Boooooks!

Like I’ve claimed before; nerd will be nerd and to prove it I’ve read a few novels in the last two weeks that mainstream Swedes (and other) might not quite fight to get a hold of...

Bareback, by Kit Whitfield
To be what’s to us a normal human being (you know, bipedal humanoid originating from Earth), a creature in this novel rudely called a “bareback” or “skin”, is in fact being abnormal. Turning into a creature with fur and sharp fangs every full moon, a werewolf, now THAT’S normal; at least, it is in Kit Whitfield’s world of lycanthropes and it is under these circumstances that we find our noir thriller where barebacks, all employed by the underdog (sorry) agency called DORLA, cleans up the mess during and after moon nights.
I really enjoyed the originality of the story and the first 75% of the book when it still had a clear purpose, a purpose that was slowly yet undoubtedly lost somewhere along the way. People who’ve read Michael Collins would probably agree with me when I say what I say about the stumbling plot, but all in all it’s an awesomely good idea poorly executed.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy, by Jonathan Stroud.
OK, I know it’s three books but they’re quite childishly funny in that awful giggly sort of way, so I went through them a second time around.
Imagine a world where magic exists, not like Harry Potter, mind you, but rather, a world where an aristocracy is so much more powerful than the commoners (the non-magical crowd) because they're trained to become magicians and therefore able to summon demons to do their bidding, wicked as it might be. London and the rest of the great British Empire are governed by magicians (just like Old Egypt, Babylonia and Prague once was), presently under the rule of Prime Minister Rupert Devereux and his ministers. It’s from this basis we follow Nathaniel, in the beginning a young boy and magician-to-be, who on his journey to seek justice meets demons of every kind, ambition, cruelty, crime, resistance, power-crazy lunatics and unexpected friendships.
It’s a well thought through plot with plenty of characters you can’t sort in the normal stereotypical fantasy categories; “The Hero”, “The Bad Guy”, “The Minions”, "The Love Interest" and so on. Everyone in Stroud’s books has at least two sides – there is no black or white. It’s all a lovely shade of grey ambiguity.
The absolute highlight of the novels is the djinni Bartimaeus as he comes up with new inventive ways to insult humanity and magicians especially.

I highly recommend the audio version read sy Simon Jones. Easy on the ears and easy to follow.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, by Seth Grahame-Smith (and Jane Austen)
Basically, it’s precisely what Pride & Prejudice would have been if zombies existed. Instead of embroidering, our heroin Elizabeth Bennett now enjoys cutting the heads off the so called ”unmentionables” roaming the whole country with her katana. If you like the original novel, like I do, you’ll be able to appreciate this as well. If you like zombies, say, like I do, you’ll like it as well. If you’ve read Pride & Prejudice just to find it a bit tedious, look at this as a parody and just laugh at the pure absurdity.