Let the Right One in by John Ajvide Lindqvist

I think I have found a new author to add to my 'favourite authors of all time' list.

I've just finished reading Let the Right One in by Swedish author John Ajviide Lindqvist. I was vaguely aware of the book from it's previous adaptation to a movie of the same name (that I have yet to see). I knew that the movie had been critically acclaimed and that an English language remake was on the way. When I saw the nice shiny tie-in edition for the new movie (retitled as Let Me In) I decided to add it to my Waterstones 3 for 2.

I am very glad I did. Within a few dozen pages I was totally hooked. By the time I was a hundred pages in I was looking up which other works by the author had been translated into English.

I won't go into a lot of plot detail here as you can find that stuff elsewhere. But the book focuses on a boy called Oskar who lives in Stockholm in 1981. Very quickly we discover that he is relentlessly bullied by other boys at school. In fact many of the incidents are quite difficult to read. One night he meets a strange girl called Eli who has moved in next door. They strike up a touching friendship dispite the fact that she turns out to be a vampire.

Some of the quotes on the cover compare the book favourably with Stephen King and that is probably accurate, hoverer I found the Swedish setting added something extra. And as with King you get to know the characters and feel the loss when bad stuff happens to them. And it does. What is also interesting is that the motivations of the characters are explored and explained so the reader has some sympathy for them right across the board.

I've already bought the other two translated books, Handling the Undead and Harbour. Lindqvist has also some other books that have yet to be translated so I have them to look forward to as well.

Follett, Doctor Who, Cornwell and Hamilton

It's about time I updated this book blog thing so I thought I'd talk about some of the books I have bought this week.

First up here's Fall of Giants by Ken Follett which is just out in hardback. As noted in a previous post Follett is not really one of "my" authors. However this book looked interesting and was half-price in the supermarket so I thought why not give it a go. It's the first of a trilogy and is set in the years from 1911 onwards. It's also a long one at over 800 pages.



Next is The Fort by Bernard Cornwell, best known for his Sharpe books. Strictly speaking I don't have the book yet but I've ordered it from Amazon at 60% off. Yes: 60%. Madness.

Anyway I used to read each new Cornwell novel as they came out but the last few I've not got around to. However The Fort sounds very interesting as it is set during the American war of Independence in 1779 which is a period that Cornwell has rarely visited.



Next is Doctor Who The Brilliant Book 2011. Yes, it's for kids, but it was only half-price in the supermarket and is lovely and glossy. It deals with the recent "season 5" episodes featuring Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and Karen Gillan as Amy Pond. This means there's lots of photos of the lovely Karen as the lovely Amy...

Sorry, I got sidetracked there. It also features a short story by one Brian Aldiss which is a nice bonus.



Here's a book that's not out for another couple of weeks but I thought I would mention it here. It's a Doctor Who novel called The Coming of the Terraphiles and is by one Michael Moorcock. Moorcock is a very highly regarded author of fantasy that I am ashamed to admit I have never read. I'm hoping this book will be a good way in for me.



Now, here are two books by science fiction author Peter F Hamilton that I already have lying around somewhere. I saw these new editions of Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained today in Waterstones and was quite impressed by the new cover designs. I'm going to dig up my copies and finally get reading them.



Finally here's that Follett chap again. The Pillars of the Earth is his 1989 novel about the building of a cathedral in Twelfth century England. Many regard it as his best book and a TV series has been made. Channel 4 are supposed to be showing it soon and I thought I'd give the book a go. It's another long one at over 1000 pages though.

Stephen Hunt's Jack Cloudie (with new cover design)

Amazon.co.uk have revealed the cover to the next Stephen Hunt novel, titled Jack Cloudie, as well as the cover of the paperback edition of Secrets of the Fire Sea.

First of all I'll get my disappointment out of the way. HarperCollins have ditched the lovely retro designs that graced the covers of the first four hardbacks in favour of a generic photoshopped thing. It's not nearly as nice.



