Archangel, by Sharon Shinn (1997) E

Date read: 9/15/05
Read from: Public library
Reviewer: Emera

Samaria is a utopian, hierarchical world, its people divided into strict social castes, from the wealthy, land-holding Manadavvi to the nomadic Edori. All are guided by the winged angels, who arbitrate mortal disputes and pray directly to the god Jovah through their music. Gabriel is an uncompromisingly principled angel due to become the next Archangel, who must therefore find his wife, the Angelica, in time for the next Gloria, when mortals and angels from across Samaria must gather and sing to show Jovah their unity. Unfortunately, he finds that his wife is Rachel, an embittered Edori slave girl who couldn’t care less about Gabriel or becoming the Angelica. Complicating Gabriel’s problems is the current Archangel, Raphael, who seems increasingly unwilling to cede his power, and has begun to foster corruption in the ranks of the angels.

Sharon Shinn‘s Samaria books are romantic science fantasies much along the same lines as Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books. I actually read the second book of the original trilogy, Jovah’s Angel, first, but liked Archangel much more because the characters were so much stronger in personality.

I find, though, that the main interest of the books lies in the fascinating and well-developed world concept – almost more than I enjoy actually reading the books, I enjoy playing with the world-building and geography in my head after reading. (The same holds true for me, to varying degrees, for series like Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom books and Storm Constantine‘s Wraeththu books.) Shinn writes what I might call “workhorse” fantasy – it’s reliably well-written, and there’s nothing really wrong with it, but it lacks spark and stylistic interest. But after all, having a compelling world is one of the main selling points of fantasy, so Shinn certainly succeeds there, as she also does in her romantic plotlines. Her descriptions do grow a shade purple every now and then, but in general she avoids mush and plays out convincing character chemistry.

But really, it all comes back to the world-building for me. I can’t help wishing that her books would explore more of Samarian culture, particularly that of the angels – I’d love to know details of how angel children are raised, for example…

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Sharon Shinn
The Shape-Changer’s Wife, by Sharon Shinn (1995) [E]
The Alleluia Files, by Sharon Shinn (1999) [E]

“Denise Jones, Super Booker,” by John Scalzi (2008) E

Date read: 8.14.09
Read from: Subterranean Press
Reviewer: Emera

John Scalzi’s “Denise Jones, Super Booker” is a superhero satire that makes me not tired of the superhero satire trend. It’s a wry sketch in the form of an interview with an agent who books superheroes for employment opportunities ranging from contracts with cities in need of protection from giant Gila monsters, to bar mitzvahs in need of entertainment. Pretty much every line is quotable, so I won’t even bother to pick pull quotes – just go and read it when you have the chance!

This was my first time reading anything by John Scalzi, but I can see now why both his blog and his writing have such a following.

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John Scalzi
Subterranean Press

Bookstores of New York: Skyline Books

Skyline Books
13 West 18th Street, New York, New York
Date visited: 07.31.09

Just across the street from Books of Wonder is Skyline Books. We ducked in because a. it was raining and b. it was just across the street from Books of Wonder (duh).

It proved to be kind of dingy and smelled strongly of cat pee (the offending cat was later found under one of the bookshelves), but had some interesting stock and many knick-knacks. Kakaner and I both walked out with purchases.

Continue reading Bookstores of New York: Skyline Books

Shadow of the Giant, by Orson Scott Card (2005)

Date read: 10.28.09
Book from: Borrowed from Kakaner
Reviewer: Emera

Aaaand approximately 11 years after I first read Ender’s Game, I’ve finally finished the last book of the original two Ender series.  (Nope, still haven’t read Ender in Exile, though Kakaner has already hit it up.) I feel as though I should get some kind of prize, especially since I almost never read series anymore. Somewhat fragmentary review follows; spoiler-free so long as you have a feel for the general trajectory of the series. Since the plot is so dependent on all the previous novels, I didn’t really bother contextualizing the summary.

Lots of wrapping-up of business here. The China/India/Muslim world/rest of the world duke-out winds to a finish as Peter slowly builds the prestige and influence of the Free People of the Earth, working both through subtle manipulations and Bean’s reputation and strategic abilities. Virlomi is seized with an ever-greater conviction that she is, in fact, backed by divine forces. Bean and Petra race to find their remaining children before the planned greater-than-lightspeed journey that will preserve Bean’s life as scientists back on earth work to find a cure for his condition.

Overall, I found this tighter and more compelling overall than Shadow of the Hegemon, possibly because it’s more clearly end-directed and hence has greater momentum.

