Review of The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

Title: The Rook
Author: Daniel O’Malley
Published: 11 January 2012
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company, a division of The Hatchette Book Group
Genre: science fantasy, mystery, thriller
Source: eARC from the publisher via NetGalley
Rating: 8/10

I was unsure about this at first, but it turned out to be exactly what I wanted

Myfanwy Thomas wakes up in the rain without a shred of memory. Around her are dead bodies, all wearing latex gloves. In her coat pocket is a letter from herself, written before her memory was wiped. The letter gives her some basic information, like what her name is and how to pronounce it (“Miff-unee” rhyming with Tiffany), as well as a few instructions. The first Myfanwy (from now on I’ll refer to this version of Myfanwy as ‘Thomas’) was warned that someone would consume her memories, so she made meticulous preparations for the person who would wake up in her body.

Thomas offers Myfanwy two options. She can change her name, flee the country, and live out the rest of her days drinking cocktails on some sunny beach. Or, she can stay, pretend to be Thomas and uncover the conspiracy that put her in this situation. Myfanwy is all for running away, but another attack from latex-gloved assassins gives her the determination to take the more dangerous option. To help her, Thomas wrote a series of numbered letter to Myfanwy, and put together a detailed research file containing the most important information for impersonating her previous self. Because if Myfanwy is going to find out what happened to her and why, she’s going to have to go back to  her extremely complex and demanding job and act like nothing is wrong.

As it turns out, Myfanwy Thomas is a Rook – one of the highest ranking members in a powerful secret organisation called The Checquy (pronounced “Sheck-Eh” or perhaps ‘Sheck-Ay’). The Checquy protects Britain from its many supernatural threats, and to do so it recruits and trains the ‘powered’ – people who have their own supernatural abilities. Myfanwy herself has an incredible ability, one that’s even more powerful than Thomas ever realised. And she’s certainly going to need it because the conspiracy that Thomas was investigating reaches to the highest levels of the Checquy, pitting Myfanwy against people with powers and resources more formidable than her own.

 

The Rook is one of those lovely books that has everything a novel needs to be both classy and loads of fun to read. It has great characters. It’s got a tense investigation to uncover a large-scale conspiracy. It’s got loads of action involving people with awesome supernatural powers. To top it all off, it’s full of wonderfully quirky humour. You’ll laugh, you’ll gasp, you’ll gnaw your fingernails.

The Checquy, its powered employees and the supernatural aspects of the world give O’Malley a chance to be really inventive, and he doesn’t waste the opportunity. The institution as a whole is nicely fleshed out, so we get to see how it works, how the training facility operates and how it recruits the powered. Only a few of the powered have commonly used abilities – there’s a vampire, for example – but even these aren’t quite the same as the ones you usually find. Most of the other powered have more interesting abilities. There’s Gestalt, who was born with one mind but four bodies. The Checquy’s training gave Gestalt the ability to allow each body to act as if it were independent, so that it can actually do four different missions in different parts of the globe and yet be connected by its single mind.

Conrad Granchester “is able to manufacture a variety of chemical compounds inside his body and then vent them through his pores in the form of a fine mist”. He can emit anything from a deadly toxin to non-lethal tear gas. There’s Lady Linda Farrier, the ‘Queen’ of the Checquy Court, who Myfanwy first meets when Lady Farrier enters her dreams to have tea. The plot has room for lots of minor characters with unique powers as well, so there’s no shortage of clever fantasy content. This is approached in a sci fi manner though – the Checquy has a horde of scientists studying these abilities, and they’re spoken of in a scientific way, but remain very much supernatural, so I put this in the science fantasy genre.

The most interesting character is Myfanwy Thomas herself. She’s a wonderful, multi-layered character, not least of all because there are two versions of her. Thomas was almost pathologically shy and her life was consumed by work. Her home and wardrobe are the definition of wealth and quality, but lack any sense of personal style. Despite her deadly powers, Thomas’s personality (or lack thereof) made her so unsuitable in the field that she ended up in admin. Luckily, her organisational skills were so impressive that she earned a position in the Checquy’s Court, but even then, she’s so timid that she commands little respect.

Myfanwy on the other hand, shares her predecessor’s talents for processing information, but is much more open and assertive. She flexes her authority in situations when Thomas would have avoided eye contact while her peers walked all over her. She’s not afraid to use her powers or go out into the field, and she often expresses disappointment in the weaknesses of her previous self. Myfanwy is a stronger version who possesses the capabilities to dismantle the conspiracy that Thomas discovered, and build a life that involves more than work.

We can also thank Myfanwy Thomas for one of the novel’s best features – its humour. I don’t think this book would have been half as enjoyable if it weren’t so funny. In Thomas’s letters to Myfanwy, she reveals herself to be a witty, engaging writer so that even though the main purpose of the letters is exposition, they still manage to be entertaining. Her wit remained even after her memory was wiped, making Myfanwy an amusing character, especially as she struggles to impersonate Thomas at work.

On the more tragic side, are Thomas’s feelings about losing her memory, which she often expresses in her letters to Myfanwy. “The body you are wearing used to me mine” – her anger and sense of injustice comes across in her very first line, even as she’s helping the person who gets to take over her life. Having her memory wiped amounts to being murdered, because the person she is will cease to exist. This isn’t the kind of story where Myfanwy will eventually regain Thomas’s memories – there’re gone forever, along with the person who possessed them.

