Fiction
The Age
Saturday December 12, 2009
Chalcot Crescent Fay Weldon Atlantic, $29.95 THE main character in Fay Weldon's 29th novel, Chalcot Crescent, is Frances, the younger sister the author might have had if her mother hadn't had an abortion. But it isn't really €” Frances takes over Fay's husband, family and career, becoming more Fay than Fay herself. The book begins in the year 2013, when Frances is 80, her publishing life at a standstill. The credit crunch has turned into an irrevocable economic downward spiral. Britain is run by the sinister National Unity Government, which like most of its public statements sounds comforting but isn't. The poor and unwashed subsist on National Meat Loaf. Frances' grandchildren have become involved in Redpeace, a rebel organisation intent on overthrowing the authorities. Weldon's distinctive authorial voice dominates the novel. She is less interested in deep characterisation or plotting than she is in social satire and self-conscious (if self-deprecating) observation. Her many fans won't mind this at all.Gardens of the Sun Paul McAuley Victor Gollancz, $32.99 THE follow-up to The Quiet War, Paul McAuley's Gardens of the Sun evokes a solar system in turmoil. The novel is set in a future when human colonies have formed on the moons of the outer planets. The Quiet War traced the course of a brief but devastating conflict between the humans of Earth, many living under oppressive regimes, and the Outers, city states around Jupiter and Saturn that embraced rational utopianism and genetic wizardry. In the sequel, Earth has emerged victorious, but peace is fragile. Its governments face rebellion from without and within. As Earth begins to plunder the Outers' technology, it discovers genetically modified ecosystems (the gardens of the title) created by the Outers' greatest scientific genius. But will the fruits of conquest be as sweet as they appear? McAuley's descriptive prowess is exceptional; at his best, he creates an immersive, credible future world, imbued with a strange and cold majesty.Too Many Murders Colleen McCullough HarperCollins, $49.99 BESTSELLING author Colleen McCullough, who will undergo brain surgery in January, has written a second Carmine Delmonico mystery. Best known for her historical melodrama The Thorn Birds, she's also a dab hand at retro crime. It's 1967 in the university town of Holloman, Connecticut. The corpse of a college student is found €” he bled to death, caught in a bear trap after a blackmail attempt gone wrong. Eleven other homicides occur on the same day, more than Captain Delmonico normally sees in a year. It quickly becomes clear that the killings aren't all the work of one person. Or is there a flamboyant mastermind manipulating others? Of course, it's the height of the Cold War €” and when it emerges that one of the victims was under an FBI espionage investigation, attention turns to the huge armaments company for which he worked. It does get a bit formulaic, but Too Many Murders is readable, fast-moving crime that combines intricate puzzles with the grittiness of hard-boiled detective fiction.Pick of the weekAnd Another Thing . . . Eoin Colfer Michael Joseph, $39.95 AS A devoted fan of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, I wanted to hate this book. But it won me over. Eoin Colfer €” the creator of Artemis Fowl €” has written a sixth Hitchhiker's novel. Unlike most post-mortem extensions of a popular franchise, And Another Thing . . . is a remarkable feat of literary ventriloquism. The main players in Adams' series €” Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Trillian €” have been resurrected to find the Earth again threatened with annihilation. A ludicrous adventure awaits in a universe peopled by eccentric aliens and beings of incomprehensible power down on their luck. Colfer channels Douglas to perfection for the first hundred pages or so. The wheels occasionally fall off but there's always a fabulously oddball footnote or Hitchhiker's Guide entry to keep you going. As with the originals, this is an ebullient space satire on (what else?) the fads and foibles of human society.
© 2009 The Age
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