Review: Texas Gothic, by Rosemary Clement-Moore

I snatched this up after The Book Smugglers alerted me to the fact that it was like a cross between Nancy Drew and Scooby-Doo. Texas Gothic sounded perfect for Friday night reading, in between helping guests at the historic building where I work as a history docent. While I love the serious and thoughtful portrayals of real-life issues that YA authors provide, sometimes, I just want to read about colorful characters bumbling around and getting knocked on the head.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that either Amy Goodnight, or her sister Phin, are incompetent -- they're very competent in their own areas of specialization. Phin is an amateur paranormal scientist; Amy, who's the featured protagonist, is learning that her area of specialization is holding things together. But they're also very realistic college-age characters, rushing from one thing to another, thinking ahead, but not quite thinking of everything.

Nancy Drew and Scooby-Doo are entertaining in part because they're ensemble works, full of characters who each have their own foibles, and Clement-Moore excels at creating a similar ensemble here, made up of the Goodnight family, their neighbors, and a group of archaeology grad students. Everyone is briefly and concisely sketched out; they're distinctive enough that there's no chance of mixing them up; and their quirks are what advance the plot. It's very smooth.

My one criticism is that it was far too easy to tell exactly who one of the eventual villains would be, and the other one was only half-surprising: I knew that s/he would be a member of a particular group, and s/he was. That said, I would be utterly delighted to see more novels featuring the other members of the Goodnight family, or in which we learn more about Amy, as she develops her understanding of what it means to be the one that holds it all together.

Oh, and +10 for the reference to The Mystery of Udolpho.

Read if: you like wisecracks about Nancy Drew, you enjoy books that want to alternate between suspenseful and wacky, and you like reading about hijinks more than disturbing suspense.

Avoid if: you're looking for creep-factor more than fun, you want a really challenging mystery, or if you're looking for a story that digs deeply into magic, rather than just a pair of kids solving mysteries who happen to be magical.

Review: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente

I really wish I'd had more time for blogging lately, but between my own class, and taking on a friend's class for the rest of the quarter, as she has a gorgeous new baby -- well, time is a precious commodity. I hope to be blogging more soon; and I do have a couple more reviews to get out this week.

One thing I'm pleased about: I've learned that I'm more productive when I take time for pleasure reading throughout the quarter, rather than as a vacation. Learning that meant that I read Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making two weeks ago, when it was briefly offered as a free download from the publisher's website. Last week, I rushed out in the middle of a very busy Wednesday, just so that I could buy it in print.

I'm already reading it through a second time. Some day, I need to post about that: how my new reading behavior involves reading the same books several times in succession. I'm not sure why, though stress and lack of time probably has something to do with it.

I haven't read any of Valente's novels before, though Palimpsest is on my to-read list, and will be bumped up now; and I even have a copy from my Hugo Voter's Packet conveniently available. What I loved about Fairyland; what made me want to take the book to bed with me for reasons entirely separate from the marvelous portrayal of feminine ingenuity and strength, was how much it reminded me of the Oz books, both those by L. Frank Baum and by Ruth Plumly Thomson. I haven't had a chance to read about Valente's own history with the Oz books; but Fairyland is clearly a descendant of them: you travel there by wind, you must pass through a perilous sea (instead of a deadly desert), and there is an established society, with a ruling monarch. But it wasn't those things that made me seek out every Oz book I could lay my hands on when I was growing up: it was the delightful weirdness of them, and the Ozian inhabitants. As soon as Dorothy, or Betsy Bobbin, or Trot, or whomever sets out to explore, for whatever reason, they're sure to encounter people who are paper dolls, or sentient rabbits, or living pastries; or whatever else the author could dream up. I wish I had time to write about the oddity of the politics in Oz: I don't tonight. I can barely articulate what it is that made me love the series so much, except that I found it absolutely believable, as a child, that all these strange kingdoms would exist, and give rise to the political squabbling that more often than not, drives the main plots of the novels.

Valente reinvents and reinvigorates that same odd and whimsical imaginative voice in this novel, and to better effect than Baum or Thomson. As I've read the columns by Mari Ness on the Oz books, over at Tor.com; I've been rather dismayed to realize what I was reading. Ozma, for all that she started out in the series as a boy, and should have been the basis for a wonderfully queer existence, doesn't live up. Fairyland, however, lives up in spades.

There are lots of reasons for buying this book: because you like coming of age stories, stories about strong female characters; stories featuring creative interpretations of what dryads can be -- but for me, what dominated even beyond all those features was how much it felt like reading an Oz book -- but one that had been written for me, and for the 21st century today.

Review: Barbara Hambly's Those Who Hunt the Night

Several of Barbara Hambly's novels have been released in eBook format recently; and I didn't hesitate to offer to review a couple in exchange for a free copy. I haven't read any of Hambly's novels, but I've been hearing about them for years, so I was excited to have a reason to put them onto my official to-do list.

