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I'm taking a lunch break. This is because my brain is full.

Of all the books I had to finish by the weekend, I only have one to go. I still have to make notes from one of the others (lots of bookmarks, very few notes) but then I'll be finished with a whole (small) stack. And five of them can go back to the library! And I only have one book to pick up at the library. Look! Numbers diminish!

I'm taking 3 work-related novels with me over the weekend and two fun ones. I don't know if I'll have a lot of time to read, but one must be prepared. Besides, all this diminution and loss of a whole (small) pile of books has me excited. If I can do it twice in a week (counting the Aurealis catch-up on Monday), maybe I can do it three times? And then maybe I can achieve a miracle and do all those Angry Robot comments I promised, way back when.

There's a bottom line, of course. The bottom line is that when I get the many thousands of words I sent my supervisor back, with annotations, sorting out where I've gone wrong and how to fix it and where to go from there is going to eat up a lot of time. If I can catch up with everything else, then it'll all be a doddle. if I don't then I'll be working very hard. Since I'm a lazy sod, I'd rather do the reading now.

If I read very quickly, after lunch, maybe I can fit in half an Angry Robot book as well as Kerslake's Science Fiction and Empire? I have until 4 pm, after all, before I get a whole weekend off.

Gary MacMahon's Dead Bad Things (Angry Robot)

I took a long lunch and read an Angry Robot book during it. I thought I should report back immediately, since the last two books I read I took notes and haven't actually reported on. Next week I may try to find the notes and be more caught up.

Gary McMahon's Dead Bad Things is a quick read. This is just as well, because it's also a nasty read. Oddly, the end isn't as emotionally tough as the beginning - it's as if McMahon puts all the foulest things upfront and softens them (not a lot) to reach a conclusion. It's not quite as tight as Pretty Little Dead Things, but it's still a very tense, very nasty horror novel and I read it quickly and this afternoon so that - just like his previous novel - I wouldn't have to carry it to bed.

The world building works best when it's focussed on the characters. His characters are convincing, even some of the ugliest. There is a bit of repetition in motives, so by the end I was wondering just how many personality types peopled his world, but it worked in the context of the novel, reinforcing the themes and making MacMahon's universe a place I don't want to even be seen near. What I liked particularly was that despite the speed of the narrative and the lack of backchat and private lives, he did manage to get this sense of character and a nice sense of the world actually existing. One reason I don't read much horror of this sort is because not nearly enough writers remember to ground their horror in enough of the everyday so that the reader can feel it. MacMahon succeeds very nicely in this, using very few words.

And now, having scared myself silly, I shall return to the land of SF criticism.