Review – The New World

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Confession: I haven’t read the Chaos Walking trilogy. I kept meaning to then all these other books got in the way and it never happened. Everyone loves the books, and from what I’ve read about them, there’s a pretty good chance (a high probability if I’m honest) that I’ll feel much the same about the series if I ever get around to reading the books.

One day, tapping buttons on my tablet (by this I mean buying books), I came across this short story which is a precursor to the trilogy. It was free. Why not? Who could resist free?

Viola is aboard a small ship with her parents who will soon be attempting to land on the planet. Viola is less than thrilled. She’s never lived anywhere but on a ship in space and the last thing she wants is to leave the only life she’s ever known. As the day of the attempted landing approaches, nerves fray and the worst possible thoughts become reality.

This is a short story, about 25 pages so I can’t say more and I wouldn’t want to ruin this for anyone that might be interested in reading it. I will say that if you’re like me and you haven’t read the series, this will only make you want to. And if you’ve read the series, you’ll probably just want more.

The New World
By Patrick Ness
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763656492

Review – The End of Mr. Y

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The End of Mr. Y was the start of my reviewing slump. I finished this book and decided to sit on it for a few days before writing. My thoughts needed to percolate. OK, so, I had no idea what this book was about and no idea what I thought of it. I didn’t know what to write. I still don’t know how to describe this book or what I think of it. Be patient. I plan to get there.

Ariel Manto is a woman with no plan. She’s a columnist for an obscure magazine and has made the bold choice of returning to academia to study even more obscure concepts than the ones she writes about. During her research, she comes across a book titled, The End of Mr. Y. This book is supposedly cursed and all who read it mysteriously disappear, including her advisor, who, before he went missing, told her abruptly to stop researching the book and forget the topic. Ignoring his advice, Ariel tracks down a copy of the strange book anyway and using a formula she finds outlined in the pages of the book, brews a drink that will take her into the troposphere — a strange dimension where she can enter the consciousness of others. Incidentally, this is where all the missing people are and it may be too late for Ariel to be saved.

So, the troposphere. I. Don’t. Get. It. First, it’s a mind experiment. Then a government conspiracy involved with what I think is some rouge version of the CIA involving autistic children. And there are all these mice involved. It’s confusing. As. All. Hell.

There’s so much going on in this book. At times, it feels like a mystery. Other times it feels like an academic paper on physics gone wrong. And all the mice — what was with the mice?

At one point, as Ariel is entering the troposphere, she ends up in the mind of a mouse. It’s entertaining for a bit but then it keeps going and we end up finding out that there’s a mouse god. Well, he’s not really a mouse, but he is to Ariel and no amount of explaining fixed that he was still a mouse. For me or for Ariel.

There’s a love story here as well. And, Ariel, well, she’s not a good candidate to be part of a love story. She sleeps with anyone, for almost any reason. Model of a happy, healthy relationship she is not. I couldn’t buy into her suddenly being in a semi-normal relationship, especially when her new partner is a former priest with lots of issues.

Here’s what got me with this book — it didn’t feel accessible. Physics is not something I know much about but I’m a curious person and I will read almost anything that promises science of some sort. That’s what drew me to this book. Unfortunately, for me, it didn’t work. I felt disconnected from the story. I wanted the characters to bring me in, but they didn’t. All of the characters are such a strange mismatch of people. I had high hopes for them since I do tend to like characters on the weird side, but they didn’t have any harmony. Every character felt separate and didn’t mesh for me.

This wasn’t the book for me but I will say that it hasn’t turned me off of Scarlett Thomas’s writing. She’s incredibly, so incredibly creative. In fact, this is a very smart book. Plot wise, it’s crazy but even though I was struggling with it, I never wanted to stop reading. I just wasn’t getting it. Maybe that says more about me than the book. Who knows.

Have you read this one? Thoughts? Opinions?

The End of Mr. Y
By Scarlett Thomas
Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156031615
2.5 stars

The Sunday Salon – Comfort Reading

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The last few weeks have been, well, kinda crappy. I won’t go into details let’s just say we’ve had better months in our lives.

Anyway, during this time, I kept reading, reading good books I should say, but what I wanted was something comforting. I wanted something that made me feel safe and happy. A book that allowed me to escape to a place so different from my own life that it would be a momentary relief from the regular day’s drudgery. (Side note: I don’t think I’ve ever used the word drudgery in a sentence until right now.)

