Hello St Marks

And finally, 'Incurable' by John Marsden, continuing the story of Ellie from the 'Tomorrow' series. I loved the first few 'Tomorrow' books; taut, smart writing for teens. A bunch of teens go camping deep in the bush on the weekend Australia is invaded by unnamed, overwhelming forces. The kids have to work out what happened, find their families (dead or captured), look after themselves and, sooner than seems possible, form an ad hoc but very bloody resistance. Ellie is the chronicler and thinker, bright, capable and handy with a gun - approachably heroic. Marsden is very, very good at writing cleanly about teenagers (truthfully, I think, but it's been a while) without preaching. But after 9 books - 'Incurable' is from 'The Ellie Chronicles' which follows the group after the truce - I'm over it.

Oh dear, this is not a post to be proud of. Nothing but fantasy and sci fi on the pile of recently reads and I did vow to diversify my reading body, didn't I? Nothing to do but list 'em and move on. Most recently: Sherri S Tepper's 'The Margarets'. Now this book isn't anything to sniff at. Great, writing, complex structure and concepts, impossible to summarise. Larry Niven's 'Destiny's Road'. Seamless writing by a master of the craft, in blurb-talk. Planet-based sci-fi; a well-paced adventure quest, nicely grounded in the everyday. 'Dragonflight' by Anne McCaffrey. This is still a tender subject. I had to re-read this one for the first time in a decade because I had blithely recommended it to my 10 year-old neighbour. She had just finished 'Twilight' so clearly has open-minded parents and a capacity for teen fiction, but soon after I passed it across the kitchen table I realised I had been thinking of 'Dragonsong', a light...