So before all the writers reading this go yelling at me about lead times and copy edits and hard drive failures, I know, I know, I know, there are many factors that can delay the release of the next book in a series. Really, I do know. And I also know that even though I can read most books in a day or less, it's going to be a good year or so between regularly scheduled releases anyway. But when I'm left hanging in the middle of a trilogy and there's not a peep about when Book 3 is coming out, AND Book 2 was released well over a year ago... I mean, I just wanna know what happens! And and, we've had a few authors actually stop by here and comment when we mention their stuff, so who knows, maybe this'll pull one or two out of the woodwork for an update. I can dream, right? (And the reason there are no cover pictures is because... there are no covers! *grumble mutter*)
Kaza Kingsley - Erec Rex series
I've mentioned these on various posts before, but at the moment am dying to read Book 6. Except there's not a peep about it that I could find, and Book 5 was released in February 2012. Nothing at B&N, or Amazon, and nothing on the series site either - hell, that's still saying to pre-order #5. Unless I'm completely screwy, this sucker is supposed to be an 8-book series. I know it changed publishers or something between #2 and #3, and I really hope that didn't happen again, because I want to know how this ends.
Elizabeth C. Bunce
Her first novel, a standalone, was excellent (it's a Rumpelstiltskin retelling titled A Curse Dark as Gold). Then she started a trilogy (I THINK it's a trilogy), and I adored the first two volumes. But the second (Liar's Moon) was released in November 2011, and there's no sign of the conclusion. Nothing on her website, and again not a peep at the major book hubs. Digger (aka Celyn) is such a great character, and I love the worldbuilding going on with this series, so please pretty please I can haz book?
Jaclyn Dolamore
So technically she released a DIFFERENT book (Between the Sea and Sky) after Book 2 in this trilogy, but even that was last year. It's been 15 months since Magic Under Stone came out, and after that ending, she leaves us hanging? Not a peep about Erris and Nimira that I found, and as with the others on this list, I'm dying to find out how it all works out.
Lev Grossman
Now him I actually met, and I'd swear he said there was more to come, but here we are well over a year after the release of The Magician King, and... zip. His blog says he's working on The Magician's Land, so I guess that's the third one, but I would really love to get my hands on it. And I'm not the only one, I've got several coworkers lamenting the lack of Book 3 as well...
Laini Taylor
Generally speaking, I am not into the whole "angels and demons" thing (don't even go to Dan Brown, seriously), but I really got into Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and then waited and waited for Days of Blood and Starlight, and then it's been all wait wait wait wait BUT! She updated her blog with, at least, a title for Book 3, and it's Dreams of Gods and Monsters. And now I want to read it even more! (And so does my roommate. If that matters.)
And the two big ones, who do regularly update blogs and do tours and talk to fans and stuff so we know they're working on SOMETHING, and yet and yet and yet:
Patrick Rothfuss - The Kingkiller Chronicles
Kvothe, where art thou? Seriously, I think at least half of my fantasy-loving geek crowd would sacrifice body parts to get their hands (if they didn't sacrifice THOSE) on Day 3. And if there's anyone reading this who is not familiar with this series, go read it so you can join us in our angst. I bang on about worldbuilding, but this one is amazing - completely immersive and believable and with staggering amounts of depth. Must. Have. STORY!!!
George R. R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire
HBO, endless delays, blah blah blah blah WINDS OF WINTER NOW PLEASE. Do I really need to say anything else?
So what are you dying to read? And do you know more than I do about any of the above? It's been a while since we got a good discussion going in the comments, so have at it!
Showing posts with label Leanne Rabesa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leanne Rabesa. Show all posts
20 May 2013
16 April 2013
Marathon Monday... Massacre?!?!
Most years I go out on Patriot's Day to cheer on the runners. I like the halfway point - 13.1 miles down, and oh-my-god-I-have-this-much-still-to-go? can be a rough place, so what the hell, I go out and hop up and down and cheer them on. It's hard, running.
But with the earlier start time the past few years, and a later work time for me, and just getting over a fever, well, I went home after work today instead. Figured I'd check for the results after I'd had some lunch.
But around 3:00, a strange post popped up on my Facebook newsfeed. "[Boyfriend] and I are fine," it said. "Nowhere near the blast." Blast? I thought. What blast? Then another one, from a friend who moved to NYC a few years ago but grew up here in Beantown. "BOSTON, CHECK IN!" read this one.
So I did what any sensible TV-less person would do and popped up a couple of local news sites on my laptop. Holy hell, did I regret that decision a few moments later. Bombs, blood and Boylston may be euphonious in their alliteration but they are NOT a happy combination of words. I quickly posted my own "I'm fine" message and started checking my own list of friends, especially runners. No one I know was involved, to my knowledge, and yet this is MY CITY, damnit, you don't go BLOWING UP RUNNERS, or LITTLE KIDS, and you sure as hell don't do it in front of the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!!!
Angry much? Oh yes, I'm angry. This weird holiday that we celebrate here in Massachusetts, this whole Patriot's Day - Lexington and Concord, anyone? The Boston Marathon is the oldest in the world - the first one was run in 1897, a year after the first modern marathon was held at the first Olympics in Athens - and you can't just sign up, you have to qualify for this thing. Inasmuch as this young country HAS history, well, this is it. And to the scumbag(s) who thought they'd blow some stuff up today, I have devised a lovely punishment for you.
All those runners who were forced to abandon the race after the detonations? The ones who'd been training for months and running for hours and didn't get to cross the finish line because of YOU? Well, when you're caught, all those runners should be allowed to complete the distance they were denied. Over your body. Wearing cleats.
This is Boston. We're not going to put up with this bullshit.
All was not gloom and horror today, though. On a personal level, it was rather reassuring to receive numerous texts, calls and messages from people wanting to find out if I was okay. And my 22-month-old nephew popped out his first sentence today (it was "Daddy, sit down" if you care - closely followed by "Auntie, get down" {yeah, all right, I was up a tree}). The sheer number of people volunteering to put up runners and family members displaced or stuck here due to the chaos. The outpouring of support from the rest of the world (even Yankees fans! You know it's big if they're on board).
But Marathon Monday will never be the same.
But with the earlier start time the past few years, and a later work time for me, and just getting over a fever, well, I went home after work today instead. Figured I'd check for the results after I'd had some lunch.
But around 3:00, a strange post popped up on my Facebook newsfeed. "[Boyfriend] and I are fine," it said. "Nowhere near the blast." Blast? I thought. What blast? Then another one, from a friend who moved to NYC a few years ago but grew up here in Beantown. "BOSTON, CHECK IN!" read this one.
So I did what any sensible TV-less person would do and popped up a couple of local news sites on my laptop. Holy hell, did I regret that decision a few moments later. Bombs, blood and Boylston may be euphonious in their alliteration but they are NOT a happy combination of words. I quickly posted my own "I'm fine" message and started checking my own list of friends, especially runners. No one I know was involved, to my knowledge, and yet this is MY CITY, damnit, you don't go BLOWING UP RUNNERS, or LITTLE KIDS, and you sure as hell don't do it in front of the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!!!
Angry much? Oh yes, I'm angry. This weird holiday that we celebrate here in Massachusetts, this whole Patriot's Day - Lexington and Concord, anyone? The Boston Marathon is the oldest in the world - the first one was run in 1897, a year after the first modern marathon was held at the first Olympics in Athens - and you can't just sign up, you have to qualify for this thing. Inasmuch as this young country HAS history, well, this is it. And to the scumbag(s) who thought they'd blow some stuff up today, I have devised a lovely punishment for you.
All those runners who were forced to abandon the race after the detonations? The ones who'd been training for months and running for hours and didn't get to cross the finish line because of YOU? Well, when you're caught, all those runners should be allowed to complete the distance they were denied. Over your body. Wearing cleats.
This is Boston. We're not going to put up with this bullshit.
All was not gloom and horror today, though. On a personal level, it was rather reassuring to receive numerous texts, calls and messages from people wanting to find out if I was okay. And my 22-month-old nephew popped out his first sentence today (it was "Daddy, sit down" if you care - closely followed by "Auntie, get down" {yeah, all right, I was up a tree}). The sheer number of people volunteering to put up runners and family members displaced or stuck here due to the chaos. The outpouring of support from the rest of the world (even Yankees fans! You know it's big if they're on board).
But Marathon Monday will never be the same.
11 March 2013
Asian-Inspired Fantasy
Okay, hands up - how many of you have read a fantasy set in some kind of quasi-European-medieval world? Given the rampant popularity of series like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, probably nearly everyone who reads any fantasy at all, I'm guessing. But an interesting new trend has been making its way into English-language fantasy in the past few years, and that's worldbuilding inspired by Asian cultures instead, and I for one find it quite refreshing. Here are a few titles to whet your appetites - feel free to add more in the comments!
Dark Heavens and Journey to Wudang - Kylie Chan
Two linked trilogies set in modern-day Hong Kong with more than a little overlay of mythic gods and demons - weekend escape, check! Australian national Emma Donahoe is hired as the nanny for motherless 4-year-old Simone - and then all hell breaks loose (okay, okay, not ALL hell, just some of the lesser denizens - at least at first). With ancient Chinese deities like the White Tiger popping over for tea, martial arts like they've never shown in the movies, and a host of very relatable characters populating the roles, these are highly enjoyable Australian imports that kept me flipping pages well past bedtime.
Vessel - Sarah Beth Durst
Durst is an extremely flexible writer (her previous YA title was Drink, Slay, Love - teen vampires AGAIN), and Vessel is set in what feels like a quasi-Mongolian desert society. Liyana is the Goat Clan's chosen representative to host their deity - basically meaning that her mind will die and the goddess possesses her body for the rest of its life. Nevertheless, she follows all the rituals and preparations, yet when the day arrives, the goddess does not. Abandoned by her tribe, she is found by a boy whose god DID arrive, who tells her that quite a few of the deities seem to have gone AWOL... Well-written and highly enjoyable, with a side-plot that seems totally separate until they finally merge.