Jack Cloudie comes out in hardcover on 7 July 2011 so it's quite a wait. Here's the blurb:

A tale of high adventure and derring-do set in the same Victorian-style world as the acclaimed The Court of the Air and The Secrets of the Fire Sea. Thanks to his father's gambling debts, young Jack Keats finds himself on the streets and trying to survive as a pickpocket, desperate to graft enough coins to keep him and his two younger brothers fed. Following a daring bank robbery gone badly awry, Jack narrowly escapes the scaffold, only to be pressed into Royal Aerostatical Navy. Assigned to the most useless airship in the fleet, serving under a captain who is most probably mad, Jack seems to be bound for almost certain death in the far-away deserts of Cassarabia. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Omar ibn Barir, the slave of a rich merchant lord finds his life turned upside down when his master's religious sect is banned. Unexpectedly freed, he survives the destruction of his home to enter into the service of the Caliph's military forces -- just as war is brewing. Two very similar young men prepare to face each other across a senseless field of war. But is Omar the enemy, or is Jack's true nemesis the sickness at the heart of the Caliph's court? A cult that hides the deadly secret to the origins of the gas being used to float Cassarabia's new aerial navy. If Jack and his shipmates can discover what Cassarabia's aggressive new regime is trying to conceal, he might survive the most horrific of wars and clear his family's name. If not!

The previous book in the series, Secrets of the Fire Sea comes out in paperback on 3 Feb 2011.

New books for July

Here are a few books that I bought last Thursday and am looking forward to reading over the next few weeks.

First of all Gerald Seymour's new novel The Dealer and the Dead has just been published in hardback in the UK. I've been reading Seymour since 1987 and he's my favourite author currently writing, so his new novel is always something I look forward to.

This new book deals with a hit-man being sent after an arms dealer who never delivered weapons to a Croatian village that was under siege during the civil war in the 1990s.


Next up is the new Robert Harris paperback, Lustrum. As with a previous novel, Imperium, the book is set in ancient Rome and takes the form of a fictional biography of Cicero. Put like that it sounds quite boring but Harris can make anything exciting and is great at describing his characters.


Finally there's the new 800 page plus door-stopper from Stephen King, Under the Dome. This books deals with a mysterious barrier appearing around a small town that cuts it off from the outside world. (I know at least one other novel that dealt with a similar set-up, All Flesh is Grasss by Clifford D Simak.)

The UK publisher has the gimmick of a "limited edition" set of different covers, four of which are shown below. I think there is at least one other that I have not seen online yet. I went for the "young woman" cover oddly enough, although the "old man" cover is growing on me!

Inverted World by Christopher Priest

Thanks to Gollancz for reprinting another of Christopher Priest's early novels. Priest is an author I knew nothing about until I saw the movie of his 1995 book The Prestige. I've gradually been gathering up his back catalog as they become available.

This edition of Inverted World is published as part of Gollancz's SF Masterworks and has the new "yellow" themed cover.


Inverted World features a strange society of humans who have to keep their city moving on railway tracks. They are trying to keep the city as close to its "optimum" position as they can, however optimum keeps moving. If they fall too far behind then a strange phenomena will destroy the city.

But as with Priest's other works, not everything is as it seems.

I enjoyed the book very much and will be looking forward to reading his others.

Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's End

Today I spotted the new Gollancz "SF Masterworks" edition of Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's End in Waterstones. What's interesting is that it has a hardback cover rather than the usual paperback that most of the other books in the series have. I assume this is because another publisher has the rights to the paperback.

Gollancz has done something similar with their editions of Frank Herbert's Dune and Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle. Currently they also have a hardback of H.G. Well's The Island of Doctor Moreau.

As with the other books in the series it has been given what I can only describe as a "yellow" makeover. Compare and contrast the actual cover with the original artwork (the first image).


Childhood's End deals with the arrival of an advanced alien race who seem to have some knowledge about mankind's ultimate destiny. It's been a while since I read the book so I may treat myself to the new edition.

Some classy looking Collins Classics

I caught sight of the new Collins Classics series of novels in HMV (of all places) yesterday. The series includes the usual classic novels but the difference being that they have been given a more contemporary cover makeover. Most of the books feature photographic covers rather than detail of old paintings which has become the norm. They seem to be priced at £2.50 each although for some reason Jane Eyre was priced at £2.00.

Here are the covers to five of the books in the series: Emma, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Wuthering Heights.



I do like these editions. I've bought three already and I expect I'll be buying a few more.