Tag: Fiction

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) by C.S. Lewis

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) by C.S. Lewis
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This is the story of four siblings who stumble through a wardrobe into a different world. They discover magic, monsters and their destiny.

One Christmas, when I was 11 or 12, my mother gave me The Chronicles of Narnia. It ignited a lifelong love of fantasy fiction and reading.

“Peter! Susan! It’s all true. Edmund has seen it too. There is country you can get to through the wardrobe. Edmund and I both got in. We met one another in there, in the wood.” pg 40.

I get the criticisms of this series- that it is heavy handed with its symbolism.

But, when I read it as a child, all of that slipped right over my head. All I knew, was that this was an adventure and I loved it.

The White Witch is one of the best villains in children’s literature: “As for you,” said the Witch, giving Edmund a stunning blow on the face as she re-mounted the sledge, “let that teach you to ask favour for spies and traitors. Drive on!” And Edmund for the first time in this story felt sorry for someone besides himself.” pg 113.

She opposes Aslan, a great golden lion and the ruler of Narnia, who hasn’t been seen for an age: “And now,” said Aslan presently, “to business. I feel I m going to roar. You had better put your fingers in your ears.” And they did. And Aslan stood up and when he opened his mouth to roar his face became so terrible that they did not dare to look at it.” pg 161.

The film did a solid job capturing the magic of this story, but nothing compares to the book.

“Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia.” pg 186.

In fact, just writing up this review makes me want to read them all again.

I’ll see you on the other side of the wardrobe…

Thanks for reading!

Acceptance (Southern Reach, #3) by Jeff VanderMeer

Acceptance (Southern Reach, #3) by Jeff VanderMeer
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Acceptance answers any lingering questions that the reader may have concerning Area X. I found it much more satisfying than the second entry. But, I don’t think that either the second or third book approached the brilliance of the first.

Beyond the revelations about Area X, this book also explains some of the relationships between characters. “Sometimes.. other people gave you their light, and could seem to flicker, to be hardly visible at all, if no one took care of them. Because they’d given you too much and had nothing left for themselves.” pg 60.

The reader discovers some major surprises. I won’t say anything else because… no spoilers!

Jeff VanderMeer’s descriptive passages are beautiful, something that all three books shared: “Soon after the storm, the trail they followed wound back to the sea along a slope of staggered hills running parallel to the water. The wet ground, the memory of those dark rivulets, made the newly seeded soil seem almost mirthful. Ahead lay the green outline of the island, illumined by the dark gold light of late afternoon.” pg 108.

And Area X is as mysterious as ever: “In the lengthening silence and solitude, Area X sometimes would reveal itself in unexpected ways.” pg 178. And also: “Never has a setting been so able to live without the souls traversing it.” pg 241.

I am glad that I took the time to read all three books. I think that VanderMeer’s entire concept of Area X is brilliant.

The series as a whole is strange but wonderful. Admittedly, the second book is the weakest and I barely made it through it. But, in hindsight, it fills in some blanks that contribute to the bigger picture.

Recommended for readers who like their science fiction with a large side of horror/suspense.

Thanks for reading!

Summer Knight (The Dresden Files #4) by Jim Butcher

Summer Knight (The Dresden Files #4) by Jim Butcher

“Harry Dresden has been down and out in Chicago. He can’t pay his rent. He’s alienating his friends. He can’t even recall the last time he took a shower. The only professional wizard in the phone book has become a desperate man.”

-Goodreads

“Summer Knight” is the fourth entry in the delightful “Dresden Files.” If you’re looking for a fantasy soap opera starring a male lead and a cast of colorful, non-human characters, look no further.

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Harry Dresden, a wizard-for-hire, is in the thick of it. He’s started a war between the vampires and wizards and the White Council is not happy about it. And, there’s the small matter of his former girlfriend, Susan, who’s been infected with vampire blood.

Can he save her from a terrible fate? Can he save himself?

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Then, there’s Karrin Murphy, the head of the supernatural department at the Chicago PD. She’s suffering from nightmares caused by the last adventure that Harry brought to her doorstep. Will she be able to pull herself together long enough to help the wizard save the world?

Add to these troubles vengeful fairies, a handful of changelings, pizza-loving pixies, werewolves and, of all things, Dungeons and Dragons! The Summer Knight is a rollicking entry in The Dresden Files.

My one complaint: more Bob. That is all.

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Recommended for urban fantasy readers, MMORPG players and people who believe or want to believe in fairies.

Thanks for reading!

The Thief Taker (The Thief Taker #1) by C.S. Quinn

The Thief Taker (The Thief Taker #1) by C.S. Quinn

In the 1660s, thief takers solved the cases that were beneath the dignity of the typical London watchmen.