Book of a Thousand Days - Shannon Hale
More Mongolian-inspired scenery here, with a side of the Brothers Grimm. Dashti, a maid from the lower (or "mucker") class, gets herself walled up in a tower with her mistress, Lady Saren, who has refused to marry - well, a jerk, basically. Their sentence is for seven years, but after they are abandoned and forgotten, Dashti manages to get them out - and then it REALLY gets good. This is my favourite of Hale's books (and I think I've read them all, save the graphic novels {I just don't do those}), despite it being one of the few standalones. So very very lovely. Go read it.
Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
While we're on the fairy-tale thing, how about a Cinderella story set in post-WWIV New Beijing? Except Cinderella is a cyborg, and only one of the stepsisters is horrible, and there are androids and plague and oh yeah, there's a whole society on the moon, and boy are THEY scary... Yeah. Try to keep up. This is projected to be a 4-book series, the first two of which are already out (Cinder and Scarlet), each one based on a different fairy tale but part of the same story arc (Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White, if you're curious). The worldbuilding is thorough and very believable, the pacing is fast, and even though you know how those fairy tales end, it's a brilliant ride getting there.
Prophecy - Ellen Oh
It's probably time for a side trip to Korea by now. Kira is niece to the king, bodyguard to her cousin the prince, and generally feared and loathed by the general public for her demon-slaying skills (which no one is really supposed to know about... but everyone knows about). I really like the premise and the story (with three treasures to find, I'm pretty sure this is going to be a trilogy), but I have to say I wasn't too thrilled with the writing. The voice was somehow too modern for the setting, and most of the obstacles they faced were overcome a bit too easily for a YA title (Young Reader, okay, but the girl is 17 here). I'm hoping that gets fixed in the next one, because it's really quite promising, it just fell flat.
City of a Thousand Dolls - Miriam Forster
Here we have a bit of a mashup of Southern Asia and Eastern Asia, complete with a two-child limit per family and a rather novel solution to the dreaded extra-girls problem (note the sarcasm, please). Orphaned or unwanted female children are dumped off at the City of a Thousand Dolls, and once assigned to one of six houses, they go about their lives learning what they'll need to know to be wives, apprentices, or what-have-you. Except for Nisha - she's not a part of any house, but the Matron's assistant, who thinks she'll finally be "Redeemed" and get to leave... except wait, murder mystery time! I do love it when my favourite genres get mixed, and this one has cats thrown in there too, so yep, right up my alley!
Eon - Allison Goodman
Yeah, I've mentioned this one before, whatever, I LOVE IT. Here our main mythology is inspired by the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac, each of which has an energy dragon associated with it. It's also full of wonderful characters, a hell of a lot of gender-bending, quests and battles and DRAGONS, woo-hoo! The cripple Eon presents himself as a candidate to be chosen by one of the dragons - except he's a she in disguise, and lo and behold, the Dragon Dragon (aka the Mirror Dragon, who hasn't been seen in centuries) turns up and chooses her. Cue chaos. Only two in this "series", but they're amazing.
Throne of the Crescent Moon - Saladin Ahmed
Hey, the Arabian peninsula is still part of Asia. We've got ghuls (and the guys who hunt them), we've got thieves, we've got murder and mayhem and snotty royals and - okay, I admit it, I haven't finished this one yet (had to take my roommate out for dinner for her birthday, and I forgot to factor that in to my reading time. Oops.). So far, though, I'm really enjoying this tale, even if I do have the "Arabian Nights" song from Disney's Aladdin totally running on repeat through my head now. The writing is very sensory - after I read the first chapter, I just had to go make myself a mug of chai, so be warned. Warned is probably not the right word here - it's immersive though, which, when there's a foot of snow on the ground outside and a desert in the pages, is just fine with me!
Stormdancer - Jay Kristoff
Okay, I admit I haven't read this one yet, but I'm adding it on the strong recommendation of a trusted friend. Besides, Japanese steampunk? Yes please! It starts off with a pretty polluted Japan (which is weird right off the bat), there appears to be some kind of griffin-like creature, and a kick-ass 16-year-old heroine. Yep, sounds good to me, sign me up! Erm, after I finish the previous one on this list. So I got a little over-ambitious, what else is new?
Dark Heavens and Journey to Wudang - Kylie Chan
Two linked trilogies set in modern-day Hong Kong with more than a little overlay of mythic gods and demons - weekend escape, check! Australian national Emma Donahoe is hired as the nanny for motherless 4-year-old Simone - and then all hell breaks loose (okay, okay, not ALL hell, just some of the lesser denizens - at least at first). With ancient Chinese deities like the White Tiger popping over for tea, martial arts like they've never shown in the movies, and a host of very relatable characters populating the roles, these are highly enjoyable Australian imports that kept me flipping pages well past bedtime.
Vessel - Sarah Beth Durst
Durst is an extremely flexible writer (her previous YA title was Drink, Slay, Love - teen vampires AGAIN), and Vessel is set in what feels like a quasi-Mongolian desert society. Liyana is the Goat Clan's chosen representative to host their deity - basically meaning that her mind will die and the goddess possesses her body for the rest of its life. Nevertheless, she follows all the rituals and preparations, yet when the day arrives, the goddess does not. Abandoned by her tribe, she is found by a boy whose god DID arrive, who tells her that quite a few of the deities seem to have gone AWOL... Well-written and highly enjoyable, with a side-plot that seems totally separate until they finally merge.Book of a Thousand Days - Shannon Hale
More Mongolian-inspired scenery here, with a side of the Brothers Grimm. Dashti, a maid from the lower (or "mucker") class, gets herself walled up in a tower with her mistress, Lady Saren, who has refused to marry - well, a jerk, basically. Their sentence is for seven years, but after they are abandoned and forgotten, Dashti manages to get them out - and then it REALLY gets good. This is my favourite of Hale's books (and I think I've read them all, save the graphic novels {I just don't do those}), despite it being one of the few standalones. So very very lovely. Go read it.Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
While we're on the fairy-tale thing, how about a Cinderella story set in post-WWIV New Beijing? Except Cinderella is a cyborg, and only one of the stepsisters is horrible, and there are androids and plague and oh yeah, there's a whole society on the moon, and boy are THEY scary... Yeah. Try to keep up. This is projected to be a 4-book series, the first two of which are already out (Cinder and Scarlet), each one based on a different fairy tale but part of the same story arc (Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White, if you're curious). The worldbuilding is thorough and very believable, the pacing is fast, and even though you know how those fairy tales end, it's a brilliant ride getting there.Prophecy - Ellen Oh
It's probably time for a side trip to Korea by now. Kira is niece to the king, bodyguard to her cousin the prince, and generally feared and loathed by the general public for her demon-slaying skills (which no one is really supposed to know about... but everyone knows about). I really like the premise and the story (with three treasures to find, I'm pretty sure this is going to be a trilogy), but I have to say I wasn't too thrilled with the writing. The voice was somehow too modern for the setting, and most of the obstacles they faced were overcome a bit too easily for a YA title (Young Reader, okay, but the girl is 17 here). I'm hoping that gets fixed in the next one, because it's really quite promising, it just fell flat.City of a Thousand Dolls - Miriam Forster
Here we have a bit of a mashup of Southern Asia and Eastern Asia, complete with a two-child limit per family and a rather novel solution to the dreaded extra-girls problem (note the sarcasm, please). Orphaned or unwanted female children are dumped off at the City of a Thousand Dolls, and once assigned to one of six houses, they go about their lives learning what they'll need to know to be wives, apprentices, or what-have-you. Except for Nisha - she's not a part of any house, but the Matron's assistant, who thinks she'll finally be "Redeemed" and get to leave... except wait, murder mystery time! I do love it when my favourite genres get mixed, and this one has cats thrown in there too, so yep, right up my alley!Eon - Allison Goodman
Yeah, I've mentioned this one before, whatever, I LOVE IT. Here our main mythology is inspired by the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac, each of which has an energy dragon associated with it. It's also full of wonderful characters, a hell of a lot of gender-bending, quests and battles and DRAGONS, woo-hoo! The cripple Eon presents himself as a candidate to be chosen by one of the dragons - except he's a she in disguise, and lo and behold, the Dragon Dragon (aka the Mirror Dragon, who hasn't been seen in centuries) turns up and chooses her. Cue chaos. Only two in this "series", but they're amazing.Throne of the Crescent Moon - Saladin Ahmed
Hey, the Arabian peninsula is still part of Asia. We've got ghuls (and the guys who hunt them), we've got thieves, we've got murder and mayhem and snotty royals and - okay, I admit it, I haven't finished this one yet (had to take my roommate out for dinner for her birthday, and I forgot to factor that in to my reading time. Oops.). So far, though, I'm really enjoying this tale, even if I do have the "Arabian Nights" song from Disney's Aladdin totally running on repeat through my head now. The writing is very sensory - after I read the first chapter, I just had to go make myself a mug of chai, so be warned. Warned is probably not the right word here - it's immersive though, which, when there's a foot of snow on the ground outside and a desert in the pages, is just fine with me!
Okay, I admit I haven't read this one yet, but I'm adding it on the strong recommendation of a trusted friend. Besides, Japanese steampunk? Yes please! It starts off with a pretty polluted Japan (which is weird right off the bat), there appears to be some kind of griffin-like creature, and a kick-ass 16-year-old heroine. Yep, sounds good to me, sign me up! Erm, after I finish the previous one on this list. So I got a little over-ambitious, what else is new?
26 February 2013
Happy Birthday, Leanne!
 |
| DUDE! Happy birthday! |
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| Look, everybody knows! |
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| even the hedgies... |
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| erm... and him... hummina hummina... |
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| Or the value pack... |
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| All topped off with a viola cake... |
01 February 2013
ALA Winners
Now, I'm not saying I'm some kind of all-knowing book guru (all my friends are rolling their eyes at me behind my back right now, I know they are), but not only do I read a TON (we're talking 10-15 books a WEEK here, people {yes, frequently more than one a day}) but I actually work in a bookstore. And receive newsletters from two more. And can't pass one without going in. So is the question "how did I miss these?" or is it "where did they find these?"
