Shadow of the Minotaur - Alan Gibbons

Shadow of the Minotaur is book one of The Legendeer Trilogy by children's author Alan Gibbons and it won the Blue Peter Book 'book I couldn't put down' award in 2000. Which shows just how bang up to date I am with the world of youth fiction...

The title of each book in this trilogy refers to a different computer game that opens the gateway between our own world and the realm of myth and legend. Phoenix's father is a game designer working for a mysterious corporation whose new virtual reality game is becoming a little too realistic for his liking.

Following the mysterious disappearance of his father Phoenix, along with his best friend Laura, enters the game and have to complete a quest before advancing to the next level and being challenged to defeat the Minotaur in combat. Drawing heavily on Greek mythology, the story does move at a decent pace without the sections where Phoenix is playing either Perseus or Theseus feeling too educational. Although, I doubt that sentence makes sense to anyone else! The depiction of the Minotaur's lair was particularly effective - you could almost feel the beast snorting behind you!

However, and perhaps unfairly, I couldn't stop myself from comparing this to The Roar which was my just-before read and if I had to recommend one adventure to a young acquaintance it would be that one. I've not finished the trilogy as I felt that the first book was enough of a stand alone story to leave it there but I will probably return at some point to see how Phoenix managed against the Vampyrs!

Alan Gibbons is astoundingly prolific and he also has a blog! He's clearly a passionate advocate of reading for pleasure and the importance of providing young people with the opportunity to access a range of material and it's worth checking him out if you are interested in that.

The Roar - Emma Clayton

As this is not really a book for grown ups, I will put this read into some sort of context... The Roar is aimed at ages 9+ (phew - so that technically does include me) and was one of my niece's tenth birthday presents that she received last week. She very kindly lent it to me as she knows I like SFF books and I promised to read it quickly and let her know what I think.

Surely it can only be a good thing that I picked up Emma Clayton's debut novel The Roar yesterday afternoon and read it straight through until it was finished? So... What's it about? Well.... Ummm.... *takes deep breath*

It's the nearish future and all the animals developed some kind of plague, went mental and started to kill humans so a huge protective concrete wall was erected in the northern hemisphere, the rest of the world was poisoned to kill all the animals and what was left of humanity now huddles together in a grim world of concrete and processed food. The rich live in the upper cities and the poor are crammed together in very basic accommodation amidst rising water levels. Cheery stuff! In this world live twins Ellie and Mika who are part of the first generation of children that have been born in 30 years. Ellie was kidnapped a year ago, but it's not clear why other than that she seems to have a special talent, and her parents believe that she is dead. Mika is sure that he can feel a link to Ellie and is convinced she is not...

Then the government introduces an arcade game called Pod fighter and all the children compete for fabulous prizes with the very best in the running for housing in the golden towers district. Mika and his friends join in the competition and realise that all is not as it seems and that there could be a more sinister motive behind this initiative...

This is a fast-paced thriller featuring very likable young people in an interesting world with an exciting plot. It certainly exceeded all my expectations and I thoroughly enjoyed myself yesterday afternoon! Whilst I freely admit that I am rather partial to Sci-Fi, this is a book that should appeal to absolutely anyone after an intriguing adventure and I hope my niece enjoys it as much as I did.

I tried to find out more about Emma Clayton and discovered that, slightly confusingly, there appears to be a hardback version of this book scheduled for publication next year and she is not listed on the publisher's website. This is a blow for me as I was hoping to find out that a sequel was due out very shortly!

Jane Austen: A Life - Claire Tomalin

It's been a very busy start to August for me as we've been celebrating both Mr B's 30th birthday and my niece's tenth so I've taken longer to read Claire Tomalin's excellent biography of Jane Austen than I would have liked.

Until recently, all I knew about Claire Tomalin was that in 2002 both her and her husband, Michael Frayn, were competing for the Whitbread award and that her biography of Samuel Pepys won. Since getting her biography of Jane Austen earlier this year I've seen her name popping up everywhere and have realised that she's published some very well respected biographies including ones on Thomas Hardy and Katherine Mansfield. Both of which I'll have to add to the ever-increasing Books-to-Buy list!

This biography is everything I could have hoped for. It's divided into themed chapters that exhaustively cover Jane's extended family, the Austen home, the Hampshire neighbours and the impact that her own social and financial circumstances had on her work.

Claire Tomalin makes excellent use of what survives of Jane's letters (her sister, Cassandra, destroyed most of their correspondence along with the diaries before her death and Fanny, her niece, also disposed of source material) and the surviving witness accounts of friends and family, along with very thorough historical research, to paint a portrait of Jane Austen that feels very authentic. I'd had an image of a genteel lady leisurely writing novels at a desk that is very much at odds with the facts of Jane's life - click through to a picture of her actual writing table at the house in Chawton.

