Mississippi Roll - George R R Martin (ed)

 What attracted me to this was the shared setting with Fevre Dream - a Mississippi steamboat actually mentioned in that novel.  Actually, that was an earlier incarnation of the steamboat here, built by an ancestor of the captain here.  And as part of the Wild Cards series of more than twenty novels and stories by forty-plus writers, all edited by Martin, who created the central premise: that is, an alien virus released over New York in the aftermath of World War II, which either kills those infected (Black Queens), mutates them into monsters (Jokers), or grants them super powers (Aces or, less 'super', Deuces).

Wilbur Leathers is in New York on his honeymoon when the virus was released in September 1946.  He is not infected, nor is his wife, and they achieve his post-war dream, a new version of the family steamboat, a new Natchez, steaming up and down the Mississippi.  Five years later he's struggling to pay the bills - and he owes some very unpleasant people.  On their behalf Marcus Carpenter comes aboard and demands payment.  A fight breaks out.  Carpenter pulls a gun.  Leathers finds himself suddenly outside his body - then inside Carpenter's.  Wilbur is the actual steam now, broiling Carpenter from the inside out.

Wilbur is still aboard the Natchez sixty-five years later.  He has learned how to use steam to manifest himself but he cannot speak (though he can pick up the tools with which to write) and he cannot leave the boat and go ashore.  But, all in all, it's not such a bad afterlife.  The Natchez is doing better now, partly because of its famous steam ghost.  This particular trip is up to the Tall Stacks Race in Cincinnati - and there are several complications.  A significant number of Joker refugees from Kazakhstan have been smuggled aboard, 'illegal immigrants' being sought by the authorities for deportation to an island off Northern Ireland.  And the consortium which now owns the Natchez is planning to turn her into a floating fixed-mooring casino.  With her boilers stripped out and sold for scrap, what then happens to steam-ghost Wilbur.

This is the storyline which is then developed by six writers (part of the Wild Cards Trust).  In practice, the Wilbur story is written in eight episodes or parts scattered through the book (but double parts at the beginning and end) by Stephen W Leigh.  Five other stories, by other authors, are set within this framework, self-contained in so much as they focus on different sets of characters, but all linked to the main story.  The quality of these varies, naturally, but all are good.  My personal favourite was the last one, 'Under the Arch' by David D Levine - but would I have enjoyed it so much without being led to it by the others?  I also really enjoyed the end twist.

This sort of gaming-as-series-fiction is a side-alley of sci fi I haven't come across before.  I will certainly look out for more of Wild Cards in particular.

Out of this World - Graham Swift

Swift is interesting: one of those writers from circa 1980, he won the Booker fairly early and then never really rose any higher in public perception.  He was there with Amis fils, Ian McEwen, even Salman Rushdie, back in the day, but not really now.  Scribner, however, seem to have done a substantial reissue of his backlist in these smart, clean paperbacks, and I thought I'd give him a go.

Firstly, you don't really get the title until the end.  The revelation is okay, but it's not worth waiting for.  Otherwise, the story is presented through a series of monologues, mainly those of Harry Beech, a sixty-four year-old former war photographer, and his daughter Sophie, thirty-six, who is married and living in the US.  Sophie is talking to her psychotherapist, Dr Klein.  We don't really know who Harry is talking to - himself?

Harry and Sophie have never been close.  After her Greek mother Anna died in a plane crash, Sophie has been brought up by her grandfather Robert Beech, MD of Beech Munitions Company, one-armed, holder of a Victoria Cross.  Robert, of course, fought in World War I; he was the third son, never expected to take over the family business, but both his brothers died in the trenches.  His wife died giving birth to Harry in 1918.  Robert and Harry were never close.  But the book begins with father and son in a rare moment together, watching the first Moon landing on TV.

Harry served during the second war.  He got shifted into intelligence, where he developed his photography.  Post war, he documented the Nuremberg Trials, which is where he met Anna.

In 1972 everything changes.  Robert Beech and his chauffeur are killed by a terrorist car bomb.  Both Harry and Sophie witness the explosion.  It is the beginning of their estrangement.  Harry, who coincidentally was due to fly to Belfast later that day to photograph the Troubles, gives up journalism altogether.  Sophie, due to go to University, goes off to Greece where she meets and marries cheerful Joe.  Joe is in the tourist business and in 1982, when the main body of the story is set, runs a company selling Olde England to US tourists.