For the plot, this means that Myfanwy can’t hope for some cliché moment where she’ll get a flashback that will reveal the villain who attacked her. This mystery must be solved through a careful investigation. Thomas already did a lot of the work, but Myfanwy must finish the job with the constant awareness that her enemies are very close. To add to that, she has to do her regular job, some of which involves co-ordinating the teams that handle the supernatural threats around the country, giving us the chance to see the powered (almost all of whom have combat training) in action.

It all makes for thoroughly gripping reading, and I was enthralled. I loved almost everything about The Rook. My only criticisms are some nitpicking about bits where the narrative dragged a little, in contrast to its other amusing or thrilling parts. I devoured it and then longed for more. If could read books like this on a regular basis I’d never find myself in a reading rut. Fantasy thriller fans, don’t you dare miss out on this one.

Serious, go and buy a copy of The Rook.

Review of Carpathia by Matt Forbeck

Title: Carpathia
Author: Matt Forbeck
Published: 28 February 2012 (USA & Canada); 1 March 2012 (rest of the world)
Publisher: Angry Robot
Genre: fantasy, horror
Source: eARC from the publisher
My Rating: 4/10

The first thing I need to tell you is that the official Angry Robot blurb for this book is misleading. This is what it says:

When the desperate survivors of the Titanic were rescued from the icy waters of the North Atlantic by the passenger steamship Carpathia, they thought their problems were over.

But something was sleeping in the darkest recesses of the rescue ship. Something old. Something hungry.

The lucky ones wished they’d gone down with the ship.

Based on that blurb, I assumed the plot went something like this: Titanic sinks. Survivors are rescued by the Carpathia. Unknown monsters start preying on the passengers of the Carpathia. Survivors must find out what the monsters are and kill them or be eaten. Reader gets to enjoy a combination of mystery and horror.

Lies!

Firstly, it’s only about a third of the way into the novel that the survivors actually board the Carpathia. Until then, you have to spend an unexpectedly long and boring amount of time with characters on the sinking ship and in the icy water, waiting for the rescue ship to arrive.

Secondly, the monsters don’t even wait for the Titanic to finish sinking before making a meal of the passengers. Soon after the distress call is sent, they hurry over to the vessel to feed on the poor survivors, who everyone will just assume drowned.

Finally, there’s no mystery about what the monsters are. They’re vampires. “[S]omething…sleeping… Something old. Something hungry” – that’s just marketing crap to build tension that the book wastes little time in dissipating. And I’d really been looking forward to that mystery.

To be fair though, this is a criticism of the blurb and my interpretation of it rather than the story; it doesn’t mean the book itself can’t still be good. Except it’s not. It’s lame. I wish Angry Robot had given Matt Forbeck that blurb and told him to write a story that fit it, because I found the blurb pretty enticing in a pulpy sort of way.

So what’s wrong with the novel? Well most of my issues with it are actually linked to the ways in which it departs from assumptions I made based on the blurb. It takes too long for the Carpathia to pick up the passengers, and in the meantime we’re treated to something that feels a like a novelisation of James Cameron’s movie after they hit the iceberg, with the addition of vampires who feed on the passengers. Instead of Jack, Rose and that other guy, you’ve got a love triangle between three lifelong friends, Lucy Seward, Abe (Abraham) Holmwood and Quin (Quincey) Harker. Hint fucking hint. Forbeck obviously wasn’t trying to write a mystery novel, or he wouldn’t have named all three of his leads after characters from Dracula. At first this seemed like a reference gone too far, but it’s later revealed that Bram Stoker is actually a friend of the Seward, Holmwood and Harker families. And *gasp!* it appears his novel was as much fact as fiction.

Even though you know what the monsters are the novel could still be tense, but again it’s not. Of course there’s danger, and plenty of gory action, but somehow there’s no sense of urgency. It’s just not gripping enough. One reason might be that instead of one main plot you have several subplots. There’s the sinking Titanic, a strand that ends a third of the way in. There’s a love triangle – Lucy is dating Abe, but Quin is in love with her. The vampire leader, Dushko, is in conflict with a younger vampire, Brody, who wants to do things differently, with the result that a fight between the vampires is as much of an issue as a fight between vampires and humans. Finally, there’s the plot that gets marketed as the main one – vampires killing passengers and crew. However, it’s not even all the vampires who try or even want to do this. Dushko had planned as discreet a journey as possible; it’s Brody who starts all the mayhem. Also, most of the vampires remain hidden in the ship’s cargo holds and don’t get the chance to attack anyone. There’s too much going on here, but none of it is quite exciting enough.

Another reason for the lack of tension is that the vampires were kind of lame. They’re the old-school kind who are vulnerable to garlic and crucifixes, have to sleep in coffins lined with the dirt of their homeland, and can turn into mist, bats or wolves. Shape-shifting abilities are awesome, but the rest amounts to weakness, much more so than in Dracula. One slap in the face with a crucifix and Carpathia’s vampires run screaming as their flesh boils away. The use of these traditional weapons is made even more disappointing by the fact you’re led to expect something more modern and innovative. Dushko is extremely concerned about the progress made by modern science, warning that humans are not as vulnerable as they once were. This sounded to me like the foreshadowing of some awesome steampunk weapons, but NO! – that might have been fun, so the humans stick to their stakes and crucifixes.

