63. Genesis, by Bernard Beckett.

Genesis is a dystopian fiction novel set in New Zealand. Being from New Zealand myself, I thought it would be interesting to see if any Kiwi culture had managed to survive into the future depicted in this novel. Sadly, nothing recognisable emerged. New Zealand effectively became the last bastion of humanity, after plagues, implied nuclear attacks, and general war devastate much of the rest of the world. The population builds a giant fence, and shoots any people attempting to cross it on sight. Except, one of them can't do it. Someone gets in, temporarily. Because of Adam's failure to shoot, he is incarcerated with Art, an experimental A.I. robot.

It's written in an interesting way. Rather than a story, it's set out as a written record of an oral exam, covering the history of the Affiliation and the life of Adam. We learn a bit about Anaximander, the girl undergoing examination, but not much of her past. Not much of the present situation. It all leads up to the climax, which could have been done better in some ways. It was expectedly unexpected. An interesting book.

62. Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman.

Smoke and Mirrors is a book of short stories by Neil Gaiman. I enjoy his short stories because they are very readable, and they usually have a very interesting, rather odd premise to be built off. This book of stories is no exception, although I'd read a few of them before in various other collections. Topics range from little old ladies buying the Holy Grail from a charity shop, to darkly tinted rewrites of classic fairytales.

My favorite stories from this book were Nicholas Was, The Price, We Can Get Them For You Wholesale, The Sweeper of Dreams, and Fifteen Painted Cards From A Vampire Tarot, which in itself is a bunch of complementary little fragments, and not a whole story. Much like the book itself. Neil Gaiman is very good at doing stories that flirt with the idea of real life - they're just outside the borders of the real world, but close enough that it's easy to imagine they might be real. I look forward to reading more of his books in the future.

61. The Eyes of Light and Darkness, by Ivan Cat.

The Eyes of Light and Darkness is a book I remember reading at quite a young age, so it's another book that has nostalgic value for me as well as intrinsic value. It's very science fiction-y, with the first human colony rebelling against Earth as it establishes itself along the native, intelligent, species of Jayvee 9. A budding anthropologist (Bartlett) is sent off on a make-work mission after a leaked translation is released to the public, where she teams up with a mentally wobbly mining pod pilot (Walker) and his Fuzzie gunner (Nis) out in the Ring Belts to investigate strange artifacts being picked up by the mining crews.

Eyes is a very interesting book. I particularly enjoy sci-fi books that incorporate populations on other worlds, especially establishing colonies interacting with different alien species. This ticks all those boxes, as well as being pretty well written. Some parts are overstated, but the strong style of writing is fitting for a lot of the book. I like how Ivan Cat portrays different alien species. I've read another of his books - The Burning Heart of Night, also a good read - and he's good at imagining other mindsets, without presenting his characters as fully formed objects. There's a lot of room for personal vsariation - Fuzzies are never fully described, so the reader is free to imagine. It's nice to have some perceived input into the story.

60. The Dark Tower 7: The Dark Tower, by Stephen King.

This is the final book in the Dark Tower series, and it's one of the best ones. Slowly, the tet is made whole through some very fast-paced adventures and back-and-forth-ing through doors between the Keystone worlds. They save the Beam they are travelling on, then progress towards the Tower, on the home stretch of their journey. As in the beginning, so in the end: Roland enters the Tower alone.

I really liked the last book. It's very action-packed, with never a dull moment - something is always going on. I don't like some of the things that happen in it, but that's partially down to emotionally distressing events, and partially down to differing character interpretations. Susannah, particularly with Detta's influence, strikes me as someone that would see things out to the end regardless of the consequences, and I'm not sure that I liked the end to her story. It seemed too much like running away from the truth to me, especially since she knew it wasn't real. Eddie's, Oy's, and Jake's ends were well in line with the images of them I have in my heads, so even though they were sad events, I was able to accept them. Roland's end is puzzling, and answers barely any of the questions I had amassed up to that point (in fact, it added about two dozen extras) but it also seems quite fitting. He is the Wanderer, and I get the feeling that the health of the Tower itself might, in part, be reliant on experiences brought to it by the line of Eld, which is at this time just Roland out in the world (and the Crimson King). It's a puzzle, and I don't think we'll get a clear answer, but it's interesting to contemplate.

