Lords and Ladies by Sir Terry Pratchett

Lords and Ladies
by Sir Terry Pratchett
Corgi Books, 2013 (originally published in 1992)
400 pages

LOOK! More Pratchett! I haven't forgotten about the Discworld. In fact, I think it basically stays in the back of my head all the time. I putter about my library and in my head, I am always on the watch for the Librarian. I would welcome him with a banana. I would never dare call him a monkey.

One learns all sorts of things from the Discworld, you see. I've been trying to explain these books to a few non-converts lately and I just can't seem to get it right. I'm too deep into the Discworld at this point to be objective, and while I objectively recognize that these books are not for everyone, emotionally I just can't understand why everyone doesn't adore these books the way I do.

In Lords and Ladies, we're back with the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick, who, if you recall Witches Abroad (and you should; it's one of the best) went on a trip, leaving the tiny country of Lancre to get about on her own. This, it turns out, was maybe not such a good idea. It's circle time, meaning the walls between universes are becoming thin. Those walls are there for good reason. On the other side of those walls are laughing, merry, beautiful elves. Beautiful, bloodthirsty, greedy, amoral elves.

As with most Discworld books, amid the merrymaking (some of it quite bloody) and the madcap, slapstick, and occasionally subtle humour, there are serious notes. As with Witches Abroad, Pratchett peels back the layers of stories and what they mean and what they can do, but in a different way here. Memory and its failings is part of it: it's been so long since the elves were in Lancre that no one remembers them as they truly were. They have become laughable and cute, and in some cases glamourous - because elves can make themselves look like what the humans observing them desire. The point that no one remembers the hidden horrors because all they remember is the surface beauty and class of the elves is made a couple of times. Elves are compared to cats: beautiful, classy, charming creatures when they want to be - and mercilessly cruel, deadly, and capricious, too. When all that's left are the folktales and the superstitions, the tales of heroes and villains, then it's quite possible for history to repeat itself. One knows one is supposed to leave milk out for the fairies. One forgets that's because one really doesn't want the fairies to have to come in to the house to get it themselves.

Surfaces and what they mean also make an appearance - what elves are on the surface, what each of us is on the surface. Hard to explain this more without spoilers, but let's just say that when it comes to Magrat Garlick, surfaces matter a lot. And changing the surface helps her change the interior when she needs that change the most. We've probably all been in a situation where the clothes we're wearing help us feel up to the task (or not) - at a job interview, or meeting an important personage - and Magrat suffers an extreme case in the latter part of Lords and Ladies. To cathartic effect.

In the end, I liked this book but I didn't love it the way I've loved some of the other Discworld books I've read. I'm not entirely sure why, though I did find it a bit hard to follow towards the end and had to read a couple of sections two or three times to get exactly what was going on. The danger never felt particularly acute, not in the same way it has in some of the earlier books; I always figured something was going to happen to fix the situation. The solution was telegraphed a bit, too.

But as always, saying that this particular Disworld book isn't quite as good as some of the others is like saying that coconut cream pie is all right: I might prefer pumpkin, but coconut cream is still pretty delicious. And contains enough cream to keep the fairies sated.

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

Princess of the Midnight Ball

by Jessica Day George

Bloomsbury, 2009

197 pages

Ha! How's that for reading quickly? Granted, this read is not really of the same density that Bird Sense was, not by a long shot, and shorter, but still. It proves to me that I can still read and read fast. I am not sure why speed is so important to me; I think it's that old feeling that there are a lot of books out there that I want to read, so I'd better get at it. My reading time is finite. The faster I go, the more I can read. Fast doesn't always translate to a good experience, though. Overall, I think Bird Sense was a better reading experience -- but this was a lot of fun, and that's a good thing too.

The key here is that I was looking for a book specifically like this. I wanted something light, something fantasy, something entertaining, with nothing terribly dark or dangerous to distress me. Sometimes that can translate into almost unbearable fluff. And this is a fairytale retelling, which can go horribly, horribly wrong. Happily, neither is the case here.

Galen is a soldier through and through. Born to a career soldier and an army laundress, he was fighting on the front lines from the time he was fifteen and his father was killed. Now he's nineteen and the war is over, and he's done with killing. His mother had family in the capital city, and he has come to search them out, hoping to find decent work and a place to live. He finds both with his aunt and uncle, and becomes a gardener in the extensive and elaborate gardens of the King of Westfalin.

Rose and her younger sisters are the twelve princesses of Westfalin, doomed to dance their shoes to tatters every third night to fulfill a bargain their mother made. They cannot speak of their curse to anyone, and their father is driven to distraction by their disobedience and their distress. In desperation he proclaims that the prince to discover where his daughters go to dance at night can choose a princess to marry and become heir to his kingdom.

Sound familiar? Yes, this is the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. It's been a peculiar favourite of mine for a long time, and I'm happy to say that this is quite a good, occasionally ingenious retelling; well-fleshed and convincing.

When I was a kid, there was a picture book that I believe took the tale pretty much straight from Grimm in one of its forms; I was always distressed by how the clever soldier chose the eldest princess despite the fact that it was one of the younger ones who twigged to the fact that he was following them and was obviously the smarter one. As I grew older, I came to the conclusion that the soldier and the haughty eldest princess deserved each other; he was clearly a dolt. Not the case here. Galen is clever, kind, and generous, humble and noble of heart. And he knits! (This, I thought, was a very nice, very historically accurate touch, and it ends up playing a central role in the plot.) He makes a very convincing fairytale hero. Perhaps even a little too convincing; next to the other men his age in the story, he looks practically superhuman.

Rose, as the eldest princess, is the best-drawn of that group. She is brave and practical, but also (and this is due to both the source material and the take George went with) in need of rescue. I am not always put off by this in a novel; sometimes a good rescue makes for a lovely and compelling story, and while Rose is relatively helpless, she is not constitutionally helpless. She's in a really crappy situation, she's exhausted, and she's a seventeen-year-old bearing the responsibility for eleven younger sisters, all of whom are as doomed as she and some of whom are less capable of dealing with it, mentally. She bears a lot of grief, too, and she does the best she can. I think I would have been far less convinced by this story if she'd been all warrior-princess, as fun as that might have been, and as much as I'm a fan of female characters not needing to be rescued.

