Gunpowder Moon
David Pedreira
HarperVoyager
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: The Moon smells like gunpowder, a cordite stink noted by everyone from the first astronauts to the miners of the late twenty-first century, but no weapon has ever been fired there. Until now...
When veteran Caden Dechert took a job to the Moon, he hoped he could finally leave the worst of Earth behind. Even a massive climate collapse that nearly dropped civilization back to the Dark Ages for a few decades couldn't break humanity's war addiction, and Dechert is beyond tired of killing for whatever cause top brass cooks up. So far, space has been subject of a tenuous peace, even as commercial ventures race to harvest water and raw materials (particularly helium-3, the fuel that may take humans to the stars) and spacefaring nations stake their claims everywhere from the Moon to Jupiter. Sure, there's been some saber-rattling and diplomatic one-upmanship, particularly between America and China, but nobody would be foolish enough to start anything on the lunar surface. Up here, the rule is help whoever needs helping, because death is too close at hand for everyone. Nationalism and violence are old Earth habits, best left behind.
Then Dechert and the crew of the American mining base Sea of Serenity 1 discover acts of sabotage on remote equipment... and one of their own dies after someone plants a bomb on their vehicle.
The obvious suspect is their nearest lunar neighbor, the Chinese base New Beijing 2. But even as the military and the mining administrators ramp up the rhetoric and start stockpiling weapons for the first-ever offworld armed conflict, Dechert just can't bring himself to believe it. He knows the commander of New Beijing 2. It just doesn't make sense that the Chinese would provoke a conflict like this when they have at least as much to lose as the Americans, and the logistics stretch credulity to the breaking point. With everyone else eager to spill blood, Dechert races against the clock to figure out who really killed his crewmate, and why they seem so eager to get more people killed.
REVIEW: Gunpowder Moon has an interesting concept and setting, and a decent enough main character in the war-weary veteran-turned-mining-base-commander Dechert. At some point, though, I found myself left behind by the story and characters, lost in a sea of flashbacks and tactics and a testosterone-heavy cast.
From the beginning, the innate strangeness of lunar existence is clearly established, along with the Moon's inherent hostility (or indifference indistinguishable from hostility) to Earth life. This is not a place humans will ever really belong, not when jagged grains of regolith perpetually defy the best filtration and threaten machinery and life support, temperatures flux between deep freeze and lethally hot, solar radiation makes prolonged surface exposure deadly, gravity and distances are deceptive, and more threats await even the experienced astronaut. Nor are extraplanetary bases technological utopias; sent by penny-pinching private conglomerates and cash-strapped desperate nations still clawing their way back to their former glory after global disasters, everything that doesn't directly increase productivity and profit margins is neglected, regardless of how it might endanger the lives of those working there. Crews tend to be eccentric and tightly-knit groups, a byproduct of close quarters living in an inherently dangerous environment (like life in a war zone or on an oil rig, only exponentially more isolated), and if you can't trust the guy (or, very rarely, girl) in the bunk next to yours, you can't trust anyone. Or, at least, that's how it used to be, before the sabotage comes to light and the Moon experiences its first homicide.
Dechert left active military service when he could no longer take the killing and the losses among his comrades and subordinates; they always start feeling like family to him, and somehow they always die while he survives. His lunar job was supposed to be a way to get away from all that, yet he nevertheless finds himself thinking of the little crew of Sea of Serenity 1 as yet another family... so when one of them is killed - not in a combat situation where death is part of the ambient risks, but on the Moon, the one place humans have yet to sully with violence - he can't help but take it personally. Even from the start, he knows something doesn't sound right about the official party line, that it was all China's fault. But how is he supposed to find the truth when his every message is monitored by both the military and the mining corporation, and will anyone even listen once it becomes clear how many people were champing at the bit to declare a lunar war? Given his own experiences, which are related through numerous flashbacks, one would think Dechert would be a little less credulous that the wheels of war could be so easily stopped by the efforts of one man, though at least part of that is his own sheer desperation to end the insanity that has ruined his life and so many others. Even as he digs for answers, the base is taken over by soldiers and things quickly spin out of control.
It's clear that Pedreira did quite a bit of research to get the physics and the tactics right... and here is where the story started to lose me, as the technical details and tactics grow into long, sometimes confusing slogs and occasional name soup. Peripheral characters often feel like too-familiar military sci-fi tropes (particularly the lone woman on Dechert's crew, Lane, who is never overtly ogled or romanced by him yet somehow still feels objectified). The pacing, between those slogs, is pretty brisk, and it builds to a reasonably satisfactory conclusion, though the wrap-up after the fact becomes another slog, driving home its themes about war seeming to be an innate and inextricable trait of the human species with the subtlety of a meteor. I've read worse stories, but once more this ultimately just isn't my cup of cocoa.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Calculating Stars (Mary Robinette Kowal) - My Review
Saturn Run (John Sandford and Ctien) - My Review
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Dennis E. Taylor) - My Review
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Good Girls Don't Die (Christina Henry)
Good Girls Don't Die
Christina Henry
Berkley
Fiction, Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Celia has no memory of her life before she found herself standing in a suburban kitchen, with a young girl (a daughter?) demanding lunch and a husband on his way to work. Nothing about her home, her family, or her job - owner of a small-town family Italian restaurant - rings a bell, either, but whenever she tries too hard to remember, she gets a splitting headache. There's also something very strange about the town and the people, almost like they're reciting lines from a cozy mystery story rather than talking as normal people talk. When she finds the body of an irascible neighbor in the dumpster and the local police consider her a prime suspect, her amnesia becomes the least of her worries...
Allie's twenty-first birthday was supposed to be spent at the beach with her best friends Cam and Madison - until Brad, Cam's controlling boyfriend, invited himself and his friend Steve (also Madison's beau) along and unilaterally changed their destination to a remote cabin deep in the woods. It's just like something out of the slasher movies Allie loves to watch... until strange noises in the middle of the night make the slasher comparison all too real...
Maggie doesn't remember what happened after she fell asleep last night, but she wakes up dressed in a strange, numbered uniform with nine other similarly-disoriented women. A uniformed man informs them that they each have had a loved one abducted - Maggie is shown a brief video of her own terrified daughter as proof - and that, if they fail to complete a maze and series of challenges in time, those loved ones will be executed. Refusal to participate brings swift and lethal repercussions. She always used to think she'd be a solid survivor in the young adult dystopian tales she reads, but soon learn that words on a page are a far cry from living the nightmare...
Three women, three impossible situations, three story genres seemingly sprung to life around them - and, unbeknownst to any of them, one common enemy who means to see none of them walk away.
REVIEW: I've previous read and quite enjoyed another story by Christina Henry (The Girl in Red, an apocalypse-tinged riff on "Little Red Riding Hood"), and was looking for a seasonally appropriate read, so when this popped up on Libby I figured it was worth a shot. While the premise is interesting, it all gets drug down in the ratings by an ending that lingers too long and hammers home its point too hard, long past effectiveness.
Starting with Celia, the book tells each woman's story as their ordinary lives quickly dissolve into scenarios straight from a horror movie. The situations and protagonists are different enough to avoid straight-up repetition, though it's clear early on that there are similarities throughout. Even as they realize how things don't quite add up, a slow accumulation of details and discrepancies that seem more like staging than reality, they have no choice but to live through the terrible things happening to and around them even as they try to put the bigger puzzle pieces together. While none of them turn out to be the superstar heroines of their favored genres they imagined they'd become, they all find ways to step up to the plate and match wits with their apparent captors. Hints of what's really going on come from between-chapter snippets of online chat rooms and conversations between genre fans, conversations that are intruded upon by toxic trolls and take ugly turns.
On their own, the three tales almost work like a themed short story collection. Maybe Good Girls Don't Die would've been better served by being just that, leaving more mystery over how they each ended up in their surreal, borderline preternaturally nightmarish situations. But, skirting spoiler territory, what happens after they figure out the gist of what's going on and the three threads come together becomes an overlong slog, reducing their common enemy/enemies to caricature levels that sell short the central themes of misogyny and toxic masculinity turning the lives of girls and women into everyday horror tales, too often turning us against each other. (I would've thought the baddies were too over-the-top, but recent current events and political campaigns unfortunately show how many people apparently embrace that level of extreme, violent contempt for anyone without a particular set of genitalia.) Given what they had to go through to get to that point in the story, the things they had to do and who they had to become, that final bit should not have taken nearly so long to drag out to the conclusion. As a reader, I more than got Henry's point long, long before the book ended.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Beauty Queens (Libba Bray) - My Review
The Girl in Red (Christina Henry) - My Review
Comfort Me With Apples (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
Christina Henry
Berkley
Fiction, Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Celia has no memory of her life before she found herself standing in a suburban kitchen, with a young girl (a daughter?) demanding lunch and a husband on his way to work. Nothing about her home, her family, or her job - owner of a small-town family Italian restaurant - rings a bell, either, but whenever she tries too hard to remember, she gets a splitting headache. There's also something very strange about the town and the people, almost like they're reciting lines from a cozy mystery story rather than talking as normal people talk. When she finds the body of an irascible neighbor in the dumpster and the local police consider her a prime suspect, her amnesia becomes the least of her worries...
Allie's twenty-first birthday was supposed to be spent at the beach with her best friends Cam and Madison - until Brad, Cam's controlling boyfriend, invited himself and his friend Steve (also Madison's beau) along and unilaterally changed their destination to a remote cabin deep in the woods. It's just like something out of the slasher movies Allie loves to watch... until strange noises in the middle of the night make the slasher comparison all too real...
Maggie doesn't remember what happened after she fell asleep last night, but she wakes up dressed in a strange, numbered uniform with nine other similarly-disoriented women. A uniformed man informs them that they each have had a loved one abducted - Maggie is shown a brief video of her own terrified daughter as proof - and that, if they fail to complete a maze and series of challenges in time, those loved ones will be executed. Refusal to participate brings swift and lethal repercussions. She always used to think she'd be a solid survivor in the young adult dystopian tales she reads, but soon learn that words on a page are a far cry from living the nightmare...
Three women, three impossible situations, three story genres seemingly sprung to life around them - and, unbeknownst to any of them, one common enemy who means to see none of them walk away.
REVIEW: I've previous read and quite enjoyed another story by Christina Henry (The Girl in Red, an apocalypse-tinged riff on "Little Red Riding Hood"), and was looking for a seasonally appropriate read, so when this popped up on Libby I figured it was worth a shot. While the premise is interesting, it all gets drug down in the ratings by an ending that lingers too long and hammers home its point too hard, long past effectiveness.
Starting with Celia, the book tells each woman's story as their ordinary lives quickly dissolve into scenarios straight from a horror movie. The situations and protagonists are different enough to avoid straight-up repetition, though it's clear early on that there are similarities throughout. Even as they realize how things don't quite add up, a slow accumulation of details and discrepancies that seem more like staging than reality, they have no choice but to live through the terrible things happening to and around them even as they try to put the bigger puzzle pieces together. While none of them turn out to be the superstar heroines of their favored genres they imagined they'd become, they all find ways to step up to the plate and match wits with their apparent captors. Hints of what's really going on come from between-chapter snippets of online chat rooms and conversations between genre fans, conversations that are intruded upon by toxic trolls and take ugly turns.
