Trashy Book Post, 7/16/10

I have spent the week in Washington, DC, doing research at the Archives and at the Library of Congress. This entailed a lengthy train ride each day - about an hour each way - which meant plenty of time to read. The research meant that I didn't really want books which would engage my mind; I wanted books which would help shut down my mind, allowing me to semi-consciously work through the material I had been looking at. Or, you know, fall asleep on the train - I did both. So, a round of trashy books ensued. I picked six, but I didn't get to one of them, so there are only five reviews.

Alex Archer - Rogue Angel: Eternal Journey
Oh my, very formulaic. I mean, the author is a pseudonym. Lots of action, but the whole thing didn't really work, in my mind. Look, you've got a heroine who is wielding Joan of Arc's sword, and she works on a TV show called "Tracking History's Monsters", which is about tracking down evidence of historical monsters, but she ends up fighting deluded human terrorists? I was hoping for a mummy or something.

The premise - Anja Creed is in Australia to film a bit on a recent arcaelogical dig which purports to have uncovered evidence of Egyptians in Australia (there is some tenuous evidence, actually - the same sort of evidence that proves that Egyptians and Romans and etc were in the US before Columbus - hard to explain, but not overwhelming), and then her camera man disappears. And there's some evidence which looks like it might be supernatural - but in the end, no, it's just Arab Terrists (tm). Tanya Huff did it better.

Plus, several references to the fact that Anja eats a lot, but remains skinny through extreme physical exercise - is the author attempting to cover one appetite with another? Because Anja, although described as entirely desirable, has no sex at all in the book, even though sex would be entirely appropriate given the genre. I may have to read another one from the series to see if this holds up for the whole thing, but I bet it does.

I did like that Anja is actually slowed down by injuries, even though she gets on a bus covered in blood, and no one calls the cops. Do people in Australia not HAVE cell phones? Seriously?

Iain Pears - The Titian Committee
I really liked this one, actually. Mystery novel, set in Venice, art historians showing up dead, unconventional detectives trained to deal with art theft rather than murder, but solve the murder anyway. It had a good flavor - it felt Italian, if that makes any sense - the plot made sense, the motive made sense, I didn't feel cheated. Good character development, a believable romance that didn't end up getting consummated, which didn't matter. Some interesting discussions of justice. Was there a formula? Perhaps, but I didn't see it - maybe if I read more Italian inspired art history mysteries, I might have.

Kay Hooper - Blood Sins
I like Kay Hooper. She writes romance, but this was not a romance. This is part of her Special Crimes Unit books - the SCU is a unit of psychics in the FBI who hunt psychic serial killers. This is the second book in a trilogy, I have not read the first book, and it didn't matter much. Hooper has broadly drawn characters, so it's not hard to pick up a book in the stream, as it were. She also does good back story throughout, so you've got enough to hang the plot on - I imagine that it's not enough to feel re-hashed if you have read book 1.

Hooper's psychics are well thought out, she has a good idea of what they can do, and what they can't do, and why they can do the things they can do, without getting bogged down in specific pseudo-science details - the whole process runs on handwavium, basically. Hooper is building up to a big big big finale - this book was pretty big itself, pushing "over the top", so the next book promises to be explosive. She's definitely playing the whole "wheels within wheels" bit, where connections between groups and such are only slowly doled out.

This wasn't a deep book by any stretch, but it did what it did nicely and well. I will probably look for the first and third books.

Ralph McInery - The Third Revelation

The premise is this - a retired CIA spy is called back into service to solve a double murder in the Vatican (actually, a quadruple murder, but two of them don't really count). He had served in the Vatican when he was active, and had written the CIA report on the attempted assassination of John Paul II. So, spy thriller/detective novel, maybe some conspiracy stuff involving the Catholic church - yes, we've seen this before, but I wasn't necessarily looking for good literature this week. Which is good, actually, because in this book, I certainly didn't get good literature. This book was awful - I got about a quarter of the way in, and that was only because I was on the train with nothing else to read.

The characters were flat. Further, McInery introduced characters left and right, leaving me bewildered as to who was important to the plot and who was not. Should I care about the random woman who has discovered Catholicism after college, or is she a chapter long diversion that I should ignore? Indeed, at some point I lost track of the retired spy character who the back material suggested the whole plot revolved around - not a good sign.