Those Who Hunt the Night is the story of Oxford don James Asher, a one-time player in the Great Game (can you ever really leave?); and the circumstances that lead to his being coerced to investigate a series of murders among the vampire population of London in 1907. I say coerced because Asher is no paranormal enthusiast; he has to be convinced by Don Simon Ysidro, the vampire who is certain that only a human can help -- and who does not scruple to threaten Asher's wife Lydia, in order to provide motivation.

Certain aspects of this novel are exactly what you would expect: Don Simon is elegant and arrogant; Asher is thoughtful and poised as befits a member of Oxford's New College; his wife Lydia is courageous and intelligent and beautiful.

But Barbara Hambly is not a lazy writer, and so she doesn't stop with what you would expect. I especially appreciated how much thought had gone into the complexity of vampire society, mores, and existence -- and how important the worldbuilding was to the central mystery itself. I have problems with authors who characterize all vampires as arrogant and predatory; problems, too, with authors who are content to characterize all vampires as old and world-weary just to dazzle readers with the prospect of a 926-year-old being whose perspective we can barely imagine. I have never thought as much about vampires, and what questions might arise from their existence as I did while reading Those Who Hunt the Night, and last night I went to bed shuddering at the scenario that had been presented.

Truly, I can't remember the last time I actually contemplated vampires as frightening, rather than dark/tortured/sexy.

I found James Asher, the chief protagonist, a little dull in comparison. He's very appealing in that he's intelligent and capable without being an alpha male, and that his affection, respect, and admiration for his wife Lydia are an important part of his characterization, rather than just trimmings. He has a backstory that I'd like to know more about (maybe it will be explored in the other two James Asher books?), but which doesn't surprise me. Hambly is careful, I think, to write him so as to be appealing, but to not make him so progressive as to be terribly anachronistic.

Lydia Asher is more interesting -- though really, she and her husband are both secondary to the details of the vampires. I didn't mind that at all, given that the vampire plot was so interesting. What we learn about Lydia is integral to the main mystery plot, and I had enough of an introduction to her to want me read about her in more books. She is somewhat myopic, and I was delighted that the novel takes into account the stigma against wearing spectacles in the early 20th century; also that her choice to study medicine (and the controversy that such a choice entails for a woman) is treated frankly, and without being overdramatized as a narrative of Enlightenment For Teh Wimminz.

In short, Those Who Hunt the Night is that rare phenomenon: a cracking great mystery which you can enjoy without having to bite your tongue at thoughtless writing, or social hierarchies that make you wince in displeasure.

And this is an especially great time for it to be reborn as an e-book -- it's the perfect story to read if you're playing Echo Bazaar -- in fact, as I was reading it, I thought that it could well have been part of the inspiration for Fallen London, since the atmospheres in the game and novel are wonderfully congenial.

Book Review: Bumped, by Megan McCafferty

When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society. Girls sport fake baby bumps and the school cafeteria stocks folic-acid-infused food.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and have never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melody’s doorstep. Up to now, the twins have followed completely opposite paths. Melody has scored an enviable conception contract with a couple called the Jaydens. While they are searching for the perfect partner for Melody to bump with, she is fighting her attraction to her best friend, Zen, who is way too short for the job.

Harmony has spent her whole life in Goodside, a religious community, preparing to be a wife and mother. She believes her calling is to convince Melody that pregging for profit is a sin. But Harmony has secrets of her own that she is running from.

When Melody is finally matched with the world-famous, genetically flawless Jondoe, both girls’ lives are changed forever. A case of mistaken identity takes them on a journey neither could have ever imagined, one that makes Melody and Harmony realize they have so much more than just DNA in common.

From New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty comes a strikingly original look at friendship, love, and sisterhood—in a future that is eerily believable.

Apparently, the inspiration for this upcoming teen dystopia was the question "What if teenagers were the only people who could have babies?" It's an idea that has the potential to be gimmicky, but in a lot of ways, the book (first in a trilogy, I suspect) manages to dodge that bullet. It dodges it, or did for me, because McCafferty's Harmony is a pretty accurate portrayal of vociferous Christian adolescence, obsessed with using this life to prepare for the next one, and spouting an inner monologue that I believed. That makes this particular dystopia a bit different from other recent ones, like Matched, because the conflict between the two sisters' ideologies takes center stage, and the story is as much about the two struggling with each other as it is about each sister struggling with the larger societal rules and standards.