The poorer sort of people, who had experienced a crime or theft, would come to men like the title character in this story for justice. He would attempt to track down the perpetrator by finding the property that they took and fenced.

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Usually, the thief taker could either get the property back for his client or turn the thief in to the higher authorities. But, the punishments back then were so barbaric- chopping off a hand, splitting noses- that the thief taker would usually just let the criminal go with a warning to not steal again or advise him to find a different clientele.

Charlie Tuesday is a thief taker in London. One day, a beautiful young woman comes to him for help in solving her sister’s murder. Normally, he doesn’t work on any cases larger than theft but the money that is offered is more than he can refuse.

From the strange mutilation of the body, he determines that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye. As the plague descends on London, he and Anna-Maria race to stop the murderer from striking again and, perhaps, even threatening the throne of England itself.

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The Thief Taker‘s scenery is lush. The customs, clothing, and food from 1665 are so different from what we have now. The reader is whisked away to a world that is the same in some ways (human behavior and emotions) and so different in other ways (social structures and occupations). I didn’t even know what a thief taker was until I read this book.

The story is an intricate mystery with the murders, possible witchcraft, and treason. I didn’t see the ending coming at all. It could be that I don’t read that many mysteries, but I thought that it was really well done.

Another fascinating piece to this story are the plague victims. The horrific conditions that the author describes, like bodies rotting in the streets and the Thames becoming clogged with corpses around London Bridge, actually took place.

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Because of these icky details, The Thief Taker occasionally veers towards the horror genre but never really crosses that line.

I kept picturing the rotting plague victims as zombies. In some ways, they’re similar. Contact with a plague victim could bring infection. Sometimes, the main character would come across a body that would appear dead, but wasn’t dead.

At one point in the story, a character describes the plague victims who are wandering the streets in search of mercy as the “walking dead.” It was very creepy.

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Also, the societal breakdown that accompanied the plague was so quick. Every moment the characters were in the London streets was filled with tension. The reader didn’t know if a plague victim was going to pop out of a quarantined house or if a thug was going to try to commit a robbery in a dark alley.

Readers who like the historical fiction of Philippa Gregory, Judith Merkle Riley, and Sarah Dunant may enjoy this.

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads program.

Thanks for reading!

The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader

The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader

England, 1255. What could drive a girl on the cusp of womanhood to lock herself away from the world forever? -from Goodreads

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The 1200’s was an exciting time in many ways. But, not if you were a woman.

In The Anchoress, I learned about yet another way in which women were treated poorly by the male dominated church. Apparently, the anchoress was an actual calling where the woman chose to be walled up near or in a church in order to move closer to God.

The people who walled up the woman left a small window for food and waste to pass through. That was the extent of her interaction with the outside world. How messed up was that.

Sarah, the anchoress in this story, chooses the position for a variety of reasons, but they’re not all that mysterious. The description of the book plays it up as a mystery which the reader will figure out in probably five pages or so.

I enjoyed this book more for the historical details of the period.

The interesting part is when Sarah starts to go bonkers (no big surprise there) and her confessor tries to keep her straight. That particular drama was gripping even though most of the action took place in one room.

If you enjoyed The Anchoress, you may want to read A Triple Knot by Emma Campion or Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross.

Thanks for reading!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

vampirehunterTake Abraham Lincoln and his famous rail-splitting ax, add a dash of vampires and voila: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Fans of horror may enjoy this creative re-mix of history more than I did. Though I enjoyed learning about Lincoln, the moments of gore inbetween weren’t for me.

I listened to the audiobook and my favorite parts were the Americana inspired musical interludes between some of the chapters. Banjos or plaintive violins shepherded readers into the next section. It was beautiful.

As for the story itself, I suppose I didn’t realize how easy it was to introduce vampires into every moment of a person’s life.

Example: Last night I had trouble sleeping. I opened my eyes at 3:45 a.m. and whispered to myself, “The vampires must be closer than I thought.”

Or, another real example, there was a terrible accident yesterday in which one of the bar owners in my small hometown was killed riding her motorcycle. I turned to my coworker with a grim look and said, “Vampires.”

See? You can vampire-ize anything!

Food goes bad in the refrigerator? Vampires. Cat pukes behind the bed? Vampires. Traffic is bad? Vampires.

Though it was fun at first, it became ridiculous.

But don’t let me deter you- if you like horror, you may love this. I enjoyed it but, I confess, I’ve had enough vampires to last me for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for reading!

