Note: I received a copy of The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies from the publisher, Soft Skull Press, for review consideration. Martin Millar writes books like classic British sitcoms, where there is a central organizing event (or several) around which the action is oriented, and the characters all have their separate and incompatible visions for what is to happen at this event, and everything goes magnificently to hell, and then in the end it all turns out okay, or doesn’t. Whether or not this works for you as a structure will most likely be the determining factor in whether you…
12 CommentsTag: Martin Millar
Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review. Scottish werewolf Kalix MacRinnalch is trying to make her life better. She’s taking remedial classes at a nearby college and trying to cut back on the violence she does to others and herself. But her plans for self-improvement are interrupted when the Guild of Werewolf Hunters — abetted in their work by Fire Queen Malveria’s deadly enemy — begins to hunt down and murder the members of the werewolf clans. And the werewolves are all: Well, to start with, I am in favor…
18 CommentsThe beginning: An unnamed narrator and his flatmate Ruby come home one day to find that a girl has died outside of their squat. “What it needs now,” says Ruby, “is for the radio to start playing ‘You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful, and You’re Mine.’” “Yes,” I agree. “If that was to happen it would be immensely poignant.” But when I switch on the radio the only station we can find is broadcasting a report from the Tokyo stock market instead, and no matter how we try we cannot work this up into any really effective kind of…
18 CommentsI got this book out of the library because I put Martin Millar’s name into the Literature-Map website, and Caitlin Kiernan’s name was close to his. This is one of those things that I should know straight away isn’t going to work out for me: every time I do this, I find that the closest authors to the name I’ve entered are people I either haven’t heard of or don’t like, whereas the names of authors I do like are farther out to the perimeter. Douglas Coupland, Neil Gaiman, T.S. Eliot, and Alexandre Dumas are all well out at the…
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