All this is bad enough, but there are also some glaring inconsistencies and oddities to annoy you just in case you might somehow start to enjoy the book. For example, when the Titanic sinks, the passengers swimming in the freezing water continue to converse as if they were still enjoying cigars and brandy in the smoking lounge. They keep talking about the cold, but they speak in calm, full sentences; no chattering teeth or any real sense that they’re at risk of freezing to death. The vampires on the Carpathia are moving, en masse from New York back to Europe because some of them were careless and and their killings risked exposing the whole group. I don’t know why they have to leave the entire continent and couldn’t just move to another city or state, or why they have to live in one large group instead of splitting up. When gearing up to fight the vampires, Quin goes to get the large crucifix that his mother insisted he pack – a miracle, since his luggage went down with the Titantic.

How could Forbeck (and the editors) be so sloppy and waste so much potential? The only thing he does satisfactorily is to depict the culture and sensibilities of 1912, at least for readers, like myself, who would only notice the most heinous historical inaccuracies. A lot of time I actually felt like I was reading some obscure pulp fiction that had actually been written in the 1910s.

If that sounds appealing, then you can order a copy of Carpathia, which is coming out on 28 February in the US and Canada, and on 01 March in the rest of the world. Otherwise, just ignore it.

Review of The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett

Title: The Troupe
Author: Robert Jackson Bennett
Published: 21 February 2012
Publisher: Orbit
Genre: fantasy, mythology
Source: eARC from the publisher via NetGalley
My Rating: 7/10

At 16, George Carole ran away from home to join the vaudeville circuit. His remarkable talents with the piano meant he quickly made money and a name for himself, but then he gives it all up to chase after the mysterious Silenus Troupe. They are the very reason George went into vaudeville – he’s learnt that the Troupe’s leader, Hieronomo (Harry) Silenus is his father, and the circuit gave him the best way of tracking the man down.

But when George finally meets Harry and gets involved with his troupe, he finds nothing is as he expected. Harry is not warm or loving and doesn’t welcome his long-lost son with open arms. He’s a gruff and grumpy man with many burdens who reacts to the discovery of a son with dread rather than happiness. George had dreamed of joining his father’s troupe and touring the country as a famed pianist, but the Troupe has no space for an extra feature, and as it turns out, their purpose was never even entertainment at all.

This is where the novel departed from my expectations as well. The marketing speaks of fantasy tinged with horror, and hints at stage acts that don’t rely on illusion but make use of supernatural realities. This is true, but not in the ways I’d assumed. What is revealed is not merely a fantasy world but a mythos behind the creation and structure of the world as a whole. The plot is not just about the Troupe, but about a desperate attempt to save the world from the evil that is trying to consume it.

In the beginning, we’re told, the Creator sang the world into existence, and then disappeared. Soon after, the darkness came to life and tried to reclaim the world. Much of it was devoured and turned back into the darkness that existed before, until humanity discovered that the First Song, sung by the Creator itself, still existed in the world. They found fragments of the song, and by singing it they could restore and protect the world from the darkness.

Performers have done this throughout the ages, in an endless battle for survival. The Silenus Troupe currently carries this burden, travelling to towns where reality is growing ‘thin’. The Troupe has three amazing acts, but they are just a cover for the fourth act, in which the First Song is performed. No one can ever remember hearing it, but they leave feeling rejuvenated.

Thus George finds himself caught up in something far bigger and more mysterious than the idyllic vaudeville life he imagined. The Troupe generally tells him as little as possible about themselves, their acts and the Troupe’s purpose, even though circumstances seem to be getting increasingly dire. The agents of darkness are right on their heels, and they’ve somehow become more resilient to the power of the Song. The resulting novel is not just a tale about saving the world, but a well-rounded story vividly written characters, emotional depth and existential musings. In fact, I’d say the large-scale, world-in-peril aspect of the plot is couched in a character-based drama. The main characters each have a strong, memorable presence, albeit one that’s weighted down by tragedy. It’s very easy for you to be invested in their emotional tangles and there are quite a few heartfelt moments.

I love the way Bennett handles George as a boy in his late teens, for example. There are a lot of factors playing into George’s character. His musical talent has made him proud, arrogant, and a little too accustomed to getting what he wants. This makes it harder for him to handle the way Harry and The Troupe react toward him. They can be a rather harsh bunch though, so I often felt sorry for George, especially when he’s trying to cope with his father’s attitude toward him. George also falls painfully in love with Colette, the Troupe’s stunningly beautiful, statuesque singer and dancer. Unfortunately, she’s a few years older and has little interest in a 16-year-old boy.

On the more amusing side are George’s attempts to be seen as a stylish intellectual, which typically make him look a bit ridiculous. He quotes “fashionable” articles on composers whose music he’s never heard; he talks about the finest tobacco and whiskeys although he’s only had the cheapest stuff; he wears tweed and waistcoats because “that’s what men of standing wear”. Of course, he also uses some of these things to try and impress Colette, and fails dismally.

Colette herself is an extremely proud, independent woman who also happens to be a dark-skinned person living in the openly racist society that is the USA in the 1910s. She has ways of dealing with this, but you see the pain it causes her as well. Then there’s Stanley, who is easily the most likeable of the characters and my clear favourite. He’s a man who never speaks and always has an air of sadness about him, but he never fails to treat others with kindness and friendliness and he gives the reader a particularly strong emotional connection to the story. Another friendly, but very distant troupe member is Franny – a small, skinny woman who performs a miraculous strongwoman act. Franny never sleeps, often seems out of touch with reality, and is always dressed from head to toe, either in baggy clothes or stained bandages.

And of course there’s the abrasive Harry Silenus. He’s hard to like, being dreadfully rude and sometimes cruel, but nevertheless wins some sympathy from the reader when he reveals himself to be a man suffering under the weight of multiple burdens, with little skill when it comes to dealing with his personal troubles. He’s a man desperately searching for god and meaning, but finding only endless struggle instead.