On their own, the three tales almost work like a themed short story collection. Maybe Good Girls Don't Die would've been better served by being just that, leaving more mystery over how they each ended up in their surreal, borderline preternaturally nightmarish situations. But, skirting spoiler territory, what happens after they figure out the gist of what's going on and the three threads come together becomes an overlong slog, reducing their common enemy/enemies to caricature levels that sell short the central themes of misogyny and toxic masculinity turning the lives of girls and women into everyday horror tales, too often turning us against each other. (I would've thought the baddies were too over-the-top, but recent current events and political campaigns unfortunately show how many people apparently embrace that level of extreme, violent contempt for anyone without a particular set of genitalia.) Given what they had to go through to get to that point in the story, the things they had to do and who they had to become, that final bit should not have taken nearly so long to drag out to the conclusion. As a reader, I more than got Henry's point long, long before the book ended.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Beauty Queens (Libba Bray) - My Review
The Girl in Red (Christina Henry) - My Review
Comfort Me With Apples (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
October Site Update
Happy Halloween! The main Brightdreamer Books site has been updated with the month's new reviews.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Friday, October 25, 2024
Apocalypse Kings (Derek Landy)
Apocalypse Kings
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 5.6
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, YA? Adventure/Fantasy/Horror/Humor/Mystery
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Adedayo thought he'd been cursed when objects started flying off shelves around him. It wasn't until his Nigerian grandmother came to stay with his family in Dublin that he learned about the hidden community of sorcerers and adepts and other bearers of magic, a family trait that skipped his mother but apparently manifested in him. Unfortunately, she spoke little English and he knew almost no Yoruban, and she passed away before teaching him more than a few small tricks - but she left him a strange wooden box and a cryptic phrase he struggles to understand. Inside the box are three powerful gods, trapped since the wars against the Faceless Ones... and when Adedayo inadvertently unleashes them, something terrible is bound to happen.
Fortunately, the next day at school, he meets a peculiar new girl: Valkyrie Cain, another mage. Along with her partner Skulduggery Pleasant - a literal walking skeleton - she has come to track down the so-called Apocalypse Kings before they can enact their eons-old plan. They have reason to believe that the gods are currently hiding somewhere in his school... but their efforts to blend in as they search are hardly seamless. The two investigators may need a little help with this job, but what can an untrained sorcerer who can barely summon a spark do against a trio of vengeance-minded deities?
REVIEW: This novella feels like an oddball in the series, and it is, written later as a (near) standalone project for World Book Day. This may explain why it feels a little neither-here-nor-there; it ostensibly takes place after the fifth book (which I just read via audiobook earlier this very week), but Valkyrie and Skulduggery don't quite "feel" like the characters I just left. Of course, this is written from an outsider's perspective - not just outside the core duo, but outside the Dublin magical community - but even given Adedayo's ignorance of the quite terrible and pivotal horrors that just elapsed in Dublin's magical community (though one might think he would've noticed the citywide lockdown, even if he didn't know the truth), this story just doesn't seem to fit where the chronology claims it fits.
Disregarding some wobbly continuity with the larger whole, the story has a more or less similar aesthetic, humor melding with horror. Some deliberate tweaks of school story cliches add to the humor, such as when the obligatory "meet the cliques" lunchroom talk reveals that nobody's really that shallow as to identify themselves solely by one aspect of their personalities. Adedayo himself is technically 15, but reads a bit younger, possibly because he's such a neophyte to magic and also because he's still very confused and unsettled about his own life, not sure what he even wants to do now, let alone in the future; he's in debate club because he was told he needs an extracurricular for future college applications, but he hates arguing and always loses. When Valkyrie arrives after the gods escape, he's relieved that there's someone older and more experienced to take charge. Granted, she's only a year older, but she acts almost adult in her confidence, not too surprising given what she's been through. Skulduggery, meanwhile, tries to go undercover as a schoolteacher, complicated by the fact that it's been ages - almost literally - since he had to interact with "mortals", and he's not even used to wearing a (false) flesh-and-blood face. When things inevitably go wrong, Adedayo ends up being the one who has to step up. Things wrap up pretty well by the end.
I came close to shaving a half-star for that "this doesn't quite fit" sense, which made me feel a bit more like I was reading rather good but noncanon fanfic than an official series entry, but wound up giving it the benefit of the doubt.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Playing With Fire (Derek Landy) - My Review
Once There Was (Kiyash Monsef) - My Review
Akata Witch (Nnedi Okorafor) - My Review
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 5.6
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, YA? Adventure/Fantasy/Horror/Humor/Mystery
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Adedayo thought he'd been cursed when objects started flying off shelves around him. It wasn't until his Nigerian grandmother came to stay with his family in Dublin that he learned about the hidden community of sorcerers and adepts and other bearers of magic, a family trait that skipped his mother but apparently manifested in him. Unfortunately, she spoke little English and he knew almost no Yoruban, and she passed away before teaching him more than a few small tricks - but she left him a strange wooden box and a cryptic phrase he struggles to understand. Inside the box are three powerful gods, trapped since the wars against the Faceless Ones... and when Adedayo inadvertently unleashes them, something terrible is bound to happen.
Fortunately, the next day at school, he meets a peculiar new girl: Valkyrie Cain, another mage. Along with her partner Skulduggery Pleasant - a literal walking skeleton - she has come to track down the so-called Apocalypse Kings before they can enact their eons-old plan. They have reason to believe that the gods are currently hiding somewhere in his school... but their efforts to blend in as they search are hardly seamless. The two investigators may need a little help with this job, but what can an untrained sorcerer who can barely summon a spark do against a trio of vengeance-minded deities?
REVIEW: This novella feels like an oddball in the series, and it is, written later as a (near) standalone project for World Book Day. This may explain why it feels a little neither-here-nor-there; it ostensibly takes place after the fifth book (which I just read via audiobook earlier this very week), but Valkyrie and Skulduggery don't quite "feel" like the characters I just left. Of course, this is written from an outsider's perspective - not just outside the core duo, but outside the Dublin magical community - but even given Adedayo's ignorance of the quite terrible and pivotal horrors that just elapsed in Dublin's magical community (though one might think he would've noticed the citywide lockdown, even if he didn't know the truth), this story just doesn't seem to fit where the chronology claims it fits.
Disregarding some wobbly continuity with the larger whole, the story has a more or less similar aesthetic, humor melding with horror. Some deliberate tweaks of school story cliches add to the humor, such as when the obligatory "meet the cliques" lunchroom talk reveals that nobody's really that shallow as to identify themselves solely by one aspect of their personalities. Adedayo himself is technically 15, but reads a bit younger, possibly because he's such a neophyte to magic and also because he's still very confused and unsettled about his own life, not sure what he even wants to do now, let alone in the future; he's in debate club because he was told he needs an extracurricular for future college applications, but he hates arguing and always loses. When Valkyrie arrives after the gods escape, he's relieved that there's someone older and more experienced to take charge. Granted, she's only a year older, but she acts almost adult in her confidence, not too surprising given what she's been through. Skulduggery, meanwhile, tries to go undercover as a schoolteacher, complicated by the fact that it's been ages - almost literally - since he had to interact with "mortals", and he's not even used to wearing a (false) flesh-and-blood face. When things inevitably go wrong, Adedayo ends up being the one who has to step up. Things wrap up pretty well by the end.
I came close to shaving a half-star for that "this doesn't quite fit" sense, which made me feel a bit more like I was reading rather good but noncanon fanfic than an official series entry, but wound up giving it the benefit of the doubt.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Playing With Fire (Derek Landy) - My Review
Once There Was (Kiyash Monsef) - My Review
Akata Witch (Nnedi Okorafor) - My Review
The Truth About Animals (Lucy Cooke)
The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife
Lucy Cooke
Basic Books
Nonfiction, Animals/History/Science
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since humans first began noticing the natural world, misconceptions have abounded - not just in folklore or myths, but in the works of apparent experts and theoretically learned people... and not just in ancient times. It's not all just harmless ignorance, either; bad press and flawed understanding can substantially harm conservation efforts and the future of our planet. Zoologist and author Lucy Cooke examines several species that have borne the brunt of our species's seeming inability to separate fact from fiction and superstition from science, from bats to storks and eels to hippos, even the venerated panda.
REVIEW: Anthropomorphizing nature is one of the oldest human traits, turning them into supernatural agents or morality lessons or embodiments of our own aspirations or failings or plain old wishful thinking. Unfortunately, this idealized thinking can prove a serious problem when one is trying to understand the truth, as demonstrated in this examination of several key species. One would think that we'd be over that by now as a species, or at least science would be over that as a discipline, with our advanced understanding of so many fields and our increasing awareness of our own faults, but, as Cooke demonstrates, even in modern times myths and mysteries persist, with many secrets the natural world is still reluctant to offer up for our edification.
With a focus on the "Western" world's views of nature and how the roots of science and understanding were so hopelessly entangled with ideas that appear quite ridiculous now (but at the time were often implicitly believed to be true), Cooke explores the history of natural science and the people who both advanced and regressed the field. From the notion that eels spontaneously generated in river mud to beavers having hidden human-like communities complete with law enforcement, many false notions were rooted in the ancient classical world, where armchair experts repeated travelers tales as gospel truth, often with a dash of moralizing that would be raised to an art form in medieval bestiaries. Animals like the sloth were dismissed and denigrated by Europeans as "useless", when in fact their slow-motion lifestyle is such a successful way to survive in their native habitat that it evolved twice, while bats were treated as agents of evil in much of the world because theoretically intelligent H. sapiens brains apparently could not wrap their minds around something that couldn't be neatly defined as "beast" or "bird", and hyenas were considered cowardly and nasty because they just plain look less noble than a lion (who, it turns out, scavenge hyena kills more often than hyenas scavenge lion kills, despite popular media depictions). Even scientists in "enlightened" ages often skewed data based on their own religious or moral assumptions, even deliberately burying observations they deemed "unsuitable" for general knowledge (such as the sex lives of penguins - especially ironic, given how the nature documentary March of the Penguins was embraced in conservative circles as depicting an ideal monogamous family). Politics also invariably come into play; for many years, it was a commonly understood "fact" that North American animals (and, of course, natives) were inferior to their European counterparts in every conceivable way... a notion that was difficult to dislodge when most of the "experts" penning natural science resided in Europe. Even today, politics warps popular perceptions: for instance, "panda diplomacy" has created a highly artificial image of the panda as a cutesy but clumsy and naturally deficient "teddy bear" in desperate need of human intervention to even reproduce, when in fact human interference and captive breeding has created an entire population of animals so divorced from their very capable wild cousins that reintroductions almost invariably end in disaster. (As for the notion they can't even breed competently, that's yet another result of humans projecting human ideas and moralities onto wild animals; pandas breed just fine outside of captivity, just not very well in monogamous pairings that are forced on them in zoos.) The only thing they need from people is to be left alone with sufficient natural habitat to survive... but that's something nobody seems particularly interested in hearing, let alone doing, even in their native country. And then there's how people have used/abused animals through the ages, where even the best intentions often go awry; the African clawed frog, once a boon in the days before simple chemical strip pregnancy tests, is responsible for the worldwide spread of a toxic fungus devastating global amphibian populations after they escaped or were released into nonnative environments.
As part of her research, Cooke talked with many working conservationists and scientists who are doing their level best to dispel old myths and bad press before time runs out on the conservation clock, as it has for too many species. Misunderstandings and mysteries still plague the field, despite modern technology being brought to bear on matters such as eel reproduction (a reverse-salmon situation, where adults breed in the ocean and the young swim upriver to live for years until returning to the Sargasso Sea to breed... though, as of the book's writing, apparently even now nobody has witnessed the act). There is still so much to learn (and unlearn), even as a fresh tide of intentional ignorance seems to be rising globally in the form of authoritarian governments and would-be theocrats gaining traction.
