A Little Like Waking (Adam Rex)

A Little Like Waking
Adam Rex
Roaring Brook Press
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Zelda's day started like any other. She woke in her bedroom in the little yellow house, she heads out through the front gate whose creaking sounds like a friendly frog, she went jogging into town past the frisbee-playing boys by the couthouse, she smiled at the clown in the laundromat, and suddenly realized she had a geology (or is it geometry?) quiz in five minutes... but today, she grabs a bike and tries to beat the bell to class, cutting in front of a car - and that's when she sees him: a teen boy, who tries to warn her of the danger she doesn't see until nearly too late.
A boy she has never seen before - and she knows every face in town like her own fingerprints.
The next morning, she wakes again in her bedroom, and goes out again on a jog... but she can't shake the memory of the stranger, or the sense that something isn't quite right about the world around her. It's all a little too perfect, like something out of a dream. But is she the dreamer, or is someone else - and what will happen when it's time to wake up for real?

REVIEW: It's very, very seldom that a book can pull of a "dream" ending without becoming an automatic wall-bouncer. It's a different matter entirely when the book admits it's a dream upfront - and when the question at its heart is who the dreamer is, and what the dream is trying to accomplish for them, what story their mind needs to tell itself, before they're allowed to wake. This makes the dream and its inhabitants matter, and allows the reader to invest in them and their fates. With frequently surreal imagery and imaginative turns of phrase, Adam Rex captures the peculiar nature and illogical logic of dreams, which can so often seem much, much bigger than the insides of a single human mind, populated by people and places that can feel as solid as anything in the waking world - complete with sounds, textures, scents, tastes, and even (despite the popular trope) pain.
From the first ring of her alarm clock, Zelda's world is both too perfect and too strange to be truly real, but she never thinks to question it, or question how everything and everyone seems to center on her; the town's inhabitants all know her by name even if she doesn't know them, and the Frisbee bros remind her of the test she's about to miss... even though part of her knows she's graduated already. But it's only the arrival of the stranger, Langston, that shakes her complacency... that, and when she hears a strange, deep, disembodied voice that nobody else hears. The arrival of Patches the cat, who not only died when she was a young girl but now speaks with a decidedly philosophical and poetic bent, also helps tip the scales, as does the realization that she cannot seem to read long stretches of words; letters can be jumbled, and she might read small bits and pieces but they change as often as not when she blinks or looks away. When she alerts the rest of the town to the fact that they're all in a dream, chaos erupts; every one of them believes themselves to be the dreamer, as they all have lives and memories... and the rest cannot handle the idea that they and their memories aren't real, because they are so very real to themselves. Zelda is certain she's the one - doesn't everything in this place seem to center on her? - but Patches also makes convincing arguments, and neither can entirely rule out the shy boy Langston. But this dream has been going on an awfully long time, and grown impossibly complex; surely something must be very, very wrong with whoever is dreaming this world into being. Thus, Zelda determines to find a way to wake up, accompanied by Patches and Langston. Thus begins a trek to the edge of the dream... but any mind that has stayed this deep in slumber is not one that wants to face the waking world, and innumerable distractions and obstacles soon emerge. As the trio travel and navigate challenges, they continue to wonder which of them is the real person, or if any of them are; it's entirely possible that each of them is just a fragment of the dreamer, bits and pieces of their personality given independent form, either to work through something or simply through the random dance of neural electrical firings in a possibly-damaged brain.
Even given the inherent peculiarity of life in a (literal) dream world, the story managed to keep my interest and make me care about the characters (especially Patches) - even knowing that some (or even all) might not "survive" the ending. Given how hard they work for the sake of the dreamer, the lengths they go to in order to unravel each complication and persist in their quest to wake up, slowly piecing together what happened to create a dream this deep and determined to persist, it becomes a true quest requiring true sacrifice... and even if they aren't all "real" in a conventional sense, they're more than real enough to do their part, and some spark of them may well live on (skirting spoilers, the events of the dream and what the dreamer experiences and learns do indeed matter in the waking world, so it wasn't all wasted effort; some parts of the dream, therefore, do live on beyond the end of the dream itself, and in some way always will).
As a closing note, one point where Rex "failed" in capturing dream logic is where the dream characters don't recognize that they're not real when confronted. In my experience, you never ask a someone in a dream if they're real if you don't want to know, because they will tell you the truth (and it will depress you far more than it will them, because danged if some of the best people I meet aren't in my own dreams).

