BOTM: B. Pym, Jane and Prudence (1953)
B. Denton, Buddy Holly is alive and well (1992)
K. Harl, Empires of the
Steppe (2023)
M. Jasanoff, Liberty's
exiles (2011)
I. Kadare, Broken April (1978)
L. Maiklem, Mudlarking (2019)
G. Maguire, Wicked (1995)
G. Milton, Paradise
lost (2008)
A. Saini, Superior:
The Return of race science (2019)
A lot of these were a bit shit. Wicked was terrible (all credit to the creators of the musical - this is nor promising work). Harl and Saini weren't great either. They could have been a lot better. Plenty of the other were decent, though. I liked Denton's very silly Science Fiction. I think more of it should be funny. I really liked Milton, who told the story of Smyrna and the apocalypse of Greek hopes in the 1920s very well. It's a fascinating story, told well, but a little too long and not quite tight enough. As a result it lost out to Barbara Pym's very much shorter, tighter, novel. I to like a well observed, well put together novel, and this does not disappoint. It helps that it's about vicars and villages, but it's really about disappointment (though not despair) and things not quite coming off. It's a pleasure to read.
The best were Pym and
