Perdido Street Station

Oi Mosquito!

I forgot about this wee blog mate.

But Perdido street station is brilliant enough to power the valiant resurrection of Books, Coffee, whatever.

Why must you read this then?

a) China Mieville wrote this. He is a man Samit Basu worships. Samit Basu is a man we worship. This makes China SuperGod. We don' argue with that.

b) It's edgy. With science, magic, thamaturgy, drugs, freakish moths, exotic khepri, sentient machines and more.

c) The semi dystopic and unreally awesome world China describes will make your head spin. It might also make the weak amongst us miss buses and submission deadlines.

I don't want to get into details about the plot at all since that is something you'd best be delving into yourself.

Rating: 5/5

Aztec, Espresso :)

Cheers and happy hols,

Weasel.

The Enchantress of Florence

Salman Rushdie

This book is like a tempestuous love affair.

It's challenging for somebody who isn't used to Rushdie's mystic style but once you tap it, it's like entering a fantasy land filled with delightful surprises at every step.
A majestic read, set in the historic era of the Mughals of Akbar and Florence of Lorenzo de' Medici , Rushdie weaves an intricate tale around these times and their offspring.

The story begins with the arrival of an exotic and mysterious visitor to Sikri - Mogor dell'Amore (Mughal of Love) - who claims to be in the possession of a secret of biblical proportions. He reaches the royal court with the help of Skeleton, a prolific prostitute. Afer much historical by-play it is revealed that the mysterious Florentine is Akbar's great uncle.


Enormous uproar ensues and it is here that Akbar's character gains an even more layered complexity. Sometimes whimsical, sometimes petulant and most of the time passionate; Akbar is a man lost between imagination and questions. The flickering Jodha and Qara Koz (the enchantress of Florence) grip him alternately and lead him down the by lanes of Renaissance history. A world of Ottomans and Machiavelli, of Amerigo Vespucci and Vlad Dracula and of Genghis Khan and Medicis. 


In reality, the title of this book is a smoke screen. The book has little to do with Qara Koz. It has more to do with the comparisons drawn by Akbar and Machiavelli between their respective domains. Of their anguish which has no outlet, and their doubts which can only be answered by themselves. Rushdie has tried to evolve a theme through them. He has dared to make them question religion and boundaries, almost willing us to question ourselves and leave us wondering. 


As Rushdie picks his way through the chess-board of medievalist times he touches upon many threads. He flits on to art and dreams, seduction and longing, families and fate, destiny and defeat, kings and armies, friends and power, riches and rational thought. Its as if he envelopes a short medieval history of nearly everything.   


This novel is like a perpetual dream which doesn't end properly. Fragments are left niggling in the corner of your mind long after you've put the book down. Connections which you keep trying to make, ideas you suddenly grasp. It's like a whiff of something divine, this masterpiece. 


Rating: 
5/5. Yes, at the risk of sounding like an infatuated teenager, you must read it.


You might also like:
  

The Platypus of Doom and other Nihilists

This one's by Arthur Byron Cover

So we've all read Douglas Adam's and worshipped at the altar of His awesomeness. Science fiction generally stops right there for us. Then someone like dear Arthur comes along and takes our limited perspective, drags it across the length and breadth of the existent universe, pounds it with the aid of giant, hairy monsters and makes us clutch our suddenly expansive heads, moaning softly.

Huh? Wait. From the start then.

The Platypus of Doom is exactly what it sounds like. A monster platypus that despite its noble intentions spreads doom in the universe. This is accomplished by granting people exactly what they truly desire.

Think about it. What if you were granted your heart's true desire? How would it change your life? For the better? Or is the tiny-whiny-achy-breaky motion picture of desires in your head, a nightmare in real life?

Heavy duty shit. And Byron keeps you laughing through it. Laughing, thinking and getting progressively weirded out.

The first story is about the Platypus God who meets a young ping-pong champion on an alien planet. Throw in a dead girlfriend, a lengthy match, a crazy Boss Man and the afterlife for a zany sort of read.

We then meet the Armadillo of Destruction next. This pink headed cigar smoking being has a clear agenda. Spreading Hate. He does this by encouraging mortals who've been repeatedly fucked over by life to hate with a passion and use their newly acquired superpowers to wreck general destruction and chaos.

The Aardvark of Despair follows next, with his penchant for despair and gloom in a chilling story that makes you wish for happy pills in colourful bottles.

The Clam of Catastrophe is last in this twisted line-up. She seduces and lures you into her "soft visceral mass", spreading disillusionment. Oh, and she has a Sherlock Holmes-esque "Godman" to love. Fireworks. Fuck this love thing.

Byron's world is littered with strange new planets, super human beings and yes, even a world where Fat is Beautiful. His unreal, sadistic and creepy monsters bring to life a new sort of fear. An intellectual black hole of general pessimism and despair.

I will obviously indulge in pointless comparisons with Hitchhikers. The same setting, the same madness, the same wow-that-is-so-banal-and-yet-I'm-making-it-excruciatingly-funny tone of writing, but without the comic effects that Adam's is so good at.

I'm clueless about why Platypus is not in the limelight, when it clearly deserves a few harsh glaring disco lights sort of glory. This book is great if you like weird reads/books that make you think/are slightly sick of life and wish to become a nihilist. In that case,this will push you firmly over the edge.

"The Devil you know is better than the devil you dont"

- last read in the Tommyknockers by Stephan king

Rating: 5/5 if you really dig science fiction/weird creatures(this description of the Aardvark should seal it for you: A meter and half long, covered with thick red skin and sandy coloured, bristly hair. Black thick tail, black, glassy eyes. generates his own crawling red ants as food)

4/5 otherwise