Ink & Quill

No good deed goes unpunished! Richard Mayhew decides in a split second to rescue a wounded girl bleeding on the pavement instead of accompanying his girl-friend to an important dinner, and his life is turned upside down. And by upside down, I do mean upside down! He is drawn into a world underground that bears little resemblance (and yet it does!) to his own. Richard has entered London Below, the labyrinthic universe of the London “Tube” where things are not what they seem. Akin to Alice stepping into the looking-glass, Richard will have to figure out how to behave in a world whose rules are unfamiliar. And to top it all, he is now fully involved in a creepy situation helping Door, the young wounded lady, find out who killed her family and why. By now “Neverwhere” has become a Classic of urban fantasy. Dark but overly, funny at times, definitely exciting and fast pace, the reader is taken along with Richard into a world that will make you wonder which one of the two, London Below or London Above is better, an

Welcome to the world of the strange, the creepy, darkness and dread. Saul has been accused of killing his father and sent to jail. Comes to visit him a weird character who calls himself King Rat and who helps Saul escape. Did King Rat help Saul out of the kindness of his heart? Probably not! The enemy is back and Saul is the only one who cannot be touched. Who’s the enemy? The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Yes, the Piper is back! The same one who so long ago forced all the rats out of Hamelin. He is back and he expects everyone to dance to his tune. A very evil creature! Saul’s half-ratness, may well be the only thing that can prevent the Piper from taking over the world.

Young Locke is an orphan, picked up in the street by the Thiefmaker who teaches him and dozens of other children the fine art of picking pockets. But when he goes too far, brings too much attention to himself and ends up having another boy killed, Locke is sold to the Eyeless Priest. There a new life begins for Locke. The Eyeless Priest will teach Locke, along with a few other boys, the art of thieving, of the masquerade, of faking accents, how to pass for a Noble, for a merchant, for a King even, turning his group of teenage boys into the Gentlemen Bastards, the finest most capable band of bandits this side of Camorr! Five young men, highly trained in lies and masquerades, able to con and fool anyone and anything, Locke and his Gentlemen Bastards are quite the group! But that is without taking into account the ongoing feud between the two main leaders of the thieves world. On the one hand Capa Barsavi, to whom Locke owes allegiance, and on the other, the mysterious Gray King who also wants a piece of the act

When you are a band of mercenaries to hire, you don’t really care what the job is. When it turns out that you are going to have to go into battles with big bad evil dark sorcerers recently out of their grave, well, so be it! To battle we go! Told from the perspective of Croaker, the doctor and the historian, The Black Company is a fascinating tale of adventure despite its slow start. Once the story starts moving and the reader finally figures out who is who, and who is behind it all, hold on to your seat, you are in for a bumpy ride! The Black Company   is a mix between medieval fantasy and an epic tale filled with mystery, first in a long series of books that will little by little fill in all the gaps and leave the reader satisfied, fulfilled with a plot well wrapped and characters well developed 

Written from three different perspectives and in three different time periods, “The Feast of the Goat” retells the Dominican Republic years of dictatorship under General Rafael Trujillo. First and foremost, Urania in the present. Daughter of Trujillo’s secretary of state Agustin Cabral, Urania comes back to Cuidad Trujillo (now Santo Domingo) to visit a father she has not seen in more than 30 years. She will also have to face the demons she has left behind and the gruesome reason why she so deeply hates her father. Second, the assassins in 1961. A gathering of men, soldiers or ex-military who have been wronged one way or another by Trujillo will plot to take matters into their own hands and free the country of Trujillo’s power once and for all. Will they succeed? And if they do, what consequences will the face? Third, Trujillo himself from 1930 to 1961. The reader will follow his raise to power, his reign of terror, his life as “the Chief”, as well as his slow descent into decadence as the now old man tries t

In this masterpiece of Iranian literature by Sadegh Hedayat, the nameless narrator is slowly falling into madness. The images he sees are troublesome to say the least. Is he dreaming? Is he losing touch with reality? Are we dealing with the hallucinations of an opium user? The text does not provide any answer and the reader is left to decide on his/her own how to interpret the maniacal laughter and the various shadows that keep disturbing the narrator’s peace. And death, ever so present. A fascinating read but not recommended for a fun novel to bring on the beach. It will make your mind wonder if you are all sane yourself and if the murderous tendencies the narrator exhibits may not be yours just as well.  “The Blind Owl” has been compared to Poe’s stories, to “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and to some of Dostoevsky’s novels. Written from the first person narrative for a more “hands-on” experience, “The Blind Owl,” short yet dense, will shake you to the core. Prepare to be moved!