At times, I'd hoped for a little less focus on the "Western" perception of animals, and maybe a little more on how native populations considered the creatures they lived beside for countless generations (though even they were not above anthropomorphizing and other misunderstandings). The whole is a plea for humans to step off our pedestal and actually look at the world around us, that we are part of (little as many seem willing to admit it). Seen on their own terms, even the "lowest" and "ugliest" animal is valuable and wonderful, with much to teach us if we're willing to learn... which we can't do until we stop insisting we're the pinnacle to which all others should kneel in subservience.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal) - My Review
Being a Beast (Charles Foster) - My Review
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
Lucy Cooke
Basic Books
Nonfiction, Animals/History/Science
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since humans first began noticing the natural world, misconceptions have abounded - not just in folklore or myths, but in the works of apparent experts and theoretically learned people... and not just in ancient times. It's not all just harmless ignorance, either; bad press and flawed understanding can substantially harm conservation efforts and the future of our planet. Zoologist and author Lucy Cooke examines several species that have borne the brunt of our species's seeming inability to separate fact from fiction and superstition from science, from bats to storks and eels to hippos, even the venerated panda.
REVIEW: Anthropomorphizing nature is one of the oldest human traits, turning them into supernatural agents or morality lessons or embodiments of our own aspirations or failings or plain old wishful thinking. Unfortunately, this idealized thinking can prove a serious problem when one is trying to understand the truth, as demonstrated in this examination of several key species. One would think that we'd be over that by now as a species, or at least science would be over that as a discipline, with our advanced understanding of so many fields and our increasing awareness of our own faults, but, as Cooke demonstrates, even in modern times myths and mysteries persist, with many secrets the natural world is still reluctant to offer up for our edification.
With a focus on the "Western" world's views of nature and how the roots of science and understanding were so hopelessly entangled with ideas that appear quite ridiculous now (but at the time were often implicitly believed to be true), Cooke explores the history of natural science and the people who both advanced and regressed the field. From the notion that eels spontaneously generated in river mud to beavers having hidden human-like communities complete with law enforcement, many false notions were rooted in the ancient classical world, where armchair experts repeated travelers tales as gospel truth, often with a dash of moralizing that would be raised to an art form in medieval bestiaries. Animals like the sloth were dismissed and denigrated by Europeans as "useless", when in fact their slow-motion lifestyle is such a successful way to survive in their native habitat that it evolved twice, while bats were treated as agents of evil in much of the world because theoretically intelligent H. sapiens brains apparently could not wrap their minds around something that couldn't be neatly defined as "beast" or "bird", and hyenas were considered cowardly and nasty because they just plain look less noble than a lion (who, it turns out, scavenge hyena kills more often than hyenas scavenge lion kills, despite popular media depictions). Even scientists in "enlightened" ages often skewed data based on their own religious or moral assumptions, even deliberately burying observations they deemed "unsuitable" for general knowledge (such as the sex lives of penguins - especially ironic, given how the nature documentary March of the Penguins was embraced in conservative circles as depicting an ideal monogamous family). Politics also invariably come into play; for many years, it was a commonly understood "fact" that North American animals (and, of course, natives) were inferior to their European counterparts in every conceivable way... a notion that was difficult to dislodge when most of the "experts" penning natural science resided in Europe. Even today, politics warps popular perceptions: for instance, "panda diplomacy" has created a highly artificial image of the panda as a cutesy but clumsy and naturally deficient "teddy bear" in desperate need of human intervention to even reproduce, when in fact human interference and captive breeding has created an entire population of animals so divorced from their very capable wild cousins that reintroductions almost invariably end in disaster. (As for the notion they can't even breed competently, that's yet another result of humans projecting human ideas and moralities onto wild animals; pandas breed just fine outside of captivity, just not very well in monogamous pairings that are forced on them in zoos.) The only thing they need from people is to be left alone with sufficient natural habitat to survive... but that's something nobody seems particularly interested in hearing, let alone doing, even in their native country. And then there's how people have used/abused animals through the ages, where even the best intentions often go awry; the African clawed frog, once a boon in the days before simple chemical strip pregnancy tests, is responsible for the worldwide spread of a toxic fungus devastating global amphibian populations after they escaped or were released into nonnative environments.
As part of her research, Cooke talked with many working conservationists and scientists who are doing their level best to dispel old myths and bad press before time runs out on the conservation clock, as it has for too many species. Misunderstandings and mysteries still plague the field, despite modern technology being brought to bear on matters such as eel reproduction (a reverse-salmon situation, where adults breed in the ocean and the young swim upriver to live for years until returning to the Sargasso Sea to breed... though, as of the book's writing, apparently even now nobody has witnessed the act). There is still so much to learn (and unlearn), even as a fresh tide of intentional ignorance seems to be rising globally in the form of authoritarian governments and would-be theocrats gaining traction.
At times, I'd hoped for a little less focus on the "Western" perception of animals, and maybe a little more on how native populations considered the creatures they lived beside for countless generations (though even they were not above anthropomorphizing and other misunderstandings). The whole is a plea for humans to step off our pedestal and actually look at the world around us, that we are part of (little as many seem willing to admit it). Seen on their own terms, even the "lowest" and "ugliest" animal is valuable and wonderful, with much to teach us if we're willing to learn... which we can't do until we stop insisting we're the pinnacle to which all others should kneel in subservience.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal) - My Review
Being a Beast (Charles Foster) - My Review
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Mortal Coil (Derek Landy)
Mortal Coil
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 5
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, YA Adventure/Fantasy/Horror/Humor/Mystery
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Since becoming skeleton detective Skulduggery Pleasant's apprentice and partner, Stephanie - now Valkyrie Cain - has kept very few secrets from him... but this time, she has a very good reason. Ever since realizing that she herself is the ill-omened Darquesse, destined (or so the psychics insist) to destroy the world, she has been searching on her own for a way to change the future. Surely she would never do such terrible things on her own, so someone must gain control of her true name. Thus, she hatches a dangerous plan to seal that name so that nobody can turn it against her - only realizing how far in over her head she has wandered when it's too late.
As she's coping with that, the fallout of the destruction of Dublin's Sanctuary, the ruling body of Ireland's hidden magical community, continues to resonate through the country. Tracking down the perpetrator brings them no closer to figuring out who was behind it; the attack was too big and well orchestrated to be the work of one rogue mage. Now a foreign assassin known as the Tesseract is methodically and ruthlessly cleaning up loose ends before any of those threads lead back to the real culprit... culprits who may well already be infiltrating the new Council of Elders as Dublin's sorcerers regroup. When dark Remnants - malevolent shadow spirits that infest the living like parasites - are unleashed by the secretive necromancers, Dublin's magical community may finally be destroyed for good - and, against all of Valkyrie's will and sacrifices and efforts to the contrary, Darquesse may be unleashed.
REVIEW: After a slightly rushed fourth installment, the series returns to form here, beginning a new and darker journey for Valkyrie, Skulduggery, and their associates... one that will change everything going forward, making enemies of friends and leaving more than one dead.
After learning of her foreseen destiny as Darquesse, Valkyrie tries her hand at solo problem solving, erroneously believing that her previous adventures, not to mention the initiative that drove her to do the near-impossible and rescue Skulduggery from the dimension of the banished Faceless Ones, mean she's up to tackling any magical problem that comes her way. (She also, naturally, is not sure what her other magical companions would do if they learned the truth, given how ruthless sorcerers can be when facing threats less extreme than this.) The bargain she strikes to seal her name takes the series well and truly into horror territory, showing just how far she's come from the relatively innocent girl who never suspected the truth about magic. She's also 16 now, and dating, which marks another transition as the series leaves behind any lingering traces of middle grade territory (which were already ghostly thin in the previous installment) to enter young adult territory. Her boyfriend Fletcher may technically be a couple years older, but he's still rather boyish and awkward in relationships... and the outcast vampire Caelan makes no secret of his own growing attraction/obsession, which Valkyrie does not intentionally encourage even as she can't help but be a bit intrigued despite herself. Fortunately, she has friends to help keep her grounded, though given the secrets she's hiding she spends less time around them than she probably should at this stage in her magical training and overall life circumstances. (The fact that she'll soon have a baby sibling yet she's still over-reliant on her mirror reflection stand-in - which has become unusually outspoken for what's supposed to be an unthinking construct - shows just how much she's disappearing into the magical world and the loner role of "Valkyrie Cain", leaving the ordinary life of "Stephanie" behind, for all that she keeps insisting that she's excited to be a big sister and misses ordinary family time.) Without spoilers, the Valkyrie at the end of the book is a much different young woman than the one at the start, having done a lot of growing up and endured some very hard knocks and harsh lessons along the way... but, then, the entire Dublin magical community is not the same by the end, either.
As for the main arc, after the necromancers inadvertently trigger the release of the captured Remnants, things take a very, very dark and dangerous turn. They fixate on Darquesse as their future leader and messiah, someone who will give them the world of death and chaos they've always craved, and they're more than willing to destroy Dublin to get it, spreading like a dark plague through magical and mortal worlds alike. Skulduggery and company have their work cut out for them as they race to keep ahead of the danger... then race to try to find and reactivate the magical Soul-Catcher device that was used to trap them the last time they were unleashed, assuming the mechanism is still functional after so many decades of neglect. Through the influence of the Remnants, friends become foes in the blink of an eye; with the exception of Skulduggery, who is already dead, nobody can be trusted. This makes for some strange bedfellows by the time the climax rolls around, and some very interesting developments.
As in previous installments, there's little down time and no shortage of surprises, as well as sprinklings of humor throughout. Also as in previous segments, the end does not undo nearly all the damage wrought during the story, leaving things very different than where they began. I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Dark World (Henry Kuttner) - My Review
Skulduggery Pleasant (Derek Landy) - My Review
The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 5
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, YA Adventure/Fantasy/Horror/Humor/Mystery
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Since becoming skeleton detective Skulduggery Pleasant's apprentice and partner, Stephanie - now Valkyrie Cain - has kept very few secrets from him... but this time, she has a very good reason. Ever since realizing that she herself is the ill-omened Darquesse, destined (or so the psychics insist) to destroy the world, she has been searching on her own for a way to change the future. Surely she would never do such terrible things on her own, so someone must gain control of her true name. Thus, she hatches a dangerous plan to seal that name so that nobody can turn it against her - only realizing how far in over her head she has wandered when it's too late.
As she's coping with that, the fallout of the destruction of Dublin's Sanctuary, the ruling body of Ireland's hidden magical community, continues to resonate through the country. Tracking down the perpetrator brings them no closer to figuring out who was behind it; the attack was too big and well orchestrated to be the work of one rogue mage. Now a foreign assassin known as the Tesseract is methodically and ruthlessly cleaning up loose ends before any of those threads lead back to the real culprit... culprits who may well already be infiltrating the new Council of Elders as Dublin's sorcerers regroup. When dark Remnants - malevolent shadow spirits that infest the living like parasites - are unleashed by the secretive necromancers, Dublin's magical community may finally be destroyed for good - and, against all of Valkyrie's will and sacrifices and efforts to the contrary, Darquesse may be unleashed.
REVIEW: After a slightly rushed fourth installment, the series returns to form here, beginning a new and darker journey for Valkyrie, Skulduggery, and their associates... one that will change everything going forward, making enemies of friends and leaving more than one dead.
