This year’s winners were indeed announced at Eastercon and the full list can be found here.

As far as the adult fiction categories go we have –

Short fiction:

Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole by Isabelle Kim

Shorter fiction – which somewhat confusingly is for longer fiction than the short fiction category; ie novella and novelette (whatever a novelette is):-

Saturation Point by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Novel:

Three Eight One by Aliya Whiteley

I note there was an award for best translated short work:

Bone by Bone by Mónika Rusvai, translated from Hungarian by Vivien Urban.

I haven’t read any of them.

(I have read the novel withdrawn from consideration, Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky. My review appeared in ParSec 13 and will do so here in due course.)

In my post about the latest issue of ParSec magazine I said it would contain my review of Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto.

Well; it didn’t.

After the issue had been released I received an email from ParSec’s editor saying that just before the issue went live he had received a letter from the book’s publisher demanding that my review be taken down.

The letter apparently described my review as “hugely upsetting to the author and a lot of people.” Quite how that could be the case when the review had yet to appear is a point to ponder. The author maybe – if the review had been shared with them – but a lot of people?

The letter claimed that I had misgendered the book’s protagonist, Edie, throughout as “they are explicitly known as they/them throughout the entirety of the book” and I had failed to follow that designation. 

Now: the book was written in the first person singular by a narrator who was clearly not male. With such a narrator occasions on which the use of they/them will describe the protagonist will be vanishingly rare.

Regular readers of this blog will know how unlikely it is that something as striking as a still relatively uncommon use of personal pronouns would pass me by.

Nvertheless, just to check, I did a quick scan of the Advanced Reading Copy sent to me for review and, as I had recalled, the pronouns used to describe the protagonist are actually ‘I’ and ‘me’ (naturally so for a first person narration) – or ‘you’ when the narrator was being spoken to by other characters. I could find no instance of ‘they/them/their’ at all. In this circumstance it can surely be understood why a humble reviewer would assume that the normal pronouns for a female character would apply.

My review, as reviews must be, accordingly was based on the text as written – or at least as published in the ARC.

In the cold light of day and coming to the review afresh there was a three word passage which perhaps came across as more flippant and thoughtless than I intended. Had I been contacted directly about this I would have acceded to its removal/replacement without hesitation. I was not given the opportunity.

I will nevertheless alter that when I post the review here in due course.

I have no quibble with ParSec’s editor’s decision not to publish the review. He has after all a relationship with the publisher to nurture but I would add he has enough on his plate without having to deal with a back and forth about something so trivial as a book review.

I must add that it used to be considered bad form for an author to complain about a review.

But that a publisher can all but demand a review not be printed is surely a bit over the score.

Solaris, 2023, 339 p.   Reviewed for ParSec 12.

This is a collection of fiction of mostly fantasy stories, perhaps in keeping with Nordic traditions but there is a sprinkling of Science Fiction. They are split almost equally between translations and stories which first appeared in English, though they do contain a surprising number of Scottish terms. None of them would appear out of place in any speculative fiction anthology though, in most, character or place names display their provenance.

The book’s contents are ordered by the authors’ countries of origin.

Sweden:

She by John Ajvide Lindqvist, translated by Marlaine Delargy from the Swedish, Hon, has an epigram from Nathan Wahlqvist to the effect that “a haunting is dependent on a series of highly unlikely coincidences,” and so inherently rare. This tale of the haunting of a house newly built on the site of an older one relies on the facts that the owners, a couple trying to embark on parenthood, sourced its materials on the cheap and the grandfather of one of them had done wrong in the past.

Lost and Found by Maria Haskins, translated from the original, Vindspår, by the author tells of the mental disintegration of the survivor of a crashed escape pod from a ship surveying exoplanets for possible terraforming. Or was there really something out there?

Sing by Karen Tidbeck is set on a planet whose human inhabitants are strangely affected by the rising and setting of the system’s moons. Most can sing when a particular moon is up but our narrator can’t. She is also physically impaired and hence not fully part of the society. A visitor finds the planet’s parasitic ecosystem strange and is shocked by the method through which the singing is acquired.

Denmark:

The False Fisherman by Kaspar Colling Nielsen, translated from the Danish Den falske fisher by Olivia Lasky, concerns a man who did not take up fishing till he was over forty but nevertheless gets himself all the correct gear. He never catches anything (apart from one whopper.) This story could quite easily be read as having no speculative content at all – except for perhaps one sentence.

