A Son of the Rock

Titan Books, 2025, 288 p. Reviewed for ParSec 15.

Ever since something known as the weatherbomb hit it, cutting it off from its past and erasing some of its inhabitants, Jamie Pike’s Fairharbour has been a city enveloped in everlasting winter. All contact between its island and the mainland has been severed, any expeditions sent out over the frozen wastes of the sea never heard from again. Black-clad officers called Doormen patrol the streets enforcing order, sealing entrances and windows to keep heat inside buildings. Jamie spends a lot of his time tinkering in the workshop of his vanished uncle by marriage, Pawel, a mechanical whizz, and watching what remains of the work of his grandmother Carmen, a famous film-maker.

By contrast, after the weatherbomb, Esther Pike has lived in a Fairharbour bathed in perpetual summer, with sunlight a relentless presence. In her Fairharbour too, an authoritarian regime, The Fenestration, exerts power, forever cutting holes in the walls of buildings. She, too, strains against the restricted life of her city.

With this premise of a city with a doubled character, City of All Seasons has a superficial similarity to China Miéville’s The City and the City but is in the end much more interesting than his novel (which was really only a murder mystery with an unusual setting.)

Both Jamie and Esther wonder what has become of the other and of their lost family members but both have encounters with the city’s mayor, a curious apparition always dressed in a diving suit yet who seems to be able to bridge the divide between the two manifestations of the sundered city. Their two stories are told in strictly alternating first person narratives as their interconnections begin to mount.

One of those connections lies via an atypical Tarot deck, three of whose cards are involved in the exchanges between the winter and summer city. Illustrations of those, The Two of Fish, The Stage, and the Nine of Smiles, preface three of the book’s four sections.

To plot, though. Jamie catches a glimpse of greenery and begins to wonder if there is another existence just out of reach. He constructs a kaleidoscope from some glass fragments, wing mirrors and a tube, and leaves it where he hopes it might be found by Esther.

The story delves into Jamie and Esther’s past lives and of their family before the split (crucially their uncles Jan and Remi were forever unable to share) while also gradually revealing the lore and customs of the city. In this, the tale of the city’s emblem, the smiling knight, assumes significant importance. In an old interview with Carmen she told of this as her inspiration for an intended film about a man who uses his death for the benefit of the city and prophesies, “‘When I die; it will be spectacular.’”

Also prophetic are a suit worn by her, black on one side, white on the other, slashed diagonally from right collarbone to left ribcage, and a two-handed saw made by Pawel. All of this comes together in the city’s Lavender Theatre, the source of the divide.

Though there is a slight imbalance between the two strands Langmead and Whiteley let their tale unfold at just the right pace, the similarities and differences between the situations of Jamie and Esther counterpointing and emphasising each other, the influence of their extended family to the past and future gradually becoming clearer in this well-written and characterful novel elegantly resolved.

One final note. Very few fantasy novels have as a plot point the construction and subsequent playing of a glass harmonica. A pleasing touch.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:-  “the orchestral pit” (usually ‘the orchestra pit’,) “to keep him a state of permanent uncertainty” (to keep him in a state of,) “crow’s feet” (crows’ feet,) “but Fairharbour’s artist population were never meant to” (Fairharbour’s artist population was never meant to.) Descendent (Descendant,) Esther has dyslexia [“the alphabet still runs away, even now”] but she is narrating half of this story with no apparent difficulty. “Hardly a shard of its enormous windows remain” (Hardly a shard … remains,) “one less eyesore” (one fewer eyesore,) “none of the Fenestration guards … have spotted” (none … has spotted,) “with nine people stood upon it” (standing upon it; there were more instances of ‘stood’ for ‘standing’,) a single opening quote mark at the beginning of a piece of direct speech; all other such marks are double. “The fishing fleet are out already” (The fishing fleet is out.)  “The crowd of Doormen part around him” (The crowd … parts around him,) “golden candelabras” (candelabra is already plural,) a new sentence without an initial capital letter, focussed (focused – used later,) “at the far end of the lawn were a large group” (was a large group,) “I dove” (I dived,) “-together, intense,” (- together, intense,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech. “It lays open on the wooden bench” (It lies open.) “The rippling of all the droplets dripping from the ceiling distort it” (The rippling …. distorts it,) “at the peripheral of the city” (at the periphery.) “They put her hands to her throat” (‘They put their hands to her throat’ makes more sense,) “they sweat” (‘the sweat,) “untameable enormity” (it wasn’t a terrible thing, just a large one; so ‘untameable size’ or ‘untameable extent’,) fit (fitted.)

Clayton Heights is an area of Bradford. We passed this Memorial on our way to Haworth. It lies at the junction of Stocks Lane and  Highgate Road.

