Hickey of the Beast Wednesday, 5/18/2011

(Link to the Serial Page here)


Chapter Ten. We're now officially 1/3 of the way through the book. Connie is starting to notice patterns, and she's clearly starting to question what's going on. Becky is still in the infirmary, and the doctor issues a warning that flu may be starting early this year. In the midst of this, we get this astonishing statement about growing up, which is simply brilliant:

You're just hanging out, doing your own thing. Then you're somewhere else. Someone else, maybe. Someone who doesn't expect to sit with her family in Commons, who speaks a little bit of French, who knows the smell and the feel of the team bus practically by heart now. Or maybe that's not Springden, or even boarding school. Maybe that's just how growing up works. Hell if I know.

And then, you know, I was just thinking it's been a while since Connie had a bad dream about giant mosquitoes... This time, she realizes why she recognizes the scene outside the living room window - it's the church yard on campus. The church yard where, in the first chapter, we learned that there was some sort of dead animal that needed removing. That church yard. Clearly, Izzy has read her Chekhov - do not introduce a partially rotted animal corpse in the first 1/3rd of the novel if you do not plan to have your characters investigate the partially rotted animal corpse before the final 1/3rd of the novel. I paraphrase a little.

If this were a play, we would have, I think, just finished Act 1, and are now moving into Act 2. If I recall my high school English, Act 2 is rising action, which means that things look bad for Connie in the next 10 chapters or so.

I must say, I'm really enjoying this book. A lot.

Library Supplemental, and a question, 5/18/2011

Back to the library today, seeking a book which the library claimed we had, but which, we hoped, we had returned. Today, hope won - the book was on the shelf, and so we don't have to turn the house over to find it. This time. While there, I grabbed:

Michael Ford - Jane Goes Batty


This is the sequel to last year's Jane Bites Back, which I reviewed last year. The premise is delightful - Jane Austen is a vampire. She lives in up state New York. She's been trying to get her last novel published for a really long time. The last book turned on what happened when a publishing company agreed to publish the book, and it suddenly became a best seller. This book hinges on the aftermath of that; how do you follow up a best seller? What do you do when Hollywood descends upon your town to film a version of your book? How do you deal with Lord Byron (also a vampire, and a successful romance novelist)? So, I'm looking forward to that.

The question: I'd like to have some sort of a contest. I have this ARC of Zombies vs. Unicorns, which I reviewed a couple of months back, and I'd love to send it on to someone else. What sort of contest should I have? (I'm tempted to have a "propose a contest" contest, but then I would have to run the proposed contest, and find a prize for that too.)

Monday Library Post, 5/16/2011

Hey! It's Monday! And here's a post!

Four books this week, which is, frankly, ambitious, since I've been averaging two a week, but classes are done, my grades are due on Wednesday, and so I'll only have family to get in my way for a week or so.

Sally Spencer - Rendezvous with Death


It's a murder mystery, set in London during Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (1897). It's the first of the Inspector Blackstone novels - the most recent of which (set in New York in 1900) was on the new bookshelf, but I like to be introduced to characters in a natural way, not willy nilly in the middle, so. This prompted a discussion of pen names with my eldest, because it was originally published under the name Alan Rustage, so I had to explain why an author might choose to publish under a pen name. I gather that I was less fascinating than I thought, because she wandered off towards the end of my explanation.

Francis Fukuyama - The Origins of Political Order


Fukuyama is mildly controversial in the History discipline because of his book length essay, The End of History and the Last Man, a book which most historians (at least, as far as I've been able to tell) didn't actually read. Fukuyama was, in the early '90s, a neo-liberal, but has mellowed somewhat since then. His big work argued that, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we could stop looking at capital "H" History as a societal driving force, and start studying it as a discipline again. Further, we should start seeing the rise of free market democracies to take the place of socialistically ideological states. Or so I recall. I did read the book, but a long time ago, and Fukuyama is a writer of fairly dense prose; an historian of the literary turn, even, full of Derrida and Foucault, neither of which believed in transparent prose. This is the first volume of a two volume attempt to explain why we have politics, and why it looks like it does. This book covers everything from the dawn of time to the American and French Revolutions; the second book will cover the rest of human history. Mr. Fukuyama does not think small... Anyway, I'll be teaching the politics of the American Rev next semester (again), so it might be a good idea to keep up with the literature.