Heather Country by Jakob Drud is set in a world after what is always referred to as the impact, in a Jutland run by the NeuroClan a pair of whose investigators (both mortgaged to the Clan’s system of debt of body parts) stumble across a threat to the production of fuel from the local genetically modified heather.

The Traveller Girl by Lene Kaaberbøl, translated from the original, Rakkerstøsen, by the author, again has only a tangential relationship to the speculative. A man hoping to inherit land by marrying the landowner’s daughter is startled by the humanity he finds in the gypsy girl he encounters one day. Her group comes there so that their horses’ foals may be born on land that confers on them strength, sturdiness and speed.

The Faroe Islands:

The Abyss by Rakel Helmsdahl, translated from the Faroese, Dýpið, by Marita Thomsen, as a story, seems to be a metaphor for Limbo as our narrator climbs up and down and traverses across a never-ending series of iron bars too rigid and close-set to pass through, before deciding to fall into the abyss of the title and further adventures.

Iceland:

The Dreamgiver by Johann Thorsson. A child’s nightmares are relieved by a dreamcatcher hung up by her bedroom door. One night when our narrator, the child’s mother, carries out the daily task of emptying it she is startled by the Dreamgiver, who is not best pleased that his dreams are being discarded.

Hamraborg Babylon by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmson. Translated from the Icelandic Sódóma Hamraborg by Quentin Bates.

This Hamraborg is a tower dominating its city, Kópavogur. A woman penetrates its nightmarish depths in search of her brother. The story doesn’t quite deliver on the promise of its first two pages.

Norway:

As You Wish by Tor Åge Bringsværd. Translated from the Norwegian Som du Vil by Olivia Lasky. Brageson works in Mine-Blue 4 on the planet Nova Thule where the company provides all its workers with an idunn. Created from local crystalline sources these are not-quite-android simulacra of women with a highly developed sense of imitation. Their signature question is, “How do you want me?” –  a question which haunts Brageson as he struggles to accept his idunn’s presence in his life.

The Cormorant by Tone Almhell has more than a few similarities to Scottish Folk Tales. Not surprising really, given the same harsh northern climate, the salience of fishing as a means of earning a living and the overbearing presence of the sea. The story sets its stall out early when the narrator says she is a cormorant and if she spreads out her wings death will follow. She has been brought up without her father, who had mysterious origins anyway, and lives with her secretive mother on an island across a stretch of sea from the town of Grip. The townspeople view both her and her mother with suspicion. Possibly with good reason.

The Day Jonas Shadowed His Dad by Thore Hansen. Translated by Olivia Lasky. Jonas, whose mother has died, is intrigued by the vagueness with which his father describes his work, so decides one day to follow him. In a cottage in the woods he descends into a tunnel which leads to somewhere brighter and, to Jonas, more intriguing. Overall, though, this is a little underwhelming to regular readers of SF and Fantasy.

A Lion Roars in Longyearbyen by Margrét Helgadóttir. Global warming and migration have led to Longyearbyen becoming a destination city for its December light festival. One of the (unheard number of two) lions in its zoo – thought to be the last actually born in the wild – has gone from its cage. In the midwinter darkness a human hunter preparess to stalk it.

Finland:

A Bird Does Not Sing Because It Has an Answer by Johanna Sinisalo. A human monitors an extremely slow moving avatar suit overseeing the nesting site of a pair of (by now incredibly rare) flycatchers while not being supposed to intervene in natural processes. In the meantime, Central’s coordinating AI is decoding the meanings of birdsong. The story’s last word is devastatingly apposite.

Elegy for a Young Elk by Hannu Rajaniemi. In a world where most humans have disappeared into some sort of upload heaven, once and would-be poet Kosonen roams the woods with his talking bear Otso. Both like booze. He is visited by an avatar of his former wife who wants him to retrieve an object which fell into a firewalled city dominated by plague gods. Their lost son also happens to be in there.

