6. The North Water
I enjoyed this and read it quickly. Set on a 19th century whaling voyage, it centres on the conflict between Sumner, the ship's surgeon seeking to escape a traumatic past, and Drax, a degenerate whaler who lives only in and for the present. There is a crime committed on board, and other plots afoot; it is a mystery but the question is not so much whodunnit, but rather, why does it matter? Sumner, flawed himself, and battered by his own conscience, struggles to hold on to the idea of morality in a sea of iniquity, and is pushed to the limits of his mental and physical endurance. This was a good read, darkly comic in places too, but also a violent, grotesquely detailed one, and my criticism would be that this was often just too much; not for reasons of squeamishness, but of style and credibility. There were several occasions towards the end where the descriptions were so excessively grisly that I laughed out loud, which, I don't believe, can have been the author's intention. There are only so many times you to need to read about the precise texture of excrement, for instance, or the exact scent of a man's nether regions. So, yes, I liked the themes and setting of the tale, and it was well written, with powerful imagery , but it could have done with a bit more subtlety and restraint in the telling, I thought. It was a case of over egging the pudding, but if the pudding was made of entrails, and in place of eggs...more entrails. It ended a little abruptly, as well, I'd have liked some more, but a minor quibble.
I am quarter way through the 3 Body Problem not completely sucked into the story yet, but it's ok so far.