Especially since one of them figures in multiple categories. And one of them is about an Aspie (a topic dear to my heart). Where did these books come from? It can't be a bad thing for these books to get more exposure - I read the summaries, they do indeed sound very interesting - so where have they been? Where's the marketing? And how did they get to the committee without it?
I'm going to go ponder those questions while I finally get around to reading Code Name Verity - which is one of the ones I HAVE heard of. And boy does it sound fantastic...
21 January 2013
Scandinavian Mysteries
Winter has definitely arrived here in the northern hemisphere, and I'm on another "reading about cold places" kick and figured I'd share. Whether you read Stieg Larsson and want more like that, or are just looking for a new author to explore, all of these are fantastic choices (though the English translations are lagging several books behind the original language releases). Obviously, "Scandinavian mystery" is no more a complete genre than "American mystery" or "British mystery" - these also run the gamut from police procedurals to more amateur detectives, but it's a handy catch-all at the moment. My ASCII coding knowledge is also getting quite a workout - I'm giving up on eth and thorn though, so apologies to Icelanders. Anyway, how about I start with:
Camilla Läckberg
Since our detective here is an actual detective, there's some of the feel of a police procedural to these, but the small-town Swedish setting also gives it more of a cozy vibe. So far, the first three of her books have been published in the US - The Ice Princess, The Preacher, and The Stonecutter - and there are at least six more. Of all the mysteries I've read (and I've been a devoted whodunit fan since my great-aunt first handed me a Nancy Drew when I was about 6), these take the prize for being most like a jigsaw puzzle - all the pieces are right there in front of you, but arranging them takes time and then, all of sudden, once you've got the edges done the picture goes snap! snap! snap! into place and you're left to marvel at its construction.
Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Over to Iceland for the next series, where lawyer Thora (I'm pretty sure that should start with a thorn, but all of them have been anglicized in the text so I'm not going to try to figure it out) Gudmundsdottir manages to get herself mixed up in some pretty odd situations that make for great reading. This was my go-to series last July during a ghastly heatwave - somehow, reading about all that snow and cold actually made it seem cooler. The first in the series (pictured) introduces Thora, her two children, her surly secretary Bella, and a German fellow who becomes much more interesting than his initial appearance might suggest, in addition to a very colourful bunch of suspects in a particularly bizarre killing. Currently there are three available; the fourth in the series is due out in English soon (on my birthday, actually, which makes me happy).
Jussi Adler-Olsen
Let's head back east to Denmark for the next two entries; Carl Mørck is a detective saddled with guilt over an operation gone bad which left one fellow policeman dead and another badly wounded. In the aftermath, he is made head of the newly created Department Q, which is tasked with checking out cold cases. Actually, he's not just the head, he's pretty much the entire staff, except for his surprisingly useful cleaning man, Assad. Their investigation of a missing-presumed-dead politician yields surprising results in the first of the series (pictured), while the second focuses on a seemingly closed case which turns out to be much more convoluted than anyone could have thought. I believe there are at least two more waiting to be translated, and I for one wish they'd hurry up!
Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis
Nina Borg is one of those people who just can't seem to say no to a friend - a nurse by training, she is involved with underground aid groups while seemingly neglecting her responsibilities to her own family. Everything goes completely pear-shaped when she picks up a suitcase as a favour to an old friend and finds a small boy inside it - alive. Twists and turns abound, as well as varying viewpoints (including that of the boy's mother, who is desperately trying to locate him), which some may find confusing but I quite like. (The Lithuanian is what messed with my head, that and the Hungarian in the second book.) Invisible Murder finds Nina getting into a radioactive mess that causes some non-nuclear fallout in her personal life...
Jo Nesbø
Okay Mari, Norway's turn! ;-) I think what I like best about this guy is that he writes not only hardcore thrillers featuring a likeable, if flawed, policeman by the name of Harry Hole, but also a series for kids called (I kid you not) Dr. Proctor's Fart Powder. This Harry reminds me of another one (no, not Potter - Bosch {vide Michael Connolly}), and I admit I was cracking up in the first chapter seeing parallels to things our own dear Norwegian goes on about. Like Dragon Tattoo, the first one in this series (well, the first one translated, anyway - I think there might have been one or two others in the series before The Redbreast) delves into the darker side of the northern countries' fairly recent history, notably Nazism during WWII which has carried over into the present day.
So I was planning on putting more on here, but these should whet your appetite adequately enough - if not, Mankell, Wahloo, Persson, Nesser, Holt, Tursten and Indridason might be worthwhile to Google, eh? ;-)
Camilla Läckberg
Since our detective here is an actual detective, there's some of the feel of a police procedural to these, but the small-town Swedish setting also gives it more of a cozy vibe. So far, the first three of her books have been published in the US - The Ice Princess, The Preacher, and The Stonecutter - and there are at least six more. Of all the mysteries I've read (and I've been a devoted whodunit fan since my great-aunt first handed me a Nancy Drew when I was about 6), these take the prize for being most like a jigsaw puzzle - all the pieces are right there in front of you, but arranging them takes time and then, all of sudden, once you've got the edges done the picture goes snap! snap! snap! into place and you're left to marvel at its construction. Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Over to Iceland for the next series, where lawyer Thora (I'm pretty sure that should start with a thorn, but all of them have been anglicized in the text so I'm not going to try to figure it out) Gudmundsdottir manages to get herself mixed up in some pretty odd situations that make for great reading. This was my go-to series last July during a ghastly heatwave - somehow, reading about all that snow and cold actually made it seem cooler. The first in the series (pictured) introduces Thora, her two children, her surly secretary Bella, and a German fellow who becomes much more interesting than his initial appearance might suggest, in addition to a very colourful bunch of suspects in a particularly bizarre killing. Currently there are three available; the fourth in the series is due out in English soon (on my birthday, actually, which makes me happy).Jussi Adler-Olsen
Let's head back east to Denmark for the next two entries; Carl Mørck is a detective saddled with guilt over an operation gone bad which left one fellow policeman dead and another badly wounded. In the aftermath, he is made head of the newly created Department Q, which is tasked with checking out cold cases. Actually, he's not just the head, he's pretty much the entire staff, except for his surprisingly useful cleaning man, Assad. Their investigation of a missing-presumed-dead politician yields surprising results in the first of the series (pictured), while the second focuses on a seemingly closed case which turns out to be much more convoluted than anyone could have thought. I believe there are at least two more waiting to be translated, and I for one wish they'd hurry up!
Nina Borg is one of those people who just can't seem to say no to a friend - a nurse by training, she is involved with underground aid groups while seemingly neglecting her responsibilities to her own family. Everything goes completely pear-shaped when she picks up a suitcase as a favour to an old friend and finds a small boy inside it - alive. Twists and turns abound, as well as varying viewpoints (including that of the boy's mother, who is desperately trying to locate him), which some may find confusing but I quite like. (The Lithuanian is what messed with my head, that and the Hungarian in the second book.) Invisible Murder finds Nina getting into a radioactive mess that causes some non-nuclear fallout in her personal life...
Jo Nesbø
Okay Mari, Norway's turn! ;-) I think what I like best about this guy is that he writes not only hardcore thrillers featuring a likeable, if flawed, policeman by the name of Harry Hole, but also a series for kids called (I kid you not) Dr. Proctor's Fart Powder. This Harry reminds me of another one (no, not Potter - Bosch {vide Michael Connolly}), and I admit I was cracking up in the first chapter seeing parallels to things our own dear Norwegian goes on about. Like Dragon Tattoo, the first one in this series (well, the first one translated, anyway - I think there might have been one or two others in the series before The Redbreast) delves into the darker side of the northern countries' fairly recent history, notably Nazism during WWII which has carried over into the present day.
So I was planning on putting more on here, but these should whet your appetite adequately enough - if not, Mankell, Wahloo, Persson, Nesser, Holt, Tursten and Indridason might be worthwhile to Google, eh? ;-)
17 October 2012
Planning time
Most people who know me would probably get a good laugh out of the thought that I'd be planning much of anything more than 5 minutes in advance - I'm a hopeless procrastinator and frankly tend to work better under pressure anyway. However, that really only works for mental projects - term papers, for example (let's not talk about the time my printer decided to stop talking to my laptop at 4:30 AM, okay?). When it comes to anything physical, twenty-odd years of playing stringed instruments and about a decade of off-and-on distance running have taught me that cramming just doesn't work. The body is much slower than the brain - while I can memorize 20 Latin vocab words in a minute or three, it takes me weeks to add a couple of miles to my running stamina. Oh, and then there's the whole I'm-broke-and-so-I'm-making-everyone's-holiday-presents thing I've been doing for the past few years - I may be able to design a pair of socks on my lunch break, but it can take a month to actually knit the darn things.
So, against my own inner nature and kicking and screaming all the way, I'm actually considering planning something else right now (it must be because I've finally turned the heel on the socks). That would be a novel, of course, since hey, it's almost November and that means NaNoWriMo is coming! Despite the fact that I've done four WriMos (and "won" three of 'em), I've never actually done one in November when everyone else does - Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday, and then once I picked up the bookstore job, well, holiday shopping hell, anyone? So it's a busy month, to put it mildly. But see, I got this idea...
But in order to have even the teeniest chance of pounding out 50,000 words amidst feasting, recital planning, Black Friday and any number of other distractions, I'm going to need a plan. A good solid plan that doesn't have too many holes (rabbit, black or otherwise) for me to fall into and get lost down for untold aeons, but not so strict that I feel stifled by it and don't feel like I can take a tangent to Terceira if someone feels like going over there all of a sudden (yeah, that was a hint on the topic). At the moment, I just have a plan to make a plan. And as far as I'm concerned, that's a good start.