In her latest trilogy, Margaret Atwood describes an eerie post-apocalyptic world in which most of the human race has been destroyed by a “waterless flood” aka an engineer plague. All that is left are a few Gardeners (a cult-like group who refuse to eat meat and live according to nature), the Crakers (an engineered race created by Crake to be a perfect humanoid civilization) and a few mixed animals (the most important being the pigoons, pigs equipped with human brain tissue) Will humanity survive? And if yes, how? The story is told from various perspectives (from Jimmy to Ren, to Toby, to Zeb, and finally to Bluebeard) and move back and forth between the present (year 25, post-apocalypse) and the past (how and why the plague came to be? who were Oryx and Crake? who is Adam one? was there an Eve One? what happened to the world?) A very good tale of despair and hope, of civilization (re)created, of what it means to live in a deprived world run by the CorpSeCorps, of love and friendship, and of blue abdomens… 

If you think you are embarking in a simple detective story, think again! The New York trilogy will take you deeper and further than any other “noir” novel you have read thus far. Composed of three stand alone novellas, the reader soon realizes they all share common threads, if not common characters. Touching on broad themes like identity, narrative creation, what constitutes a writer, solitude, obsession, the blurred lined between fiction and reality, and between sanity and insanity, The New York trilogy cannot leave its reader indifferent. Purposefully written to provide a mirror for its reader, the New York trilogy cannot but leave the reader pondering, shaken and forever altered. Brilliant, it is not however to be put in everyone’s hands. A reader with some knowledge of narratology, meta-fiction, deconstruction and post-modernity may be better equipped to swim in the dark and muddy waters of Paul Auster’s fascinating creation.

One day out of the blue, a dome comes down, creating a perfect circle around your town. Where does it come from? No idea! Who put it there? Dunno! And why? Well wouldn’t you like to know? The people of Chester’s Mill will have to learn to live with each other and the daunting thought that maybe the dome will never lift. As the townspeople spend more and more time together, secrets start to come out… and they are not all pretty, to say the least… Mixing supernatural, mystery, science and behavioral psychology, Stephen King has done it again, creating another highly enjoyable novel with a tremendous ending. Careful though, this book is quite long! In this episode we are talking both about the book and the new TV series.

Who has not wondered what happened to Danny, the cute little boy locked in a battle of wits with a haunted hotel in the middle of the winter? Who has not pondered whether the negative energy trapped in the Overlook was still present, despite the boiler’s explosion and the hotel being burned to the ground? Doctor Sleep revisits the character of Danny. Now grown, he is ready to help Abra, a little girl whose psychic powers have attracted a band of “steam vampires” who want nothing more than harvest and inhale her powers in order to survive. In pure Stephen King fashion, the story creeps up to its final showdown when the three main factions, Dan, Abra and the True, will fight to the death. It’s suspenseful, creepy, funny at times and dark at others but all in all, you just can’t put it down.  What more can I say? The name Stephen King says it all!

What do we remember of Mata Hari? A dancer? Yes. A spy? Yes, that too. But what else? In this fast-pace biography, Pat Shipman provides a fascinating account of how Margaretha Zelle MacLeod, Dutch citizen, became Mata Hari, and how this led her to be executed at the end of World War One. Was Mata Hari a likable character, a gorgeous woman victim of her circumstances? Or was she a vile manipulator, eager and able to use men to retrieve her only means of sustenance: money? Was she by far the most intelligent women of her time, or an mere opportunist? For anyone who is not familiar with Mata Hari, this is a very good start and will give the reader a pretty good idea who she was, what she was all about, and why she is still remembered today, for better or for worse.

In this great depiction of the lives and conquests of the Mongols throughout history, Jack Weatherford sheds light on an historical character that has been given a lot of bad press, Ranging from before Genghis Khan’s birth to the end of the Mongol empire long after his death, the author portrays the culture and ideals of a people united under one ruler, one goal. The reader will be taken back in time and into a world not that different from our own, and that the Mongols’ actions have helped shape.