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An Enchantment of Ravens (Margaret Rogerson)

An Enchantment of Ravens
Margaret Rogerson
Margaret K. Elderberry Books
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Romance
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: The town of Whimsy exists in a perpetual summer, thanks to its proximity to the fairy courts and the influence of the Alder King. The immortal fair folk cannot get enough of crafted works - art, poetry, anything worked and shaped and made, even cooked food and brewed drinks - for all that they themselves cannot hold so much as a frying pan without risking death. In exchange for these works of mortal hands, they pay in kind with enchantments and blessings... though, as in anything related to the fae, one must be very careful what one asks, and how one asks it, lest a loophole be found. One must also be careful not to give offense, be impolite, or otherwise imply that life in Whimsy can feel less like a privilege and more like a trap... not even when the odd monster borne in the magical woods ventures into town and kills locals. Above all else, one must never delude oneself into believing that one is in love with a fairy; the Good Laws of the Alder King strictly forbid relations, with death for any offender.
A gifted artist since she could hold a brush, seventeen-year-old Isobel is renowned through the town of Whimsy and the fairy courts for her portraits. When her reputation spreads as far as the reclusive Rook, the Autumn Prince who has not been seen in the mortal realm for centuries, some see it as a testament to her skill and the greatest of fortune; after all, the more powerful the fair folk, the greater the gifts they might bestow. But ever since her parents were killed by a magical beast, Isobel has known better than to consider dealings with fairies as fortunate in any way, or to be tempted by their more extravagant promises; for payment, she keeps to strictly practical, useful enchantments, such as blessings on the household chickens or protections for her family. With the many immortals she has painted, the countless hours she's observed them, she knows better than anyone just how inhuman and empty they truly are within.
Rook is nothing at all like any fair folk she has painted before - but it's not until she paints his picture that she realizes why. Her brush captures the sorrow she sees deep in his amethyst eyes - and one thing no faerie ever shows, or would even admit to experiencing, is a mortal emotion. Rook is enraged, and demands she fix the "flaw" - snatching her away from Whimsy and bringing her into the heart of the fairy realm to do so. But a greater threat lurks here, in the endless woods and cruel courts, one that turns Isobel and Rook into unlikely allies... and, before either realizes it, the two become something more to each other, something that violates the Good Law itself.