After learning of her foreseen destiny as Darquesse, Valkyrie tries her hand at solo problem solving, erroneously believing that her previous adventures, not to mention the initiative that drove her to do the near-impossible and rescue Skulduggery from the dimension of the banished Faceless Ones, mean she's up to tackling any magical problem that comes her way. (She also, naturally, is not sure what her other magical companions would do if they learned the truth, given how ruthless sorcerers can be when facing threats less extreme than this.) The bargain she strikes to seal her name takes the series well and truly into horror territory, showing just how far she's come from the relatively innocent girl who never suspected the truth about magic. She's also 16 now, and dating, which marks another transition as the series leaves behind any lingering traces of middle grade territory (which were already ghostly thin in the previous installment) to enter young adult territory. Her boyfriend Fletcher may technically be a couple years older, but he's still rather boyish and awkward in relationships... and the outcast vampire Caelan makes no secret of his own growing attraction/obsession, which Valkyrie does not intentionally encourage even as she can't help but be a bit intrigued despite herself. Fortunately, she has friends to help keep her grounded, though given the secrets she's hiding she spends less time around them than she probably should at this stage in her magical training and overall life circumstances. (The fact that she'll soon have a baby sibling yet she's still over-reliant on her mirror reflection stand-in - which has become unusually outspoken for what's supposed to be an unthinking construct - shows just how much she's disappearing into the magical world and the loner role of "Valkyrie Cain", leaving the ordinary life of "Stephanie" behind, for all that she keeps insisting that she's excited to be a big sister and misses ordinary family time.) Without spoilers, the Valkyrie at the end of the book is a much different young woman than the one at the start, having done a lot of growing up and endured some very hard knocks and harsh lessons along the way... but, then, the entire Dublin magical community is not the same by the end, either.
As for the main arc, after the necromancers inadvertently trigger the release of the captured Remnants, things take a very, very dark and dangerous turn. They fixate on Darquesse as their future leader and messiah, someone who will give them the world of death and chaos they've always craved, and they're more than willing to destroy Dublin to get it, spreading like a dark plague through magical and mortal worlds alike. Skulduggery and company have their work cut out for them as they race to keep ahead of the danger... then race to try to find and reactivate the magical Soul-Catcher device that was used to trap them the last time they were unleashed, assuming the mechanism is still functional after so many decades of neglect. Through the influence of the Remnants, friends become foes in the blink of an eye; with the exception of Skulduggery, who is already dead, nobody can be trusted. This makes for some strange bedfellows by the time the climax rolls around, and some very interesting developments.
As in previous installments, there's little down time and no shortage of surprises, as well as sprinklings of humor throughout. Also as in previous segments, the end does not undo nearly all the damage wrought during the story, leaving things very different than where they began. I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Dark World (Henry Kuttner) - My Review
Skulduggery Pleasant (Derek Landy) - My Review
The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
Friday, October 18, 2024
Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies (June Casagrande)
Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies
June Casagrande
Tantor Audio
Nonfiction, Grammar/Humor
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Who (or should that be "whom"?) among us hasn't been the victim of a grammar snob? Ensconced in their ivory towers, surrounded by ancient grimoires containing mysteries of linguistic mastery, they rain thunderbolts down upon the lowly, uneducated peasants who dare split infinitives or misplace apostrophes or confuse homophones or otherwise abuse the holy English language with their cloddish colloquial manglings. Surely, we laypeople think as we cower from the experts' great and terrible wrath, they must be vastly more educated and overall better people than the rest of us. Right?
Wrong.
Syndicated grammar columnist June Casagrande peels back the curtain to reveal the grammar snobs' dirty little secret: they don't know much, if anything, more than we do about how the English language works. The "rules" they cling to with a zealot's fervor often depend on which source one consults, and even the sources can be vague. The only absolute rule is that one must communicate one's ideas clearly. In this book, Casagrande offers numerous tips and tricks to help clear up misconceptions about grammar and bring those snobs down a few pegs.
This audiobook version includes a few of Casagrande's grammar articles, not appearing in the print version.
REVIEW: Like so many things in life, grammar is a basic, useful idea that has been turned into something else entirely by a small handful of gatekeepers... not at all helped by how English as a language often defies logic (even before one takes into account language evolution and drift between various iterations of the language, chiefly England's English versus American English). Much of what we need to know we absorbed subconsciously as we learned the language; it's the attempts to pin down those lessons and bind them in a grammar book that can get so tricky and lead to so much squabbling and - frankly - bullying among know-it-alls. Almost every "rule" has some manner of exception, every style or formality contradicted by some equally-reputable source. Casagrande takes many humorous jabs at other grammar "experts" who love raining stones on others from their own glass houses, even as she offers explanations and hints on how to better understand the subject. It earned the extra half-star for making me snicker out loud at work more than once as I listened.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Who's... (oops) Whose Grammar Book is This, Anyway? (C. Edward Good) - My Review
Word Watch (Patricia McLinn) - My Review
Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Lynne Truss) - My Review
June Casagrande
Tantor Audio
Nonfiction, Grammar/Humor
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Who (or should that be "whom"?) among us hasn't been the victim of a grammar snob? Ensconced in their ivory towers, surrounded by ancient grimoires containing mysteries of linguistic mastery, they rain thunderbolts down upon the lowly, uneducated peasants who dare split infinitives or misplace apostrophes or confuse homophones or otherwise abuse the holy English language with their cloddish colloquial manglings. Surely, we laypeople think as we cower from the experts' great and terrible wrath, they must be vastly more educated and overall better people than the rest of us. Right?
Wrong.
Syndicated grammar columnist June Casagrande peels back the curtain to reveal the grammar snobs' dirty little secret: they don't know much, if anything, more than we do about how the English language works. The "rules" they cling to with a zealot's fervor often depend on which source one consults, and even the sources can be vague. The only absolute rule is that one must communicate one's ideas clearly. In this book, Casagrande offers numerous tips and tricks to help clear up misconceptions about grammar and bring those snobs down a few pegs.
This audiobook version includes a few of Casagrande's grammar articles, not appearing in the print version.
REVIEW: Like so many things in life, grammar is a basic, useful idea that has been turned into something else entirely by a small handful of gatekeepers... not at all helped by how English as a language often defies logic (even before one takes into account language evolution and drift between various iterations of the language, chiefly England's English versus American English). Much of what we need to know we absorbed subconsciously as we learned the language; it's the attempts to pin down those lessons and bind them in a grammar book that can get so tricky and lead to so much squabbling and - frankly - bullying among know-it-alls. Almost every "rule" has some manner of exception, every style or formality contradicted by some equally-reputable source. Casagrande takes many humorous jabs at other grammar "experts" who love raining stones on others from their own glass houses, even as she offers explanations and hints on how to better understand the subject. It earned the extra half-star for making me snicker out loud at work more than once as I listened.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Who's... (oops) Whose Grammar Book is This, Anyway? (C. Edward Good) - My Review
Word Watch (Patricia McLinn) - My Review
Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Lynne Truss) - My Review
The Dragon's Child and The Night of the Unicorn (Jenny Nimmo)
The Dragon's Child and The Night of the Unicorn
Jenny Nimmo
Recorded Books
Fiction, CH Collection/Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Author Jenny Nimmo presents two fantasy stories:
The Dragon's Child: The young dragon Dando, a late bloomer, cannot fly, and is accidentally left behind when the others migrate north... just when vicious monsters known as Doggins approach through the dark woods, and a ship full of dangerous humans arrives.
The Night of the Unicorn: A magical night full of shooting stars brings an old unicorn to the fields near young Amber's farm and starts an epic quest by aging chicken Hennie, a journey that will have consequences for the entire farming community.
REVIEW: As the descriptions likely imply, this pair of stories is fairly light in tone, cozy bedtime tales with some peril, some heart, and some whimsy.
The Dragon's Child was the stronger of the pair (though I may be biased, as I'm more of a dragon person than a unicorn person), telling the tale of a little underdog dragon who has to find a reason to grow up before he can fly - a reason he finds unexpectedly in a girl prisoner of the invading humans (who aren't quite ordinary humans), and the leader's spoiled princeling son. There's a hair more depth to everyone, even the baddies (except for the Doggins, of course), than one might expect in a fairy tale.
The Night of the Unicorn underplays the titular unicorn; it's more about the brave little chicken whose quest to find the old rooster William inadvertently weaves together many lives, human and animal. The result feels a little overlong and scattered and doesn't deliver the payoff that the first story offered, though it's generally enjoyable.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Glory of Unicorns (Bruce Coville) - My Review
The Dragons at Crumbling Castle (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
The Dragon of Lonely Island (Rebecca Rupp) - My Review
Jenny Nimmo
Recorded Books
Fiction, CH Collection/Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Author Jenny Nimmo presents two fantasy stories:
The Dragon's Child: The young dragon Dando, a late bloomer, cannot fly, and is accidentally left behind when the others migrate north... just when vicious monsters known as Doggins approach through the dark woods, and a ship full of dangerous humans arrives.
The Night of the Unicorn: A magical night full of shooting stars brings an old unicorn to the fields near young Amber's farm and starts an epic quest by aging chicken Hennie, a journey that will have consequences for the entire farming community.
REVIEW: As the descriptions likely imply, this pair of stories is fairly light in tone, cozy bedtime tales with some peril, some heart, and some whimsy.
The Dragon's Child was the stronger of the pair (though I may be biased, as I'm more of a dragon person than a unicorn person), telling the tale of a little underdog dragon who has to find a reason to grow up before he can fly - a reason he finds unexpectedly in a girl prisoner of the invading humans (who aren't quite ordinary humans), and the leader's spoiled princeling son. There's a hair more depth to everyone, even the baddies (except for the Doggins, of course), than one might expect in a fairy tale.
The Night of the Unicorn underplays the titular unicorn; it's more about the brave little chicken whose quest to find the old rooster William inadvertently weaves together many lives, human and animal. The result feels a little overlong and scattered and doesn't deliver the payoff that the first story offered, though it's generally enjoyable.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Glory of Unicorns (Bruce Coville) - My Review
The Dragons at Crumbling Castle (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
The Dragon of Lonely Island (Rebecca Rupp) - My Review
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (Oscar Wilde)
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
Oscar Wilde
Naxos Audiobook
Fiction, Collection/Humor/Literary Fiction
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: A grim prognostication leads a young lord to desperate measures... an aged and proper English ghost is driven to his wit's end by the new American tenants of his ancestral home... a man consoles a friend about a mysterious lost love... Six stories by Oscar Wilde are collected here:
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime: A "chiromantist" - reader of hands - at a socialite's party convinces the gullible Lord Savile that he's destined to commit a heinous crime, so he determines to get it over and done with before his impending nuptials... only to find murder is far from easy.
The Canterville Ghost: When an American family purchases an old English estate, they also inherit its irascible ghost, who doesn't know what to do with the unaristocratic and utterly unruly foreigners.
The Portrait of Mr. W. H.: A dinner discussion ignites a passion for an alternative solution to the mysteries of Shakespeare's sonnets.
The Model Millionaire: A young man has a fateful encounter with an artist's model.
The Sphinx Without a Secret - An Etching: One man's dream girl hides a mysterious double life... or does she?
The Birthday of the Infanta: A young Spanish princess's birthday party features musicians, a mock bull fight, a puppet play, and a boy dwarf dancer who tragically misunderstands his circumstances.
REVIEW: Once in a while I take a run at classics, which I find sometimes go down easier in audiobook format. This collection gathers a handful of stories from one of the more famous English writers, and while they can still be entertaining, they also can't help but bear traces of their time (quite notable in certain racial depictions), particularly in their tendency to draw themselves out with verbal meanderings that don't always contribute to the story.
The first story is riddled with social satire and caricatures of 19th century socialites (and others), an amusing and sometimes silly send-up of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When the glorified palmist predicts Lord Savile will murder a distant relative, he starts going through the family Rolodex (or the period equivalent) to find a suitable candidate, as he can't possibly get married with a future felony hanging over his head... but his efforts keep failing him. Along the way, he inadvertently discovers a new perspective on life as he pushes outside his posh comfort zone.
The Canterville Ghost reads like an old Disney family movie from before Disney Studios existed, with very silly overtones and goofy, slapstick antics. The ghost - depicted as essentially an immortal prima donna actor who has never before failed to master an audience - tears his metaphoric hair as the Americans not only refuse to be properly frightened out of their wits, but treat the phantom as a vaguely irritating house guest at best and a laughingstock at worst. The ending veers away from the borderline-cartoony earlier tale into something more sentimental and philosophical, the two parts not quite matching. Some nice imagery and a few chuckles, but overall it was too dippy for my tastes.