Jane Austen's life was much more difficult, and more eventful, than I'd realised and she was clearly a woman living in a time where she must have felt very restricted in terms of what options were available to her. Through this biography comes a portrait of a very clever woman who, from the sidelines, used her wicked sense of humour to observe people and behaviour. I finished the book feeling that it's a real shame that neither she or her direct family can have had any idea just how popular her work would become and that the financial rewards during her lifetime were, although very welcome, a fraction of what must have come to her estate.

In summary, a great biography that has set me up nicely for my next Jane read! The only thing I would wish to improve about my reading experience is the cover on my copy. I just love the Penguin Celebrations issue and neeeeeeeeed it so badly...

Booking Through Thursday

This weeks BTT is:

"Are there any particular worlds in books where you’d like to live? Or where you certainly would NOT want to live? What about authors? If you were a character, who would you trust to write your life?"

An interesting one although I am pretty happy with where and how I live now!

The first thought that popped into my mind when thinking of where I'd like to live was that of The Culture in the Iain M Banks books where humans and AIs live together. I think it would be really interesting to live in a society where you don't actually have to do anything yet you can choose to if you want to. Where you can change your body into fantastical shapes, change your abilities, where information is so easily available, leisure opportunities are almost infinite and money is no longer required.

I'd also love to live in a close-knit community like the ones in the Miss Read books - small village life at its best where everyone knows everyone and support is there if needed.

I would not want to live in medieval times unless I was super-rich and influential. Which is statistically very unlikely. It must have been very difficult for those on the lower rungs of society with life expectancy and quality of life both very low. The inequality of the sexes would also be very frustrating and I'd no doubt end up being tried as a witch!

In terms of recentish books I've read, I don't think that the island of Bouganville as presented in Mister Pip would be in my list of places to live - even if the idea of a lush tropical island does appeal. Looking at the post I linked there I do quite fancy taking my canoe out on the north-western coast of the USA as featured in The Highest Tide though!

I've just realised that this week's BTT also asks what author I'd trust to write my life story. I'm currently reading Claire Tomalin's biography of Jane Austen and you really could not ask for a better author than her. Great attention to detail presented in a very engaging manner.

July Reading List

So - here's July's reading list in full. I didn't write about all the books I read as I just didn't have anything to say about a couple including the very odd Southland Tales that are a sort of prequel to the film that I've not seen.


My Pick of the Month is Catherine O'Flynn's wonderful book What Was Lost and it was good to see that I'm not the only person who thought it was great this month! It looks like there's a new cover in the works which is good as the one I've used for this post is a bit off-putting. Sadly, I did not get to see Catherine speak at the Latitude Festival a couple of weeks ago as she was on another day but I really look forward to her next book.

• What Was Lost - Catherine O'Flynn
• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
• The Witch of Portobello - Paul Coelho
• The Constant Gardener - John le Carré
• Watchmen - Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons
• Southland Tales I II & III - Richard Kelly
• Till We Meet Again - Lesley Pearce
• Mythago Wood - Robert Holdstock
• A Hidden Life - Adèle Geras
• Random Acts of Heroic Love - Danny Scheinmann
• Mrs Darcy's Dilemma - Diana Birchall

Booking Through Thursday

Following neatly on from last week's first sentences, this week's BTT:

"What are your favourite final sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its last sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the last line?"

I remember reading once that it's a very Gemini trait to turn to always turn to the last page first, unable to resist temptation, and I admit when I was younger I used to do that quite often. These days, I get to the end of a book with regret and don't often want to speed up the process as I enjoy the anticipation too much.

I read that Ernest Hemingway wrote the ending of For Whom the Bell Tolls thirty nine times because he " couldn't get it right" and to quote Mickey Spillane, "Your opening paragraph sells the book. The final paragraph sells your next book."

I am sure that all authors put as much effort into the last lines of their books but it's honestly not something that I've watched out for in the same way as I would first lines. That in mind, I had a quick chat with google and discovered that both these are last lines:

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

"After all, Tomorrow is another day." Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind.

Both of those lines are such incredibly famous quotes from the books but, in spite of having read them both, I had no idea that they were the actual last lines. Clearly, I need to pay more attention in the future if I am going to do a BTT post like this any justice!

Man Booker Longlist

The Man Booker long list, chosen from a total of 112 entries, has been announced and includes five first novels, as well as two by previous winners. I've made a pretty slideshow for ease of clicking to find out what each book is about!



Erm - is now a good time to confess that prior to doing a spot of digging on Amazon, I'd only heard of Child 44...? I was half considering reading the whole list before the short-list is announced on 9th September but perhaps I'll hang on and let the judges lighten my load first before reading the final six before 14th October!