Crocodile on the Sandbank
The Amelia Peabody series, Book 1
Elizabeth Peters
Grand Central Publishing
Fiction, Adventure/Historical Fiction/Mystery/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Amelia Peabody is a woman who knows her own mind and isn't afraid to express it, which does not make her particularly popular in the social circles of 1880's England, but she's never much cared what others think of her. What she does care about is history, thanks to her late father; now that he has passed and left his fortune to her, she intends to travel to all the places she read about in his library, the ancient wonders of the classical world. She does care enough about propriety to bring along a companion - unconventional as she is, she knows it would only invite trouble to travel alone - but illness sends the woman packing just as they reach Rome, leaving Amelia in a pinch. Then she happens upon Evelyn Barton-Forbes, a young lady in need of a companion herself after some terrible turns of fate left her stranded and penniless in a foreign land. Together, the two set sail for Cairo, to spend some months traveling up the Nile... but their plans are about to be interrupted by a persistent suitor, a pair of archaeologist brothers, a newly-discovered city and tombs attributed to a heretical king... and what may possibly be an ancient curse walking the desert.
REVIEW: First published in 1975, Crocodile on the Sandbank is the first entry in a popular series about Victorian-era amateur archaeologist Amelia Peabody, consciously drawing on old-school adventure tales of lost tombs and cursed mummies and tangled, borderline convoluted and occasionally unbelievable, villainous plots. Even given the stories that it intentionally mimics, though, there are aspects that don't age that well, aspects that I'm not sure were deliberate "homage" or not. The white Egyptologist claiming ownership and mastery of another culture's artifacts and heritage is not quite such a romantic image these days, and though characters give some lip service to how Egypt's treasures are being mismanaged, it comes across more as a beef between the French and the English, with Egyptians themselves dismissed from the equation as not worth mentioning. There's also the worn-out trope of the fainting, helpless lady (not Amelia, usually, but Evelyn could've used a portable fainting couch to soften the landing of her swoons) whose only purpose or goal is marriage; even Amelia, who declares herself above such "outdated" concepts as marriage and claims to be quite happy as a "spinster" in her thirties, gets so caught up in her companion's marriage prospects and potential mates that it's clear she's not telling the reader the whole truth of her mind on the matter. And, of course, the man who - right out of the gate - verbally abuses Amelia and has a particular hatred for her gender and very existence... if you're following along on the trope bingo card, not many surprises there. Other players aren't exactly unique characters, either, and wouldn't be out of place in one of those old adventure tales that Peters references, for all that there's a certain charm to their overblown nature, and the same could be said about the rather convoluted plot that's eventually exposed after causing no end of trouble on the seemingly-cursed dig site. Along the way, the setting of Victorian-era Egypt is a richly detailed backdrop, if one necessarily viewed through an Englishwoman's lens (both the character and the writer) and with a romanticized rosy tint. There's adventure and intrigue and ancient wonders and, of course, some heavy-handed romance (and the requisite failures of communication and stiff-upper-lip English propriety that nearly scuttles the whole prospect). The mystery, though, just plain doesn't make sense in anything like reality; one has to suspend disbelief and accept that the world of Amelia Peabody has more akin to the world of old, over-the-top adventure stories and movies than our own Earth to begin to believe it, and not poke too hard lest the logic crumble like old mummy wrappings. Some of the casually racist descriptions and assumptions also got a bit of a side-eye; some went beyond the narrator Amelia being "in character", and while I know that judging older stories by modern standards is a losing game, I'm reading it now, not in 1975, and these things stand out. After a somewhat overblown climax, complete with a monologuing villain helpfully explaining the details of the story to their victims, there's an epilogue to wrap things up, in a way that doesn't necessitate a sequel (though of course there are more books - twenty total, according to Amazon).