I found both Melody and Harmony believable, despite niggling annoyance with the need to saddle them with names that scream cliché -- at least the characters themselves explain that, and actually, now that I think about it, the names serve another purpose during the story. Melody is ambivalent about her position as a professional reproducer, but surrounded by friends who have different positions and views towards professional pregnancy, and McCafferty is thoughtful in her worldbuilding enough to allow the teenage mothers to take a number of different paths, most of which are acceptable, and don't lead to chilly, dystopian euthanasia, or anything like that. And the society does have certain rules that can't be broken, and when Melody's friend Malia breaks one of those laws, Melody's reaction to her is somewhere between sympathy and condemnation. It's painful to read this, but it feels true to the portrayal of someone who's been socialized to believe in a world working a particular way. Nor does the narrative linger too much on the melodrama of Malia's situation, and Melody's rejection of her.

Harmony is equally complex, ping-ponging between excitement and nervousness as she tries to keep track of her own intentions, which are by no means set in stone. There's one part of her character development that I was a little uncertain about, but it's something that confuses me when I see it in life, too -- so this just meant that I had to revisit that little pocket of mental controversy.

Since there are two female characters, there are two main male characters, both imperfect in different ways. I'm fairly certain, at the end of this volume, who's going to end up with whom, but I wasn't sure throughout, and I'm not 100% positive. Neither of the male characters is perfectly secure and knowledgeable; in other words, no danger of either becoming the enlightened source of knowledge to whom the poor, confused, stupid female characters have to run to.

I wish we'd seen more of the world outside the lives of the two protagonists. McCafferty makes the vocabulary of pregnancy part of the worldbuilding: terminate, fertilicious, barren -- all are ubiquitous in everyday conversation, with slightly tweaked meanings from their usage now (well, not fertilicious!). And we see how pregnancy affects the already complex social networks of teenage girls and boys, and how the Facebooking of the world has advanced further and further. But I did find myself wanting to know more. According to the book, the spread of the disease causing infertility by age 18 had become evident four years earlier. Having the culture of teen pregnancy develop so quickly seems a little fast, but that's partly because I don't know how else the world was different prior to the discovery. There's no mention at all of STDs, which I was willing to accept, and suspend disbelief for, but which strikes me as a bit handwavy. There's no mention of homosexuality, which seems like it ought to still exist.

As you can see, I'm not without quibbles. That said, was it a dystopia that made me think? Yes. Did it dodge stale gender characterizations? Absolutely. Am I curious about what will happen in future volumes? Without a doubt.

On a score of 1 to 10, this gets an 8. Bumped at Amazon.

Late Eclipses, by Seanan McGuire

When I learned that there was going to be a series about a changeling detective named October "Toby" Daye, I thought that it sounded like a weird mix of things that didn't work, plus a healthy helping of Mary Sue, and ZOMGeleventy!, I was so wrong, and I am so glad.

The series has changed with every book. The first one was noir-ish, and the second was an Agatha Christie-style country house mystery. Except that Dame Agatha never thought about the possibility of writing about a dryad, who, losing her forest, ended up in a server tree. The third book managed, improbably, to be a story about the boogey-man that was also a thoughtful meditation on female strength and sexuality, and about the difficult boundary between healthy and unhealthy self-reliance. I thought it was a little heavy the first time I read it, but that's more because it was about stuff I'd rather not think about, and the second, and especially the third time I reread it, I found myself appreciating the fact that it was precise and spare: McGuire doesn't mince words when she's dealing with dark stuff -- she gets right there, and then doesn't wallow.

The new book, Late Eclipses, shouldn't be read unless you've read the other three first. You could make sense of it if you really needed to -- it has those nice little cues to catch up new readers, and +10 to Seanan McGuire for making them reflect the character development that's happened since the series started, so that readers who aren't new still learn new things in the "Previously in..."

But you wouldn't enjoy it the same way, because most of the action (both dramatic and subtle) in this volume has been built up in the previous three, and because I understand how the world works, I can think about the story as I read in a way that I couldn't otherwise.

One of the things that I like about this series is that each volume so far has had a different pace. This volume moves extraordinarily fast. A lot like one of Lee Child's Jack Reacher books -- or like Die Hard films -- except that neither of those are about complex fae politics, family conflicts, and serial poisoners, all at once. In short, it's like a Jack Reacher book, except that it's SO MUCH BETTER. By better, I mean that I can think about what's happened, and how it might relate to my own life, and how it affects the world in the books; and also that I've only read one Jack Reacher book, and it was fine, but it didn't make me want to reread, or rush out and get the others.

