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18ck 's review for:
Europe in Winter
by Dave Hutchinson
So I'm reading this book, right, thinking either I've forgotten a lot in the last year-and-a-bit, or else a lot has happened since the last one but that's OK - it's a series that's given to jumps in the action and it doesn't spoon-feed the reader, so I just went with it. Ten pages from the end (ten!) I realise it's the third book in the series, not the second and that's why I'm feeling a bit lost 🤦♂️
I think in my mind the series went
📖 Autumn
📖 Winter
🤔 Hm... Spring sounds too optimistic
📖 Midnight
📖 Dawn
But apparently not.
Anyway, as it happens, it doesn't matter too much because, as long as you understand the premise - that Europe has dissolved into tiny pieces held together by a mysterious railway line and that a secret, hidden territory exists, coextensive with the Europe we know, and in a sort of parallel universe (the mechanics are wisely kept vague) it still works.
IIRC, when I reviewed the first book in the series, I was struggling for comparisons. It started out describing the shifting landscape of the continent with a sort of dry comic energy that made me think of Terry Pratchett, and it retains some of its sense of humour as it solidifies into a darker sci-fi/fantasy mode more akin to... Maybe Ballard? I know someone else compared it to Kafka but I don't really see it, myself. This installment is more like a sci-fi John Le Carre. Lots of shady goings-on, mainly Eastern Europe and the grittier spots in the west, never anywhere sunny with good coffee. As with Le Carre, you get a sense of major events that can be intuited in the hidden webs between people in unglamorous places, although unlike Le Carre, some of those places are fictional. Anyway, point is, it's difficult to pin down, and if you're the kind of person who likes to sort their books by genre you're going to be spending a lot of time deciding where to put it. Or you could buy five copies and spread them out. I'm sure the author won't mind.
I think in my mind the series went
📖 Autumn
📖 Winter
🤔 Hm... Spring sounds too optimistic
📖 Midnight
📖 Dawn
But apparently not.
Anyway, as it happens, it doesn't matter too much because, as long as you understand the premise - that Europe has dissolved into tiny pieces held together by a mysterious railway line and that a secret, hidden territory exists, coextensive with the Europe we know, and in a sort of parallel universe (the mechanics are wisely kept vague) it still works.
IIRC, when I reviewed the first book in the series, I was struggling for comparisons. It started out describing the shifting landscape of the continent with a sort of dry comic energy that made me think of Terry Pratchett, and it retains some of its sense of humour as it solidifies into a darker sci-fi/fantasy mode more akin to... Maybe Ballard? I know someone else compared it to Kafka but I don't really see it, myself. This installment is more like a sci-fi John Le Carre. Lots of shady goings-on, mainly Eastern Europe and the grittier spots in the west, never anywhere sunny with good coffee. As with Le Carre, you get a sense of major events that can be intuited in the hidden webs between people in unglamorous places, although unlike Le Carre, some of those places are fictional. Anyway, point is, it's difficult to pin down, and if you're the kind of person who likes to sort their books by genre you're going to be spending a lot of time deciding where to put it. Or you could buy five copies and spread them out. I'm sure the author won't mind.