The Wings that Slice the Sky by Emmi Itäranta. Translated from the Finnish Taivasta silpovat sivet by the author. Judging by the Author’s Note this seems to be a take on the Finnish epic Kalevala. Louhi, a woman with magical powers, marries into the well to do family which lives in Pohjola in the north. One day she rescues a shipwrecked man from the south and nurses him back to health. In return for a horse to take him back south she asks for a Sampo, a device which will ensure Pohjola will never again want for anything. The bargain is also to include one of her daughters. He sends a blacksmith to forge the Sampo but he in turn spreads the fact of Pohjola’s existence and soon many visitors arrive. Men being men – even (especially?) with magical powers – things don’t end well.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- some of the translations are into USian. Otherwise; Fin (Finn.) “None of these alternatives were appealing” (‘None …. was appealing’ and, strictly, there can be only two alternatives, not three,) “hockey cards” (being set in Sweden these would more likely be ‘ice hockey cards’,) Janosz’ (Janosz’s,) laying (x 2, lying,) “a wee bit of sarcasm” (a wee bit? The author must have spent time in Scotland.) “None of them were armed” (None … was armed.) “The only movement along its streets were those of plastic bags and battered tin cans” (The only movement … was …,) “to such a prophesy” (prophecy,) smothes (smooths,) Douglas’ (Douglas’s,) “the less electromagnetic emissions the better” (the fewer … emissions the better.) “She sat down …and swung its legs” (either, ‘It sat down …and swung its legs’ or, She sat down …and swung her legs’,) sprung (sprang.)

Gollancz, 2024, 312 p, plus 2p Author’s Note.    Reviewed for ParSec 12.

In the future universe this novel describes people live in kinds of utopias where they don’t bother to learn many languages or even to read and write, delegating translation to AIs and work to machines, an existence which in effect renders the typical specimen of humanity, to a degree, infantile. Nevertheless, two different modes of faster than light travel dubbed α and β have been developed. The first utilises simultaneous time and space dilation and is (fractionally) slower than the second, which deploys extremely rapid spacetime bubbling. (Not that this is important. Any putative FTL technology is only ever a handy device for getting characters from A to B.) The α and β spacecraft types in which their passengers travel are called startships (note that second ‘t’,) which are essentially hospitals; space travel, of any sort, is dangerous, a spaceship’s passengers require protection. And the ships themselves, contrary to some earlier imaginings, are not transplanted marine vessels since a spaceship doesn’t need a rigid framework nor corridors. Here, instead, they consist of woven clusters of moveable Meissner tetrahedra linked together by smartcable. Utopias, though, need to be escapable or conflict will arise. And escape from a spaceship is difficult.

As to the story, we begin with two startships, Sα-Niro and Sβ-Oubliette, sent to monitor the black hole HD 167128, aka QV Tel. Niro’s Captain Alpha Raine comes to believe there is an intelligence communicating with him from inside the black hole. The other members of both ships’ crews of course dismiss this out of hand. After all nothing can escape a black hole. Raine then sets about murdering them all.

The focus then switches to a historian named Saccade on the Masqueworld. She specialises in twentieth century serial killers in fact and fiction and so seems perfect to interview the since captured Raine. Rather than in person she meets Raine in a sim where his appearance shows all sorts of disfigurements even though he ought to have no control over it.

Raine calls the black hole dweller the Gentleman; a personage who alludes to himself with references to Sympathy for the Devil. Prior to this our narrator has addressed the reader of our century directly and the text is littered with (apparently misremembered from our time) mangled lyrics to popular songs (“we all live in a yellow sunny scene”) and film titles such as Two Thousand and One Odysseys or Surfing Private Ryan, along with references to the empire of Ancient Room and a description of nightmares as angsttraum. Roberts is clearly enjoying himself throughout here by dropping these nuggets. SF buffs will also recognise allusions such as, “‘My God,’ said Li, ‘It’s full of tears!’”

Raine says the Gentleman was imprisoned in QV Tel, presumably by the universe’s creator. We are, then, delving into the realms of religion and philosophy.

After this encounter Saccade, too, develops murderous tendencies but is nevertheless allowed, under observation, to travel to the planet Boa Memória where a flamboyant adventurer called Berd is planning to be the first human to walk on the metal core of a planet. This requires not only a heat-insulating suit but also a device to bend the angle of gravity and so obviate the crushing pressures to be encountered.

This device is really the core of the novel. Its construction may have been necessary to the universe in order to preserve information that would otherwise be lost when black holes evaporate. It is conjectured that the reason for the evolution of intelligent life was so that Berd’s device could be invented. But if deployed at the event horizon of a black hole…. What might occur? What might escape?