While there are doubtless some faults in this story, and it's not as fresh as it must've been when originally published, Crocodile on the Sandbank does at least deliver on its promise of old-school Victorianesque adventure and romance amongst the lost world of old Egypt, with some larger than life (if sometimes too familiar) characters and a fair bit of action. I just found a few too many things bugging me, most particularly about the "mystery" story and some overused tropes, to justify a solid four stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Natural History of Dragons (Marie Brennan) - My Review
King Solomon's Mines (H. Rider Haggard) - My Review
The Jewel of Seven Stars (Bram Stoker) - My Review
Thursday, August 31, 2023
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Lost in Shangri-La (Mitchell Zuckoff)
Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
Mitchell Zuckoff
Harper Perennial
Nonfiction, History
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In 1945, as the Second World War neared its end, an incredible news story grabbed headlines across America and around the world: a plane crash in the unexplored depths of Papau New Guinea, leaving the three survivors stranded in a "lost world" of primitive, possibly cannibalistic headhunting tribes and inhospitable terrain. How the Americans got there, how they survived, and how the military mounted an audacious rescue kept the public riveted for weeks, but today the tale is nearly forgotten. Using original articles and records and interviews with the few survivors who experienced the events firsthand, the author recounts the story as it unfolded, a story filled with danger, bravery, despair, and larger-than-life characters.
REVIEW: Another random Libby audiobook to make work somewhat less tedious, Lost in Shangri-La delivers just what it promises, a true-life story that rivals fiction. From the rough-sketch history of the region and the war and what Americans were doing there in the first place to the "discovery" of the lost valley - technically for the second time in "civilized" history, but the pilots didn't know that at the time - through the crash, the rescue, and the fates of the various people involved, Zuckoff spins a decent yarn. He even includes commentary and interviews with the natives (or their descendants), offering the "other side" viewpoint and how cultural misunderstandings almost made things so much worse. From the start, the Americans viewed the locals as Eurocentric cultures so often do, with a mix of condescension and vague revulsion. Projecting their own ideas onto a people they only ever glimpsed from airplanes until the crash, they decided it looked like a peaceful primitive paradise and dubbed the "lost" valley Shangri-La, after the fictional isolated utopia that had evolved beyond war - a truly ironic name, given that the natives of the valley were essentially in a perpetual state of intertribal combat, if one often lacking the devastating vitriol and sheer scale of atrocities practiced by "civilized" nations. Treating another culture as a tourist attraction, a day trip to relieve the tedium of military base life, is what led to the tragedy to begin with, costing the lives of almost everyone on board the plane save three... and even their survival is a near thing, with serious injuries and the onset of infection and gangrene in the jungle environment. Back at the base, rescue efforts are hampered by the remoteness and high altitude of the crash site, plus the risk of complications from both natives and enemy soldiers (Japanese soldiers were known to be scattered across the islands in the jungle), with luck both good and bad eventually leading to an audacious, risky rescue plan. Along the way, the survivors and rescuers end up reassessing their opinions of the locals; while they never did truly understand the native language or culture, they did come to see them as real people, not stereotypes or subhumans. In the epilogue, Zuckoff tells what happened to all the players after the rescue and later in their lives... even, sadly, what happened to the native tribes. There was a local legend about "sky spirits" whose return would herald the end times, and unfortunately that prediction came all too true, as the modern "Shangri-La" is nothing at all like the paradise first encountered by outsiders in the 1940's.
Given the time since the events occurred, there are some gaps now and again, and a few parts felt glossed over or thin. Still, it tells a decent story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Gone to the Woods (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Nation (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
The Lost City of the Monkey God (Douglas Preston) - My Review
Mitchell Zuckoff
Harper Perennial
Nonfiction, History
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In 1945, as the Second World War neared its end, an incredible news story grabbed headlines across America and around the world: a plane crash in the unexplored depths of Papau New Guinea, leaving the three survivors stranded in a "lost world" of primitive, possibly cannibalistic headhunting tribes and inhospitable terrain. How the Americans got there, how they survived, and how the military mounted an audacious rescue kept the public riveted for weeks, but today the tale is nearly forgotten. Using original articles and records and interviews with the few survivors who experienced the events firsthand, the author recounts the story as it unfolded, a story filled with danger, bravery, despair, and larger-than-life characters.