To that end,
Maya Jasanoff - Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World


A book about the Loyalists; the Americans who remained loyal to the British Crown during the War of Independence, and what happened after the fall of New York at the end of the war. It's always good to look at historical matters from as many angles as possible.

Finally,

China Miéville - Kracken


Miéville writes "weird fiction," and I, at least theoretically, like weird fiction. Thus far, I've steered clear, because his stuff looks very dense and complicated in ways that I don't enjoy - playing games with language designed to show off how smart the author is, that sort of thing (which may well be unfair - if I like this one, I may go back and look at some of his other stuff). This, however, seems to trigger the same enjoyment circuits as Vonnegut, Pynchon, and Tim Powers - a world slightly to the side of our own, or an aspect of our world which runs tangentially to the rest of the world. Conspiracies and doomsday cults, and a giant squid int the London Museum. It looks good, I'll take a chance.

Friday Reviews, 5/13/2011

After last week's deeply complex novels of politics, real and fantastic, I wanted something a little lighter this week. I managed two books (and most of a third, but you'll have to wait until next Friday for that).

Dorothy Sayers - Whose Body?


A fairly straightforward mystery novel, and the first of Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey novels. Wimsey is an aristocrat who dabbles in solving crimes. We learn, over the course of the novel, that he has served in World War One (the book was published in 1923), and suffers from shell shock - what we would call PTSD now. Bunter, his butler/valet, was also his sergeant in the war. Both characters are surprisingly well developed for what is, after all, not a particularly deep novel.

Wimsey's mother brings him word of a body which has been discovered by the architect who is helping to re-roof her local church. Wimsey investigates the mysterious body. Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard, a good friend of Wimsey's, is investigating the disappearance of a Jewish financier. It is suspected that the two mysteries are linked, and so Parker and Wimsey investigate together. The connection they discover is not one they expect.

I don't know much about the mystery novels of the inter-war period, but this novel seems fairly robust for the genre. With only a few alterations, it would work quite well in a modern setting - the plot is good, but the character of Wimsey, the aristocrat doesn't fit in a modern setting, he would have to be the son of wealth rather than the son of feudal privilege, perhaps. Some alterations for technology would be needed as well. Those points aside, Sayer's novel stands up very well to the test of time. It has humor and horror, it combines very nicely the amateur sleuth with the police procedural. It has surprisingly deep characters and a good twist ending. Fans of the genre who have, for some reason, not read Sayers, will find this delightful.

Holly Black - Red Glove


This is the second of Black's "Curse Workers" series, a sequel to White Cat, which I reviewed last year. They are a very pleasant combination of the YA "boarding school coming of age," "magic works in our real world," and "caper/con artist" genres. Actually, I don't know if those are real genres, but those are the themes these books combine, and Black does a wonderful job.

I think, in my previous review, I praised Black's use of the caper novel - a genre I adore, especially with con artists - and her creation of a realistic magical system that fits neatly into a world which is very much like our own. She has put considerable thought into how the world would be different if people could do magic, down to the constant wearing of gloves in public, and often in private. (Magic/curses are done by touching someone with your bare hands. Thus, wearing gloves is expected, not wearing gloves is a serious social infraction. Porn, in Black's world, features bare hands as often as it does bare anything else.) All of that continues here. I love the attention to detail; the little snippets of standard history that Black offers - the things that everyone knows about their world, stated in off-hand comments, or as part of a class session - excellent world building. I also recall that, in the previous novel, I didn't really like the characters. This book has the same characters, but I liked them better. Perhaps it's familiarity, perhaps Black is layering elements of depth on her characters, perhaps it's the mood I'm in right now - in the previous novel, I found many of the characters grating; in this book I am more sympathetic.

In this book, Cassel Sharpe (the protagonist) must balance his loyalty to his family (criminals all) with his loyalty to his friends and his desire to do what is right. He is torn between an offer to work for the magical mob (which is tempting because lucrative) and an offer/order to work for the FBI. The FBI are investigating the murder of Cassel's older brother, which they think is linked to a series of disappearances. Casssel recognizes the earlier cases as incidents that he was involved in, somewhat against his will. He must decide how much he owes to his brothers, how much he wants to give to the FBI, and how much he wants to protect himself. On top of that, he has to deal with his emotions regarding Lila Zacharov - a girl he's loved most of his life, who is a) the daughter (and heir) of the mob boss, and b) has been enspelled by Cassel's mother to love Cassel - any sort of interaction between Cassel and Lila will be marked by that fact. And Lila has decided to enroll at the boarding school where Cassel is taking classes. Awkwardness ensues.