The Memorial is a stone cross above a tapering octagonal column on a square pediment curving upwards. It seemed to display only names for the Great War. The wreath in the photo may be covering a Second World War dedication and names though:-

Great War names:-

Doubleday, 2026, 193 p. Translated from the Japanese 木曜日にはココアを (Mokuyōbi ni wa kokoa, literally Thursday Cocoa,) Takarijamasha Inc, Tokyo, 2017, by E Madison Shimoda.

This is not so much a novel as a series of linked short pieces (calling them stories is not quite accurate) each with some sort of connection to the Marble Café in Tokyo.

The server in the café, who one day simply asked the owner for a job, has a yen for the woman who comes in on Thursday and always has a hot chocolate. The owner is known as Maestro, has a mole in the centre of his forehead and another business selling/promoting art.

After the first, each chapter then proceeds with one of the characters from the previous one carrying on with their own story. Every chapter has its own title and a (different) colour designation.

The scenes range as far as Sydney in Australia, though. In one of these a character tastes Vegemite and reflects it “looks sweet but is actually salty – isn’t that what life is like?”

Another character thinks “We’re all intertwined in each other’s lives without even knowing it” which corresponds a bit too much to what the structure of Hot Chocolate on Thursday is like.

An unusual feature of the publication is that at the top right-hand corner of each odd-numbered page is an illustration of a cup and what looks like a teapot (but may be supposed to contain hot chocolate) at first poised to pour but, as the chapters progress, pouring liquid into the cup until it is full and giving off condensed vapour. (I refuse to call this steam. Steam, pure steam, is a colourless gas, not white.)

The book has an addendum titled Matcha on Monday (月曜日の抹茶カフェ, Getsuyōbi no matcha kafe, literally Monday Matcha Café) on which the café, normally closed on a Monday, is open – but only to sell matcha.

Aoyama’s writing is fine enough but overall Hot Chocolate on Thursday feels a little inconsequential.

Pedant’s corner:- octopi (the English plural is ‘octopuses’, the Greek ‘octopodes’.)

Valley Parade – at the time I photographed it the University of Bradford Stadium but now apparently Mbanq Valley Parade – is the home of Bradford City AFC, known as the Bantams.

Main stand:-

Stands:-

View to far stand (to right):-

Further in towards the city centre were two architecturally interesting (to me anyway) buildings:-

This one has hints of Art Deco – horizontals, verticals, rule of three – but it’s really more classical:-

SPFL Tier 4, New Central Park, 22/8/26

Well we took the lead – through a penalty given for handball (but like most of those given these days it did not look intentional.) Leighton McIntosh put it away well.

We then proceeded to shoot ourselves in the foot almost immediately by giving away a foul a few yards outside the box. There wasn’t any need for the challenge. Unlike us they had someone who can hit the target from there.

A minute later we were down – and out. An uncontested shot from just outside the box wrong-footed Aidan Rice but I was still puzzled as to why he didn’t make an attempt to get down to save it.

Every time they went up the park our defence looked uncomfortable. A recurring theme.

Things didn’t change much in the second half. We did have an opportunity when the ball broke to Kai Kirkpatrick (I think) but his effort was blocked wide and the return ball across the box was begging for a firm foot to direct it in but it only got a tickle. Had we equalised then who knows what would have happened? Otherwise we had only two Scott Honeyman volleys from too far out which went wide or over.

Their third was as a result of an underhit back pass. Though Aidan Rice forced the forward wide the cutback was perfectly played to the supporting attacker.

Four games played, three lost, eight goals conceded and only one point above bottom spot. Feels far too familiar.

The latest book to arrive for review in ParSec is The Rouse by China Miéville.

This is something of a doorstop; coming in at over 1000 pages.

In fact it’s such a size that the ARC (proof copy) I have received in fact comes in two paperback volumes. The first has a pagination ending at 646, the second’s starts at 649 (minus title page and publishing information, so fair enough) and ends at 1244. Heavy lifting.

The blurb calls it The Masterpiece Twenty Years in the Making. A big claim.

Miéville is of course known to me. I have reviewed nine of his books on A Son of the Rock.

The review of The Rouse ought to appear in ParSec 17.

Reaching no 5 in the charts in 1986, this is the late lamented Palmer’s biggest UK hit – no doubt helped by the backing “band” in the video. I suppose it’s the image most people associate with him.

Some wit has commented on YouTube that if you look closely you’ll notice Robert Palmer is in the video.

Robert Palmer: Addicted to Love

Vintage, 2003, 301 p. Translated from the Japanese 羊をめぐる冒険 (Hitsuji o meguru bōken, literally An Adventure Concerning Sheep,) Kodansha Ltd, Tokyo, 1982, by Alfred Birnbaum.

