gives the reader not only a sense of fullness, but also offers a twist which makes the understanding seem not nearly as contrived as it may have been.

The amount of thought the different characters and themes in the novel provoke was certainly a surprise to me. It was only on reflection that I noted the fact that apart from their words and mannerisms, I knew next to nothing about any of the characters. No details of how they dressed, their hair colour, eye colour, build…a lack which the main character forewarns the reader about within the first few pages of the novel by commenting, “I have never been able to describe even my fictitious characters except by their actions…the reader should be allowed to imagine a character in any way he chooses.” I found that this lack didn’t take anything away from the novel itself. It was almost refreshing, even, and interesting to come to my own conclusion as to each character’s appearance.

The characters themselves are extremely human, with each of them having flaws and quirks. Even the main character and primary narrator, Bendrix, has a number of personality setbacks which make him rather dislikeable on occasion. The showing of such character faults gives the readers an impression of a narrator who is as reliable as they are possible able to be – given that they only see one side of a situation anyway. It’s this human-ness within each person within the book that allows the reader a further connection with the text, drawing them in and essentially challenging them to make up their minds about the themes presented.

Not a book I would ever have thought to pick up had I not been ascribed to do so by my course, I find myself once again indebted to the compulsory reading lists that I’ve had to contend with. The pace is good, the characters identifiable, and the novel leaves the reader both wanting to know more, but content that the story has finished. Not a long book by any means (weighing in at about 160 pages or so), it’s a good length and a rather nice change from all the tomes which I’ve been having to read lately.

Would I recommend it? I’d have to say yes, even if just on the strength of style the author presents to the readers. Definitely a book which will remain on my shelves for a good while to come.

Why, yes; I am a man… what gave it away?

The Yellow Wallpaper is all that, but at the same time it is so much more. Easily the best of the stories I have read from the Daughters of Decadence anthology, the short novella is decades ahead of its time in its semi-modernist structure and treatment of the human psyche. But beyond that, to deal with the plain content of the piece, it’s unavoidably engaging; drawing you in and making you want to read all the way until its undeniably chilling conclusion.

Without giving too much away, what the protagonist—whose name we do not learn, the reason being, I assume, to allow her to become an every(wo)man character—perceives as male, patriarchal oppression and isolation leads her, through one rather telling plot device to complete mental breakdown; to put it simply, the poor woman goes mad. It’s no secret to the reader that she is going to go dotty; it’s clear from almost the beginning, but the way in which she begins to lose herself is fascinating, captivating and, perhaps most importantly of all, deceptive.

Most of this is achieved through the story’s form: Written as a journal of sorts, you see the world through the main character’s eyes. You either reject the woman as mad from the beginning, or the form beguiles you into believing her word to be authoritative and unquestionable. It pains my pride to say it, but I was drawn in by the latter. Her descriptions of the room she occupies and about the iconic wallpaper are, at first, innocuous; even the peculiar details of the place glaze over us; a nursery. Yes, a nursery, I believe her. Why not, she seems of sound mind. After all, she can write!

As the story goes on, however, and she begins her slow, but increasingly rapid descent into madness, we see that we have been duped all along. We do not see the world in her writing, we see her world, and her world is, and has always been a world of madness.

The most poignant moment of the story, I found, was when our ‘protagonist’ goes beyond mere obsessive madness into a kind of delusional role-reversal. What she first studied and created in the Yellow Wallpaper she herself becomes. The whole moment of transition is dealt with in one single sentence, and I found it necessary to double-take and make sure I’d got it right.

Once the revelation dawns on you, the rest of the story falls back on itself, and we see in retrospect that there was never any real moment of sanity, and that our narrator has been constantly unreliable. The image we are left with, and that certainly plagued me for some hours after reading, is of our ‘heroine’ creeping around the room, shoulder to the concertina, ribboned wall she has created, and on every lap of the door she steps over her husband, the figure of power she unconsciously rebelled against. The questions hang in the air once the text is finished; was her madness caused by the husband’s patriarchal regime? Did she achieve her freedom from this ‘oppression’ through the madness and, if she did, was it ultimately worth it?

And finally; would you wallpaper a room in yellow? Yellow!?

I mentioned in my last article that until very recently, I stayed as far away from Fan Fiction as possible, and I think it would be an adequate start to this article to determine why I was so entirely adamant about this.

I suppose the first reason is due to the fact that anyone can write Fan Fiction and post it up on a website for all to see. This generally means that the ‘quality control’ of such work is…well…rather nonexistent. I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who would prefer to read a well thought out and written story, thankyouverymuch. Spelling mistakes, cliché plots and a general level of writing that may be classed as something a fifteen-year-old wrote on the bus on the way to school. Now, I’m not saying that the quality of writing is entirely poor across the board…but I didn’t feel as though it was worth my time to trawl through hundreds of stories just to get one that I thought was decent.