I've been trying to decide why I enjoyed this book in a throwaway kind of way, but didn't love it. I think where this book fell a little short of what I would consider a stellar read was the flatness of some of the characterization. The villains, for example: there are two. The King Under Stone, the supernatural villain of the piece, was irredeemably evil, and actually fairly creepy. I thought this was quite impressive, because irredeemably evil villains are not my favourite sort. But he did creep me the hell out. It was the human villain of the piece, Bishop Angier, who didn't really do much for me. He was a strawman villain, and his vibe was less dangerous than irritating. This is a shame, because there could have been interesting, nuanced things to say with him, and there were hints of it, but we never got there. That storyline is resolved in a way that is somewhat empty, if satisfying and even a bit cathartic on the surface.

Many of the characters aside from Galen, and Rose to a certain extent, are very one-note. Unlike other books I've read where that would be a fatal flaw, it didn't destroy the whole story for me. George knows how to plot, and has added such engaging detail to the bare fairytale while keeping the heart and particular detail of the original intact (not always an easy thing to do, but beautifully done in this case) that I was happy to go along for the ride. Also, and this is possibly the overarching saving grace, it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's not trying to be something it's not.

In fact, it's such a well-done faithful fairytale retelling that I'll be on the lookout for her retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which is my favourite fairytale of all time. I've yet to encounter a retelling of this one that I think does it justice, so I'm looking forward to seeing what she did with it. She has several other fairytale retellings that will be on my radar as well. I wouldn't suggest someone go out of their way to read this, perhaps, but if you're a fan of light fairytale retellings, you'll be in for a fun couple of hours with this one.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist
by Paulo Coelho, translated by Alan R.Clarke
read by Jeremy Irons
HarperAudio, 2000
4 discs (unabridged)

I am not sure I'm going to endear myself to people when I discuss this book. There are a lot of people who are very fond of it. I am not sure I am a fan. This book is pushy.

We read this for my adventurous genre book club. It was picked by the staff member who was covering my leave -- the second book she picked that I probably would not have (the first was horror by Stephen King, which despite my admiration for the man I just could. not. do.) And I'm really glad she was doing the picking, because I am not sure I ever would have gotten around to reading this if she hadn't, and it was a good choice, I think. Incidentally, the Stephen King was a great pick, too -- the group really enjoyed it, and we had an awesome discussion despite my wimpiness. I expect my group will have fun with this one too, but for different reasons.

On the surface, this is the story of Santiago (who is only given a name once, and thereafter referred to as "the boy"), a shepherd in Andalusia who has a recurring dream about treasure near the Pyramids. He drops everything and heads off to search for it, discovering that this search for treasure is his Personal Legend, meeting some interesting characters along the way, and learning rather a lot about life, the universe, and everything in the process.

And on the surface, I should love this. I love fantasies, I love fairytales, I'm a fan of a good quest story. But overall the effect is pretty meh. It's not the fault of the audiobook; good old Jeremy Irons does his best. It's not the fault of the simplicity of the tale, which I rather liked. It's not even the fault of the religious overtones (er, "overtones" is maybe an understatement). It's the fault of the author, who wouldn't get subtlety if it jumped up and bit him (subtly or otherwise). It's the fault of the Personal Legend and the fact that we are beaten about the head with the Message that if we are working towards our Personal Legend, all the universe will conspire to help us. And fine, agree with the Message or not, but please cease beating me with it. I get it.

What I want out of a book like this is a good story, even if it is bare-bones-simple as this one, and it doesn't have to be realistic. So I got that, and for that reason I managed to listen to the audiobook the whole way through without chucking it out the car window. The characters, even if they are just sketched in, are likable and/or interesting enough. They're a bit fairy-tale, in that they're mostly ciphers with a specific purpose in the story, but that has never stopped me. My imagination is well up to the task of filling in, in this particular kind of situation, and I actually quite liked Santiago, or who I imagined Santiago to be.

I am not against allegorical fiction. If there is a message, I am okay with that, if it is done properly. Properly means it doesn't take centre stage so often as to throw me out of the story and contemplation of what other things I might find inside. Properly means that the message is incorporated into the story in such a way that it feels comfortable and natural, an outgrowth of the story as opposed to ... whatever we got here. Here, the Message was brought up so often that it felt like neon signs were flashing: "Get it? Get it? There is a design! You only have to live your best life, follow your dreams, and good things will happen! See? See? Even if it's not easy, follow your dreams and good things will happen! YES? Get it? PERSONAL LEGEND! MAKTUB! ALSO LOVE! Do you see it?"

Which... yeesh. I don't like my fiction yelling at me. I don't find it inspiring at all.

I'm glad I listened to the audiobook, although maybe in the end that was a mistake too, because I do find that anything that recurs noticeably in a written text is magnified in an audiobook. But it was an easy listen, where I might have gotten frustrated with the read. Maybe I am too jaded at this time in my life, but I did a lot of eye-rolling and muttering, and while I was never fully irritated I did start to get there at points. Maybe that's a comment on me, and maybe I should be sad about that. On the other hand, I've read books with the same themes and the same message that didn't inspire the words "Oh, come on, really with this again?" repeatedly.

I wanted to like this book. There are things about it that are quite endearing, and I can see why it's managed to remain so popular. But it wasn't the right book for me.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
by Catherynne M. Valente
Feiwel and Friends, 2011
256 pages

After reading On Basilisk Station I was kind of desperate for something that would feel more me, but I wasn't feeling like a re-read. I've had my eye on Valente's stuff for years and years now, particularly as one of the comments one tends to hear is that she writes beautifully and I am a big fan of beautiful writing that isn't self-consciously so. She's a poet, too, and in my experience I tend to really like novels by people who are also poets. This book in particular seemed like just the right sort of thing, so I ... I bought it. On impulse. I don't usually do that. But I'm very glad I did.

