Because I'm something of a completionist, I am reviewing the third of the Newflesh series. I thought it was just a trilogy, but apparently it's four books now, plus a collection of novellas. Anyway, this review will contain spoilers for the last two books because, well, when you're reviewing the third book in the series, it's hard not to spoil stuff. So, if you haven't read Feed or Deadline, don't read this post. Or do. What am I, your mother?
So, first spoiler - They cloned George. I'm actually rather upset about this. It would be like somehow George R.R. Martin brought Ned Stark back from the dead and sent him out to go talk sense into Stannis or something. It just...look, if you kill someone, leave them dead and figure out how to get along with them. Or, y'know, don't kill off someone that's important to the continuation of the story.
So, yeah. George is alive. Ish. Her brother is still acting like a crazy, violent jerk, and he's currently being studied by one of the local Mad Scientists to figure out how/why he became immune to the zombie virus. Second spoiler - his exposure to George has magically made him immune to the zombie virus because...reasons? I'm assuming it's because of his sexual relationship with his adopted sister, as I doubt that people that are just regularly in the same room with someone who has dormant zombie virus in their body will trigger the same immunity.
And, yeah, the sexual relationship is confirmed. I know that they're adopted and not blood-related at all, but it's still kinda squicky to me.
Really, this book should have been chopped up into two shorter books. The first "half" covers Shaun's team attempting to break into the CDC to get evidence to support their findings about the zombie virus and the CDC's complicity in the spread of the most recent devastating mutation. In the mean time, Clone-George is trying to figure out how to get out of the CDC's clutches after she discovers that she's going to be used for Nefarious Purposes.
The second "half" of the story is the newly reunited siblings and their friends trying to break the story about the CDC's involvement in the zombie virus's spread and continued evolution, as well as the truth about the possibility of a cure (spoiler: there isn't one, but humans are evolving to adapt to the virus's presence in their DNA).
I'm not going to give away too much more of the ending. Honestly, it's not going to be a happy one since, y'know, zombie plague.
This book, like the last one, has a lot of repetition and over description of mundane things. However, when there's something really awesome that could be described, such as the zombie bear attack, the author chooses to gloss over things and scurry on to the next mundane thing. I mean, how can you introduce a goddamn zombie bear and not have an epic battle?! I felt cheated by that scene. Sure, it's minor in the grand scheme of things, but if you're going to introduce something like that for tension, then do it right! However, the author does choose to describe fights between humans with more tension and detail - I guess they are trying to suggest that humans are a far greater threat and enemy than nature could ever be... but still... zombie bear.
Overall, I felt like I was just slogging through this book to get it over with. I won't be picking up additional works by this author. Feed was great, and I really think that expanding the story with these characters as the central focus was a mistake. I think it would have been better to have each book in the series take place with different characters in different regions, and maybe have a final book where the government and CDC's Nefarious Plans are revealed and dealt with. But, that's just me.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Friday, August 11, 2017
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living - Meik Wiking
Before I get started: it's pronounced "Hoo-ga", and you can listen to the pronunciation here. (Incidentally, Forvo is an excellent free resource for language-learners.) This does not stop me from reading "hygge" every time as rhyming with "pig", and I apologize to Denmark and all Danish speakers in advance.
So, what is hygge? It's pretty hard to explain, as the word doesn't translate very cleanly into English, but - picture yourself in an overstuffed armchair, your warm beverage of choice within reach, a fireplace crackling and popping before you, the scent of baking bread in the air, a snowstorm swirling beyond the windows, and your favorite comfort-novel in your hand. That's basically hygge. You can hygge alone or with a small group of close friends.
The purpose of this book was to explore hygge and give tips about how to add hygge to your everyday life. After all, if the Danish are frequently ranked #1 in happiness, there must be something to this hygge thing, right?
The book is fairly short, and the chapters are typically only a few pages long. As I read it, I couldn't help but be reminded of the Marie Kondo books I'd read earlier, as both talk about how changes in one's environment can help change one's mood. They also both emphasize mindfulness as one of the secrets of being happier. I got the sense that, once you've gotten rid of your clutter using the Konmari method, you can start introducing some hygge to your life using Wiking's tips.
I would be doing a disservice to the idea of hygge if I tried to break it down into a simple list, but some of the things that Wiking mentions as important to hygge is: candles, food, companionship, and comforting surroundings. If it weren't for the fact that I don't speak Danish (yet...) and that winter last about eight months up there, I think I'd move to Denmark just so I could be among like-minded individuals.
Fortunately, you don't have to move to Denmark, or make a lot of money, to add some hygge to your surroundings. In fact, Wiking maintains that the more humble and simple something is, the greater its hygge factor. A home-made knitted pair of socks is more hygge than cashmere socks, especially if you made them yourself and can fondly recall the experience of learning to turn a heel or cast-on when you wear them. A humble but hearty beef stew with home-made crusty bread is far more hygge than a gourmet meal at an expensive restaurant, especially when made and shared with friends. Hygge is about simple pleasures.
I can't say that I see hygge catching on in a widespread fashion here. We're too addicted to our toys, our noise, and our pursuit of "the next big thing" to slow down and appreciate the simpler things in life. It would pretty much require a complete cultural overhaul to have a chance of catching on around here. But, you can at least make your "down-time" more refreshing and pleasurable by taking a few tips from this book. For introverts, this is basically a how-to book for building the perfect nest, and they might be the ones to benefit most from reading this book. As for me, well, if you need me, I'll be in my hyggekrog.
So, what is hygge? It's pretty hard to explain, as the word doesn't translate very cleanly into English, but - picture yourself in an overstuffed armchair, your warm beverage of choice within reach, a fireplace crackling and popping before you, the scent of baking bread in the air, a snowstorm swirling beyond the windows, and your favorite comfort-novel in your hand. That's basically hygge. You can hygge alone or with a small group of close friends.
The purpose of this book was to explore hygge and give tips about how to add hygge to your everyday life. After all, if the Danish are frequently ranked #1 in happiness, there must be something to this hygge thing, right?
The book is fairly short, and the chapters are typically only a few pages long. As I read it, I couldn't help but be reminded of the Marie Kondo books I'd read earlier, as both talk about how changes in one's environment can help change one's mood. They also both emphasize mindfulness as one of the secrets of being happier. I got the sense that, once you've gotten rid of your clutter using the Konmari method, you can start introducing some hygge to your life using Wiking's tips.
I would be doing a disservice to the idea of hygge if I tried to break it down into a simple list, but some of the things that Wiking mentions as important to hygge is: candles, food, companionship, and comforting surroundings. If it weren't for the fact that I don't speak Danish (yet...) and that winter last about eight months up there, I think I'd move to Denmark just so I could be among like-minded individuals.
Fortunately, you don't have to move to Denmark, or make a lot of money, to add some hygge to your surroundings. In fact, Wiking maintains that the more humble and simple something is, the greater its hygge factor. A home-made knitted pair of socks is more hygge than cashmere socks, especially if you made them yourself and can fondly recall the experience of learning to turn a heel or cast-on when you wear them. A humble but hearty beef stew with home-made crusty bread is far more hygge than a gourmet meal at an expensive restaurant, especially when made and shared with friends. Hygge is about simple pleasures.
I can't say that I see hygge catching on in a widespread fashion here. We're too addicted to our toys, our noise, and our pursuit of "the next big thing" to slow down and appreciate the simpler things in life. It would pretty much require a complete cultural overhaul to have a chance of catching on around here. But, you can at least make your "down-time" more refreshing and pleasurable by taking a few tips from this book. For introverts, this is basically a how-to book for building the perfect nest, and they might be the ones to benefit most from reading this book. As for me, well, if you need me, I'll be in my hyggekrog.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
The Fireman - Joe Hill
Draco Incendia Trychophyton, better known as Dragonscale, is the hottest plague to sweep the nation - literally. Once contracted, it's only a matter of months before the sufferer spontaneously combusts, sometimes setting off chain reactions with other Dragonscale victims and creating conflagrations capable of destroying entire city blocks. The world has looked on in horror as civilization crumbles into a sea of flames and molten concrete, unable to trace the source of the infection or the method of its transmission. Amidst the chaos and smoke, a mysterious man known only as The Fireman has emerged like an urban legend. It's said that he can control the 'scale - bend its flames to his will - without being consumed. He comes to take the infected to a place where they can be safe from the threat of spontaneous combustion, or worse, execution by their frightened friends and neighbors. Newly-infected Harper Grayson hopes that these rumors are true, if not for herself, than for her unborn child, who may yet be uninfected.
You may recognize Joe Hill from the movie Horns starring Daniel Radcliffe. Or you may have read Locke and Key, a fantastic dark fantasy/horror graphic novel series. My first exposure to Hill's work was through Locke and Key, and it wasn't until much later that I discovered that he was Stephen King's son. (Although I guess if he'd kept his father's name, he'd be Joe King....)
The idea of a plague that not only kills you, but kills you in such a horrific and destructive fashion, was intriguing. Sure, zombies are scary, but they are a threat that can be contained and dealt with given enough time. Walking, contagious wildfires, however, are a different story. I was fascinated by the level of detail and thought that had gone into the nature of the infection, its transmission, and its management. If not for the whole possibly-ending-in-flaming-death-throes thing, Dragonscale sounds like a pretty cool thing to have. Unfortunately, Dragonscale was about the only unique thing about this book.
When you get down to it, this book is just Lord of the Flies meets Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix while playing with matches. People separate into tribes - infected/uninfected, those in the Bright/those outside of the Bright, with us/against us - and try to take over limited supplies for the good of their tribe. Mother Carol, the eventual leader of Camp Wyndham, is basically Professor Umbridge without all of the pink, and Harper's plucky band of rebels is Dumbledore's Army - complete with its own traitor.
That wouldn't be so bad in itself if the author had just stopped trying to cram stuff into the book to compound the horribleness of the situation. And what would make things worse, you might ask? Oh, a roadtrip from hell while pregnant and being pursued by your crazy ex-husband might qualify, I suppose. Really, it's just absurd the amount of awfulness that happens to these people. Even Lemony Snicket knew to spread the awful out across thirteen books.
Another complaint I had about this book is Hill's tendency to tell readers that a chance to discuss something would never come after all, or that a character was about to act really horribly toward another character instead of letting the action unfold on its own. I seriously considered making a drinking game out of it. Authors, for the sake of my liver, please don't do this. Remember, show, don't tell.
Finally, there are the characters. The titular Fireman is actually only in about a third of the pages, and he spends almost all of his page-time recuperating from injuries or doing something that gets him injured. I was kind of hoping for a cool superhero-like character, but instead I got an angsty Brit with broken ribs, so that was disappointing. Harper is pretty bad-ass, but after a while her obsession with children's literature and movies got annoying. It seemed that she couldn't be on-page for a few paragraphs without making reference to Mary Poppins or some other sugary-sweet children's story. The only characters I felt were even remotely believably written were Allie and Renee. Everyone else, even the side characters and villains, felt like strawmen or caricatures rather than real people.
Fans of Stephen King may enjoy this book, if nothing else than for the shout-outs to King's works. I've only ever read It, so I couldn't tell you any specific references that I noticed, but I did feel like this book had a lot of the same pacing and ending issues that It had. Around the second third of the book, everything slows to a crawl and it's really hard to keep up the desire to keep reading. The action picks back up toward the final third, but then you get to the end and it sort of fizzles out like a wet match. There is an afterword hidden in the author acknowledgements at the end that may be setting up for a second book, so if you do decide to read this one, make sure to read it all the way through.
Overall, I thought that the book had an interesting premise, but the execution was lacking. It may just be that it was being executed in the wrong medium. This story makes for a long and laborious read as a novel, but the visual language used to describe the ways the Fireman can manipulate fire, as well as the shoot-outs and car chases, make it ideal for making a graphic novel or t.v. series out of it. I mean, with fire, it's more captivating to watch it than to read about it.
