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6 May 2005

• Tom Shippey's The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories is an excellent collection of stories by a diverse range of writers dating back to the late nineteenth century. I rarely read stories and felt that I should try some fantasy anthologies, and I very much enjoyed Shippey's selections in this book, as well as his thoughtful introduction. Out of 31 stories, I had read only 4 before (though as I said, I'm not well-read in this area), and most of the authors were new to me as well; I particularly liked Henry Kuttner's humorous "See You Later" and Tanith Lee's sensual "Bite-Me-Not or Fleur de Fur". I came away with a new appreciation for short fantasy fiction and a list of authors to try.

Books read: 1

9 May 2005

• Tom Shippey's J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is a marvelous examination and celebration of the works of the man who has often been declared the most influential author of the century. Shippey seeks to support this claim by exploring Tolkien's writings in detail, from The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, to the lesser-known works like Farmer Giles of Ham and Smith of Wootton Major. Shippey is himself a scholar in the same area as Tolkien, and this gives him a deep familiarity with the works and languages inspiring Tolkien's writings which allows Shippey to examine them in fascinating depth. After reading Shippey's analyses, I want nothing so much as to go reread Tolkien all over again with Shippey's ideas in the back of my mind. If you're a Tolkien fan, this book is for you.

Books read: 1

14 May 2005

• Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles are on my favorites page.

Books read: 11

15 May 2005

• Guards! Guards! is one of the best of Terry Pratchett's long-running Discworld series. As he frequently does in the Discworld novels, Pratchett takes on a convention of heroic fantasy - the guards who dash in and get slaughtered wholesale by the hero - and creates a host of real and intriguing characters. The Clint Eastwood-like Captain Vimes is the captain of the Night Watch, who as the story opens consist of only two other men -- until they're joined by Carrot Ironfoundersson, a human raised by dwarves and sent to the city of Ankh-Morpork to join the Watch. When a dragon attacks Ankh-Morpork, Vimes and the rest of the Watch race to figure out where it came from and how to get rid of it, before it takes over the city.
  
  Guards! Guards! is full of Pratchett's trademark hilarity, along with a well-worked-out plot and wonderful characters: besides the Watch, there are the Librarian, an orangutan who runs the library at the wizards' university; the Patrician, who rules Ankh-Morpork, and Lady Sybil Ramkin, breeder of dragons and scion of the nobility. Happily, there are several other later books about the Watch, so if you like this book, you can go on to Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, and the particularly excellent Night Watch.

Books read: 1

16 May 2005

• The only word for Loretta Chase's Mr. Impossible is "romp", and it's a darned enjoyable one at that. The setting is Egypt in the early nineteenth century (which automatically piques my interest), where studious widow Daphne Pembroke has hired roguish Rupert Carsington to help her rescue her brother Miles from kidnappers. The kidnappers think that Miles is able to read a hieroglyphic treasure map (this is before Champollion deciphered the hieroglyphics), when in reality, Daphne is the scholar whose passion is ancient Egypt. Of course, sparks fly between Rupert and Daphne, but what I loved was that Rupert is attracted to Daphne for her brain, not just her person; he finds it wildly attractive when she enthuses about hieroglyphics or other things Egyptian. I liked it enough to reserve the prequel, Miss Wonderful, at the library.

Books read: 1

18 May 2005

• Before reading Diana Wynne Jones's new Chrestomanci novel, Conrad's Fate, I decided to indulge myself by rereading all of her previous books in the series: Charmed Life, The Magicians of Caprona, Witch Week, The Lives of Christopher Chant, and Mixed Magics (a collection of four stories). The premise is that there are a series of parallel universes, each of which diverged from another when some seminal event in history went a different way: for instance, if Napoleon had won at Waterloo, or if William the Conqueror had been beaten by Harold at Hastings. A few universes over from our own, there's a world where magic works, and where the enchanter in charge of controlling that magic is the fabulously powerful Chrestomanci.
  
  In Charmed Life and The Lives of Christopher Chant, Chrestomanci features as a main character, along with various members of his family, while in the other books, he plays a smaller role. My favorite is probably Witch Week, which takes place at a boarding school in a universe where witches are persecuted and burned; here Jones achieves an excellent and knowing portrait of school life, by turns hilarious and painful. All of the books, though, are bursting with Jones's trademark humor and whimsy, as well as memorable characters and well-structured plots, and I think rank among the best of her work.

