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Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog

It's a blog! Mainly of book reviews.

Currently reading

Station Zero
Philip Reeve
Progress: 220/282 pages
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition
Ursula K. Le Guin, Charles Vess
Progress: 749/997 pages
The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry
Robert Chandler
The Uncertain Land and Other Poems
Patrick O'Brian
Progress: 8/160 pages
The Heptameron (Penguin Classics)
Marguerite de Navarre
Progress: 152/544 pages
The Poems and Plays of John Masefield
John Masefield
Progress: 78/534 pages
Poems Selected
Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes
Progress: 4/50 pages
Selected Poems
U A Fanthorpe
Progress: 18/160 pages
The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse
Mick Imlah, Robert Crawford
Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2
Ursula K. Le Guin
Progress: 133/789 pages

The Delirium Brief, Charles Stross

The Delirium Brief - Charles Stross

Whoah! I wasn't expecting that!

 

Initially I was a little disappointed because the much heralded return of BoB Howard as narrator was not as much as fun as anticipated: his distinctive voice seems to have largely disappeared. To some extent this is understandable since he's ten years older than when he first appeared, has seen an awful lot of horror, terror, death and destruction and has also ceased to be entirely human - but his nutso forms of expression were a great part of his appeal.

 

Later revelations and plot developments were so unexpected, shocking and game changing in terms of the series as a whole that, in fact, this book re-invigorates a series that was flagging and makes me more excited for the next volume than I've been for quite some time. Props to Stross for taking the series alarmingly far outside its comfort zone.