Books I Read In July

 Fiction

'The Demon Within' by Byron Nadgie

As anyone who reads my blog knows, I often do not enjoy the books I read. However, this must be the worst book I have read in many years. One major problem is that it reads like a first draft of someone who has not written fiction before. Even online reviews note there are 'editing issues' with the book. I have noted how even published books these days seem to let errors through and picked up a number with 'Four Days in June' (2006): http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/10/books-i-readlistened-to-in-october.html?m=0  However, this book is riddled with errors that should have been addressed at some stage by the author or the publishing house.

There are numerous, very long sentences sometimes lasting an entire paragraph. They are strung together with commas where in fact there should be a new sentence. Reading the book aloud shows you just how chaotic such writing becomes. There is also the beginners' error of jumping point of view in the narrative very abruptly. From one paragraph to the next you can be switched from seeing through one character's eyes to seeing in an instant through those of the person they are talking to. We see a lot of the characters' thoughts, that is fine. However, Nadgie seems uncertain how to handle these. He puts them in italics but then often mixes long sentences in among the narrative, jumping back and forth between the forms.

Another problem is he often ends a scene outlining what the characters have put in place or triggered for days, sometimes even years into the future. This seems a bit foolish given this is supposed to be the first book in a series. It seems as if Nadgie is so desperate to reveal what he has planned that he cannot hold back. His narrator is not simply omniscient but out of time. Nadgie seems to have missed that this reduces the dynamic of the narrative and may also cause him problems in writing subsequent books in the series.

One jarring problem is simply the number of grammar errors and sound-alike mix ups. There are repeated areas of "impenetrable fog" that characters actually walk through and one character actually is said to have "silently thought" presumably as opposed to the usual loud form of thinking. I did wonder if  Nadgie had dictated the book to someone and had not checked the actual spelling their transcriber used. I know it is common in life these days to see an apostrophe used for a plain plural and yet no apostrophe used where it should be for a possessive. However, Nadgie does this repeatedly (though not even consistently) throughout the books. We get "uncle's", "ninja's", "magician's", "brother's", "pagoda's", "katana's" and "captains'" as plurals, yet also get "wolfs", "skins surface", "the lands life", "the Kings ear", "cities", "ambassadors" and "families" masquerading as possessives. Is it the case that our language has mutated so far in this contrary direction that these things are now not actually considered to be mistakes but the the correct versions?

In terms of sound-alike errors we see "tenants" when "tenets" is meant; many characters have "spurned" on their horses rather than "spurred". There is the mix-up of accept/except, bought/brought, hyperthermia/hypothermia - so actually reversing what is intended; never/nether: insure/ensure; patients/patience; captor/captive - again the wrong word used reverses the meaning; stagnate/stagnant; blazoned/blazed; cast/caste; corp/corps; puss/pus; anti-chambers/antechambers and tare/tear. Often he makes the wrong choice between two legitimate words: sessions/seasons; exerts/excerpts; sort/sought; gunnels/gunwales - gunnels are a fish, not a part of a boat; aligned/lined; lopped/loped; fair/fare; preying/prying; choose/chose; chaff/chafe, poised/posed; gleam/glean and "ultraviolent" rather than "ultraviolet" and so on. There is a mix-up of dammed/damned leading to even a Legion of the Dammed. This all suggests a real lack of care; not even running a grammar checker over the text, let alone having it edited. These are just some of the examples, I could spend a lot longer listing all such mistakes.

This is a fantasy novel with the typical kind of medieval technology even if much of it is Japanese rather than Western European. It is not a post-apocalyptic model, yet Nadgie seems unable to sift out terms that none of the characters could even conceive. They speak of "intel", they "fire" arrows from "firing positions". "Picket fences" are set up rather than pickets or piquets, giving a comic impression of lots of American white-painted garden fences everywhere. There is reference to "corrugated iron", a "minefield", an "atomic cloud", a "net of lasers", something being "bomb proof" and something else "at critical mass". These are not only anachronistic aspects, in a world without such technology how can a character even have a concept of what an atomic cloud would be let alone a net of lasers? 

