A Review: Eversion by Alastair Reynolds

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Eversion

by Alastair Reynolds
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0575090781

There’s little to no sci-fi in the first 30% of this book and you’d be forgiven for thinking Reynolds was just indulging himself in a seafaring romp. There’s only a hint of sci-fi up to about half way through, when it develops into groundhog day. I didn’t enjoy this. I put the book down for a week or two until I forced myself to pick it up again and finish it. I couldn’t put the second half down!

There isn’t the usual Alastair Reynolds scope, but that doesn’t matter as there is plenty of his trademark exploration and discovery and a fantastic plot twist I didn’t see coming. By far my favourite character is Ada for her sharp sense of humour and general attitude to life. The other characters are convincing and, for once, there’s a good ending, even if it is a little corny.

ARD & Winterfyleth at the Bread Shed

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ARD

Following a nightmare which is parking in Manchester and getting a meal on a Saturday night without booking, we walked into the Bread Shed just as ARD were getting going, minus my vinyl and CDs for signing!. The masterpiece which is Take Up My Bones was instantly recognisable, as were composer and multi instrumentalist Mark Deeks and fellow Winterfyleth band mate Chris Naughton, both on guitar. The latter was centre stage, where surely Deeks should have been?

From the off the band, who were put together to perform an album which was never intended to be performed live, were a little loose with the drums too prominent and the guitars not clear enough. There appeared to be a lot retuning necessary, especially from Chris and the lead guitarist who appeared hidden away a lot of the time. This didn’t really detract from enjoyment of the incredible compositions from the album.  By the time the final 10 minutes, consisting of Only Three Shall Know, came along something had changed, the band was as tight as anything and I wished they could have started again from the beginning. 45 minutes had flown by and I’ll certainly go and see them again.

Winterfyleth


I think I’ve seen Winterfyleth four times now, including the set which became their live album recorded at Bloodstock and earlier this year supporting Emperor at Incineration Fest. They never disappoint.

Winterfyleth are one of those bands that are so consistent with their music, without being boring or repetitive, that it doesn’t matter what they play or how familiar I am with the songs, it’s just incredible to listen to. Having said that, disappointingly, they didn’t play A Valley Thick With Oaks, which is my favourite. Who can resist singing along “In the heart of every Englishman…”? However, I did come away with a new favourite in Green Cathedral!

We only got an hour, but at least they didn’t bugger about going off and coming back for an encore. There were old songs, new songs and never before played live songs. Loved every second of it and, for the first time for me, the final song wasn’t preceded with “Sadly time is short and our songs are long, so this is our last one.” Until next time!

 

Glory! Hammer!

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

Glory! Hammer! Were fantastic!

They played well and were lots of fun as you’d expect.  I mean who doesn’t like a gig to start with a cardboard cutout of Tom Jones and Delilah playing on the PA. The band were all dressed up - it must have been very hot - and playing their parts.

I did find some of the gaps between songs and the interplay with the audience felt a little too Steel Panther. It was too frequent, superfluous and added time to a set which could have been shorter.

Sozos Michael is a phenomenal singer and makes it seem effortless and perfect. I’m a big fan of widdly guitar and it doesn’t stand out as much on record as it did live which was a really nice surprise.

It’ll be great to see them again when the promised new album is out and they tour again.




A review of React Cookbook: Recipes for Mastering the React Framework

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

React Cookbook: Recipes for Mastering the React Framework

by David Griffiths and Dawn Griffiths
ISBN: 978-1492085843

This is a book of about 100 recipes across 11 sections. The sections range from the basics, such as creating React apps, routing and managing state to the more involved topics such as security, accessibility and performance.

I was especially pleased to see that the section on creating apps looked at create-react-app, nextjs and a number of other getting started tools and libraries, rather than just sticking with create-react-app.

I instantly liked the way each recipe laid out the problem it was solving, the solution and then had a discussion on different aspects of the solution. It immediately felt a bit like a patterns book. For example, after describing how to use create-react-app, the discussion section explains in more depth what it really is, how it works, how to use it to maintain your app and how to get rid of it.

As with a lot of React developers, the vast majority of the work I do is maintaining existing applications, rather than creating new ones from scratch. I frequently forget about how to setup things like routing scratch and would usually reach for Google. However, with a book like this I can see myself reaching for the easy to find recipes again and again.

Chasm City

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Chasm City

Alistair Reynolds
ISBN-13‏: ‎ 978-0575083158

Following the announcement of the release of Inhibitor Phase and then Elysium Fire I’ve been rereading some of the previous Revelation Space novels to pick up the thread. First time around I found Chasm City a dark story and it was no different the second time, but I got so much more out of it. I also remember losing the thread towards the end the first time, but not this time!

