I’m off work at the moment with the first really heavy cold I’ve had since I started doing triathlon (so there you go, kids: serious physical training doesn’t necessarily weaken the immune system). I don’t read a lot of fiction these days, as I find the quality depressing, but when I’m ill I will read with the same voracity I did before I became such an intolerant critic.

My first day of lying in bed feeling sorry for myself I read two books with superficially similar themes: Bareback by Kim Whitfield, called Benighted in the States (presumably for some colloquial connotation lost on we Brits); and Bitten by Kelley Armstrong. These are both debut novels.

Bitten follows the trials and tribulations of Elena, the only female werewolf in a population of about 35 living in a human world, and her battle to find happiness by coming to terms with her true nature rather than making herself unhappy by striving for “normal”. It’s the typical tale of the girl ignoring passion in favour of decency, only to discover that she herself is passionate and passion is the way to go. It just happens to be dressed up in fur and fangs. It’s a romance novel given a violent edge by the twist of lycanthropy.

It read to me very much as a wish-fulfillment book — and I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that, in and of itself. I have no issue with people writing their own fantasies. Unfortunately it’s written in first person, and Armstrong does somewhat belabour a number of the issues past boredom to the point where I wanted to take the author (not the heroine — the author) by the throat, shake her roughly and say “Get on with it woman! Stop throwing in new cul-de-sacs in the plot: we all know where you’re going with this and have done since roughly Chapter Three!”

I found the prose sometimes clumsy and there was a strong overtone of action-adventure novel that I found distracting from the overall theme. It reminded me of Romancing The Stone, which is not a good thing.

By contrast, Bareback was a rare treat: an original treatment of a popular genre. In Whitfield’s story we are dumped unceremoniously in a world where lycanthropy is the norm and always has been. The poor unfortunate “cripples” who don’t change at the full moon are forcibly taken at birth into the arms of the Department Of Regulation of Lycanthropic Activities (DORLA), which is part-police, part-Inquisition. Reworked history is woven quite skilfully into the tale, so as the work progresses the reader comes to understand how this world is similar to our own in so many ways; and yet so utterly, utterly different. The story tackles a subject that is politically relevant to where we find ourselves now, here: the issue of those people who are vital to society functioning smoothly and yet who are treated as less than second-class citizens by those who consider themselves to be society; as well as the shocking, although inevitable, consequences of that subset of the population declining in number. The ultimate punt in Whitfield’s book makes pharmaceutical companies witholding new medicines for financial gain look almost acceptable, and turns the notion of embryonic genetic selection for desirable attributes on its head (almost literally).

Whitfield also manages to address the issue of being true to one’s own nature as opposed to “fitting in”, and yet manages to do so while leaving the reader with uncertainty as to whether her protagonist made the right choice: which is as it should be. How many of us are ever sure we’ve absolutely made the right choice? Also, Whitfield’s protagonist has to deal with the consequences of her decisions, and not all of them as blatant and obvious as what happens to the guy she was dating.

It has its flaws, of course. If the barebacks (the people who don’t change) were regarded with such distaste by the rest of the world, how on Earth did DORLA get away with acting without due process? There were a couple of major questions raised about how DORLA came to have such power to act seemingly outside what we would consider to be the law. I would have liked to see more reasoning for DORLA’s ability to lock people up indefinitely without access to a lawyer; and for their ability to use physical torture without apparent fear of retribution. Whitfield did offer up a hint of an explanation, but I found it inadequate. This is a minor complaint in an otherwise nicely told tale.

Both of these books were stories that just happened to involve werewolves, even though, superficially, werewolves were the point of the tale. For me Whitfield was the more successful: her prose was more elegant, her story more subtle. While I found myself throwing Armstrong’s book down on the floor a couple of times to have a rant to Frood, I read Whitfield’s cover to cover with nary a word of complaint.

If you want plenty of descriptions of golden fur, wolf foreplay, sex, angst and muscular bodies, Bitten is the book for you. If you want something that explores what can happen when a vital section of society finds itself no longer feeling part of that society, then I strongly recommend Bareback.

The juxtaposition of the Spokes reminder for Polite Cycling with the Specialized Fortress gloves tickles me pink.

If they’re polite to me, I’ll be polite to them. But woe betide the elbow polishers…

Film-makers capture rare footage of Arctic Wolves.

Better late than never, I suppose. Not that I necessarily subscribe to the aphorism, you understand.

And now I must go do the washing up and get the pheasant on…

A question has been plaguing me for a while now — every time I think of posting it to the blogosphere I’m nowhere near a computer; whenever I’m sat at a computer I forget.

Except just now. Because Munky sent me a story about cake.

OK. So. Here it is. The big question.

WHY DO THE FISH IN WE ♥ KATAMARI MAKE THE SOUND “QWERTY-U-IOP” WHEN YOU ROLL THEM UP?

Is there a reason the fish speak keyboard?

Please. You’ve got to help me with this. It’s driving me utterly insane mental.

The Tranent sign up list has me listed as a Vet!

I’ve got another 5 years of Senior, thankyouverymuch.

Bastards! I was carded last year, you know!

So. No swimming today because Kirkcaldy is STILL closed for refurbishment, even though it was supposed to be a open again a week ago. Glenrothes is closed for a gala today (I think it’s today). So I was going to go for my first run since just before Christmas but then I checked the surfaces. Everything is iced up. Last thing I need is to fall on ice AGAIN and sustain another injury.

My first tri of the year is probably going to be Tranent. It’s two months away. That should be plenty of time to get fit. I didn’t do the New Year’s because, well, the weather was horrid and I really didn’t enjoy it last year.

My off season was supposed to be steady winter base training with a view to moving to longer distances, culminating in a middle distance come Autumn. Various factors have conspired to prevent me having the winter training that I really wanted — a new job with vastly increased commuting time, injury, pool closures and the weather have all played a part.

I really don’t want to give up on my middle distance goal for this year, but I’m wondering whether I have time to make up for the nearly three months of lost or intermittent training.

Two feet from the bike shed this morning, Shackleton tried to chuck me off. There’s a white line on the road there so I assumed it was a patch of black ice. Proceeded to lock him up, congratulating myself on my ninja-like bike handling skills.

Only to fall flat on my arse on inch-thich ice trying to get my card key out of my courier bag while walking between the bike shed and the front door. Damaged wrist, bruised hip, wrenched knee. Can’t move my left thumb. Very small impact cut on the heel of my hand, which makes me suspect a sprain.

Oh… cheeseweasels.

I love the way it makes everything crisp, and the contrast so clear.

In other news, we’re watching Blade the TV Series. Um. Right. Well, that sucks. Yer boy “Sticky” there just doesn’t have the panache of Mr Snipes.