This book takes all the surreality and other trappings of fairytales and folktales and inserts it confidently into a fantasy tale, such that we have here something that feels, looks and smells like a fairytale, but is far, far deeper. The characters, despite appearing as though they could be the two dimensional folk we know from fairytales, develop into richer, rounded characters sometimes with only a few words. The economy of Valente's language is admirable, and what she can do with a few words is wonderful. The imagery is full and stunning and whimsical, but never without its hint of darkness -- which just makes everything shine more brightly. The story itself is inventive, new clothes hung on old frameworks and both are transformed.

September is a twelve-year-old girl who lives in Omaha with her mother. Her father has gone off to war in Europe, and her mother works long hours at a factory building airplane engines. She loves both her parents and they love her, but September feels frustrated and bored; and one evening, while she's washing dishes before her mother gets home, the Green Wind comes by flying on the Leopard of Little Breezes to ask her if she wants to go to Fairyland. It's an offer September doesn't even think of refusing. But when she gets there, it's quite clear that not all is well. A witch has had her Spoon stolen and her brothers killed. Flying is tightly regulated, and fairies and wyverns have their wings chained. And Good Queen Mallow has disappeared, replaced by The Marquess, a girl who at least has a wonderful hat.

Aside from the writing and the imagination behind the story, both of which are impressive, the tone reminded me (in a good way) of The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker. There's something restrained about it, a recognition of sadness and pain without letting those things overwhelm the story or the reader. Melancholy is present but so is wonder and joy and amazement, and they are in balance, connected and inseparable. I think this is maybe an important thing in a book written for older kids, and I think it's hard to get right.

Valente also gets the sheer volume of childhood emotions right. One of my favourite sections in The Girl Who... is when September, having had to make a number of very difficult decisions and having had a number of really difficult things happen to her, has to catch and eat a fish. And when she meets a rescuer, it's her pained confession of the fact that rung absolutely true with me. Because for me, too, that would have been the worst of the things that had happened, though to an adult it might have seemed the littlest thing. And the response of the rescuer is perfect too.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone with a bent for whimsy and wonder. It's definitely appropriate for older children; I am considering it seriously for my parent-child book club, though it would be a summer book because it's a bit long. It's also wonderful for older readers who will get quite a lot out of the story. One last little thing, that isn't that little: I have rarely met a book with such a perfect ending. I'm not doing this book justice. I can only say I'll be reading it again, and often.

Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

Witches Abroad
by Sir Terry Pratchett
Corgi, 1991
286 pages

Witches Abroad was the Discworld novel I read just before I discovered how wonderful the Discworld is. I liked it well enough to decide that I would try The Wee Free Men when the opportunity arose, so while I say that it was The Wee Free Men that taught me I love Discworld, Witches Abroad was a necessary precursor. So it was interesting to read a second time, fully enamoured with the world rather than slightly skeptical.

Let me say, too, I think this is one of the better Discworld novels I've read, and is right up there with The Wee Free Men.

Upon the death of witch and fairy godmother Desidirata Hollow, witch and wet hen Magrat Garlick inherits a magic wand and a goddaughter. The goddaughter is named Ella and lives in Genua, a fair ways away from Lancre, and Desidirata instructs Magrat that Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are not to join her on her quest to make sure that the serving girl doesn't marry the prince. Of course, that means they will (precisely what Desidirata intended) and so the three set off on a journey to foreign parts. On the way they encounter several stories run amok, and find themselves pitched headlong into a nightmarish fairytale orchestrated by a formidable -- and strangely familiar -- foe.

I love the witches. My inclination is always to say that my favourite Discworld character is the one with whom I've most recently spent time, but the truth of the matter is that Granny Weatherwax tops them all. Rincewind I love, and Sam Vimes is great, and DEATH is wonderful, and Tiffany Aching will always hold a special place in my heart. But Granny is fierce and intelligent and cranky and full of depth and maddening and flat out terrifying. I feel comfortable with her, like I'm in good, if uncompromising, hands. And this is her book, very  much, and so that makes this an excellent book for me. She has a number of moments in this book that are those rare moments in a book so on pitch and on character that they are perfect and they take my breath away.

Magrat, on the other hand, is a character I often find to be vaguely irritating and uncomfortable... largely, I think, because if I was a Discworld witch I would be Magrat, and it's not exactly a flattering comparison. She is good, and well-meaning, and thoughtful, and kind, which is all lovely, but unfortunately everything is out there on the surface; she doesn't think deeply, though she likes to think she does, and she doesn't notice things because she's so busy trying to understand. I like to think I would be a Granny Weatherwax type or even a Nanny Ogg type, but the truth is that I would be a Magrat. I will work with this, I suppose. I have a suspicion that in this world, which is spherical and orbits the sun, being a Magrat isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The book is very much about tensions: tensions between appearances and reality, between characters, between youthful enthusiasm and experience and wisdom, and between narratives and reality, to name just a few. The book is fraught. It's also really, really funny. Tension is offset by things like houses falling on witches and sly homages to (or lampooning of) familiar tales.

It's also about narratives, and how powerful they can be. Pratchett makes it explicit: fairytales and other stories are entities that have agency in Witches Abroad, creatures that, tentacle-like, attach themselves to people and events and twist them so that lives turn out in a particular way -- so that the story can have a "happy ever after." But as Granny points out, there is no such thing as a happy ending. Things keep going after the events in the story come to a close, and ever after is a long, long time. The story takes away the agency of the people involved, and nothing makes Granny Weatherwax angrier than something taking away an individual's agency to live and/or screw up their lives as they see fit.