The Toby Daye series is like the best episodes of the new Doctor Who series: when Russell T Davies wasn't faffing about; or more recently, like Steven Moffat's weeping angels two-parter. Here's what Publisher's Weekly said:

In October "Toby" Daye's fourth outing, following 2010's An Artificial Night, the half-Fae private detective is once again run through the wringer when problems plaguing the San Francisco Fae community strike home on a personal level. First, in an unprecedented, unexpected move, the Queen of the Mists promotes Toby to countess. Given that the Queen hates her, it's quite obviously a trap, but not something Toby can refuse or avoid. Subsequently, several of Toby's closest friends are struck down through poison and illness, and she's accused of murder. Has an enemy from Toby's past resurfaced, or is she losing her mind? Physically, emotionally, and magically drained, faced with tragedy and despair, Toby's forced to deal with the long-hidden truth behind her Fae heritage. In this tightly plotted adventure, McGuire mixes nonstop action with a wealth of mythology to deliver a wholly satisfying story. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

I still have questions (as well I should, because the series isn't over yet), but with each book, I've felt like plenty is revealed, and plenty of new developments are introduced. There aren't awful cliffhangers. (Unless you count the scene that's included at the very end, as a preview of the next book, which manages to be both tense, and hilarious in a way that reminds me both of James Bond and Doctor Who.)

Read if: you like mysteries, action films, stories that are subtly about family/growing up/broken relationships but that don't put those conflicts in the main spotlight, romances that develop slowly, main characters who make mistakes, series where the overarching story is revealed bit by bit in multiple books.

Avoid if: you can't stand it when characters die, you require romances to have lots of hot and heavy sex, or you need the Massive!Overarching!Story to be revealed in one volume.

I try to avoid broad statements about the BestBookEver, because I don't believe there's only one, but this series is in ppbk for 7.99 each, and 6.99 on Kindle, and really, I can't think of another set of books being published right now where you're getting so much bang for your buck.

Get it at Amazon -- or better yet, go to your local brick and mortar.

A Funeral at Redwall

The BBC is reporting that children's author Brian Jacques has died, at age 71.

My elementary school librarian, Mr. McKay, saved Redwall for me, so that I could read it first. I didn't know about it, of course -- it was the first book that Jacques had published in the US. He simply took me aside, and collected it from his office, and said he'd thought I'd want to have first crack at it. 1986 means that I would have been going into 4th grade, and it was around that time that the elementary school library made a special exception for me. Normally, the rule was that you could check out the same number of books as your grade level -- 4 for 4th grade, etc. -- but I was allowed to check out as many as I wanted.

That? Was heaven.

Actually, a lot of things about the library, where I spent most of my recess time, were heaven, including the fact that one could work as a page, reshelving books, and sometimes, be allowed to climb on top of the bookshelves to dust them, or to rotate through posters and artwork on the wall. And that in payment, one was allowed to choose selections of laminated bookmarks made using Apple Clip Art on Astrobrights paper.

But that's another post. I had never read anything like Redwall. Babe, the Gallant Pig, had come out a couple of years earlier. I'm not sure if I had read Watership Down by then, but I think not, and I think it would not have struck me as being in the same genre. The fattest fantasy book I'd read at that point was The Hounds of the Morrigan, by Pat O'Shea -- so I had just discovered, you might say, the pleasure of a big fat book, as opposed to what I think of as elementary school sized books, usually just over an inch thick.

I had never read a book with such careful, detailed worldbuilding, and yet one which was written for children. Part of me wants to say, of course! Children are interested in treats, and in eating, and so it is natural that one way of conveying the wonder of a world would be to describe the wonderful things that are eaten in that world's parties. And I also know how much I learned from Jacques: the names of herbs, and how important they were for flavoring; that fruit and mint could go together, that honey and cream were pure decadent delight. It isn't that my mother was a poor cook -- she wasn't -- but I wasn't always involved in food preparation, and when in Redwall, I stood over Friar Hugo's shoulder by default.

Redwall was the first book I read in which there was detailed, intentional, cruel violence;* where characters with names didn't just die in battle (as is gently implied in the Narnia books), or die tenderly at the book's finale, as in Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows, but were killed in callous accidents and intentionally. The body count started within 12 pages of the story beginning. I knew it was a serious, and rather adult book, because there were mentions of hell, but I also knew that it was a book that was easy enough that I could just sink into it without having to puzzle over sentences and paragraphs that I didn't fully understand. I had tried to read The Name of the Rose a little earlier, having found it in the mystery section of the public library, and thinking that since I liked murder mysteries, and that since it was thick like The Hounds of the Morrigan, and about an abbey, which I found interesting, and since it had a beautiful cover... -- but needless to say, I didn't get very far, which is just as well.

