Booklog: Reeve and Stross

[nebroadwe]

Philip Reeve, Starcross, or, The Coming of the Moobs! or, Our Adventures in the Fourth Dimension! A Stirring Adventure of Spies, Time Travel and Curious Hats

Sequel to Larklight: A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck Across the Farthest Reaches of Space and continues in the same vein of combined homage to and affectionate send-up of the Edgar Rice Burroughs/Boys' Own pulp tradition, with the Mumby family facing down the combined perils of time-traveling hats and foreign spies intent on overthrowing the British Empire (on which the sun never sets because it went interplanetary after Sir Isaac Newton discovered spaceflight). It's fun, in this age dominated by extrapolatory SF, to read something that waves airily at the constraints of reality as they flap around loose in its wake, preferring to drive its space ships through the ether by the power of the alchemical wedding and fight giant Martian space clams and such. As advertised, a stirring adventure (copiously illustrated by David Wyatt), but best read in conjunction with its prequel. A third installment is due sometime this year.

Charles Stross, The Jennifer Morgue

Sequel to The Atrocity Archives, the Len Deighton-meets-H.P. Lovecraft-as-edited-by-Larry Wall first novel about Bob Howard, a hacker who delved too deeply into programming and discovered Things Man Was Not Meant To Know ... and was promptly drafted into the Laundry, the branch of the British Civil Service dedicated to protecting humanity from the depredations of the Great Old Ones while avoiding prejudicial audits. It still works this time around, though there's less soul-sucking bureaucracy and more actual demonology for our hero to contend with. As a litcritter, I also enjoyed the archetype-as-computer geekery-as-magic bits, particularly the deconstruction of one of the twentieth century's greatest fictional agents-provacateurs. Interesting stuff, but I prefer The Atrocity Archives.

I seem to be reading a lot of sequels lately. Guess that means I ought to grab a standalone next.