REVIEW: Another random Libby audiobook to make work somewhat less tedious, Lost in Shangri-La delivers just what it promises, a true-life story that rivals fiction. From the rough-sketch history of the region and the war and what Americans were doing there in the first place to the "discovery" of the lost valley - technically for the second time in "civilized" history, but the pilots didn't know that at the time - through the crash, the rescue, and the fates of the various people involved, Zuckoff spins a decent yarn. He even includes commentary and interviews with the natives (or their descendants), offering the "other side" viewpoint and how cultural misunderstandings almost made things so much worse. From the start, the Americans viewed the locals as Eurocentric cultures so often do, with a mix of condescension and vague revulsion. Projecting their own ideas onto a people they only ever glimpsed from airplanes until the crash, they decided it looked like a peaceful primitive paradise and dubbed the "lost" valley Shangri-La, after the fictional isolated utopia that had evolved beyond war - a truly ironic name, given that the natives of the valley were essentially in a perpetual state of intertribal combat, if one often lacking the devastating vitriol and sheer scale of atrocities practiced by "civilized" nations. Treating another culture as a tourist attraction, a day trip to relieve the tedium of military base life, is what led to the tragedy to begin with, costing the lives of almost everyone on board the plane save three... and even their survival is a near thing, with serious injuries and the onset of infection and gangrene in the jungle environment. Back at the base, rescue efforts are hampered by the remoteness and high altitude of the crash site, plus the risk of complications from both natives and enemy soldiers (Japanese soldiers were known to be scattered across the islands in the jungle), with luck both good and bad eventually leading to an audacious, risky rescue plan. Along the way, the survivors and rescuers end up reassessing their opinions of the locals; while they never did truly understand the native language or culture, they did come to see them as real people, not stereotypes or subhumans. In the epilogue, Zuckoff tells what happened to all the players after the rescue and later in their lives... even, sadly, what happened to the native tribes. There was a local legend about "sky spirits" whose return would herald the end times, and unfortunately that prediction came all too true, as the modern "Shangri-La" is nothing at all like the paradise first encountered by outsiders in the 1940's.
Given the time since the events occurred, there are some gaps now and again, and a few parts felt glossed over or thin. Still, it tells a decent story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Gone to the Woods (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Nation (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
The Lost City of the Monkey God (Douglas Preston) - My Review
Friday, August 25, 2023
A Vanishing of Griffins (S. A. Patrick)
A Vanishing of Griffins
The Songs of Magic series, Book 1
S. A. Patrick
Peachtree
Fiction, MG Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, young Patch Brightwater was a failure, running away from his Piper training - where he learned to play magical music - because he didn't want to train in battle magic. After finding Wren, the maid transformed into a rat by a sorcerer, and Barver, a dracogriff protector abandoned by a dragon army, he learned that the man imprisoned for ten years in the Piper dungeons - the ones the dragons executed in fire before his eyes - was not the dreaded Piper of Hamelyn, the madman who stole away human and dragon children for his own nefarious purposes. Indeed, Patch, Wren, and Barver were instrumental in stopping the real Piper of Hamelyn when he attempted to take over the minds of every Piper in the lands, to create a nigh-unstoppable army... but nobody ever found the villain's body. Worse, he fears that members of the Pipers' Council are traitors after hearing a prophecy from a witch woman. But, for all their heroics, he and Wren are still children and Barver's an outsider. What can they do?
After a rescue mission to save a former friend and traveling companion from the clutches of a pirate king (a friend who, due to a misinterpretation of the witch's prophecy, Patch abandoned), Patch and his companions reunite with the few people they know they can trust, remnants of the legendary Eight Pipers who originally hunted down the Piper of Hamelyn (even if they ended up grabbing the wrong man). Unrest is spreading through the land, and the Pipers' Council is only making it worse by inexplicably recalling all of their Custodian Elite Pipers to dedicate them to the manhunt... a manhunt where they seem to be chasing shadows and rumors instead of solid leads. While searching for clues about the murder of one of the Eight, they uncover evidence of what the Piper of Hamelyn may be planning next, a terrible plot that, if it succeeds, would see the whole world of humans, dragons, and griffins fall under the monster's heel forevermore. Patch and his friends aren't about to let that happen if they can help it, but this time the stakes are much higher, as more of the world seems to be falling to chaos and ruin around them.