You may recognize Joe Hill from the movie Horns starring Daniel Radcliffe. Or you may have read Locke and Key, a fantastic dark fantasy/horror graphic novel series. My first exposure to Hill's work was through Locke and Key, and it wasn't until much later that I discovered that he was Stephen King's son. (Although I guess if he'd kept his father's name, he'd be Joe King....)
The idea of a plague that not only kills you, but kills you in such a horrific and destructive fashion, was intriguing. Sure, zombies are scary, but they are a threat that can be contained and dealt with given enough time. Walking, contagious wildfires, however, are a different story. I was fascinated by the level of detail and thought that had gone into the nature of the infection, its transmission, and its management. If not for the whole possibly-ending-in-flaming-death-throes thing, Dragonscale sounds like a pretty cool thing to have. Unfortunately, Dragonscale was about the only unique thing about this book.
When you get down to it, this book is just Lord of the Flies meets Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix while playing with matches. People separate into tribes - infected/uninfected, those in the Bright/those outside of the Bright, with us/against us - and try to take over limited supplies for the good of their tribe. Mother Carol, the eventual leader of Camp Wyndham, is basically Professor Umbridge without all of the pink, and Harper's plucky band of rebels is Dumbledore's Army - complete with its own traitor.
That wouldn't be so bad in itself if the author had just stopped trying to cram stuff into the book to compound the horribleness of the situation. And what would make things worse, you might ask? Oh, a roadtrip from hell while pregnant and being pursued by your crazy ex-husband might qualify, I suppose. Really, it's just absurd the amount of awfulness that happens to these people. Even Lemony Snicket knew to spread the awful out across thirteen books.
Another complaint I had about this book is Hill's tendency to tell readers that a chance to discuss something would never come after all, or that a character was about to act really horribly toward another character instead of letting the action unfold on its own. I seriously considered making a drinking game out of it. Authors, for the sake of my liver, please don't do this. Remember, show, don't tell.
Finally, there are the characters. The titular Fireman is actually only in about a third of the pages, and he spends almost all of his page-time recuperating from injuries or doing something that gets him injured. I was kind of hoping for a cool superhero-like character, but instead I got an angsty Brit with broken ribs, so that was disappointing. Harper is pretty bad-ass, but after a while her obsession with children's literature and movies got annoying. It seemed that she couldn't be on-page for a few paragraphs without making reference to Mary Poppins or some other sugary-sweet children's story. The only characters I felt were even remotely believably written were Allie and Renee. Everyone else, even the side characters and villains, felt like strawmen or caricatures rather than real people.
Fans of Stephen King may enjoy this book, if nothing else than for the shout-outs to King's works. I've only ever read It, so I couldn't tell you any specific references that I noticed, but I did feel like this book had a lot of the same pacing and ending issues that It had. Around the second third of the book, everything slows to a crawl and it's really hard to keep up the desire to keep reading. The action picks back up toward the final third, but then you get to the end and it sort of fizzles out like a wet match. There is an afterword hidden in the author acknowledgements at the end that may be setting up for a second book, so if you do decide to read this one, make sure to read it all the way through.
Overall, I thought that the book had an interesting premise, but the execution was lacking. It may just be that it was being executed in the wrong medium. This story makes for a long and laborious read as a novel, but the visual language used to describe the ways the Fireman can manipulate fire, as well as the shoot-outs and car chases, make it ideal for making a graphic novel or t.v. series out of it. I mean, with fire, it's more captivating to watch it than to read about it.
Monday, February 27, 2017
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay - J.K. Rowling
One of the most anticipated films of 2016, at least in my circle of friends, was Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It was the first Harry Potter universe film to be set fully outside of Hogwarts and the English countryside, and it gave fans another glimpse into the fantastic world of magic that might exist right beside them on the subway platform, on the street, or even in line at the local deli. For those of you who were unable to get to the theater, or who just want to relive the movie before its home video release, the screenplay was published and released in an attractively-bound book just in time for the holidays.
It's a turbulent time in the 1920's magical community. Notorious criminal Gellert Grindelwald has evaded authorities, Second Salemers roam the streets calling for the execution of witches and wizards, and Newt Scamander has accidentally unleashed a suitcase full of strange and fantastical creatures on the unsuspecting city. With the aid of a No-Maj/Muggle named Jacob Kowalski, Newt must round up his wayward creatures before attracting more unwanted attention on the magical community and the ire of MACUSA (the American Ministry of Magic).
The best part of this movie was the world-building. J.K. Rowling has created a colorful world with its own culture and mythology, and I have wanted to ramble around in it ever since I read the first chapters set in Diagon Alley. In this movie/screenplay, we get more exposure to different aspects of the wizarding world that Rowling didn't get a chance to explore in the Harry Potter series. Sure, we know that magical creatures, mind-reading witches/wizards, and other magic schools exist, but this movie gives us more exposure to the magical-using world and culture outside of England.
However, I felt like the darker part of the story involving the Obscurus wasn't developed very well. There's this monster tearing apart parts of New York, but it's basically background noise for about two-thirds of the movie. Gellert Grindelwald is mentioned at the beginning and in an argument later, but he doesn't seem to be too important until the very end, and even then it's unclear how Newt was able to figure out that he was there in the first place.
I had hoped that the screenplay would have more detailed information, or even some "deleted scenes", that might help develop some of the characters and world a bit more. I would have been happy if it had at least explained/developed Grindelwald's involvement a little better than the ending's "I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling kids" moment. Sadly, this is pretty much a direct transcription of the finished film, so you really aren't missing anything if you don't read it.
If you're a film student, you might benefit from reading this because it has some pretty detailed information about the types of angles and directions used in the film, as well as some cues for the timing and delivery of certain parts of the script, and there is nice glossary of terms to explain some of the specialized vocabulary. If you're a collector of Harry Potter books and memorabilia, I think you might like to add this to your bookshelf for continuity and collection's sake. However, if you were hoping for a novelization or fleshing-out of the movie's skeleton, you should skip this one.
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Deadline - Mira Grant
Because this is a review of the second book in a series, this review contains spoilers. If you have not read Feed, don't read this review. I will also be spoiling this book, as there are some things I absolutely have to get off my chest about it. So, you've been warned.
One year after the events of Feed, Shaun Mason is in charge of After the End Times. One year after the events of Feed, Shaun is still deep in mourning over the loss of his sister, Georgia "George" Mason, and he's hell bent on discovering who really killed her and why. He gets his first solid lead one day when a scientist from the CDC shows up on his doorstep with a gift-wrapped package of information and data - a scientist that's supposed to be dead. And the implications of the data she's brought with her are too terrifying to contemplate.
This book is told entirely from the point of view of Shaun Mason. Unfortunately, Shaun isn't a very good narrator. He's a thrill-seeker turned investigative reporter, and he's not very good at making incisive observations or asking the questions that need to be asked. To shore up his weaknesses, his dead sister has taken up residence in his skull to provide insight and prompt him to ask about things. At first, this seemed like a normal coping mechanism, but after a while it just felt like the author was regretting her decision to kill George off in the first book and was looking for a way to bring her back into the action.
The other reason Shaun isn't a good narrator is because his emotions range from "brooding" to "angrily punching walls" without a lot of in-between. Some of it, yes, can be related to grief, but in a world dominated by grief and loss on a daily basis, it seems unbelievable that someone can be so dysfunctionally grieving a year after a loss. I'm actually surprised that his coworkers/friends have stuck around him for a year without holding an intervention meeting. Even under non-zombie apocalypse circumstances, there's only so much that people will put up with.
The world-building is fleshed out a bit more in this book, and readers get their first glimpse at how the Rising was handled overseas. The virus is also somewhat "fleshed" out as well, and we learn a little more about how it ticks and why it's so difficult to contain. (The short answer is: because of government conspiracies...)
Unfortunately, as a sequel to Feed, this book falls pretty flat. The pacing is far too slow, and too much time is spent having the characters argue with, distrust, and complain at each other. In addition, like Feed, this is a zombie outbreak story without a lot of zombie action,.Unlike in Feed, it doesn't make sense that there are so few zombies showing up. I mean, there are points where the characters are on long, deserted stretches of road that would be prime zombie hoard locations in any self-respecting survival horror game or horror movie, but the worst they encounter is lousy convenience store food and the odd zombie deer. For a world overrun with zombies, it's pretty convenient that our intrepid heroes never actually have to deal with them.
Some of the "emotional impact" moments felt pretty hollow, too. Characters die, but they don't have the same emotional punch as the deaths in Feed. I think this is largely because the supporting cast doesn't get very much fleshing out due to Shaun's disconnectedness from them. It makes sense that he's disconnected - after all, he's suffered a great loss and he's hesitant to let anyone else get that close again - but when you kill people off and lock readers into the point of view of someone who doesn't have strong connections to the people that were killed, it's hard to get the readers to care about the loss. Sure, it's sad that someone died and left people behind, but there is nothing to give it that personal sense of impact.
The book also goes a long way to try to either undo what Feed was trying to accomplish, or create "edgy" complications that there isn't any need for.
First, there's the Targaryenesque relationship between George and Shaun that was never, ever mentioned in Feed. I mean, I guess it isn't technically incest because they're not blood relatives, but if something like that was going on, you'd think that George, a trusted Newsie narrator who never shied away from divulging uncomfortable details before, would have dropped a few mentions of this relationship during her narration in Feed.
Next is the introduction of Shaun's plot-armor, er, I mean, strange immunity to the zombie virus. Sure, he can still be killed in other ways, but taking away his infectability removes a lot of the tension and risk for him. Suddenly, the Big Bad's most dangerous weapon is rendered completely useless against him, so they'll have to try more conventional - and harder to cover - ways to get rid of him.
Finally, there's George's resurrection as a clone. Even if I were willing to believe that they were able to create a complete clone - aged up to the proper age and everything - and memory transfer of a young adult in a year, I feel like it completely undoes the impact of George's death in Feed. What was the point of killing her off if you were just going to bring her back at the end of the second book? Did the author realize she'd written herself into a corner by removing her only good narrator? Was she just checking "edgy" boxes? How do they even manage to transfer George's memories, anyway? No technology is ever indicated to exist that would allow human brain data to be transferred between brains - I mean, they're still basically using technology similar to 2014-era technology. It leaves a lot of questions to be answered in the next book, and I'm not sure that everything will be answered satisfactorily.
Overall, I'm really disappointed in this installment. I'll probably still read the third one in order to complete the series and find out the answers to some of my questions, but it won't be for a little while.
One year after the events of Feed, Shaun Mason is in charge of After the End Times. One year after the events of Feed, Shaun is still deep in mourning over the loss of his sister, Georgia "George" Mason, and he's hell bent on discovering who really killed her and why. He gets his first solid lead one day when a scientist from the CDC shows up on his doorstep with a gift-wrapped package of information and data - a scientist that's supposed to be dead. And the implications of the data she's brought with her are too terrifying to contemplate.
This book is told entirely from the point of view of Shaun Mason. Unfortunately, Shaun isn't a very good narrator. He's a thrill-seeker turned investigative reporter, and he's not very good at making incisive observations or asking the questions that need to be asked. To shore up his weaknesses, his dead sister has taken up residence in his skull to provide insight and prompt him to ask about things. At first, this seemed like a normal coping mechanism, but after a while it just felt like the author was regretting her decision to kill George off in the first book and was looking for a way to bring her back into the action.
The other reason Shaun isn't a good narrator is because his emotions range from "brooding" to "angrily punching walls" without a lot of in-between. Some of it, yes, can be related to grief, but in a world dominated by grief and loss on a daily basis, it seems unbelievable that someone can be so dysfunctionally grieving a year after a loss. I'm actually surprised that his coworkers/friends have stuck around him for a year without holding an intervention meeting. Even under non-zombie apocalypse circumstances, there's only so much that people will put up with.
