Fiction

Review – The Lost World

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The Lost World

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

B&R Samizdat Express

E-Book

After reading The Lost City of Z by David Grann last year, I immediately downloaded The Lost World to my Nook.  Grann references the book in his story about Percy Fawcett whom Conan Doyle credits with the idea for his story that became The Lost World.  On a night when I needed something to read and was craving more non-fiction than fiction but couldn’t even feign hope in the book I picked, I browsed the Nook and found my copy of The Lost World.  A short book, my version is a mere 174 pages, I thought it would be the perfect distraction.

I was right on one level — it was distracting but in a good way.  Conan Doyle, is known better to me as the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories, surprised me in that the story he was telling felt familiar and foreign all at the same time.  The Lost World is the story a newspaper reporter looking for his big story break and thanks to a tip from an editor, he finds himself wrapped up in the tale of Professor Challenger who believes he found a prehistoric world on a plateau in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.  And if you’re wondering, yes it comes complete with caveman and a t-rex.

What makes the story work is the length.  Conan Doyle’s stories were published in segments and you can easily get the feel of that here but it works without feeling punctuated.  The four men that take on the expedition, Professor Challenger, Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and Edward Malone are interesting characters.  Challenger and Summerlee both have agendas and are out to prove something — for Challenger it’s to prove the world he’s been ridiculed for discovering exists and Summerlee is out to prove Challenger is the fraud he believes him to be.  While Malone is chasing the story of his life to appease the woman he loves with the hopes of a marriage, Roxton is the true explorer who wants to satiate a curiosity.  The four men, and yes it’s a story all about men, come together to form an interesting tale that will keep you interested even if you know the end.

This year I’m trying to delve deeper into author backlists and while my Sherlock Holmes knowledge is still rather shallow, this was a fun little story and I’m glad I took the time to read it.

Tuesday Teaser – A Conspiracy of Kings

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

I’m reading A Conspiracy of Kings by Meghan Whalen Turner, which is the final book in The Thief series.

“I think my face must have made it clear what I thought of that. ‘And my abduction?’ I asked pointedly.” (pg. 220)

Review – The Last Pendragon: A Tale of Dark Age Wales

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The Last Pendragon: A Tale of Dark Age Wales

By Sarah Woodbury

Smashwords Edition

EAN: 2940011110184

3.5 stars

Rhiann’s father, the King of Gwynedd, is a cruel man and sees her only virtue as what she can bring him through marriage.  She spends her dreary days turning down any available man her father brings to his hall.  As a bastard child, her choices are running low and she may find herself married to the next man her father brings to his hall.  When Cadwaladr (Cade), the last of the Pendragons, is drug bleeding into her father’s hall, she’s stunned by his appearance.  When she is sent to help him with his wounds and he refuses her help, Rhiann finds she wants to help him even more.  With the help of her stepmother, who also happens to be Cadwaladr’s mother, she escapes with him.  She soon finds out that he’s not exactly who she thought he was.  He’s brave, prepared to fight, a man born to lead men, and he’s also not quite human.

Many re-tellings of Arthurian legend tend to include some form of the supernatural.  It’s sometimes magic used by Merlin, some form of a seer, the sword which in some stories is pulled from an enchanted stone or is given to Arthur by a goddess.  In others, Morgaine or Morgan le Fay, Arthur’s sister, is the one in possession of the magical abilities and there is usually a goddess that has chosen Arthur, or his decedents, for the task of reuniting the people of his land, and more often than not, Saxons are involved.  Woodbury includes most of these elements in some fashion, and while I tend to prefer the non-magical Arthurian legend stories, this one has an interesting twist that made it appealing.  Cade is a form of a daemon which makes him invincible to a degree baring his head doesn’t become dislodged from his body or his heart pierced.  Cade also feels drained by the sunlight and while clearly not a vampire, felt a little too close for me in terms of symptoms/afflictions.

I like character driven stories and once I become attached, even if I was a little leery, I stayed till the end.  One thing that did bother me, and bothered me a lot, was this — the names were all very similar.  I appreciate that the author was staying true to the story by using Welsh names, even if I can’t pronounce them, but they were all too similar and it took me a long time to get them straight.  Even Cade’s horse’s name (Cadfan) was too close to his own name for me.