The novel as a whole, often seems surprisingly religious, thanks to Harry’s yearning and because some aspects of the creation myth at the heart of the plot sounds very much like the Christian one. However, I’d call it spiritual rather than religious. There are some key differences from Christianity and the other two major monotheisms – the Creator is absent, there are no devils  or angels, and neither morality or faith are important issues. However, the characters pose some cosmic questions. Why did the Creator make the world? Where has the Creator gone and would it ever return? Why continue this endless fight against the darkness if everything will die eventually?

A related theme is the longing for fathers and the inadequacy of father figures. George of course, is desperate for a loving father, but Harry almost always hurts him instead. Harry is looking for a creator who abandoned his creation and hasn’t returned to save it. Then there’s the very creepy story of Kingsley, who performs the Troupe’s unsettling puppet act. It’s pretty obvious to the reader that the puppets are alive and Kingsley is only pretending to voice them. It’s a pity that we don’t see that much of the puppets, because they are figures of absolutely delicious horror. The puppets are actually the kind of thing I expected this novel to be about They refer to Kingsley as “Father” and insist that they are “real enough” to be given their freedom. However, the whole ‘father’ concept is pushed to grotesque, terrifying extremes.

Less scary than the puppets, unfortunately, were the villains of this story – the darkness and its agents, who appear as anonymous men in grey suits. There’s a sense of menace to them, but somehow they don’t case as much tension as I would have liked. They’re also known as wolves, even though most of them take the appearance of men, which gets a bit confusing.

Also tainting this story somewhat is that annoying American bias, common to apocalyptic stories, wherein ‘the world’ seems to mean ‘America’. The Silenus Troupe only ever performs on the North American continent and the plot implies that they’re the only ones in the world who perform the song. Based on the mythology however, the entire Earth, if not the universe should be under threat, and the darkness wouldn’t have much trouble devouring the world if its only obstacle never left the States. Of course, myths are typically narrow-minded because they come from cultures that knew little or nothing about the world beyond their own borders. Set in about 1910 in a fantasy version of our world however, this novel doesn’t have that excuse.

But even though this bugged me, it can be ignored  (most of the world is probably used to having to do this). The Troupe wasn’t what I expected, but it’s a good book that boasts wonderfully crafted characters with an ability to keep you emotionally invested. There were times when the story got a bit too sentimental for my tastes, but most of its more emotional moments simply made me feel very strongly for the characters. The resolution of the mystical aspects of the story wasn’t quite what I’d hope it would be, but the novel as whole is nevertheless a solid fantasy read dosed with myth and horror.

The Troupe is being released today. Buy a copy at The Book Depository.

Lauren & Lu review A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Title: A Wrinkle In Time
Author: Madeleine L’Engle
Published: 1962
Genre: YA, science fiction
Source: Own copy

Plot summary

Fourteen-year old Meg Murry’s father disappeared while doing some experimental research on time travel. No one seems to know how to find him, until Meg’s younger brother, Charles Wallace – a bizarrely intelligent, articulate 5-year old – meets three enchanting, witch-like women known as Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which. Mrs Whatsit visits the Murry family one dark and stormy night, and seems to know something about the work Mr Murry was doing when he disappeared. On their way to visit the three strange women the next day, Meg and Charles Wallace meet Calvin O’Keefe, a friendly neighbourhood boy who has also caught the attention of the Mrs W’s. The women know what has happened to Mr Murry and they take Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin on a a rescue journey through space and time, to new worlds both beautiful and evil. But the Mrs W’s can only guide the children – it’s up to them to find the courage to go forth alone, save Mr Murry and return home.

Please note: the following discussion contains multiple spoilers! 

General Impressions
Lauren: “It was a dark and stormy night.” Seriously?! That’s the first line? A snippet from an older first line now considered so cliche there’s an awardnamed after the man who originally wrote it, and it’s given to the people who can think up the most dreadful first lines. It’s a wonderfully amusing competition in crap writing, but sadly this YA novel is quite unintentionally and unamusingly crap. Of course, it was written 50 years ago and I’m guessing (hoping) that the ‘dark and stormy night’ thing is some kind of joke or parody, but I don’t know what it is, so my very first impression was a bad one and nothing in the novel managed to change my mind. The characters are flat, silly or extremely annoying. The plot felt rushed, childish, and was generally boring. I can understand why it’s considered a YA classic, as it has many wonderful themes/messages for tweens and teens, but for me it failed in pretty much every other way. When I read this for my bookclub’s group read I realised I’d already read it as a child, but all I remembered was the description of the character Calvin O’Keefe and that it was about a weird journey. Nothing else was even remotely familiar, and now I’m not surprised that I found it so utterly forgettable.

Lu: What was going on? Is it just me or was it very confusing? Jumping from one thing to another? I guess it’s supposed to be like that. That the author was trying something new or trying to be different. But it didn’t work for me.

Meg was annoying and bratty, although that was understandable since she had to rescue her father while traveling with her little brother who, in my opinion, is a 40-year old. And with Calvin the heartthrob… shoot me now.

Ah yes, then the three witches. Can I call them witches? Who knows – I lost interest in them the moment they arrived. What was wrong with this book? It’s supposed to be a children’s book? Is this a joke? Did I miss it?

I felt the author was forcing details and events into places where they shouldn’t be. I honestly can’t name one thing I liked about this novel. It is easily the most overrated book I have ever read. I wanted to gouge my eyes out by the end.