The world-building is fleshed out a bit more in this book, and readers get their first glimpse at how the Rising was handled overseas. The virus is also somewhat "fleshed" out as well, and we learn a little more about how it ticks and why it's so difficult to contain. (The short answer is: because of government conspiracies...)
Unfortunately, as a sequel to Feed, this book falls pretty flat. The pacing is far too slow, and too much time is spent having the characters argue with, distrust, and complain at each other. In addition, like Feed, this is a zombie outbreak story without a lot of zombie action,.Unlike in Feed, it doesn't make sense that there are so few zombies showing up. I mean, there are points where the characters are on long, deserted stretches of road that would be prime zombie hoard locations in any self-respecting survival horror game or horror movie, but the worst they encounter is lousy convenience store food and the odd zombie deer. For a world overrun with zombies, it's pretty convenient that our intrepid heroes never actually have to deal with them.
Some of the "emotional impact" moments felt pretty hollow, too. Characters die, but they don't have the same emotional punch as the deaths in Feed. I think this is largely because the supporting cast doesn't get very much fleshing out due to Shaun's disconnectedness from them. It makes sense that he's disconnected - after all, he's suffered a great loss and he's hesitant to let anyone else get that close again - but when you kill people off and lock readers into the point of view of someone who doesn't have strong connections to the people that were killed, it's hard to get the readers to care about the loss. Sure, it's sad that someone died and left people behind, but there is nothing to give it that personal sense of impact.
The book also goes a long way to try to either undo what Feed was trying to accomplish, or create "edgy" complications that there isn't any need for.
First, there's the Targaryenesque relationship between George and Shaun that was never, ever mentioned in Feed. I mean, I guess it isn't technically incest because they're not blood relatives, but if something like that was going on, you'd think that George, a trusted Newsie narrator who never shied away from divulging uncomfortable details before, would have dropped a few mentions of this relationship during her narration in Feed.
Next is the introduction of Shaun's plot-armor, er, I mean, strange immunity to the zombie virus. Sure, he can still be killed in other ways, but taking away his infectability removes a lot of the tension and risk for him. Suddenly, the Big Bad's most dangerous weapon is rendered completely useless against him, so they'll have to try more conventional - and harder to cover - ways to get rid of him.
Finally, there's George's resurrection as a clone. Even if I were willing to believe that they were able to create a complete clone - aged up to the proper age and everything - and memory transfer of a young adult in a year, I feel like it completely undoes the impact of George's death in Feed. What was the point of killing her off if you were just going to bring her back at the end of the second book? Did the author realize she'd written herself into a corner by removing her only good narrator? Was she just checking "edgy" boxes? How do they even manage to transfer George's memories, anyway? No technology is ever indicated to exist that would allow human brain data to be transferred between brains - I mean, they're still basically using technology similar to 2014-era technology. It leaves a lot of questions to be answered in the next book, and I'm not sure that everything will be answered satisfactorily.
Overall, I'm really disappointed in this installment. I'll probably still read the third one in order to complete the series and find out the answers to some of my questions, but it won't be for a little while.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Uprooted - Naomi Novik
In her quiet, valley village on the edge of the dark and dangerous Wood full of shadows and corrupted things, Agniezka knows what her future holds. She and the other girls of the valley will stand before The Dragon on the Choosing Day, he will choose one of them to live in his tower for the next ten years, and she will go on with her life in the valley, same as always. Everyone knows that the local beauty, Kasia, will be Chosen, and Kasia has been training for the duty her whole life. Agniezka's path may be boring and well-trod, but at least she knows what to expect from it.
Until she's the one that's chosen. Until she shows magical aptitude. Until she's the only one who can stop the Wood's sinister plans. Until everything she thought she knew about her future is uprooted and tossed aside like so many weeds. Now she's treading a path so overgrown that the last person that could have possibly walked it was Baba Jaga herself, and the Wood is closing in.
I picked this book up after a patron recommended it to me a few years ago. I had been lamenting the lack of many fantasy novels built up around Russian and eastern European folklore and mythology. Fantasy is full of stories based on the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen, and more diverse folklores and mythologies are being introduced these days, but eastern Europe is only remembered for its vampires. The patron, an English teacher and fantasy aficionado himself, recommended that I give this book a whirl, and I'm grateful for his recommendation.
The book uses Russian folklore as a trellis on which to hang the vines of the story. The Dragon, Sarkan, immediately calls to mind the story of Koschei the Deathless (and if you haven't started listening to the Myths and Legends Podcast where this story is recited, you really should). He is a powerful wizard-lord that takes young, beautiful women away with him, imprisons them in his tower and...well, no one really knows what he does with them, but they assume that they're not playing endless hands of euchre. The heroine, Agniezka, sets herself to mirror Baba Yaga, although not the scary wicked witch Baba Yaga that I'm familiar with. Her "Jaga" is more Granny Weatherwax than Wicked Witch of the West. But it quickly develops a lore all its own that's both new and familiar at the same time.
I liked the pacing of this book. Novik doesn't get bogged down in intricate world-building and political machinations, so she's able to keep the story chugging along at a regular pace that rises and falls in a natural rhythm. I get the feeling that she is able to do this because she is locking the reader into the point of view of Agniezka, whose magic and experience of the world is more in tune with the natural rhythm of life and the world around her. Had she chosen to tell the story through The Dragon's point of view, we probably would have been subjected to endless lectures of history and political affiliation, but that's just my own speculation.
I enjoyed the way that the characters grew and changed over the course of the story - Agniezka went from a self-doubting peasant girl out of her element to a confident witch-woman who fully embraces her magic and way of doing things, and The Dragon goes from an aloof, arrogant jerk of a wizard to the more approachable, fallible man Sarkan. Even minor characters showed development, or the consequences of arrested development in the case of Prince Marek.
The only thing I didn't like about this book was the way that the romance, and I use that term hesitantly, was developed. I didn't feel like it was really "love" so much as "magic-based lust" - mingling of magics creates a similar desire to mingle other things, so it wasn't so much that the characters were in love as it was that they were intertwined by other intimacies. It wasn't bad writing, I just felt that there wasn't any necessity to include a sex scene. It always feels voyeuristic to read them, and an exhaustive description of a sexual encounter rarely furthers the plot. Still, it's only three pages you have to skip instead of half a chapter, so it's really just a minor complaint.
If you were a fan of the Tiffany Aching books by (GNU) Terry Pratchett, you'll enjoy this one. Agniezka and Tiffany have a lot of similarities, particularly in their intuitive understanding of magic. For readers looking for a good fantasy read that are unwilling to commit to a long-running series that might not get finished anytime soon, Uprooted is a good choice because the whole thing is contained in a single book with no dangling threads to hint at a second or third volume. For those of you who lamented, as I did, that eastern Europe is only known for vampires - check this out. You'll be glad you did.
The book uses Russian folklore as a trellis on which to hang the vines of the story. The Dragon, Sarkan, immediately calls to mind the story of Koschei the Deathless (and if you haven't started listening to the Myths and Legends Podcast where this story is recited, you really should). He is a powerful wizard-lord that takes young, beautiful women away with him, imprisons them in his tower and...well, no one really knows what he does with them, but they assume that they're not playing endless hands of euchre. The heroine, Agniezka, sets herself to mirror Baba Yaga, although not the scary wicked witch Baba Yaga that I'm familiar with. Her "Jaga" is more Granny Weatherwax than Wicked Witch of the West. But it quickly develops a lore all its own that's both new and familiar at the same time.
I liked the pacing of this book. Novik doesn't get bogged down in intricate world-building and political machinations, so she's able to keep the story chugging along at a regular pace that rises and falls in a natural rhythm. I get the feeling that she is able to do this because she is locking the reader into the point of view of Agniezka, whose magic and experience of the world is more in tune with the natural rhythm of life and the world around her. Had she chosen to tell the story through The Dragon's point of view, we probably would have been subjected to endless lectures of history and political affiliation, but that's just my own speculation.
I enjoyed the way that the characters grew and changed over the course of the story - Agniezka went from a self-doubting peasant girl out of her element to a confident witch-woman who fully embraces her magic and way of doing things, and The Dragon goes from an aloof, arrogant jerk of a wizard to the more approachable, fallible man Sarkan. Even minor characters showed development, or the consequences of arrested development in the case of Prince Marek.
The only thing I didn't like about this book was the way that the romance, and I use that term hesitantly, was developed. I didn't feel like it was really "love" so much as "magic-based lust" - mingling of magics creates a similar desire to mingle other things, so it wasn't so much that the characters were in love as it was that they were intertwined by other intimacies. It wasn't bad writing, I just felt that there wasn't any necessity to include a sex scene. It always feels voyeuristic to read them, and an exhaustive description of a sexual encounter rarely furthers the plot. Still, it's only three pages you have to skip instead of half a chapter, so it's really just a minor complaint.
If you were a fan of the Tiffany Aching books by (GNU) Terry Pratchett, you'll enjoy this one. Agniezka and Tiffany have a lot of similarities, particularly in their intuitive understanding of magic. For readers looking for a good fantasy read that are unwilling to commit to a long-running series that might not get finished anytime soon, Uprooted is a good choice because the whole thing is contained in a single book with no dangling threads to hint at a second or third volume. For those of you who lamented, as I did, that eastern Europe is only known for vampires - check this out. You'll be glad you did.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window - Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
Our story begins with a train ride and a little girl. Totto-chan is a first-grade girl on her way to a new school. She's a lively, inquisitive child who talks a mile a minute. She doesn't know it, but she was recently expelled from her last school for being too disruptive. She and her mother are on their way to a new school, where her mother anxiously hopes she will be able to continue her education.
Tomoe Gakuen isn't a typical school. It's made up of a collection of old train cars in the forest, and it has about fifty students all together. Instead of a gate of stone or concrete pillars, Tomoe's students pass through a gate made of living trees. Instead of a stern-faced headmaster following a rigid rubric of Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmatic, Tomoe's principal is a jolly older man who lets children's natural inquisitiveness lead them to new discoveries. Students learn without realizing that they're learning, and the staff's role is to support the students' exploration rather than drill facts and figures into their heads.
Tomoe sounds like a dream school in some suburban paradise, but it was actually an experimental elementary school that the author, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (Totto-chan), attended in the years leading up to World War II in Japan. Many of the students at Tomoe were children that wouldn't fit into the normal schools of the time for one reason or another. At a time when Japan promoted worship of the Emperor as a divine figure, encouraged cultural uniformity, and shunned the physically handicapped, the headmaster of Tomoe is a revolutionary figure who teaches children to embrace differences in culture, religion, and language, and who cared deeply for his physically handicapped students. Although World War II doesn't leave Tomoe untouched, the school stands as an oasis of idyllic calm amidst a raging sea of war and intolerance for the time that it existed. And, when the school was destroyed in a bombing during the war, Mr. Kobayashi watched his dream project burn and cheerfully planned to create a new and better school after the war.
The short chapters follow Totto-chan from first grade through about third grade. They tend to be rather calm and sometimes funny stories, but sometimes an element of drama slips in. Sprinkled amongst lighthearted chapters where children take walks to the local shrine on sunny afternoons or have a camp-out at the school to watch a new train car get added to the school grounds are somber moments where Totto-chan learns about mortality or when students have to say goodbye to a staff member being sent off to war. Totto-chan's family and school life is somewhat insulated from the harsher realities of WWII, so aside from the air raids and events in a few other chapters, Totto-chan and her fellow elementary students are relatively untouched by the war. I got the feeling that the headmaster was deliberately trying to protect his students from that reality for as long as he could and inoculating them against it through his unusual teaching methods.