There are typical GCSE English level errors like a character who "might of" done something rather than "might have" and there are simply passages that have not been read over so characters put a candle in "a carved niche that the shepherds had carved" and "find somewhere to find food"; others "had set false positions, fires had been set". As for "excite their will" I could not work out what was intended, perhaps "exercise". Do not let anyone tell you that published books are better quality than self-published ones, certainly by 2017 when this book was published (costing £10.99 new), it was not the case.

Right, as to the story, in some ways it is a real shame that the book is weighed down with so many teenaged grammar and creative writing errors. The concept of a fantasy world in which magic is a 'river' which individuals can tap into but has immense mental and physical side effects is fresh. The character of Mauread who is one of the main ones in the book, having to flee when her magician father is caught up with, and trying to save her son who may, like her be tainted with magic, is dramatic and engaging. There are epic scenes of battling both the elements and an assortment of demons as well as the magic itself.

The other thread of intrigues in a very Japanese culture, is confused and far less engaging. We see too much of all sides of the different conspiracies and too many of the characters spend ages giving us 'info dumps' in their thoughts. One thing that fantasy writers (and indeed those creating role-playing game scenarios) are advised from the start is never to say 'oh, that's Japanese/Indian/Russian/English culture' in a fantasy setting. In another world it cannot be those things as they are unique to Earth. You can have cultures which have similar traits but to shift things wholesale into what is supposed to be a different world just looks weak. While Nadgie names different people and places, he makes use of ninjas, called "ninjas"; he does admittedly have more than one Shogun but they are all termed "Shoguns";  the samurai are called "samurai" and they wield "katanas" and "wakizashis" (in fact "katana's" and "wakizashi's"), there are ninja throwing shuriken ("ninja's" throwing "shuriken's"), just as they would in our medieval Japan. There is even the Shinto religion in this world. I could accept if somehow there was a portal to Earth and people had brought across these things to this other world, but there is no sign of that. The author seems to have wanted to write a samurai drama and rather than write that novel too, simply plonked it into this one.

Nadgie's strength is in describing places and conditions. There are good scenes in a flooded mountain river and when soldiers go through cursed graveyards. However, these stand out among text which you often feel the author is not in control of. I know some advisors on writing fantasy tell beginning authors to read as much fantasy fiction as they can. I do think that is unnecessary, but in Nadgie's case it does seem as if he needs to read some; or in fact just read decent books written in English and think about how they are written, how things are spelt, grammar, etc. What is galling is that I know a lot of excellent fantasy authors producing top quality books and yet they struggle to get agents, let alone publishers and yet this book which a GCSE teacher marking it would not pass, somehow is published and on sale at £10.99. I do see that the publishers are one that offer a partnership deal which means that some authors cover costs themselves. However, it does say they employ proofreaders and editors, so it is rather surprising that they let this book through without serious amendment. There is a decent novel in here but it is lost among all the writing flaws and a firm editor could have really brought it out.

'XPD' by Len Deighton

This was the first fiction book by Len Deighton, aside from 'SS-GB' (1978), that I have read. It was published in 1981 and is set in 1979 with the Thatcher government coming to power. I know Deighton is renowned for his lean, taut spy thrillers but I am not surprised that this one is not included among his best. Far too much is going on. Deighton seemed keen to have a story involving Hollywood so has film makers producing a movie about an incident in the closing days of the Second World War about various valuables sent to a Thuringian salt mine. These were looted by US servicemen who used the funds to set up a bank. Among the documents in the haul is one detailing a meeting in May 1940 between Churchill and Hitler in which the former tried to bribe the German leader not to continue his advance into France.

It is a typical set-up of action novels of the period. Not only is there Nazi gold, but there is a group trying to establish the Fourth Reich. Deighton's 'hero' is a British agent concerned to get the documents about the Churchill-Hitler meeting. However, there are also Soviet agents involved too. There is simply so much deception and various groups involved that you get very bored. There are quick jaunts between the USA and Switzerland even when one of the characters has been harmed in a serious car crash. The whole book is very laboured. It feels that Deighton felt compelled/was compelled to write a trendy thriller for the era. Saying that the clothing which many of the characters wear is incredibly ostentatious and seems more suited to what characters in a 'blaxploitation' movie of the early 1970s would wear. I can understand why this is not a well known one of Deighton's book. It is over-egged with far too many aspects and ultimately comes over as not taut, but laboured.