The pacing was entirely wrong - a taut mystery/thriller only works if there is a sense that the detective/spy character is constantly in motion, searching for clues and such. I did not get that impression. Characters went off on vacations, on which they did nothing, advanced the plot in no way, and returned to a situation which was entirely unchanged. Further, it was impossible to tell if a scene was supposed to be a flash back or "present" - McInery wandered without a break from a character musing on the past to a current dialog without indicating that there was a shift at all.
Finally, there was at least one gross continuity error - the spy's secretary was first described as not knowing what the spy did when not working at his cover job, and then, later, she did know what he did when not working at his cover job. The author repeated information that didn't need to be repeated, but didn't include information that would have been nice - for instance, a central plot point is the three prophecies of Mary granted at Fatima - it would have been a good idea to, I don't know, tell the reader what they were? Instead of hinting at them?
After Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code hit it big, one of the criticisms was that Umberto Eco had done it better, which was true. Well, Dan Brown did it better than this truly awful book. Bah.

Sandra Hill - Viking Unchained


I learned about these books from Questionable Content, and so when I saw a copy at the library, I just had to grab it. The premise here is ... absurd, frankly. Viking time travelers arrive in the the present day, and become Navy SEALS. That being said, it's no less plausible than a lot of the other stuff I read, as it stands, I suppose.

More specific premise - Thorfinn's wife, Luta, ran off with some Saxon merchant shortly after giving birth to Miklof, Thorfinn's first son. She took Miklaf with him. The ship they were on was lost at sea. When Thorfinn hears reports that suggest that Luta and Miklaf might not be dead, he goes to Baghdad to investigate. All of this is in the 11th century, by the way. (Vikings did, actually, travel that far from Norway in the 11th century - Hill has clearly done research on vikings and on Navy SEALS.) While there, he is beset by some locals who don't like the way he looks at women. In the fight, he is transported to present day Iraq, where he is rescued by Torolf - his cousin, who, it so happens, has also traveled through time, and is now a Navy SEAL, in Iraq to kill generic Arab-type terrorists; 11th century ones are fine by him. Thorfinn is taken back to California, where he resolves to also become a Navy SEAL. At a bar, he meets Lydia Denton. Lydia's husband was a Navy SEAL who died in Iraq 5 years ago. She has a 4 year old son, Michael. Thorfinn reminds Lydia of her dead husband - they have the same eyes - so she picks him upLydia and Thorfinn "hook up", screw like "lustfilled rabbits," and eventually fall in love. Somewhere in the middle, there's a terrorist attack, but noone is killed except the terrorist, so that's ok.

Ok. This wasn't the best book I read all week, but I finished it, and it had some high points. The scenes of Thorfinn struggling to grasp 21st century technology were fun. There were some moments of teasing which I found amusing. There was a great deal of sex, from the beginning of the book all the way through - not a bad thing in a romance novel, I suppose.

There was also a lot that I didn't like. The relationship between Thorfinn and Lydia really didn't work for me all that well - they were clearly sexually compatible, but there didn't seem to be much reason for them to fall in love and get married. I suppose it's asking a bit much for deep, realistic love from a romance novel - although, really, isn't that what these are supposed to be about? Anyway, there was too much dominance/submission game playing for my taste - not in a kinky way, but in a creepy, surely that's not how Ms. Hill sees gender relationships sort of way.

That was my big objection. Smaller ones - I didn't like the generic terrorist, but I suppose the subplot made sense in context. Ms. Hill is not, perhaps, writing ageless prose, but the whole act of tying the book to the Iraq War means that the book will age poorly. There was no really plausible explanation for the whole time travel thing - it wouldn't have taken much, but Hill doesn't even describe any special effects - it just happens. And, clearly, it's been happening a lot, as there is a whole community of vikings living in California and elsewhere in the US. A continuity issue here too - there is a reference, midway through, to a previous book in which the viking SEALS et al travel back to the 11th century and save Thorfinn from some evil villain. And yet, early on, Thorfinn is baffled by the people he is meeting, as if he's never seen them before. It's not a full blown continuity error, but it smacks of poor editing. Also, Hill repeats basic information in a couple of places - reminding us within a chapter or two of character points that really didn't need to be brought up again - slack editing, or sloppy writing.