So now a bad point from a writing point of view instead of a reading one. I mentioned in my previous article that Fan Fiction was a great way to write in a safe, established environment. This is true enough, but like a literary double-edge sword, this could also be easily interpreted as restrictive. There are rules that a writer has to follow, which have been created by a person they’ve probably never even met. There’s little room to extrapolate (yes, I have been known to use long words on occasion) a different side to the world. Essentially, it’s a case of writing yourself into a corner, which is a completely illogical thing for an artist to do.

I was going to save this next point for the ‘ugly’ side of Fan Fiction, but I suppose it can be ‘bad’ instead, since it’s something which isn’t relegated entirely just to this sort of writing. This is the ‘look at me’ syndrome. Or popularity contest, whichever term you’d prefer. In certain Fan Fiction circles, there are groups of people who scribble down their first thoughts and expect everyone to believe it’s a work of art. Like I said, this happens plenty with regular writing too, so I decided to be lenient and put it here rather than in the next article.

I suppose for the most part, the reasons listed above come down to quality control. Whilst it is possible to find that one diamond in a mountain of coal, it requires a lot of patience and a strong stomach. If something goes wrong within a story, writers may be inclined to lay the blame on the initial author. After all, it wasn’t them who created the world! To an extent, Fan Fiction shows a narrow-mindedness or apathy to create something original. Of course, this wouldn’t be ‘bad’ in itself if most of the writers didn’t make the mistakes listed above as well (and more listed in the next and last article of this mini-series).

So feel free to peruse Fan Fiction sites…but make sure you’re not of a weak disposition first.

Brighton Rock is a gripping novel from the start, this opening line being a terrific example: “Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours that they meant to murder him.” Lines like this carry an ominous, foreboding tension which is sustained throughout the book. But crucially, such lines are not just for sheer excitement- the book’s many incidents of terror and violence serve to highlight the immoral acts of crime. The character of Pinkie in particularly is the epitome of this; a cold character that exploits individuals and kills those who have crossed him. This serves to make Brighton Rock by no means a light entertainment, but something suitably darker. The contradictions of this character are particularly brilliant. The traditional view of a strongly heterosexual male gangster is superbly subverted. Pinkie is a character who is so cold that he struggles to articulate any sexual desire.

Brighton Rock is also filled with very powerful imagery. A description of one of Pinkie’s many victims as an “indistinguishable grey ash on the pink blossom’s” illustrates the wasteful nature death in a sad and compelling manner.

It is this emotional core which elevates the novel being above entertainment and into something far deeper. Yet far from being overly dramatic or sensationalist, the novel is indeed honest and subtle about the violence caused. Greene creates an engrossing narrative which addresses the impact of crime whilst always adhering to realist principles. Brighton Rock is a great novel of immense depth and suspense which lifts it far above the average thriller.

Now alternative history may seem to be a fairly recent genre, and the idea of a Nazi victory has arguably been one of the most covered subjects, but Harris’ novel proves perfectly how history can be a background and not the focus; the historical changes are key elements to the story in creating an alternative world…much like a good fantasy book.

The story is very much a detective thriller about Xavier March, a German police officer who is good at his job, but that’s all he has. He is divorced with a child, Pili, with whom he has grown distant from. Xavier blames this on his long working hours and lack of time he spends with his son, though mainly he blames the Nazi system itself for brainwashing Pili like every other person in the state. Xavier loves his country but he sees the cracks in the Nazi’s image of a perfect society, he then finds out from his friends the Gestapo have been asking about him and realises that it can’t be an opportunity for promotion.

The book follows Xavier as he deals with the case of a dead man who washes up on the banks of a lake. He soon finds out he was a high ranking Nazi officer in the war, but by that time the Gestapo have taken over the case. Xavier, though, has nothing else in his life to do and he knows there’s something going on; it’s got something to do with the Jews who everyone knows were moved east, right? And all this in the lead up to Herr Hitler’s 75th birthday? Adding even more interest, it seems that President Kennedy of the US is also coming to talk business; I wonder what that could mean?

My expectations were not high at first; I always wanted to read this book as a history student, and I assumed that being a former Political Correspondent, Harris’ writing skills would not be very ‘literary’, but I was pleasantly surprised. The book is brilliant in not just being a great idea, it’s written with a good pace, style and memorable images. The best metaphor occurs early on, as Xavier drops off his son who’s wearing his Hitler Youth uniform, his mother answers the door along with her new husband, a propaganda minister and their German Sheppard. Xavier notes how the only one who’s remotely human is not wearing a uniform, the dog.

Unfortunately, the secret will not surprise you but the twists and turns all the way to the end will. It’s a story of blood, deduction and even a little romance so even if you’re not a historian, if you’re a thriller or detective novel lover it might be something for you.

Some of my readers may have noticed I never give a bad damning review, and there’s a simple reason for that. I’ve read a lot of good books and some bad ones, but who wants to read a bad book? Even if I do on occasion, I definitely don’t want to write about one.