In Redwall, I found a detailed portrait of a community, where there were multiple characters who wandered in and out of the spotlight, who clearly were busy living their lives, and doing the various work of keeping an abbey running. Matthias, who was discovering his own capabilities, Methuselah, who kept records, and Constance the badger, who clearly was the dominant fighter, and whom Jacques felt no need to temper with more flowery feminity. And I watched, captivated, as that community reeled, and changed, confronted with an outsider who wanted simply to torture, to kill, to possess them. There was a typical quest/coming-of-age story in the middle of this, for Matthias, and I loved that, and took time to memorize the "I -- am that is" poem that is so important to the plot's development. But there was so much more than that, too! The history of the abbey is vital to surviving the conflict; and the way that the abbey is situated in the midst of a landscape where it is one culture, interacting with other cultures of varying compatibility, neutrality, or hostility -- sparrows! and Guerilla Shrews! -- I had never seen anything like that in my life thus far. Not told that way. I knew Jason and the Argonauts backwards and forwards, and was in the habit of reading mythological dictionaries to try and find more stories, but the tellings of Greek myths in collections and dictionaries were not attempting to be an adventure novel, and so they could not in the least compare with what Brian Jacques had done.

I remember how horrified I was by the actions of Selah and Chickenhound, and the way it felt to learn what happened to them. Reading Agatha Christie and watching Murder, She Wrote, I knew plenty about murderers, but I didn't really know about stories of betrayal that occurred in the middle of the story, of double-crosses -- I hadn't read any noir at that age. And then, when Asmodeus appeared on the scene, it was approximately like discovering that Twinkies had a creme filling.** Multiple problems that had to be dealt with, each one dangerous in a different way! I had never seen such richness between the covers of a book. And what makes Redwall extra special, along with The Hounds of the Morrigan, is that it is one of the first times that I can remember beginning to think carefully about what an author can do, and has to do, in order to make a book be brilliant. Before that, I had simply swallowed books whole, swimming through them like warm water, and this is not to say that I read through them hurriedly without enjoyment -- but stories were the air I breathed, and I am not sure that I gave much thought to how that air was produced, and the choices that went into it.

A few years later, Brian Jacques actually came to my elementary school -- but I was in junior high. My second brother, who loved the books as much as I did, took my copy of Mossflower to school to have it autographed, and, horror of horrors, had it signed to him, instead of me. At the time, I was furious, and only slightly mollified when said brother bought me another copy of the book. It's forgiven, now. The landscape of Redwall was an escape for both of us, in the midst of family turmoil. I couldn't see that years earlier, when A. was tormenting me by being Baby Rollo, who was so quick and heedless to drop into rhyming song, who knew that joy was in singing; or any one of the other various rambunctious Dibbuns; but in hindsight, I am endlessly grateful that we both found that escape.

In the middle of the long list of Redwall books, A. and I agreed that they had begun to seem formulaic to us. But I recall that we were both delighted by Loamhedge and Rakkety Tam, and I shall look forward to catching up with the more recent books in the series, and the final novel, when it arrives later this year.

I never got the chance to thank Jacques. It seemed that I was always finding out about him being in town the day after he had been, or when I was scheduled to be somewhere else. But one night, when he was at the University Bookstore, or rather passing through it, on the way to a sold-out signing at Kane Hall on the UW campus, I caught sight of him in the midst of an entourage. And I hadn't seen the announcements that he was in town, didn't know who he was at all, only that he was in a cluster of people, and looked familiar, almost like someone I had seen on TV. And then my eyes landed on a poster announcing the event, and that it was sold out, and I realized, and sucked in my breath, and stared at him in shock -- and somehow, 20 feet away, he realized, and looked right at me, and I grinned at him as happily as I could, to try and say thank you. And he smiled back. So I think he understood.

After I finished Redwall, I wasn't content with simply chanting the "I -- am that is" poem over and over; so I went back and memorized the prologue: "It was the start of the Summer of the Late Rose." For a long time, when I thought of beautiful writing (as a quality in itself, quite distinct from a good story), that passage was at the forefront of my mind. I think it's time I refreshed my memory of it, and knocked the dust off.

* ETA: I know -- obviously, I hadn't yet found the indescribably great Pork, and others, by Cris Freddi.

** I know, it's kind of sacrilegious to talk about Twinkies in the same post that I'm writing about food in Redwall Abbey. But it was the question that everyone in elementary school pondered -- how did the creme filling get inside the Twinkie?

Review: Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan

This will be a quick review, partly because of time constraints, and partly because I'm finding it difficult to think about how to discuss the book at length. It's a hard book to read, and I fear that any lengthy discussion of it would turn too quickly into a discussion of some of the ideas that it provokes, and then it would become something other than a book review. Not that such a discussion isn't worth having -- I've just been having it in a few too many places recently, and to host it here, right now, would feel repetitive of what I've already said elsewhere.

I learned about Tender Morsels through the controversy described by Scott Westerfeld here. I'm very glad I did, and I hope it gets more attention from that controversy, because it deserves it.