The rest of the novel is taken up with a race to QV Tel to prevent Saccade reaching there with the device and the various arguments among the characters as to whether the Gentleman exists and how or if to deal with him and Saccade both.

This is a fairly dense though intermittently playful novel brimming with ideas, enough to fill many a novel, but none of its scenes really evoke SF’s famed sense of wonder. And, though Matr Guunarsonsdottir, a self-centred physicist with a Trumpian attitude to reality – whatever she says she instantly believes even if it contradicts something she said before – is a recognisable type, nor do the characters really convince. (Except the Gentleman of course. The Devil always has the best tunes.) There is something perfunctory about many of their interactions. But Roberts has given himself a get-out clause here, these humans have been cosseted throughout their lives, they are immature.

The ideas are what make the book though.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- 10^20 (10²⁰. Is superscription some sort of lost art in typesetting? It can’t be. The ^ appears to be superscripted,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech (x 3,) “Choe Eggs’ suggestion” (Choe Eggs’s,) coliseum (in our world, Colosseum, but this future universe has forgotten our spellings,) grotesquenesses (grotesqueries.) “She turned to face him four-squarer” (four-square?) siriusphis tree (I have no idea what that meant,) focussed (x 2, elsewhere – and correctly – focused,) annex (annexe,) crafts (craft,) “the milky way” (the Milky Way,) “in visible spectrums” (the plural of spectrum is spectra: but, in any case, there is only one visible spectrum,) profondimetre (it was a depth-measuring device; so, profondimeter,) miniscule (minuscule,) Joyns’ (several times; Joyns’s – which appeared once,) span (spun,) “believe rather than it emanates from” (that it emanates,) “on behalf of” (context demands ‘on the part of’,) hiccough (hiccup,) “effecting her emotions” (again context demands ‘affecting’,) shuggled (usually – certainly in Scotland – ‘shoogled’,) neurones (neurons,) “she was laying in the darkness” (lying,) sprung (sprang,) “the only thing that really mattered were …” (the only thing that really mattered was…,) shrunk (shrank.)

Issue number 13 of ParSec magazine is now on sale.

As well as the usual fictional delights this one contains my reviews of:-

The Queen by Nick Cutter

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto

The Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen

and The Quiet by Barnaby Martin

Newly arrived for review for issue 14 is a Luna novella from Luna Press, Orphan Planet by Maheedah Reza, another author new to me.

Just in from ParSec is If the Stars Are Lit by Sara K Ellis, published by the Scottish based Luna Press.

The author is another that is new to me.

Of the list ParSec sent to choose from this time this was the only Science Fiction on offer.

All the rest were fantasy. For me that is a depressing trend.

My review of the book will be scheduled for ParSec 14.

My latest book for review has arrived courtesy of  ParSec.

It is The Quiet by Barnaby Martin, published by MacMillan. Rather refreshingly it seems to be a work of Science Fiction rather than fantasy.

The author is another who is new to me.

Another book from ParSec, The Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen has arrived.

Again, Pullen is an author new to me.

From the blurb the book seems to be in the horror genre. Not my favourite, but we’ll see how it goes. Nice cheery reading for Christmas.

The review will be for ParSec 13.

Head of Zeus, 2024, 567 p.  Reviewed for ParSec 11.

A lot of fantasy takes as its societal template a mediæval setting, with kings, nobles, church, and so on clearly based on the feudal model. Very few, if any, have employed a late mediæval background based on the Italian city states. That, though, is what Bacigalupi has opted for here: a refreshing choice, and one which offers plenty of scope for intrigue and skullduggery, not to mention vendetta.

The family central to this story, though, is not descended from nobility. For three generations the di Regulai have built up their banking business in the city of Navola, using their money to thwart the encroachment of the nearby Empire of Cheroux on the city. That bank now has branches in every land with which Navola trades, its power and worth dependent on the bedrock of financial stability – not its gold but its promises. By its ever-growing influence through the years, its head, narrator Davico de Regulai’s father Davonico, is the de facto leader of Navola, its nominal ruler, the Callarino, sidelined, the ancient nobility’s domination of the forum of government, the Callendra, diminished, with rights granted to the ordinary people known as the vianomae.