So, against my own inner nature and kicking and screaming all the way, I'm actually considering planning something else right now (it must be because I've finally turned the heel on the socks). That would be a novel, of course, since hey, it's almost November and that means NaNoWriMo is coming! Despite the fact that I've done four WriMos (and "won" three of 'em), I've never actually done one in November when everyone else does - Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday, and then once I picked up the bookstore job, well, holiday shopping hell, anyone? So it's a busy month, to put it mildly. But see, I got this idea...
But in order to have even the teeniest chance of pounding out 50,000 words amidst feasting, recital planning, Black Friday and any number of other distractions, I'm going to need a plan. A good solid plan that doesn't have too many holes (rabbit, black or otherwise) for me to fall into and get lost down for untold aeons, but not so strict that I feel stifled by it and don't feel like I can take a tangent to Terceira if someone feels like going over there all of a sudden (yeah, that was a hint on the topic). At the moment, I just have a plan to make a plan. And as far as I'm concerned, that's a good start.
05 October 2012
Why?
In addition to being the most annoying question toddlers ask (I've got a stack of nephews, so I'm pretty sure it's the worst one), it's also an interesting idea as pertains to this blog - namely, why I'm still posting on here when nobody else is and nobody's reading it, either. I guess it has to do with the fact that I'm a terrible lazyarse, and if I don't have something scheduled and expected, it often doesn't happen. So these silly posts that I'm hurling into the endless internet ether are my way of ensuring that I'm writing SOMETHING, on some kind of schedule.
They may not be terrible profound posts - in fact, I'm bordering on the banal here - but it's still me fulfilling what I see as an obligation, and stringing together a bunch of words in an intelligible (if not always intelligent) order. I see how some of my students and even coworkers are incapable of producing properly formatted written content, and I gnash my teeth and fear for printed communication. And I'm determined not to devolve into textspeak and abbreviations at inappropriate times - hell, I've been known to use semi-colons when texting, and not just in winking emoticons, either.
So there. That's why I'm still churning out a few handfuls of words, every ten days or so, whether anyone is paying attention or not. And here I am explaining it to that invisible audience. Could be worse.
They may not be terrible profound posts - in fact, I'm bordering on the banal here - but it's still me fulfilling what I see as an obligation, and stringing together a bunch of words in an intelligible (if not always intelligent) order. I see how some of my students and even coworkers are incapable of producing properly formatted written content, and I gnash my teeth and fear for printed communication. And I'm determined not to devolve into textspeak and abbreviations at inappropriate times - hell, I've been known to use semi-colons when texting, and not just in winking emoticons, either.
So there. That's why I'm still churning out a few handfuls of words, every ten days or so, whether anyone is paying attention or not. And here I am explaining it to that invisible audience. Could be worse.
25 September 2012
Here it comes...
Okay, I admit it - in trying to choose a topic for today's post, I've stumbled across far too many of them and don't feel like picking one. I could go with the three-ring circus that the US election season has spawned, but the whole thing just gets on my nerves. Life sentence for Amy Bishop, the prof who opened fire at a faculty meeting and, y'know, possibly also murdered her brother when she was a teenager (that's local, even). But that one disgusts me. Nepali earthquake? That's pretty scary, I've got Nepali friends, but they're all over here in the states, so no personal stake there.
But there is one thing happening this week that I can say with reasonable confidence will actually be of interest to my fellow Burrowers (as well as millions of other readers around the globe). And that's the highly-anticipated release of J. K. Rowling's first adult publication coming up on Thursday.
I am massively looking forward to this, I will readily admit it. I read like a maniac anyway, and, since my teaching day has been cancelled this Thursday due to a school open house using my room, the plan is to get my arse home from the bookstore after my shift and devour it in one enormous gulp. I'm not expecting the Second Coming (of Harry Potter, I mean, not that whole religious mess) or anything, but I'm very curious to see how she follows up such a generation-defining series. I've been a hardcore Potterhead for about 13 years now (hell, I'm listening to Stephen Fry's narration of Goblet of Fire right now); this was the door that got me back to the fantasy authors that I'd loved as a kid and led me to discover dozens of new ones. So even if by some weird twist of fate it sucks, it'll still be money well spent as far as I'm concerned. I don't care how much money she already has, the amount of enjoyment I've gotten from her work over the years is surely far more than I've paid for it.
Besides, she gives lots of money to MS research. So she's awesome.
Now, nobody bug me on Thursday!
But there is one thing happening this week that I can say with reasonable confidence will actually be of interest to my fellow Burrowers (as well as millions of other readers around the globe). And that's the highly-anticipated release of J. K. Rowling's first adult publication coming up on Thursday.
I am massively looking forward to this, I will readily admit it. I read like a maniac anyway, and, since my teaching day has been cancelled this Thursday due to a school open house using my room, the plan is to get my arse home from the bookstore after my shift and devour it in one enormous gulp. I'm not expecting the Second Coming (of Harry Potter, I mean, not that whole religious mess) or anything, but I'm very curious to see how she follows up such a generation-defining series. I've been a hardcore Potterhead for about 13 years now (hell, I'm listening to Stephen Fry's narration of Goblet of Fire right now); this was the door that got me back to the fantasy authors that I'd loved as a kid and led me to discover dozens of new ones. So even if by some weird twist of fate it sucks, it'll still be money well spent as far as I'm concerned. I don't care how much money she already has, the amount of enjoyment I've gotten from her work over the years is surely far more than I've paid for it.
Besides, she gives lots of money to MS research. So she's awesome.
Now, nobody bug me on Thursday!
13 September 2012
My yearly delusion
It happens every September. I think I can make a nice neat job of assembling my teaching schedule from the wild jigsaw pieces all my students submit, and then I sit down with it and realize that 5 people want the same time and nobody wants the middle of Thursday and how am I going to work around the orchestra, anyway?
There are upsides and downsides to being self-employed. I thought one of the major ups would be getting to set my own schedule, but when I'm working around everything that my students get up to besides playing the viola (and most of them get up to quite a lot - sports, art, dance, babysitting and driver's ed for the older ones, and then all that annoying school-and-homework stuff) it turns out that I don't actually get a lot of say in the matter.
And then the new kids sign up, and I have to joggle them into place (please let there be new kids! {Not only could I use the money, all my returning kids are up to at least ASTA Level 2 [that's "American String Teachers Association"] and I kinda miss the littl'uns.}) without actually getting to meet or talk to them first. They changed the registration process on us a few years ago, which at first looked like it'd be wonderful but has turned out to suck. When you've got someone right in front of you, you can work out a compromise, but when all you've got is a piece of paper that says "Monday at 5" and that's it because they didn't understand that you're supposed to give a window, not just a start time, it's a little harder.
I suppose my greatest delusion is that I can actually make a living in the field I hold my degrees in. And yet, I've been doing it for a decade (whoof, that makes me feel old). Granted, with some help on the side from other jobs, but whatever. Maybe I should go collect a few more degrees now that the first two are paid off. A handful of doctorates that I could deal out like a deck of very big cards. Of course, it would be utterly delusional to think I could PAY for that... I wonder what the scholarship market is like for 30-something polymaths?
There are upsides and downsides to being self-employed. I thought one of the major ups would be getting to set my own schedule, but when I'm working around everything that my students get up to besides playing the viola (and most of them get up to quite a lot - sports, art, dance, babysitting and driver's ed for the older ones, and then all that annoying school-and-homework stuff) it turns out that I don't actually get a lot of say in the matter.
And then the new kids sign up, and I have to joggle them into place (please let there be new kids! {Not only could I use the money, all my returning kids are up to at least ASTA Level 2 [that's "American String Teachers Association"] and I kinda miss the littl'uns.}) without actually getting to meet or talk to them first. They changed the registration process on us a few years ago, which at first looked like it'd be wonderful but has turned out to suck. When you've got someone right in front of you, you can work out a compromise, but when all you've got is a piece of paper that says "Monday at 5" and that's it because they didn't understand that you're supposed to give a window, not just a start time, it's a little harder.
I suppose my greatest delusion is that I can actually make a living in the field I hold my degrees in. And yet, I've been doing it for a decade (whoof, that makes me feel old). Granted, with some help on the side from other jobs, but whatever. Maybe I should go collect a few more degrees now that the first two are paid off. A handful of doctorates that I could deal out like a deck of very big cards. Of course, it would be utterly delusional to think I could PAY for that... I wonder what the scholarship market is like for 30-something polymaths?
03 September 2012
Last Escape-reads of Summer
Here in my neck of the woods, today is the last day of summer vacation - tomorrow, kids start back to school, parents breathe a sigh of relief, and teachers embark upon the next round of brain-filling. May I suggest spending the day with one of these tales? All published since May, all fantastic reads (with awesome cover art to boot), and all a chance for one final imaginary trip.
A Confusion of Princes - Garth Nix
I'm the first to admit that science fiction is generally not my thing; I can count on one hand the number of space operas I've read. But I've really enjoyed Nix's previous books so I figured, eh, why not? Glad I did, because this is one amazing ride. Prince Khemri has been raised in luxury, knowing he is being groomed as a successor to the Emperor - of, you know, the whole damn universe. What he doesn't realize is that he's only one of about ten million princes vying for that honour - oh, and most of them will try to kill each other at the drop of a hat. The world building is excellent, the journey (both physical and emotional) that Khemri goes on is completely believable, and I for one am kind of annoyed that the ending left little to no room for a sequel.
Widdershins - Ari Marmell
Okay, technically the first one came out in February, but the second hit shelves in June, so I'm going with it. If you like your fantasy with a side of smartarse, you'll love Widdershins, a thief with a complicated backstory (you get most of it by the end of the first book) who, erm, kind of has a pet god. Set in a quasi-French society (definitely pre-Revolution) where the gods are demonstrably real, but there are a set number of them in the Pact - and Olgun, Widdershin's god, is definitely not among them. His only remaining worshipper after a horrific massacre two years before the opening of the first book, Widdershins calls on his powers to help her evade capture on her thieving expeditions after he essentially crawls into her head. Since she's suspected of having committed that aforementioned massacre, she's on the run with a new name (she's got about four, so make sure you keep up). The satire sometimes goes a LITTLE over the top, but once again the world-building is extremely thorough and believable. Plus my roommate keeps borrowing them, so they must be good.