Oh, where to begin? How about listing the things we didn’t like and go from there?
Lauren: Charles Wallace, implausible character behaviour, aliens who speak English, the religious message, the super-cheesy ending where Meg saves Charles Wallace with love.

Lu: Very confusing and jumbled up – things just happen randomly. Meg irritating, Charles acting like a 40-year-old. How can this be a children’s book? Author forcing details and events. Contrived escapes and solutions every time.

General Plot:
Lu: What did you think of the plot? I thought the author was trying to be smart and pushed theories and scenes down your throat just so she could get to the end result.

Lauren: I liked the theories about time, but I felt that the plot as a whole was random, rushed and full of implausibilities. I think children tend to be more tolerant of flaws like that or just don’t notice them when they’re reading, but as an adult it annoys me. Why was Mr Murry sent on that mission when the first guy disappeared? Why isn’t Mrs. Murry helping to search for him, when she’s also a physicist and was working on the same research? Why is Calvin so comfortable around a family he met a few hours ago under rather strange circumstances? What prompts him to be so overprotective of Meg? What’s the deal with Charles Wallace?

Lu: You ask all the same questions I want to know! There is a sequel right? Maybe that answers some of it, although I highly doubt it.

Lauren: I’m told you learn more about Charles Wallace and Calvin in later books (there are plenty). Not that I’m going to read anymore.

Lu: Yea I think this was the first and last one for me thanks.

Charles Wallace
Lauren: One of the most annoying characters I’ve come across in a while. A 5-year old who is ‘gifted’ with the ability to act just like a pretentious old git.

Lu: I know! The author attempts to mask the fact that he is rude and obnoxious by saying he is “gifted”. A few things these children said to their mother and the witches would be a slap-able offence if they were real!

Lauren: I don’t think I was really that bothered by him being rude, per se, but rather that he’s such an implausible character. Ok fine, he’s gifted, but how is it that he doesn’t really have any of the personality traits of a 5-year-old? I felt that L’Engle should have combined his intelligence and prescience with child-like traits.

Lu: I agree that would have made him more plausible!

Meg
Lu: Meg was the most annoying character for me. She just complained from start to finish! She came across bratty and was met with from groans from my side.

Lauren: I didn’t like her much either, but I have to give the author some credit for writing a character like Meg. She’s described as unattractive and temperamental, prone to getting into fights. She’s very smart, but thanks to the way her father has taught her, her methods are unorthodox and she gets in trouble for not doing things the way her teachers tell her to. All this serves to make her feel like an outsider. What I like about this is that it’s unusual to see this many unfavourable traits in a YA character (at least from what I’ve read) and yet there must be plenty of kids out there who are similar to Meg and feel as much of an outsider as she does. So kudos to L’Engle for writing an unlikeable girl as the protagonist.

Lu: I see what you are saying – she is definitely a fresh YA character for me. But I still couldn’t’ like her.

A Wrinkle in Time as YA
Lauren:  So you don’t think this make a good or appropriate book for children? Why not?

Lu: Hell no! For one the children in this book are anything but exemplary. Also the books makes no sense. There are no lessons, unless you count the ‘love conquerors all’ bit, which is unrealistic.

Lauren: Hehe, I can’t believe I’m the one who is going to defend a YA novel against your criticism but… I felt that the novel’s only redeeming factor was that it had some great messages/themes for children. Firstly, there’s Meg. As I mentioned she’s unlikeable and feels like an outsider, but her parents and the Mrs W’s encourage her to accept the fact that she’s different and play to her strengths instead of just assimilating, as most children would probably be pressurised to do.

Lu: You say this, but would children understand? You would have to explain the deeper themes to children as you read the book to them.

Lauren: Well this is YA rather than children’s fiction, so kids would be reading it on their own and are old enough to get it. Also, I don’t think the themes necessarily have to be explained. For example, kids would just see this character who they’re told is very different from others and seen as unattractive, and yet she’s the heroine of the story and no one’s trying to make her prettier or more obedient. The message is in the example.

You said that none of the children are exemplary, but even though I found Meg and Charles Wallace irritating, while Calvin is kind of weird, it’s good that they’re flawed and get whiny and scared, as real children (and adults) do.

Lu: Children act and do things from example, and I don’t think these children’s actions and words should be read by other children. As prim and proper as that may sound.

Lauren: Hahaha, you make it sound as if they’re shooting heroin! What’s so bad about the way they act, other than being whiny?

I don’t think any child could really imitate Charles Wallace, and 5-year-olds aren’t going to be reading this anyway. Ok, so Meg is whiny, but she does what she has to.

Calvin’s actually a little creepy sometimes – he makes comments that seem inappropriate when he’s only known the Murry kids for a few hours, and he’s strangely overprotective of Meg. But at least he’s caring and willing to go on this journey to help save Mr Murry. It seems implausible, but Calvin himself is a good kid. He’s popular, but not full of himself.

Lu: I just can’t help it. This book just rubbed me the wrong way. I cringed at almost every word. But maybe listening to the audio book in the author’s own voice made it worse, because she knows how she wanted things said and said them in certain tones etc. Mrs Which’s disembodied voice nearly had me drive off the road in frustration!

Lauren: Although I was really, really annoyed that the plot features aliens who speak English, its portrayal of alien lifeforms – particularly Aunt Beast – is all about seeing the world from different perspectives, especially when it comes to those who are very different from you. A great example in the book is when the characters try to explain ‘sight’ to Aunt Beast, an alien who does not have or need this form of perception.