As with most of the series, the thread of the main story is inconsequential to the main Revelation Space arc. It’s the other aspects of the story which tie up with other Revelation Space events which make this such a fantastic book. By the time I read the last page I knew that Sky's Edge was named after the edge Sky Hassausman had over the other ships in the flotilla which settled the planet. I knew that the war had started between the ships of the flotilla and what they were fighting about. I knew how the Melding Plague had got to Chasm City and how it was discovered and spread. I knew that Sky had met Khouri, who is an important character in the main trilogy. And more, much more! I wish I knew how the Melding Plague came to be though.

I read the second half of the book in about two weeks. I just couldn’t put it down!

A Review: Incineration Fest 2022 – Metal is back!

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

Overall I really enjoyed Incineration Fest and would go again if the line up is right for me. What was really great was seeing metallers back at gig with no restrictions and doing what we do best!

Winterfylleth

I completely fell in love with Winterfylleth when they played Bloodstock on the mainstage and even more so when they released the set as a live album. They are incredible and totally deserved to be opening proceedings at the Roundhouse for Incineration Fest. Actually, they deserved to be much higher up the bill. They’re a solid outfit, played what I wanted to hear and ended, as I always think of them ending from the live album, with Chris saying this is the last song “as time is short and our songs are long!” I need to see them do a headline set in a venue with a great PA soon.

Tsjuder

Tsjuder was the wildcard for me. I didn’t really know them and had heard only a few things on Spotify before, although what I heard was really good. I had no idea I was going to be blown away. They sounded incredible from the first note, which was even more impressive given that they are only a three piece and the PA in the Roundhouse wasn’t turning out to be great for definition.

Bloodbath

Bloodbath was really the reason I was at Incineration Fest. I’d missed them at Bloodstock ten years before as one of my sons was being born and I hadn’t had a chance to see them until now. Of course now Nick Holmes (Paradise Lost) rather than Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) was on lead vocals.

I was very, very excited and from the moment I heard that trademark crunching guitar sound I was even more excited. They played for a full hour. Unlike the Black Metal bands on the bill there was more riffing and solos and a slight different drum sound.

They’re an odd band to watch. For reasons I don’t understand, the bass player and two guitarists would often turn their backs to the audience to face the dummer. The band didn’t seem to interact much with each other on stage and even less so with Nick.

Nick’s deadpan humour was present when he did speak to the audience. He introduced the band as being from Sweden, then added from Halifax almost as an afterthought! During the set he admitted he couldn’t see and dispensed with his sun glasses as they’d apparently been a good idea backstage. After breaking the microphone he enquired if it would be added to his bill at the end of the night.

Emperor

Emperor hasn't released any new material (that I know of) since 2001 and, if I’m honest, I barely listen to them beyond the live album these days. I’ve seen them at least three times before, the first time being in 1999 in a small club in Bradford on my birthday - it doesn’t get much better than that. I’m more of a fan of Ihsahn’s solo stuff these days and I still really enjoy Samoth’s Zyklon whenever I play it. Emperor, not so much anymore.

They played for the full ninety and for the most part were solid as you might expect. Whether or not Faust plays with is of no consequence to me and I certainly didn’t need to covers they played with him towards the end of the set. There was lots I knew and lots I enjoyed, but I wouldn't make an effort to see Emperor again.







Devin Townsend at the Royal Albert Hall (again)

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

Leprous

There’s an obvious pull for me towards Leprous due to the association with Ihsahn and prog, but rock bands generally do little for me these days. I listened to a little of Aphelion before the gig, but it didn’t grip me.

They’re an odd live band and some of the time the cello player looked a bit out of place when he was without his cello. The sharing of the keyboards among various band members, often in the same song, was also weird. The singer was wearing a waistcoat and doing some very odd dancing and his voice can grate. For a prog band the lack of any guitar or keyboard lead breaks was also weird.

However, I quite enjoyed Leprous!


Devin Townsend

We’d only seen Devin Townsend a few months ago (in the summer at Bloodstock), but my wife loves him so we went again. We should have gone the night before as he played loads of songs we knew, in contrast to the night we went where he played nothing we knew! Most of it, I am reliably informed, was from the Ocean Machine and Infinity albums.

Devin still plays brilliantly and it was great to see him again with the session musicians he’d teamed up with for his Bloodstock performance. He creates a fantastic wall of sound and engages with the crowd like few others. I’m sure we’ll go and see him again, after all we’ve not heard Hyperdrive live yet!

