Fiction

Best of 2012

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It’s that time of year when I begin to panic. Yes, panic and it has nothing to do with the holidays. What worries me, causes lack of sleep, and makes me ponder endlessly over a glass of wine (or two)? It’s best of lists. That’s stupid, I know, but here’s the thing — I always look back over the year and think about what happened, good and bad, vacations, time with family and friends, and of course, the books I read. So, to alleviate some anxiety, I’m going to share a best of list with you. Whether you like it or not.

Last year I had this genius idea (I thought it was genius and I’m not taking any feedback on that!:)). Instead of picking a list of say 10 books (how could I pick a number one), I would go month by month and pick the books I liked that month. Now, you may see a book on this list and then look at my review and notice I didn’t rate the book high at the time. The reason I picked it? All gut feeling. I’m telling you which books resonate with me, even months later in some cases, so I can say, ‘You know what, try it.’

January
The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson
The Secret Diary of a Princess: A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Melanie Clegg
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

February
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Technologists by Matthew Pearl

March
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate #1) by Gail Carriger
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (read along, no review)
Changeless (The Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger

April
The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson

May
Blameless (The Parasol Protectorate #3) by Gail Carriger
Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch (read along, no review)
Railsea by China Mieville

June
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Heartless (The Parasol Protectorate #4) by Gail Carriger
Timeless (The Parasol Protectorate #5) by Gail Carriger

July
Among Others by Jo Walton
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier
Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton
In The Woods by Tana French

August
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

September
The Map of the Sky by Felix J. Palma

October
Death in the Floating City by Tasha Alexander
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Island of Bones by Imogen Robertson

November
The Likeness by Tana French

December
Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn

I read more fantasy and less historical fiction than in earlier years. And, as always, I have a few series going — not something that I see changing in the New Year. A good series is this reader’s downfall. It’s interesting how my reading habits change, even over the course of a year. One of the reasons I like to keep lists is to see my progress over a year’s worth of reading, that, and I really do like a good list.

OK, the big question — what did you read this year? Anything memorable, wonderful, something you wish you hadn’t read? Share, share. It’s not as if my to read list is getting any shorter anyway.

Double Review – Berserker and Abominable

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BerserkerBerserker

By William Meikle
Generation Next Publications
4 stars

I always enjoy Viking stories and always mean to read more than I actually manage to. When I came across this book I was happy to see it met the very important conditions I was looking for — it featured a monster in the context of a Viking story. It seemed like a good candidate for my October reading.

Tor Tyrsson is on his first Viking voyage and the adventure he expected is less than stunning. His friend Orjan Skald, who has been subject to strange trances since an injury he suffered as a child, has accompanied him and he is also having less than the time of his life. While Tor actually wants to encounter a fight, Sklad can only predict them when the strange trance he calls the wyrd takes him. After being at sea in heavy storms with no land or other ships in sight for months, when land is spotted, everyone on this doomed voyage is ready for an adventure off the ships. Unfortunately, what they find on land is something completely and utterly unexpected.

I wanted a book with monsters and got one. There was no disappointment on that end. The Alma, large, white-haired beasts that can rip a man into several pieces, are not only the stuff of legend but fodder for bad dreams for the men on this journey. Hoping to find treasure, these Vikings instead find a single female Alma and slaughter her bringing down the wrath of the Alma colony that exists on the small bit of land they were doomed to land on. Much violence ensues, as you can imagine. This is a Viking story so that shouldn’t be a surprise. I don’t say that to turn anyone off of the story — everything that happens, makes sense within the context of the story. And, it’s a story about monsters so it’s easy to step back from it all.

This was my first official October read, which I actually read at the end of September. (Yes, I’m that far behind on reviews.) It was enjoyable despite not actually being read in the month in which it was being saved for. I hoard my scary books when Halloween approaches and this was one of them. If you’re like me, this would be one for the pile. It’s a quick read and I found it entertaining.

AbominableAbominable
By William Meikle
Smashwords Edition
3.5 stars

No one knows what happened on George Mallory’s last ascent up Mount Everest. Until an iron chest that had been forgotten for many years is opened and the secrets of that last journey are revealed. The journey is much more dramatic than any imagined and while some would believe Mallory succumbed to the elements, there are other devious monsters at work.