Books read: 5

19 May 2005

• Conrad's Fate is the latest in Diana Wynne Jones's marvelous Chrestomanci series, about a powerful enchanter who controls the magic in a universe a few worlds over from our own. Conrad Tesdinic lives with his mother, his sister Anthea, and his uncle Alfred in Stallchester, in the English Alps. High in the mountains above Stallchester is Stallery Mansion, where someone is working magic, pulling the possibilities so that the details of life are constantly changing a little -- one day the mailboxes all turn from red to blue, and the books in Uncle Alfred's bookshop are suddenly different. When the changes start to get bigger, Uncle Alfred persuades Conrad to get a job at Stallery Mansion, find out what's happening, and fix it, so that Conrad can avoid the awful fate Uncle Alfred sees hovering over him. At the mansion, Conrad meets Christopher (whom Jones's readers will recognize quickly as the boy who will become Chrestomanci), who's looking for his friend Millie, who came to Conrad's universe and disappeared.
  
  If you haven't read any of the other Chrestomanci books, I'd recommend at least reading The Lives of Christopher Chant and Charmed Life before Conrad's Fate, because although Conrad himself is well-drawn, Christopher and Millie seem a little sketchy, perhaps because Jones is relying on readers' pre-knowledge of them. I did like Conrad's Fate very much, though. The depiction of Conrad and Christopher learning servants' life was wonderful, and the changing magic ("pulling the possibilities") was intriguing. It's not the best in the series (I'd reserve that honor for Witch Week), but it's a welcome addition.

Books read: 1

20 May 2005

• Susanne Dunlap's Emilie's Voice tells the story of Emilie, a 17th-century French girl whose beautiful singing voice draws her into the court of Louis XIV. Emilie's father is a luthier who makes instruments for customers like well-known composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier; when Charpentier hears Emilie singing, he begins to give her lessons, but she's soon taken away from Charpentier to Versailles, where she is the key to a plan to change the balance of power at court.
  
  I'm not well versed in this historical period, but the setting felt reasonably authentic to me, save for a few slips in idiom, and I could see Dunlap's musical knowledge coming into play often when she wrote of Charpentier or of Lully. The historical characters were well-drawn, particularly Madame de Maintenon, the powerful mistress of Louis XIV who controls most of the action in an attempt to depose the Marquise de Montespan from power. Unfortunately, the characters Dunlap created herself were on the shallow side; Emilie herself is little more than a cipher. Dunlap does create an interesting character in the lady's maid Sophie, but she too often tells what Sophie decides without showing the reader the character's thought processes.
  
  Emilie's Voice is Dunlap's first novel. I likely won't reread it, but I probably will try her next book, as this one showed promise in the historical setting and musical history.

Books read: 1

22 May 2005

• Here Be Dragons is the first in Sharon Kay Penman's Wales trilogy, which follows the ruling families of Wales in the thirteenth century, a turbulent era for the small country on the borders of England, as their princes fought to protect Welsh independence from the encroaching English. Llewelyn ap Iorwerth makes an uneasy truce with King John of England by agreeing to marry John's illegitimate daughter Joanna, who is initially reluctant to marry Llewelyn and go to a land of which she knows nothing. However, she and Llewelyn grow to love each other, and as they do, Joanna's loyalties are tested when her husband and her father come into inevitable conflict.
  
  Penman is one of the best historical novelists I've read. Her history is accurate and her sense of the period unerring; she has a gift for making her setting come alive that few other historical novelists can equal. Her characters are vivid and passionate, convincingly drawn and consistent with their historical actions, and she balances their personal stories with the overall events of the period perfectly, never letting one overwhelm the other. Penman even manages to make King John, widely considered one of the worst of English monarchs, sympathetic in his fears and inadequacies and his love for his daughter, and Joanna and Llewelyn are just wonderful. I'm very happy that I still have two more books to read in the trilogy, as I was sad to finish Here Be Dragons and let go of the world Penman had created so masterfully.

Books read: 1

24 May 2005

• Alison Weir's biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine suffers from the same malady which afflicts every biography of Henry II's exceptional queen: there simply aren't enough primary sources to paint a full, well-rounded picture of Eleanor. Weir brings in as much detail as she can from the available sources, but there are many time spans when there simply isn't much or any information about what Eleanor was doing; she inevitably gets a little lost in the background of what her husbands (first Louis VII of France, then Henry II of England) and sons were doing. However, Eleanor comes to life a little more in the later pages, particularly in the letters she wrote to the Pope, entreating his help, when her son Richard I was in captivity in Germany. Weir's book does provide a good account of Angevin England during the 12th century and was worth reading on that account, but I can't see myself wanting to read it again.