In the end, I was amused, the plot mostly satisfied, and the characters were at least interesting. I don't know that I'd search out the rest of Ms. Hill's time travelling viking books, but I'd probably read one, given no other choice.

Friday Review, 7/9/10

Three books this week. I swear I used to be able to read more books in a week. Of course, when I was taking classes, I often had to read two or three texts over the course of a week, but those were gutted and skimmed, mostly. Still.

Holly Black - White Cat

Oh, I love the premise of this book - our world, but magic works within a limited scope. "Curse Workers" have to touch you with their bare hands, and different "workers" can achieve different effects, from minor changes in luck up to transformation. Black put a lot of thought into how that would affect society, and a little thought into how it would have affected history. As such, everyone wears gloves always - at one point, the protagonist is looking through some porn, and the shocking thing is not the nudity, per se, but the lack of gloves. "Workers" are both elites and second class citizens - there's a political movement to force them to register, and a political movement opposed to it. "Workers" are often a key element of weddings (where luck would be nice to have) and christenings, for instance. In terms of history, Black includes a few notes about how previous societies dealt with the whole concept of magic - I would have liked more of that. At any rate, A+ for world building.

This book is also a caper novel - the hero is a con artist in a family of con artists, and he runs cons to get what he wants. Delicious, I love this particular genre, and Black describes some very nice cons, and includes some very good descriptions of legerdemain - she doesn't leave her audience in the dark about what's going on in the con scenes, either. That's a tactic which works very well on screen, but comes across as irritating in a novel, I find. So, A+ for capers, too.

The book is fairly twisty, but the twists are telegraphed well in advance. B+ for twists.

I didn't like some of the character building, especially the hero. Some of his motivations are messed up for obvious reasons within the context of the novel, but others are just messed up. Some of his reactions are off, too. He discovers some major secrets about himself, but seems to take them in stride far too easily - I didn't buy the shock. C+ for the protagonist.

I will happily read a second book in this world, because I really want to see what Black does with the background material. I want more history, and I want a deeper appreciation of the social environment. I'm not sure I'm keen on reading a lot more about this set of characters, however.

Albert Castel - The Presidency of Andrew Johnson


Johnson was a fascinating president. Castel wrote this political biography during the 1970s, and it comes at the end of a series of scholarly works dealing with Johnson, many of which were highly critical of Johnson and especially his approach to Reconstruction. Castel is mildly sympathetic towards Johnson - he doesn't deny Johnson's many flaws, but presents the man in a sympathetic light.

I learned some details about Johnson and the period in question, but nothing hugely enlightening.  While I still feel that the 14th Amendment was well conceived, I think that some of the strategies used to get the Amendment ratified were questionable. That is, I applaud the ends of the Republican Congress in the late 1860s, but deplore their means. Castel is mildly cynical about the Radical Republicans - seeing that they had a great deal to gain from the policies of Reconstruction in the form they championed - but agrees that at least some of their motivation was ideological rather than pragmatic.

As a scholarly work, this book was quite accessible, I would recommend it to a general audience. Castel is informative, and his knowledge of Johnson and Reconstruction is exhaustive. He includes detailed end notes, and abundant (but not to the point of being distracting) quotations. The final chapter is an excellent historiography, up through the 1970s, detailing the odd trajectory that Johnson's story has taken since the 1870s.

Jim Hines - The Mermaid's Madness


I really liked this novel. This is the second of the "Princess" novels. Hines is documenting the story of what happened to fairy tale princesses after their "happily ever after". His protagonists are Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty woke to find that everyone she knew and loved was dead, and that a rival neighbor had taken over the kingdom, and forced her re-awakening so that the last possible restraint upon them could be removed. Her fairy given gifts translate nicely into martial arts - grace in dancing = grace in fighting, for instance. Snow White was raised by a powerful witch, and makes use of said witch's training in her use of mirror magic - she is a powerful self-taught sorceress. And Cinderella has the magical protection of her mother (later revised into a Fairy God Mother, but originally, Cinderella was protected by her mother, who inhabited a tree in Cinder's backyard.), currently embodied in a magical glass sword.

This novel opens with the princesses travelling to provide a token tribute to local mermaids - or undines, as they prefer to be called - only to discover that the political situation has changed rather significantly over the winter. The adventure which follows involves twists, back stabbing, treachery, magic, fencing, and a great deal of other fantastic stuff.