REVIEW: I hit a string of DNFs (did-not-finish titles) on Libby, so I decided to just go ahead and listen to the second installment of Patch's adventures. Like the first installment, it's a fun adventure in an interesting fantasy world, with some nice emotional weight to the characters and real risks of failure. It doesn't shy away from some of the nastier ways people can treat each other and what they are willing to do in pursuit of power, or just in pursuit of what they're convinced is right, even if that conviction is based on lies and iron-fisted cruelty to others. Patch, Wren, and Barver run afoul of politics and old prejudices wherever they turn for help, as the intelligent races of the world seem to be folding inward and turning away from each other, sometimes violently, just when they need to be uniting to face an existential threat. (Not at all what happens in the real world, of course... ahem...) They're all changing and growing up, though it seems Wren and Barver are facing more growth than Patch at this point; Barver in particular must confront his relationship with both sides of his family and himself, dragon and griffin. The griffins get some nice page time here, fleshing out their culture and history. Wren, meanwhile, still pursues magical knowledge with increasing ruthlessness, taking greater and greater risks that sometimes get her in trouble, as when she undergoes a risky procedure and spends more time learning "impressive" spells than practical ones. Not that Patch is entirely static, though; in addition to coping with the guilt over betraying his old friend over a mistaken reading of the prophecy, he starts taking on more responsibilities and developing his Piper skills. The Piper of Hamelyn, as before, is more of a specter than a character for much of the story, but he remains a formidable enemy when he does turn up in person, his actions made all the more terrifying for his utter conviction in his righteousness in destroying the world to remake it in his own image. This one ends on something closer to a cliffhanger than the previous installment... and, unfortunately, the third volume doesn't seem to be out yet, and isn't due until spring of 2024. Dang it... That delay aside, I enjoyed this book every bit as much as the first one, even if it does spend a little too much time on the excretions of a baby dragon (a detour that younger readers will likely find more amusing, but for me felt like a plot point setup that was never quite followed through on, unless something comes of it in the next book).
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying (Kelley Armstrong) - My Review
The Wizards of Once (Cressida Cowell) - My Review
Sandry's Book (Tamora Pierce) - My Review
The Songs of Magic series, Book 1
S. A. Patrick
Peachtree
Fiction, MG Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, young Patch Brightwater was a failure, running away from his Piper training - where he learned to play magical music - because he didn't want to train in battle magic. After finding Wren, the maid transformed into a rat by a sorcerer, and Barver, a dracogriff protector abandoned by a dragon army, he learned that the man imprisoned for ten years in the Piper dungeons - the ones the dragons executed in fire before his eyes - was not the dreaded Piper of Hamelyn, the madman who stole away human and dragon children for his own nefarious purposes. Indeed, Patch, Wren, and Barver were instrumental in stopping the real Piper of Hamelyn when he attempted to take over the minds of every Piper in the lands, to create a nigh-unstoppable army... but nobody ever found the villain's body. Worse, he fears that members of the Pipers' Council are traitors after hearing a prophecy from a witch woman. But, for all their heroics, he and Wren are still children and Barver's an outsider. What can they do?
After a rescue mission to save a former friend and traveling companion from the clutches of a pirate king (a friend who, due to a misinterpretation of the witch's prophecy, Patch abandoned), Patch and his companions reunite with the few people they know they can trust, remnants of the legendary Eight Pipers who originally hunted down the Piper of Hamelyn (even if they ended up grabbing the wrong man). Unrest is spreading through the land, and the Pipers' Council is only making it worse by inexplicably recalling all of their Custodian Elite Pipers to dedicate them to the manhunt... a manhunt where they seem to be chasing shadows and rumors instead of solid leads. While searching for clues about the murder of one of the Eight, they uncover evidence of what the Piper of Hamelyn may be planning next, a terrible plot that, if it succeeds, would see the whole world of humans, dragons, and griffins fall under the monster's heel forevermore. Patch and his friends aren't about to let that happen if they can help it, but this time the stakes are much higher, as more of the world seems to be falling to chaos and ruin around them.