REVIEW: There is no shortage of "romantasy" on the shelves these days, just as there's no shortage of fairies. This title, however, manages to avoid the more obvious traps many of those books fall into, presenting a reasonably competent heroine and fairies who retain the sharp edges and inscrutable, dangerous nature that makes relations with the fair folk - even casual meetings, let alone love affairs - so deadly.
In many books with the fae, there's an inherent power imbalance; aside from the usual weakness to iron, the fair folk are ageless, physically and mentally superior, innately magical, and unburdened with anything like what a human would recognize as morality (even if they are sometimes encumbered by their own peculiar customs and rituals), against which humans stand little chance. Here, however, mortals hold a couple advantages that puts them closer to a level playing field (if still often outmatched and easily duped by fae illusions and cunning). The biggest of these is humanity's ability to craft items, to change and shape natural things, something that is so antithetical to faerie nature that they could die if they even attempted to write a single letter or hold a sewing needle. Fairies can (and do) covet crafted items, but can never make them themselves, a "magic" they can never possess - and they burn with envy, even as they lust after mortal craftings. The other advantage, which can also be a disadvantage, is of course the range of human emotions. Fae have something like emotions, but not in a way humans readily recognize most of the time; more often than not they're simply mimicking or emulating rather than experiencing such things as joy or sorrow (though they do seem to have quite genuine streaks of envy and anger). The fairies see mortal emotions as weaknesses, and one thing their society will not tolerate is weakness in any form. This is what makes Isobel's "mistake" in Rook's portrait such a source of scandal and rage; by showing the sorrow that she saw in him, she was potentially showing the faerie world that the Autumn King is weak. Thus, his fury and his demand that she make it right... but there are games afoot in the courts that even Rook misjudges, putting them both at risk.
Neither Rook nor Isobel are perfect, and both make mistakes and missteps that cost them, but they also learn along the way. The dangers the two face are real, tangible, and occasionally terrifying; the fairies are only barely human beneath their glamours, more akin to predatory ghouls or conniving demons who delight in tormenting mortals even as they obsessively emulate humans - in part to mock, or simply to study their favored prey, but also out of an unspoken yearning toward something they can never truly understand. Only a few, such as Rook, even come close. The relationship between the two has sparks early on, but takes some time to spark a flame, yet even in the midst of attraction Isobel is never a helpless victim of her own hormones or emotions. She can (and does) step back and recognize what an unwise idea it is, even if the heart ultimately cannot be restrained. Rook, too, never forces the issue, and is as surprised as she is to find his own heart betraying him.
The story hits a few lulls and can be a touch repetitious in its description of fae cruelties, drawing out some torments and scenes, but only really stumbles with a climax that draws itself out a little too long for its own good. There are also some elements that were set up to be more meaningful or plot relevant than they ultimately were, such as Isobel's little "sisters", March and May; they used to be a pair of goats until fairy magic intervened, and they retain several goatlike traits (a streak for mischief and a tendency toward destructive behavior and even head-butting), but ultimately don't contribute anything meaningful to the plot. I get the feeling there's supposed to be a sequel at least, which may explain why parts of the ending feel unfinished. But it does more right than it does wrong, so I ended up forgiving it some weaknesses and gave it the solid fourth star in the ratings it came close to losing.

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Surely You Can't Be Serious (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker)

Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!
David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker
St. Martin's Press
Nonfiction, Autobiography/Media Reference
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Few movies can claim to have changed the entertainment landscape like the 1980 classic Airplane!. From the opening shot of the jet plane tail slicing through the clouds to the menacing chords of the Jaws theme to the final roll of credits riddled with humorous inserts, it redefined what comedy could do and changed the lives of most everyone involved, not to mention numerous fans in the decades since its premiere. But long before Ted Striker developed his drinking problem or Captain Oveur asked a young boy about gladiator movies, the Zucker brothers and their best friend Jim Abrahams were just three Midwestern boys who loved to laugh and make others laugh. This is the story of the long, unlikely journey that took them from Wisconsin to Los Angeles, from improvised stage shows to the silver screen, and from obscurity to international stardom.

REVIEW: Airplane! was a staple of my childhood (as was the criminally short-lived and ahead-of-its-time TV series Police Squad!; I never found the Naked Gun trilogy quite as consistently funny as the series, myself, even before the whole O. J. Simpson thing soured me on rewatches); it's one of those movies where one can watch it a dozen time and catch something new each and every time through. For all the silliness, though, it would've fallen flat on its face if it hadn't been so meticulously and artfully constructed, from the script to the cinematography to the casting choices to the score. This book delves into how the trio learned to work together, hone their sense of humor and writing skills via live theater, and not only survived the culture shock of 1970's Los Angeles but managed to eventually live every creator's dream of landing a studio contract and filming a genre-defining hit. It was not a straightforward road, nor was it one without doubts or setbacks or mistakes.
The story wanders somewhat in the telling; written in something like screenplay format, the book is a dialog, like an interview where the trio are sitting down to tell their story to the audience of the reader. Along the way are extras and interjections from colleagues, cast members, executives, and several people whose lives were influenced by Airplane!. (The audiobook features several guest narrators for these different "parts".) As a result, the story sometimes feels a little scattershot, moving back and forth and wandering on tangents before getting back to the main "plot" of the making of the movie. This lack of focus almost cost it a half-star, but overall it's an interesting examination of the movie that never should've existed, and a lost era when Hollywood still embraced unique, new voices and was willing to take risks. The Zuckers and Abrahams are right that Airplane! couldn't have happened today. (Though I personally always take such assertions with a little grain of salt; no envelope-pushing classic could be "made today", in part because different times have different envelopes and in part because they themselves already pushed that envelope, so any attempt to make the same thing again isn't close enough to the edge anymore to push anything. That doesn't mean today's metaphoric envelopes don't still have edges to be pushed, or that nobody is capable of pushing them, though in today's climate of endless franchises and remakes, it's far less likely a major studio would back such an experiment. But I digress...) The whole is an intriguing glimpse of cinematic lore for anyone who enjoys the film or the history of cinema and comedy.