I truly enjoyed this book. It was hard not to smile when I read about Totto-chan and her various adventures. In some ways, it resembles the popular slice-of-life manga Yotsuba&, but the humor is more subdued. Other episodes reminded me of Anne Shirley's adventures in Anne of Green Gables. In fact, I have a feeling that Totto-chan, Yotsuba, and Anne would probably get along like a house on fire.
I'd recommend this book for audiences of all ages. It'd be a perfectly appropriate story to read to children, especially if you are trying to instill the same values in them that Mr. Kobayashi was in his students. Adults will find Totto-chan familiar in her mischief and innocent exploration, and I think they'll enjoy watching her grow over the course of the book. Anyone considering a career in teaching would certainly benefit from reading about Tomoe and its effects on the students, even if modern education may not allow for a complete recreation of the school's methods.
A note on the title: "the little girl at the window" refers to a Japanese saying about people who don't fit in. They tend to stand apart, like people who tend to lurk on the edges of the room (by the windows, for instance), and don't belong to main mass in the middle. I find this kind of interesting, since a common anime trope is to have the main character's desk by the window, and they're usually the focus of a lot of unusual activities.
Tomoe Gakuen isn't a typical school. It's made up of a collection of old train cars in the forest, and it has about fifty students all together. Instead of a gate of stone or concrete pillars, Tomoe's students pass through a gate made of living trees. Instead of a stern-faced headmaster following a rigid rubric of Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmatic, Tomoe's principal is a jolly older man who lets children's natural inquisitiveness lead them to new discoveries. Students learn without realizing that they're learning, and the staff's role is to support the students' exploration rather than drill facts and figures into their heads.
Tomoe sounds like a dream school in some suburban paradise, but it was actually an experimental elementary school that the author, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (Totto-chan), attended in the years leading up to World War II in Japan. Many of the students at Tomoe were children that wouldn't fit into the normal schools of the time for one reason or another. At a time when Japan promoted worship of the Emperor as a divine figure, encouraged cultural uniformity, and shunned the physically handicapped, the headmaster of Tomoe is a revolutionary figure who teaches children to embrace differences in culture, religion, and language, and who cared deeply for his physically handicapped students. Although World War II doesn't leave Tomoe untouched, the school stands as an oasis of idyllic calm amidst a raging sea of war and intolerance for the time that it existed. And, when the school was destroyed in a bombing during the war, Mr. Kobayashi watched his dream project burn and cheerfully planned to create a new and better school after the war.
The short chapters follow Totto-chan from first grade through about third grade. They tend to be rather calm and sometimes funny stories, but sometimes an element of drama slips in. Sprinkled amongst lighthearted chapters where children take walks to the local shrine on sunny afternoons or have a camp-out at the school to watch a new train car get added to the school grounds are somber moments where Totto-chan learns about mortality or when students have to say goodbye to a staff member being sent off to war. Totto-chan's family and school life is somewhat insulated from the harsher realities of WWII, so aside from the air raids and events in a few other chapters, Totto-chan and her fellow elementary students are relatively untouched by the war. I got the feeling that the headmaster was deliberately trying to protect his students from that reality for as long as he could and inoculating them against it through his unusual teaching methods.
I truly enjoyed this book. It was hard not to smile when I read about Totto-chan and her various adventures. In some ways, it resembles the popular slice-of-life manga Yotsuba&, but the humor is more subdued. Other episodes reminded me of Anne Shirley's adventures in Anne of Green Gables. In fact, I have a feeling that Totto-chan, Yotsuba, and Anne would probably get along like a house on fire.
I'd recommend this book for audiences of all ages. It'd be a perfectly appropriate story to read to children, especially if you are trying to instill the same values in them that Mr. Kobayashi was in his students. Adults will find Totto-chan familiar in her mischief and innocent exploration, and I think they'll enjoy watching her grow over the course of the book. Anyone considering a career in teaching would certainly benefit from reading about Tomoe and its effects on the students, even if modern education may not allow for a complete recreation of the school's methods.
A note on the title: "the little girl at the window" refers to a Japanese saying about people who don't fit in. They tend to stand apart, like people who tend to lurk on the edges of the room (by the windows, for instance), and don't belong to main mass in the middle. I find this kind of interesting, since a common anime trope is to have the main character's desk by the window, and they're usually the focus of a lot of unusual activities.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Feed - Mira Grant
Feed is a story of politics and internet journalism. And zombies. It begins with an idiot poking a zombie with a stick, so you know that it's not your typical political pot-boiler.
The Mason siblings are bloggers in a not-so-distant future when the world has been overrun with zombies. It's actually a pretty lucrative career, since bloggers have become more trusted news sources than traditional journalism. Bloggers were the first to break the news of actual zombie infections back when media outlets were still dismissing zombie videos as the product of too many George Romero movies. There are three types of bloggers: Newsies - who report on the facts, Fictionals - who write poetry and short stories about the state of the world, and Irwins - who go around in infested zones poking zombies with sticks to get a reaction (and a lot more website traffic).
After a particularly successful and suspenseful day poking zombies, the blogging team of the Mason's website After the End Times receives a much-anticipated message - they have been selected as the exclusive blogging team to follow Senator Ryman on his campaign to win his party's presidential candidate nomination. A chance like this only comes along once in a lifetime, and is the sort of thing that will set the Mason team up for life. The campaign trail of the post-Rising era is fraught with drama and danger, and politics post-Rising have taken on an additional tint of paranoia with the threat of zombie outbreaks at campaign locations. In fact, it was almost brushed off as routine when zombies broke through the defense lines at a campaign stop in Oklahoma.
And then a zombie outbreak occurred at Senator Ryman's home just as he was receiving the party's nomination. The Masons soon find themselves gripping the zombie tiger by the tail, and the consequences of the presidential election might have greater worldwide repercussions than ever imagined.
Just remember, folks, the election cycle last year was pretty rough, but at least no one had to deal with the infectious undead at the polls.
I really enjoyed reading this. It was just the right balance of zombie action and behind-the-scenes drama. The first chapter is a dramatic chase scene where the Mason siblings try to escape a small horde of zombies who have managed to sneak up on them in an infested zone. If two people on a small motorcycle trying to escape a group of flesh-hungry undead isn't enough to grab your attention, then you may possibly be a zombie yourself.
The characters are fleshed out fairly well, though you are limited to interactions from the point of view of Georgia "George" Mason. This means that the only characters you really get attached to are the Mason siblings themselves, since the other members of the cast don't interact with her as much. The restriction to her point of view works well to develop the central mystery of the book, too, since her limited interaction gives you a good list of suspects for who is trying to sabotage (and possibly murder) Senator Ryman.
The setting is interesting, as the author chooses to set things in a modern world where humans haven't totally lost control of the situation. Sure, there are areas that are completely overrun by the undead, but things haven't deteriorated to the point where we aren't able to get things like electricity, internet, gasoline, ammo, or groceries. There was an initial panic, sure, but after that, things settled into a routine that just happened to involve zombies and a healthy dose of paranoia. The virus itself has limitations built into it, so the only threat comes from things that are over 40 pounds in weight. This means that, unlike other zombie novels I've read, there's no risk of infection from something like a zombie squirrel or a mosquito bite, but it doesn't rule out interspecies transmission entirely.
The only criticism I had for this was the identity and motive for the "bad guy". I don't want to give anything away, but when I got to the part that revealed the "who" and "why", I admit that I did roll my eyes a lot because it was a little one-dimensional. Believable, sure, but in a way predictable. I was expecting more of a twist than what I got.
I'd recommend this book to people who liked Max Brooks's World War Z, or to young adults who enjoy stuff like The Walking Dead and are waiting for the next season to start. As a zombie novel, it's pretty tame violence-wise. There's minimal description of gore and guts, so squeamish readers don't need to worry.
I am looking forward to reading more books in the Newsflesh series. I am hoping that other books will detail how other countries and areas handled the zombie outbreak. Unfortunately, I have another library book that's due in a few days, so I won't be able to jump immediately into the second book, Deadline, so look forward to that later.
The Mason siblings are bloggers in a not-so-distant future when the world has been overrun with zombies. It's actually a pretty lucrative career, since bloggers have become more trusted news sources than traditional journalism. Bloggers were the first to break the news of actual zombie infections back when media outlets were still dismissing zombie videos as the product of too many George Romero movies. There are three types of bloggers: Newsies - who report on the facts, Fictionals - who write poetry and short stories about the state of the world, and Irwins - who go around in infested zones poking zombies with sticks to get a reaction (and a lot more website traffic).
After a particularly successful and suspenseful day poking zombies, the blogging team of the Mason's website After the End Times receives a much-anticipated message - they have been selected as the exclusive blogging team to follow Senator Ryman on his campaign to win his party's presidential candidate nomination. A chance like this only comes along once in a lifetime, and is the sort of thing that will set the Mason team up for life. The campaign trail of the post-Rising era is fraught with drama and danger, and politics post-Rising have taken on an additional tint of paranoia with the threat of zombie outbreaks at campaign locations. In fact, it was almost brushed off as routine when zombies broke through the defense lines at a campaign stop in Oklahoma.
And then a zombie outbreak occurred at Senator Ryman's home just as he was receiving the party's nomination. The Masons soon find themselves gripping the zombie tiger by the tail, and the consequences of the presidential election might have greater worldwide repercussions than ever imagined.
Just remember, folks, the election cycle last year was pretty rough, but at least no one had to deal with the infectious undead at the polls.
I really enjoyed reading this. It was just the right balance of zombie action and behind-the-scenes drama. The first chapter is a dramatic chase scene where the Mason siblings try to escape a small horde of zombies who have managed to sneak up on them in an infested zone. If two people on a small motorcycle trying to escape a group of flesh-hungry undead isn't enough to grab your attention, then you may possibly be a zombie yourself.
The characters are fleshed out fairly well, though you are limited to interactions from the point of view of Georgia "George" Mason. This means that the only characters you really get attached to are the Mason siblings themselves, since the other members of the cast don't interact with her as much. The restriction to her point of view works well to develop the central mystery of the book, too, since her limited interaction gives you a good list of suspects for who is trying to sabotage (and possibly murder) Senator Ryman.
The setting is interesting, as the author chooses to set things in a modern world where humans haven't totally lost control of the situation. Sure, there are areas that are completely overrun by the undead, but things haven't deteriorated to the point where we aren't able to get things like electricity, internet, gasoline, ammo, or groceries. There was an initial panic, sure, but after that, things settled into a routine that just happened to involve zombies and a healthy dose of paranoia. The virus itself has limitations built into it, so the only threat comes from things that are over 40 pounds in weight. This means that, unlike other zombie novels I've read, there's no risk of infection from something like a zombie squirrel or a mosquito bite, but it doesn't rule out interspecies transmission entirely.
The only criticism I had for this was the identity and motive for the "bad guy". I don't want to give anything away, but when I got to the part that revealed the "who" and "why", I admit that I did roll my eyes a lot because it was a little one-dimensional. Believable, sure, but in a way predictable. I was expecting more of a twist than what I got.
I'd recommend this book to people who liked Max Brooks's World War Z, or to young adults who enjoy stuff like The Walking Dead and are waiting for the next season to start. As a zombie novel, it's pretty tame violence-wise. There's minimal description of gore and guts, so squeamish readers don't need to worry.
I am looking forward to reading more books in the Newsflesh series. I am hoping that other books will detail how other countries and areas handled the zombie outbreak. Unfortunately, I have another library book that's due in a few days, so I won't be able to jump immediately into the second book, Deadline, so look forward to that later.
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Rough Magick - Kenny Soward
When you think of fantasy, the first non-humans you typically think of are Elves or Dragons. Some of you might think of Orcs or even Dwarves. Practically no one ever thinks of Gnomes. I mean, they really don't have the best PR team. Elves get hot actors to portray them and get to act all mysterious and aloof. Dragons fly around burning stuff and/or seeping venom to lay waste to the land. Orcs have an entire video game series that co-stars them. And Dwarves had the whole Hobbit trilogy to show off. What have gnomes had? Lawn ornamentation and a children's t.v. show about a wild animal veterinarian.