Non-Fiction

'Harold Wilson' by Ben Pimlott

I met Pimlott in the late 1990s a few years after this book was published in 1992. It is immensely detailed, covering 811 pages including endnotes and references. At times you feel he digs too deep into not only Wilson himself but associated people. We read all about his ancestors and those of his wife Gladys/Mary. As Mary she became a successful poet, but really this is not a biography of her, so I do not know why her poems are featured. At times, Pimlott gives a blow-by-blow account of rows within the Labour Party, making sure to include as many different viewpoints as possible. This does highlight the benefit of writing a biography when not only is the person themselves alive, Wilson did not die until 1995, but a lot of those they interacted with are and in a fit state to be interviewed. A lot of them have also produced memoirs, autobiographies or have biographies too. However, such detail does not really add much to our understanding of Wilson the man.

I think Pimlott could have reduced the toing and froing of these incidents and dug more into why Wilson was seen in such contradictory ways depending on the people viewing him. Throughout the book you get these conflicting views of him as a loner and distant but a man with a lot of friends and amiable too. He is portrayed as being highly efficient and diplomatic but also as incompetent and divisive. He is shown as loyal but also as opportunistic; as idealistic but also highly pragmatic. It is clear that Wilson suffered from people imprinting on him rather than them often actually seeing the real man. Consistently because he was 'ordinary', though very capable and well educated, people seem to have insisted that there could not be the complexity to him that was actually the case.

Perhaps Wilson's greatest achievement was in keeping the Labour Party together despite the vicious internecine conflicts down the decades. In part you do come away wondering what the party could have achieved, especially when in government if he spent some less energy on fighting with itself, let alone with the unions. Wilson is shown as being very stubborn in not removing those who were doing harm. This could be of great detriment. Why George Brown was allowed to remain in significant posts for as long as he was, with all the harm he caused, is a mystery unless seen in the light of Wilson's dogmatic 'loyalty' to colleagues and the fact that his prime concern too often was balancing the various elements of the Labour Party rather than necessarily doing what was right for it or the country.

Still, Pimlott makes clear that even a united Labour government at any stage, could have achieved very little. Wilson had matured as a politician in the wartime and immediate post-war period when for a short time governments could actually get things done. However, by 1964, let alone by 1966 and 1974, they were largely powerless in the face especially of big business, increasingly in the form of multi-nationals and big finance. Very little of the Wilson governments' objectives were ever achieved, much to the detriment of the British economy. Pimlott shows that only areas in which big business was largely disinterested, such as personal behaviour, e.g. divorce and homosexuality and the expansion of higher education, including the Open University, were Wilson and his ministers able to make any headway.

Internationally, Wilson was like all the post-war prime ministers, perhaps even into the 1980s, in not really truly accepting the lessons of 1947, let alone 1956. Thus, while Wilson sought an international role and, as with most other things, did so assiduously, Pimlott shows how little power Britain actually had. One prime example over Rhodesia, a situation in which despite all his efforts, Wilson was able to achieve nothing. Similarly though he worked hard to develop channels of communication with the USSR and with Israel he was unable to alter the Cold War or Middle East situations and in fact such contacts aroused suspicions of him among the UK and US security services. Despite the highly restricted environment in which he was operating, both domestically and internationally, Pimlott never seems to criticise strongly Wilson's attempts to achieve something. Perhaps only in 1975/76 did he realise how he could make no headway that ran contrary to the wishes of the general right-wing context in which British governments are compelled to work.

Pimlott does a very good, sober analysis of all the conspiracies around Wilson, evidence for which has only grown as the years have passed. While dampening down outrageous claims, he shows that Wilson, despite his personal interest in the 'secret world' and his use of MI5 briefings was the victim of at least a faction within that body which sought to undermine him or even bring him down. The repeated burglaries of his and colleagues' homes and offices alone should be convincing. Wilson did not help matters by remaining loyal to 'dodgy' friends though their dubious standing was usually of a financial rather than traitorous nature. The fact that Wilson was able to endure and achieve something, despite not only the almost constant fighting in his own party but also efforts by some British and American intelligence officers to discredit him, re-emphasises the strength of the man. You certainly come away from this book feeling that while he did make mistakes and certainly over-estimated the ability of any non-right-wing UK government to achieve anything, that he was a 'battler' and that Britain would have been in far more grave situations than even it faced during his period if he had not been.