I’ve been picturing the books on my shelf wondering what would fill the gap. There’s The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien; always a favorite. I could go to Middle Earth. The new movie is coming out and I should read the book again just to be sure I’m properly re-acquainted with these wonderful characters. Fantasy has made up a large part of my reading this year which is not unusual for me since I do tend to go on reading binges. For as much as The Hobbit appeals, it wasn’t right this time. I wanted something I could fall into and imagine in great depth. (Please, I know this is more than possible to do with Tolkien’s work. I’m just saying it’s not the right time for me to pick this up. Besides, I think I have until the end of November to read it before the movie comes out so all good.)

What I wanted was historical fiction. Yes, that was it. I wanted to imagine hearing the swoosh of a long skirt dragging across stone floors, feel the heaviness of a velvet dress, the cold and damp corners of a castle. I wanted courtiers, royals acting badly, mistresses, and court antics. So, library, help me out. I found what I was looking for and got an email that my book is ready. It’s a new to me author and she writes exactly what I want to read right now. We shall soon see if success has been achieved.

Things were slow here on the blog last week but I’m hoping to fix that. I’m, for the most part, caught up with most reviews and will be doing some editing this weekend to get those reviews ready for public eyeballs. Posts will happen!

Now, go read. Happy Sunday.

Review – Ghosts of Manhattan

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I’ve always loved the movie Wall Street. There’s something so fascinating, annoying, hateful, and sad about Gordon Gekko. He’s a car wreck I can’t stop gaping at. And, yes, I like the sequel, Money Never Sleeps too. Who doesn’t want more Gordon Gekko?

When I was offered the chance to review Ghosts of Manhattan, I took it. I, apparently, want more Gordon Gekko.

Nick Farmer is a bond trader at Bear Stearns and he hates his job. Any novelty it once held has long since faded along with any interest in the parties, drugs, and hookers. Those bonuses, though, are what keep him going back to the office every day. He’s married, but after several years, is realizing that he barely knows his wife anymore and he isn’t sure he even wants to know her any longer. The job is taking a toll not just on him but his wife and their marriage as well. When Nick is approached by a paranoid analyst who is scared of what his research foretells, Nick starts wondering if the right time to get out is now.

Nick is a character I want to feel bad for. He hates his job, the people and corporation he works for, the lazy ethics of the place, and the lifestyle he, for better or worse, has become accustomed to. On top of all this, his personal life is falling apart. On the other hand, he does nothing at work, drinks, does a little cocaine from time to time in New York’s finest bathrooms (they have floor to ceiling stall doors if you must know), and charges back thousands upon thousands of dollars to absurd expense accounts without even blinking. That’s what made me want to scream at this book but I also kept reading because of it. It’s hard to understand that type of money. Absurd isn’t even the word to describe it. Insane maybe but even that’s not enough. But I wanted to see how deep that hole went and how far Nick was willing to fall into it. The answer to that is pretty far. Sadly, he knows it but keeps going.

But Nick is also a likable character. As I said, he hates his job and his personal life is circling a large drain ready to suck him into a vast hell. He knows it but doesn’t do much about it, which is probably best since anytime he tries, he fails miserably. He’s a good at heart with some decent intentions but has yet to figure out how to wield anything positive.

The world Nick lives in, almost unwillingly (he doesn’t know how to get out until he has to), isn’t his fault though and I’m not giving the character an out here. He has his bad, maybe even reprehensible moments, but there’s something about him that seems redeemable and that I could work with. I like to like characters in books, and Nick has a likable side under all the grime.

I know some of you may be thinking about this book in terms of Wall Street only, and that’s not the best way to approach this one. Yes, the main part of the story surrounds Nick’s job and there are numerous hateful people in his circle doing numerous hateful things, but there are some nice moments, some funny moments, and in the end, a new beginning. I liked that about this one.

Also, now the theme song to Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is stuck in my head.

The publisher sent me a copy of Ghosts of Manhattan for review.

Ghosts of Manhattan
By Douglas Brunt
Touchstone
ISBN: 978-1451672596
4 stars

The Sunday Salon – Rain

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It’s raining here today and I decided it would be an excellent idea to stay in bed and watch TV. Random flipping and one show about the Loch Ness Monster now over, I’m up and moving.

I’ve been reading two books the last few days — Bag of Bones by Stephen King and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Friday after work I decided I’d park myself on the couch and read. Husband came home and I was curled up on the couch looking, as he put, “slightly freaked out.” Conversation ensued:

Him: “What’s wrong?”

Me: “Nothing.”