Yetis! Yep, more monsters. This short story was a nice diversion when I found myself in between books and not sure what I wanted to read next. I liked that this was told by someone who was hawking the diary of a dead man and providing select entries to convince the buyer it was worthwhile. It added a nice creepy touch. Also, I love anything told epistolary style. I’m such a sucker there.

This being a short story means this is going to be a short review as well since I’m going to do my best not to give away too much information. So I end with this — if you’re looking for a short evening read to curl up with this fall/winter, give it a shot.

Review – Bag of Bones

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Bag of BonesThere are so many good reviews of this that of course I had to read it. It’s one of King’s many books that I never got around to, and with the number of books this man writes and publishes, I’m not surprised it took me this long to read it.

Mike Noonan is an author, a good mid-list author at that. He leads a comfortable life with his wife Jo in New England. When Jo unexpectedly dies of a brain aneurysm, Mike is left alone and almost incapacitated by her sudden death. His wife also left him with a bit of mystery and he wants answers. Since Jo’s death, Mike has developed writer’s block, something he’s never even briefly experienced in his career as a writer. Thinking a change in scenery will help with his writer’s block and hopefully quell the obsession he’s developing with his dead wife’s coming and goings, Mike heads to his vacation house on a lake in the woods of Maine. Shortly after arriving, he finds himself caught up in a nasty custody battle over a three year-old girl he accidentally made friends with when he saw her walking down the middle of a busy road. Unwilling to let Mattie, the young mother, get destroyed by the system, Mike steps in and learns what it means to be a stranger in this part of Maine.

I jumped into this book anticipating a full out ghost story and found myself in the middle of a custody battle. Strange how books emerge sometimes. The ghost element was more than strong and I liked the small town history and how it all tied back to Mike and the property he owns but the custody battle felt like it really never fit for me even when every last tie was explained. I think my expectations were set up to be very different from what I actually got in reading the book. This sounds negative but it’s not. It just wasn’t what I had in mind when I started this book.

That said, I did enjoy this book very much. It reminded me of 11/22/63 in the slight love story that starts to develop, and then when the ghosts start in, there’s nowhere to hide for the reader or the characters. This book spooked me early on but as the story got going, I was more interested in the ghosts themselves than some of the living characters. Anything that scared me in the beginning was out the door by this time because I wanted to know every last detail of this town’s ghosts and have them out every bitter secret.

Even with all the ghosts and their brutal pasts emerging, the main story was sad. Mike Noonan is a man lost without his wife and drifting without a career now that he can no longer write without getting violently ill. When he decides to visit the lake home, he hopes he’ll be able to write again, and when he does, it’s not what he thinks it will be. He ends up have to mourn not only his wife but a part of his life he never thought he’d lose. The custody battle is heartbreaking, as all are, but there’s a cruel aspect to it all that ties back very well to the area’s unfortunately well-known and well-hidden past.

There are a few references to Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca in Bag of Bones. I adored Rebecca and referencing it here only made my love of it stronger. Why not invoke a book with a ghostly aspect to enhance another ghost story?

I know many people might stay away from an author like King and may not like horror/ghosts stories either. Well, in some ways this book is many of those things but I still want to encourage you to try it. It’s a good story with some extra supernatural parts to make it interesting. It’s more than its ghosts. In other words, it’s a keeper.

Bag of Bones
By Stephen King
Scribner
ISBN: 9781439106211
4 stars

Stephen King Button BlueThis book was read for The Stephen King Project Challenge. You can find more information here.

Review – City of Dark Magic

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City of Dark Magic

I have a soft spot for urban fantasy. I don’t know if it’s the paranormal haze that overtakes the story or if it’s the ridiculous quality that some stories take on when fantasy and paranormal mix, but in this book, it’s the latter. That ridiculous quality is the draw for me.

Sarah Weston is a talented music student in Boston but a student with few lucrative prospects in her path. When she’s offered a very profitable summer job in Prague cataloguing Beethoven’s manuscripts for a new museum, she jumps at the opportunity. Sarah arrives in Prague and is immediately hit with bad news — her mentor, the man who most likely recommended her for the position, is dead of an apparent suicide. She has trouble believing the story which gets even stranger when odd things begin happening to her. Weird symbols start appearing in unlikely places, she accidently stumbles on a Cold War conspiracy involving a very prominent U.S. Senator, and then there’s the time travel inducing drug she takes without knowing what it does. Throw in a romance with a prince and you’ve got a very busy summer that also includes putting together an exhibit on Beethoven.