Continue reading Shadow of the Giant, by Orson Scott Card (2005)

Stalking Tender Prey, by Storm Constantine (1995) K

Date Read: 9.24.07
Book From: Personal Collection
Reviewer: Kakaner

Summary

Stalking Tender Prey sets the stage for an epic trilogy by introducing the intertwining stories of the Grigori (fallen angels) family line which begin in a little countryside town, Lil Moor. Certain people in Lil Moor discover latent psychic abilities and the arrival of a traveling Grigori triggers a cascade of events that uncover the Grigori roots of Lil Moor. (First book of the Grigori Trilogy)

Review

Unfortunately, this book, and subsequently trilogy, pales in comparison to Wraeththu and the Magravandias trilogy. I’m a little bit surprised because Constantine has plenty of material to work with and sets up a rich landscape and sophisticated characters, but fails to do much with them.

I’d say the best point of this book was the character development, what I believe is consistently one of Constantine‘s strengths. Constantine somehow (I wouldn’t say masterfully) uses dialogue, subtle nuances of action, and atmosphere to create enchanting characters, who whether by their own self-realizations or due to the fantastical circumstances of their current lives, develop in amazing ways. Also unlike Wraeththu and Magravandias characters, each of the ones in Stalking Tender Prey seem to be shrouded in this veil of impenetrable mystery, and unfortunately I haven’t been able to quite grasp or connect to any on a personal level.

However, there was just about… no plot. The only plot that moved was a recurring flashback that mainly consisted of character develop of the Grigori traveler. Well, maybe “no plot” is a bit harsh, but the novel was basically a stagnant story about this little town in which nothing happens. Nevertheless, there was a climax and sex with a cat. Judging from this book, there is plenty of potential for the second book with respect to characters and plot threads, so I am still excited.

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Storm Constantine

Deerskin, by Robin McKinley (1993) E

Date read: 8.31.09 (second re-read – first read sometime in 2005)
Book from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

Princess Lissla Lissar lives quietly and invisibly in the shadows of her father and mother, who are worshiped by the people, and whose love for each other is all-consuming. When Lissar’s mother mysteriously wastes away, she forces her husband to swear that he will not remarry unless he finds a woman as beautiful as she was. This promise comes back to haunt the kingdom when Lissar, becoming a woman herself, attracts her father’s attention for the first time. Driven from the kingdom by an unendurable ordeal, Lissar escapes with her only friend, her dog Ash, and struggles to survive and reclaim her sense of self.

McKinley is definitely one of those authors whose strongest points can also be their downfalls – in this case, it’s her uncompromising principles and fanatical attention to detail. Obviously, if you’re going to realistically retell a fairy tale as poisonous and wrong as Donkeyskin/Patient Griselda/Allerleirauh, you have to set out to make it pretty darn grim, and, well, much of Deerskin is full of dread, toil, and distress. It’s also beautifully written, compassionate, and defiantly empowering, even as it denies magical cure-alls and 100% happy endings. I know it’s actually the favored comfort reading of a lot of women because of how viscerally empowering it is to grit your teeth alongside Lissar, and watch her claw her way to sanity and independence, and to finally reclaim her ability to love and be loved.

It is easy, however, to be put off by the extent to which Lissar’s travails continue. On this re-read, I did think the book guilty of pre-climactic sag, and I think the writing of the climax itself is pretty flawed, in that its dream-vision aspects are overwrought and poorly communicated. Nonetheless, I think that the dynamics underlying it are pretty clear and compelling both dramatically and psychologically, and I can only imagine how difficult of a scene it must have been to write.

Overall, Deerskin is a powerful handling of an extremely difficult subject, and I can’t imagine anyone else doing it like McKinley does.

On a side note, I was also tickled to realize during this re-read that Deerskin is, sneakily, part of the Damar universe – the setting of The Blue Crown and The Hero and the Sword. McKinley slips in a brief reference to the events of the latter book, specifically, but I hadn’t yet read it when I first read Deerskin. Hmmm, now I really want to re-read The Blue Crown.

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Robin McKinley

“26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss,” by Kij Johnson (2008) E

Date read: 11.06.09
Read From: Asimov’s, July 2008
Reviewer: Emera

This post originally segued into an extremely long-winded discussion of what makes readers perceive fiction as “genre” versus “non-genre,” but two hours and >1100 words later, I got uncomfortable with some/all of what I had written. So, it’s been hacked back and all that’s left is a thematic discussion/analysis of Kij Johnson’s “26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss,” which, you might have noticed, Kakaner also just reviewed. (Later edit: But here’s the most expeditious compression of what I had been meaning to say about genre: if you like speculative fiction that makes a point of explicating mechanism – how the AI or the FTL drive or the summoning spell works – you’ll probably be disappointed by this story. It’s more of an absurdist fable.)

To make a mildly spoilery summary, the grief-embittered, formerly rootless heroine, Aimee, comes into possession of a strange miracle: a troupe of performing monkeys who, without any visible explanation, can disappear and reappear at will. She wonders endlessly at the miracle, and where it brings her to in life, but she never really does find out how it works.