So, Kenny Soward steps forward to fill the void I didn't even realize I had regarding gnome-based fiction. In the first novel of the GnomeSaga series, we are introduced to the siblings Niksabella and Nikselpik (Niksa and Nik for short), who are outcasts in their own way in gnomish society. Niksabella has strange and unconventional ideas regarding the combination of sorcery and mechanical devices that have caused her to be expelled from guilds and the good graces of the authorities of the city of Hightower. Her latest invention might just revolutionize the Gnomish world as she knows it, but it also brings her a lot of unwanted attention from rival tinkerers and mages. Nikselpik is a practitioner of necromantic sorcery with an addiction to "bugging" (a type of stimulant secreted by insects) that Hightower reluctantly uses whenever things get too hairy for normal sorcerers to deal with. His meddling with Ultraworlders embroiled in a bitter war in dimensions far beyond (and yet a little too near) his home may have put his sister, and his world, in grave danger.
The story is paced pretty well, though it does start a little slowly. I enjoyed the complexity of Nik and Niksa's relationship - neither "inseparable siblings against all odds" nor "light and dark competing for dominance". The actual characters themselves are pretty standard, and some of the development falls along the lines of the average D&D story, but it's enjoyable nonetheless. I had a hard time following the actual war going on at the moment, but there's plenty of action that's spilling out into Nik and Niksa's world because of it. Since it's the first book of a trilogy, I'm content to let that over-arching plot unfold at a slower rate.
The only real weakness I felt that this book had was the budding romance between Niksabella and a high-ranking gnome from another town. The romance felt tacked on at best, and a like a convenient wild card to play when the author wrote himself into a corner at worst. Since there was a lot of action and development going on in this book, I really didn't think that the romantic subplot was especially necessary, but it may be important in later books, so I'll withhold final judgement until I finish the series. Who knows, maybe all of this will be tied up more elegantly in the final book.
Overall, I think this is a pretty good debut novel for a series. There's just enough complexity in the story to keep you interested and wanting to know what happens next, yet you don't need a flow-chart/family-tree to keep track of who is whom and which faction they're loyal to at any given moment (I'm looking at you Game of Thrones). Plus, it highlights an often overlooked fantasy race and makes them cool and important. I'm looking forward to future installments.
So, Kenny Soward steps forward to fill the void I didn't even realize I had regarding gnome-based fiction. In the first novel of the GnomeSaga series, we are introduced to the siblings Niksabella and Nikselpik (Niksa and Nik for short), who are outcasts in their own way in gnomish society. Niksabella has strange and unconventional ideas regarding the combination of sorcery and mechanical devices that have caused her to be expelled from guilds and the good graces of the authorities of the city of Hightower. Her latest invention might just revolutionize the Gnomish world as she knows it, but it also brings her a lot of unwanted attention from rival tinkerers and mages. Nikselpik is a practitioner of necromantic sorcery with an addiction to "bugging" (a type of stimulant secreted by insects) that Hightower reluctantly uses whenever things get too hairy for normal sorcerers to deal with. His meddling with Ultraworlders embroiled in a bitter war in dimensions far beyond (and yet a little too near) his home may have put his sister, and his world, in grave danger.
The story is paced pretty well, though it does start a little slowly. I enjoyed the complexity of Nik and Niksa's relationship - neither "inseparable siblings against all odds" nor "light and dark competing for dominance". The actual characters themselves are pretty standard, and some of the development falls along the lines of the average D&D story, but it's enjoyable nonetheless. I had a hard time following the actual war going on at the moment, but there's plenty of action that's spilling out into Nik and Niksa's world because of it. Since it's the first book of a trilogy, I'm content to let that over-arching plot unfold at a slower rate.
The only real weakness I felt that this book had was the budding romance between Niksabella and a high-ranking gnome from another town. The romance felt tacked on at best, and a like a convenient wild card to play when the author wrote himself into a corner at worst. Since there was a lot of action and development going on in this book, I really didn't think that the romantic subplot was especially necessary, but it may be important in later books, so I'll withhold final judgement until I finish the series. Who knows, maybe all of this will be tied up more elegantly in the final book.
Overall, I think this is a pretty good debut novel for a series. There's just enough complexity in the story to keep you interested and wanting to know what happens next, yet you don't need a flow-chart/family-tree to keep track of who is whom and which faction they're loyal to at any given moment (I'm looking at you Game of Thrones). Plus, it highlights an often overlooked fantasy race and makes them cool and important. I'm looking forward to future installments.
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up - Marie Kondo
After reading The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, I decided that I needed to go on a Tidying spree of my own. This...hasn't happened yet, but it will... eventually. Just to be sure that this method is one I want to pursue, I checked out Kondo's follow-up book, Spark Joy.
After the first book became a massive multi-country hit, Kondo wrote a follow-up book meant to clarify and expand on some of her points in The Life-changing Magic.... Spark Joy is more of a manual on how to do specific things mentioned in her first book. For instance, if you were baffled by the written description of how to fold your shirts to better organize them in your drawers, Spark Joy provides cute little diagrams (there are bunnies, and they are adorable) to show you what she means. There are also videos on YouTube if you are more of a visual learner (or don't like bunnies, in which case you are probably some kind of monster).
This book doesn't really cover a lot of new ground. There are some more tips about kitchen and bathroom cleaning, but some of them are a little incompatible with Western lifestyles and home-design. She does acknowledge some of this, but it's still a book primarily written for a Japanese audience. There are also references to Feng Shui with regards to how thing are grouped, which is a practice taken a little less seriously in the West.
That's not to say that there aren't any useful tips in this book for Western audiences. I did like her point about how kitchens should be organized with emphasis on ease-of-cleaning. Sure, your pots and pans might not be stacked in the most harmonious way in the cabinets, but if you can at least easily clean up potentially dangerous oil residue from around your cooking surfaces, your organization works. As always, she still emphasizes that your kitchen should be an area that "sparks joy", or makes you feel good in that space. However, minimalism isn't really a principle that can be as readily applied to the kitchen as to other areas in the house.
As in the first, Kondo gives you some anecdotes about some of her clients - one of whom is her own father. Although some readers complain about the anecdotes, I actually enjoy them. I feel like it gives the tidying a personal touch and makes it less...cold and distant. Most how-to-organize books are so impersonal and cold, but Kondo's feels more like a conversation rather than a how-to. Her method is based on experience, and as in the first, she also gives examples of previous failures in her method as she was developing it to show how it has evolved over time.
Overall, this book isn't really essential reading unless you want to get more information on the KonMarie method of cleaning, or just want to see what else she's written. It's not a method, or writing style, for everybody (like any organizing book), but it's nice to get insight into how other cultures might approach decluttering. If you're one of those people who would feel weird talking to your possessions or sniffing something to decide if it should be classified as wood, metal, or water, then this book is probably not one that you'll enjoy, and you won't get much out of it. If you're someone who is open to trying different things (from totally logical to "so crazy it just might work"), then you might enjoy this book and its methods.
As for me, I would like to apply some of the concepts of this book to my own living space. Even if you can't 100% buy into what she's saying, there are still some good takeaways from her method.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America - Erik Larson
The year is 1893, and the plains city of Chicago is deep in preparation for the 1893 World's Fair. Formerly a city known for pork processing, Chicago is intent on reinventing itself as a cultural landmark on par with Paris and New York. However, it soon became known for something far more sinister - America's first serial killer, H.H. Holmes.
The book The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America had a pretty ambitious goal. Larson wanted to talk about the 1893 World's Fair, a cultural event that had a huge impact on American culture that can still be felt today, and he also wanted to talk about H.H. Holmes, a serial killer who took advantage of the World's Fair to pursue his evil intentions. The book is divided into two separate, intertwining narratives drawn from a series of letters, diary entries, and other resources. In one narrative, Larson covers how Chicago came to host the World's Fair and the various preparations the city had to undertake to pull off the humongous event. In the other narrative, the reader is treated the the lurid details of the infamous H.H. Holmes and his murder-trap The World's Fair Hotel. There is also a third sub-narrative about a how a political assassination happened at the Fair, but it's treated as less important than it probably was at the time.
Unfortunately, this book failed to properly interweave the narratives for me. Although Larson tries repeatedly to draw comparisons between Holmes and the main architect of the Fair, Daniel Burnham, the two never encounter each other or even seem to be aware of each others' existence. Every time Burnham is brought up, the narrative focuses (entirely too much) on his partner John Root's ill health and how the stress of creating the fair exacerbated the issues he suffered from. It was a real effort to focus on anything involving Burnham's accounts, and after a while, I just skimmed those chapters. Holmes's chapters were more interesting, but then again, he is a serial killer and this case was so strange and new at the time that it's hard not to be fascinated by this disturbing person.
The book isn't without interesting stories and tidbits of information, though. As I said, the World's Fair had an enormous impact on American culture. The 1893 World's Fair is where we got the Ferris wheel, which was originally an attraction meant to rival Paris's Eiffel Tower from a previous World's Fair. The site itself was home to many artful works of architecture and landscaping, and a new-fangled technology, alternating current, was used to turn the elegant and fanciful buildings into a wondrous heavenly citadel by night. This book makes heavy use of primary resource materials, so you really get the feeling that you're right there at the Fair.
Ultimately, this book isn't what the jacket blurb made it out to be. It's interesting, but parts of it are hard to slog through. It's thoroughly researched, and what the author couldn't find out directly, he made some pretty convincing speculation of (for instance, the thoughts and reactions of Holmes's victims in their final moments). The narrative about the architects was interesting, but after a while I got tired of reading about complaints about bad digestion and what-not. As I mentioned earlier, there was a third sub-narrative about a political assassination, but honestly it was treated like a side-story, like, "Oh, this happened at the same time, too." I got the feeling that either there wasn't enough research material to work with in order to treat it more like an integral part of the story that Larson was telling, or he was told that the book was too long and he had to cut something out. However, if that were the case, I think he should have completely cut that part out instead of giving this kind of half-baked recounting of the events leading up to it.
This book was made into a movie a few years back. I haven't gotten around to seeing it, but I'm sure that they pared the material down quite a bit and linked the narratives a little better than Larson did. There is so much information in this book, and so many individual stories that you could easily spin off into, that it would make for a pretty entertaining and educational mini-series, too.
I wouldn't recommend this to casual readers, though. It's not paced very well, and sometimes it feels like a lot of information is just dumped on you like a textbook. However, architectural history buffs and casual history fans might enjoy this, as it gives a lot of detail of the event and era while also providing "characters" to latch onto and follow through from start to finish.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Onion-cutting ninjas
Stories have a lot of unique abilities. They have the power to transport people from where they are to entirely different time periods, points of view, and even worlds. They have the ability to both inform and entertain. They can distract us from our worries or help us feel like we're not alone in them. They can make us laugh, quake in terror, sympathize, hate, and cry.
But, man, I hate when a story makes me cry. It just sneaks up on you and ambushes you in the feelings. Today's post is devoted to some of those stories.
Books
There actually aren't very many books that have made me cry when I read them. Now, to clarify, when I say "books", I mean actual text on a page (or electronic...field thingy). I will cover manga in another section. I don't know what it is about books, but, although they can make me feel a whole bunch of other emotions: angry, joy, relief, etc... there's something too distant about text on a page to make me cry. There are always exceptions, and I'll go over two of them here.
The first book that made me cry was Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene. For those of you who didn't have this book assigned to you in middle school, it's about a 12-year-old Jewish girl, Patty, who falls in love with a German prisoner being held captive in her hometown in Arkansas. When the prisoner, Anton, breaks out of prison, she hides him in the storage room above the garage. Without going into too much detail, things do not go well with this plan. The part that made me cry, however, wasn't the inevitable "death of a loved one", but the aftermath of Patty's choices. In the end, she loses her freedom and her tentative place in her own family. The only person who comes to see her in prison (aiding and abetting the enemy) is her family's African American maid, Ruth. Everyone else has pretty much disowned her without trying to understand her motivations or feelings. Although you can understand her family's reluctance to associate with her, it's still a huge punch to the gut.