Lu: Here I agree with you. A nice lesson can be taught about blind/deaf etc. kids and how you should be tolerant and understand what they are going through.

Lauren: One of the best YA themes came up when Meg finally finds her father. She’s rather disillusioned – he’s not the perfect man she always imagined him to be. He’s just a regular, flawed human being. Meg was convinced he would know exactly what to do and would take the reins as soon as he’d been freed, but instead he’s almost clueless. Meg, like every child, has to come to terms with the fact that her parent is not perfect and can’t do everything for her. Instead, she has to be the one who acts and saves Charles Wallace.

Lu: True Meg learns something here, but regardless of the ‘lesson’, she had to fight “IT” with love. Really? Kill. me. now

Lauren: Bleh, yeah, I hate how cheesy that is. Although I’d say it’s a lesson in itself. Part of the Christian message?

In addition to this, it’s also a book where children have to save the day. The Mrs W’s guide them, but ultimately the children have to act. The adults tend to be absent, incompetent, or even evil. When I was a kid I loved books like the Famous Five or Secret Seven series where the children were the heroes, where they were brave and smart enough to act on their own initiative.

Lu: I still see this book as having a forced ending. No matter what, love would have saved the day. Whether it was the children, Meg’s father or the W’s it would have ended the same way. So personally I didn’t feel like it was the children, they were just the means to an end for an author who was pushing a point.

Lauren: I see your point, and I agree that it’s a forced ending. However, I’d still say that the book as a whole is about kids who have to act on their own, without relying on adults, even if it’s badly done.

Christian parents might also appreciate the novel’s religious message. I don’t know how parents of other faiths would feel about it and if I had kids I’d be a bit iffy about any religious message, but at least it’s a very liberal Christianity that embraces a things like time travel and intelligent alien life. Oddly enough, according to the Wikipedia article on L’Engle, she gets criticised by religious groups for being too liberal, while some secular critics complain that she’s too religious.

Lu: Wow that’s interesting! Yeah I would be interested to hear what parents of different religions/faiths would think of this.

Lauren: Anyway, on the whole, I think that in terms of themes, this is a great book for children. The downside is that I still found it kind of random and boring, and yeah, that ‘love conquers all’ crap is really lame.

Lu: I don’t think every child would understand this book; hell I don’t understand it. I think it was just a way to push a point and try and be clever and confusing on the way there.

Lauren: I’m no judge of what kids are capable of understanding, but I think the fact that this is a beloved childhood classic speaks for itself – obviously lots of kids both understood and enjoyed it.

Lu: Well I’m just happy it’s over to be honest. Never again.

Buy a copy of A Wrinkle in Time at The Book Depository

Lauren and Lu’s Reviews

Lu (from A Muggle’s Magical Book Blog) and I are very different readers. She’s easygoing, I’m demanding. She loves YA and paranormal romance, I don’t. I love sci fi and dark fantasy, she just dabbles. I want good writing and interesting ideas, while Lu is happy with a great story, interesting characters and a few twists. Together we’ll argue our conflicting points of view in joint reviews and you get the benefit of two perspectives instead of just one.

Review of This Devil’s Dice by Jackson Spence

Title: This Devil’s Dice
Author: Jackson Spence
Published: 22 August 2011
Publisher: Independent
Genre: psychological thriller, crime and mystery
Source: review copy from author
My Rating: 1/10

This was torture. Never have I slogged through so much purple prose or received so little in comparison to the effort and patience I put in.

Ethan is a 27-year old genius working on revolutionary research for his Master’s degree. He’s offered a lucrative proposition by the Baron, a ridiculously wealthy and very shady Russian who owns half the city (we’re not told which city, but it’s clearly first-world). Ethan takes the Baron up on his offer in order to escape the confines of university and the frugal lifestyle he’s been living. He also plans to dump his gorgeous girlfriend Olivia, an “imposter” who he’s only been dating because she looks like his ex-girlfriend, the woman he wants to track down and win back.

Clearly, Ethan is a complete and utter jackass, but not only because of the way he treats Olivia. He is also the narrator who spews forth most of the novel’s very purple prose and for this you will loathe him. Ethan is excessively arrogant, whiny and pretentious. He is the kind of person who won’t use the word ‘laboratory’ when he could call it a “pyretic Pyrex paradise”, or say that a girl has light brown eyes when he could describe them as “[t]awny terra cotta whole wheat toast coloured eyes”. Seriously, this is the kind of rubbish he utters:

Hazy recognition rose up in a mushroom cloud of atomic vapour, a fiery plume of masochistic Mexican flavour, and washed up just as quickly on the shore of certainty.

Her silver bangled hands had taunted me, flaunting their ability to ask questions in the form of fusillades;

The spirit of your soul is slack. Your self is a stale enigma. I stock stereotypes to sustain my solipsistic strut, drawn like a sonar around the sauna of your smoky mirrors. (These are just a few lines from a particularly dreadful paragraph using as many words starting with ‘s’ as possible.)

The authors – Michelle Jackson and Stuart Spence, hence Jackson Spence - rampantly abuse alliteration, similes, and metaphors, even if it means that their descriptions become senseless. They also went nuts with pretentious and irrelevant passages describing food and drink (the Baron is a glutton for ultra-gourmet food and the finest drinks, like a 1907 champagne rescued from a decades-old shipwreck), obscure artworks, architecture, etc. We have to learn all about Ethan’s good friend Flo, an amalgamation of black stereotypes. He’s an obese black gangster with a heart of gold, covered in bling, always eating, and only able to converse overstated gangster rapper style: “Whatcha tink of ma bling? 24 caratzz. 24 diamondzzz. I’z be pimpin’ now. Flashy, yeah? Dem felines dig it.”