The monkeys know, obviously, and one even agrees to show her the trick firsthand – but she still can’t see what the trick is. Despite the monkeys’ transparency (PUN) – here’s what we do, here’s us doing it, nothing hidden, just a bunch of monkeys in a bathtub – there’s a veil she can’t penetrate, something she can’t see beyond, can’t participate in. There’s just no way for her to “get it,” to seize the heart of the mystery, no matter how close she is to it and how clearly it’s laid out for her. It’s deliciously slippery and absurd, a mystery that’s all the more impenetrable for its almost banal apparent obviousness.

Continue reading “26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss,” by Kij Johnson (2008) E

“26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss,” by Kij Johnson (2008) K

Date Read: 11.03.09
Read From: Asimov’s July 2008
Reviewer: Kakaner

Well, after reading “Spar”, I was mighty curious to see what all the fuss with Kij Johnson was about so I searched up her most famous story. “26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss” won the 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction and is currently nominated for the 2009 Hugo and Nebula Short Story awards.

The story is about a girl with little-to-no prospects who buys a traveling monkey act from the current owner. The act makes her rich and famous, but she is never quite satisfied mainly because she isn’t able to figure out how the monkeys perform their disappearing act. I was drawn in by so many aspects of this tale– the circus, monkeys with personalities, magic, and the very bizarre human-human and human-monkey relationships.The implied imagery is actually eerily haunting, from 26 brilliant monkeys pursuing pastimes in their cages to the scene in which they disappear one by one into a suspended bathtub. However, I was very disappointed by the ending. I felt like Johnson did a fantastic job keeping me guessing throughout the entire story but failed to deliver an ending of the same caliber, and I didn’t come away with much food for thought. Once again, one of those “What was the point?” moments for me.

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Kij Johnson
Asimov’s Science Fiction

The Man in the Ceiling, by Jules Feiffer (1995) K

Date Read: 10.12.09
Book From: Personal Collection
Reviewer: Kakaner

Summary

Jimmy Jibbett is a boy who dreams of becoming a comic book artist and spends his days in the basement making his stories come to life on paper. His mother is also an artist, but his father is a humorless businessman and his two sisters are brats; overall, his family doesn’t really support his aspirations. But Jimmy finds hope through his friends, certain members of his family, and ultimately his imagination.

Review

This is a pretty charming little story, complete with full illustrations  drawn by the author in the style of a 10 year old. I was lured to buy this book when my friend pointed it out to me on a shelf and said something along the lines of, “Dude! That’s one of my favorite children’s books! It’s about this kid that draws comics!”. I mean, who doesn’t love a kid who loves and draws comics? Case and point.

I had no trouble envisioning Jimmy as this scrawny kid with a constantly runny nose who simultaneously entertained wild dreams of inventing the world’s favorite superhero and nurtured a secret desire for that superhero to come to life and be his best friend. Jimmy is pretty much the quintessential dorky pre-pubescent boy, and subsequently, loser so if you were one of those, read this book.

My one gripe is that it seemed like the entire story was covered by a slight sheen of awkwardness. Although the story is touching and relatable, the writing doesn’t achieve that level of lighthearted elegance usually found in Newbery winners and Jimmy as a character doesn’t really stay with you after you finish reading. The plot was a little bit too simple and straightforward, and the few plot devices seem like they were devised and then inserted into the story. However, I do have to say The Main in the Ceiling has one of the absolutely cutest endings ever.

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Jules Feiffer

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen (2006) E

Date read: 11.1.09
Read from: Borrowed from my brother
Reviewer: Emera

In the midst of the Great Depression, Jacob Jankowski receives news that an automobile accident has killed both of his parents. On top of that, he’s now penniless, as his parents secretly mortgaged their house and his father’s veterinary practice in order to pay for his Ivy-League education. After fleeing his final exams at Cornell in despair, he impulsively jumps a passing train, and discovers that it’s the circus train of The Benzini Brothers’ Most Spectacular Show on Earth. With no better prospects, he becomes the show’s veterinarian, and quickly learns that the circus’ glittering exterior is fueled by squalid, back-breaking labor and a brutal social hierarchy. Jacob finds his only kindred spirit in Marlena, the show’s beautiful horse trainer – who is, unfortunately, married to August, the show’s charming, amoral, and increasingly violent animal manager.

If you couldn’t tell from the description, this is a damn entertaining novel. Though Gruen’s writing lacks elegance and subtlety – I found myself rolling my eyes several times at particularly clunky descriptions, and was uncomfortable with her simplistic treatment of mental illness – it ably delivers drama and action. And ultimately, the most winning aspect is the historical immersion. In spite of the predictable plot and characters, I continued reading just to soak in more of the fascinating details of circus life. Many of the novel’s most memorable elements – from wayward, garden-raiding elephants to pickled hippopotamuses – are in fact based on historical anecdotes, as revealed in Gruen’s afterword. The framing device of a 93-year-old Jacob reliving his past while in an assisted living facility is also surprisingly moving and thoughtful.

Overall, Water for Elephants is enjoyable, if not excellent. If you like old-fashioned showbiz and sordid glitz, you’ll likely have a good time with it.

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Sara Gruen