The third tale would've been barely more than flash fiction had Wilde not spent so much time rehashing and reprinting and re-analyzing Shakespeare's sonnets (which his target audience was likely more than familiar with) in pursuit of a fictional alternate theory as to whom the legendary bard was addressing in the sometimes-cryptic verses. The theory takes on a life and passion of its own, ending friendships and even a life or two in its fervor before passing on to the next listener. It seems to be more of a study of literary enthusiasts and the dangers of obsession.
The shortest tale in the collection, The Model Millionaire never really develops its story and still takes too many words to reach an obvious ending.
The Sphinx Without a Secret sets itself up as a riff on the old tale of the lover with the secret that must never be pried into (only for the other half of the partnership to be unable to resist the mystery, dooming their future happiness), but never quite feels like it earns the tragic ending it delivers.
The last story is the saddest, though it also feels like one with the most padding, painstakingly establishing the girl princess's father and deceased mother and scheming uncle and more, then plodding through the majority of the party before arriving at the dancing dwarf who - only recently sold into servitude by his charcoal-burner father after a carefree childhood in the forests, entirely innocent in the ways of the "civilized" world or the cruelties of the aristocracy - fails to recognize the dangers in trusting a princess. The final line twists a knife.
While Wilde paints some interesting (if inherently exaggerated) characters and makes many pithy observations and one-liners, the stories do show their age. Additionally, the whole presentation suffered from prolonged musical interludes - not just between stories, but between "chapters" within each of the longer stories. A quick bit to signal a scene change might've worked okay, but these were far too long and grew rather annoying, especially when I could never be sure if they were signalling a switch to a new story or just a very long pause in the same tale. They helped weigh the collection down in the ratings, even though overall I found them more engaging than I'd expected, given my hit-and-miss history with classics.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Nonexistent Knight (Italo Calvino) - My Review
Fifty-One Tales (Lord Dunsany) - My Review
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) - My Review
Oscar Wilde
Naxos Audiobook
Fiction, Collection/Humor/Literary Fiction
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: A grim prognostication leads a young lord to desperate measures... an aged and proper English ghost is driven to his wit's end by the new American tenants of his ancestral home... a man consoles a friend about a mysterious lost love... Six stories by Oscar Wilde are collected here:
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime: A "chiromantist" - reader of hands - at a socialite's party convinces the gullible Lord Savile that he's destined to commit a heinous crime, so he determines to get it over and done with before his impending nuptials... only to find murder is far from easy.
The Canterville Ghost: When an American family purchases an old English estate, they also inherit its irascible ghost, who doesn't know what to do with the unaristocratic and utterly unruly foreigners.
The Portrait of Mr. W. H.: A dinner discussion ignites a passion for an alternative solution to the mysteries of Shakespeare's sonnets.
The Model Millionaire: A young man has a fateful encounter with an artist's model.
The Sphinx Without a Secret - An Etching: One man's dream girl hides a mysterious double life... or does she?
The Birthday of the Infanta: A young Spanish princess's birthday party features musicians, a mock bull fight, a puppet play, and a boy dwarf dancer who tragically misunderstands his circumstances.
REVIEW: Once in a while I take a run at classics, which I find sometimes go down easier in audiobook format. This collection gathers a handful of stories from one of the more famous English writers, and while they can still be entertaining, they also can't help but bear traces of their time (quite notable in certain racial depictions), particularly in their tendency to draw themselves out with verbal meanderings that don't always contribute to the story.
The first story is riddled with social satire and caricatures of 19th century socialites (and others), an amusing and sometimes silly send-up of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When the glorified palmist predicts Lord Savile will murder a distant relative, he starts going through the family Rolodex (or the period equivalent) to find a suitable candidate, as he can't possibly get married with a future felony hanging over his head... but his efforts keep failing him. Along the way, he inadvertently discovers a new perspective on life as he pushes outside his posh comfort zone.
The Canterville Ghost reads like an old Disney family movie from before Disney Studios existed, with very silly overtones and goofy, slapstick antics. The ghost - depicted as essentially an immortal prima donna actor who has never before failed to master an audience - tears his metaphoric hair as the Americans not only refuse to be properly frightened out of their wits, but treat the phantom as a vaguely irritating house guest at best and a laughingstock at worst. The ending veers away from the borderline-cartoony earlier tale into something more sentimental and philosophical, the two parts not quite matching. Some nice imagery and a few chuckles, but overall it was too dippy for my tastes.
The third tale would've been barely more than flash fiction had Wilde not spent so much time rehashing and reprinting and re-analyzing Shakespeare's sonnets (which his target audience was likely more than familiar with) in pursuit of a fictional alternate theory as to whom the legendary bard was addressing in the sometimes-cryptic verses. The theory takes on a life and passion of its own, ending friendships and even a life or two in its fervor before passing on to the next listener. It seems to be more of a study of literary enthusiasts and the dangers of obsession.
The shortest tale in the collection, The Model Millionaire never really develops its story and still takes too many words to reach an obvious ending.
The Sphinx Without a Secret sets itself up as a riff on the old tale of the lover with the secret that must never be pried into (only for the other half of the partnership to be unable to resist the mystery, dooming their future happiness), but never quite feels like it earns the tragic ending it delivers.
The last story is the saddest, though it also feels like one with the most padding, painstakingly establishing the girl princess's father and deceased mother and scheming uncle and more, then plodding through the majority of the party before arriving at the dancing dwarf who - only recently sold into servitude by his charcoal-burner father after a carefree childhood in the forests, entirely innocent in the ways of the "civilized" world or the cruelties of the aristocracy - fails to recognize the dangers in trusting a princess. The final line twists a knife.
While Wilde paints some interesting (if inherently exaggerated) characters and makes many pithy observations and one-liners, the stories do show their age. Additionally, the whole presentation suffered from prolonged musical interludes - not just between stories, but between "chapters" within each of the longer stories. A quick bit to signal a scene change might've worked okay, but these were far too long and grew rather annoying, especially when I could never be sure if they were signalling a switch to a new story or just a very long pause in the same tale. They helped weigh the collection down in the ratings, even though overall I found them more engaging than I'd expected, given my hit-and-miss history with classics.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Nonexistent Knight (Italo Calvino) - My Review
Fifty-One Tales (Lord Dunsany) - My Review
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) - My Review
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
The Circus of Stolen Dreams (Lorelei Savaryn)
The Circus of Stolen Dreams
Lorelei Savaryn
Viking
Fiction, MG Chiller/Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Three years ago, Andrea's kid brother Francis disappeared in the middle of the night... and it's all her fault. Not a day passes when she doesn't blame herself, though she still hopes against hope that he'll return. One night, at yet another tense family dinner, her divorced parents announce that they're going to finally get rid of Francis's things, insisting it's time to let go... but she can't let go. That's as bad as pretending he never existed at all.
Grieving, angry, she jumps on her bike and pedals off into the moonlit evening to cool down, taking the path through the woods at the park - and finding something very strange. A flyer leads her to the circus Reverie, a place where children from around the world can forget their worries for a single night. The price of entry for one night is a dream or memory - and she knows just the memory she'd love to be rid of, the memory of her last night with Francis and the terrible mistake she made that led to him vanishing.
Once inside the iron gates, Andrea finds herself swept up in a magical world, where she can live countless dreams and memories and nightmares, everything from flying through the clouds to escaping a sea witch sacrifice. But when she finds a nightmare that used to plague her brother, she realizes that he must have come to Reverie after he vanished from their room. Maybe he's still there, one of the countless other children wandering the fairgrounds. With her new friend Penny, she sets out to uncover the truth - and instead discovers a darkness at the heart of the circus, beneath the whimsy and wonder... a darkness that nobody can escape.
REVIEW: Sinister circuses aren't exactly new fictional territory, but The Circus of Stolen Dreams adds a bit of a twist with the dream angle, helped by a main character who genuinely has reasons to want to abandon her pain- and guilt-filled reality to bury herself in another world... and a villain with a vested interest in keeping her there.
From the start, Andrea is a girl whose life has been shattered beyond any hope of repair: she's sitting at a silent dinner table with her divorced parents, staring at the empty seat where her brother Francis should be, crushed by her own guilt (which the reader will understand later on)... only to be told that her mother is about to get rid of the last of her brother's belongings, one more blow she simply cannot take. Her ride in the dark - ostensibly to clear her head, but one wonders whether she intends to really go back home to deal with the thorny emotions lingering there - brings her to the circus Reverie and a strange girl, roughly her own age, who explains the rules and the price of admission. At twelve, Andrea is still young enough to accept magic - especially when facing a circus in the park that could not possibly be where it is - if old enough to hesitate, if slightly. She agrees, of course, at least as much to be rid of the painful memory of her guilt as to gain entrance to a fairground full of literal dreams. Once inside, she encounters Penny, and her first possible hints that something might be amiss; Penny, like everyone else, appears happy, but has the appearance of someone who's been up far past their bedtime. There are also some oddly anachronistic outfits floating among the other guests. But Andrea is too relieved to finally be in a place where she can enjoy herself, where she can set down the burden of her parents' divorce and her estrangement from her own friends and... something else that was bothering her, something she knew must be bad if she agreed to give up its memory to get into Reverie. While the dreams (and even a sampling of nightmares, which provide their own exhilaration in the way a haunted house or wild roller coast does, the adrenaline rush of surviving and escaping) help, Andrea can't shake the nagging sense that she's forgetting something very important... and when she finds Francis's recurring nightmare among the tents, enough comes flooding back to prompt her to ask questions and poke around, even though Penny warns her against it. This brings her into the presence of the Sandman, the creator and operator of Reverie, and the beginning of a high stakes game of sorts between the two, as he tries to coax her back into complacency and forgetfulness and she refuses to give in - with increasingly dire consequences, as it becomes harder and harder to tell just what is dream and what is reality in this place. Even when she finds a little boy who seems to be Francis, he's a child of six, not of nine like the real boy would be - or does time even work the same here in Reverie? As Andrea digs for the truth about the circus and Francis and a means to escape, she finds ways to process the grief that's been strangling her for over three years, an emotional and sometimes heartbreaking journey.
The tale came close to earning an extra half-star for delving surprisingly deep into the pain of a broken child and family and how attempts to ignore reality and the truth inevitably produce backlash that causes at least as much pain as the thing one was trying to ignore in the first place - not just for oneself, but for those around you, even total strangers caught in the maelstrom of consequences - and setting up parallels between Andrea and the Sandman that make it plausibly difficult for the girl to outwit and outmaneuver him. I kept thinking the tale had reached its peak, and it just kept going higher and hitting harder. After the emotional climax, the final parts feel just a little too stretched, though, with a couple things that, though tangential, stretched the premise a little far (even given the presence of magic)... things that almost make me wonder if Savaryn was intending a sequel or series involving Andrea and/or Reverie. It was a very, very near miss, though. I wasn't anticipating a tale as emotionally charged as this one, as willing to confront head-on concepts of grief and loss and guilt and the yearning to escape it all, capturing along the way the immersive, strange wonders of dreams.
(As a closing nitpicky note, I call foul on the concept of not feeling pain in dreams. Personal experience suggests otherwise.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Small Spaces (Katherine Arden) - My Review
Haunter of Dreams (Claudya Schmidt) - My Review
Full Tilt (Neal Shusterman) - My Review
Lorelei Savaryn
Viking
Fiction, MG Chiller/Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Three years ago, Andrea's kid brother Francis disappeared in the middle of the night... and it's all her fault. Not a day passes when she doesn't blame herself, though she still hopes against hope that he'll return. One night, at yet another tense family dinner, her divorced parents announce that they're going to finally get rid of Francis's things, insisting it's time to let go... but she can't let go. That's as bad as pretending he never existed at all.
