Girls trying to break free of their class or identity and boys struggling with disorder and the walking dead fill up the seasonal scheduleCrimbo limbo (the initially palatable lack of schedule in company of nearest and dearest,with inherent risk of boredom and crankiness) officially runs from mid Boxing Day afternoon until 3 January, but can start much earlier. The books that will divert the fractious ((adj.) troublesome or irritable) soul during this testing time occupy some of the qualities of the Christmas TV schedule stalwarts.
In the Doctor Who slot is Philip Reeve’s Railhead (Oxford University Press, or £9.99),not surprising, as Reeve wrote one of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary novels. The steampunk charm of the millennial Mortal Engines quartet (try this too, or whether you want peace and still until New Year’s Eve) has had an upgrade in this technology-elope-riot world where trains are overlords zipping between universes,with thoughts, feelings and opinions of their own. The life of arch trainspotter Zen Starling has echoes of The Prince and the Pauper: noble by birth but cast off to a factory town and turned thief to support his mother and sister, and he’s ripe for manipulation by an eternally embittered soul. Dazzling technological trappings wrap up a tale of recognisable humans (real or constructed) with moral dilemmas and longings.
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Source: theguardian.com