We don't have fairytales running around amok (do we?) but we do all have narratives running in our head, stories we tell about ourselves and other people, stories about who we think we are, and who other people think we are, and how we behave in the world. These stories can be extremely powerful; they can be comforting, because we can carefully slot everything that happens to us into our personal narrative. They can also blind us to realities, and in their most vicious, pernicious form they can be incredibly destructive to ourselves and those around us. I spent a lot of time this re-read thinking about how our own personal stories can remove agency from us, if we let them and forget that the only reason they have power is because we feed it to them.

Ah, Discworld. Always making me think a little deeper than I realize I am. I'd happily recommend this to the right people (namely, fantasy fans with a sense of humour). This book pulled me out of a slump, and now that I've re-read it once and found it still excellent (perhaps even better the second time) I'll be coming back for more.

Instructions by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Charles Vess

It's probably too rarely that I review children's picture books here (um, I think I have done it once before). Being a librarian whose primary duty involves working with kids (of all ages, mind) I think I probably should be reviewing more children's books. I tend to have my favourites, the ones I recommend all the time, but I haven't even mentioned those here, either. I'll get to that.

This picture book confounds me, because I'm not sure who to recommend it to. I know that as a child I would have loved it, and I love it even more now as an adult. But I also know that there are a lot of kids (and adults) who won't find Instructions particularly captivating. It's going to be one of those books that I will feel the need to know the child extremely well before I recommend it to them. One of my co-workers and I were having a discussion about the fact that there seem to be two different kinds of children's picture books. There are those that are perfect for reading aloud, for engaging a child in a story, for going through with a group of restless children or for reading together before bedtime. And then there are the picture books that will captivate a child if they read the book at just the right time, where reading the book is a solitary pursuit, where they can stare at the pictures for as long as they want and wonder and create stories in their head, where they can savour the feel of the words on their tongue as they whisper them to themselves. The second type of picture book is the one that really opens a child's imagination up, where they feel let into a secret, amazing world where anything can happen. I think there's an absolute need for both types of books in a child's life, even though the second type can be much harder to choose for a kid because they are so much more personal than the first type.

For the child that I was, Instructions would have been just the right second type for me. The narrative, such as it is, is open and leads to more questions than answers; it reads like a poem, though it doesn't rhyme at all. It is also a little book that will mean more to older readers who understand the conventions of fairy and folktales -- which, by the time they will be able to read this book to themselves, they almost certainly will be. The illustrations by Charles Vess are stunning and intricate, providing ample fodder for fertile imaginations. They are muted and cool, unlike a lot of the picture books being published right now, which gives the whole book a slightly anachronistic feel. It reminds me very much of a nursery rhyme and children's tale omnibus I had when I was very small.

Actually, now, I said that children who can read this and have an understanding of fairy and folktales will appreciate this more, but I recall sitting with that omnibus and just drinking the pictures in, before and even after I could read the stories that went along with the illustrations. This is a book that encourages that sort of thing. So perhaps what I mean to say is that I think anyone, young or old, reader or not, can love something about this book, if they're the sort of person who believes in mystery and imagination and hidden doors and faraway lands and wishing wells.

I think it's because of this muted style that I worry about whether anyone will take this book off the shelf, competing as it is with brighter colours and bolder lines. I often do displays, and this one will make it onto every fairy and folktale display I do from now on, which always helps. While I imagine Neil Gaiman can read this aloud to whomever he wants and it would be wonderful, I don't think this would make a great read-aloud for me except perhaps to a specialized group (a colleague did a "real nursery rhymes and fairytales" discussion group with 9 - 12 year olds -- I would read this to them in a heartbeat, for example.) All that said, I haven't tried yet and I'm thinking I might. I do think, however, that this would make a wonderful keeper, a book to read at bedtime to the right child, and one to leave for them on their shelf so that they can pick it up and drink it in whenever they need to travel away for awhile.

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

I love these days off I have. I can finish a book in a day, when I get going. Nothing much else gets done, mind you, but I always feel quite satisfied to have finished a book, and a little lost once it is done. Today, in addition to getting the most fantastic haircut ever, I have finished my first book by Shannon Hale. It has been a good day. I could maybe deal with a thousand days like this one, but I might get bored. I would be decidedly less happy with a thousand days locked up in a dark tower with only one other person I don't really know and nothing but my own writing to read.

Hale is one of those authors I keep hearing about and wondering why I've never read; she seems to be right up my alley. So I grabbed this off the shelf. It seemed like the right time. I'm trying to do less "I should read this" and more "I feel like reading this today" and that seems to be working very well for me. As did Book of a Thousand Days.

Inspired by the Grimm fairytale "Maid Maleen," this story is told in the form of a journal. Dashti is a lady's maid, and her lady is Saren, a slip of a sixteen-year-old girl who is being bricked up into a tower for defying her father's order to marry Lord Khasar, a man she desperately fears. They are to stay in the tower for seven years, a thousand days, or until Saren repents and agrees to be married. Dashti agrees to be bricked up with Saren, having sworn an oath to stay with her; and Dashti, being able to read and write, keeps a record -- a book of a thousand days.

That summary is just the starting point, and does not encompass the incredible detail of the backstory and world that Hale has provided Dashti with. What's even better is the way this backstory and world and the current plot is revealed to us: the journal format is used perfectly. Sometimes we see events, sometimes we see Dashti's innermost thoughts and feelings, sometimes we get Dashti's history, sometimes we get conversations reported faithfully. Dashti even sketches, and her art is very simple but exactly the sort of thing one might find in a young woman's journal, and I think it really adds to the story.

Something else the summary doesn't get across, and something I wasn't prepared for, was Lady Saren. Who was not what I expected at all. What's interesting, though, is that she rang true, if slightly melodramatic, and after adjusting my expectations I thought the dynamic between Dashti and Saren was very well done. Dashti's optimism and fearlessness were refreshing, particularly in the face of the obstacles; her faithfulness and kindness were also lovely. Dashti bends, but she doesn't break. Additionally, the contrast between Dashti and Saren makes for very interesting characterization for the two of them.