As for Beam information, Gan's Beam is Elephant to Wolf.  Eagle to Lion was the beam snapped while the tet was in the Callas.

Finally in this last book, Walter is further explained. Walter answers only to the Crimson King, he is his second-in-command, but he has his own designs upon the Tower. Planning to kill Mordred and enter the tower himself, he is killed. Book seven does tell us that he served Farson, as opposed to WAS Farson, which I think is slightly contradictory to an earlier book. Roland pushes Walter on even as Walter pushes Roland. It's confirmed again that Walter is Flagg under an alias, and that he did not die at the end of The Gunslinger, but placed bones in his robe to fool him.Also confirmed again that Marten is another alias. We learn that Walter Padick was his first name, when he was a farm-boy in Delain. Interesting to see that Walter, the spectre that has haunted the story from the very first words, is not evil, is not black-hearted and bad, he is a more or less ordinary person that fell upon hard times and acted accordingly. Gray characters.

59: Dark Tower 6: Song of Susannah, by Stephen King.

Book 6 of the Dark Tower. Song of Susannah is refreshingly short after the last two monsters, but it sets a punishing pace, with the ka-tet split into three parts. Susannah has been spirited away by Mia, the Mother of her demon pregnancy, taking Black Thirteen to servants of the Crimson King, while Roland and Eddie have been flung after Calvin Tower to save the Rose, and Jake, Oy, and Callahan are following Susannah to the Dixie Pig far in the future. All three sub-plots are moving along steadily, with new revelations at each turn.

This is another one of the books that I quite like. It has a few doubtful plot points - for one, Stephen King is a character within his own novel, which is simultaneously very arrogant and also a necessary part of the story somehow. If the Dark Tower spans all worlds, and given that several of the characters come from worlds that are already very similar to ours, it does make sense that there'd be a number of Stephen Kings in those novels, and that the Stephen King in the key world, as the author of the stories that are, in some form, one of the Beams, would be a key player.

We learn that Walter was the one that offered Mia her Faustian bargain - mortality in exchange for the chance to bear and raise her chap, and that he is Sayre's overlord. Beam-wise, we are told that Fish and Rat anchor ends of a Beam.

58. Dark Tower 5: Wolves of the Calla, by Stephen King.

The fifth book in the Dark Tower series. Roland and his ka-tet are back on the Path of the Beam, and travel through the village of Calla Bryn Sturgis, which is having a problem. Wolves come down out of Thunderclap, End-world, and steal one of every pair of twinned children in the village, sending them back roont. As gunslingers, they are compelled to give aid, despite the delay. As it happens, the Calla contains many things they need to continue their journey - Father Callahan, another tet member, Black Thirteen, knowledge of Nineteen and of Susannah's pregnancy. The fight for the rose begins in earnest, with Eddie travelling to New York to begin negotiations with Calvin Tower.

Wolves is a great book, that highlights the aspect of what gunslingers used to be, especially the political aspect. We've seen Roland as the lone relic, but it takes the Calla to show us how manipulative he can be with a large group of, for lack of a better word, normal people. The ka-tet is struggling to stay together, but they manage to talk things through. After the lull while we hear of Mejis and Susan, Wolves picks the pace right up and lets us know just how close the Tower is getting.

In regards to Flagg, Wolves is pretty definitive. In the introduction, we're flat out told several things. The boys (Roland, Cuthbert, Alain) were sent to Mejis to be beyond Walter's reach, The Pusher is Mort (not Walter, but a representative of sorts), and we're also told that Marten is Flagg, who is also Richard Fannin (rescuer of TickTock), who is also John Farson. Since these revelations occur in the introduction, I feel that it's safe to take them as fact - and not misleadings that different characters believe, which may be wrong. Although later in the book, Roland does connect Walter with Flagg and Flagg with Marten, while talking to the Manni. Walter has been meddling here also, leaving tape recorders

We don't learn more of the Guardians or the Bends O' The Rainbow, aside from the encounters with Black Thirteen, which lives up to the reputation its name suggests quite thoroughly.