So, I liked the characters better in this book than in the previous one, I still like the plot elements - I'll absolutely pick up the next book when I see it. Cassel has at least one semester left at high school - will the series follow him to college? I'm thinking at least one more novel (perhaps something Blue? Or would that just be cheesy?), possibly two. Either way, I heartily recommend the books.

Wednesday Hickey of the Beast, 5/11/11

(link to Subscription Page)

Chapter 9

First, a minor note - for some reason, my chapter this week was stricken with extra hyphens - perhaps it's a pagination issue. There were places where words were broken by hyphens in the middle of a line; I assume in the original those would be at the end of the line. A little distracting.

So. At the end of Chapter 8, Becky collapsed as she began her presentation on Sirens. Here we see the classroom spring into action - Sarah catches Becky before Becky can hit the floor, the teacher, Ms. Saldiagga, takes over in the sort of calm and controlled fashion that we expect from teachers:

Springden—and maybe teaching in general—does a pretty good job training faculty to act calm, even when they're freaking out inside. When I was eight, one of the dorms caught fire—nobody got killed, but it was a near thing—and Mom was giving instructions and calling parents, totally cool. If I hadn't seen the size of the martini she drank afterwards, or the way her hands shook, I would've thought she wasn't worried at all.

A nice piece of exposition there - establishing the norm for the situation and that sort of thing. Connie knows that teachers react calmly to situations, and so she's a little freaked out - she can't gauge how bad the situation is based on how her teacher is reacting. Still, when Connie and co. leave the room, Becky is conscious and basically coherent.

There are some clues here - I think it's clear that Becky has a hickey of some sort; she's wearing a turtleneck, and Autumn (another friend) mentions that Becky has " been dressing like she's cold all the time." - that could easily mean high collars, hiding Becky's neck. The last girl, the one who vanished from Wednesday dinner, Connie mentioned that she was wearing a scarf, perhaps to hide a hickey. So, I think there's some connection there. And, unless Connie is a truly unreliable narrator, I don't think she had anything directly to do with this, and will probably be the one to stop it.


Connie's friends continue to seek some logical explanation for the connection between Connie's dreams and Becky's fainting. How long before it becomes clear that these logical explanation are totally wrong? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Apparently, I am bad at Mondays this Month - Tuesday Library Post, 5/10/2011

Two books yesterday:

Eliot Pattison - Ashes of the Earth


It's subtitled, A Mystery of Post-Apocalyptic America, which pretty much sold me on the book. There was an apocalypse, the world destroyed itself (nuclear war is implied), and this is a mystery novel set in the midst of the rebuilding process, at least a generation out from the event. Could be gloomy; we'll see.

Frank Beddor - The Looking Glass Wars


So, I've seen sequels for this, but never the first book (which this is). Beddor sets the novel in some version of Lewis Carrol's Wonderland; there's a war. The central premise is that Carrol was told the story of Alice in Wonderland by Alyss, the rightful heir to the throne of Wonderland, and he badly mangled her tale. It could be interesting, we'll see.

Friday Review, 5/6/2011

Two books this week, both quite dense and complex in their own ways. Both first novels, and both very very good.

Toby Bell - The Vaults


The cover material presented this book as having a "dystopic 1930s setting", but I'm not seeing the dystopia. Although, perhaps, anything set in the 1930s is a little dystopic. Certainly, the government of The City is corrupt, but a corrupt government does not a dystopia make. Other than that, I was very happy with the book.

It was very noir, with one of those plots that builds slowly on itself, circling and circling the point and slowly accreting facts until you arrive at the end and everything makes some sort of sense. There were multiple character view points , which was very nice, although shifting abruptly from one character to another with each chapter was a little jarring in places. Over all, though, the technique was well done, and gave the narrative depth. The character names struck me as a little inventive - perhaps to blur the lines of which city, if any, The City represents. At any rate, the principle characters were Arthur Puskis, the archivist (he works in the Vaults); Frank Frings, the muckraking journalist; and Ethan Poole, the socialist private eye (and former college football player, and WWI veteran). Other characters included Feral Basu, who does dirty work for the mayor (and is, perhaps, East Indian); Reiff deGraffenreid, a criminal who we never actually meet, although he plays an important role; Joos VanVosen, a former legal transcriptionist for the city, and current amateur crime historian; and Red Henry, former boxer and current mayor of the City.

