Black Hearts In Battersea

Hot on the heels of Joan Aiken's The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase comes Black Hearts In Battersea. Simon, the resourceful, heroic young boy from Willoughby Chase was, at the end of the first book, just getting into art. On his way now to London to study painting he, unfortunately, stumbles onto a plot reminiscent of the first book.

Wicked assassins are planning to overthrow King James and the Duke and Duchess of Battersea. A diverse and twisted plot ensues, featuring all the things children are sure to love: more wild wolves, excessive kidnappings, a shipwreck and a range of poisoned pies all make an appearance.

Bonnie and Sylvia have a minor role in the story, but most of it takes place in the company of Simon and Dido Twite, another of those waif-like children Joan Aiken seems to enjoy depicting so much.

Joan Aiken was born in Sussex, England, and her clear enjoyment of the English culture is plain: her subtle and gentle poking of fun at the English establishment works well as she continues to explore her alternate history where the Stuarts have retained the throne and a Channel Tunnel already exists. Those who have read The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase will undoubtedly wish to continue the experience; those who have not would do well to seek out Willoughby Chase, though each book will, of course, stand alone.

Explorers Of The New Century - Magnus Mills

Explorers Of The New Century is a novel by Magnus Mills, orignially published in 1995. It's his fifth novel, and conforms perfectly to the style of Mills' previous works while maintaining a quite obvious distance. This style is a complex one. Mills has been compared to Kafka, and with good reason. Allegory, banality and comedy mix together in Mr Mills' prose, which is so descriptive and yet so deceptive. Don't miss a word - they're all important and, looking back once you've finished each novel, you'll see just how much a single, throwaway phrase can matter.

In the meantime, just enjoy the words. Mills conjures up a parallel world of Pinter-esque horror, situations far from modern reality and yet curiously reminiscent of normal, everyday life. I recently re-read Explorers Of The New Century in one afternoon. Once again, the progression of the story blew me away. It is allegory, pure and simple, although the actual meaning of the story is more difficult to define. Ostensibly about a simple expedition to the 'agreed farthest point', with the book even designed to look like a Victorian hardback adventure novel. And yet there's far more going on, hinted at with an underlying tension to the interactions between the characters. There are plot twists, too - great wrenching twists that you simply don't see coming at all. No spoilers, I'm afraid: you're going to have to read it.

Explorers Of The New Century was published in 1995 by Bloomsbury. Its ISBN is 0747580189 (Hardback), and I'm afraid that while it's in print and available to buy, Bookmooch copies are scarce.

Tomorrow, In A Year - The Knife, Mt. Sims and Planningtorock

I remember being disappointed. The Knife were planning something of a hiatus, and it was showing all indications of lasting a while. As it happened, the period of dearth I had dreaded didn't last too long: the Karin Dreijer part suddenly produced a 'Fever Ray' album out of nowhere, whilst Olof Dreijer produced the most interminably dreadful remix known to man and shoved it on the (can I be bothered to do the characters? no, fuckit) Year Zero Remixed album. (Trent and I still disagree on the whole Year Zero thing, but so far he's refusing to talk to me.)

Tomorrow - in a year, no less! - came out of months and months of hard work, I'm sure, but it sounds best if I say it came out of nowhere. Suddenly an email appears - The Knife are involved in an opera, along with a band I'd only heard of on a DJ Hell compilation which included the demurely-titled 'Hate Fuck'. Planningtorock remain a mystery, but one well worth exploring, assuming that their involvement with the CD goes beyond planning and extends into knob-twiddling and general electrical jiggery-pokery.

That's what this work is about, actually. The calls of birds, the movement of geological structures, the interaction of swarming shoals and endlessly calling birds, desperate for a mate; that's what it's all about. Inducing an analogue synthesizer to give birth to the mating call of a short-billed thrush, twisting it through a low-frequency oscillator to emulate its more evolved cousin, then mixing the two: this is what the album is about.

Darwin, his work, the justification for our existence - it's all brought into focus, as Karin manipulates her voice over the analogue workings of her brother, Mt. Sims and Planningtorock. Twisting and winding, the instrumentation tells a story, and the soaring, the twisting and the wailing, screeching synths all conspire to clarify the situation.

Let's be clear: if you don't get the idea, then from track one through to ten, you're listening to something you don't want to hear. It's not Lady Gaga. It's not Thelonious Monk accidentally playing what turn out to be the right notes. It's a synthetic representation of the evolutionary processes which form Darwin's theory, and it's perfection. What more can be said than that I listen to it for pleasure, and that those who inhabit the room with me do not? Does everyone believe that 'The Haywain' is the ultimate expression of art? Does everyone search for a new 'Mona Lisa'? Are Dali's massively-stilted elephants not a valid representation of art?

This work - Tomorrow, In A Year - is genius.