REVIEW: I hit a string of DNFs (did-not-finish titles) on Libby, so I decided to just go ahead and listen to the second installment of Patch's adventures. Like the first installment, it's a fun adventure in an interesting fantasy world, with some nice emotional weight to the characters and real risks of failure. It doesn't shy away from some of the nastier ways people can treat each other and what they are willing to do in pursuit of power, or just in pursuit of what they're convinced is right, even if that conviction is based on lies and iron-fisted cruelty to others. Patch, Wren, and Barver run afoul of politics and old prejudices wherever they turn for help, as the intelligent races of the world seem to be folding inward and turning away from each other, sometimes violently, just when they need to be uniting to face an existential threat. (Not at all what happens in the real world, of course... ahem...) They're all changing and growing up, though it seems Wren and Barver are facing more growth than Patch at this point; Barver in particular must confront his relationship with both sides of his family and himself, dragon and griffin. The griffins get some nice page time here, fleshing out their culture and history. Wren, meanwhile, still pursues magical knowledge with increasing ruthlessness, taking greater and greater risks that sometimes get her in trouble, as when she undergoes a risky procedure and spends more time learning "impressive" spells than practical ones. Not that Patch is entirely static, though; in addition to coping with the guilt over betraying his old friend over a mistaken reading of the prophecy, he starts taking on more responsibilities and developing his Piper skills. The Piper of Hamelyn, as before, is more of a specter than a character for much of the story, but he remains a formidable enemy when he does turn up in person, his actions made all the more terrifying for his utter conviction in his righteousness in destroying the world to remake it in his own image. This one ends on something closer to a cliffhanger than the previous installment... and, unfortunately, the third volume doesn't seem to be out yet, and isn't due until spring of 2024. Dang it... That delay aside, I enjoyed this book every bit as much as the first one, even if it does spend a little too much time on the excretions of a baby dragon (a detour that younger readers will likely find more amusing, but for me felt like a plot point setup that was never quite followed through on, unless something comes of it in the next book).
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying (Kelley Armstrong) - My Review
The Wizards of Once (Cressida Cowell) - My Review
Sandry's Book (Tamora Pierce) - My Review
Thursday, August 24, 2023
Where's My Jetpack? (Daniel H. Wilson)
Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived
Daniel H. Wilson
Blackstone Audio
Nonfiction, Humor/Science
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Moon colonies, flying cars, robot servants, ray guns... the Golden Age of science fiction promised us all these things and more by the year 2000. We're several years past that, and so far, science has not delivered our personal jetpacks or hoverboards. What gives? Scientists had one job, after all: give us our Jetsons future. The author, a roboticist, runs down several amazing predictions and what happened to keep them from coming to pass... or, at least, coming to pass as part of everyday casual life.
REVIEW: Any book on "future" tech is bound to age iffily. This one, published in 2007, already feels almost quaint. Nevertheless, it does what it set out to do: with a humorous spin, it explores the fates of a selection of sci-fi staples. Many are (or were at the time) much closer to fruition than is apparent, while others fell victim to exorbitant costs (and/or lack of sufficient interest or return on investment to make it worth pursuing), or thus far are still basically impossible (such as revival from a cryonic state). Instantaneous transportation, in the vein of Star Trek's transporter beams, has actually occurred... but only at subatomic levels. Weapons that might be deemed "ray" guns have been developed, even if they aren't the retro-looking casual sidearm of many a fantastic space adventurer. Underwater colonization hasn't happened (yet), but at least one submerged hotel exists, or did as of this book's original publication. Thought-controlled robotics and prosthetics are still not universal but are doing more and more impressive things. Moving sidewalks and "people movers" have found some real-world applications. And robot "pets" were already being explored.