Books read: 1

27 May 2005

• Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning are the last two books in Sharon Kay Penman's Wales trilogy, following Here Be Dragons. Though chronologically they follow on quite closely to the end of Here Be Dragons, they're more closely linked together than to the earlier book, as these two follow the lives of Simon de Montfort and his family and of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, grandson of Llywelyn Fawr (of Here Be Dragons); Penman notes in the afterword to Falls the Shadow that she'd originally intended it to be the story of both Simon and Llywelyn, but that there was so much story that she divided it into two books. They're both just as wonderful as Here Be Dragons, so really anything I said would just be repeating myself. If you like historical novels and haven't read Penman, go and do so!

Books read: 2

28 May 2005

• Having very much enjoyed Sean Stewart's fantasy novels, I decided to try his Star Wars novel, Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, set about six months before "Revenge of the Sith", two and a half years after the beginning of the Clone Wars. When Jedi Jai Maruk escapes from the clutches of the Sith Count Dooku, he brings back a message for Yoda: Dooku, Yoda's former apprentice, is requesting a meeting with Yoda. Although he knows that there is danger from Dooku and his henchman Asajj Ventress, Yoda has no choice but to meet with Dooku, to try to turn him back from the dark side. Stewart's excellent prose and understanding of the characters make Yoda: Dark Rendezvous easily one of the best Star Wars novels I've read; I particularly enjoyed his rendition of Yoda and of the two Padawan apprentices who accompany him to his meeting with Dooku.

Books read: 1

29 May 2005

• Loretta Chase's Miss Wonderful is the first book in the (presumed) series that continued with Mr. Impossible. The hero is Alistair Carsington (elder brother of Mr. Impossible's Rupert), third son of the Earl of Hargate. After a series of romantic adventures and a terrible wound received on the field of Waterloo, Alistair sets out for Derbyshire, where he is resolved to do a favor for a friend: win the landowners over to his friend's proposed canal. He meets the opposition in the person of Mirabel Oldridge, who runs the estate of her absent-minded botanist father and who is firmly opposed to the canal, which she thinks will ruin the countryside she loves. They're attractive protagonists, and although I didn't like the setting quite as much as the Egypt of Mr. Impossible, the plot was interesting enough to keep me engaged the whole way through.

Books read: 1

30 May 2005

• Close Kin, the second book in Clare B. Dunkle's Hollow Kingdom trilogy, is set a number of years after the end of the first book (The Hollow Kingdom). Kate's sister Emily has learned to enjoy living with the goblins her sister married into; now Emily is old enough to marry, but when her close friend Seylin, who's of elf blood, proposes, she doesn't take him seriously, and he leaves the kingdom in a quest for his elven heritage. Although I didn't find Emily and Seylin's story as interesting as Kate and Marak's in the first book, I did enjoy Close Kin, which goes more deeply into the history of the elves and the goblins and fills in more of the background of the fascinating world Dunkle has created. It ended on a rather odd note, apparently a setup for the final volume in the trilogy, and I wondered whether the final chapter would have worked better as the first chapter of the last book; I guess I'll see when it comes out.
  
  
• Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return is the sequel to Marjane Satrapi's marvelous Persepolis. At the end of Persepolis, Satrapi's parents sent her off to school in Austria to escape the repressions of life in Iran; Persepolis 2 picks up right where Persepolis left off, as Satrapi begins school and seeks to find a niche for herself in an unfamiliar world. Eventually, she returns to Iran, there to deal with the repressive regime as an adult. I was slightly less blown away by Persepolis 2 than by the first book, but I still love Satrapi's powerful, yet spare art and text.

Books read: 2

31 May 2005

• It's been over a year since Guy Gavriel Kay's The Last Light of the Sun came out, so I decided to reread it; the first time I read it, I liked it but wasn't as impressed as I've been by some of his other books. I had the same reaction this time. Part of it, I think, is that I'm more familiar with the history he's using as a base -- early medieval England and Wales -- and so some of the sense of wonder I've felt in other books is lacking. Part of it, as I said in my earlier comments, is that I never connected as much with the characters, particularly as The Last Light of the Sun is lacking in strong female characters (as compared to pretty much all of his other books). I guess I'll just have to leave it at that: it doesn't work for me as well as Tigana or The Lions of Al-Rassan, but I'd still rather be reading any book by Kay than most other fantasy.

Books read: 1

Total books read this month: 31
Total books read this year: 175

Last updated 29 November 2005. All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless otherwise noted Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.