'Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror' by Chris Priestley

I was captivated by the scraggly illustrations of 'Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror' in the library, produced by David Roberts, that were somewhere between Ronald Searle, Edward Gorey and Quentin Blake. The book itself is a series of short stories with a framing narrative, each story told by the eccentric Uncle Montague to his (insert indeterminate number of greats) nephew Edward in his creepy house in the woods. Every story is punctuated by Edward's realisation that an object from the story, often irredeemably lost within the story itself, is here, on the wall as a trophy (or a warning...)

There are (un)healthy doses of Edgar Allan Poe in 'Uncle Montague...', as well as a clear influence by the Victorian children's exemplar books which meted terrible and extraordinary punishments to any children who disobeyed their elders. Every character in the stories has an identifiable transgression (except maybe the final short story, which is also the creepiest) and each pays in an appropriate way. Priestley admirably weaves subtle horror with a faux-Victorian setting to build up an atmosphere that fully lends itself to the twist in the tale so common in ghost stories of the time.

Priestley's prose isn't action-packed or thrumming with anticipation, and sometimes I felt the denouement fell a little flat as a result, but the style Priestley pastiches effectively is instead full of creeping terror and things half-seen out of the corner of your eye. This is not the place for oh-it-was-only-a-cat scares (unless they are of the Silent Hill double whammy variety!) The stories grow more grotesque and scarier as they go, each introducing more explicit horrors, until we reach the climax of the book: the framing narrative itself. I thought Priestley overdid the ghostly phenomena at Uncle Montague's house slightly, but perhaps it is just that, as the stories slowly build pace, the framing narrative must build faster, since it only has the bits between the tales to work in. Trust me, hang in there. It's totally worth it.

This isn't the sort of book to become an instant worldwide classic like His Dark Materials or Harry Potter, but it's really worth checking out. It's the sort of odd little book you stumble upon and that piques your interest on its own terms. I find that's a common thing with short story anthologies, especially, but I hope that in the future children (and maybe adults like me too!) will dig this out of the rows of Twi-likes and find joy in a horror style that never truly goes out of fashion.

Useful things

So I'm trying to formulate lists using the handy list features of blogger of useful writing resources online and also generally interesting writing blogs or websites that haven't been as personally useful to me. The reason for the divide is that many blogs are, for instance, primarily about publishing or getting an agent, which is currently not relevant to me, but they're still really good, enjoyable blogs with valuable advice. Also, there are blogs which are writers' own blogs about the process of writing which are not so much tools for others to use but merely observations on their own work, which again are fascinating but not necessarily useful.

I'll try and keep them updated, since it helps me to make a note somewhere central about new sources of inspiration and advice (I'm rubbish at remembering web addresses). Writing books are something I'll also try and assess somewhere (since it's very difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff at a quick glance-through), but that's a different form and therefore won't be included in the lists. Note that the kind of advice I personally like is very specific (very much not of the 'write a scene where your character is sitting in a park' or 'write about your last holiday' because they feel like primary school again to me) and I am in no way deriding others' working methods. I find concrete advice about plot and characterisation to be useful, personally, as well as more inspirational ideas about the creation of story and the importance of narrative, so that's what I'll be focusing on.

'The Carbon Diaries 2015' by Saci Lloyd

I've literally only just finished this book but I've barely been able to put it down. Therefore this will be a slight rave review, be ye warned ;)

So 'The Carbon Diaries 2015' is a fictional diary by a teenage girl called Laura Brown in 2015. A big storm hits Britain in 2010, costing thousands of lives, and to combat global warming, the British government (Saci Lloyd is careful not to predict the outcome of the 2010 General Election, since this was written in 2008, so she just refers to 'the prime minister') makes the UK a guinea pig for a new carbon rationing system which means that life must change drastically for Brits. Add to this increasingly extreme weather conditions that are linked to the predicted results of global warming. But Laura doesn't care about that stuff: OK, it makes her life more difficult, but all she wants is a normal life where she can get decent results at college, play with her punk band and go out with the boy next door.

I don't respond well to preachy books, but the nice thing about 'The Carbon Diaries 2015' is any preaching it does is either very subtle or very obvious and put into the mouths of characters presented as self-righteous. But still, it gets the message across with terrifying alacrity. Where before I enjoyed apocalypse and disaster movies out of a kind of combination of schadenfreude, vicarious thrill and general amusement, now I don't want what happens in this book to happen to anyone, ever. Laura never turns round and says "Oh, God damn you, older generation! Why did you do this to us? Why?!!!" She grumbles that they were selfish, but she just deals with the way the world is because that's the only way to survive. The people she gets angry at are the people who continue to be selfish and make the world worse. Gradually, the trappings of civilisation fall away and people either sink or swim, but it's written in such a personal way that Lloyd never breaks the illusion that this is a real diary, about real people.