The other reason that this won't be a long review is that I think I can say concisely what makes Tender Morsels unusual, and worth reading:

Almost everything -- every major event -- that occurs in Lanagan's novel is the result of some form of failure or mistake: either a failure of compassion and kindness, or courage, or strength; or intentions that have a little goodness in them, but a lot of selfishness; or are outright selfish, though the selfish person may still have flashes of kindness.

That doesn't mean that there isn't bravery and love and generosity, too. There is. But what Lanagan does; how she weaves them together, seems to me to subvert a lot of our ideas of what a novel is in the first place. Certainly it subverts what I think of as a tenet of the YA genre, which is that the stories are about the protagonists rising up, coming into their own, triumphing over struggle. Tender Morsels doesn't negate that -- but it subverts it. It's the most interesting portrayal and story about agency that I've seen in recent years, and maybe ever.*

At some point, I'd like to say more about it. I just need to think for a while before I do.

* This is meant as a compliment, but of course, there's a great deal that I haven't read. Disclaimer issued so as not to make the superlative hollow: there may be other books with equally interesting and complex portrayals of agency -- but I still think it worth commenting on when I stumble on something that stands out in the history of my own reading.

Among Others, by Jo Walton

There is apparently a controversy about the magic in this book, and whether it's real, or a manifestation of PTSD or mental illness or both on the part of the narrator, Mori Phelps. I'm not the least bit surprised by that, given the blurb on the front cover by Robin Hobb, which includes the comment "...if you remember the magic you used to do...," and when I got the hardcover (having started the book in Kindle, and then abruptly lent it to someone else because I knew I could just get a dead-tree copy, and that I wanted one), I was deeply suspicious. At the time, I wasn't very far into the book. To talk about magic as something you used to do when you were a teenager sounded to me like an invitation to read the book as nostalgia for the way things used to be, rather than as a serious story.

I'm not saying that's Hobb's intention, mind you. It's just what it seemed like at the time.

Onto the book: I think it's strong and splendid, and one of those books which might cause people to say, "oh, anyone could do that; it doesn't take any effort as long as you love books," because Walton makes it look natural and effortless.

It's a bit difficult to talk about how the book works and what makes it good without dropping into spoilers, though I can do so a little more effectively if I talk about it in relation to my own life -- though then I worry that I'll sound self-centered, and worse, boringly so. Among Others is being marketed as a book that feels uncanny if you happened to be a teenager reading sci-fi/fantasy in the late 70s and 80s. (I wasn't). Mori Phelps is a character who makes people think that Jo Walton is their "secret best friend." I didn't feel that, especially because I didn't know that Heinlein and Zelazny and Tiptree existed back when I was 14, and reading Piers Anthony* and David Eddings, and Robert Lynn Asprin, and Douglas Adams.

What I did though, when I was 9 or 10, or 11 at most, and discovered Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane via the BBC adaptations, was to adopt them as parents. Mine loved me, quite clearly, but equally clearly, they couldn't be the parents I needed. That's heartless, I know, but it's also true, in that it was becoming clear that we had incompatible views of morality and politics, and that it was going to get worse, rather than better. And their constant arguments were dangerous. At the time, I couldn't have articulated why in terms of self-esteem, independence vs. co-dependence, and personal boundaries -- but it was around when I was 10 that I really began to understand that they were dangerous. Not evil, but dangerous. It is a very hard lesson to learn; I wish no children had to learn it.

In response, I adopted Lord Peter and Harriet. And I wished, over and over again, rather like Holly and Ivy in the Rumer Godden novel, because that was what I had for reference, that I could grow up to be as strong and intelligent as Harriet Vane. (I didn't necessarily think that meant academia or even writing and literature). I went so far as to bargain with the powers that be, to say that I would accept an ordeal like that which Harriet went through, if it meant that I could develop the ability to think and imagine and be strong in that way. I may have had vague thoughts about an equivalent Lord Peter, but they were just that: vague thoughts -- because though I admired him terribly, he wasn't the point, nor did I think that wish was a good one to try to make.

What Among Others does is provide a context that allows me to think through what I was doing when I made that adoption, and that bargain, and everything that arose from it later. The satisfaction that I get from it, then, is very personal; because it reveals to me that something I hardly thought could be a story's central focus can be one. I do think that that's a mark of lovely work; to take something that seems, for whatever reason, difficult to capture at all, and show that this insubstantial or deeply buried quality can be a story in itself. If you go down to Felpham and Bognor Regis on an overcast day and look at the sea, you can see strange lights shining out of it -- and I've seen paintings that capture those lights brilliantly. This book is rather like the first painter who saw those lights and knew that they could be the subject of a painting, and set out to do so, and succeeded.