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The Aeronaut's Windlass (Jim Butcher)

The Aeronaut's Windlass
The Cinder Spires series, Book 1
Jim Butcher
Penguin
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Captain Francis Grimm used to be a rising star in the airship forces of Spire Albion, one of the massive, ancient structures towering over the deadly, mist-shrouded outside world to pierce the skies. But when a mission went terribly wrong, Grimm was left holding the bag, drummed out of service... officially, that is. As a privateer aboard the vessel AMS Predator, Grimm and his loyal crew still serve the spire in their own way. After a chase left the Predator damaged, Grimm finds himself out of commission, on the hook for repairs he can ill afford.
Then, in a bold surprise attack, ships from Spire Aurora descend on Albion, the opening salvo of an audacious plan.
Along with green Guard recruits Gwendolyn Lancaster, headstrong daughter of a wealthy family whose crystal-growing vats literally keep the spire powered and the airships aloft, and Bridget Tagwynn, whose lack of social graces and manners nearly bring disaster on her before she's officially in uniform, the feline-eyed warrior-born Benedict Sorellin-Lancaster, and the cat prince Rowl of the House of the Silent Paws, Grimm and the crew of the Predator are recruited by Albion's secretive Spirearch Addison for a secret mission. Aurora's attack not only left an unknown number of enemies hiding in the labyrinth of ventilation shafts and other hidden places of the spire, but has to have been coordinated and planned by a traitor - hence, Addison turning to those outside the existing military ranks or too fresh to have been compromised. With them also travel two peculiar Etherealists, Master Ferus and apprentice Folly, whose ability to perceive and manipulate the ethereal currents of the world may be instrumental to untangling the real reason for Aurora's attack. But what the mismatched crew discovers is something far bigger and more dangerous than mere war... at least, mere war among earthly humans. This may be the beginning of the end of the spires themselves, and all the life that depends on them.

REVIEW: The Aeronaut's Windlass promises a steampunk-flavored swashbuckling yarn in a fantastic world of crystal-powered airships, vast towers, a colorful culture with such oddities as "warrior-born" people born with recessive catlike genes granting them superior strength and agility (but which are seen as slightly less than fully human), and sapient, mildly evolved cats with their own culture and politics and language, set on a world that 's either in a far enough (or alternate enough) future as to be near-unrecognizable - populated with monsters that have a dash of Lovecraftian inexplicability and malice - or is an actual alien planet. Like many a swashbuckler before it, it incorporates liberal dashes of nautical warfare into its airship battles, and it populates itself with a cast that is not entirely unexpected or excessively complex: the brilliant captain wrongly maligned by politics yet loyal to the flag, the hotheaded young noblewoman eager to prove herself beyond the shelter of family privilege, the less sophisticated newcomer who partially exists for the world and its rules to be explained to (as a proxy for the reader), and so forth. This is, indeed, pretty much what Butcher delivers.
From the opening pages, the story offers adventure and action and danger, managing to trickle in the strangeness and the peculiarities of its setting - a world where unseen "ethereal" currents act on airships like wind, "gauntlets" discharging rays of bright heat in lieu of firearms and "guns" that work on steam rather than traditional gunpowder, and where the ground beyond the towers is shrouded in perpetual mist and populated with dangerous beasts - between thrilling bursts of action and the odd touch of humor and humanity. If the people and situations are somewhat familiar from other, similar swashbucklers and action stories, well, there's a reason such things become tropes: they tend to work more often than not. For the most part, the story's interesting enough and the characters have sufficient chemistry that it's easy to gloss over the sense of familiarity (and a few instances of plot convenient developments and nick-of-time reversals of fortune). Grimm and company must navigate intraspire politics and friction, as well as interspecies tensions in dealing with the cat clans who only rarely interact with humans, as they attempt to grapple with foes who are equally cunning and dedicated to their own masters and plans. For a sizeable volume, it moves at a decent clip for the most part, only bogging down when Butcher gets a little too involved and intricate in blow-by-blows of action sequences and fights, particularly the climactic one at the end. It's more a stagger than outright stumble, though, even if it makes the conclusion itself less definitively conclusive than it might have been, and thus a little weak.
Overall, even if it's a little familiar underneath the interesting worldbuilding, I enjoyed it. I even liked the parts with the cats more than I anticipated, with Rowr and his kin coming across as distinct and intelligent characters in their own right, less stilted and stereotyped than some people portray felines. I'd be game to continue the series at some point, when I'm next in the mood for a steampunk-flavored swashbuckler with a side of clever cats.