In this futuristic series of 10 volumes set in “The City,” Spider Jerusalem, rogue journalist and truth seeker is out to get the politicians, and to expose them for who they are. In the decadent world they live in, Spider and his “filthy assistants” will stop at nothing, sex, drugs or videos to dig up the truth and expose the lies. Very cyber punk, graphic in both senses of the word, this series is not for everyone. You like a foul-mouthed character with a habit of beating up his opponents to get the truth out of them, Transmetropolitan is for you! If you have more of a sensitive stomach, you might want to skip a few pages. All in all an interesting take on the world toward which we are heading. A world of endless stimuli, endless commercials, extremely corrupt and evil politicians, self-indulgence in the form of medical conveniences, and drugs drugs drugs!!

Have you been wondering what happened to Snow White and if she is still happily married to her Prince Charming? And what about that Big Bad Wolf that ate poor Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, where did he disappear? Cinderella? The three blind mice? King Cole? Rest assured, they are all alive and well… in Fabletown, a hidden area of New York City. But that is only for those who can pass for humans (aka Mundy). The others are kept in upstate New York in The Farm run by Snow White’s sister, Rose Red. What are they doing there you ask? They have been kicked out of their homeland by the “Adversary.” And when you find out who that it, it will knock your socks off! Now is the time to confront said adversary, and to go home. In this episode we review the whole series. Yup, all 18 books!

This is Paris through the eyes of five families: the aristocrats, the “low-life”, the Jews, the workers and the merchants. Five different perspectives from the Middle-Ages to 1968, five ways to look at Paris, to be in Paris, to make Paris what it is today.  The novel shows the relationship between people and the city; how a city has an effect on its people, and how the people and their beliefs shape a city. This is a fast read (despite its 800-something pages) and a very interesting look at the main events in French history that have left their mark on Paris.

This is not your typical book about New York. This one is all about impressions, about slices of life, about what a city does to you and how you can influence a city. Manhattan Transfer is a wonder of literary mastery. Its shadowy characters evolve in a New York that evolves with them. A tremendous novel that takes you deep in the heart of a large metropolis. A pure jewel.

When you are the first 100 people on Mars, there are a few things that need to happen. First, you need to get along. That’s a given (but not as easy as it looks..). You also have to have an infrastructure that allows you to breath, travel, explore, and, maybe just live. Also not that easy.. Especially when you have factions on Earth trying to dictate how THEY want Mars to be, factions on Mars trying to replicate Earth, those who want Mars to remain the same, untouched and those who are simply trying to do their job! Not an easy combination. Winner of the Hugo and the Nebula Award, Kim Stanley Robinson has created a very believable Martian colonization scenario from all perspective. Written in the third narrative but allowing every major player (and every major field of study) to have its own chapter, the author manages to present to his reader the various discoveries, joys, disappointments and road blocks that such a set of scientist (soon followed by various waves of immigration) deals with when faced with s

A Classic of science-fiction, The Martian Chronicles are a gathering of little stories told from many perspectives, from the Martians witnessing the coming of large rockets from the sky, to the Earth people (scientists, families, or individuals) settling on a new planet with all the changes and adaptation (or lack thereof) that the move implies. Each little story is a slice of life, a character study, an individual thrown in a situation to observe his or her behavior. More than a simple work of science-fiction, The Martian Chronicles are an observation on Mankind, their attitude, their behavior, their mentality. Dealing greatly with the themes of the Other (inside as much as outside), this novel is a wonderful peek at what humanity can do when it is at its best and at its worth.

In this first person narration, the main character, whose name the reader never gets to discover, struggles with hunger. As his stomach remains empty, his head fills with delusions, inner monologues and streams of consciousness that lead the reader to wonder whether or not the narrator is sane. The question remains as to whether the hunger is the cause or the consequence of the narrator’s delusional state. Focusing mainly on social interactions and personal dilemmas, Hunger is a psychological novel in the same vein as Dostoevsky’s The Double, albeit not as dark.. A must-read for anyone interested in the inner mechanisms of the human mind

The whole town is suddenly blind! No reason, no cause, but it is contagious. And it is spreading…fast! The military takes matters into its own hands and in order to confine the epidemic, sends the affected into a secluded ward. Lost, only able to rely on themselves and each other, this is the story of a struggle. Will they be able to retain their dignity when faced with adversity? When push comes to shove, will they allow themselves to do the unthinkable to help themselves and each other? The story follows seven principal protagonists of both sexes, of various ages and from different social backgrounds. Helped in their misery by the only person who has miraculously retained her eyesight, will those seven people survive the horrors that mankind is capable of causing? A heart-wrenching tale that will entice the reader and allow him/her to experience many and at times contradictory emotions. A fantastic work of literature by Jose Saramago, Nobel Prize winner for Literature.