I was in a slight reading slump when I picked this one up.  I was thoroughly relying on my love of Arthurian legend to pull me through.  It did.  It won’t rank high on my list of best of Arthurian legend stories but it was an interesting re-telling.

Review – Garden Spells

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Garden Spells

By Sarah Addison Allen

A Bantam Book

eISBN: 9780553904123

5 stars

Sarah Addison Allen is a new to me author but I don’t foresee that being the case for very long.  Her style is lyrical, almost poetic, and her characters are amazing creatures of habit that make you love their ways.

Claire Waverly enjoys her quiet life in her family’s old Victorian house in North Carolina, she loves even more the garden out back which produces flowers and herbs and when incorporated into family recipes, can bring about certain feelings in people.  A caterer in town, she’s happy to live her quiet life but when her long lost sister Sydney shows up with her five year old daughter, Bay, her life is thrown into a new orbit.  She’s no longer the sole keeper of the house, her sister is keeping some secret she won’t share, and Bay shows budding family traits of the Waverly women — magical powers of a sort with flowers and an ability to know where everything and everyone belongs.  Sydney keeps fighting her Waverly roots but soon starts to realize that she’s going to need to embrace who she is.

I don’t want to gush all over this book but I’m going to.  Claire and Sydney are sisters who don’t act like it but there is a love between them and when it grows it’s almost as lovely as the garden.  Next door, a new neighbor, Tyler, brings love to Claire and she’s a woman whose life is sorely in need of human contact, even if he is a little bit too pushy for my taste.  Sydney is a woman hurting from an abusive relationship and she doesn’t want to share anything for fear that she and her daughter might be found.  It’s a story of family, love, strength, and learning to embrace life and who you are.  It doesn’t feel odd even for all of its magical elements.  Addison Allen infuses just enough to make it work but she doesn’t make it overbearing or the focus of the story.  It all works.  Magical realism can sometimes over compensate for other story elements but here is all feels right; just life with a little extra.

This is one I highly recommend.  If Sarah Addison Allen is a new to you author, read this one.

The Sunday Salon – Long Books and Loot

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For the second week in a row, I’ve been in a one week, one book relationship.  The first was a non-fiction book that I was having some issues with (I wasn’t liking it so much and found some of it annoying so it took me longer, even longer than my normal slow pace associated with non-fiction books because there were times I thought about winging it far from my being.) and the second week was consumed by an almost 800 page historical fiction tome that, well, it just took me a long time to read.  I did enjoy it though so there are no complaints.  🙂

So what book was it?  The Forever Queen by Helen Hollick.  Last year, I read her Arthurian legend trilogy, Pendragon’s Banner, loved it so much I knew I needed to read more and when I saw this one, I bought it.  Lately my restraint tactics which I practiced all last year in regard to buying books have been tossed casually into a black hole from which they will never ever return.  Although, the new books are all ebooks so they aren’t taking up any physical space which is probably why I’ve kept at the buying the last few days with little regard for anything other than how much money is left on my gift cards.  The answer to that is not much.  I also picked up A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin (can’t wait for it!) and Un Lun Dun by China Mieville.  I read two of his books last year and he’s becoming a favorite.

To show there’s more to me than just hitting the download button, I also stopped by the library (thanks honey for double parking and deftly avoiding a ticket) and picked up two books that I’m looking forward to reading.  OK, one I already started…

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach.  Mary Roach writes the funniest and most entertaining non-fiction books I’ve ever read and this is going to be the perfect one to get me back on the non-fiction wagon which I jumped off of in January.  My second book is A Conspiracy of Kings by Meghan Whalen Turner.  I thought, really believed, that I had finished this series last year but I didn’t and well, that needed to be fixed and now I have the final book and all is well.

I’m off now.  My husband has informed me there is football stuff to be watched.  Happy Sunday everyone and enjoy the game!