Walton writes about families as brilliantly as she writes about magic, so it's not really any surprise that the charged energy between family members features as heavily as any energy from spells. Thinking about this, I realize that one of the things I like best of all is her method of portraying the inevitable convergence of the two: impossible that the charges of magic wouldn't end up involved in family; and even more impossible that family dynamics wouldn't effect the way that one practiced magic, and how its effects manifested. Moreover, someone who was influenced by magic (whether by practicing or being practiced upon) would think about everything differently. There's a passage I really like at around p. 64, which, oddly enough, lines up perfectly with one of the critical essays I was reading last week, though I won't say whose, or tell you any more than that. I will admit that I like books when they manage to think through complex ideas in quick, trenchant asides, without being unnaturally didactic, and if you like that, then you'll probably enjoy this one.

I realize that this is getting a bit long. Though I suppose if you read this long, then you thought it was worth it, so. Plotwise, it's an odd book and meandering book, whose style I'd described as overlapping episodic if I had to give it a name. If you've read other Walton, especially books like The Prize in the Game, (which, I know, people who have known me in other blogs are sick of me harping on, but in many ways, it feels like my Lord of the Rings, I'm that fond of it) -- then the style of action is a lot like that. I wonder how people are struck by a confrontation that happens late in the book; because I found it entirely convincing, and beautifully written, but it parallels confrontations that I've had myself, so I don't feel the least bit capable of evaluating how it will hit other people. ETA: looking around, it seems that a lot of people find it rushed/tacked on. I didn't -- but how to explain the electricity in such a meeting to people who've escaped having it, and how that electricity builds for weeks or months in advance? I despair, for the moment.

I hope there will be a sequel, though I can understand the challenge of undertaking such a thing. Actually, no I can't. I've never written a sequel, after all. But I think that one of the compliments that I can give Among Others is that it's entirely possible to think about a sequel and want one badly, and what might happen in it, and just as possible to think that the characters' lives went on, and that the events of the sequel are occasionally barely visible. I don't do magic anymore**, except by accident when reality goes a bit transparent and I can see that someone is about to phone, or that I'm about to lose my wallet, but I think I can sort of see Mori Phelps occasionally. Not in an exactly intelligible form about which I could say, "oh, this will happen in the sequel," but see all the same, much as she can see fairies. This is an unusual thing to say about a book, and a really odd way to end a review, but I appreciated the effect to no end, and think it a remarkable thing to pull off.

* I fully agree with the brief aside comparing Anthony to one of the literary greats; also, though I have problems with much of Anthony these days, Dragon on a Pedestal is somehow good every time I read it, and some day, I will get round to explaining why that is. If I figure it out myself.

** Actually, no, that isn't true. A lot of my research, and what I've found, is really only explainable if I acknowledge that it's the hybrid of critical thinking and divination. But that's a different sort of magic, not dealt with in this story.

On believable characters, and reading sci-fi

After writing yesterday's review of Bradford Morrow's The Diviner's Tale, I was startled this morning by one of the comments on this article in The Guardian, about whether speculative fiction was ready to break into big awards like the Booker Prize. One of the commenters responds as follows:

I think it is probably not the best idea. I have read a lot of science fiction and the problem lies with the characters, it seems as if all SF writers are incapable of producing a believable character, especially if it is an Alien character, which does not end up sounding like your English Teacher from High School. Morever, some of the more fantastical elements of simply making up names for alien cultures, with wobbly bits, it is absolutely confusing and mostly ridiculous. There is always a war going on in which not much seems to be happening.
Proper fiction, got which some niche should be preserved, should as a starting base point have believable characters. I am fairly sure that it is beyond the capabilities of any Fantasy/SF author to come up with anything more than Carboard charachters, whereas novels rooted in reality have more dimensions more reference points to peoples lives, so is probably superior. (emphasis mine)

The funny thing about this is that it is precisely what I would say about most literary fiction. I had to rack my brain and my bookshelves to find literary fiction titles/authors whom I loved, and thought of as having believably complex characters (the latter being the condition for the former). I did think of one, and immediately: Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved, which I've read over and over again, and never gotten tired of. Now that I think about it, I also enjoyed Michael Cunningham's The Hours, though I don't own it. Let's see: I also was absolutely delighted with Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, and the sequels that followed. For the most part, literary fiction, no matter how many titles I look at, and what awards they're up for, give me the sense that the authors carefully followed a formula akin to that of the sonata form, carefully choosing objects and character traits that they felt were both unusual and poetic. This was how I felt about the house dragged across the ice in E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News.

But I remember my delight at reading Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, when a friend lent it to me as an undergrad, as being a book that seemed to be written about the same world I lived in, or closer to it -- my university and my own development did not present the opportunities of Nick, Robin, and Thomas. In jr. high and high school, I read Terry Brooks, and David Eddings, and Piers Anthony, and a lot of Star Trek novels. It seems funny that I read these (most of which I now think of as fluff) at the same time I loved Dorothy L. Sayers and Noel Streatfeild, who wrote what I think of as utterly believable characters, and who seemed to see the world as I saw it (and thus to be confronted with adventures and problems like my own). When I got to college and someone introduced me to Carolyn Heilbrun's Kate Fansler detective stories, I felt that I had found someone writing about a woman who I hoped to become.

