Wylding Hall, Elizabeth Hand

Wylding Hall is a pretty short novel with an interesting structure. It’s told as if it’s a series of interviews — possibly for radio or just for someone who would later transcribe them for a book, as they’re spontaneous and involve people revealing details they’re not sure of, or don’t want to share too widely. That in itself is fascinating: the range of narrators, the different angles on the same events, the little pieces of the puzzle. And the relationships between them revealed in the way they talk about the other characters. Sometimes it doesn’t quite work for me; some of the character voices are a little too similar. But for the most part, I enjoyed it and it was well-handled.

The pacing was well-handled too, in my opinion; it slowly builds up a sense of unease, then uncanniness, and then lets little moments of horror break through — distanced by time, because of the setting, but nonetheless chilling. It never really goes beyond unsettling for me; the characters are too distant from the events.

In the end, it’s entirely inconclusive, which is something I really like in uncanny fiction. Was there a girl? Was she real or a ghost, what exactly happened? Were the experiences real or drug-fuelled? What exactly even caused the haunting — the barrow? It seems like it, and yet. And yet.

If you’re interested in folk music (I was thinking of Fairport Convention the whole time), then that aspect also adds some interest. I wish the band were real, because the music sounds awesome.

For all that it’s short and inconclusive, I found it satisfying: it leaves me with just the right amount of uncertainty, just the right amount of mystery, without feeling like it’s unfinished. It’s, in the end, a recounting of one of those senseless events that changes everything, random and wrenching, and that you then look back on and wonder how exactly it even happened. It doesn’t always have to be a ghost story — there’s unexplained events in real life too, after all — but it works well this way.

Rating: 4/5

The Book of Phoenix, Nnedi Okorafor

This is technically a prequel to a book I haven’t yet read, Who Fears Death, but it stands alone just fine. I actually think this might be the first book of Okorafor’s I’ve enjoyed this much — it shares themes with Lagoon and with what I know of Who Fears Death, shares the same anger at and examination of colonialism, racial issues, etc, but somehow Phoenix came alive for me more than any of the characters of Lagoon or Binti.

There were some aspects of this that I didn’t quite get — it just seemed so crammed full of stuff: the alien seed, the mutants, the modifications that could be done to normal humans, the political situation, the frame story… But I agree with another review I read earlier that said that this is about myth-making: that’s really the thing to remember with this one, the core of the story. Phoenix mythologises herself, and makes new mythology around her. Everything she does feels like part of a myth, so you don’t really have to question the archetypal Big Brother Government, the mad scientists, etc.

It’s a pretty easy/fast read, though not always emotionally easy; the scene with Phoenix’s mother is really effective, for example.

I think it’s not going to stick with me that much, but it was enjoyable.

Rating: 3/5

Finn Fancy Necromancy, Randy Henderson

The cover, with the classic gaming-like characters on it, suggests something… I don’t know, playful and referential. A fantasy equivalent to Ready Player One, perhaps. And a lot of people seem to have found that in it, calling it “dark and quirky”, noting the humour and the originality of it. I didn’t find it to be so; I could predict each turn of the story, and the characters didn’t endear themselves to me. The set-up is okay: guy has been imprisoned in an alternate realm for years for a crime he didn’t commit, while a changeling lived his body’s life for him. He gets out, he immediately gets set up again, what’s going on?

The story deals with the past framing at the same time as it goes into the current one, and this seems in many ways to be background for a bigger story to do with Finn’s changeling. That aspect of the plot was actually interesting; but the minutiae of Finn’s love life with women he hadn’t seen for years didn’t work for me, particularly not when he’d spent most of his life lying to one of them, and in the meantime they grew up and he didn’t really, and…

I don’t know, ultimately I just felt like it was completely typical, and I wasn’t drawn to keep reading it. I did, because I bought the paperback and darned if I’m going to waste my money, but if it was from the library I might’ve considered just returning it. There was some references to pop culture stuff — Doctor Who, Star Trek, etc — but it felt… incidental, not really integral to the story. A cute nod more than a necessity. Despite my interest in the changeling story, I doubt I’ll be picking up the second book. It just felt too… mediocre.

In fact, I feel obliged to quote: frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Rating: 2/5