The magic and the religious aspects were also really interesting. There was a kind of magic, but it wasn't flashy or overstated, and in fact seemed quite organic. Dashti swears by her gods, and she doesn't waver from that, either. But whether or not they hear her is something for the reader to interpret. There are never overt signs, which I think is a nice touch. Another nice touch: the culture and society of Book of a Thousand Days is based on an Eastern model, rather than a Western one. Hale lists ancient Mongolia as her big influence here, and I like that a lot. I like that she's willing to take us fantasy readers outside of our regular comfort zone and stretch a little. I like that she's willing to step out of the pack of fantasy writers to try something different, and I hope that soon becomes enough of the norm that I don't feel I have to comment on it. Until then, this book stands out as a great example.

Something else that I think is interesting is that there are a lot of wince-worthy moments; this book is occasionally like watching a train wreck, in that one can see the bad things coming, but one can't help but watch. The romantic portion of this story is a bit like that. I don't usually enjoy that sort of thing. It stresses me out. But Dashti was such an engaging narrator that I couldn't help but like this tale.

I'll be recommending this one. Oddly enough, I don't see myself immediately rushing out to buy everything Hale has written. I liked this book, but I wouldn't say I loved it. It was readable, intelligent, an interesting fantasy and a good tale with engaging characters. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more Hale, but I've got a little ways to go before I'm convinced that Hale is an author I absolutely must read. That said, I'm keen to try out Princess Academy and/or the Books of Bayern at some point sooner rather than later.

I have one of my co-workers, largely, to thank for bringing this book to my attention. The co-worker in question is rapidly becoming as bad for my TBR as the entire blogosphere combined. She talked Book of a Thousand Days up to all of us children's programmers at one of our sharing meetings. Since then, we've been taking turns with the "Hey! Have you read this yet?! Ooooh, or what about this?" It's getting rather drastic.

An Offer from a Gentleman by Julia Quinn

I think I have decided that Julia Quinn is a good go-to for vacation reading for me. Or romance reading in general. I can even, at this point, justify buying books un-seen because after three Quinn novels being a hit with me I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it. Notwithstanding the end of The Duke and I, I enjoy her storytelling capacity, her sense of humour, her characters, and her take on Regency romance. She can even wring a little sympathetic tear from me, apparently, although I'll admit I was already feeling a little susceptible emotionally when I picked up An Offer from a Gentleman. And no, this is not a sad or even melodramatic book (mostly), it just hits all the right emotional keys for me in the right places.

So, imagine Cinderella in Regency England. Imagine she's not even the legitimate child of the wealthy father, but an unacknowledged bastard. Imagine that wealthy father feels some sort of duty to his offspring nonetheless, but his untimely death complicates things significantly when he had previously married what turns out to be the stepmother from hell. Imagine the fairy godmother is a well-meaning housekeeper, and the ball is a masquerade held by the eminent Bridgerton family; and imagine the prince enchanted by the lovely stranger isn't a prince at all, but Mr. Benedict Bridgerton, the most eligible of all Bridgertons...

And that's just the beginning. Cinderella's name is actually Sophie Beckett, and she is the illegitimate child of the Earl of Penwood. And Sophie is a great main character. She's in the unenviable position of having been raised as a young gentlelady, educated with her stepsisters on the Earl's insistence, and given the various privileges involved in being gently born -- but when her father dies suddenly, any protection she had from him vanishes and she becomes a lady's maid to Araminta, the widowed countess, and her two daughters Rosamund and Posy. Araminta and Rosamund are genuinely awful; unlike some of Quinn's other villains, I could find nothing to recommend them or make them the least bit sympathetic. Unfortunately, I also have no doubt that their ilk were abundant. Still are, sadly, I'm sure. A much more sympathetic character is Posy, the younger stepsister, who doesn't really want to be horrible to Sophie but is too afraid to stand up to her mother and sister.

One thing I really loved about Sophie is that she's not only intelligent and touchingly tough, she's also very self-aware. She's got principles and she sticks to them to her breaking point. This is not to say she doesn't slip up, but she doesn't make the same mistake twice. She firmly, truly believes in herself, and I really liked that. When thing go wrong (as they always do -- no spoiler there) she's prepared to strike off and make a new life for herself on her own, and the reader believes she can and will do it, too.

Now, I did qualify "not melodramatic" above, and with good reason. This book has, in no particular order, illegitimate children, daring rescues, jails, last-minute declarations of love, fist fights, cat fights, and fevers born of driving a phaeton in the pouring rain. Strangely, none of this seems particularly melodramatic in context, although I look at that list and wonder how the heck it's not. The only point I found slightly more over-the-top than I usually enjoy was near the very end; the scene was hyperbolic, and though cathartic I just couldn't quite believe it. Small quibble.

Again, here, the big enemy is largely Society and its rules, particularly for illegitimate children, and especially for illegitimate children who happened to be women with no one to stand by them. Sophie's story has a fairytale ending, but it's a little sobering to think about how many girls like her did not.

At any rate, this book was again well-crafted, humourous, light but still intelligent fun. The dialogue is snappy, the characters are very well-developed, and the plot is ridiculous in some places but largely believable. I knew that, as with all romances of this ilk, things were going to be all right in the end. But I still felt true pangs of sympathy for Sophie and her situation. Recommended for romance readers who like their Regency with a healthy dose of modern sensibilities, and for those who enjoy a fairytale retelling without magic but aren't so sure they enjoy romance. Be aware that it's a little silly, but this one may work for you.

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart

Some books are good. Some books are special. Some books, like Bridge of Birds, end with the reader feeling like they have been given a precious gift.