Him: “OK.”

Me: “A book freaked me out.”

Him, glancing at books on the coffee table: “To Kill a Mockingbird freaked you out?”

Me: “No, the other book.”

Him, picking up second book: “You’re reading a Stephen King book and got freaked out. No sympathy.”

So, I’ve designated Bag of Bones my daylight reading and To Kill a Mockingbird as my evening reading.

Somehow amidst a week full of crap and more crap, I managed to draft eight reviews. Death in the Floating City by Tasha Alexander is waiting a review but after that I’ll be caught up. I’m feeling good about that development.

Finally, if you have ten minutes to waste today and want to see a digital painting come to life, go here.

With that, enjoy your books. Happy Sunday.

Thoughts – The Mists of Avalon

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This isn’t going to be regular review. Over the course of the seven weeks I spent reading The Mists of Avalon, I started writing down what I liked/didn’t like about this book and a few thoughts that I didn’t want to slip away. It may be a little disjointed but I’ll try to pull it back together at the end when I finish up this little experiment.

First, for those unfamiliar with this book, The Mists of Avalon is a re-telling of Arthurian legend from the perspective of the women. It closely follows with the generally known legend and all the characters are there. If you want a more detailed description, I give you this. Yes, it’s the lazy way but this is already a very long post.

Character-wise — I love the strong women. Igraine, the eventual wife of Uther Pendragon and the mother of King Arthur, is miserable and it’s hard to blame her. Especially when she finds out she’s really just a pawn for Viviane, her sister and priestess of Avalon, who has already once married her off to an older man and plans to marry her to the man who will be high king so she can bear him a son. Viviane is strong, not likeable, but admirable. She has strong convictions and even a few regrets especially for her family and the strains put on them by their fates. Morgaine, Igraine’s daughter by her first husband, the Duke of Cornwall, and to a certain extent, Viviane’s adopted daughter, becomes a priestess of Avalon. When she falls victim to Viviane’s fate machine, she runs when her life is essentially brought to ruins. Morgause, Igraine’s sister and Morgaine’s aunt, may be a harsh woman with designs on power his above her abilities, but give her credit, she knows what she wants and how to get it. Even if how she gets it is through sex but she’s not ashamed so why should we be.

Then there’s Gwenhwyfar, King Arthur’s wife. What a twit. Really. I couldn’t stand her and I have a very high tolerance for liking this character in most Arthurian re-tellings. Here, she’s a conniving woman who only wants a son and will go to any length to guilt and goad her husband into being a better Christian because she believes that a stronger more fanatical faith will bring that wish to fruition. She’s whiney, annoying, and honestly, not that smart. She doesn’t see the big picture and is so worried about supposed pagans and their evil that she can’t even see what she’s doing is tearing the country apart as her husband is trying to salvage it. As a side note: if you want to read a strong Gwenhwyfar, read Helen Hollick’s Arthurian re-telling — The Kingmaking, Pendragon’s Banner, and Shadow of the King. The Gwenhwyfar in that story is strong and unafraid of her fate and faces everything head on.

The men. Arthur is Arthur but he’s not so much the strong Arthur that I like so much. He’s more of a non-factor since this story is about the women but he’s the high king and has to be there. Lancelet. My god, just bang the girl and get it over with. I say this now because I couldn’t take it anymore. Unrequited love doesn’t sit well for me and there’s entirely too much of it here. Yet, it’s a big part of this story and it wouldn’t be this story without this little triangle. And when I say triangle I mean that in the threesome sort of way. Imagine at will.

Mordred, Morgaine and Arthur’s son, is a fascinating character. He was raised by Morgause and is full of the need for power but the difference is that he knows how to find it and yield it. Raised in Avalon, he can raise the power of the goddess and knows his way around courtly diversions and behavior. He is able to manipulate Arthur and gain his way into Gwenhwyfar’s heart all the while planning a way to gain the throne for himself. A character that at some moments is a playful child, a homesick man, a man in love, and a man loyal to his brothers, Mordred is a slight chameleon. You want to like him but in ways you just can’t. Morgaine seems to feel the same way about him and she’s his mother. What does that tell you?

Merlin is Merlin and very grandfatherly but doesn’t play the part I want him to in this book but, again, it’s not about him. Kevin the Bard, oh how I love his interactions with the twit. Kevin was disfigured in a childhood accident and Gwenhwyfar believes he’s the devil himself and actually blames him for a miscarriage at one point. He gets what he deserves in the end for his betrayals though but I did find him an interesting character in his thought process on the changing role of religion among the people and how old ways needed to change. Morgaine doesn’t agree with him and this becomes the cause of tension for these two and seeing them battle it out is interesting.

