A review by ruadhanach
Bloody Scotland by Craig Robertson, Denise Mina, Doug Johnstone, Christopher Brookmyre, Louise Welsh, Sara Sheridan, Ann Cleeves, Val McDermid, Lin Anderson, E.S. Thomson, Stuart MacBride, Gordon Brown
No bad on the whole but some of the stories, like the last one, are dull as fuck - are ye writin a story or are you reviewin somebdy else's? Another story just felt a bit sadistic given the subject matter and the scope. The book's at its best when the writer in question has a particular fondness for describin the settin in great detail, because a good settin is fundamentally why the book even came to be.
I don't know if I've found any Scottish writers in this that I'd take to except maybe Chris Brookmyre; I'd read another of his. There's somethin interestin about the way he uses Scots vernacular and blends it wi English. I remember feelin at one point though - maybe in his story, or in another yin - that I wasn't really sure if this book was even written for Scottish folk.
There's a story where all the spoken dialogue is in Scots and the rest of the prose is in plain English and it makes me wonder who that story wis for. It makes me wonder as well whether people even consider Scots as a valid language any more, or if the age o technology and "grammar nazis" now means that Scots will die out cause English is more "correct".
I don't know if I've found any Scottish writers in this that I'd take to except maybe Chris Brookmyre; I'd read another of his. There's somethin interestin about the way he uses Scots vernacular and blends it wi English. I remember feelin at one point though - maybe in his story, or in another yin - that I wasn't really sure if this book was even written for Scottish folk.
There's a story where all the spoken dialogue is in Scots and the rest of the prose is in plain English and it makes me wonder who that story wis for. It makes me wonder as well whether people even consider Scots as a valid language any more, or if the age o technology and "grammar nazis" now means that Scots will die out cause English is more "correct".