What I like: Hines has thought out his characters very well. They have entirely realistic motivations, even given their fantastic origins. He has done excellent world building as well, considering the implications of mermaids - how do they work? What motivates them? - etc. The book is a quick read, but has some depth for all that. This is a well thought out and well written book.

What I didn't like: Very little. I did find the inclusion of Christianity to be a little odd - it threw me out of the world briefly, and really, given the world building, doesn't make a lot of sense. Oh well - it was a minor point, and not nearly enough to prevent me from recommending this book quite highly.

Library Activism

Special Bonus Post!

As you may be aware, I'm a big fan of libraries. As you may also be aware, in the US libraries as institutions are currently under considerable fiscal pressure as short-sighted state governments who see libraries as bloated budget lines which can be cut to balance state budgets. Fiscal policy is an entirely different issue, and I might address it at a later date, should a book on the subject come across my path. In the meantime, I offer this link.

Libraries are fantastic. Funding libraries is good fiscal sense, good social sense, good political sense, and just plain good sense. Slashing funding for libraries is not a good idea, and will ultimately result in bigger problems further down the road.

Library Post 7/6/10

I may have been mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the library was closed yesterday for the 4th (because it was closed anyway on Sunday) and so we didn't go. We went in late today, just before closing, and I grabbed these two:

Jim Hines - The Mermaid's Madness

The sequel to The Stepsister Scheme, Mermaid continues the story of the Princesses - Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White. The premise is simple - these are the stories of the ladies after their fairy tales are over. It's fairy tales meets Charlie's Angels, basically. Hines has assigned logical abilities to each of the princesses, based on their pre-existing stories, and they solve crimes. The first book was quite good, so I'm looking forward to this one.

Neil A. Wynn - The African American Experience during World War II


This is more or less research for me - it fits into what I'm writing about for my dissertation, and it fits into my syllabus for next semester. The stories of African Americans in the US Army from the Revolution onwards are fascinating in their own right, and WWII is really where the men and women in the segregated units were finally able to prove their citizenship. The modern Civil Rights Movement can be directly linked to WWII (although, really, by WWII, the movement was quite established). This looks like a pretty good introduction to the material - Wynn has included some of the primary documents in the book, and the footnotes seem to be fairly comprehensive. If my books were not already ordered for next semester, I might consider putting  this in instead of the book I've already got - it will certainly be added to the supplemental reading list. And that's from flipping through it; hopefully it lives up to my expectations.

I'm going to be out of town next week. I should have access to the internet, but I won't be going to the library next Monday. I will probably do a supplemental trip on Thursday or Friday to pick up some paperbacks, so look for a continuation of my beach reading series!

Friday Review, 7/2/10

Robert Harris - Imperium


The subtitle of the book is "A Novel of Ancient Rome", and that seems pretty accurate. This novel is a fictionalized description of Cicero's rise to the position of Consul in Rome. Its a political/legal novel, in that politicians in Rome were also lawyers. The novel appears to be well researched - I can't really say, since Ancient Rome is entirely outside of my area of study, but there's a lot of detail. Arguably too much detail - I found myself having trouble keeping track of basic character points.

The book was published in 2006, and contains a lot of digs at the political process in the US now - the constant campaigning for office, the "issues" candidate, the compromises that politicians make. There was a strong sense of "plus ca change," which made the whole book a little more relevant, perhaps. At any rate, in answer to the question of "Are We Rome?", Harris seems clearly to believe yes.

In terms of format, Harris has combined what amount to two novellas into a single work. The first covers Cicero's rise to notoriety through his successful prosecution of a corrupt governor of Sicily. The second opens with his successful defense of a corrupt governor of Gaul, which cements his position as a patriotic Roman, and charts his rise through the power structures to become Consul, one of the two men who rule Rome. Either of the parts of the book would probably have stood alone - the second one would have needed a re-introductory chapter, perhaps - but they worked well together.

Over all, the novel lacked action. I'm not sure where action could have been added - it was a novel about politics, after all - but there was a lot of talking and not a lot of doing, and on the whole it felt a little flat.