Throne of Glass - Sarah J. Maas
At the age of 17, Celaena Sardothien was the most feared assassin in the country - until she was captured and sentenced to the salt mines as punishment for her crimes. When the crown prince rescues her a year later with the idea of making her his champion in a contest to appoint a new royal assassin, she gets out of the mines and into the palace, which is half glass and hiding some secrets of its own. With her identity hidden behind a false name, she begins training hard again in secret while outwardly presenting as a noblewoman; befriends a prince, a princess, and a guardsman; and stirs up some long-buried secrets on her way to her ultimate goal. This one does look like becoming a series, and I'll definitely be reading whatever comes next!
Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo
If the acknowledgments are any indication, Maas and Bardugo are friends, which gives me a good feeling about all our multiple Burrow-y endeavours. Anyway, this time we're in a quasi-Russian landscape, in a world where a giant swath of darkness spreads across the country from north to south, cutting off most of the country from its port cities. The Shadow Fold (as it's known) can be crossed, but as it's pitch black and filled with murderous beasts, it's not always easy - and when Alina, panicking over the death of one friend and the threatening of another
during the crossing, suddenly and spontaneously emits a strong light
which drives off the dark-loving predators, she is immediately taken to
the Darkling, who works out a plan to spirit her away for training. You can think of him like a very powerful wizard, but he's also a descendant of the Darkling who created the Fold in the first place. Loving this so far (yeah, just started it, oh well, it's GOOD, so it goes on here).
Seraphina - Rachel Hartman
Okay, this one is seriously my new favourite book. It's got music, it's got dragons, the dragons all seem to be Aspies, and it is BRILLIANT. I devoured this one, have been recommending it right and left all summer, and will be super happy if everyone who reads this goes and buys a copy so the author is properly motivated to crank out the sequel. Seraphina Dombegh is an excellent musician, which has already won her a job at the age of 16. Her stepmother is pleased enough to get her out of the house; she studies with her uncle, her deceased mother's brother, and as that backstory comes out you just want to shout "Well played!" at the author. Throw in the community of dragons, who can take human form; the forty-year peace between dragons and humans which is threatening to unravel; and a collection of odd people who live mainly in her own head, and what you have is an immensely satisfying read which is a hell of a fabulous escape.
Bitterblue - Kristin Cashore
This long-awaited sequel to Graceling finally arrived back in May, and what a pleasure it was to dive back into this world. Katsa and Po reappear, but the focus this go-round is on 18-year-old Queen Bitterblue, an ordinary girl in a world of people with extraordinary talents (the Graced, marked by heterochromia) who is trying to rebuild her country after the ravages perpetrated by her mad and evil father. When she sneaks out of the palace and walks the streets anonymously, she discovers that her advisors have been hiding the truth of how bad things are and is determined to do something about it, so with the help of old friends and new she embarks on a coming of age adventure for both herself and her country. The ending ties to Fire, and leaves things open for more tales from this world, which I will await just as eagerly as I did this one.
I think that's enough to choose from for this one last summer day, so what are you waiting for? Grab one and go for it!
A Confusion of Princes - Garth NixI'm the first to admit that science fiction is generally not my thing; I can count on one hand the number of space operas I've read. But I've really enjoyed Nix's previous books so I figured, eh, why not? Glad I did, because this is one amazing ride. Prince Khemri has been raised in luxury, knowing he is being groomed as a successor to the Emperor - of, you know, the whole damn universe. What he doesn't realize is that he's only one of about ten million princes vying for that honour - oh, and most of them will try to kill each other at the drop of a hat. The world building is excellent, the journey (both physical and emotional) that Khemri goes on is completely believable, and I for one am kind of annoyed that the ending left little to no room for a sequel.
Widdershins - Ari Marmell
Throne of Glass - Sarah J. Maas
At the age of 17, Celaena Sardothien was the most feared assassin in the country - until she was captured and sentenced to the salt mines as punishment for her crimes. When the crown prince rescues her a year later with the idea of making her his champion in a contest to appoint a new royal assassin, she gets out of the mines and into the palace, which is half glass and hiding some secrets of its own. With her identity hidden behind a false name, she begins training hard again in secret while outwardly presenting as a noblewoman; befriends a prince, a princess, and a guardsman; and stirs up some long-buried secrets on her way to her ultimate goal. This one does look like becoming a series, and I'll definitely be reading whatever comes next!Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo
If the acknowledgments are any indication, Maas and Bardugo are friends, which gives me a good feeling about all our multiple Burrow-y endeavours. Anyway, this time we're in a quasi-Russian landscape, in a world where a giant swath of darkness spreads across the country from north to south, cutting off most of the country from its port cities. The Shadow Fold (as it's known) can be crossed, but as it's pitch black and filled with murderous beasts, it's not always easy - and when Alina, panicking over the death of one friend and the threatening of another
during the crossing, suddenly and spontaneously emits a strong light
which drives off the dark-loving predators, she is immediately taken to
the Darkling, who works out a plan to spirit her away for training. You can think of him like a very powerful wizard, but he's also a descendant of the Darkling who created the Fold in the first place. Loving this so far (yeah, just started it, oh well, it's GOOD, so it goes on here).Seraphina - Rachel Hartman
Bitterblue - Kristin Cashore
This long-awaited sequel to Graceling finally arrived back in May, and what a pleasure it was to dive back into this world. Katsa and Po reappear, but the focus this go-round is on 18-year-old Queen Bitterblue, an ordinary girl in a world of people with extraordinary talents (the Graced, marked by heterochromia) who is trying to rebuild her country after the ravages perpetrated by her mad and evil father. When she sneaks out of the palace and walks the streets anonymously, she discovers that her advisors have been hiding the truth of how bad things are and is determined to do something about it, so with the help of old friends and new she embarks on a coming of age adventure for both herself and her country. The ending ties to Fire, and leaves things open for more tales from this world, which I will await just as eagerly as I did this one.I think that's enough to choose from for this one last summer day, so what are you waiting for? Grab one and go for it!
06 August 2012
Steampunk!
Okay, I admit it - I've gotten very into this particular subgenre in the past few years, and it's continuing to spawn new tales so I don't see myself getting out of the habit anytime soon. For those unfamiliar with the term, steampunk is generally described as an amalgamation of old-fashioned (think Victorian) society with higher-tech elements - if you're imagining robots running around foggy London, you've got it about right, at least in the broader outlines. (There seems to be a sub-subgenre known as "Weird West" where this stuff gets mixed up with cowboys and the American frontier, but that's not really my thing; I'll stick to the gears and gaslights.) As with all such descriptions, it's vague enough to fit many things under its umbrella - and speaking of umbrellas, let me start with:
The Parasol Protectorate - Gail Carriger
So what if the main character is (also) half Italian, with a sizable schnozz, and arse to match? I didn't write it, so it's not a Mary Sue, damnit. These are fantastic - and do please impart both meanings to that word. They make me laugh, snort, giggle, and emit all other manner of noises of amusement, despite the presence of vampires and werewolves (which normally turn me right off), but when the main werewolf is Scottish and the most prominent vampire a gay fashionista with a penchant for italics, well, somehow the whole mishmash works brilliantly (not to mention contains the most amazingly wacked-out names since Robertson Davies died - witness creations like Ivy Hisselpenny and the Colindrikal-Bumbcrunchers!). Toss in some homicidal mechanical ladybugs, zombie porcupines, a cross-dressing French inventress-cum-milliner, and a heap of mysterious brass octopodes, and you have the astonishing confection swirling around Alexia Tarabotti through this five-book series.
Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld
Not only steampunk but majorly alternate history too! It's 1914 and the world is on the verge of war, but in this version of events the powers are aligned mainly along the Clanker vs. Darwinist divide - in other words, imagine not only advanced steam technology but also pre-Watson and Crick genetic tinkering and guided evolution. Most countries have chosen one path or the other (the US being a notable exception), and over the course of this trilogy we see much of the world, from Turkey to Tunguska. Our dual protagonists are Deryn Sharp, a Scottish girl masquerading as a boy to join the Air Corps, and Aleksandar, the son you never knew Archduke Ferdinand had. Some real historical figures put in appearances (like everybody's favourite batshit insane genius, Nikola Tesla), and there are some pretty crazy engineered creatures (I really, really want a perspicacious loris), but as with all good tales it's the story itself that sucks you in and holds you.
Pastworld - Ian Beck
This one is a bit different in that it's only pretending to be the Victorian Era - it's actually set in the future, but with London set up as a kind of theme park showcasing Victorian life, and that includes its harsh punishments (like, you know, death by hanging for the crime of theft). The concept and the story are great, but the copy editing really sucks - things like that frustrate the crap out of me. It's possible that it was cleaned up for the paperback release, but I have a hardcover. Anyway, the Buckland Corporation controls Pastworld, and when one of the architects visits with his son, Caleb, things immediately go badly wrong. A Ripper-style murderer known as the Fantom is wreaking havoc, a girl named Eve can't recall anything before she turned 15, and a Dodger-esque pickpocket takes Caleb under his wing...
The Hunchback Assignments - Arthur Slade
I'm terribly fond of this Canadian series (last one is due out this autumn), which starts out with nods towards The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame and then goes straight down the steampunk path. A badly-deformed child is trained to be a highly-secret British agent - the ace up his sleeve is his peculiarly malleable features, which he can alter at will (though not keep it that way forever). At the age of 14, he's turned loose and, teaming up with fellow teen agent Octavia Milkweed, they're off to bring down a plot against Britain's government, involving something quite high up the ladder indeed... The usual bits of creepy clockwork play their role here, but Modo as a character carries the story on his malformed shoulders and it's quite impossible not to root for him. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how this series ends!