My history with Bridge of Birds goes back a long, long way. Something like ten years, really, to when I was first playing around on this really cool bookstore site called Amazon. This book caught my attention somehow, and I thought it looked fascinating, but I never quite got around to ordering it. It was the first book on my wishlist, though. Years have gone by, and Bridge of Birds has remained on my reading periphery, patiently waiting for me to finally come across a copy and open it. And then about two weeks ago I was feeling like something different, something new. And this book took that moment to strike. "What about me?" it asked, politely. I plugged the title into the library OPAC, and there it was. There's only one copy in the whole system, but I brought it home with me, then sat and stared at it for a couple of days. I've always avoided reviews of this book, and I very deliberately did not read the jacket summary -- I didn't want to spoil anything for myself. All I knew about it was that there was a character named Number Ten Ox and a bridge involved. One might think with all this buildup, the years of anticipation, that I might have found this book to be a disappointment. I am so happy to report that it was not.

It was different, though. I had no expectations other than that it was set in Ancient China, and that it was a fantasy. And, thanks to Aarti, I suspected that Number Ten Ox might be a really wonderful character. I didn't know anything about any of the other characters or the structure of the story. I'm not used to reading like that; I usually have a pretty good grasp of what's about to happen and who the main characters are. Going into this pretty much blind was interesting, and because the rhythm of the writing was unusual and the setting was so unfamiliar on the surface, and I kept getting distracted by wondering how familiar with Chinese history Hughart is, because I'm certainly not, so sifting pure imagination from actual Chinese mythology isn't something I'm able to do.

After a while this all ceased to matter as I got tangled in a beautiful, precise web. I don't know how much I want to say as a summary; perhaps it will suffice to say that there is indeed a wonderful character named Number Ten Ox, an even better one (sorry Aarti!) named Li Kao who has a slight flaw in his character, fairytales and labyrinths, children in danger and ghost stories. It is a mystery, and it is a fantasy, and it's an adventure and a caper, too. For the most part it's written wonderfully, with a small bit of clumsiness here or there -- I make note of it only because it does stick out when the usually subtle foreshadowing slips, since that's such a rare case. Most of the time the writing is clever, light and often funny, and feels even more clever in retrospect.

I need to read it over again, because it is so precise. It's a little circular, coming back on itself in both action and even phrasing, such that the reader will occasionally think, I've been here before. And they will probably be right. Having been to the end and seen the knots undone now, I want to read it over to understand better, to see what I missed, and to enjoy again the careful prose and detail, and gentle humour. It's a children's story for adults, and it reflects on the power of stories, and the truths hidden in fictions and games, which is a favourite theme of mine.

I get the feeling this isn't much of a review, and I'm not quite sure how to fix it. I just think that this is a book that one should experience on one's own. Aarti has a great review as well as a very persuasive perspective on why you should read this book. Give yourself some time to sink into it, because if you are like me it will take a little while (or it might not; might just have been me freaking myself out over finally reading it after all this time) and let the story take you where it will. And be prepared that somewhere toward the ending of the book, it will reach up and grab you and not let you go until the last page is done and you'll discover not only have you stopped breathing properly, but your eyes might just be the tiniest bit damp.

Ice by Sarah Beth Durst (*with Mandy from edge of seventeen!*)

Remember that bookseller/librarian secret-taking-over-the-world thing I've mentioned a couple times? Voila! I give you my first buddy read/review, in which Mandy from edge of seventeen and I foray into the high Arctic and cavort with polar bears in Sarah Beth Durst's Ice.

My review:

I started Ice by Sarah Beth Durst with really high hopes. On the surface, it looked perfect for me: a re-telling of my favourite fairytale (East of the Sun and West of the Moon), set in the high Arctic, with a strong female protagonist who has grown up at an Arctic research station. Biological science and fairytales = two of my favourite things, so how can I possibly go wrong?

Cassandra Dasent is the daughter of an Arctic researcher, who has grown up at his research station. Her passions are polar bears and the Arctic ice, and she intends to become a researcher herself. Her mother is dead. When Cassie was little, her grandmother often told her a story: her mother was the daughter of the North Wind, who was promised to be the bride of the Polar Bear King. But Cassie's mother fell in love with a human man instead, and made a bargain with the King -- if he would protect her and her family from the North Wind's anger, her daughter would be his bride in her stead. But the North Wind did find Cassie's mother and in his fury carried her to a castle east of the sun and west of the moon, where she was imprisoned by trolls. This is just a story, Cassie knows. Yet on her eighteenth birthday, she tracks the most marvellous and unusual bear she has ever seen. When he finds out, her father goes to extremes and banishes her from the station, to go live in Fairbanks with her grandmother. Cassie's not about to go -- and she is about to test the limits of her understood reality.

The setting and description was really well done; there is a love of wild places that really shines through in this book, and a deep respect for the creatures that inhabit these places where humans can barely go. I liked that the wilderness felt so vast, so unknowable, so full of beauty but implacable, too. Cassie's love for the Arctic, for the ice, and for the bears really came through, but it's not just from her that this respect and awe of the northern wilderness is apparent -- it's embedded in the fabric of the writing.

In a fairytale, the characters are essentially placeholders. The Grimms never gave much characterization to the princesses or kings or third sons that filled their stories; they were all essentially the same, and their characteristics are determined by their station in life: step-sisters are greedy and jealous; tailors are clever and often amoral; princesses are good but often demanding and remote unless they're the focus of the story, in which case they usually have to lose everything before they can have a happily ever after. It is hard to feel particularly connected or sympathetic to these character outlines.

What I'm getting at is I had a hard time connecting to either Cassie or Bear. Cassie was funny and feisty; she had a great sarcastic sense of humour, which I thoroughly enjoyed; and she was stubborn and impulsive. Bear was kind, and gentle, and noble, and several centuries worth of patient -- but Bear especially I had a hard time getting a handle on because he seemed so remote. Both of them I felt rather removed from through most of the book, and I'm not sure why. I think it may be because though I liked Cassie a lot, there were great swathes of the book where I was really irritated with her. Her impulsiveness was just disastrous a lot of the time, and sometimes I felt it was at odds with her intelligence. The thing was, intellectually I can understand where her decisions and actions and feelings were coming from, but I didn't really *understand* them in a way that would connect me to her because I got so frustrated with her. To be honest, this may be because I am well beyond eighteen now, and those who are closer to that stage of life might have a much easier time connecting with Cassie than I did.