Grieving, angry, she jumps on her bike and pedals off into the moonlit evening to cool down, taking the path through the woods at the park - and finding something very strange. A flyer leads her to the circus Reverie, a place where children from around the world can forget their worries for a single night. The price of entry for one night is a dream or memory - and she knows just the memory she'd love to be rid of, the memory of her last night with Francis and the terrible mistake she made that led to him vanishing.
Once inside the iron gates, Andrea finds herself swept up in a magical world, where she can live countless dreams and memories and nightmares, everything from flying through the clouds to escaping a sea witch sacrifice. But when she finds a nightmare that used to plague her brother, she realizes that he must have come to Reverie after he vanished from their room. Maybe he's still there, one of the countless other children wandering the fairgrounds. With her new friend Penny, she sets out to uncover the truth - and instead discovers a darkness at the heart of the circus, beneath the whimsy and wonder... a darkness that nobody can escape.
REVIEW: Sinister circuses aren't exactly new fictional territory, but The Circus of Stolen Dreams adds a bit of a twist with the dream angle, helped by a main character who genuinely has reasons to want to abandon her pain- and guilt-filled reality to bury herself in another world... and a villain with a vested interest in keeping her there.
From the start, Andrea is a girl whose life has been shattered beyond any hope of repair: she's sitting at a silent dinner table with her divorced parents, staring at the empty seat where her brother Francis should be, crushed by her own guilt (which the reader will understand later on)... only to be told that her mother is about to get rid of the last of her brother's belongings, one more blow she simply cannot take. Her ride in the dark - ostensibly to clear her head, but one wonders whether she intends to really go back home to deal with the thorny emotions lingering there - brings her to the circus Reverie and a strange girl, roughly her own age, who explains the rules and the price of admission. At twelve, Andrea is still young enough to accept magic - especially when facing a circus in the park that could not possibly be where it is - if old enough to hesitate, if slightly. She agrees, of course, at least as much to be rid of the painful memory of her guilt as to gain entrance to a fairground full of literal dreams. Once inside, she encounters Penny, and her first possible hints that something might be amiss; Penny, like everyone else, appears happy, but has the appearance of someone who's been up far past their bedtime. There are also some oddly anachronistic outfits floating among the other guests. But Andrea is too relieved to finally be in a place where she can enjoy herself, where she can set down the burden of her parents' divorce and her estrangement from her own friends and... something else that was bothering her, something she knew must be bad if she agreed to give up its memory to get into Reverie. While the dreams (and even a sampling of nightmares, which provide their own exhilaration in the way a haunted house or wild roller coast does, the adrenaline rush of surviving and escaping) help, Andrea can't shake the nagging sense that she's forgetting something very important... and when she finds Francis's recurring nightmare among the tents, enough comes flooding back to prompt her to ask questions and poke around, even though Penny warns her against it. This brings her into the presence of the Sandman, the creator and operator of Reverie, and the beginning of a high stakes game of sorts between the two, as he tries to coax her back into complacency and forgetfulness and she refuses to give in - with increasingly dire consequences, as it becomes harder and harder to tell just what is dream and what is reality in this place. Even when she finds a little boy who seems to be Francis, he's a child of six, not of nine like the real boy would be - or does time even work the same here in Reverie? As Andrea digs for the truth about the circus and Francis and a means to escape, she finds ways to process the grief that's been strangling her for over three years, an emotional and sometimes heartbreaking journey.
The tale came close to earning an extra half-star for delving surprisingly deep into the pain of a broken child and family and how attempts to ignore reality and the truth inevitably produce backlash that causes at least as much pain as the thing one was trying to ignore in the first place - not just for oneself, but for those around you, even total strangers caught in the maelstrom of consequences - and setting up parallels between Andrea and the Sandman that make it plausibly difficult for the girl to outwit and outmaneuver him. I kept thinking the tale had reached its peak, and it just kept going higher and hitting harder. After the emotional climax, the final parts feel just a little too stretched, though, with a couple things that, though tangential, stretched the premise a little far (even given the presence of magic)... things that almost make me wonder if Savaryn was intending a sequel or series involving Andrea and/or Reverie. It was a very, very near miss, though. I wasn't anticipating a tale as emotionally charged as this one, as willing to confront head-on concepts of grief and loss and guilt and the yearning to escape it all, capturing along the way the immersive, strange wonders of dreams.
(As a closing nitpicky note, I call foul on the concept of not feeling pain in dreams. Personal experience suggests otherwise.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Small Spaces (Katherine Arden) - My Review
Haunter of Dreams (Claudya Schmidt) - My Review
Full Tilt (Neal Shusterman) - My Review
Friday, October 11, 2024
How to Survive History (Cody Cassidy)
How to Survive History: How to Outrun a Tyrannosaurus, Escape Pompeii, Get Off the Titanic, and Survive the Rest of History's Deadliest Catastrophes
Cody Cassidy
Penguin Books
Nonfiction, History/Humor/Science
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: History is a dangerous place, but it also has some excellent sight-seeing. After all, where else are you going to witness herds of woolly mammoths or the splendor of 1400's Constantinople? If you managed to obtain a time machine, and avoided the pesky causality paradoxes that might erase your own existence, you could experience the vacation of a lifetime... but it's not much of a vacation if you don't make it home safely to share your photos on social media. If a Tyrannosaurus Rex crashes your Cretaceous-era picnic, could you get away? If your working vacation takes you to the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, how would you blend in? What if your trip to long-ago London coincides with the arrival of the Black Plague, or your around-the-world cruise drops you into Magellan's ships, or your Old West adventure lands you in the notorious Donner Party? Find out in this handy guide to some of the world's greatest disasters, and learn from those who survived.
REVIEW: As the description implies, this is a nice, light "popcorn history" book. Using records, archaeology, speculation, and some science, as well as numerous interviews with experts (not all of whom agree on the best courses of action to, say, survive the Titanic or escape Pompeii), Cassidy brings big ideas and moments down to a human scale. From facing off against giants of Earth's prehistory to surviving the darkest years of the Dark Ages to escaping the ravages of the worst tornado ever recorded in America and more, he whisks the reader/time traveler through highlights (or lowlights) of the past and offers survival tips for the savvy time tourist. Each entry is fairly short and contains interesting details, though a few gloss over what felt like important points and end a little abruptly. Overall, though, it's an intriguing little book of historical facts and factoids and speculations.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A SURVIVAL GUIDE: Living with Dinosaurs in the Jurassic Period (Dougal Dixon) - My Review
Terry Jones' Barbarians (Terry Jones and Alan Ereira) - My Review
Where's My Jetpack? (Daniel H. Wilson) - My Review
Cody Cassidy
Penguin Books
Nonfiction, History/Humor/Science
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: History is a dangerous place, but it also has some excellent sight-seeing. After all, where else are you going to witness herds of woolly mammoths or the splendor of 1400's Constantinople? If you managed to obtain a time machine, and avoided the pesky causality paradoxes that might erase your own existence, you could experience the vacation of a lifetime... but it's not much of a vacation if you don't make it home safely to share your photos on social media. If a Tyrannosaurus Rex crashes your Cretaceous-era picnic, could you get away? If your working vacation takes you to the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, how would you blend in? What if your trip to long-ago London coincides with the arrival of the Black Plague, or your around-the-world cruise drops you into Magellan's ships, or your Old West adventure lands you in the notorious Donner Party? Find out in this handy guide to some of the world's greatest disasters, and learn from those who survived.
REVIEW: As the description implies, this is a nice, light "popcorn history" book. Using records, archaeology, speculation, and some science, as well as numerous interviews with experts (not all of whom agree on the best courses of action to, say, survive the Titanic or escape Pompeii), Cassidy brings big ideas and moments down to a human scale. From facing off against giants of Earth's prehistory to surviving the darkest years of the Dark Ages to escaping the ravages of the worst tornado ever recorded in America and more, he whisks the reader/time traveler through highlights (or lowlights) of the past and offers survival tips for the savvy time tourist. Each entry is fairly short and contains interesting details, though a few gloss over what felt like important points and end a little abruptly. Overall, though, it's an intriguing little book of historical facts and factoids and speculations.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A SURVIVAL GUIDE: Living with Dinosaurs in the Jurassic Period (Dougal Dixon) - My Review
Terry Jones' Barbarians (Terry Jones and Alan Ereira) - My Review
Where's My Jetpack? (Daniel H. Wilson) - My Review
The Brides of High Hill (Nghi Vo)
The Brides of High Hill
The Singing Hills Cycle, Book 5
Nghi Vo
Tordotcom
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Cleric Chih continues their travels about the land in search of stories to record for the archives of Singing Hills. After a chance meeting on the road, they are asked to accompany young Pham Nhung and her parents on the way to an arranged marriage with the wealthy lord of Doi Cau. The man is much older than her, but such arranged marriages are not uncommon, and her family needs the wealth the union will bring. But something is not right in the home of Nhung's intended. The servants are sullen. The lord's son is acting very strange. And nobody seems willing to answer Chih's questions, especially about what happened to the lord of Doi Cau's previous brides...
REVIEW: Once again, the traveling cleric of Singing Hills finds themself pulled into another story brought to life around them, this time compelled by their heart as much as their calling: their feelings toward the young bride-to-be are more than friendly, and Nhung does not actively discourage the attention. This makes Chih a little more protective than they would be of most traveling companions, and a little more prone to sticking their nose into the matter of the arranged marriage, which was already far from a love match but starts to take on very sinister tones from the moment they pass through the lord's gates. There is a story here indeed, but not the one the cleric expects - one that may well be the last story they ever witness. Their talking hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant would be an asset in figuring things out, but the bird has not traveled to the compound with Chih, an absence they feel keenly, even as they pine for the woman they know they can never really be with. Something about this entry in the series felt a little bit thin or stretched compared to previous tales, in a way I can't quite identify but with left me a little less satisfied than I should have been by the end. It's still a decent, if dark, tale, and I still enjoy the characters and the world.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Nettle and Bone (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
The Tiger's Daughter (K. Arsenault Rivera) - My Review
The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - My Review
The Singing Hills Cycle, Book 5
Nghi Vo
Tordotcom
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Cleric Chih continues their travels about the land in search of stories to record for the archives of Singing Hills. After a chance meeting on the road, they are asked to accompany young Pham Nhung and her parents on the way to an arranged marriage with the wealthy lord of Doi Cau. The man is much older than her, but such arranged marriages are not uncommon, and her family needs the wealth the union will bring. But something is not right in the home of Nhung's intended. The servants are sullen. The lord's son is acting very strange. And nobody seems willing to answer Chih's questions, especially about what happened to the lord of Doi Cau's previous brides...
REVIEW: Once again, the traveling cleric of Singing Hills finds themself pulled into another story brought to life around them, this time compelled by their heart as much as their calling: their feelings toward the young bride-to-be are more than friendly, and Nhung does not actively discourage the attention. This makes Chih a little more protective than they would be of most traveling companions, and a little more prone to sticking their nose into the matter of the arranged marriage, which was already far from a love match but starts to take on very sinister tones from the moment they pass through the lord's gates. There is a story here indeed, but not the one the cleric expects - one that may well be the last story they ever witness. Their talking hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant would be an asset in figuring things out, but the bird has not traveled to the compound with Chih, an absence they feel keenly, even as they pine for the woman they know they can never really be with. Something about this entry in the series felt a little bit thin or stretched compared to previous tales, in a way I can't quite identify but with left me a little less satisfied than I should have been by the end. It's still a decent, if dark, tale, and I still enjoy the characters and the world.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Nettle and Bone (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
The Tiger's Daughter (K. Arsenault Rivera) - My Review
The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - My Review
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Hemlock Island (Kelly Armstrong)
Hemlock Island
Kelly Armstrong
St. Martin's Press
Fiction, Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: After her whirlwind marriage to a tech mogul ended during the pandemic, Laney Kilpatrick managed to remain friends with her ex, Kip. He even gave her the little private island in Lake Superior where they'd built their dream vacation home... an island inauspiciously named after a stand of poisonous hemlock. Unfortunately, Laney's modest salary as a teacher and the minimal income from her debut novel aren't nearly enough to afford the place, especially after her sister passed away and left her the guardian of teenager Madison, so she's been forced to offer Hemlock Island as a summer rental. Lately, though, strange goings-on have been spooking the clients: strange occult symbols, wind chimes of bones and feathers, escalating now to bloodstains and claw marks in a closet, as though something - or someone - had been trying to scratch their way out. After the latest renters abandon the place, Laney decides she needs to investigate things herself... and Madison isn't about to be left behind, not even for a night. Her ex-husband has also been alerted, as well as their mutual high school friends Jayla and Sadie - the latter of whom brings along her police detective brother Garrett. These are not the people she'd choose to bring with her, for various reasons, but there's no turning them away.