Authority (Southern Reach #2) by Jeff VanderMeer

Authority (Southern Reach #2) by Jeff VanderMeer
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The mystery of Area X continues with an FBI agent’s entry into the Southern Reach. What’s going on? Why can’t anybody remember anything? Why is everyone so antagonistic? And why does everything smell bad?

Rarely have I been so disappointed with a book as I was with Authority. The first entry in this series is a gripping, psychedelic adventure that reads like a nature-gone-wild acid trip. This book, on the other hand, is like going to work with a punishing hangover. You don’t know what’s going on and everybody is pushing piles of paper at you.

“A shadow had passed over the director’s desk then. He’d been here before, or somewhere close, making these kinds of decisions before, and it had almost broken him, or broken through him. But he had no choice.” pg 18. On and on it goes. No answers, only confusion and bewilderment. I honestly thought, up until the very end, that something mega-cool was going to happen to make up for all of the so-so stuff that had happened so far. Unfortunately…

I also got super excited anytime Area X was mentioned, sort of like passing an old fling on your way to a funeral. Take this passage: “But the truth did have a simple quality to it: About thirty-two years ago, along a remote southern stretch known by some as the “forgotten coast,” an Event had occurred that began to transform the landscape and simultaneously caused an invisible border or wall to appear.” pg 35. Yes! And then we were immediately back into the boring office work/politics stuff.

“You’ve heard of the Southern Reach?” He had, mostly through a couple of colleagues who had worked there at one time. Vague allusions, keeping to the cover story about environmental catastrophe. Rumors of a chain of command that was eccentric at best. Rumors of a significant variation, of there being more to the story. But, then, there always was. He didn’t know, on hearing his mother say those words, whether he was excited or not.” pg 71. And that, my friends, is pretty much the whole book. Let me save you another 250 or so pages.

I exaggerate. A bit. It’s just that I’m incredibly disappointed in the turn this story took. I suppose I’ll read the last one in this series because I’m a completionist, but that is the only reason.

Thanks for reading!

Galore by Michael Crummey

Galore by Michael Crummey

“An intricate family saga and love story spanning two centuries, Galore is a portrait of the improbable medieval world that was rural Newfoundland, a place almost too harrowing and extravagant to be real. Remote and isolated, exposed to savage extremes of climate and fate, the people of Paradise Deep persist in a realm where the line between the everyday and the otherworldly is impossible to distinguish.”

-Description from Goodreads

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Galore is all over the place. And I didn’t like it.

I like epic historical fiction. (The Far Pavilions) But, this one wasn’t epic. It was more a collection of pointless stories strung together than a rich tapestry with unifying threads.

I don’t necessarily mind plot lines about priests who act in un-priestly ways. (The Thorn Birds) But there was nothing redeeming about this priest.

In fact, I can’t think of a single character that I cared for much. That’s a shame because there were so many to choose from.

On to the next book. 🙂 I recommend giving this one a pass.

Thanks for reading!

The Last Star (The 5th Wave #3) by Rick Yancey

The Last Star (The 5th Wave #3) by Rick Yancey
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The Last Star is the final entry in The 5th Wave, a trilogy about aliens, teenagers and the end of the world.

It is also a morality play about what matters. Why do cars, jobs and stuff matter so much when, in the end, it is all about our relationships and love.

I’m sorry to say that I found the ending to be unsatisfying. Yancey wove such a puzzling yarn that I felt like he didn’t completely untangle all the knots. To be fair, there was a lot going on. But, I read the last pages and I felt a big, internal: “huh?”

This book also reminded me of The Road. “From piles of blackened bones to corpses wrapped head to toe in tattered sheets and old blankets, just lying there in the open like they’d dropped from the sky, alone or in groups of ten or more. So many bodies that they faded into the background, just another part of the mess, another piece of the urban vomit.”pg 70.

The Last Star also raised big questions about civilization and its durability. How thin is the veneer on civilization? What would it take for humanity to turn on itself? Most dystopian writers say, not much.

I don’t know. I’m of two minds on the issue. One part of me says, civilization is a flimsy set of agreements that could easily crumble with enough fear, famine and plague.

The other part of me, the eternal optimist side, says that there is something within each of us that even the worst calamity couldn’t touch.

Kill the body, yes. Kill hope, yes. But kill the soul and its purpose? No. I feel like that part would find a way. And part of that soul’s purpose, I think, is connection to others. That means, civilization. So, there’s something more permanent to it, something fated.

Anyway, The 5th Wave as a three-part story is intense, gritty and could lead to some excellent discussions because it leaves a lot of open-ended questions and ambiguous answers. Rather like life.

Thanks for reading!