Adventures of Newbury & Hobbes - George Mann
This series takes a darker, more serious line than any of the above, with the eponymous duo being secret agents for the artificially-sustained Queen Victoria (except she {Hobbes} doesn't know that he {Newbury} knows that she {Hobbes again} is, if you follow me). We start off with a zombie plague (which used to really get on my nerves, but I have to say, most steampunk integrates them quite well if they're used - this time, the disease comes from India), and the possibility of a supernaturally-glowing policeman/murderer, and we take it from there, with side trips down Opium Lane and Sister-in-Bedlam Street while we're at it. Very well written, with great characters (I love Newbury's landlady) and seriously bizarre scenarios involving dirigibles, brain surgery (kinda), Egyptology, and of course, lots and lots of gears.
Steampunk Chronicles - Kady Cross
You know how I sometimes say that I am perfectly capable of distinguishing what's good from what I like? This is certainly not the best-written of the bunch, but I like it anyway, mostly because of the main character but also because I'm getting seriously addicted to the fashions of the genre and this thing is full of 'em. Also note that it was well worth waiting for the paperback on this one, as it contains a prequel novella that was previously only available as an ebook (no, I do not own an ereader and I have absolutely no plans to). Finley Jayne has a slight problem - when she gets mad, she gets violent, and this brings with it a tremendous increase in speed and power while she's at it. Jekyll and Hyde, you say? Oh, just wait. She (of course) discovers other teenagers with strangely augmented abilities (I love Emily-the-genius, by the way, she's awesome) and throws her lot in with them as they try to discover what the heck is going on, both within themselves and in the wider sphere of events. The addition of an American cowboy allows the second in the series to transition neatly to New York (haven't read it yet, waiting to see if more goodies show up in the paperback again).
The Laws of Magic - Michael Pryor
Yet more proof that Australia is turning out some of the best fantastical fiction these days. Another hybrid of magic and technology, the series focuses on young Aubrey Fitzwilliam: aspiring magician, diligent student, son of the (former, then reinstated) Prime Minister, and oh yeah, he's kind of falling apart at the seams due to a little bit of misguided death magic. Whoops. Set in an analogue of our own world (Albion = Great Britain, Holmland = Germany, Gallica = France, etc.) where magic is as common as science, this 6-book cycle is not only full of engaging characters (Aubrey's romantic failures are particularly amusing) and pseudo-WWI situations, but an extraordinarily complex system of magic, using multiple ancient languages and a rigorous criteria for reproducibility every bit as strict as what you would find in a scientific laboratory. While each book has its own self-contained storyline, there's definitely an overarching plot that runs through the set, so be sure to read them in order!
Ministry of Peculiar Occurences - Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris
New Zealand pepperpot meets nerdy British librarian (oh, meet-cute, hello there!), and sparks fly - erm, except in this case the sparks are quite literal, as they blow up a castle, and, erm, it's in Antarctica, and - hey, the book starts in media res too, I'm just trying to keep the review parallel here. ;-) Okay, so Eliza D. Braun is a bit overfond of dynamite, and Wellington Books is a tech geek a hundred years early, so their interactions are generally hilarious. When she's exiled to his archives after failing to kill him on that mission to Antarctica, things really take a turn for the weird, especially when she discovers case notes left by her previous partner (who was found wandering and gibbering on the streets about 8 months ago and is currently confined for his own safety). Add corpses turning up which are lacking rather essential items (like, you know, bones) and you have a pretty crazy adventure. For all that it's highly entertaining, it was still a slower read than I expected; I'll be tackling the sequel shortly, so hopefully the writers have edited a bit more on that one.
The Clockwork Empire - Steven Harper
Now this one has all the ingredients I like - music and gears and nobles and - yeah, okay, it also has zombies. I guess I don't mind them anymore after all. Oh, and there's a clockwork cat called Click, whom I adore. Anyway, we have one Alice Michaels, daughter of Baron Michaels (that seems off to me, I don't believe surnames and titles are supposed to match, but I could be wrong on that one), who has seen her mother and brother die from the Clockwork Plague which also crippled her father (oddly, they're the lucky ones, as most sufferers end up as the aforementioned zombies). A rare few sufferers develop into raving geniuses known as clockworkers, who create insanely complicated inventions that have enabled the rise of, well, clockwork (duh), meaning that automatons are commonplace among the upper classes - in fact, Alice has quite a lot of little ones, sent by her estranged Aunt Edwina over the past 5 years. Then we have Gavin Ennock, a fiddle-playing Bostonian whose airship is hijacked, leaving him stranded in London when his company declines to ransom him. Obviously, they meet up too, and here we go on more adventures! Tremendously fun, even if the character of Alice is quite inconsistent for most of the book, and there are one or two musical missteps along the way (for the record, D-sharp augmented is certainly not a note, and you'd never name a chord that either, as it would require both other notes to be double-sharped.)
All right, that's all we have time for today, at least until one of these gearheads invents a time machine. Oh - you say H. G. Wells pulled that off ages ago? Where do you think this genre started, anyway? ;-)
The Parasol Protectorate - Gail Carriger
So what if the main character is (also) half Italian, with a sizable schnozz, and arse to match? I didn't write it, so it's not a Mary Sue, damnit. These are fantastic - and do please impart both meanings to that word. They make me laugh, snort, giggle, and emit all other manner of noises of amusement, despite the presence of vampires and werewolves (which normally turn me right off), but when the main werewolf is Scottish and the most prominent vampire a gay fashionista with a penchant for italics, well, somehow the whole mishmash works brilliantly (not to mention contains the most amazingly wacked-out names since Robertson Davies died - witness creations like Ivy Hisselpenny and the Colindrikal-Bumbcrunchers!). Toss in some homicidal mechanical ladybugs, zombie porcupines, a cross-dressing French inventress-cum-milliner, and a heap of mysterious brass octopodes, and you have the astonishing confection swirling around Alexia Tarabotti through this five-book series.Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld
Not only steampunk but majorly alternate history too! It's 1914 and the world is on the verge of war, but in this version of events the powers are aligned mainly along the Clanker vs. Darwinist divide - in other words, imagine not only advanced steam technology but also pre-Watson and Crick genetic tinkering and guided evolution. Most countries have chosen one path or the other (the US being a notable exception), and over the course of this trilogy we see much of the world, from Turkey to Tunguska. Our dual protagonists are Deryn Sharp, a Scottish girl masquerading as a boy to join the Air Corps, and Aleksandar, the son you never knew Archduke Ferdinand had. Some real historical figures put in appearances (like everybody's favourite batshit insane genius, Nikola Tesla), and there are some pretty crazy engineered creatures (I really, really want a perspicacious loris), but as with all good tales it's the story itself that sucks you in and holds you.Pastworld - Ian Beck
This one is a bit different in that it's only pretending to be the Victorian Era - it's actually set in the future, but with London set up as a kind of theme park showcasing Victorian life, and that includes its harsh punishments (like, you know, death by hanging for the crime of theft). The concept and the story are great, but the copy editing really sucks - things like that frustrate the crap out of me. It's possible that it was cleaned up for the paperback release, but I have a hardcover. Anyway, the Buckland Corporation controls Pastworld, and when one of the architects visits with his son, Caleb, things immediately go badly wrong. A Ripper-style murderer known as the Fantom is wreaking havoc, a girl named Eve can't recall anything before she turned 15, and a Dodger-esque pickpocket takes Caleb under his wing...The Hunchback Assignments - Arthur Slade
I'm terribly fond of this Canadian series (last one is due out this autumn), which starts out with nods towards The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame and then goes straight down the steampunk path. A badly-deformed child is trained to be a highly-secret British agent - the ace up his sleeve is his peculiarly malleable features, which he can alter at will (though not keep it that way forever). At the age of 14, he's turned loose and, teaming up with fellow teen agent Octavia Milkweed, they're off to bring down a plot against Britain's government, involving something quite high up the ladder indeed... The usual bits of creepy clockwork play their role here, but Modo as a character carries the story on his malformed shoulders and it's quite impossible not to root for him. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how this series ends!Adventures of Newbury & Hobbes - George Mann
This series takes a darker, more serious line than any of the above, with the eponymous duo being secret agents for the artificially-sustained Queen Victoria (except she {Hobbes} doesn't know that he {Newbury} knows that she {Hobbes again} is, if you follow me). We start off with a zombie plague (which used to really get on my nerves, but I have to say, most steampunk integrates them quite well if they're used - this time, the disease comes from India), and the possibility of a supernaturally-glowing policeman/murderer, and we take it from there, with side trips down Opium Lane and Sister-in-Bedlam Street while we're at it. Very well written, with great characters (I love Newbury's landlady) and seriously bizarre scenarios involving dirigibles, brain surgery (kinda), Egyptology, and of course, lots and lots of gears.Steampunk Chronicles - Kady Cross
You know how I sometimes say that I am perfectly capable of distinguishing what's good from what I like? This is certainly not the best-written of the bunch, but I like it anyway, mostly because of the main character but also because I'm getting seriously addicted to the fashions of the genre and this thing is full of 'em. Also note that it was well worth waiting for the paperback on this one, as it contains a prequel novella that was previously only available as an ebook (no, I do not own an ereader and I have absolutely no plans to). Finley Jayne has a slight problem - when she gets mad, she gets violent, and this brings with it a tremendous increase in speed and power while she's at it. Jekyll and Hyde, you say? Oh, just wait. She (of course) discovers other teenagers with strangely augmented abilities (I love Emily-the-genius, by the way, she's awesome) and throws her lot in with them as they try to discover what the heck is going on, both within themselves and in the wider sphere of events. The addition of an American cowboy allows the second in the series to transition neatly to New York (haven't read it yet, waiting to see if more goodies show up in the paperback again).The Laws of Magic - Michael Pryor
Yet more proof that Australia is turning out some of the best fantastical fiction these days. Another hybrid of magic and technology, the series focuses on young Aubrey Fitzwilliam: aspiring magician, diligent student, son of the (former, then reinstated) Prime Minister, and oh yeah, he's kind of falling apart at the seams due to a little bit of misguided death magic. Whoops. Set in an analogue of our own world (Albion = Great Britain, Holmland = Germany, Gallica = France, etc.) where magic is as common as science, this 6-book cycle is not only full of engaging characters (Aubrey's romantic failures are particularly amusing) and pseudo-WWI situations, but an extraordinarily complex system of magic, using multiple ancient languages and a rigorous criteria for reproducibility every bit as strict as what you would find in a scientific laboratory. While each book has its own self-contained storyline, there's definitely an overarching plot that runs through the set, so be sure to read them in order!Ministry of Peculiar Occurences - Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris
The Clockwork Empire - Steven Harper
Now this one has all the ingredients I like - music and gears and nobles and - yeah, okay, it also has zombies. I guess I don't mind them anymore after all. Oh, and there's a clockwork cat called Click, whom I adore. Anyway, we have one Alice Michaels, daughter of Baron Michaels (that seems off to me, I don't believe surnames and titles are supposed to match, but I could be wrong on that one), who has seen her mother and brother die from the Clockwork Plague which also crippled her father (oddly, they're the lucky ones, as most sufferers end up as the aforementioned zombies). A rare few sufferers develop into raving geniuses known as clockworkers, who create insanely complicated inventions that have enabled the rise of, well, clockwork (duh), meaning that automatons are commonplace among the upper classes - in fact, Alice has quite a lot of little ones, sent by her estranged Aunt Edwina over the past 5 years. Then we have Gavin Ennock, a fiddle-playing Bostonian whose airship is hijacked, leaving him stranded in London when his company declines to ransom him. Obviously, they meet up too, and here we go on more adventures! Tremendously fun, even if the character of Alice is quite inconsistent for most of the book, and there are one or two musical missteps along the way (for the record, D-sharp augmented is certainly not a note, and you'd never name a chord that either, as it would require both other notes to be double-sharped.)All right, that's all we have time for today, at least until one of these gearheads invents a time machine. Oh - you say H. G. Wells pulled that off ages ago? Where do you think this genre started, anyway? ;-)
23 July 2012
Austen-inspired Books that Don't Suck
Jane would probably not approve of my language there, but oh well. Her six completed novels and various unfinished works have spawned legions of adaptations, sequels, reimaginings, and, indirectly I suppose, positive reams of Regency romance novels (but that's not her fault). Being a committed fan (perhaps that should be a fan who should be committed...) - I have a complete leatherbound edition, a Folio Society volume of her letters, and a Jane Austen action figure, if that tells you anything - I poke rather cautiously at new works that purport to link to her canon (though I generally steer clear of those endless mash-ups and continuations, which seem to me to be glorified fan-fiction, with one notable exception {keep reading}) - and here are the ones that have passed my personal test.