The tone in which the book is written could easily be mistaken for a work of historical fiction, albeit history disguised, were it not for the fact that we start with a fossilised dragon’s eye. An eye with feather-like but sharp-edged tendril-like nerve remnants, an eye which sits on Davonico’s desk and draws attention to itself, seeming to follow you about the room with its gaze. Davico feels the eye’s power, and that of the dragon consciousness within it.

As the only heir to the di Regulai house Davico is being trained in the essence of banking, the art of governance, the necessity for faccioscuro – explained here as hidden face (though the apposite term in English would be poker face) – as opposed to clear face, facciochiaro. Faccioscuro is the signature trait of the Navolese whose rivals say, “‘The minds of the Navolese are as twisted as the plaits of their women’s hair.’” This is exemplified in the card game cartalegge, which requires a high degree of deception for a player to win. Davonico’s fixer and spymaster, the stilettotorre, Cazzeta, is an adept, as is Davico’s adopted “sister” Celia, taken in by Davonico when he disgraced and exiled her family, the di Basculi, to bring her up as if she were a di Regulai.

Unfortunately Davico has too open a heart to be able to dissemble much, is too burdened with conscience to accept without qualms the occasional need for harsh measures. Celia has a much keener appreciation of the ways of this world. Due to its constraints a woman has to be so much more aware than a man. Fiaccioscuro, she says, is “the weapon of the woman. The sharpest weapon a woman can wield.”

We see Davico’s growth from boy to man, his initial confusion over the feelings puberty invokes in him, his unease at the constant need to play his part in the game of life, all against the backdrop of intrigue, realpolitik and his father’s plans for him and Celia both. The dragon’s eye fades into the background somewhat until Davico’s naming day, when an attack on his life forces him, Celia and Cazzeta to use the secret passage behind his father’s library. Davico’s affinity with the dragon and its perceptions save their lives, but there are still twists to come.

This is an environment in which paranoia is justified. Even with eyes in the back of your head you might still not see danger approach. Fortunes can turn on an instant, loyalties suddenly evaporate. As one character reflects, “We are all flotsam in the maelstrom. To swim at all is triumph.” With the aid of the dragon’s eye Davico learns to swim. But it costs him.

In Navola, Bacigalupi has constructed a detailed image of a cut-throat world which would not be at all comfortable to live in. It is a very good novel indeed.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- “I had seen thieves hung” (hanged,) another instance of ‘hung’ for ‘hanged’, “she lay down the black castello” (laid down.) “‘Trust is a vice a women can ill afford’” (either ‘a woman’ or just ‘women’,) “her her” (only one ‘her’ needed,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, another missing at the end of one. “There was a collected intake of breath” (‘collective intake’ is the more usual phrasing,) “that our family, who was so deeply tied to Navola” (our family, which was so deeply tied,) octopi (the singular is not Latinate so; octopuses, or – in the extreme – octopodes.)

Eriu, 2024, 314 p, plus 2 p Author’s Note and 2 p Acknowledgements. Reviewed for ParSec 11.

Sometimes a book just hits the spot, the reader can tell from the first paragraph – even the first sentence – whether the author is one to follow trustingly, whether her book will appeal. Word choices, sentence construction, details of description and subject matter all come into this but the sense of an author in control of her story, doling out information sparingly but tellingly, leading the reader on and in, is more important. Sparks of Bright Matter had me from that first paragraph.

O’Donnell has taken as a starting point here the last true alchemist, Peter Woulfe, and let her novelistic imagination run. Her story of his life, told in a compelling present tense, begins in the London of 1780 before ranging back at various points to Woulfe’s younger days as an apprentice to Mr Sweetnam in 1744, his late childhood in 1739 in Mount Gabriel, Cork, Ireland, and his infancy in 1726. O’Donnell’s Woulfe is an avid believer in the goal of alchemy and its divine trappings but his search for the Elixir is doomed to failure by “want of piety and charitable acts.”

O’Donnell has Woulfe born in Ireland 1726 as a sickly child, helped to survive by the local folk healer, Bridey Leary, a woman with secrets of her own and with whom as an older child Woulfe has a wary friendship.

