Three books

Amazon link

I have abandoned reading "The Legacy of Heorot" (Niven, Pournelle, Barnes) to Clare after three or so nights. The build-up is way too slow, the characters uninteresting and the writing too clunky.

I've taken the easy option and resorted to Lee Child's latest:

Amazon link

---

I thought "The Buried Giant" by Kazuo Ishiguro was good, despite Abigail Nussbaum's emotional review.

Amazon link

If I may be permitted spoilers, the novel is about the aftermath of a Dark Ages genocide in an imagined post-Arthurian, Briton-Saxon co-mingled England. Peace between the races has been artificially maintained by an ageing dragon, whose misty breath fills the land, inducing forgetfulness.

Axl and Beatrice, an old Briton couple, leave their hobbit-like village residence to visit their dimly remembered son. Through various adventures the amnesiac-fog is finally lifted and memories begin to return. Can the peace survive the recall of earlier wrongs? Can Axl's and Beatrice's relationship survive the recall of ancient infidelity and revenge?

Ishiguro is pessimistic.

I felt the book - highly stylized in manner and dialogue - was well-done. As to whether, Guardian-style, it was really telling us anything we didn't already know: well, not so much.