In the years since Where's My Jetpack? was published, some tech has leapfrogged those here; smartphones, for instance, seem to be taking up the cause of the "universal translator" better than the dedicated portable device Wilson describes. A few other predictions, unfortunately, have fallen victim to reality; we still have not sent a manned presence back to the moon, which Wilson excitedly predicted was supposed to happen in 2018 by original NASA timelines. (I might also mention that the growing contributions of nations other than America, Russia, England, and the European Union were also apparently not predicted, or not generally mentioned; I'm writing this mere days after India became the fourth nation to successfully land an unmanned mission on the moon - just after Russia's effort failed.) He also seemed blissfully unaware of what climate collapse would do to the potential tourism draws of those underwater hotels; bleached and lifeless coral reefs just aren't quite what most tourists have in mind.
While I can't exactly blame it for aging, the presentation itself often gets too clever for its own good, offering thin glimpses of a given subject that gloss over a lot of material or nuance; even in old sci-fi, not all predictions were equal, with different authors offering different tech with different implementations, some more plausible than others. (And, seriously, no Asimov in either the "robot buddy" section or the "city-in-a-skyscraper" section?) He also seems reluctant to explore the drawbacks of a given tech that also play roles in keeping them out of the public eye (or not, as we've seen in the case of self-driving cars that keep being pushed onto public streets despite ample evidence of them not being ready for prime time, or skyscrapers that are growing so tall that they become death traps in the way predicted by Towering Inferno). It often seemed like Wilson was more interested in being funny than being informative and thought-provoking, and I found the humor a bit hit-and-miss myself. (I think the target audience of this book was that envisioned by most Golden Age sci-fi authors: almost exclusively young men, American or English or otherwise "light". The idea that anyone else might be interested in sci-fi still seems inconceivable to too many people... but I digress.)
Overall, while some of the entries are intriguing, I wished for fewer jokes and more substance.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Eurekaaargh! (Adam Hart-Davis) - My Review
It's Not Rocket Science (Ben Miller) - My Review
Soonish (Kelly and Zach Weinersmith) - My Review
Daniel H. Wilson
Blackstone Audio
Nonfiction, Humor/Science
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Moon colonies, flying cars, robot servants, ray guns... the Golden Age of science fiction promised us all these things and more by the year 2000. We're several years past that, and so far, science has not delivered our personal jetpacks or hoverboards. What gives? Scientists had one job, after all: give us our Jetsons future. The author, a roboticist, runs down several amazing predictions and what happened to keep them from coming to pass... or, at least, coming to pass as part of everyday casual life.
REVIEW: Any book on "future" tech is bound to age iffily. This one, published in 2007, already feels almost quaint. Nevertheless, it does what it set out to do: with a humorous spin, it explores the fates of a selection of sci-fi staples. Many are (or were at the time) much closer to fruition than is apparent, while others fell victim to exorbitant costs (and/or lack of sufficient interest or return on investment to make it worth pursuing), or thus far are still basically impossible (such as revival from a cryonic state). Instantaneous transportation, in the vein of Star Trek's transporter beams, has actually occurred... but only at subatomic levels. Weapons that might be deemed "ray" guns have been developed, even if they aren't the retro-looking casual sidearm of many a fantastic space adventurer. Underwater colonization hasn't happened (yet), but at least one submerged hotel exists, or did as of this book's original publication. Thought-controlled robotics and prosthetics are still not universal but are doing more and more impressive things. Moving sidewalks and "people movers" have found some real-world applications. And robot "pets" were already being explored.
In the years since Where's My Jetpack? was published, some tech has leapfrogged those here; smartphones, for instance, seem to be taking up the cause of the "universal translator" better than the dedicated portable device Wilson describes. A few other predictions, unfortunately, have fallen victim to reality; we still have not sent a manned presence back to the moon, which Wilson excitedly predicted was supposed to happen in 2018 by original NASA timelines. (I might also mention that the growing contributions of nations other than America, Russia, England, and the European Union were also apparently not predicted, or not generally mentioned; I'm writing this mere days after India became the fourth nation to successfully land an unmanned mission on the moon - just after Russia's effort failed.) He also seemed blissfully unaware of what climate collapse would do to the potential tourism draws of those underwater hotels; bleached and lifeless coral reefs just aren't quite what most tourists have in mind.