Another book that made me cry was Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. Kitchen was Yoshimoto's Western debut, and if you haven't read it, you really ought to because it's amazing. The story follows a grieving young woman coming to terms with the loss of her beloved grandmother. She reaches out to her grandmother's friends for support, and together they become a new family to weather the storms of loss in their lives. I read this shortly after having lost a family member myself, and Yoshimoto's description of grief hit right on the mark for me. Seriously, though, if you can get your hands on this one, do so.
Movies
There is no medium better suited to inducing a tear-fest than movies. The combination of elements - actors' emoting, musical scores, lighting, framing, color - manage to hit all of your "cry buttons" at once. Children's movies are especially devastating because you let your guard down about them. You go there thinking "there's no way a story about a bunch of stuffed animals is going to make me cry" and before you know it, the toys are on a conveyor belt heading toward an incinerator and you're bawling into your popcorn. And let's not get started on the first twenty minutes of Up.
If you're looking for a good weepy movie, look no further than Still Life. This slow-paced dramatic story chronicles the life of a councilman whose job is to look for the family members of unclaimed corpses. In this era, where anyone can connect with millions of strangers with the click of a mouse or the tap of a key, it's hard to believe that anyone could be so isolated as to have no one to come to their funeral, say a few words, or even mourn for their loss. However, even in this interconnected age, there are still people who have very few connections in the real world. John May does his best to try to find the next-of-kin of these kinds of people, and if there is no one, or no one wants to come for them, he tries to give the deceased a decent funeral based on what he does learn about their lives in the course of his research. This is the kind of movie that really makes you think about those people who might be on the periphery of your life, and it might even inspire you to reach out to those people.
Manga
When you think of manga, you probably think of action, adventure, romance, magic, and The Power of Friendship. You see those big, child-like faces and those colorful splash pages and you think it'll be a nice, light, entertaining read.
And then you read Twin Spica by Kou Yaginuma. Twin Spica is a science fiction story set "five minutes into the future" in a Japan that has tried, and failed, to send a manned mission into space. And when I say failed, I mean failed in the most firey and spectacular manner possible - the maiden launch of the shuttle The Lion crashes onto a busy market street, killing the crew and many civilians. Among those killed is Asumi Kamogawa's mother, but despite this tragedy, Asumi has dreamt of nothing but becoming an astronaut her entire life. However, the cards are stacked against Asumi - she's short, she's weak, she's poor, and her father - an engineer who worked on the ill-fated space project - bore the brunt of the blame for The Lion's failure and lost his job and any credibility he might have had. Yet still she dreams and works hard to get into the extremely competitive and exclusive high school program newly introduced into Japan with the hopes of rebooting its space program.
The story doesn't seem all that sad. I mean, sure, it has sad beginnings, but Asumi doesn't seem to be too hampered by this. However, echos of The Lion play pretty heavily throughout, and almost everyone involved in the program has some sort of tragedy or hardship going on in the background of their lives. Plus, not everyone is going to make it into space, and when someone fails, it's hard to watch them see their hopes and hard work go to waste.
That said, I still highly recommend Twin Spica. It didn't do very well in the Western market, but you can still get it as an ebook.
So, those are my Onion-Cutting Ninja stories. If you have any to share, please leave me a comment!
Books
There actually aren't very many books that have made me cry when I read them. Now, to clarify, when I say "books", I mean actual text on a page (or electronic...field thingy). I will cover manga in another section. I don't know what it is about books, but, although they can make me feel a whole bunch of other emotions: angry, joy, relief, etc... there's something too distant about text on a page to make me cry. There are always exceptions, and I'll go over two of them here.
The first book that made me cry was Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene. For those of you who didn't have this book assigned to you in middle school, it's about a 12-year-old Jewish girl, Patty, who falls in love with a German prisoner being held captive in her hometown in Arkansas. When the prisoner, Anton, breaks out of prison, she hides him in the storage room above the garage. Without going into too much detail, things do not go well with this plan. The part that made me cry, however, wasn't the inevitable "death of a loved one", but the aftermath of Patty's choices. In the end, she loses her freedom and her tentative place in her own family. The only person who comes to see her in prison (aiding and abetting the enemy) is her family's African American maid, Ruth. Everyone else has pretty much disowned her without trying to understand her motivations or feelings. Although you can understand her family's reluctance to associate with her, it's still a huge punch to the gut.
Another book that made me cry was Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. Kitchen was Yoshimoto's Western debut, and if you haven't read it, you really ought to because it's amazing. The story follows a grieving young woman coming to terms with the loss of her beloved grandmother. She reaches out to her grandmother's friends for support, and together they become a new family to weather the storms of loss in their lives. I read this shortly after having lost a family member myself, and Yoshimoto's description of grief hit right on the mark for me. Seriously, though, if you can get your hands on this one, do so.
Movies
There is no medium better suited to inducing a tear-fest than movies. The combination of elements - actors' emoting, musical scores, lighting, framing, color - manage to hit all of your "cry buttons" at once. Children's movies are especially devastating because you let your guard down about them. You go there thinking "there's no way a story about a bunch of stuffed animals is going to make me cry" and before you know it, the toys are on a conveyor belt heading toward an incinerator and you're bawling into your popcorn. And let's not get started on the first twenty minutes of Up.
If you're looking for a good weepy movie, look no further than Still Life. This slow-paced dramatic story chronicles the life of a councilman whose job is to look for the family members of unclaimed corpses. In this era, where anyone can connect with millions of strangers with the click of a mouse or the tap of a key, it's hard to believe that anyone could be so isolated as to have no one to come to their funeral, say a few words, or even mourn for their loss. However, even in this interconnected age, there are still people who have very few connections in the real world. John May does his best to try to find the next-of-kin of these kinds of people, and if there is no one, or no one wants to come for them, he tries to give the deceased a decent funeral based on what he does learn about their lives in the course of his research. This is the kind of movie that really makes you think about those people who might be on the periphery of your life, and it might even inspire you to reach out to those people.
Manga
When you think of manga, you probably think of action, adventure, romance, magic, and The Power of Friendship. You see those big, child-like faces and those colorful splash pages and you think it'll be a nice, light, entertaining read.
And then you read Twin Spica by Kou Yaginuma. Twin Spica is a science fiction story set "five minutes into the future" in a Japan that has tried, and failed, to send a manned mission into space. And when I say failed, I mean failed in the most firey and spectacular manner possible - the maiden launch of the shuttle The Lion crashes onto a busy market street, killing the crew and many civilians. Among those killed is Asumi Kamogawa's mother, but despite this tragedy, Asumi has dreamt of nothing but becoming an astronaut her entire life. However, the cards are stacked against Asumi - she's short, she's weak, she's poor, and her father - an engineer who worked on the ill-fated space project - bore the brunt of the blame for The Lion's failure and lost his job and any credibility he might have had. Yet still she dreams and works hard to get into the extremely competitive and exclusive high school program newly introduced into Japan with the hopes of rebooting its space program.
The story doesn't seem all that sad. I mean, sure, it has sad beginnings, but Asumi doesn't seem to be too hampered by this. However, echos of The Lion play pretty heavily throughout, and almost everyone involved in the program has some sort of tragedy or hardship going on in the background of their lives. Plus, not everyone is going to make it into space, and when someone fails, it's hard to watch them see their hopes and hard work go to waste.
That said, I still highly recommend Twin Spica. It didn't do very well in the Western market, but you can still get it as an ebook.
So, those are my Onion-Cutting Ninja stories. If you have any to share, please leave me a comment!
Monday, December 12, 2016
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
And now, a little thing I like to call Books I Should Have Read In High School. As the oh-so-original title suggests, these are books that are commonly on the curriculum lists in high school English classes, but I haven't read. This will probably be its own tag as this blog develops, so watch for it.
Today's book is The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. For those of you who missed this one in school, it's about an unlucky old man who goes out on a deep-sea fishing expedition by himself and nets himself The Big One. However, the fish isn't going to go quietly and drags him around the Gulf for a couple of days. I won't spoil the ending for you.
Now, I'm going to be honest with you here - I really didn't like this book. I don't like stream-of-consciousness narration, for one thing, and the story itself is pretty tedious. I mean, how long can you read about someone getting dragged by a fish that he should have cut loose before you start to root for the sharks?
But I am going to try to give this book a fair shake despite how much I despised it.
One thing I can say for this book is that its stream-of-consciousness and descriptive style really makes you feel like you, too, are trapped on this tiny fishing dinghy with the old man waiting for the fish to tire. You almost start to sympathize with him through the ordeal, too. After all, he's just trying to prove that he's still a productive member of society, and the fish/fate/the Sea is just not going to let him bring back that proof without a fight. He really has to hang in there in spite of his exhaustion, his pain, his hunger and thirst, and his boredom to wear this fish out. He's admirable -- to a point.
Towards the end of the book, and keep in mind that this is a really short book, you are ready for him to just cut the line and bring back at least some of the smaller fish he'd caught. (And for Pete's sake, stop about the baseball!) I mean, there's hanging on out of grit and guts, and then there's just being too stubborn to know when to cut your losses and try again another time. Or maybe that's just my own lack of fortitude speaking.
A lot of people try to draw parallels between this story and Biblical narratives. Maybe because I didn't pay attention in Sunday school, but aside from a few descriptive phrases here and there, I didn't see what they did. Personally, I saw this more as a Greek tragedy. A man is driven by his pride to go do something foolish and dangerous, and ultimately comes back with little to show for his efforts. If he had just swallowed his pride about coming back with a big fish to prove that he's still "got it", then he could have at least come back with a couple of smaller fish to sell at the market.
Now, I'm willing to concede that perhaps I came into this with overly-high expectations. Hemingway is talked up as being this Great Man who influenced all these modern authors, so he has a lot of reputation to live up to. Also, it's possible that he shines more in longer novels despite all the critical praise heaped upon this short novella. I'm willing to try him again in something longer, but probably not for a while.
As far as this being a high school read -- well, it does have a couple of points that make it ideal for high school readers. For one thing, it's short. If you had to read a book over summer break and you were the type of student that left things until the last few days of vacation, this is a good book to check off that requirement (providing, of course, that you can stomach stream-of-consciousness narration). For another, Hemingway claims that he didn't put any intentional symbolism into this story, so there's a lot of room for interpretation and discussion of what the book means to individual readers. If there's one thing I learned from my English teachers, it's that you can find symbolism in everything, even the most straight-foward, utilitarian piece of writing. There are probably English teachers that have written an entire thesis about how the instructions that came with their toaster is a brilliant insight into the moral structures of mankind. And, finally, like most assigned reading books at the high school level, not everyone is going to like it, but at least they will get exposure to a variety of styles and authors.
And this concludes the first of probably many installments of Books I Should Have Read In High School.
Today's book is The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. For those of you who missed this one in school, it's about an unlucky old man who goes out on a deep-sea fishing expedition by himself and nets himself The Big One. However, the fish isn't going to go quietly and drags him around the Gulf for a couple of days. I won't spoil the ending for you.
Now, I'm going to be honest with you here - I really didn't like this book. I don't like stream-of-consciousness narration, for one thing, and the story itself is pretty tedious. I mean, how long can you read about someone getting dragged by a fish that he should have cut loose before you start to root for the sharks?
But I am going to try to give this book a fair shake despite how much I despised it.