The other thing that really bothered me about this book is a huge, huge, book-ruining spoiler, so I'm not quite sure how to deal with this. Let me just say, I have encountered this problem before in romance novels and in a couple of cases it actually made me quit the book immediately, so the fact that I actually picked up Ice again after my WTFBBQ??! moment is a sign: Ice was good enough that I wanted to give it another chance. Also, this Incident wasn't as bad as some Incidents of the same type I've read. It's mostly about communication, and the way people talk to each other in relationships, and the fact that there are some things, big life-altering things, that need to be arrived at together, not by one partner making a decision on an assumption, no matter how well-meaning they are. And the way both Cassie and Bear handled it, before and after, was just so infuriating to me. You are in a loving relationship, you TALK to eachother, okay? Even when it's scary and hard.

If you know of which Incident I speak and wish to discuss further, or you don't know and absolutely must find out before reading the book, my email is my username at gmail.

Anyway. That review is long enough! I did enjoy Ice, and I would recommend it with caveats. It's a fun read, and in parts a really lovely read. I do think it's a read that lends itself to discussion, too, because of the Incident, which maybe is not such a bad thing.

****

And now, Mandy answers my questions:

Do you like Cassie as a character? Do you like her with Bear?
[Note from K: I have to admit, I stole this question from Mandy because I wanted to hear her opinion on it too.]

I liked Bear better than Cassie, although I'll get into this later, Cassie surprised me at times. Bear, I agree, would have been a stronger character if we saw him as a human more often. Like if he were more like a were-bear (I just wanted to write that). Because no matter how much you love someone for their mind and heart, the fact that they are in an animal suit more often than their human suit would be a problem. This is more of the fairy tale aspect of the story talking of course; when I watch Disney's Beauty and the Beast I prefer him as the beast--at the end he is less cool as a human (and also blonde? why?). I wanted to know more about his human-ness.

Cassie surprised me when, at the beginning, Bear tells her that if he answers all her questions she must agree to stay with him. She begins to ask all the questions she can think of and I was like "Woman shut up! You are trapping yourself!". Then when Bear says "ha, now you must stay" Cassie says "Well, actually I never agreed to the proposal". I was proud of her at that moment. Her character is the fiery brave kind and sometimes I thought I wasn't getting enough of her inner life. Sometimes Cassie was too much the fairy tale hero.

Ultimately I would have loved more of their life together at the castle before they split up, before Bear has to leave her.


Cassie had a "family" back at the research station; what do you think of her relationship with them, while she's there and after she's left?

It's funny, I never felt a bond between Cassie and her dad. He wasn't fully formed in my mind (even less so, her mother). I didn't get the feeling that Cassie had a home at the station. Before she leaves with Bear I saw Cassie as more of a loner and her dad as one of those busy-with-work types. When she returns, thinking to recapture her "home" life, I didn't feel that Cassie was really missed. Her family members were kind of forgettable to me. Except for her grandmother. I could have used a few more scenes with her.

Overall, I had the strong sense that Cassie wasn't giving up too much to be with Bear. And that Bear was her true "home".

How did you feel about Father Forest, and what did you think of his role in the story?

The Father Forest events, apart from the end sequence, was the most fairy-tale-like aspect of Ice. His character is nurturing and wise, but also smothering. He represents that aspect of ourselves that wants to avoid plunging into icy oceans and confronting trolls. It wants us to put self-protection ahead of other, more dangerous considerations. So it was an interesting and necessary, very fairy-tale-like, addition to the story. He was the walking question "why put yourself in danger when you don't have to?" The hardest thing for a hero to defeat is self-doubt. Heros always have to re-connect with their concern for others--to remember exactly why they want to risk themselves to save others. In Cassie's case, she loves Bear and it dissolves any doubt. She is able to properly resist Father Forest in a gripping action scene.

****

Thank you so much Mandy! This is my first "buddy review" and it's been a great experience and a lot of fun. Having the chance to talk this book over with you has given me some new perspectives on it. For one thing, I hadn't really thought of Father Forest in a symbolic way, and now he makes a lot more sense to me, and Cassie's actions in that section, too; in fact, I'd sort of been rooting (ha ha!) for Father Forest because I honestly agreed with him the entire time, even if his methods were a bit... extreme. But I agree, the path she takes makes a lot of sense in her fairytale hero role. Conclusion: I would suck as a fairytale hero.

Head over to edge of seventeen to check out Mandy's review and the other half of our conversation! Tune in sometime in the hopefully near future for our foray into getting me to appreciate the wonderful/terrible world of YA dystopian fiction.

Fables: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham; art by Lan Medina, Steve Leialoha, and Craig Hamilton

Oy. I did not mean to get sidetracked. I am re-reading A Place Between the Tides by Harry Thurston, one of my favourite books, and I'd hoped to have it finished today or tomorrow. But it just so happened that the first installation of Bill Willingham's Fables crossed my desk... and here I am, finished reading it and ready for more.

I hadn't even heard of this series before reading Nymeth's review of the second book quite a while ago. I made the recommendation, and the library has picked up the first two in the series, Legends in Exile and Animal Farm. They are, however, doing that strange thing where they disperse series to different branches; my branch got Legends in Exile and someone else has Animal Farm. I think the logic is that then more people are likely to know of the series' existence, than if they were all collected at one branch. But I habitually refuse to start a series with the second or third book, and it's pretty frustrating to have to sniff around the catalogue to see if we even have the first books (which we often don't.)

Anyway.