I don't remember when I started reading current sci-fi/fantasy, exactly. However, I will never forget the experience of reading Sarah Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths series, and thinking "oh, my God, I had no idea that it was even possible to capture life, and its disappointments and victories, in this way." I'm afraid that's not an especially original eloquent blurb, but it's what I felt at the time, and what I still feel when I go back to the whole quartet to reread it, which I do about every year. If you're curious, you should rush right out and buy the series, or at least the first volume, and you should pay no attention to the cover art, which gives the impression that Melusine is a soppy bodice-ripper. It's nothing of the sort. Though it is a series in which sex, both abusive, and non, plays a major role. And it's what I would hold up as an example and standard to literary fiction authors who feel that they simply must include a sexual abuse plot in their novels: that is how you do it.

Monette isn't the only sci-fi/fantasy author who has been able to reach me, though she was the first, and the one who did so most dramatically. I think it's fair to say that she's the reason I began paying attention to other sci-fi authors, and to blogs at Tor. I haven't time tonight, but at some point, I would like to write more about why the other major genre that I read is YA Lit.

So, if you're reading this: is there a book, series, or genre, that amazed you, that knocked you flat by portraying the world more richly than you imagined was ever possible?

Review: The Diviner's Tale, by Bradford Morrow

In hindsight, I should have heeded my suspicions when I read the review of this book on BoingBoing, because it was praised as "literary," and in my experience, that means that it has pretensions to being a grand novel of sentiment and rebirth, when mostly, it's just clichéd navelgazing, with the increased likelihood of one particular plot device.

But the UK cover, which I thought (and still think) rather lovely in its design tempted me, and when I downloaded the sample chapter from Amazon, I genuinely thought the author's voice (or rather, that of the main character, Cassandra, equally lovely). Though I was immediately suspicious of anyone who would name a character who divines (primarily water, but also the future) Cassandra, I was drawn in. Not enough to buy the book, mind you, but enough to take time to go to Barnes and Noble and find it, and settle down at a table to have a closer look. I was drawn in even after finding a review on Amazon that mentioned the "tragic things" that befell the character when she was a child.

I'm afraid I didn't end up liking the book at all, despite the author's clever voice, and generally likeable characters. Morrow seems to want to use the supernatural (the divining talent) as a hook, but not one that will have any real force in determining what happens in the story's main mystery, so there's no real logic in the way that the mystery develops and unravels. This is a great pity, because I don't think the mystery was really necessary at all. There is plenty of conflict without it, involving, variously, religion, disease, different generations, and the tensions associated with fitting or not fitting into one's community. There's an acknowledgement thanking a divining group for help with research, and I can wholeheartedly say that I loved reading about Cass's divining work, and her relationship with her father Nep, also a diviner. I can imagine loving this book wholeheartedly.

But I don't recommend it. Part of the problem is that I don't think the mystery is well woven into the rest of the plot (which is a great mistake when you consider that this book is being shelved in the mystery, rather than the litfic section). And to go further into that, I need to spoil the plot, a bit.

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Spoiler: central to the development of this novel is the revelation that Cassandra, the protagonist, was violently molested at age 7 by a friend of her elder, now-deceased brother. Morrow goes into a fair amount of detail, and I suppose I can say that the abuse scenes didn't feel as formulaic as they might have; but I was left wishing that I could remind the authors of the literary fiction genre (because that's the genre that Morrow seems to write in usually, judging by his Amazon listings) that there are more ways to create a complex, sensitive female character than to molest her. The molestation does help a major piece of the puzzle fall into place (actually, it drops the villain into the reader's lap, which is why I say that this is a poorly woven mystery), but other than that, it seems that it's there principally to add poignant drama to the story. And its principle effect, on this reader, is to make me think, "oh, the author got lazy." Morrow's not the only one who does this. It's related, I think, to the "dead women on book covers sell better than dead men," the crime procedurals that slowly film women being tortured and murdered. And countless authors seem to think that childhood sexual abuse/molestation/rape is the easiest way to amplify the profundity of their plots. It's not that abuse can't ever be written about, but there seem to be a whole lot of books where the point of the abuse is that it's somehow necessary to show that the female character's childhood had meaning beyond playing with dolls, books, frogs, or what-have you. That the said female character grew up; her adulthood proven by the pain of being assaulted.

All I can say tonight is that if that's their idea of how to write a character whose life has meaning, then I have no interest in their books. And I will laugh out loud when I see someone blurbing such books as "original."