Learnings from Decapitated

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

When am I going to learn? 

The first two times I saw Decapitated, Bloodstock and then supporting someone in Norwich at the Waterfront, they were incredible. 

In early 2020 in London they sounded awful and we left. Last night in Norwich they sounded terrible again. 

I don’t know if it was them or the sound system, but there was no definition. It was all drums, vocals and not much else, so we gave up halfway through. 

I’m hoping the new album will be amazing, they’ll play at the UEA and it will be amazing. However, if I am going to learn, then I won’t be risking it.

Galactic North (a review)

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Galactic North

Alastair Reynolds
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0575083127

Galactic North is a group of short stories set in the Revelation Space universe starting at it’s very beginning and stretching right to it’s end.


Great Wall of Mars


I reread the Great Wall of Mars after the Inhibitor Phase to remind me of some of Warren Clavian’s back story. It didn’t disappoint. I should have read Great Wall of Mars again before Inhibitor Phase, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. At least I’ve remembered why Nevile hated his brother and how he was betrayed by him, why Nevile defected to the conjoiners and how Felka fits in. One small story explains so much of why things happened in several of the other stories including Absolution Gap.


Glacial
 

Glacial adds little to the overall story, but does help to explain how the relationship between Clavian, Galiana and Felka developers and how it becomes so strong. Glacial is really an opportunity for Alastair Reynolds to explore the concept of a thinking, possible sentient planet.  He does this, as always, by hinting throughout at the bigger picture and keeping you reading.


A Spy in Europa

 
Not sure what I think of this one. Seemed a bit pointless. Not very nice characters who all stabbed each other in the back. Some interesting science tho and provided a backdrop and context for Grafenwalder's Bestiary.


Weather

 
What a fantastic standalone story this is with some great characters who demonstrate that not all Ultras are cut-throat. There’s lots more detail about conjoiners here and the secret of how C-drives are managed is revealed, but that’s not the darkest secret.


Dilation Sleep

 
I was disappointed in this story until I read the notes at the end and realised it was the first story written in the revelation space universe and that it introduced some key aspects, such as Chasm City. It doesn’t really add anything to the overall story, but has some interesting insights into refersleep.
 

Grafenwalder's Bestiary

 
Some of the best stories are those which are difficult to read due to the behaviour of some of the characters. When they do things you can’t understand the motivation for and could not imagine doing yourself. In this story it’s cruelty, deception and revenge and I loved it.


Nightingale

I do wonder how Alastair Reynolds thinks up these horrors, but they are glorious. This story is particularly horrible at the end. The evil computer was far worse than anything in the Resident Evil series, with undertones of Hal 9000. There’s exploration in the story, battle, weapons and the sort of intrigue which makes it difficult to put down. 


Galactic North 

This should be expanded to a novel, or at least a novella. There’s scope for so much evolution, especially with the greenfly and how they come to take over. I couldn’t put this down, and wouldn’t have done it if my Kindle hadn’t died a few pages before the end!

In some ways it’s a shame that Alastair Reynolds has put a hard limit on the timeline of Revelation Space, but I loved it! I reread Galactic North to understand the comments at the end of Inhibitor Phase and the Nest Builders. I should have read it first. And I should have a Revelation Space timeline on my wall.


A review: Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

Inhibitor Phase
by Alastair Reynolds
 
 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316462761

* * * Warning Spoilers * * *


To say I was excited at the prospect of another core Revelation Space novel, more than a decade since Absolutely Gap, wouldn’t come close. In preparation I reread Absolution Gap and loved it on the second reading.

I wasn’t inspired by the description of the Miguel character hiding from the Wolves on an unknown planet, but it turns out this was just a minor distraction at the beginning and that The Inhibitor phase plays a major part in advancing the story. The scope and breadth, as you would expect from Alistair Reynolds is vast and intricate.

I was a little disappointed that the characters were ping ponging between some of the same old worlds, Ararat and Yellowstone, and the evolution of some of the survivors from Redemption Ark into Merpeople, but this didn’t detract in any way. It either wasn’t clear or I missed what happened to Ana Khouri - maybe she’s still on Hela. It was sad, but probably necessary to see the end to the Nostalgia for Infinity. I also missed how, following her death on Mars, Glass and Warren had reencountered each other and swum with the pattern Jugglers prior to Sun Hollow.

Overall I loved this story. I literally could not put it down! Alastair Reynolds is the master of descriptive exploration and constantly hints at more facets to the story I just have to know and have to keep reading for! The Inhibitor Phase does of course leave questions unanswered and sets up the next story, which I cannot wait for either!