Half A King, by Joe Abercrombie

4 stars

The youngest son of King Uthric of Gettland, Yarvi was always meant for a life as a minister. Destiny, however, has other plans and when his father and older brother meet their untimely deaths, Yarvi is called to the Black Chair.

Not a popular king – as well as his youth, Yarvi faces prejudice due to his half-formed left hand – one of Yarvi’s first lessons in kingship is in how hard it is to hang on to your throne. Especially when even those closest to you can’t be trusted. And so starts a quest for vengeance that sees Yarvi travel strange lands, in the company of strange companions, learning that you don’t have to be a fighter to be dangerous.

Clearly written for a slightly younger audience than his usual, Half A King is still recognisably Abercombie (if a little less bleak...but only a little) – a proper page-turner with plenty of banter, betrayals and blood, brilliant characters that are full of personality, desperate situations, deep friendships, and a main character that isn’t a perfect white knight but a flawed human being who makes mistakes and doesn’t always learn from them. For me, however, Yarvi wasn’t the star of this book. That honour goes to Nothing, who’s the sort of character that Abercrombie excels in creating and who wouldn’t be out of place amongst his Northmen (I reckon he could have been great mates with my old favourite, Cracknut Whirrun).

Having torn through this in two sittings (thank you, Joe, for helping me get my reading mojo back!), I’m now straight on to the next.

Circles of Hell, by Dante

2.5 stars

Some years ago, I bought a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, but a rather academic and intimidating introduction saw me soon putting it back down again. This Little Black Classic was the perfect taster, comprising as it does a sort of ‘Greatest Hits’ of a handful of cantos from Inferno.

I was surprised to find how easy this was to read in comparison to that dreadfully off-putting introduction from so many years ago, with a rich and evocative use of language that sometimes amused as well as conjuring hellish images (particularly when a thief came out with the terribly modern sounding ‘It pisses me right off’). However, the fact that this comprised only a handful of pieces of the whole also meant that big leaps were often taken between cantos, meaning that I’d often start a new one completely flummoxed as to how we’d got there. Additionally, it seems that it was largely taken for granted at the time that we would know the people and images Dante was conjuring up – aside from recognising the name of Judas Iscariot and the Emperor Constantine (thank you, Inheritance of Rome!) these all remained meaningless to me.

And so, in conclusion, while I’m glad that I read this (even if it was at a time when I was entering my very own personal Circles of Hell, from which it didn’t provide much relief) I think my copy of the Divine Comedy might continue to gather dust for a few more years yet.

The Inheritance of Rome, by Chris Wickham

3 stars

Covering a whopping great 600 years of history, it's small wonder that this book took two months to read. Whilst some of that was at least partially the fault of my daily life becoming increasingly demanding and therefore not yielding up half as much reading time as I'd had before, it's also due to the staggering amount of information imparted. 

Taking us from the fall of the Roman Empire up until the year 1000 and the so-called 'Feudal Revolution', this took in the post Roman States and cultures that grew out of this fall, including looks at the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Vikings, the Merovingians and Carolingians, as well many more that I'd never even heard of before. Examining tax systems, religions, economies and exchange systems, iconography and much, much more, it seems that Chris Wickham left no stone unturned when writing this book. The only thing really missing is much on what life was like for the unpowerful (other than probably rather hard), thanks to the dearth of evidence on this aspect of life as contemporary chroniclers couldn't have given two shits about their lives and preferred to concentrate on the kings and other noblemen that were constantly blinding one another (apparently a preferred way of eliminating rivals for centuries, thanks to a commonly held belief that a ruler should be 'whole').

The jumping around in time and place, along with the lack of any real common narrative drive sometimes helped to hinder my progress as I found myself having to concentrate far more on all of the incidental facts and opinions presented in order to make them stick (as it is, I'd still be hard pushed to tell you anything I learned with any sort of specificity, and would probably be reduced to statements like 'the Vandals were well lairy', and 'aristocrats have always been a complete shower of shits'), but it certainly succeeded in helping me to decide which groups I'm interested in reading more on (that'll be all the ones beginning with the letter V).

The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe

5 stars

This Little Black Classic, comprising The Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of The House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado, is more than worth the 80p it took to own it. Having previously read and enjoyed The Raven, I knew I’d probably enjoy this but was pleasantly surprised at just how insanely good it actually was.

The pictures that I’ve seen of Poe all make him look like an interesting, if very spooky, dude:

This impression would be borne out by this book’s contents - all three tales are imbued with the mad and macabre – two told from the perspectives of murderers and the other dealing with grief – and while all seemed like simple, short stories, they still managed to be incredibly intense and packed with fantastic imagery, with their economy definitely adding to their effectiveness.

This one gets a slightly anxious and definitely spooked standing ovation. 

The Goblin Market, by Christina Rosetti

2 stars

I should probably be a little more ashamed than I actually am to admit that, John Cooper Clarke aside, I've never really been very drawn to poetry. While this Little Black Classic was a bargain at just 80p, I can't say that it's succeeded in changing my mind.

I've been accused of being more than a little morbid in my time, but even I can't help but think that Christina Rosetti would have been a bit of a bummer to be around. Aside from the vague warnings on sex and sin that appear to make up the titular Goblin Market, most of this collection was preoccupied with death - whether it be the death of innocence, the death of seasons or death of the body. As well as making the collection feel a little repetitive, this made sure that while it was easy to fit one of these poems into a short lunch break, I also went back a little more depressed than I had been before. 

I can understand how this might appeal to others, but it's not for me.

The Robber Bridegroom, by the Brothers Grimm

4 stars

This little collection of seven tales from the Brothers Grimm – The Master Huntsman, The Robber Bridegroom, The Devil’s Three Golden Hairs, The Six Servants, The Bremen Town Band, Snowwhite, and Lazy Harry – has definitely whet my whistle to read a bigger collection of their work.

The tales I remember from my childhood were occasionally grim, but I don’t remember them being as grisly as this – or as funny. I also seem to remember them having some sort of moral, but I’ll be blowed if I can think of what the morals of Lazy Harry and the Bremen Town Band were.

Taking in greedy, arrogant kings, lucky young men, unlucky princesses, clever animals, proud queens, forbidding forests, foul murderers, cannibalism, the Devil and his grandma, and dense young ladies who won’t listen when you tell them not to open the door to anyone, I can’t help but think that had the Brothers Grimm been around today they’d have probably been frogmarched from the offices of children’s publishers and targeted by a Daily Mail campaign.

As it is, someone needs to get on with adapting these older versions for film. I’d happily throw money at the chance to watch that.

Jason and Medea, by Apollonius of Rhodes

3 stars

I’ve always been a fan of Greek mythology, so when I saw this range of Penguin’s Little Black Classics (just 80p each – bargain!),  Jason and Medea was one of the first that my eager hands grabbed.

If you’re not already familiar with the story of Jason and the Argonauts this probably isn’t a very good place to start as it drops us straight into Jason reaching Colchis on his errand for the Golden Fleece, and being set an impossible task by Aeëtes – to yoke two flame breathing bulls and plow a field with serpents teeth which would sprout into an army of earth-born men who he must then defeat. 

Aided by Aeëtes daughter, Medea, Jason accomplishes the task – which is where this book ends.

If you’re after the full story then you’re likely to be dissatisfied (I’m always disappointed when we don’t get to hear the end of their tale, having long been a fan of the unhappy-ever-after ending), but if you want a quick dip into one of the more exciting parts of the tale, then this is the book for the job.