As soon as they set foot on Hemlock Island, it's clear that this is not just the work of some pranksters or yet more unruly renters. Something far more sinister is afoot, every discovery more chilling than the last. When the boat is destroyed, Laney and the rest find themselves stranded - and they are not alone. The very isolation that once drew Laney to Hemlock Island, too far from the mainland for telephones or cell signals, now turns it into the perfect trap, made all the worse as long-buried feelings and secrets between the friends are unearthed. Will any of them survive long enough to escape?
REVIEW: A group of fractured friends and lovers, an isolated location, a deadly threat, and no way out... Hemlock Island has all the standard thriller ingredients and uses them competently, delivering a serviceable, if not especially standout, tale.
Starting with a phone call from upset renters about the latest unusual incident on the island, the story kicks off with minimal dithering, assembling its cast and suggesting a storied history binding them as they head to Hemlock Island. They all have their reasons for joining Laney, some a little flimsier than others, that come out as they find themselves in over their heads on what seemed at first to be simple acts of vandalism. It goes without saying that, no, this isn't just some bored teens playing pranks or spoiled renters finding yet another way to wreck the property, but something much more dangerous... something that soon racks up a body count. Laney wavers between being an independent, proactive woman and a hesitant, even overcautious person too prone to giving others the benefit of the doubt even in exceptionally dire and dangerous situations. Much of her life has been bent to accommodate the wills and apparent wishes of those around her. Hemlock Island was a dream come true for her when she and Kip first went there, and it's the one thing that she's clung to just for her own sake; it and her niece Madison are the two things she will fight for with every fiber of her being, even against the evils she finds waiting for her. The other characters generally slot into familiar roles: the sassy, brassy best friend Jayla who believes in Laney more than Laney believes in herself, the "friend" Sadie who is more of a manipulator than an actual confidant (and who may or may not have her own agenda for including herself in the trip), the brash and hopelessly biased (not to mention poor at his apparent job) "detective" Garrett whose history is all too predictable within five minutes of meeting him, the supportive ex Kip who still will do anything for Laney, and the teen girl Madison who refuses to be coddled or protected by grown-ups who still see her as a child. The external tension of being stalked by a sadistic killer - human or supernatural - leads to old wounds being reopened, driving wedges between them when their only hope of survival is banding together.
Even with the familiar parts, Armstrong creates a solid sense of isolation and eeriness on Hemlock Island, each revelation and discovery upping the creepiness (and the gore; this is not a bloodless jump-scare story). There are times when Laney's tendency to lock up under stress gets a bit frustrating, and other times where she skirts the border of being another woman whose sole strength and motivation boils down to mothering. The nature of the threat occasionally feels a bit more nebulous than threatening, and the gore could be over the top and even numbing, losing some effectiveness after the umpteenth graphic description of a mutilated corpse. It came very close to losing a half-star, but managed to hang on by delivering pretty much exactly what it promised.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Those Across the River (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
The Shining (Stephen King) - My Review
The Hollow Places (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
Kelly Armstrong
St. Martin's Press
Fiction, Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: After her whirlwind marriage to a tech mogul ended during the pandemic, Laney Kilpatrick managed to remain friends with her ex, Kip. He even gave her the little private island in Lake Superior where they'd built their dream vacation home... an island inauspiciously named after a stand of poisonous hemlock. Unfortunately, Laney's modest salary as a teacher and the minimal income from her debut novel aren't nearly enough to afford the place, especially after her sister passed away and left her the guardian of teenager Madison, so she's been forced to offer Hemlock Island as a summer rental. Lately, though, strange goings-on have been spooking the clients: strange occult symbols, wind chimes of bones and feathers, escalating now to bloodstains and claw marks in a closet, as though something - or someone - had been trying to scratch their way out. After the latest renters abandon the place, Laney decides she needs to investigate things herself... and Madison isn't about to be left behind, not even for a night. Her ex-husband has also been alerted, as well as their mutual high school friends Jayla and Sadie - the latter of whom brings along her police detective brother Garrett. These are not the people she'd choose to bring with her, for various reasons, but there's no turning them away.
As soon as they set foot on Hemlock Island, it's clear that this is not just the work of some pranksters or yet more unruly renters. Something far more sinister is afoot, every discovery more chilling than the last. When the boat is destroyed, Laney and the rest find themselves stranded - and they are not alone. The very isolation that once drew Laney to Hemlock Island, too far from the mainland for telephones or cell signals, now turns it into the perfect trap, made all the worse as long-buried feelings and secrets between the friends are unearthed. Will any of them survive long enough to escape?
REVIEW: A group of fractured friends and lovers, an isolated location, a deadly threat, and no way out... Hemlock Island has all the standard thriller ingredients and uses them competently, delivering a serviceable, if not especially standout, tale.
Starting with a phone call from upset renters about the latest unusual incident on the island, the story kicks off with minimal dithering, assembling its cast and suggesting a storied history binding them as they head to Hemlock Island. They all have their reasons for joining Laney, some a little flimsier than others, that come out as they find themselves in over their heads on what seemed at first to be simple acts of vandalism. It goes without saying that, no, this isn't just some bored teens playing pranks or spoiled renters finding yet another way to wreck the property, but something much more dangerous... something that soon racks up a body count. Laney wavers between being an independent, proactive woman and a hesitant, even overcautious person too prone to giving others the benefit of the doubt even in exceptionally dire and dangerous situations. Much of her life has been bent to accommodate the wills and apparent wishes of those around her. Hemlock Island was a dream come true for her when she and Kip first went there, and it's the one thing that she's clung to just for her own sake; it and her niece Madison are the two things she will fight for with every fiber of her being, even against the evils she finds waiting for her. The other characters generally slot into familiar roles: the sassy, brassy best friend Jayla who believes in Laney more than Laney believes in herself, the "friend" Sadie who is more of a manipulator than an actual confidant (and who may or may not have her own agenda for including herself in the trip), the brash and hopelessly biased (not to mention poor at his apparent job) "detective" Garrett whose history is all too predictable within five minutes of meeting him, the supportive ex Kip who still will do anything for Laney, and the teen girl Madison who refuses to be coddled or protected by grown-ups who still see her as a child. The external tension of being stalked by a sadistic killer - human or supernatural - leads to old wounds being reopened, driving wedges between them when their only hope of survival is banding together.
Even with the familiar parts, Armstrong creates a solid sense of isolation and eeriness on Hemlock Island, each revelation and discovery upping the creepiness (and the gore; this is not a bloodless jump-scare story). There are times when Laney's tendency to lock up under stress gets a bit frustrating, and other times where she skirts the border of being another woman whose sole strength and motivation boils down to mothering. The nature of the threat occasionally feels a bit more nebulous than threatening, and the gore could be over the top and even numbing, losing some effectiveness after the umpteenth graphic description of a mutilated corpse. It came very close to losing a half-star, but managed to hang on by delivering pretty much exactly what it promised.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Those Across the River (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
The Shining (Stephen King) - My Review
The Hollow Places (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
Friday, October 4, 2024
The Last Chance Hotel (Nicki Thornton)
The Last Chance Hotel
The Seth Seppi series, Book 1
Nicki Thornton
Chicken House
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Mystery
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Young Seth has no memories of his mother and barely any of his father, once the chef of the remote Last Chance Hotel. People used to come from miles away to the lonely little place in the middle of the forbidding woods just to taste his food. When Dad disappeared, he left Seth behind. Now the boy toils as the dishwasher/cleaner/porter/general lowly servant of the nasty Bunn family who runs the Last Chance. The worst of them is their mean daughter Tiffany, who constantly reminds Seth that he'll never be the famous chef his father was, and he'll never escape the Last Chance Hotel. If it weren't for the grungy old black cat Nightshade, he'd have no friends at all in this desolate place.
When a group of important guests arrives, each more peculiar than the last, Seth sees hope in the illustrious Doctor Thallomius, who treats the boy well despite his lowly status. Maybe, just maybe, Seth has found an ally, someone who could help him escape the Bunns and a future of drudgery. When Thallomius dies at dinner - poisoned, it seems, by the dessert Seth made especially for him - he instead finds himself accused of murder. But the food was fine when it left the kitchen; he tasted it himself. Along with his cat Nightshade, he'll have to figure out who the real killer is if he hopes to clear his name. But things become complicated when he realizes that the guests at the Last Chance aren't just peculiar. They're each magicians, with real magic, and each of them has their own reasons to have wanted Thallomius dead.
REVIEW: The Last Chance Hotel starts with plenty of promise and a decent enough premise, as well as a young protagonist who, right out of the gate, has an interesting gift in his culinary sense and sensitive nose. The nasty Bunns are a too-familiar cliche, particularly the girl Tiffany whose sole motiviation is "big meanie bullying Seth" (the sort of shallow characterizations even picture books have been known to rise above, let alone a full-length story pitched at the lower end of middle grade), but I figured things would flesh out as the story progressed and the worldbuilding unfolded. Unfortunately, the story remained flat and thin throughout.
Seth starts out a downtrodden boy who nevertheless dreams of living up to his father's legacy and restoring the Last Chance Hotel's kitchen to its former reputation... yet his every action is preceded by pages worth of hesitation and cowardice and general indecisive, repetitive dithering. It's unclear how the Bunns came to be his guardians, and it's equally unclear why Tiffany is such an insufferable monster to him... matters which (risking spoilers, here) are hardly clarified at all throughout the entire book. It doesn't help that Seth is an utter blockhead of a protagonist. Not long after the accusation of murder, his cat Nightshade starts talking to him, yet it still takes him several long and tedious chapters to finally clue in to the existence of magic and the magical community. To repeat: His. Cat. Is. Talking. To. Him. Is this not a massive clue, not only to the existence of magic but secrets in the hotel? Apparently not. Seth is the sort of character who needs things explained multiple times before they begin to percolate through his cranium, and even then he tends to backslide and fail to connect dots as he repeats information to himself. (Even then, he has to be reminded of things he actually experienced at more than one point.) It doesn't help that the worldbuilding here is all over the map. The Last Chance Hotel is the sort of place with little to no sign of modern technology, seeming to exist in a nebulous sort-of past where nobody really expects a remote location to have so much as a phone, let alone television or computers or a cell phone signal, the sort of world where a fading magical community can exist even as it fades into obscurity... yet at one point Seth brightly compares a magical artifact to "virtual reality". Huh? Where would Seth have even heard about virtual reality, and how can a world with virtual reality - and associated technology, which would almost have to include some sort of recording devices - forget that magic is a thing? I struggled to really care about such a nebulously sketched world and such a deliberately clueless boy... or, frankly, any of the people surrounding him. (Yes, unfortunately, that includes the cat Nightshade.) Things happen to Seth more often than he actively acts to clear his own name, characters behave suspiciously or ridiculously (often both), Tiffany behaves cruelly because she's a half-note character (not even a one-note character) who makes Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory seem complex and nuanced, and somehow things work out while leaving threads dangling for future books.
