Short reviews

I'm very, very bad at this blogging thing lately. I'm feebly stitching it together with memes, and while the memes are awesome, I am not.



So here are two short reviews, one of Guards! Guards! by Mr Sir Terry Pratchett (try it ... it rolls off the tongue) and Memoirs of a Master Forger by William Heaney.





Guards! Guards! continues my travels in Discworld. It's the first time we meet the Night Watch ably (sort of) led by Sam Vimes. They're a motley crew at best, and when a dragon starts appearing over Ankh-Morpork, it doesn't take long for things to go from bad to very bad, to oh my God, could things get any worse? (The answer is yes. It's always yes. Never ask that question. Seriously.) Uhm. I actually read this a few weeks ago, so my memory is a little sketchy. But. The more Discworld I read, the funnier it gets, and I laughed out loud more than once reading Guards! Guards! Kudos, Mr Sir Terry Pratchett
10/10 Could not be improved on, even by angel dust and a basket of kittens

Memoirs of a Master Forger is a tricky little book. It says it's by William Heaney, but William Heaney is the protagonist. It's actually by Graham Joyce, an author that I had forgotten I enjoyed. In the US it's being released as How to Make Friends With Demons, by Graham Joyce.

Uhm ... William Heaney is a fairly ordinary man. He has a government job, an ex-wife, friends and he can see demons. They're just sort of - there. Hanging around various people. Oh. And yes, he's a master forger. But he only uses his forgery powers for good. He has an artist friend create masterpieces, which he sells for exhorbitant prices, then gives the money to a homeless shelter.

See? It's a tricky little book. It's mostly about William Heaney figuring things out, like life, and love and all that jazz, but it's so well-done. And then, of course, there's the demons. It's not-quite a horror novel, and it's not-quite general bloke-fiction either. But that's why I like it.
8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of