A standard rule I have when reading a book such as this — remove all sense of reality then enjoy at will. City of Dark Magic is a fast read, silly, yet entertaining. It’s campy and you want to keep reading because it’s compelling in its strange way. I wanted to know what else could be thrown in the mix. This book is a huge mashup of genres: paranormal, mystery, thriller, time travel, and romance. Prague, with its long and sometimes dark history, is a good setting for it all but I do wish the city itself had played a larger role in the story. It’s a location and not much more.

Sarah’s the center of everything weird going on but she’s not the most interesting character for me. There are two others: Pollina, a blind musical prodigy who keeps warning Sarah with cryptic references about Prague, and Nicolas, a little person with a penchant for stealing valuable objects and who hints at being alive for close to 400 years. Pollina and Nicholas play scant parts in the story but they also made it for me. You don’t know much about either but each time one of them shows up, something interesting happens. I like characters like that.

Then we have the romance, which is more like sex in weird places rather than a straight forward romance. Sarah falls for Max, the heir apparent of the Prague royal family and also heir to an enormous fortune. Frankly, I had no idea what Sarah saw in him. He gets slightly more interesting as the story goes on but he’s sort like a light bulb — on one second, off the next but the two work as a couple.

I gravitate toward books with any time travel element. Here, it’s a bit different, less actual travel to the past and more watching the past thanks to a drug that allows users to see the remnants of history but not interact with it. Think of it as watching a movie. The concept is cool. In fact, it works extremely well and is one of the best parts of the book. Points for creativity need to be awarded for this.

Sometimes you want a book that simply entertains and City of Dark Magic does that. There’s a bit of everything and when one scene seems impossible, know that the next will top it. Go with it. It’s a good ride and a great way to escape reality for a bit.

In addition to this blog, I also do reviews for The Book Reporter website. The above review was done for the Book Reporter which can be found here. The book was provided to me by the publisher.

City of Dark Magic

Magnus Flyte

Penguin Books

ISBN: 9780143122685

3.5 stars

 

Review – The Venice Conspiracy

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I read Christer’s first novel, The Stonehenge Legacy and liked it. When the opportunity to review his second book fell in my lap, I took it. I was in the mood for a thriller and already being familiar with this author, I knew this would be a good match.

Tom Shaman is an ex-priest from Los Angeles trying to escape his former life and anyone who knew him. A few months before, while still a priest, he happened upon an assault and intervened to stop a woman from being raped. While fighting off the attackers, he accidentally killed one of the men. Cleared of the crime, but unable to let his conscience rest, he decides to trade California for Italy and his life of a priest for that of a layman. Upon arriving in watery Venice, he finds himself drawn into the case of a murdered girl and what seems to be a devil worshiping cult that is planning an attack with world-wide ramifications. Throw in a pseudo-romance and a kidnapping, and Tom isn’t getting the escape from life he was hoping for in Italy.

There are several stories and timelines taking place in The Venice Conspiracy — the present following the ex-priest Tom, a 666 BC timeline featuring a netvis (an ancient priest of sorts) who may have inadvertently created the demon now known as Satan, and a 1778 timeframe concerning the theft of a little known but very valuable sculpture. This might sound confusing, but each specific time plays out without hindering the others. I was interested in seeing how each story would work out but I found the 666 BC timeframe the most interesting. It was set in what would be considered Etruia, a part of ancient Italy that is considered the home of Etruscan civilization. I’m always fascinated by this time period, and for me, this timeline held the most interest which of course means I would have liked more about these characters.

I should also say this — as I often do with thrillers — forget reality and roll with it. Tom’s an ex-priest who ends up investigating what look like ritual murders with the Italian police force shortly after arriving in the city and being found at the scene of the first murder. I don’t mean this to sound critical but this police force really moves fast. If you’ve ever been to Italy, you know nothing moves fast. I just felt wrong considering the police wanted to lock him up shortly before employing him. It’s hard to buy, but, ignore that. Go with it and you won’t be disappointed. You see, this is one of those stories that builds; each new character and timeframe adding something new, each story within a story advancing things along. Honestly, that’s what I want a thriller to do. I want it to move, and move fast. The Venice Conspiracy does just that.

If you’re looking for a book that will keep you up reading, give this one a try.

The publisher sent me a copy of The Venice Conspiracy for review.

The Venice Conspiracy
By Sam Christer
Overlook Press
ISBN: 978-1468300499
3.5 stars

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

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

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