Review – The Woman in Black

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The Women in Black

By Susan Hill

Illustrations by John Lawrence

David R. Godine

ISBN: 0879235764

4.5 stars

Arthur Krupps is an ambitious, young lawyer looking forward to providing a secure future for his fiancé.  When his employer sends him to a small, isolated town in the north of England, he looks at it as an opportunity to make a name for himself in his firm.  On the long train ride north, he meets a man named Samuel Daily of the town of Crythin Gifford who becomes rather secretive when Arthur reveals the reason for his visit.  Arthur thinks nothing of Samuel’s odd behavior and, in fact, he finds the town a quiet, peaceful place and expects to enjoy his short stay.  He soon finds out that everyone in town is unwilling to talk about a woman named Alice Drablow, a recluse who lived at Eel Marsh House and the woman whose estate Arthur’s come to settle.  Arthur thinks it odd but brushes it off as nothing more than small town politics and just wants to get through the formalities of his work and return to London.  While attending the funeral of Mrs. Drablow, Arthur spots a woman in black but she disappears before he’s able to speak with her.  He spots her again while walking around Eel Marsh House later that afternoon but she’s much more intimidating on the marshes around the house than at the church.  Thoroughly spooked, he returns to town but is determined to return and finish his work.  When he does return, he finds a house full of sinister secrets and a ghost bent on revenge.

This story, while very short, is full of long, lush sentences that cast a creepy spell.  Arthur wants to believe what’s going on is in his mind but there are too many things happening that make him wonder, in some cases about his own sanity and well-being.  The town’s people won’t talk about the house on the marsh or what happened there and it adds a strange coldness to the story setting Arthur apart from everyone in town.  His search for answers only causes more distress and in the end, all he wants to do is run.  While Arthur’s story begins on a bright cheery note, you know his story won’t end happily.

It’s a good little Victorian story.  Angst, guilt, and anguish with a tad of soul searching thrown in make it a story you don’t want to put down.  If you like ghost stories this is it.  If you don’t, I think it will still hold some value as a story about a man coming to terms with a particular time in his life that he would prefer to forget.  If you don’t like ghost stories, consider it a story about a man and his past with a haunting element that adds atmosphere.

I came across this book while hunting for a dark ghost story.  Susan Hill has several other books, many of which seem to be well-known in England where she lives.  I plan to see what else my library has as she’s definitely a writer I want to read more of.  She has a wonderful style that is lulling but not in the way that puts you to sleep but in the way that pulls you into the story and traps you there until she’s ready to release you.

 

Review – Time Travelers Never Die

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Time Travelers Never Die

By Jack McDevitt

Ace Books

ISBN: 9780441017638

3 stars

Science fiction is a genre I’ve fall out with, not intentionally, it somehow just happened over the years.  Lately I’ve wanted to get reacquainted and this was my first foray back into science fiction.

After Michael Shelbourne, a well-known physicist, goes missing, his son Shel finds out he developed and successfully used a time machine.  Concerned his father may be stuck in another time without means to get home, he convinces his friend Dave Dryden, to help him search for his father.

The story was good enough but it felt sort of, well, it was a lot less complicated than I thought the story would be especially for a time travel story.  His father goes missing and Shel, rightfully distraught, goes to find him and along the way there are several interesting adventures but it felt like there was no urgency to the story.  Shel and Dave do land in a few messes which is expected when time traveling but they all too easily get out of it simply by setting one of the devices to go back and put together a rescue.  Poof, they get out of trouble, no harm done.  There is a time paradox that comes into play but neither Shel nor Dave seemed all that concerned about it so I wasn’t either.  However, I wanted the whole time travel aspect to be more complicated but all of it started to feel a little vacationy to me — the two take trips to party with Voltaire and watch plays in Ancient Greece and while it’s fun, there just doesn’t feel like there’s enough conflict.

This isn’t a negative review though.  McDevitt is a fun writer and while this book wasn’t a total score for me, it made me wonder about some of his other books so I think I’ll be giving him another opportunity to impress me.

Teaser Tuesdays – The Forever Queen

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

I’m reading The Forever Queen by Helen Hollick who is a master of historical fiction.  OK, that’s just my opinion but I’m sayin’ in anyway.

“Winchester was a pleasant town, or perhaps Emma thought so because it was hers?  This was her dower land, all revenue came directly to her, be it tenancy rents, market traders’ tax, or import duty from the riverside wharf.  Nor was it as foul-smelling as London.”  (Nook pg. 155 of 793)