Three Tigers, One Mountain

Three Tigers, One Mountain by Michael Booth (2020 Jonathan Cape softcover 349pp)

One of my recent favourite authors, Michael Booth is back with a new book. This time he turns his humour and typically self-effacing prose to 4 Asian nations – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China. Starting in Japan he takes a lengthy trip exploring the many animosities between these countries and sometime what divides even various internal factions. This makes for a somewhat darker read than his previous books which usually focussed on food culture and national foibles. Along the way he posits various grand theories of what the root causes of these troubles are, only to have them repeatedly shot down by academics and the ordinary locals. It becomes clear that some issues are more complicated and nuanced than what we in the West can easily understand. It also becomes clear that many of the simmering controversies have become tools of the local politicians who are not past using them to gain support and votes when needed. For all its serious nature this book is once again a great read and will open your eyes to many aspects of Asian history long forgotten or hidden away.

Agency

Agency by William Gibson (2020 Penguin-Viking softcover 403pp)

I’ve been a fan of Gibson’s writing since he helped define the Cyberpunk genre back in the late 1980s. In 2014, after a stint writing near-contemporary thrillers, he returned to science fiction with “The Peripheral”. His latest book “Agency” shares many of the same concepts, settings and characters with that volume.

We alternate between 22^nd century London where the ‘Klepts’ (i.e. the rich) have ascended to power following a series of natural and man-made disasters known collectively as “the Jackpot” and an alternate 2017 in a ‘stub’ universe where Hillary Clinton became US President in 2016 and international tensions may soon lead to nuclear War. Characters from the former can communicate digitally with the latter and that’s where most of the drama lies.

Our heroes are Verity Jane in 2017 and Wilf Netherton in the future London. Verity is hired to test what seems to be a new wearable electronic gadget. In short order the device turns out to have a mind of its own and starts re-arranging Verity’s life and world. Wilf, meanwhile, finds himself doing the bidding of the shadowy cop/secret agent Lowbeer as they attempt to remotely change the history of Verity’s era.

I wish there was more to it than that but that’s pretty much all of it in a nutshell. There are moments where Gibson’s angular descriptive prose still shines and many of his ideas remain sharp. However, I felt underwhelmed by the book as a whole. Much of the plot is transactional – she goes there, does task A then goes here and meets person B and so on. It feels flat and the stakes don’t feel high. The opposing threats remain mainly off-screen and vague. Gibson remains too obsessed with drones; he’s used them repeatedly in his books and what once seemed novel technology now bores me silly.

This book is 400 pages long but feels more like a 200-page novel, the chapters are short often no more than 2 or 3 pages in length. I wish I felt more positive about Agency and hope if Gibson writes a third book in this series that he pulls something amazing out of the bag.

Last Train To Hilversum

Last Train To Hilversum by Charlie Connelly (2020 Bloomsbury softcover 328pp)

As long as I can remember I’ve had some sort of relationship with radio. Growing up listening to the likes of Radio Avon and 3ZB on AM then on to the shiny new FM stations in the 80s. Also, in that decade I discovered the joy of listening to the world via Shortwave radio. These days I find myself frequently using the internet to listen to radio and on it goes. The author of this book feels the same way and his written a ‘love letter’ to radio. Its not really a cohesive narrative, each chapter being more or less a self-contained article or vignette. We alternate from learning about the lives and foibles of the lesser-known pioneers of the medium and sections where the author sits in with some BBC presenters as they read sports results, the shipping forecast or front an overnight show. Its all very interesting and written with a real warmth towards the subjects. Being a UK published book by a UK based author its scope its pretty much limited to the history of radio in that part of the world – the furthest the author travels is to the Hilversum of the title, a Dutch town where that nation’s radio industry grew. A global history this is not but well worth a read anyway.