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When Among Crows (Veronica Roth)

When Among Crows
The Curse Bearer series, Book 1
Veronica Roth
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Dymitr traveled from the old country to Chicago on a quest, seeking perhaps the most powerful witch the world has ever seen, Baba Jaga. He is descended from a long line of monster hunters, self-styled knights of the Holy Order who are determined to slay the monsters who hide in plain sight among ordinary mortals. If he were to succeed against the witch where many a knight has failed, he would become a legend... but he has another reason for his hunt, one he has hidden even from his own kin. In the uneasy company of Ala, an inhuman burdened by a deadly curse, he must find the witch before time runs out and his own people hunt him down.

REVIEW: Set in a modern Chicago with a hidden underworld of monsters, with roots deep in Eastern European folklore, there's a fair bit to enjoy in When Among Crows... but there's also enough holding it back to keep it from that solid fourth star in the ratings.
From the outset, there's an intriguing mythic feel to Dymitr and his journey, as he confronts a guardian leszy to obtain a rare, magical fern flower from a hidden grotto, with hints about the secret nature of his quest. The trail then leads to a small movie theater specializing in horror shows run by zmory, magical beings who feed on fear, and specifically to the curse-burdened Ala. So far, I was enjoying the story, as it moved at a fair clip and did a decent job crafting its hidden world, how the unseen creatures have adapted to modern America and learned to extract what they need from humans, and establishing its rules; magic, here, is based on debt and sacrifice, and there's been enough human misery and exploitation in a modern city like Chicago for a thriving underworld of mystical beings from around the world, though most of the ones Dymitr encounters are conveniently ones from his own Eastern European homeland. The Holy Order itself relies on pain and sacrifice for the magics they use to destroy the "evil" beings, creating a generations-long chain equating suffering and abuse with purity and even familial love (not to mention a generations-long chain of xenophobia and extreme intolerance ensconced in impenetrable trappings of "tradition"). These are not happy people, either knights or "monsters", and it's not always a pleasant place to be as a reader, but it is intriguing.
As Ala and Dymitr pick up another inhuman companion, the anger-eating strzygon Nico, I started feeling an itch of discontent. The events of this tale unfold over the course of a couple nights. Dymitr is an outsider to the Chicago monster community, even before they figure out his true origins. Yet it takes only a couple hours max for both Nico and Ala to bond with him to the point of being willing to defend him against their own kind... and the same for Dymitr, when his kid sister insists on following her big brother on his hunt. (She really was a pointless character, existing to pop up like a fun house ghost whenever the story needed a little jump.) There are even sparks between Nico and Dymitr. I just did not buy the speed at which this happened, given the histories and the hurts and the many secrets that linger between them all, for all that the trio aren't a bad character mix ... especially when, while the personal relationship evolution is turbo-charged, the tale itself bogs down in painful backstories and stretches of dialog and dithering when the metaphoric clock is ticking.
The ending seems to forget a key threat, drawing out a confrontation and final twist and leaving the story in an odd place that didn't seem to really fit with what had come before and what must surely come after. I know this is the first of a duology, but it did not feel like a conclusion so much as a shrug. While it was reasonably well written and I enjoyed several aspects of the story, the whole just wasn't my cup of cocoa and didn't quite work for me.

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November Site Update

A prolific month for reading, if another questionable one outside of reading... The main Brightdreamer Books site has been updated with the month's reviews. (Yes, I'm aware it's a day late. See also: questionable month outside of reading...)

Enjoy!