Things I liked - complex characters, a good sense of research, winking references to current events. Things I disliked - the lack of a map - a map would have gone a LONG way to improving this book for me, the lack of a cheat sheet on Roman politics, the lack of a dramatis personae, and the lack of a full author's note explaining the background - I think these are not too much to expect from a historical novel. The short author's note states that the matter of the novel could certainly have happened, and much of it did happen, and the stuff that didn't happen can't be proved not to have happened. Harris used Cicero's speeches as his primary source. There is a sequel, I might pick it up.

Steve Barnes and Tananarive Due From Cape Town, With Love


This is the third novel in a series which I've been following with some interest. Based on a character that Blair Underwood created, Tennyson Hardwick, these are mystery novels with a strong male black protagonist (as you might expect, given the people involved in the project.) The goal, beyond telling good stories (at which these novels succeed, by the way), is to tell good stories about strong black characters, to fill a niche currently open in the hopes of attracting young black writers to write novels, and to write screen plays, and ultimately to create a vehicle for strong black actors and actresses that appeals to an American audience. Tennyson Hardwick is a strong character engaged in solving mysteries. He is virile, he is entirely masculine, and he's good at what he does - in short, he's a fairly typical detective type character. Audiences would not blink an eye if he were described as white, but he happens to be black. That is key, of course - these are more than niche marketed books, they are designed to appeal to non-black readers in the way that novels with white protagonists appeal to non-white readers. I think they succeed in that task as well.

This novel opens in South Africa (Cape Town, as the title indicates) and focuses on the adoption of a South African orphan by an American film actress, and the subsequent kidnapping of said adopted orphan. The plot involves international espionage, criminals, some violence, and lots of sex. Relatively standard fare for the genre, although the sex is a little steamier than most detective fiction. (Actually, a lot steamier. It's closer to porn than romance novel, without, I think, becoming porn. Still, decidedly R rated, possibly NC 17.)

On the whole, the book is deeper than much of the rest of the genre, touching on issues like race, national security (and the lengths to which one should be willing to allow the government to go to defend it), adoption, international adoption, the problem of fame, and a slew of other things. None of the issues rise to the level of beating the reader over the head - that would be bad story telling - but it would be hard to dismiss this book as trashy. The characters are strong, the writing is good, the stories are good, and the ending is not as predictable as one might expect.

Library Day, 6/28/10 (posted 6/29/10)

Late trip to the library yesterday netted two books:

Laurie R. King - A Monstrous Regiment of Women


This is the second of King's books about Mary Russell, a young woman who becomes the protege of Sherlock Holmes. Our library does not seem to have the first book, The Bee Keeper's Apprentice. Anyway, I'm intrigued, my wife and I are watching old episodes of Sherlock Holmes, so I thought I'd take a look.

Naomi Cahn and June Carbone - Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture


This caused a stir when it came out a month or so ago - Cahn and Carbone are basically arguing that in the US "Blue" or Democratic states tend to have better family values than "Red" or Republican states, despite the fervent rhetoric of the Republicans. Essentially, Cahn and Carbone argue that easy access to divorces and birth control produce stronger families than restrictions on said.

Friday Review, 6/25/10 edited 6/26/10

I did not review these books on the 25th, I am reviewing them now.

Nicholas Thomson - The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War 

George Kennan and Paul Nitze were, at the end of World War II, uniquely positioned to have a profound influence upon the foreign policy of the United States, and thus, the entire world. As the war ended, Kennan was the ambassador to Moscow, and, upon the request of the Secretary of State, sent a long telegram (known as the Long Telegram) to Washington, detailing how he felt that the Soviets should be handled after the war. He described his policy as containment, and this became the center of US foreign policy for the next 50 years. Although Kennan contended for many of those 50 years that his initial ideas were being twisted to serve a particular view point, the skeleton of his ideas was clearly visible throughout the period.

Nitze, as part of the Strategic Bombing Survey (investigating the effects of strategic bombing on Germany, and later Japan - that is, bombing of targets which were not immediately connected to the military - factories, etc) was one of the first US observers to investigate Hiroshima and Nagasaki, post atomic bombing.  He became a chief proponent of the arms race, arguing that atomic bombs could not be wished away, and so must be used to promote peace. Effectively, Nitze argued that we needed to build enough atomic, and later nuclear, bombs that we could effectively negotiate the process of stopping arms build-ups and start destroying the stockpiles. That sounds somewhat illogical, but Nitze made it work - during the 1980s he was a key negotiator for the US in arms control talks with the Soviets.

