All the Reviews

The blurb puts it best - "DANCE PRONE is a novel of music, ritual and love. It is live, tense and corporeal." For many who were around in the mid 1980's, immersed in the counter culture of hard-core post-punk, indie rock with its wildness and weirdness, there are going to be bells ringing, and maybe some uncomfortable recognition. It's ultimately a novel about trauma, delivered in a series of brutal, almost dance like moves, with events blurring, just as they would have for central character Conrad - who spends a lot of time drunk, drugged, struggling.

With half the story ... Read review

Book 1 in a new series featuring Māori / Chinese character Tova Tan, the title of the novel - CAUGHT BETWEEN - is particularly apt. Tan's life is littered with dilemmas, from the dangerous lifestyle of her half-brother, and her desire to stay in touch, maybe help him; to wanting the truth behind her mother's supposed suicide but needing to not rock the boat; and of most immediate threat, returning home to find that she lives downstairs from a mother and daughter, found murdered, and she's the prime suspect.

From an opening that's very attention grabbing, through to ... Read review

Starting out with a challenge to myself to listen to the entire Discworld series as audio books has been quite a ride. I had expected to be hugely entertained, to laugh a lot, and feel a bit sad in places. I hadn't quite expected to be as thought-provoked as I turned out to be, with the range of issues that Pratchett cast light on, granted in a funny way mostly, being as wide-ranging and pertinent as they all turned out to be. I had expected characters that I would grow to really like, but nowhere near as much as I grew to love Tiffany, Granny, Nanny, Sam, Sybill, young Sam, Carrot, ... Read review

The fourth in the Tiffany Aching subseries of the Discworld novels, finds Tiffany on her own as the Witch of the chalk, dealing with the lunacy of rumours, and somebody, somewhere who is igniting fear, whipping up dark thoughts, setting people against witches, who, after all, are mostly like Tiffany - doing the mucky, tricky, icky bits in life, caring for the needy, helping the elderly, burying the dead, and birthing the tricky arrivals, looking after the downtrodden.

Bit of a metaphor for life in Victoria right now with the lunatic fringe whipping up hysteria and ... Read review

Originally posted: Thursday, February 25, 2010 - listened to this in audio format in early 2021

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Less of a fully fledged review, more of a musing on the latest Discworld Novel from Terry Pratchett UNSEEN ACADEMICALS.

The quote on the back sort of says it all "The thing about football - the IMPORTANT thing about football - is that it is not just about football".  Now I will admit I'm not a football (in any incarnation) fan.  Can't stand the hype.  Can't stand the carry-on.  Can't stand the games themselves.  So I was a little intrigued by this ... Read review

Only in Ankh-Morpork would Lord Vetinari solve the problem of his conman of choice's boredom at the Post Office by putting him in charge of the Royal Bank and Mint. I mean why not a self-declared, out and out conman, known to his boss Vetinari for exactly what he is, in charge of the central banking system. Why not indeed. After all Moist von Lipwig somehow managed to turn the Post Office into a thriving business, no longer in need of his guidance, even the Clacks are continuing apace, despite being the Post Office's main competition. von Lipwig as a banker, and chief walker of the ... Read review

Followers of the Discworld series will be aware that the Battle of Koom Valley looms large. It's referenced frequently in the Ankh-Morpork Watch sub-section of the series, and it's all about the relationship between the trolls and the dwarfs. As it says in the blurb - "That was where the trolls ambushed the dwarfs, or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls. It was far away. It was a long time ago." But it's always there bubbling along under the surface and if Commander Sam Vimes doesn't sort out the murder of just one dwarf, it's all going to kick off again, right on his doorstep, and ... Read review

A brutal novel full of horrible people doing horrible things, leaving themselves no obvious path forward or out, CRIMECHURCH isn't going to be to everyone's taste. So dark, so populated by downtrodden, desperate people I'm not even sure you could call this noir - there's something breathtaking, relentless, unapologetic about the pace here that kind of doesn't feel noirish - it just, well, feels desperate.

The title is obviously a reference to Christchurch, and it's more than a bit startling for a non-New Zealand reader to think that a city renowned for its beauty (and ... Read review

The Security (firm) are a highly specialised team of personal bodyguards, renowned as the best in the business. Until their clients' personal lives start to be exposed, leaving the team trying to protect themselves, while trying to find out who it is that knows a lot of their own secrets, let alone those of their clients. THE SECURITY (novel) is about what happens to the rich and famous when their secrets leak, it's also about what happens to such a highly specialised firm, who rely on their reputation, when they appear to be the only link between the affected clients.

... Read review