Jane Austen Mysteries - Stephanie Barron
Two of my favourite things combine in this series, namely Jane herself and cozy mysteries. For whatever reason, I like real characters put into fictional situations quite a lot better than continuations, and there are certainly enough twists and turns in these to keep most anyone entertained (plus a love interest for our heroine, which I like even though I know it's made up). I believe there are fully eleven of these now, fitted into the gaps in her correspondence (caused both by being in close proximity to whomever she might have been writing to {namely, her mother and sister} and by the destruction of many of her letters after her death). Do read them in order, they make much more sense that way; this first one is set at the home of the Count and Countess of Scargrave, and when the former dies and the latter is accused, well, what's a lady to do?
Cassandra and Jane - Jill Pitkeathly
In an interesting twist, this novel is told from the viewpoint of Cassandra Austen, in an attempt to illuminate some of the mystery surrounding Jane's life, specifically her love life. Cassandra Austen's fiancé died of a fever in the Caribbean; Jane ended her only known engagement the day after she accepted the proposal, and both women remained unmarried their whole lives, despite the brilliant matches of the heroines in the world of her novels. If you've seen the movie Becoming Jane, some of the material will be familiar, but it's reasonably well done, if not earthshatteringly so. Also, it's told from the viewpoint of the end of Cassandra's life, when Jane has already been dead for decades, so it's almost like a double-nostalgia - the character's for her youth, and the reader (and probably author) for the time period.
Austenland - Shannon Hale
Having read and greatly enjoyed Hale's YA fiction (the Books of Bayern series, as well as my favourite of her books, Book of a Thousand Days), I immediately pounced on this one when the ARC landed in our break room. Using the BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice as a jumping-off point (see below), Hale envisions a kind of "Austen camp" for grown-ups, which I would certainly attend if I 1) had the money and 2) it actually existed. Hell, if they make a movie I might kill someone to be an extra. Anyway, 30-something New Yorker Jane Hayes is bequeathed a trip to Pembrook Park by a great-aunt who noticed that she was spending perhaps a bit too much time mooning over Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy. So off she goes to England for a month of - come to think of it, it's really quite a long-term LARP; strange thought. Her trials and tribulations (confiscated cell phone, corsets, etc.) and day-to-day life in a made-up Regency household are tremendous fun; so are her behind-the-scenes meetings with a basketball-obsessed gardener and her attempts to figure out how much is real and how much is simply the actors, well, acting. Lots of fun to be had here (also, Hale is one of the nicest authors I've had the pleasure of meeting and so I make a special effort to point out her books. You know, like now.), and there's a sequel of sorts, Midnight in Austenland, if you need more after this one.
Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
If there are any 20+ females who haven't read these two books yet, for pete's sake go do it so you can be in on the joke. Bridget battles her weight, her singleness, her parents, you name it, in addition to coining some phrases that I know I still use ("smug marrieds" comes to mind here...). The Austen tie-ins aren't subtle - there really is a fellow called Mr. Darcy (although he's Mark here, not Fitzwilliam {and in a fabulous bit of casting, he's played by, no surprise, Colin Firth in the film version}), she works at Pemberley Press, and there are numerous other references scattered throughout. Again, not exactly a serious read, but definitely a cultural phenomenon (if perhaps slightly dated now) - it was one of the few works of popular fiction on that "How many have you read?" list of 100 books that circulated all over Facebook 2 or 3 years ago; hell, it was even one of the titles that got a snazzy new cover (that's it there on the right) when Penguin was rereleasing stuff like Cold Comfort Farm and Voltaire a few years back.
The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen - Syrie James
Another imagined romance, but such a nice one that I was sucked right into this novel (which, by the way, seems to be a bit of an anomaly for this author; she did a Bronte as well, then fell into the paranormal swamp, apparently). After the death of her father, Jane (as well as her mother and sister) are rather at loose ends; while they're being bounced about, a Mr. Ashford enters the picture, who encourages Jane in her writing and gets her to revise Sense & Sensibility (which really was her first published novel) in preparation for submitting it for publication. Since this purports to be her own diary, recently discovered, an "editor" has been through it adding footnotes - the editor's name, Mary I. Jesse, should look strangely familiar (I LOVE footnotes, especially goofy ones). The tone is quite good in this one as well, a close match to Austen's own. Plus the cover's pretty and it looks a lot like my volume of her actual letters. :-)
For Darkness Shows the Stars - Diana Peterfreund
I discovered this author first through her killer unicorn series (which I also recommend, by the way); in this post-apocalyptic reimagining of Persuasion, genetic experimentation went horribly wrong sometime in the past, leaving only the religious group known as the Luddites, who would take no part in it, mentally sound. Those affected by the experimentation are known as the Reduced, who are intellectually subnormal (it has just occurred to me this minute that they may be based on George Austen, Jane's brother...); however, in the past generation or two, Reduced couples have sometimes produced perfectly normal children, the intellectual equals (or possibly superiors...) of the Luddite overclass. Kai is one of these; born the same day as the younger daughter of the Luddite landowners, Elliot North (yep, Elliot's a girl... Anne Elliot in the original, if you'll recall), they grow up together despite the difference in their circumstances, and their childhood letters are scattered through the novel as flashbacks to their earlier friendship. When Kai leaves to seek his fortune elsewhere, he asks Elliot to go with him, but she feels responsible for her family; though she's the youngest, her profligate father and silly sister are not suited for running the estate (sound familiar?). When they are forced to rent out part of their property to a party of explorers, Elliot is amazed to discover that the Captain Malakai Wentforth (see how it ties in now?) she has heard so much about is none other than her old friend - but can they regain what they'd lost? The world-building is fantastic, the writing is lovely, and even if you don't already know and love Persuasion, this stands easily on its own as one of the best post-apocalyptic novels I've read in years.
This is the only "sequel" I've read, and I admit it, the name on the cover helped a lot, as I've been a fan of P. D. James since I was a college kid buying discount mass-market paperbacks at the tiny bookstore near campus. Since she's got 50 years of previous publications backing her up, I don't see her use of Austen's characters as a piggybacking glorified fan-fiction in hope of boosting sales, but rather as an homage to one great writer from another. (If you think I'm indirectly slamming that OTHER dual-initialed James, well... you're right.) It is, of course, great fun to spend some time with those two most amiable couples, the Darcys and the Bingleys, but the focus is mainly on Wickham, with most of the action being from the viewpoint of Mr. Darcy. This unfortunately means that we don't see quite as much of Elizabeth, but James also manages to avoid the sickly-sweet "perfect marriage" that has kept me from ever reading any of the other so-called sequels. There are a couple of sly nods to Emma and Persuasion, an engagingly twisty murder mystery (of course), and if it's not as deep as some of James's other work, well, sometimes that doesn't matter.
Don't we all wish? The fictional Jenny Cooper (based on a real person, though), a cousin to the large Austen clan, takes centre stage in this YA novel, which purports to be her diary this time. (It occurs to me that, now that about 90% of all written communication is in digital format, future biographers are not going to have much fun with notable figures of this era...) In contrast to the adult Jane depicted in the above-mentioned imaginings, here she's only 15, so direct references to her works are concerned with the body now known as her Juvenilia; there are plenty of hints toward the mature novels as well, with an unpleasant pair of schoolmates called Maria and Julia Bertram, a wealthy Miss King, and rather a lot of harping on "possessed of a good fortune" being some of the more obvious ones. Not quite as good at sticking to period language as the adult offerings, it's still a fun read; scenes with Jane's disabled brother George are particularly sweet.
