Hello St Marks

Assorted reading oddments all completed, some proven substantial, others not. "Northanger Abbey" was lovely. The plot is so slight, the humour bubbles at the surface. I do like Catherine very much but I love the wretched General Tilney most, and this made me laugh out loud: "Never had the general loved his daughter so well in all the hours of companionship, utility and patient endurance as when he first hailed her "Your Ladyship!". My second iPhone reading experience is also completed, leaving me bereft: "Infection" by Scott Sigler (is that his porn star name?). I was so keen to extend my drive time listening each day, I started wearing my earphones in the lift and, twice, to the bathroom. Daft, juvenile novel about alien invasion but it had me hooked from chapter 2, so hats off to Scott. I almost donated some money to him, as prompted by the post-story sales pitch. Iain Banks' publishers are releasing his latest novel, "Transition" as a...

Iain Banks is one of my favourites. I love that he writes in two voices: brilliant sci fi and left-field literature. His sci fi is literary, his literature is often fantastic, but when you choose an Iain Banks you choose one or the other. I had read 'The Business', from the liyterary camp, twice actually, and loved it's wry wit and cynicism. But this one, 'The Bridge', didn't work for me at all. The protagonist is in a coma following an accident. He travels his unconscious to The Bridge, a swarming quasi-Victorian world built on and within a seemingly endless and architecturally eccentric bridge. He's the amnesiac patient of a ambitious Doctor, then falls from his position of privilege and heads off on a journey which maps his return to consciousness. In this clever clever structure I have no clear recollection of the main character, Orr (clever clever name) and Banks doesn't offer any opportunity to connect with the secondary characters of the novel at ...