The style is natural and fun, though occasionally it strays into 'totally rad' territory with jargon that'll be dated pretty soon, and Laura presents the world she lives in with wit and wry observation. For instance, her friend gets stuck in John Lewis due to snow storms and power cuts. Laura's response? "Serves her right for being middle class." There are so many little moments where Laura expresses something I've thought but never said, and Lloyd really does tap into the zeitgeist of modern Britain, even if things do get a little unbelievable at times (Laura's parents, a couple of aging hippies, are taken a little too far). Not only that, but when it's time for pathos, Lloyd shows she can handle that admirably too. I'm not sure she succeeded in her aim of showing how a global crisis can pull people together (attempts to do so are treated with cynical humour) but she certainly shows how it strips away the pretences we put up to make our lives more interesting.

All I can say is, this book is amazing, and it really makes you want to both change the world and stock up the cupboard with tins and blankets. The thing is, 'The Carbon Diaries 2015' doesn't preach that whole 'changing the world one person at a time' shtick - what it presents is the necessity of a change in culture and mindset which, Lloyd suggests, is something that's not going to happen till it's almost too late.

'The Poison Garden' by Sarah Singleton

I find this cartoon of a rhino on Kristin Cashore's wonderful blog This Is My Secret almost unbearable to look at or think about. It makes me really sad for the rhino and frustrated that I can't help it, despite the beauty and humour of the cartoon. So yeah, I'll cry about a cartoon rhino desperately trying to become a unicorn :( And that is why I cope with the world through dreams and pretend dragon-slaying.



The other picture makes me laugh though :)


'The Poison Garden' by Sarah Singleton is fabulous. And I don't just mean that in the sense of 'good', I mean that it's story-licious. It's like stepping through worlds I never want to leave. Dammit, I want a magical garden where I can grow plants that make perfumes and live forever in the real world, so that beautiful red rose won't wilt and those daisies will stay fresh. 'The Poison Garden' is a bit untidy in places but the plot is enjoyable enough to keep me reading despite the slightly odd pacing. Plus I love any books which revolve around the intricacies of old-fashioned pharmacology or magic. I feel this is comparable in style to 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' by Susannah Clarke, though less dark and adult in tone.


'The Poison Garden' is about a young boy called Thomas whose grandmother dies, leaving him a mysterious box that lets him into a magical garden. He discovers that she was part of a group called the Guild of Medical Alchemists who all have their own pocket-dimension gardens and that one of them poisoned his grandmother, as well as being told he is to inherit the power to remake his own garden as he wishes.

I may just have been being dense, but it took me quite a while before I realised that 'The Poison Garden' was set in the nineteenth century, but it has such a lovely nostalgic feel that it didn't seem out of place when I did realise. A label at the beginning wouldn't go amiss, however. The subject matter probably struck an extra chord with me because I have fond memories of playing in my grandmother's garden, which she spent a lot of time caring for before she had to move into a bungalow due to her health. Singleton gives you mental gardens to play in and you feel the joy in discovering them that (I hope) she felt in creating them. She manages to bring across so much individuality in each garden: I suspect everyone would choose a different one as a favourite. My mum would love Albion, as it's near the sea, whereas I would enjoy Nineveh a lot. That's actually one of the pities about this book - Singleton is more concerned with the story than the setting, which is admirable, but we barely get to explore the gardens at all. I would love to have seen more of them, especially the ones near the end, and have a few choice details explained (like who the lady in Nineveh was - I always assumed Hegel was gay from the way he talked about Karsch). Thomas is quite likeable but his female counterpart, Maude, is darned creepy, as he acknowledges in his narrative. It's weird therefore, that she ends up being presented as suddenly less creepy and more well-adjusted than expected. There doesn't seem to be a character arc there, more a character shift to provide him with an ally of his own age. But the adults in the Guild of Medical Alchemists are nicely-drawn characters and the idea that one of them is a killer adds a nice level of suspicion about their motives. Unfortunately the killer is a bit of a late addition to the story and the traitor is a pretty obvious choice, which means we don't end up having to question our assumptions about any of the Guild members. It also feels a bit of a cop-out when an extra party is added halfway through a story and is very obviously the killer, ruining the carefully-wrought tension and suspicion that had been built up.


Essentially, this book could have done with being two books in which Singleton could fully flesh out the characters and magical gardens. It would also allow her to dwell more on the main character's years in the pharmacy of Dr Constantine, which I found highly interesting, as well as developing Dr Constantine's character and maybe spending more time getting to know Mrs Lawrence and Miss Hudson, who feel a bit underdeveloped. Still, it's highly enjoyable, well-written and terribly imaginative, reminiscent of classic Diana Wynne-Jones. Recommended, if you like magical tales of weird and wonderful dreamscapes.