Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Flowers for Algernon is a heartfelt tale reflecting on the twists and turns of a retard come genius, via a scientific experiment to increase his intelligence. Charlie Gordon works in a bakery as a menial servant, he becomes the butt of mocking jokes from his colleagues, much to his enjoyment as he perceives these people as his friends, he’s happy, and attends a school for retarded adults, where he has managed to learn to read and write. As he is a friendly and amiable human being, his selection as a test subject is made, and he undergoes the same procedure enacted upon a mouse called Algernon.

This is a brilliantly engaging novel that is related to us by Charlie and his progress reports on his life, beginning with his life just before his operation. Charlie is instantly likable as a person, not only though the sympathy generated from his present life which is full of scorn and ridicule, but when he relates his past, informing us of a mother convinced he can be made ‘normal’ and be like the other children.

A winner of the Hugo award in short story format in 1959, and the Nebula in novel form in 1966, Daniel Keyes created a classic moral story, as Charlie searches deep within himself for what really makes him happy, whether its his new found intelligence or a life where he isn’t aware and happy because of that.

It’s easy to get in the story, told as it is, through the viewpoint of Charlie writing his ‘progress reports’. An excellent ‘window’ into the mindset and mechanics of a changing life, this is a flawless novel that really gets the reader involved on a personnel level, the writing is addictive once started, and the many emotional impacts throughout are engrossing, a masterwork in every sense of the word.

Flowers for Algernon - 9.5 / 10

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Patricia A. McKillip

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is a charming and sorrowful book, which looks at the prospect of change that comes to Sybel, an enchantress of sorts who can use her power to bind animals to her will, by claiming their names. When she inherits Eld mountain she comes to look after the menagerie of creatures that dwell there, her peace and tranquillity in looking after these animals however is brought to ruin when a stranger brings her a baby to look after, and Sybel and the young child who she names Tamlorn, will soon become embroiled in the politics and wars of that time

Patricia McKillip won the world Fantasy award with this effort in 1975, and it's not hard to see why. It’s a smooth and very readable book, which knows how it can connect with the readers. It’s got a plethora of magic and mythical beasts, tales of lore and age old legend all bound by a recounting of Sybel and her venture into a world that isn’t very familiar to her. The baby to whom she was entrusted is the only son of a king and the factor which propels her into danger and romance.

They are very familiar plot devices that are being used, long lost princes, wizards and magical beasts, yet when gathered together correctly they can create something timeless and incredible. This is a book that feels written directly and with a close feel to its content, it’s almost as if it has been brought to us from an original tale or gleaned from an oral source. A book this so outlandishly faeire, and yet so carefully written in its richness, that you simply can’t help but be sucked in.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - 9 / 10

Peace - Gene Wolfe

I found Peace by Gene Wolfe to be a very beguiling read; it has the familiar trait Wolfe uses in his books, one of using multiple narrative strands being related to the reader from one viewpoint, whose purpose and method of narration is often hazy, and the story often diverges and meanders from the central plot. The single viewpoint in Peace is told from the perspective of Alden Weer, in a sort of Wild West American setting. Weer is looking back at his life, and recounting his experiences and stories that have been told to him.

I didn’t exactly get through this quickly, and yet I neither took forever, it just sort of strolled by as I read it. Wolfe endlessly wanders about in the text to tell us a new tale or a dream of a dream from the protagonist, even thought it’s rooted in a very plain and austere setting the content is often related to a Ghosts and a few wildly out of tune escapades.

It isn’t really a fantasy novel, in the sense of the setting and the content which is more of a literary ghost story at times. Weer isn’t really a reliable narrator, and his memoirs seem often bitter as its being told when he is an old man, and as a character he was well drawn, yet not likable, and he seems to have killed people. As the book is essentially his life as he wants to tell it, you’re never fully getting the whole picture and nothing is really resolved or made quite clear, is Weer an old senile man making it all up, or can he do some of the remarkable things that come to light in the relation of his life to us.

Yet it’s all this depth and richness that still makes Peace a worthy read. Wolfe has an in built obsession in all of his books (At least the ones I’ve read) to mess around and explore the devices of narration. With its compelling prose and thought provoking devices any Wolfe novel with these becomes something completely otherworldly, it's challenging and yet begs to be read again, just to see what else can be picked out again.

Peace - 8 / 10

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin

A joint winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, the Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin has the tag as the first feminist science fiction novel, yet it offers up much more that that with a deep exploration on the makeup of society plus the workings of the human condition when confronted with something different.

Genly Ai is an envoy from a confederacy of words to a single remote planet unaware of any other life than its own. The society into which Genly finds himself is one of single sex inhabitants, where everyone enters into a stage of sexual urges called ‘kemmering’, during this phase sex is possible, though the consequences being sex only possible at certain times. This leads to a type of society where more emphasis is placed on the person, and less on gender, and that we should have no stereotypical view, and that a person is always a person regardless of anything else.

As we view the world of Gethen (Termed Winter for its cold extremes) though the eyes of an envoy, we get a perspective that consists and develops towards adaptation, as Genly has to learn to acclimatise to the quirks and traits of such an odd people. The brilliance of the book is in the change that comes over Genly as an outsider in an alien world; he gradually comes to feel differently, and sees through eyes opened wide. Le Guin also creates vivid and memorable peoples, the expansive and at the same time elusively alien culture is explained through observations and personal encounters between Genly and various native people, which are brought expertly to life due to this.

This is a strong book that always keeps the narrative flowing and precise, it knows exactly what it wants to do, and it succeeds on every level. The bond between Estravan a native and Genly the envoy is something touching and heart warming, it’s a love story if you will, yet one which is realised in many different forms, and yet simply equates with everything else to a brilliant book.

The Left Hand of Darkness - 9/10