One thing I can say for this book is that its stream-of-consciousness and descriptive style really makes you feel like you, too, are trapped on this tiny fishing dinghy with the old man waiting for the fish to tire. You almost start to sympathize with him through the ordeal, too. After all, he's just trying to prove that he's still a productive member of society, and the fish/fate/the Sea is just not going to let him bring back that proof without a fight. He really has to hang in there in spite of his exhaustion, his pain, his hunger and thirst, and his boredom to wear this fish out. He's admirable -- to a point.
Towards the end of the book, and keep in mind that this is a really short book, you are ready for him to just cut the line and bring back at least some of the smaller fish he'd caught. (And for Pete's sake, stop about the baseball!) I mean, there's hanging on out of grit and guts, and then there's just being too stubborn to know when to cut your losses and try again another time. Or maybe that's just my own lack of fortitude speaking.
A lot of people try to draw parallels between this story and Biblical narratives. Maybe because I didn't pay attention in Sunday school, but aside from a few descriptive phrases here and there, I didn't see what they did. Personally, I saw this more as a Greek tragedy. A man is driven by his pride to go do something foolish and dangerous, and ultimately comes back with little to show for his efforts. If he had just swallowed his pride about coming back with a big fish to prove that he's still "got it", then he could have at least come back with a couple of smaller fish to sell at the market.
Now, I'm willing to concede that perhaps I came into this with overly-high expectations. Hemingway is talked up as being this Great Man who influenced all these modern authors, so he has a lot of reputation to live up to. Also, it's possible that he shines more in longer novels despite all the critical praise heaped upon this short novella. I'm willing to try him again in something longer, but probably not for a while.
As far as this being a high school read -- well, it does have a couple of points that make it ideal for high school readers. For one thing, it's short. If you had to read a book over summer break and you were the type of student that left things until the last few days of vacation, this is a good book to check off that requirement (providing, of course, that you can stomach stream-of-consciousness narration). For another, Hemingway claims that he didn't put any intentional symbolism into this story, so there's a lot of room for interpretation and discussion of what the book means to individual readers. If there's one thing I learned from my English teachers, it's that you can find symbolism in everything, even the most straight-foward, utilitarian piece of writing. There are probably English teachers that have written an entire thesis about how the instructions that came with their toaster is a brilliant insight into the moral structures of mankind. And, finally, like most assigned reading books at the high school level, not everyone is going to like it, but at least they will get exposure to a variety of styles and authors.
And this concludes the first of probably many installments of Books I Should Have Read In High School.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Slayers: The Ruby Eye - Hajime Kanzaka
Light novels are beginning to get a bit more attention in the Western market these days thanks to successful series like Durarara!! and Sword Art Online, but these titles aren't the first to make the jump from East to West. Way back in the mid-90s, Tokyopop and a few other companies tried their hand at bringing light novels to the US, too. They didn't catch on right away, in part I think because people didn't know how to categorize them, and also because the marketing for anime and manga was still pretty underground.
One of the novel series that was brought over was Slayers, which was the basis for the popular anime series of the same name. The anime series did reasonably well in the U.S., and still has a pretty dedicated audience here as well. There was recently a revival with two 13 episode seasons, Revolution and Evolution-R, that featured new animation and characters with some nods to previous seasons' characters. If you are looking for some good old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery fun that maintains a fairly even balance of comedy and action, I highly recommend looking up the Slayers series.
But this post is about the books. I would like to review each individually, so today I'm going to start with the first one: The Ruby Eye. This book introduces the bombastic sorceress Lina Inverse and her loyal, but somewhat dopey, swordsman companion Gourry Gabriev. Lina Inverse is travelling the world seeking adventure, fame, and maybe a little stolen treasure (although in her defense, she only steals from bandits). After a certain item falls into her hands following a particularly successful raid on a bandit camp, she finds herself launched into an adventure whose repercussions would impact the rest of her life. You see, the item in question is the key to reviving a fearsome Demon Lord, and the forces of evil would very much like to get their hands, mitts, paws, tentacles, and any other extremity on it for themselves.
Of course, Lina is no shrinking violet when it comes to defending herself or her treasures. She's a powerful Black magic sorceress - she's even mastered one of the most powerful spells in the field: The Dragon Slave. And if magic won't work, her companion Gourry Gabriev will make short work of any enemy with his elite swordsmanship and, if necessary, the power of the legendary Sword of Light. Just don't ask him to do any heavy thinking - he's really more the brawn of the pair (though sometimes he surprises you with astute observations...).
If this book sounds a lot like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, that's because Kanzaka himself is a fan of tabletop RPGs and conceived Slayers as a means of exploring some of his ideas about them. In the author notes at the end of the book, it's mentioned that he's often asked himself questions about how different types of magic could be used in creative ways.
What I like most about this series is how much fun it is. The story is narrated from Lina's point of view, and she has a lot of smart-mouthed commentary to add to the situation that's sure to get a chuckle out of the readers. The illustrations sprinkled throughout the book also help to add to its charm.
Since this is the first book in the series, is does suffer a little from pacing issues. Some adventures are glossed over a little too much, either because the author ran out of time to devote to specific fights or because he wanted to just skip closer to the Big Battle at the end. Still, there's a lot of action squeezed into just about 200 pages, so I can't really complain too much about a few missing battles with hired goons.
It's also a little bit dated, but I don't think that this is a bad thing. Lina's voice is a product of the time that this book was written and translated in, so if you hear a little bit of a Valley Girl voice in your head sometimes, just consider that part of its charm.
The other drawback about this series is that it is really hard to find. It was put out by Tokyopop back in the 90s to early 00's, so it's long out of print. I keep holding out hope that someone will rescue the license from purgatory and release ebook versions of the books, and maybe even continue where Tokyopop left off. There are 8 volumes available in English, but the series ran on for 15 volumes in Japan, plus specials and manga. Still, if you can get a hold of these books, grab them while you can. They may not be worth much, but they're a fun read.
I'd recommend these books to anyone from teens to adults. They're good, light reads that you can use to escape for an hour or two. And, maybe if enough people read and demand more of them, we'll see that license rescue that I keep hoping for and we'll get the rest of the series (I can dream, can't I?).
One of the novel series that was brought over was Slayers, which was the basis for the popular anime series of the same name. The anime series did reasonably well in the U.S., and still has a pretty dedicated audience here as well. There was recently a revival with two 13 episode seasons, Revolution and Evolution-R, that featured new animation and characters with some nods to previous seasons' characters. If you are looking for some good old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery fun that maintains a fairly even balance of comedy and action, I highly recommend looking up the Slayers series.
But this post is about the books. I would like to review each individually, so today I'm going to start with the first one: The Ruby Eye. This book introduces the bombastic sorceress Lina Inverse and her loyal, but somewhat dopey, swordsman companion Gourry Gabriev. Lina Inverse is travelling the world seeking adventure, fame, and maybe a little stolen treasure (although in her defense, she only steals from bandits). After a certain item falls into her hands following a particularly successful raid on a bandit camp, she finds herself launched into an adventure whose repercussions would impact the rest of her life. You see, the item in question is the key to reviving a fearsome Demon Lord, and the forces of evil would very much like to get their hands, mitts, paws, tentacles, and any other extremity on it for themselves.
Of course, Lina is no shrinking violet when it comes to defending herself or her treasures. She's a powerful Black magic sorceress - she's even mastered one of the most powerful spells in the field: The Dragon Slave. And if magic won't work, her companion Gourry Gabriev will make short work of any enemy with his elite swordsmanship and, if necessary, the power of the legendary Sword of Light. Just don't ask him to do any heavy thinking - he's really more the brawn of the pair (though sometimes he surprises you with astute observations...).
If this book sounds a lot like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, that's because Kanzaka himself is a fan of tabletop RPGs and conceived Slayers as a means of exploring some of his ideas about them. In the author notes at the end of the book, it's mentioned that he's often asked himself questions about how different types of magic could be used in creative ways.
What I like most about this series is how much fun it is. The story is narrated from Lina's point of view, and she has a lot of smart-mouthed commentary to add to the situation that's sure to get a chuckle out of the readers. The illustrations sprinkled throughout the book also help to add to its charm.
Since this is the first book in the series, is does suffer a little from pacing issues. Some adventures are glossed over a little too much, either because the author ran out of time to devote to specific fights or because he wanted to just skip closer to the Big Battle at the end. Still, there's a lot of action squeezed into just about 200 pages, so I can't really complain too much about a few missing battles with hired goons.
It's also a little bit dated, but I don't think that this is a bad thing. Lina's voice is a product of the time that this book was written and translated in, so if you hear a little bit of a Valley Girl voice in your head sometimes, just consider that part of its charm.
The other drawback about this series is that it is really hard to find. It was put out by Tokyopop back in the 90s to early 00's, so it's long out of print. I keep holding out hope that someone will rescue the license from purgatory and release ebook versions of the books, and maybe even continue where Tokyopop left off. There are 8 volumes available in English, but the series ran on for 15 volumes in Japan, plus specials and manga. Still, if you can get a hold of these books, grab them while you can. They may not be worth much, but they're a fun read.
I'd recommend these books to anyone from teens to adults. They're good, light reads that you can use to escape for an hour or two. And, maybe if enough people read and demand more of them, we'll see that license rescue that I keep hoping for and we'll get the rest of the series (I can dream, can't I?).
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs
If you've ever wondered what X-Men would have been like before Charles Xavier, I think the Peculiar Children series would make a pretty good indicator. If you haven't read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, then you are really missing out.
Tales of the Peculiar is a follow-on story to the original trilogy, much like The Tales of Beedle the Bard were for the popular Harry Potter novels. The short stories in this collection are curated by the invisible, but impeccably styled, Millard Nullings. The original Tales of the Peculiar consisted of a collection of heavy, hard-bound books, but Mr. Nullings has done the readers a favor by choosing only the best stories for this collection. These stories range from cautionary fairy tales to histories of famous Peculiars such as the first Ymbryne. For those who did not grow up around other Peculiars, there are also enlightening footnotes that explain the significance of certain story elements, or merely add tidbits of interesting information.
Each story is unique and imaginative, and if you didn't particularly care for the last one you read, you're sure to find something to your tastes in this collection. My personal favorite was The Woman Who Befriended Ghosts. I'm a sucker for a happy ending and stories involving ghosts, though. People wanting a story with a strong female protagonist might enjoy The Fork-tongued Princess or The First Ymbryne. Others who might want something lighter might like The Splendid Cannibals.
I would advise you to take your time going through these stories. Maybe stretch them out over the course of several days. Because the stories do differ widely in tone, you can get a pretty bad case of mood whiplash. Plus, it's just more enjoyable to read each story by itself without worrying about influence from the last one you just read. Remember, these tales were meant to be read to Peculiar children as bedtime stories (for the most part).
I would advise you to take your time going through these stories. Maybe stretch them out over the course of several days. Because the stories do differ widely in tone, you can get a pretty bad case of mood whiplash. Plus, it's just more enjoyable to read each story by itself without worrying about influence from the last one you just read. Remember, these tales were meant to be read to Peculiar children as bedtime stories (for the most part).
Friday, December 2, 2016
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
I have to make a confession. I have a bit of a clutter problem. My desk looks like a hurricane hit it. The longest I've managed to keep it clear was about a week. My closet is even worse, and let's not get started on the state of my drawers.
So, when I finally got the chance to read the best-selling non-fiction book The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, I was hoping that I might find some insight or a solution to my clutter problem. While I'm sure that her methods will work if I applied them, the real test will come when I finally get around to tidying up myself.
Marie Kondo's definition of tidying up is wildly different from what I imagined. To me, tidying up is to clear surfaces, dust a little, maybe vacuum, etc... You know, the surface cleaning you do around the holidays or when company is coming over. Kondo's definition is more like a full-scale purge. This isn't a simple thing you can do a few hours before Aunt Martha shows up for dinner this Sunday. Think of this as more of an exercise in moving meditation, because that's almost what it is.