Yes, really, although I have to admit that Flo was at least amusing sometimes, even if much of that information about him was unnecessary. With this kind of writing clogging up the novel, the plot could only move at a glacial pace, at least until the end, when it suddenly gets wrapped up very quickly. At the start, I kept wondering when the hell something was going to happen and if Ethan would ever stop whining about how nice and beautiful his girlfriend was. Very little happens in the first half, and we don’t even get to the main part of the plot as mentioned in the tagline and the blurb – how Ethan’s research is responsible for the “evolution of crime”, and leads to some gruesome murders around the city. The “evolution of crime” is certainly a drawcard, and yet the authors keep the subject of Ethan’s research a complete secret until the second half. I have no idea why. It has no real impact as a surprise, although it’s one of only interesting things in the novel and should have been expanded upon. But rather than make the most of this research – which really would be revolutionary, and not only for crime – it’s treated almost as an aside, just one more piece of information among countless others.

Similarly, we don’t hear about any of the murders until after we learn about Ethan’s research. Even then, they’re detailed in little shrink-wrapped sections that are more like reports describing the victims, their relation to the Baron (it’s no secret that he’s responsible), and why he wanted them out of the way. I say “shrink-wrapped” because the crimes have almost no effect on the rest of the narrative. None of the characters hear about them, so it doesn’t change the content of the story. Ethan goes on whining about Olivia, longing for his ex-girlfriend, hanging out with Flo, and generally being boring and pretentious. The Baron, who is co-ordinating all the murders, doesn’t speak about them.

Since the plot drew me to this book in the first place, I was particularly disappointed in its complete failure to entertain. Another reason I wanted to read it was that both the authors are South African, and I try to explore local genre fiction every now and then. As it turns out, there’s nothing South African about This Devil’s Dice, but I don’t consider that a criticism of the novel. However, I did get really annoyed when I came across this demeaning stereotype about some residents in Ethan’s apartment block:

there were a couple of South Africans living on the top floor; Zulus, I think. The elevator was always covered in various kinds of livestock shit. Could they have been using the animals for sacrifices?

These Zulus also disturb residents with their chanting. Seriously? Why write that? I don’t think that SA authors have a duty to write fiction with a local flavour, but why give your countrymen an insulting little cameo, especially when it has nothing to do with the plot? What is the point?

Weirdly enough, I felt that the intended highlight of the novel was actually the writing, characters, and descriptions of stuff, rather than the plot. It’s weird because all those things almost always suck and it’s hard not to feel that the authors are just showing off (and failing dismally). Here and there you’ll find a surprisingly vivid description, an intriguing character trait, or an interesting bit of information (there was some neurobiological stuff that I liked) but these tend to be lost amidst the sort of junk I mentioned earlier. Any writing pretentions are further ruined by multiple errors and a tendency for the POV to switch, unannounced, from first-person to third-person omniscient. I even stumbled across a dictionary definition for the word ‘irony’ and a recipe for Minced Mutton Patties, both of which seemed to have been copied and pasted into the text by mistake. What the hell? Didn’t the authors read over this before making it available to the public? Perhaps not, because I don’t know how someone could read This Devil’s Dice and imagine that others would enjoy it. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

 

Of course, you’re free to ignore my advice and buy a copy of This Devil’s Dice

January Round-Up

This post is quite ridiculously late, but for a good reason. An old friend from South Africa came to stay with us in Addis Ababa for a week and we did a lot of sight-seeing, so I haven’t had much time for reading or writing. However, my friend Niecole from the book blog Fantasmagoriese started doing a monthly round-up of the books she’d read, and she inspired me to do the same.

January proved to be an enthusiastic start to the year, and a wonderful reading month in general. I read nine books and finished a tenth in the first hour of February. I also managed to stick to a regular schedule for the blog, posting two articles a week. It’s a schedule I immediately failed to stick to this month, but I’ll try and do a few extra posts to make up for it NetGalley was particularly good to me, and I requested and received some lovely eARCs, some of which you can check out in my most recent Up For Review post.

I was lucky to read four excellent eARCs last month. I started the year off with The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi, a creepy thriller about a brilliant, unconventional serial killer. Then I found an absolute sf gem in Enormity, where author W.G. Marshall took a rather pulpy idea and crafted a vividly written, multi-layered and compelling novel out of it. It’s the kind of weird, stylish genre fiction that I love. My review of Enormity was also by far my most popular post for the month.

Another beauty – of a different sort – was A.S. Byatt’s retelling of Norse mythology in Ragnarok. It was exquisite – a book to collect and read many times over. Since I’d started the month off with a great book, it was fitting that I should end it in the same way. At midnight on the 31^st, I was finishing off The Rook by Daniel O’Malley, an inventive, intriguing fantasy mystery about secret organisation that handles the many supernatural threats in Britain. The Rook was well-crafted and filled with quirky humour – glowing review to follow soon.

In between the top-rated novels were a few good if not great ones. I finally got around to reading some ARCs I’ve had for a good few months, including Fantastic Women, a collection of surreal short fiction by women, and space opera Prador Moon by Neal Asher, which introduced me both to the Polity universe and to Asher’s work in general.