My mistake was in thinking "I'll just read the first page to see what it's like" which turned into "I'll just read the first chapter" and I'm sure you know where it went from there. Legends in Exile is really, really cool. And it grips you right off the top -- once you've started, there's no going back. This is a function of the story. I don't have nearly as much experience with comic book-style art as I do with manga; so the art, I thought, was fine, but it wasn't what made the book for me. I don't really have much basis to compare or contrast with. I wouldn't have picked it up based on the art, because of my own personal taste in art, I think is what I'm trying to say. But the story is a completely different... um, story.

We're in New York City, where many of our favourite fairy-tale, myth and legend characters have ended up after a devastating war back in the Homelands. Fleeing a character called The Adversary, they are exiled to our world -- the world of the mundanes or "mundies" as we're called. They have their own government and their own land, and they do their best to blend in and go about their day-to-day lives without getting noticed. Many familiar faces are here: Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf (Bigby), Bluebeard, King Cole... and we start with Jack (of giant-killing fame) running into Bigby's office reporting a terrible crime. The apartment of Rose Red has been trashed -- there's blood everywhere -- and Rose is nowhere to be found.

It's a classic mystery, and the story is tightly woven and very well done. The narrative is imaginative and the characters believable. I was particularly drawn by the politics and the personality clashes woven throughout the main tale; it's what one might suspect would happen if all the heroes and villains of fairy-tale and legend were thrown together in a desperate struggle to adapt and survive. I was particularly glad to see that Willingham gives a lot more credit to fairy-tale heroines than the fairy-tales themselves do. Snow White is actually pretty scary at points. I wouldn't want to cross her, and none of the other characters seem to want to, either. I think my favourite part in the whole thing was when she brought out the "Vorpal blade of Jabberwocky fame. Kills in one cut, snicker-snack, and all that?"

Although, to be honest, I didn't think her character was quite as well done as some of the others; I think she's meant to seem deeper than she felt to me, but she seemed like a bit of a stereotypical ball-busting "woman in a man's world" kind of character, whereas some of the others (Bigby especially) seemed to have a bit more depth. That could just be a function of the tale focusing pretty exclusively on Bigby. Or the fact that I think Bigby's a superlative character, and I only loved him more after reading the short story by Bill Willingham at the end of the book.

I can't say much without giving things away, but I will say this: throughout this entire story, Willingham and the artists manage to cultivate both a melancholy and an unease that is much larger than the story at hand. Though the current mystery is resolved, there's still a sense that something much larger is happening, something much larger is at stake. I couldn't tell you where exactly that sense of atmosphere comes from, but I am incredibly impressed with it. It's subtle and rich and to be able to portray that atmosphere without beating us over the head with it is very impressive.

The whole thing is rather intense, and I can't quite decide whether I need to get Animal Farm right this minute, or whether I need to take a bit of a break and let myself breathe for a bit. I'm also thinking I'd better get on ordering the next books or I'm going to regret the delay.

The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley

I was in the middle of some Serious Reading, a biography of Margaret Wise Brown, when one of my library patrons passed a book called The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy-Tale Detectives over the counter. How could I resist? Mystery, female protagonists, fantasy and fairytales. It's all my kryptonites rolled into one book. Deadly.

The sisters of the series title are Sabrina and Daphne Grimm, descendants of the Grimm brothers we all know and love (or at least, I know of them, and love the English translations of the stories they collected). After their parents disappear, they become orphans, and the book starts as they are off to live with the grandmother they thought was dead, Relda Grimm. And one of my favourite fiction themes is central to this book: fairy-tales aren't just stories made up to scare kids into piety and obedience -- they are real. The characters are real and the stories really happened, and the Grimm sisters find themselves embroiled in a mystery involving a marauding giant, a magic mirror, vicious pixies, and a Prince Charming who may or may not be charming at all.

As the first of a series, I did get the impression that some of the characters need a little developing. Charming, for example, seems wildly uneven throughout the book. Mr. Canis, too, is a little thin at first (sorry to those of you who have read these books -- the pun was irresistible) although he is supposed to be a mysterious figure; I believe the fifth book in the series is all about him. I think I understand the reasoning behind the fluctuations in character in both cases, but particularly Charming strikes me as more deeply inconsistent than necessary.

Each of the three Grimms is quite well-realized from the start. I adore Daphne. Sabrina is difficult, and difficult to like at first, which makes reading a bit of a challenge because she is main character and our third-person narrator. But one also has a lot of sympathy for her, and understands that she's been through an incredible ordeal over the year and a half before the book begins (which, thankfully, Buckley never belabours). I kept reading partially in hopes that she would come around, and she does, although not until too late. "Until too late" is a theme for Sabrina, actually. I suspect my main nitpick -- that the foreshadowing is often more like a forebludgeoning -- is made a little more annoying based on the fact that Sabrina seems to make obviously bad decisions. I understand that this is a writing device, but I still found it a bit tiresome. The right decisions are obvious to the reader because the clues are there quite plainly for us to see, and we wonder what the hell Sabrina is thinking when she makes bad decisions. It doesn't make her likeable, it makes her frustrating. I can, however, see that some people (especially children?) may appreciate the appeal of covering their eyes and going "Oh noes! What happens next?!" Or perhaps as an adult, I don't realize that the clues are not as obvious as they seem to me? Most kids I know are at least as fast on the uptake as I am, though.

Despite the forebludgeoning, there's a bit of a twist partway through that works very well. I'm not sure how much to say about this -- I don't want to give anything away. A discerning reader will, of course, understand that things are never as simple as they seem. The last third of the book was a very fast read for me, as I did want to know what happened (I was pretty sure that no one got squashed by a giant, but you never do know). And then there's the overarching mystery still to be solved: Who kidnapped Henry and Victoria Grimm? Where are they? And who, or what, is the Scarlet Hand?

I quite enjoyed this story for a quick romp into the fantastic, and I'll definitely be picking up the next in the series, The Unusual Suspects. Puck, the obvious foil for Sabrina, is almost certain to take a larger role in the next book (actually, I'm hoping we'll see quite a bit more of him, because along with Daphne, I liked him best). I suspect this particular series would be a great recommendation to those who are suffering from Life After Potter.