Like a good little customer, I occasionally do what Momma Amazon says and click on links entitled “people that liked <large pile of books I’ve just ordered > also liked <book>”, the result of which was a novel called Magic Bites by a new author, Ilona Andrews.

I frequently read swords and sorcery type fantasy escapism, but they’re normally set in Medieval times rather than an approximation of the modern world. Apparently the genre is called urban fantasy, think Buffy the Vampire Slayer but less teenage.

All the usual elements were present in this book, hero protagonist, swords, vampires, werewolves, police agencies and knightly orders and an amateur whodunnit plot, but what made this book noteworthy was that it was all brought together in a relatively uncontrived way with the liberal application of my favourite sort of humour, deadpan understatement.

The author only resorted to outright explanation of the world to introduce their unique ideas, such as the swings between ‘magic’ and ‘tech’ phases, and things like lights and clapped out car engines that ran on water and ambient magic. Everything else fell into place in my imagination with only the occasional pause to laugh out loud and get subsequently glared at for failing to share. Some scenes were a little more graphic than I normally find, but only when necessary to convey a certain character or plot device.

For an author’s first book, I found it to be a remarkably good read and I’ll be both buying the next in the series (not sure mail order will be fast enough) and exploring other authors in that genre (with the aid of Ilona Andrew’s Myspace site)

One of the many bonuses of visiting my family near Cambridge is that sometimes I manage to pick the same weekend that Galloway and Porter have one of their Warehouse clearance sales.

Every so often, they open up their general warehouse to the public to clear excess stock, normally for £1 a book. There is all sorts on offer, often quite a large selection of childrens books, but otherwise there’s everything from the Canterbury Tales to the X-men, travel books, maps, reference books, academic books and a few items that make you wonder who’s idea it was to actually print that. With it being a mixture of hard and softbacks, I limit myself to buying what I can physically carry, so today I got away fairly lightly with just the 17 books. They’ll show up on my librarything when I get a bored few minutes to scan them in.

Unlike my groaning shelves, I find these book sales to be quite relaxing and fun to explore. They’re well attended so there’s enough of a crowd to vanish into, you can just browse along the tables and have the freedom to dip into books that you normally wouldn’t consider reading the back of. Not that I would advocate buying anything terribly embarrasing of course, I did go with my family after all, but with each item you pick up costing a pound, you don’t have to worry about wasting too much money on something you’re unlikely to read.

Now I just need to finish getting the reading-a-lot-of-book-spines crick out of my neck..

“Nation”, the latest novel from the ever popular Terry Pratchett shows that he’s still able to write great stories, packed with the humour, intelligence we all love, stuck together with just enough reality to make it all work.

This book is a departure from the famous Discworld setting, but as Terry himself said, “I cannot write the next Discworld book while this one is in my head.”

It’s clearly pitched at the Young Adult audience, playing on many childhood mysteries and fears that get the reader to really buy into the protagonists whilst still allowing the author to use some adult themes that keep it interesting to the rest of us.

The deadpan witticisms are all present and correct, as is the master novelist’s craft of describing just enough to convey their world and then letting the reader do the rest of the work. An appreciation of stereotypical colonial Britain helps smile at some of the scenes.

The story is essentially two teenagers rapid induction into adult life in the face of adversity whilst building up the world around them and fighting off the villains in the process. There is plenty of fun adventure to be had (the Beer Song springs to mind) but interspersed with moments of grim humour. I was glad many of the situations occurred to the characters and not to me, but they were brushed off in the way that children might.

One of my favourite scenes involved one of the lead characters inviting the other one to Afternoon Tea in a shipwreck and despite not speaking each other’s language, they still fret over not being able to find the napkin rings. I’m not sure about the culinary delight of dead-lobster flavoured scones.

The story quickly builds up its pace into a proper page turner. It isn’t as intense as his best work but I wasn’t tempted to pick up another book until I’d finished it.

As ever, highly recommended reading.