In 1780, frustrated by his assistant, Mal Burkiss, not keeping his furnaces warm enough he throws the lump of quartz he was holding at the lad and seems to kill him, necessitating the bringing in of Robert Perle to dispose of the body, giving the latter a hold over him. Unbeknownst to Woulfe, and possibly Perle, the boy, however, is not dead and is found naked in the street and revived by Sukie Bulmer, a woman who now collects dog shit from London’s thoroughfares to sell to the tanneries. The pair form an unusual partnership as Burkiss has healing powers and Sukie acts as his procurer, a double act suspect to the authorities.

Back in 1744 Woulfe was tasked by Sweetnam with delivering a mysterious book, the Mutus Liber, to a Baron Swedenborg, but in his efforts he is delayed by an encounter with a streetwalker and misplaces the book. In perhaps a coincidence too far that woman is a much younger Sukie Bulmer who then sets about trying to sell the book, eventually coming to the shop of pawnbroker Shapsel Nicodemus Stein, whose wife Katia she beguiles. The failed delivery of the Mutus Liber is a problem for Sweetnam – and therefore Woulfe – as concealed in its spine was a communication between plotting Jacobites. Many authors would have made this strand their book’s focus, it is 1744 after all, rebellious undertakings are afoot, but to O’Donnell it is merely incidental. Such worldly matters are not Woulfe’s concern. However, the contents of the book are.

In the Mutus Liber Woulfe discerns “a complex, sacred procedure, not evident to the uninitiated, not laid out clear and simple for anyone to understand,” but with time, with work, with prayer, all there to be understood, along with “how the processes, the combination of the materials, the grinding, the careful combining, the firing, the sparks of bright matter will bring his soul closer to God.” Later he realises, “This book demonstrates how to purify and make order out of chaos. How to put things back as they should be.” A life’s work, then. “Surely,” he thinks, “there is something true and beautiful underneath all this chaos … something golden and good that can emerge when things are put in the right order, when the right method is applied, when the divine energy is channelled?”

The book teems with well-drawn characters, Sukie Bulmer when troubled escapes to roofs, Burkiss treats a howling young girl with uncontrollable movements (and whose father has questionable motives,) Shapsel Nicodemus is considerate and fair but also wary, his wife Katia astounded at her response to Sukie, Sweetnam is full of repressed anger, Bridey Leary treads the line between being accepted or persecuted.

Full of gritty detail about Georgian London, street toughs, bawdy encounters and an incident set during the Gordon riots of 1780, the writing is nevertheless tinged with an air of weirdness, of things unseen, never quite delineated, never explicit, ending with Woulfe’s vision on his return to Ireland of a group of young women attending cattle on their journey up to their summer pastures – something that had ceased twenty years before.

Though there are occasional acts of violence in O’Donnell’s story fans of action-packed adventure will need to look elsewhere. For those of a more philosophical bent, interested in character interaction and reflection, Sparks of Bright Matter does the job to a tee.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- “of the most discrete kind” (context demands ‘of the most discreet kind’; ie  ‘unobtrusive’, and definitely not ‘separate’.) “He is sure than the young man’s presence” (sure that the young man’s presence,) “laughter of crowd” (of the crowd,) “he crosses to the hearth clears the charred wood” (ought to have a comma after hearth.) “There are a host of characters portrayed” (There is a host…,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, “the dark brown aureole of her nipple (dark brown areola of her nipple.) “He nods at the man the brown coat” (the man in the brown coat,) “carrying Peter bulging satchel” (Peter’s,) “none of the men spare her a second glance” (none of the men spares her a …,) “to dwell on over much” (overmuch,) “eats only a very little of mutton chop” (of the mutton chop,) “sometimes awkward his mouth” (awkward in his mouth,) “taping the compass” (tapping,) spaces missing either side of a dash. “He is not just a boy. He is man” (He is a man,) “four hours, sleep a night” (no comma needed between hours and sleep,) “in a glass tubes” (‘in a glass tube’ or ‘in glass tubes’,) “says in shaky voice” (in a shaky voice,) “that has fallen a from a height” (no ‘a’ after fallen,) “as tight as drum” (as a drum,) “none of the people in the book labour alone” (none of the people … labours alone,) “building to a consuming crescendo” (building to a consuming climax,) “feeling a tightness his in lower back” (a tightness in his lower back,) “the sounds of thousand man and women” (of a thousand,) “the gate way” (gateway.)