While I can't exactly blame it for aging, the presentation itself often gets too clever for its own good, offering thin glimpses of a given subject that gloss over a lot of material or nuance; even in old sci-fi, not all predictions were equal, with different authors offering different tech with different implementations, some more plausible than others. (And, seriously, no Asimov in either the "robot buddy" section or the "city-in-a-skyscraper" section?) He also seems reluctant to explore the drawbacks of a given tech that also play roles in keeping them out of the public eye (or not, as we've seen in the case of self-driving cars that keep being pushed onto public streets despite ample evidence of them not being ready for prime time, or skyscrapers that are growing so tall that they become death traps in the way predicted by Towering Inferno). It often seemed like Wilson was more interested in being funny than being informative and thought-provoking, and I found the humor a bit hit-and-miss myself. (I think the target audience of this book was that envisioned by most Golden Age sci-fi authors: almost exclusively young men, American or English or otherwise "light". The idea that anyone else might be interested in sci-fi still seems inconceivable to too many people... but I digress.)
Overall, while some of the entries are intriguing, I wished for fewer jokes and more substance.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Eurekaaargh! (Adam Hart-Davis) - My Review
It's Not Rocket Science (Ben Miller) - My Review
Soonish (Kelly and Zach Weinersmith) - My Review
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (Tamsyn Muir)
Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower
Tamsyn Muir
Subterranean Press
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: When Princess Floralinda was snatched away by a wicked witch, she saw little reason to panic. Witches and other ne'er-do-wells have been abducting princesses since time immemorial, and the young ladies are almost always rescued by a suitably brave and handsome prince in a timely fashion. This witch, however, doesn't want just any old prince getting through; she's built a masterpiece of a magical forty-story tower, with thirty-nine different monsters to test the mettle of any would-be rescuer to the limit. There's even a dragon with diamond-encrusted scales at the bottom. Still, Floralinda isn't too concerned. The witch has left her with magically-replenishing food and water, a shelf full of books (if mostly dry treatises on economics, plus a few Readers Digests for variety), and an embroidery project if she gets too bored... which she surely won't, because a champion will be along any day now.
Unfortunately, the first prince to arrive doesn't get past the dragon.
Neither do the second or third... or twenty-second or thirty-third.
At last, the princes stop altogether, and Princess Floralinda must face the very real possibility that nobody is going to rescue her, that she may well die alone in this tower listening to the incessant hungry roars of a diamond-scaled dragon.
Then a storm brings an unexpected visitor: a little fairy named Cobweb whose wing is too damaged to fly. Fairies aren't exactly pleasant in the best of circumstances, and this one is especially surly - she's meant to lure children away to Fairyland from the bottom of the garden, not deal with distraught princesses - but Cobweb's arrival gets Floralinda thinking (not something the average princess indulges in on a regular basis). If nobody is going to rescue the princess in this fairy tale, perhaps it's time that the princess rescues herself.
REVIEW: This novella starts out on a fun note, for all that tweaking fairy tale tropes isn't exactly new territory. Initially every inch the helpless/useless storybook princess, Floralinda finds her assumptions about the world sorely tested and transformed, as she herself transforms under pressure. Cobweb doesn't even pretend to care what happens to the girl, but isn't exactly a paragon of fairy virtue herself (or themselves; fairies don't care about human concepts like gender), and despite herself becomes drawn into the challenge of survival and escape. Her practical knowledge is invaluable to Floralinda's survival right from the start; the fairy finds her sickened by infected goblin bites, and manages to concoct an antibiotic of sorts from the peels of the ever-replenishing orange in the princess's room. Their relationship is never anything but dysfunctional, however, and at some point it crosses a line into unpleasant territory that seriously dampened my interest in seeing either of them, especially Floralinda, survive. I get that part of the point is how the tower twists the princess, but the whole thing reeked of toxic behavior and even mental illness; Stockholm syndrome is never going to be the basis for a solid relationship. (I also get that other people will read it differently, and may well enjoy the messed-up nature of Floralinda and Cobweb's master/slave, cruelty-based dynamic. But this is my review blog, and I'm the one reviewing it, and thus my revulsion affects my rating.) By the end I didn't like anyone or anything... except maybe a few of the monsters, who after all didn't have much choice about being stuck in a tower to devour wayward princes (though frankly even they were ultimately irredeemable). Though the tone was humorous (if sometimes darkly humorous, and frequently gory), and even got a few smiles and light chuckles out of me early on, my inability to care about anyone, which by the end had shifted into me actively hoping they met horrible ends (plus a sense that, even as a novella, parts of it felt stretched overlong), holds down the rating... and I came darned close to clipping another half-star. This one's just not my cup of cocoa on multiple levels.