Her method is based on many years of trial-and-error, and her own personal confessions of clutter-clearing failure at the beginning of her efforts make this one seem a little more likely to stick. She explains where and how her method differs from popular methods touted in house-keeping magazines, and why she made these particular changes. Some things that stuck out to me about her method were the order that she insists things must be tidied and how each item should be handled, evaluated, and thanked individually. Yes, that's right, thanked. It's an odd idea to Western minds, but it makes sense when she explains it - each item was brought in to fulfill a particular purpose, and it is important to acknowledge that item's contribution and thank it for its service, thus allowing you to dispose of the item guilt-free.
Another idea she explores in this book is the idea that items should "spark joy" in you. In other words, you should only keep things around that make you feel happy to have. I guess this makes sense - after all, you only have so much space in the personal sanctuary that is your home/room, so why shouldn't it be full of only things you love? Even if I don't get up the courage to do the full-scale purge that Marie recommends, I think that this is an idea that would be easy for most people to grasp and apply right away. Sure, you should definitely aim to do things properly - pull everything out in the correct order and handle each item individually to assess their "joyfulness" - but if you find you just can't devote that kind of time and energy immediately, perhaps asking yourself if something "sparks joy" in you before you buy it might keep you from adding to the clutter.
I got a lot of interesting ideas from this book. If I actually do manage the Kondo-style tidying on my own, I'll be sure to update you here.
So, when I finally got the chance to read the best-selling non-fiction book The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, I was hoping that I might find some insight or a solution to my clutter problem. While I'm sure that her methods will work if I applied them, the real test will come when I finally get around to tidying up myself.
Marie Kondo's definition of tidying up is wildly different from what I imagined. To me, tidying up is to clear surfaces, dust a little, maybe vacuum, etc... You know, the surface cleaning you do around the holidays or when company is coming over. Kondo's definition is more like a full-scale purge. This isn't a simple thing you can do a few hours before Aunt Martha shows up for dinner this Sunday. Think of this as more of an exercise in moving meditation, because that's almost what it is.
Her method is based on many years of trial-and-error, and her own personal confessions of clutter-clearing failure at the beginning of her efforts make this one seem a little more likely to stick. She explains where and how her method differs from popular methods touted in house-keeping magazines, and why she made these particular changes. Some things that stuck out to me about her method were the order that she insists things must be tidied and how each item should be handled, evaluated, and thanked individually. Yes, that's right, thanked. It's an odd idea to Western minds, but it makes sense when she explains it - each item was brought in to fulfill a particular purpose, and it is important to acknowledge that item's contribution and thank it for its service, thus allowing you to dispose of the item guilt-free.
Another idea she explores in this book is the idea that items should "spark joy" in you. In other words, you should only keep things around that make you feel happy to have. I guess this makes sense - after all, you only have so much space in the personal sanctuary that is your home/room, so why shouldn't it be full of only things you love? Even if I don't get up the courage to do the full-scale purge that Marie recommends, I think that this is an idea that would be easy for most people to grasp and apply right away. Sure, you should definitely aim to do things properly - pull everything out in the correct order and handle each item individually to assess their "joyfulness" - but if you find you just can't devote that kind of time and energy immediately, perhaps asking yourself if something "sparks joy" in you before you buy it might keep you from adding to the clutter.
I got a lot of interesting ideas from this book. If I actually do manage the Kondo-style tidying on my own, I'll be sure to update you here.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
Out-of-work librarian Simon Watson has a problem. Well, aside from being unemployed, that is. No, Simon's problem all starts with a water-logged book sent to him out of the blue by an antique books dealer half a country away from him. The book dealer explains that he tracked Simon down based on some information inside the book, and that it might be of interest to him because it has a connection to his mother's mysterious family. Strange provenance not withstanding, the hardest thing for any librarian to resist is a book, so he dives right in...
The book details the business dealings of a travelling circus that dates back as far as the late 1700s. As Simon reads and researches deeper, he finds a sinister thread winding through this circus's history. All of its mermaid acts have all drowned on the same date - July 24. As if that weren't coincidental enough, his own mother - also a former circus mermaid - also drowned on July 24th. With the date fast-approaching, his concerns turn toward his estranged younger sister, a fortune teller in a traveling circus that just so happens to be in town.
This book was a difficult one to put down. In addition to the summary outlined above, there's at least two other sub-plots and a parallel story in every other chapter that details how the curse on Simon's family started. I mean, this author intended to debut with a bang, and for the most part, I think she did.
I have to confess, I have a weak spot for "mysterious book" stories. Some of my favorite novels are The City of Dreaming Books, The Book of Heroes, and The Neverending Story. If there's a "mysterious book" involved, you've already got my attention. You never know where any book is going to lead you, but a "mysterious book" guarantees a wild ride.
The other thing that grabbed my attention in this story was the variety of characters. I've seen books with librarians; I've seen books with circus performers; I've never seen anything that tries to combine the two characters. You would think that it would make for a clashing combination, but it actually works really well. Swyler does a good job of fleshing out personalities and balancing them against each other. There are some characters I would have liked to have seen more development of, in particular Simon's love interest, but given how much is going on in the story, it's hard to see when there would have been an appropriate time to put that in.
The book has some fairly good pacing and switches between present-day and the 1700s every other chapter or so. This means that the stories develop at a pretty steady pace and rise and fall for the most part in a natural rhythm. However, once the action takes off, it rushes through the climax to a somewhat unsatisfying ending. The pace was a little more measured in the plotline taking place in the 1700s. I wonder if Swyler intends to pick up these characters again at a later time.
I enjoyed all the little twists and turns Swyler added into the story to keep it too hard to guess what would happen next. In particular, I liked seeing how everyone involved was connected in some way through the circus. It was actually almost believable that people from so many different walks of life would still be drawn together by their past associations. Other little coincidences, such as how Enola just so happens to be back in town so close to the Fated Date, are a little more strained, but still work within the confines of fiction.
My only complaint about this book is that the romance between Simon and Alice felt a little weak. I almost felt like they were obliged to become lovers because they were "childhood friends" and it would add extra tension to their relationship on top of everything else that was going on. I didn't feel like it enhanced the story at all.
Overall, I think that this book would make an excellent book club read. There are interesting themes to explore here that would make for some great conversation and debate material. I'm looking forward to future writings by this author.
This book was a difficult one to put down. In addition to the summary outlined above, there's at least two other sub-plots and a parallel story in every other chapter that details how the curse on Simon's family started. I mean, this author intended to debut with a bang, and for the most part, I think she did.
I have to confess, I have a weak spot for "mysterious book" stories. Some of my favorite novels are The City of Dreaming Books, The Book of Heroes, and The Neverending Story. If there's a "mysterious book" involved, you've already got my attention. You never know where any book is going to lead you, but a "mysterious book" guarantees a wild ride.
The other thing that grabbed my attention in this story was the variety of characters. I've seen books with librarians; I've seen books with circus performers; I've never seen anything that tries to combine the two characters. You would think that it would make for a clashing combination, but it actually works really well. Swyler does a good job of fleshing out personalities and balancing them against each other. There are some characters I would have liked to have seen more development of, in particular Simon's love interest, but given how much is going on in the story, it's hard to see when there would have been an appropriate time to put that in.
The book has some fairly good pacing and switches between present-day and the 1700s every other chapter or so. This means that the stories develop at a pretty steady pace and rise and fall for the most part in a natural rhythm. However, once the action takes off, it rushes through the climax to a somewhat unsatisfying ending. The pace was a little more measured in the plotline taking place in the 1700s. I wonder if Swyler intends to pick up these characters again at a later time.
I enjoyed all the little twists and turns Swyler added into the story to keep it too hard to guess what would happen next. In particular, I liked seeing how everyone involved was connected in some way through the circus. It was actually almost believable that people from so many different walks of life would still be drawn together by their past associations. Other little coincidences, such as how Enola just so happens to be back in town so close to the Fated Date, are a little more strained, but still work within the confines of fiction.
My only complaint about this book is that the romance between Simon and Alice felt a little weak. I almost felt like they were obliged to become lovers because they were "childhood friends" and it would add extra tension to their relationship on top of everything else that was going on. I didn't feel like it enhanced the story at all.
Overall, I think that this book would make an excellent book club read. There are interesting themes to explore here that would make for some great conversation and debate material. I'm looking forward to future writings by this author.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
The demoralization of science fiction
It has been observed before by more professional types than myself, but, sci fi has gotten depressing these days. Every time you turn around, the world is ending and a rag-tag group of survivors must "Row, Row, Fight Za Powaa" to overthrow an oppressive regime and restore a decaying society.
Sci Fi has been heading this way since the late nineties. Back then, if you remember, we were terrified of the Y2K bug, the predictions of Nostradamus, and the Book of Revelations. One of the most popular book series of the time was the Left Behind series and its various spin-offs.
And, since 2001, it could be argued that we were, in fact, living in The End Times. After all, since 2000, we have war, widespread disease, social unrest, economic decline, corruption, and reality t.v., so we must be. We're so caught up in dealing with all of these problems, there seems to be no time for optimism for the future.
But isn't this when we should be trying to be optimistic for the future? Shouldn't we be encouraging exploration and scientific advancement in the imaginations of readers all over the world? When our "escapist" mediums do nothing but reflect our already bleak view of the world, doesn't that just trap us in an echo chamber of Doom and Gloom and Learned Helplessness?
This is not to say that sci fi has always been happy and cheery. They still address major issues and project what the future would be like if these issues continued, be they social, environmental, or political. Even so, there was always a glimmer of hope. Yes, the Earth may have become uninhabitable due to a thick cloud of smog and trapped bacteria, but we're trying to fix things, or we're starting over on a new planet with the lessons we've learned from Earth. Yes, we might have been invaded by interstellar Orkin exterminators, but we humans are willing to fight to survive and stand our ground.
What kind of glimmer of hope is there in dystopian fiction? Why do we need to wait for some "chosen savior" or "plucky heroine who goes against the order of things" in order to find hope in the future? Why place so much stress on an individual? Have we, collectively, become so beaten down that we can't overcome our own inertia?
So, I challenge the aspiring sci fi writers who might read this - change the narrative. Bring the hope for the future back into sci fi. Don't wait for the present to get better before you can imagine a shining future.
Sci Fi has been heading this way since the late nineties. Back then, if you remember, we were terrified of the Y2K bug, the predictions of Nostradamus, and the Book of Revelations. One of the most popular book series of the time was the Left Behind series and its various spin-offs.
And, since 2001, it could be argued that we were, in fact, living in The End Times. After all, since 2000, we have war, widespread disease, social unrest, economic decline, corruption, and reality t.v., so we must be. We're so caught up in dealing with all of these problems, there seems to be no time for optimism for the future.
But isn't this when we should be trying to be optimistic for the future? Shouldn't we be encouraging exploration and scientific advancement in the imaginations of readers all over the world? When our "escapist" mediums do nothing but reflect our already bleak view of the world, doesn't that just trap us in an echo chamber of Doom and Gloom and Learned Helplessness?
This is not to say that sci fi has always been happy and cheery. They still address major issues and project what the future would be like if these issues continued, be they social, environmental, or political. Even so, there was always a glimmer of hope. Yes, the Earth may have become uninhabitable due to a thick cloud of smog and trapped bacteria, but we're trying to fix things, or we're starting over on a new planet with the lessons we've learned from Earth. Yes, we might have been invaded by interstellar Orkin exterminators, but we humans are willing to fight to survive and stand our ground.
What kind of glimmer of hope is there in dystopian fiction? Why do we need to wait for some "chosen savior" or "plucky heroine who goes against the order of things" in order to find hope in the future? Why place so much stress on an individual? Have we, collectively, become so beaten down that we can't overcome our own inertia?
So, I challenge the aspiring sci fi writers who might read this - change the narrative. Bring the hope for the future back into sci fi. Don't wait for the present to get better before you can imagine a shining future.
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