My friend Barbara and I read and discussed Diana Wynne Jones’s The Spellcoats in our Goodreads bookclub, The South African Booklovers. Everything I’d read by Jones before had been wonderful, so I was keen to try more. Sadly, The Spellcoats wasn’t quite the novel I’d hoped it to be, but it served as a nice review break, where I could just read and chat about it without taking notes and drafting a mini-essay. I went back to reviewing with Erebos by Ursula Poznanski, a YA novel about an addictive RPG that manipulates players lives in the real world. I loved the premise, but the game itself wasn’t convincing enough for me. Luckily, it was at least a decent thriller.

Unfortunately there were also some duds, sadly both indie. Thieves at Heart by Tristan J. Tarwater had plenty of potential, with decent writing (despite many careless errors) and a strong main character, but it had virtually no plot and meandered rather tediously. However, it was infinitely better than the other indie novel I read in January, This Devil’s Dice by a South African writing duo calling themselves Jackson Spence. The novel completely wasted an interesting premise and was composed of the most torturous purple prose, but more on that when I post the review.

So, all in all, a good range of brilliant reads covering several genres – psychological crime thriller, sci fi, mythology and fantasy – interspersed with some solid reads that had a more balanced combination of strong and weak features. Two books were bad, but only one of them made me want to scream. Nevertheless, the number of exciting new books I received was more than enough to make up for any disappointments. Now that things have gone back to normal, I’m eager to get back to that ARC pile.

Review of Thieves at Heart by Tristan J. Tarwater

Title: Thieves at Heart
Series: The Valley of Ten Crescents #1
Author: Tristan J. Tarwater
Published: 9 March 2011
Publisher: Independent
Genre: YA, fantasy
Source: review copy from author
My Rating: 4/10

Tavera, affectionately known as Tavi, is a young half-elf with a talent for theft. She’s been working for Prisca the Tart but then gets recruited by Derk the Lurk – a career thief and a member of The Cup of Cream, an elite club of thieves. Derk takes Tavi under his wing, caring for her as a father would a daughter and teaching her to steal in the hope that she will one day earn a position in The Cup of Cream as well. In Derk’s company, Tavi grows from a scruffy, cowering little girl into a smart, feisty young woman.

And that’s all there is to it really. The plot meanders from one chapter to the next, with Derk and Tavi moving from one town to another, meeting people, stealing things, and generally just getting on with their largely unremarkable lives. Every time something potentially significant happens, it turns out to be just another average occurrence in the same way that meeting a new friend is notable but doesn’t typically change your life. The only major events are Derk recruiting Tavi, and a cliffhanger in the last chapter that sets the stage for the second book.

Despite the novel being about a talented thief being mentored by a master thief who’s a member of a prestigious club of thieves, there isn’t all that much thievery on the page. Yes, Tavi’s always nicking little things here and there, but when it comes to big heists, we just hear a tiny bit of the planning and then almost nothing about the execution. Derk, the master thief, doesn’t even show off his skills for us. All the interesting bits are left out.

I’m also not sure why the author chose to make Tavi a half-elf, or even create a fantasy world at all. Besides having one pointy ear (the other was cut) and being called a “Forester” every now and then, Tavi’s heritage has little effect on her life. Only two other elves are encountered in the novel, and they have very minor roles. Although the world as a whole is well sketched, it doesn’t differ much from the real one except for a few details. The dominant religion involves the worship of a night/moon goddess and people commonly swear by either her tits or her hems (“By Her tits” or “Oh tits” or “those hem-chewers”). Yeah… Time is measured in phases rather than weeks or months. Fortune-tellers are the real deal, but that’s as close to magic as the novel comes. I don’t even know why the series is called the Valley of Ten Crescents – my guess is that’s the name of this area of Tarwater’s fantasy world, but the phrase isn’t mentioned once. Overall, the novel seems to be fantasy just for the sake of being fantasy.

The book is really only about Tavi – sort of like a prolonged exercise in character building. And Tavi at least is a well-crafted character. With no real plot to occupy the reader’s attention, we get a close-look at who she is. At first she’s very shy, having being cowed into submission by abuse. Derk gives her confidence in her abilities and allows her to be herself, so that she soon emerges as a sharp, feisty girl with a good sense of humour – a sort of likeable street urchin. We see Tavi grow older, although the novel is never clear about exactly how old she is or how much time has passed. At one point Tavi says that she’s “prolly 13” and later it’s suddenly mentioned that she’s been with Derk for seven years.

Surprisingly for such a young character, Tavi turns out to be quite promiscuous, much to Derk’s despair. Although she often kisses – and later beds – boys to empty their pockets or get valuable information, it’s clear that she quite enjoys it as well. Admittedly, the merits of a promiscuous YA character are debatable, but I have to say that it’s nice to see a female character who can enjoy her sexuality without the narrative condemning her for it. Another thing I admire is that the author openly speaks about some of the personal issues Tavi has as a girl, like worrying about being flat-chested or getting her period for the first time. On the other hand, Tarwater doesn’t mention the possibility of getting pregnant when Tavi starts sleeping around, which I thought should have been an important consideration.

One last positive thing is that Thieves at Heart is decently written, which is always something I’m apprehensive about when it comes to indie novels. Unfortunately it’s also filled with careless mistakes and unclear sentences that should have been picked up in the editing process. But even if all the errors had been corrected, this book is still aimless and pretty boring. It’s like an extremely long introduction to a story that doesn’t get told. Presumably, all the good stuff is being reserved for later books in the series, but this one doesn’t give you much reason to keep reading. There’s a cliffhanger at the end, but sadly I imagine most people would get discouraged before they got halfway.

Buy a copy of Thieves at Heart on Amazon