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Goblin Quest (Jim C. Hines) - My Review
Princeless: Save Yourself (Jeremy Whitley) - My Review
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
Tamsyn Muir
Subterranean Press
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: When Princess Floralinda was snatched away by a wicked witch, she saw little reason to panic. Witches and other ne'er-do-wells have been abducting princesses since time immemorial, and the young ladies are almost always rescued by a suitably brave and handsome prince in a timely fashion. This witch, however, doesn't want just any old prince getting through; she's built a masterpiece of a magical forty-story tower, with thirty-nine different monsters to test the mettle of any would-be rescuer to the limit. There's even a dragon with diamond-encrusted scales at the bottom. Still, Floralinda isn't too concerned. The witch has left her with magically-replenishing food and water, a shelf full of books (if mostly dry treatises on economics, plus a few Readers Digests for variety), and an embroidery project if she gets too bored... which she surely won't, because a champion will be along any day now.
Unfortunately, the first prince to arrive doesn't get past the dragon.
Neither do the second or third... or twenty-second or thirty-third.
At last, the princes stop altogether, and Princess Floralinda must face the very real possibility that nobody is going to rescue her, that she may well die alone in this tower listening to the incessant hungry roars of a diamond-scaled dragon.
Then a storm brings an unexpected visitor: a little fairy named Cobweb whose wing is too damaged to fly. Fairies aren't exactly pleasant in the best of circumstances, and this one is especially surly - she's meant to lure children away to Fairyland from the bottom of the garden, not deal with distraught princesses - but Cobweb's arrival gets Floralinda thinking (not something the average princess indulges in on a regular basis). If nobody is going to rescue the princess in this fairy tale, perhaps it's time that the princess rescues herself.
REVIEW: This novella starts out on a fun note, for all that tweaking fairy tale tropes isn't exactly new territory. Initially every inch the helpless/useless storybook princess, Floralinda finds her assumptions about the world sorely tested and transformed, as she herself transforms under pressure. Cobweb doesn't even pretend to care what happens to the girl, but isn't exactly a paragon of fairy virtue herself (or themselves; fairies don't care about human concepts like gender), and despite herself becomes drawn into the challenge of survival and escape. Her practical knowledge is invaluable to Floralinda's survival right from the start; the fairy finds her sickened by infected goblin bites, and manages to concoct an antibiotic of sorts from the peels of the ever-replenishing orange in the princess's room. Their relationship is never anything but dysfunctional, however, and at some point it crosses a line into unpleasant territory that seriously dampened my interest in seeing either of them, especially Floralinda, survive. I get that part of the point is how the tower twists the princess, but the whole thing reeked of toxic behavior and even mental illness; Stockholm syndrome is never going to be the basis for a solid relationship. (I also get that other people will read it differently, and may well enjoy the messed-up nature of Floralinda and Cobweb's master/slave, cruelty-based dynamic. But this is my review blog, and I'm the one reviewing it, and thus my revulsion affects my rating.) By the end I didn't like anyone or anything... except maybe a few of the monsters, who after all didn't have much choice about being stuck in a tower to devour wayward princes (though frankly even they were ultimately irredeemable). Though the tone was humorous (if sometimes darkly humorous, and frequently gory), and even got a few smiles and light chuckles out of me early on, my inability to care about anyone, which by the end had shifted into me actively hoping they met horrible ends (plus a sense that, even as a novella, parts of it felt stretched overlong), holds down the rating... and I came darned close to clipping another half-star. This one's just not my cup of cocoa on multiple levels.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Goblin Quest (Jim C. Hines) - My Review
Princeless: Save Yourself (Jeremy Whitley) - My Review
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
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