By 1982 Harry is a specialist in aerial photographer, for field archaeologists, mainly.  He has met a much younger woman and plans to marry her.  He finally reaches out to Sophie, inviting her to the wedding.,  Meanwhile, the ridiculous Falklands War happens - such a stunt, such an absurd final convulsion of imperialism, that Harry is reminded of the Trojan War rather than wars he covered in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East.  Does that make his half-Greek daughter Iphigenia?

It's a many-layered novel, touching on many themes, but mainly the disintegration of family.  It was written in 1988, is very much of his time, but none the worse for that.  It was interesting, well-written, and had several compelling male characters.  Sophie, however, is just a pampered bitch, therefore the story lacks balance.  That is probably its only fault.  I was entertained and impressed, always a good combination.  I will try more.

The Shameless - Ace Atkins

Before finding The Shameless, all I knew of Ace Atkins was that he had been chosen to continue the Spenser novels of the late Robert B Parker.  Now it turns out that Atkins has written a whole bunch of novels in his own right, including a hatful of True Crime Novels which seem right up my street.

The Shameless is the ninth in his Quinn Colson series.  It matters not at all that I hadn't read the previous eight - Atkins has used the ingenious device of a couple of podcasters from New York who come to Tibbehah County, Mississippi, to investigate a young man's mysterious death thirty years earlier, who inevitably unearth Colson's back-story.  Colson was at school with the late Brandon Taylor; both were avid hunters given to disappearing into the woods.  Quinn Colson famously came back, poor old Brandon didn't.  Eventually the local sheriff found him with his brains blown out.  Suicide, the sheriff decided.  The sheriff back then was Quinn Colson's uncle.  He, too, shot himself twenty years later.

Back in 1990 Quinn Colson and his best friend Boom were teenage tearaways.  Then they joined the military, became rangers, served in Afghanistan and became heroes.  Boom came home missing an arm.  Quinn returned to become sheriff.  Now he is married to Maggie who, back in the day, just happened to be Brandon Taylor's girlfriend.  When he married Maggie, Quinn also took on her son from her previous marriage - who, of course, is called Brandon.

While the podcasters did into the past, Quinn Colson has more than enough trouble to deal with in the present day.  Senator Jimmy Vardaman is running for the governorship.  Vardaman is a huckster, claiming to be against the corrupt political system, promising to bring traditional values back to Mississippi.  Obviously he is corrupt as hell, riding on criminal money instead of the traditional vested interests.  Quinn Colson doesn't care a damn for Vardaman or his personal militia; he is after the Syndicate who control him.

It's a dense and dangerous system in which it's well night impossible to tell the bad guys from the good.  It gets even more complicated when an anonymous letter to Maggie Colson leads to Quinn finding the remains of a young woman, not far from where Brandon Taylor was found, dating back to the same time he died.

I loved the deep back-story to The Shameless.  I really enjoyed Atkins' writing style - sharp, intelligent, but retaining a flavour of William Faulkner and other chroniclers of the Deep South.  I've got some serious catching up to do with Mr Atkins.

Fevre Dream - George R R Martin

 Everybody's heard of George R R Martin.  After Game of Thrones he's got to be one of the most famous living writers.  But not everyone has read him.  Me, for instance - Fevre Dream is my first Martin, bought because it's a vampire novel and therefore my cup of tea.

It's certainly that.  Abner Marsh is a steamboat owner down on his luck who dreams of captaining the fastest steamer on the Mississippi.  Along comes the mysterious Joshua York, who offers him precisely that.  Together, as partners, they create the Fevre Dream, using York's money and Marsh's expertise.

Things start going wrong on the maiden voyage.  The fastest steamship on the river is constantly being delayed by York's nocturnal trips ashore.  Marsh confronts his partner, who reveals the truth.  I don't think it's giving too much away to say it's about vampires.  I've already stated the fact - it's what drew me to the book.  What kept me at the book, among many other things, is Martin's take on vampires, which includes the idea of the bloodmaster, the dominant vampire, the pale king.  Is it Joshua or his rival, plantation owner Damon Julian.  Well, one of them has Abner Marsh as his partner, the other Sour Billy Tipton.  Marsh is said to be the ugliest man on the Mississippi but he's honest and honourable.  Sour Billy runs him close in the looks department, but keeps his true, profound ugliness on the inside.

With this material Martin embarks on his forte, the adventure quest as full of twists and turns as the great river itself.  He carries it off perfectly, his writing just sufficiently elevated to entertain the higher aspects of the reader's mind while the pounding plot grips the emotions.  I liked it so much that I have already picked up what looks like a linked project edited by Martin.  Mississippi Roll is a portfolio collection by other writers set aboard the steamship Marsh travels aboard after he has lost control of the Fevre Dream.  I can't wait.