There are some promising ideas and nicely described moments now and again. Seth had potential to be interesting, as did the setting. I did want to enjoy the story. I just couldn't really connect with anyone, or the world the story tried to build.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Serafina and the Black Cloak (Robert Beatty) - My Review
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
Midnight for Charlie Bone (Jenny Nimmo) - My Review
The Seth Seppi series, Book 1
Nicki Thornton
Chicken House
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Mystery
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Young Seth has no memories of his mother and barely any of his father, once the chef of the remote Last Chance Hotel. People used to come from miles away to the lonely little place in the middle of the forbidding woods just to taste his food. When Dad disappeared, he left Seth behind. Now the boy toils as the dishwasher/cleaner/porter/general lowly servant of the nasty Bunn family who runs the Last Chance. The worst of them is their mean daughter Tiffany, who constantly reminds Seth that he'll never be the famous chef his father was, and he'll never escape the Last Chance Hotel. If it weren't for the grungy old black cat Nightshade, he'd have no friends at all in this desolate place.
When a group of important guests arrives, each more peculiar than the last, Seth sees hope in the illustrious Doctor Thallomius, who treats the boy well despite his lowly status. Maybe, just maybe, Seth has found an ally, someone who could help him escape the Bunns and a future of drudgery. When Thallomius dies at dinner - poisoned, it seems, by the dessert Seth made especially for him - he instead finds himself accused of murder. But the food was fine when it left the kitchen; he tasted it himself. Along with his cat Nightshade, he'll have to figure out who the real killer is if he hopes to clear his name. But things become complicated when he realizes that the guests at the Last Chance aren't just peculiar. They're each magicians, with real magic, and each of them has their own reasons to have wanted Thallomius dead.
REVIEW: The Last Chance Hotel starts with plenty of promise and a decent enough premise, as well as a young protagonist who, right out of the gate, has an interesting gift in his culinary sense and sensitive nose. The nasty Bunns are a too-familiar cliche, particularly the girl Tiffany whose sole motiviation is "big meanie bullying Seth" (the sort of shallow characterizations even picture books have been known to rise above, let alone a full-length story pitched at the lower end of middle grade), but I figured things would flesh out as the story progressed and the worldbuilding unfolded. Unfortunately, the story remained flat and thin throughout.
Seth starts out a downtrodden boy who nevertheless dreams of living up to his father's legacy and restoring the Last Chance Hotel's kitchen to its former reputation... yet his every action is preceded by pages worth of hesitation and cowardice and general indecisive, repetitive dithering. It's unclear how the Bunns came to be his guardians, and it's equally unclear why Tiffany is such an insufferable monster to him... matters which (risking spoilers, here) are hardly clarified at all throughout the entire book. It doesn't help that Seth is an utter blockhead of a protagonist. Not long after the accusation of murder, his cat Nightshade starts talking to him, yet it still takes him several long and tedious chapters to finally clue in to the existence of magic and the magical community. To repeat: His. Cat. Is. Talking. To. Him. Is this not a massive clue, not only to the existence of magic but secrets in the hotel? Apparently not. Seth is the sort of character who needs things explained multiple times before they begin to percolate through his cranium, and even then he tends to backslide and fail to connect dots as he repeats information to himself. (Even then, he has to be reminded of things he actually experienced at more than one point.) It doesn't help that the worldbuilding here is all over the map. The Last Chance Hotel is the sort of place with little to no sign of modern technology, seeming to exist in a nebulous sort-of past where nobody really expects a remote location to have so much as a phone, let alone television or computers or a cell phone signal, the sort of world where a fading magical community can exist even as it fades into obscurity... yet at one point Seth brightly compares a magical artifact to "virtual reality". Huh? Where would Seth have even heard about virtual reality, and how can a world with virtual reality - and associated technology, which would almost have to include some sort of recording devices - forget that magic is a thing? I struggled to really care about such a nebulously sketched world and such a deliberately clueless boy... or, frankly, any of the people surrounding him. (Yes, unfortunately, that includes the cat Nightshade.) Things happen to Seth more often than he actively acts to clear his own name, characters behave suspiciously or ridiculously (often both), Tiffany behaves cruelly because she's a half-note character (not even a one-note character) who makes Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory seem complex and nuanced, and somehow things work out while leaving threads dangling for future books.
There are some promising ideas and nicely described moments now and again. Seth had potential to be interesting, as did the setting. I did want to enjoy the story. I just couldn't really connect with anyone, or the world the story tried to build.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Serafina and the Black Cloak (Robert Beatty) - My Review
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
Midnight for Charlie Bone (Jenny Nimmo) - My Review
One of Us Is Lying (Karen M. McManus)
One of Us Is Lying
The One of Us Is Lying series, Book 1
Karen M. McManus
Delacorte Press
Fiction, YA Mystery/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Bronwyn's been college bound since elementary school, with top grades and top ambitions. Cooper is living his father's dream on the baseball diamond, with interest from colleges and the major leagues even before high school graduation. Addy, homecoming queen, is the envy of half the school as she dates the star quarterback. Nate has a criminal record for drug dealing, but it's the only way to keep the bills paid with his father drowning in a bottle all day and night. Simon runs a gossip app, About That, spreading hurtful rumors that always turn out to be true. All five wind up in Mr. Avery's room for detention on Monday for bringing their cell phones to class... and all of them know for a fact that the phones they were busted with weren't even theirs. Mr. Avery doesn't care; he's just there to make sure they serve their sentence and learn their lesson.
Then Simon drops dead in the middle of the room... and the police suspect foul play.
The four survivors had little in common before the incident. Now, they're all considered suspects. And, thanks to Simon's gossip app and a particularly damning post that was due to be posted on Tuesday, all four of them have sufficient motive. As the police dig deeper and the media catches wind of the story, each of the four suspects wonder which of the others is guilty, or if they're all being framed.
Everyone has secrets in Bayview. Who had secrets worth killing for?
REVIEW: Built on a tried and true formula of mismatched students forced to see each others as people rather than stereotypes (in the vein of The Breakfast Club) with a murder mystery and potentially unreliable narrators, One of Us Is Lying presents a solid mystery with thriller overtones.
From the start, it's clear that each of the four narrators - the viewpoint shifts in each chapter, rotating through the students - has secrets even beyond what Simon spread in his app. None of them like the rumor-monger, yet nobody can deny that, however he gets his information, it always proves out in the end. His app goes far beyond locker room gossip, revealing secrets that crush people and end futures before they begin, and even though he only identifies people by their initials, it's easy for anyone at Bayview High to figure out who is who. Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy, and Nate all have their own reasons for loathing Simon; even if they haven't been targeted directly (yet), they all know people who have been destroyed by his app, such as the girl who attempted suicide after a particularly brutal campaign of harassment. Still, none expected to be seriously considered as suspects in his death. When the police get that bit in their teeth, there's no shaking them, especially when goaded by national press coverage... not even when the investigation turns out to be at least as damaging and harmful as Simon's app, unearthing all manner of skeletons from everyone's closets. Worse, someone seems to have taken up Simon's torch to make sure the entire student body, and the world, knows about every one of those old bones as they're brought to light. Could it be the killer, or one of Simon's unknown informants avenging his death?
During the course of the investigation, each of the targeted teens finds their lives turned upside down. Friends they thought they could rely on disappear. Futures they took for granted disintegrate before their eyes. None of them know whom they can trust, and not even their own families can be relied on to support them; Nate in particular lacks any sort of home safety net, but even Bronwyn's affluent parents seem more interested in preserving their idealized image of their child (and their own reputations) than listening. They each are forced to re-examine assumptions on which they've built their worlds and the people they've surrounded themselves with. Naturally, they end up drawing closer to each other... but is one of them actually a killer, or covering for a killer? They all ultimately have something to contribute to the mystery's resolution, each of them stepping up in ways they'd never anticipated they'd be capable of before the accusations and the upending of everything they believed about themselves and their peers. It all makes for an interesting, fast-paced ride with characters whose actions and emotions always rang true.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
Killing Mr. Griffin (Lois Duncan) - My Review
Don't Even Think About It (Sarah Mlynowski) - My Review
The One of Us Is Lying series, Book 1
Karen M. McManus
Delacorte Press
Fiction, YA Mystery/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Bronwyn's been college bound since elementary school, with top grades and top ambitions. Cooper is living his father's dream on the baseball diamond, with interest from colleges and the major leagues even before high school graduation. Addy, homecoming queen, is the envy of half the school as she dates the star quarterback. Nate has a criminal record for drug dealing, but it's the only way to keep the bills paid with his father drowning in a bottle all day and night. Simon runs a gossip app, About That, spreading hurtful rumors that always turn out to be true. All five wind up in Mr. Avery's room for detention on Monday for bringing their cell phones to class... and all of them know for a fact that the phones they were busted with weren't even theirs. Mr. Avery doesn't care; he's just there to make sure they serve their sentence and learn their lesson.
Then Simon drops dead in the middle of the room... and the police suspect foul play.
The four survivors had little in common before the incident. Now, they're all considered suspects. And, thanks to Simon's gossip app and a particularly damning post that was due to be posted on Tuesday, all four of them have sufficient motive. As the police dig deeper and the media catches wind of the story, each of the four suspects wonder which of the others is guilty, or if they're all being framed.
Everyone has secrets in Bayview. Who had secrets worth killing for?
REVIEW: Built on a tried and true formula of mismatched students forced to see each others as people rather than stereotypes (in the vein of The Breakfast Club) with a murder mystery and potentially unreliable narrators, One of Us Is Lying presents a solid mystery with thriller overtones.
From the start, it's clear that each of the four narrators - the viewpoint shifts in each chapter, rotating through the students - has secrets even beyond what Simon spread in his app. None of them like the rumor-monger, yet nobody can deny that, however he gets his information, it always proves out in the end. His app goes far beyond locker room gossip, revealing secrets that crush people and end futures before they begin, and even though he only identifies people by their initials, it's easy for anyone at Bayview High to figure out who is who. Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy, and Nate all have their own reasons for loathing Simon; even if they haven't been targeted directly (yet), they all know people who have been destroyed by his app, such as the girl who attempted suicide after a particularly brutal campaign of harassment. Still, none expected to be seriously considered as suspects in his death. When the police get that bit in their teeth, there's no shaking them, especially when goaded by national press coverage... not even when the investigation turns out to be at least as damaging and harmful as Simon's app, unearthing all manner of skeletons from everyone's closets. Worse, someone seems to have taken up Simon's torch to make sure the entire student body, and the world, knows about every one of those old bones as they're brought to light. Could it be the killer, or one of Simon's unknown informants avenging his death?
During the course of the investigation, each of the targeted teens finds their lives turned upside down. Friends they thought they could rely on disappear. Futures they took for granted disintegrate before their eyes. None of them know whom they can trust, and not even their own families can be relied on to support them; Nate in particular lacks any sort of home safety net, but even Bronwyn's affluent parents seem more interested in preserving their idealized image of their child (and their own reputations) than listening. They each are forced to re-examine assumptions on which they've built their worlds and the people they've surrounded themselves with. Naturally, they end up drawing closer to each other... but is one of them actually a killer, or covering for a killer? They all ultimately have something to contribute to the mystery's resolution, each of them stepping up in ways they'd never anticipated they'd be capable of before the accusations and the upending of everything they believed about themselves and their peers. It all makes for an interesting, fast-paced ride with characters whose actions and emotions always rang true.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
Killing Mr. Griffin (Lois Duncan) - My Review
Don't Even Think About It (Sarah Mlynowski) - My Review
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)