Throughout the Cold War, Kennan and Nitze were involved, singly or together, in every major foreign policy event that the United States experienced, from the Greek Civil War and the Korean War through the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam and finally to Detante and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. They were often in disagreement about the position of the United States - in particular, Kennan was deeply opposed to the development of nuclear weapons, while Nitze saw them as a vital part of the US arsenal - but they worked together almost as often.  Because of their significance and positions, a dual biography like this covers the history of the Cold War quite nicely.  This was a fascinating book, providing a broad and tolerably deep history of the period.

There are some problems with it, however.  First, Thomson is the grandson of Nitze. This means that he had access to a wide array of Nitze's private papers and the recollections of Nitze's family and friends.  His access to Kennan's primary sources is still clearly extensive, but comes from a different entry point. Thomson struggles to remain objective, but it is clear that he sympathizes with Nitze in several locations. Second, Thomson is a journalist writing history. He does a good job with the history, but is clearly not a historian. He accepts the arguments of his primary sources without the skeptical view which a historian might offer.  Finally, and this is almost certainly not Thomson's fault, the book's footnotes are not marked in the text. The book is relatively well cited (certainly for a work of popular history - as a scholarly work, the notes are a little thin), but Thomson provides little depth in the notes, and, as stated, there are no note markers in the text, only notes in the rear of the book. As I say, this is probably not a decision that Thomson was able to make - many publishers want to keep footnotes to a minimum, and authors are usually not in a position to argue. As a historian, however, I would like to have seen a slightly more scholarly approach to the materials.

Kasey Michaels - Maggie Needs an Alibi 
Boy does she ever! This is one from the Beach Reading list, fluffy, irksome in some places, happy in others.
Maggie is Maggie Kelly, an author who writes historical detective fiction/romance.  Her principle character is a Regency dandy, Alexandre Blake, the Viscount St. Just. As the book opens, Maggie is completing the fifth book featuring St. Just, when St. Just and his loyal companion, Sterling Balder, appear in her apartment. Later, her publisher (and ex-boyfriend) dies under mysterious (and unrelated) circumstances. St. Just helps Maggie solve the crime and send the criminal off to prison.

I wasn't expecting a lot of depth from this book, and I wasn't surprised. Michaels has some interesting characters who sparkle, and some witty dialogue, as well as some interesting points of view on writing romances in todays publishing market. However, the mystery takes a very long time to begin (especially given that the victim was revealed on the back of the book), and the murderer's motivation was such that the reader could never have figured out the correct answer. In a mystery novel, at least as far as I am concerned, this is a flaw.

A friend has offered the second book, and I will happily accept it.  The teaser chapter at the end of this book was amusing, and it's entirely possible that the unsatisfying twist is a symptom of new characters - some serial mystery novelists settle down later in the series; providing logical murderers who can be caught by rational readers.

Trudi Canavan - The Novice
This is the second of the Dark Magician Trilogy. The trilogy has potential, and I like some of the things that Canavan does here, but there were some other things that I didn't like quite as much. What I liked - Canavan's handling of homosexuality in a fantasy setting - very nicely done. World building - still strong, and we see more of the world in this novel than the first. I especially liked that Canavan avoided the common pitfall of having things which are "just like this Earth analogue" - ie, there are beasts of burden, Canavan names them, but does not describe them as being "just like oxen" - indeed, she doesn't really describe them at all, and so the reader may see them as horses, mules, oxen, or anything else, really. I also really like Canavan's characters, and that will almost certainly be enough to have me read Book Three.

The thing I didn't like - Canavan is describing life in a school for magicians, and the formula is pretty obvious - our protagonist is different from her classmates, and so she gets picked on. She cannot confront her tormentor directly, and feels that she should not complain, and so endures and endures until she finally can't take it anymore. The book ends with a climactic battle between our hero and the mini-villain. If Book Three begins with them becoming close friends as a result, I'm not sure if I'll be able to care about the characters enough.

That makes it sound like Canavan is a bad author, and she isn't at all. Her characters really are lovely, and they come up with creative ways out of their problems. It was just that a great deal of the action in the book felt predictable, such that it dragged on the otherwise well written material.