This is a strange concoction. It starts off as a kind of boy (okay man) meets girl (ie woman) story where our unnamed divorced narrator notices a model’s ears in a photograph his advertising agency has used and develops a penchant for them. When they meet he discovers she habitually keeps her ears hidden except when modelling (or having sex.)

Then it morphs into a quasi-noir type tale when the agency publishes a pamphlet for a life insurance company containing a photograph of grazing sheep against a mountain background which attracts the attention of a representative of “The Boss,” a power in Japan’s political and economic circles. Our narrator is tasked with withdrawing the publication and then finding a distinctive sheep shown in the photograph on pain of his business being dissolved. A turn to the unusual occurs when the chauffeur taking him to a meeting with the Boss says he has a telephone hotline to God given him by his employer.

Along with his now girlfriend, whose ears have a semi-supernatural sensitivity, our narrator travels to Hokkaido to try to find the sheep. Hence the book’s title in English.

All this is linked in with his acquaintance with a character called the Rat whose whereabouts are unknown but with whom the narrator has held an intermittent correspondence. (I note from Murakami’s Wiki page that A Wild Sheep Chase is in fact the third in a trilogy featuring the Rat. Unfortunately, I have not read the previous two books.)

The novel becomes a travelogue, a part history of the area of Hokkaido where the distinctive sheep is to be found, and a fantasy of possession whereby sheep take up residence inside a person. (This once happened to the Boss.)

Along the way the narrator muses, “Russians have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up.”

A crucial encounter with a hotel owner’s father known as the Sheep Professor, who once also had the sheep inside him, leads them to an isolated house in a backwater beyond even remote, where the narrator assumes the Rat has been living. Then there is the Sheep Man dressed in a sheep costume (an illustration of whom appears on its own page) who may or may not be the Rat.

If all this sounds as if it might be confusing it actually isn’t when reading. On the page it all makes sense – of a sort.

Pedant’s corner:- Translated into USian. Otherwise; “which may have been reason why” (been the reason why,) “the herringbone lay of the oak floorboards” (the herringbone lie of.) Chapters starting with dialogue are missing the opening quotation mark (this may be publishing convention but I hate it,) “why she treated me special” (‘why she treated me as special’,) snowslide(s) (x 4. Has the translator never heard the word ‘avalanche’? Is ‘snowslide’ a USian usage?) “if worse comes to worse” (if the worst comes to the worst,) “the lay of the grass” (the lie of the grass.) “‘It is special sheep’” (a special sheep.) “Only the the cicadas” (has one ‘the’ too many,) pull-ring (x 4. USian for ring-pull I assume,) “the overture to the The Magnificent Seven” (the overture to The Magnificent Seven.) “October laid heavy on the town” (October lay heavy,) buildiing (building,) “the lay of the land” (it was not a song: ‘the lie of the land’,) “the rotary” (I assume USian. To me ‘rotary’ is an adjective, not a noun. The appropriate word for this piece of road architecture is ‘roundabout’,) “corrogated iron” (corrugated,) “the rest the wine” (the rest of the wine,) “the lay of the house” (the lie,) “the word ‘free will’” (‘free will’ is two words; the one word would be ‘freewill’.) “The cords come out of four holes” (the rest of the passage is in past tense; ‘the cords came out of’.)

Lister Park, Bradford, where the Cartwright Memorial Hall is situated was the home of the Bradford Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1904.

It is named after Samuel Cunliffe Lister who sold the land to the town at half its commercial value.

A statue to Lister sits near the main entrance:-

Bandstand (used at the 1904 Exhibition I believe):-

The pond/lake at the park was spanned at the Exhibition by a ‘Fairy Bridge’ and utilised  for a Water Slide and for re-enactments of naval battles. The pond today:-

There is a statue of Peter Pan on an island in the pond/lake:-

Information about the 1904 Exhibition can be found here. In what to modern eyes is a somewhat unsavoury aspect of the Exhibition was the Somali village to which admission was 6d (sixpence) (children got in for 3d.)

I have a souvenir tin from the Exhibition. It originally contained ‘Cobra’ boot polish. Its lid features the Cartwright Memorial Hall:-

On the side is a depiction of the Industrial Hall:-

I also own several postcards of the Exhibition (some colourised) as well as the Exhibition Official Souvenir:-

Photos from within the Official Souvenir can be seen here.

Issue 16 of  ParSec magazine is available.

This one contains my reviews of:-

Project Hanuman by Stewart Hotston

Reality Rift by Fred Gambino

No Man’s Land by Richard Morgan

Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky

If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Choyeop