Morgaine. I need to talk more about her. Honestly, I adore her in this book and she’s not always a character I like. In some stories, she’s a horrific person willing to murder and seize power at every opportunity, in The Mists of Avalon, she mostly runs from her fate. She doesn’t actively seek power and even when she can use it to get what she wants, she doesn’t. Yes, some of her actions are harsh but she does have a degree of humanity about her that I like.

I still love the setting, the storytelling, and the tension. It’s a long book and nothing is rushed which also at times makes you wish something would happen. You have to be patient and wait for the fates to work it out though. Although, as I got down to the end, parts did feel slightly rushed but I think that was because I had become used to this world moving slowly and when events happen all in succession, it felt out of place but it also felt that it needed to come to an end so I was fine with it.

This isn’t my first time with this book and it won’t be my last. I discovered much about this book on this re-read and I’m sure I’ll discover more in successive reads. While there are many Arthurian legend books I adore, this is certainly high on the list. It’s a wonderful story full of amazing women. Even if you don’t care for Arthurian legend, read it for the women. They stand above.

Thoughts – The Mists of Avalon

By Marion Zimmer Bradley

DelRey

ISBN: 0345350499

4.5 stars

Banned Books Week 2012

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I wanted to put together some wonderfully articulate piece on why banning books is small minded and hurtful. I wanted to string together brilliant words that would change the minds of individuals who believe censoring books is “the right thing to do.”

Those words are not coming swiftly, or at all, right now. So, I go to my backup plan.

I pull my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee off my shelf.

I open it.

I read it.

Take that.

If you want to know more about Banned Books Week (and you do!) visit the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week site.

I say to all readers, bloggers, and book lovers — read that banned book!

Review – Under the Dome

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On the day Dale Barbara has decided he’s had enough of the small town of Chester’s Mill, Maine is the day the dome descends on the town closing it off from the outside world. The town Selectman, James Rennie — Big Jim to those who know him, which is everyone in town — takes charge seeing his efforts as all for the greater good. When hell begins to rise in the dome, Colonel Cox, a former colleague of Dale’s, wants to put him in change by order of the President of the United States but Big Jim has other plans. And those plans don’t involve letting Dale take charge of anything.

Want to know what will cause society to break down? Put people under a dome and let them have at it. And that’s pretty much what King does, or course, he adds a few little bumps to help it all come to a burnt crisp in the end by throwing in a meth lab, religious zealots, a nut job with a brain tumor, and mix up a few outsiders with the town natives with opposing thoughts on how things can and should be done and what you get is a big mess.

There are two points in the story when a character mentions burning ants with a magnifying glass and that’s essentially what this story is. A study in what people would do when forced into a situation they can’t control and can’t change. I liked the thought behind it, and frankly, the entire story up until the point when I found out what the dome was and how it got there was good. There are hints along the way but I didn’t want that to be the explanation and was a bit disappointed that was the case but, like I said, the story and what’s going on under the dome is what you want to focus on.

It’s not a nice story by any means. People are brutal to each other, they murder each other, and they go crazy. In a way, I guess I can see that being the result but I had trouble believing that so many of these mean bastards were all gathered in the same town. But that aside, it was where all the drama came from so you have to go with it.

This was a story I couldn’t put down though and due to a mistake on my part (when I put this book on hold at the library, I accidently put the large print edition on hold and it’s a very large book in large print) I read this book only in the morning and the evening. I couldn’t wait to get back to it every day and find out what these crackpots were doing to each other and the fresh tortures they managed to inflict on their fellow townspeople. This is what I expect out of a King book and I was satisfied with that.

There’s something I need to mention and it’s not something I ever thought would happen when reading a King book. He made a reference to a character created by another author. The author in question is Lee Child and his Jack Reacher character. It made me stop cold. Did he really do that? Yes, I think he did. Well, why not. It was so weird I had to mention it.

Here’s the thing about this book — I liked it. I really did for all its violence and horrible actions. Then again, I don’t go into reading a King book thinking I’m getting unicorns and rainbows so I was OK with that. If you’re not, try 11/22/63. The violence is more manageable, there’s a little love story, and it will still give you the chance to look in on the crazy things characters will do to each other.

Under the Dome

By Stephen King

Thorndike Press

ISBN: 9781410423962

4 stars