The plot focused on 1930s style machine politics (also very nicely presented), and some good gangland type stuff. The book was set in The City - possibly New York, maybe Chicago, could be Boston, or Milwaukee, or really any big US city circa 1930, which is the point. Frings, Poole, and Puskis each come into the plot at different points. Poole is involved in blackmailing one of the major businessmen in the City so that he will allow a strike (organized by Poole's girlfriend) to go ahead. Frings is following a lead involving the businessman that Poole is blackmailing, something entirely unrelated to the blackmail or the strike. Puskis is following up on a shocking error he has discovered in the Vaults - a situation where two folders for the same criminal exist, with essentially the same information, but a different photograph. All three stumble into a complicated plot by the previous mayor, designed to save the City money, which has been co-opted by the current mayor in an even more complicated plot to make the mayor money. I hope that hasn't given too much away.

At any rate, the various plot lines twist and squirm in on themselves and on each other, building to an exciting climax. An altogether satisfying book, and an excellent first novel. I would happily read more by Mr. Bell.

Anthony Huso - The Last Page


This is also a first novel. Unlike Bell, Huso has written a complicated political novel of dark fantasy with a hefty dose of steam/magicpunk tossed in for good measure.

Caliph Howl is the heir to the throne of Stonehaven. Stonehaven is on the verge of civil war, and unless Howl can keep several political and diplomatic balls in the air, while amassing potent weapons (both magical and technological), he is going to lose. He is aided, and hampered, in this by his lover, Sena.

Sena is a witch, part of a group of witches known for their espionage and assassination skills, as well as their promiscuity (in service of espionage and assassination). She has discovered an ancient magic text which, if she can open it, may be the key to saving Stonehaven. But opening the book will require her to betray Howl.

Around them both are forces, political and magical, which do not want them to succeed, and will stop at little to prevent them from achieving their various aims.

I love dense political novels. I am, as you all know, a fan of the steampunk genre (and this book has just enough of that flavor to count, I think). I'm not necessarily a fan of the dark fantasy genre - this book has a lot of blood and oogy critters, a great deal of the magic involves blood (and one of the things the various magic users are seeking is the means to do magic with someone else's blood), and the big magic (not the one that Sena is looking for, but the OTHER big magic - the atomic bomb of magic) deals with trapped souls; forcing animals, and people, to work forever, beyond death. It's a little squirm-worthy, and I can see, easily, why some might find it off-putting.

Politics, complex magic, moral dilemmas, deep realistic characters - all yummy stuff, but all things that other authors have done too. Even the zeppelins and big magic weapons combined in the same world. What does Huso offer that is truly unique? Well, let me tell you, Huso has invented a number of new languages for the book. I am not a linguist, but they look like they follow a set of fairly rigorous rules, and each is distinct and used in a fairly reasonable way. The Old Tongue (which a number of characters use periodically) has delightful accents scattered throughout the words - umlauts, cedillas, the whole bit. Additionally, Huso made very interesting use of fonts - the Unknown Tongue (the language used by magicians to effect changes to reality) uses a unique font, and the language that Sena's books is written in - the Inti'Drou Glyphs - well, there are two examples in the text, and they are very very impressive. They are huge things, all complicated lines and eerie images, like Lovecraftian beasts eating each other all over the page. Very imposing. I wish I could find you an image, but I can't - you'll have to get your own copy of the book to see them. I would almost say the glyphs are worth a trip to the library.

Initially, I wanted a pronunciation guide, eventually I found it, hidden in the back. It wasn't quite enough - a glossary would have been nice, perhaps a short note on the various languages, and I would have liked it up front - but it was almost enough, and the experience of new languages (which were, largely, translated anyway - some phrases were used repeatedly, and thus were not translated beyond the first instance. Some of the magic words were not translated) was nice.

The only other thing I would have added is more maps. This is a novel featuring a war. The campaigns don't move all that quickly, but it would have been nice to see more clearly where things were happening, and it would have been nice to see more clearly where Stonehaven fit into the broader world. This would have been nice, but, ultimately, not necessary.

A very good debut novel. Lots of praise for the knotty politics and a complicated magical system. Minor points off for lack of a full glossary and not enough maps, but full points for zeppelins and great big electric swords. If dark fantasy doesn't put you off, take a look - if dark fantasy is exactly your cup of tea, definitely take a look. I'm watching for Huso's next novel, Black Bottle.