I think I'll stop there for now and continue my personal Austen binge on the film adaptations (I have rather a lot of knitting to get through, and it's awfully hard to knit and read at the same time). I really should have been born two hundred years earlier...
Jane Austen Mysteries - Stephanie Barron
Two of my favourite things combine in this series, namely Jane herself and cozy mysteries. For whatever reason, I like real characters put into fictional situations quite a lot better than continuations, and there are certainly enough twists and turns in these to keep most anyone entertained (plus a love interest for our heroine, which I like even though I know it's made up). I believe there are fully eleven of these now, fitted into the gaps in her correspondence (caused both by being in close proximity to whomever she might have been writing to {namely, her mother and sister} and by the destruction of many of her letters after her death). Do read them in order, they make much more sense that way; this first one is set at the home of the Count and Countess of Scargrave, and when the former dies and the latter is accused, well, what's a lady to do?Cassandra and Jane - Jill Pitkeathly
In an interesting twist, this novel is told from the viewpoint of Cassandra Austen, in an attempt to illuminate some of the mystery surrounding Jane's life, specifically her love life. Cassandra Austen's fiancé died of a fever in the Caribbean; Jane ended her only known engagement the day after she accepted the proposal, and both women remained unmarried their whole lives, despite the brilliant matches of the heroines in the world of her novels. If you've seen the movie Becoming Jane, some of the material will be familiar, but it's reasonably well done, if not earthshatteringly so. Also, it's told from the viewpoint of the end of Cassandra's life, when Jane has already been dead for decades, so it's almost like a double-nostalgia - the character's for her youth, and the reader (and probably author) for the time period.Austenland - Shannon Hale
Having read and greatly enjoyed Hale's YA fiction (the Books of Bayern series, as well as my favourite of her books, Book of a Thousand Days), I immediately pounced on this one when the ARC landed in our break room. Using the BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice as a jumping-off point (see below), Hale envisions a kind of "Austen camp" for grown-ups, which I would certainly attend if I 1) had the money and 2) it actually existed. Hell, if they make a movie I might kill someone to be an extra. Anyway, 30-something New Yorker Jane Hayes is bequeathed a trip to Pembrook Park by a great-aunt who noticed that she was spending perhaps a bit too much time mooning over Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy. So off she goes to England for a month of - come to think of it, it's really quite a long-term LARP; strange thought. Her trials and tribulations (confiscated cell phone, corsets, etc.) and day-to-day life in a made-up Regency household are tremendous fun; so are her behind-the-scenes meetings with a basketball-obsessed gardener and her attempts to figure out how much is real and how much is simply the actors, well, acting. Lots of fun to be had here (also, Hale is one of the nicest authors I've had the pleasure of meeting and so I make a special effort to point out her books. You know, like now.), and there's a sequel of sorts, Midnight in Austenland, if you need more after this one.Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
If there are any 20+ females who haven't read these two books yet, for pete's sake go do it so you can be in on the joke. Bridget battles her weight, her singleness, her parents, you name it, in addition to coining some phrases that I know I still use ("smug marrieds" comes to mind here...). The Austen tie-ins aren't subtle - there really is a fellow called Mr. Darcy (although he's Mark here, not Fitzwilliam {and in a fabulous bit of casting, he's played by, no surprise, Colin Firth in the film version}), she works at Pemberley Press, and there are numerous other references scattered throughout. Again, not exactly a serious read, but definitely a cultural phenomenon (if perhaps slightly dated now) - it was one of the few works of popular fiction on that "How many have you read?" list of 100 books that circulated all over Facebook 2 or 3 years ago; hell, it was even one of the titles that got a snazzy new cover (that's it there on the right) when Penguin was rereleasing stuff like Cold Comfort Farm and Voltaire a few years back.The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen - Syrie James
Another imagined romance, but such a nice one that I was sucked right into this novel (which, by the way, seems to be a bit of an anomaly for this author; she did a Bronte as well, then fell into the paranormal swamp, apparently). After the death of her father, Jane (as well as her mother and sister) are rather at loose ends; while they're being bounced about, a Mr. Ashford enters the picture, who encourages Jane in her writing and gets her to revise Sense & Sensibility (which really was her first published novel) in preparation for submitting it for publication. Since this purports to be her own diary, recently discovered, an "editor" has been through it adding footnotes - the editor's name, Mary I. Jesse, should look strangely familiar (I LOVE footnotes, especially goofy ones). The tone is quite good in this one as well, a close match to Austen's own. Plus the cover's pretty and it looks a lot like my volume of her actual letters. :-)For Darkness Shows the Stars - Diana Peterfreund
I discovered this author first through her killer unicorn series (which I also recommend, by the way); in this post-apocalyptic reimagining of Persuasion, genetic experimentation went horribly wrong sometime in the past, leaving only the religious group known as the Luddites, who would take no part in it, mentally sound. Those affected by the experimentation are known as the Reduced, who are intellectually subnormal (it has just occurred to me this minute that they may be based on George Austen, Jane's brother...); however, in the past generation or two, Reduced couples have sometimes produced perfectly normal children, the intellectual equals (or possibly superiors...) of the Luddite overclass. Kai is one of these; born the same day as the younger daughter of the Luddite landowners, Elliot North (yep, Elliot's a girl... Anne Elliot in the original, if you'll recall), they grow up together despite the difference in their circumstances, and their childhood letters are scattered through the novel as flashbacks to their earlier friendship. When Kai leaves to seek his fortune elsewhere, he asks Elliot to go with him, but she feels responsible for her family; though she's the youngest, her profligate father and silly sister are not suited for running the estate (sound familiar?). When they are forced to rent out part of their property to a party of explorers, Elliot is amazed to discover that the Captain Malakai Wentforth (see how it ties in now?) she has heard so much about is none other than her old friend - but can they regain what they'd lost? The world-building is fantastic, the writing is lovely, and even if you don't already know and love Persuasion, this stands easily on its own as one of the best post-apocalyptic novels I've read in years.
Death Comes to Pemberley - P. D. James
This is the only "sequel" I've read, and I admit it, the name on the cover helped a lot, as I've been a fan of P. D. James since I was a college kid buying discount mass-market paperbacks at the tiny bookstore near campus. Since she's got 50 years of previous publications backing her up, I don't see her use of Austen's characters as a piggybacking glorified fan-fiction in hope of boosting sales, but rather as an homage to one great writer from another. (If you think I'm indirectly slamming that OTHER dual-initialed James, well... you're right.) It is, of course, great fun to spend some time with those two most amiable couples, the Darcys and the Bingleys, but the focus is mainly on Wickham, with most of the action being from the viewpoint of Mr. Darcy. This unfortunately means that we don't see quite as much of Elizabeth, but James also manages to avoid the sickly-sweet "perfect marriage" that has kept me from ever reading any of the other so-called sequels. There are a couple of sly nods to Emma and Persuasion, an engagingly twisty murder mystery (of course), and if it's not as deep as some of James's other work, well, sometimes that doesn't matter.
I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend - Cora Harrison
Don't we all wish? The fictional Jenny Cooper (based on a real person, though), a cousin to the large Austen clan, takes centre stage in this YA novel, which purports to be her diary this time. (It occurs to me that, now that about 90% of all written communication is in digital format, future biographers are not going to have much fun with notable figures of this era...) In contrast to the adult Jane depicted in the above-mentioned imaginings, here she's only 15, so direct references to her works are concerned with the body now known as her Juvenilia; there are plenty of hints toward the mature novels as well, with an unpleasant pair of schoolmates called Maria and Julia Bertram, a wealthy Miss King, and rather a lot of harping on "possessed of a good fortune" being some of the more obvious ones. Not quite as good at sticking to period language as the adult offerings, it's still a fun read; scenes with Jane's disabled brother George are particularly sweet.I think I'll stop there for now and continue my personal Austen binge on the film adaptations (I have rather a lot of knitting to get through, and it's awfully hard to knit and read at the same time). I really should have been born two hundred years earlier...
28 June 2012
Dopplegangers!
I'm sure everyone's heard it at some point - "Wow, you look just like so-and-so, are you related?" It might be a famous person, it might be somebody's high school friend, but despite the staggering variety of sizes, shapes and colours that humans come in, let's face it, everybody looks like somebody.
Do you ever wonder if identical twins just tune that out? Or - whoa - wouldn't it be weird if a set of twins met another set of twins and they ALL looked alike? I saw a guy walking down the street today who looked so much like Kit Harington that I actually double-checked to make sure he didn't have a white wolf with him (for those not up on their HBO, he plays Jon Snow in Game of Thrones and looks like this:)
So of course I immediately texted my buddy who thinks he's the hottest thing ever and told him to go hunting, so if some poor random dude finds a lovelorn Stark fan on his porch, oops, sorry.
Wanna know something really funny? At one point, Tara and I were near-doubles for each other. Seriously, no joke! I can't find the pics that show it best, but here are some munchkin pictures of us:
And here's one where we're all grown up (but not grown-ups, 'cause they're boring):
We look nothing alike anymore. Strange, isn't it?
(Yup. I swiped pics from Tara's and Tami's Facebook albums. This is what happens when I forget it's my turn to post until 1 AM. Oh well.)
Do you ever wonder if identical twins just tune that out? Or - whoa - wouldn't it be weird if a set of twins met another set of twins and they ALL looked alike? I saw a guy walking down the street today who looked so much like Kit Harington that I actually double-checked to make sure he didn't have a white wolf with him (for those not up on their HBO, he plays Jon Snow in Game of Thrones and looks like this:)
 |
| Found this one on somebody-or-other's Tumblr. |
Wanna know something really funny? At one point, Tara and I were near-doubles for each other. Seriously, no joke! I can't find the pics that show it best, but here are some munchkin pictures of us:
And here's one where we're all grown up (but not grown-ups, 'cause they're boring):
We look nothing alike anymore. Strange, isn't it?
(Yup. I swiped pics from Tara's and Tami's Facebook albums. This is what happens when I forget it's my turn to post until 1 AM. Oh well.)
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