April 16, 2008 at 11:22 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Young Adult Literature
56. Sorcery & Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer (Young adult historical fantasy) 320 p.
I swear I only went book shopping to look for Xenocide, for the second time this week, but I came home with this and its sequel instead. (In fact, I made a third shopping trip today; still no Xenocide, but five other books, quite cheap.) I’ve always liked Wrede’s Dragons series, and I’d heard many good things about this series, and there were remaindered hardcover copies of The Grand Tour going cheap.
Sorcery & Cecelia is an epistolary novel with a twist: all the letters in the book were actually sent by the authors, to each other, and they didn’t set out to write a novel. They were just playing the Letter Game: two people (they don’t have to be writers) carry on an in-character correspondence. They chose to be two cousins, best friends Kate and Cecelia, living in England in 1817. An England just like the one in our world, except that magic exists, and witches and wizards abound. Early in her Season, Kate is nearly poisoned by a witch who mistakes her for the Mysterious Marquis. Meanwhile, Cecelia finds herself spied on by an elegantly-dressed young man, and her new friend Dorothea begins to have a rather startling effect on the gentlemen of the neighbourhood.
This is a really excellent young adult novel. The writing is quick and clear, and the characters are delightful. The book has a real sense of humour, with delicious absurdities in every letter. The tone, too, is wonderful—the book is dedicated to Austen, Heyer, Tolkien, and Kushner, and their influence (or at least the women’s) definitely shows in this comedy of manners. There’s something so delightfully gothic about the “Mysterious Marquis”, and the same atmosphere pervades the book. Not many modern authors choose to create that kind of atmosphere; the only one I can think of, funnily enough, is Lemony Snicket.
Anyway, if you like Austen, Heyer, or Kushner, as well as young adult novels, you’ll probably enjoy this. Not because it’s a rip-off of those authors, but because it has a similar sensibility. The plot and the characters, however, are all the authors’ own. And the characters, especially, are people I enjoy spending time with. Cecy and Kate are fabulous; intelligent and independent young women, but still believable as Regency ladies. Altogether a very satisfying read!
Pages read: 15,456
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Caroline Stevermer, Fantasy Classics Challenge, Kate and Cecelia, Once Upon a Time II, Patricia C. Wrede
March 7, 2008 at 12:58 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Children's Literature, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
24. The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper (Children’s Fantasy) 244 p.
I made a slight mistake when I picked up this book yesterday. I’d got it into my head that Over Sea, Under Stone was a prequel written later and didn’t have much connection to the rest of the series, so I could safely skip it (rather like The Magician’s Nephew in The Chronicles of Narnia.) Apparently I was wrong, but oh, well. Too late now.
The Dark Is Rising begins on December 20, in the small English town of Huntercombe, on the Thames. The next day will be Will Stanton’s eleventh birthday, and what he wants most is a real snowfall, not just the light dusting they usually get in the south. When he and his older brother, James, go out to feed the rabbits, some unsettling things happen—things only Will seems to notice. A farmer he’s known for years gives him two things: a sign—a circle of iron crossed by two bars—and an ominous warning.
The next day, his birthday, Will walks out of his sleeping household and six hundred years into the past. He finds out that he’s one of the Old Ones, immortals whose job it is to fight the Dark, and that he is the sign-seeker, the one who must find the six signs that can be joined to forge a much-needed weapon against the Dark.
The plot of The Dark Is Rising is standard children’s fantasy fare: a boy finds out he has special powers, and heavy responsibilities to go with them, and goes on a quest to find magical objects, receiving help from mentors, supernatural beings, and magical animals along the way.
In fact, if anything, the details used to flesh out the plot lower, rather than raise, its quality. Although Will is called upon to make moral choices, he merely reacts to events, rather than taking any initiative. Although he is called the sign-seeker, he never has the knowledge that would be necessary to look for the signs himself; instead, they are revealed to him through various events.
If there is anything in The Dark Is Rising that lifts it above the commonplace, it’s Susan Cooper’s writing. Although some of the grown-ups are rather cardboard cutout-ish (namely Merriman and the Lady), she does some lovely characterization with Will and his family, particularly his brothers and sisters.
The book has a marvellous sense of time and place; after reading it, I felt I knew Huntercombe personally: the river, the village, the fields, the manor, the woods, and all the lanes and roads. And most of all, the weather. The book is set during a very particular time of year, Midwinter Eve through Epiphany, which worked perfectly for the story being told. Like the Stantons, Christmas is my favourite time of year, and Cooper did a brilliant job of capturing all the traditions, friendship, and love that make the holiday season such a magical time of year.
The contrast of the warmth and excitement of Christmas with the cold and unending snow sent by the Dark made the latter feel more genuinely menacing, although I think as a Canadian, I was at a disadvantage. Toronto, my hometown, has some of Canada’s mildest winters, but I think all Canadians grow up with a cultural consciousness of the truly hideous weather that winter can throw at some parts of this country. Even though Cooper did a good job of showing how crippling the snow was for England, I couldn’t let go of my knowledge that to be a truly credible attack from the Dark, it ought to have been much worse.
Quibbles aside, this book was very absorbing and hard to put down. I even spent an extra forty-five minutes in Tim Horton’s last night, because I didn’t want to close the book for the two-minute walk to the nearest subway station.
Pages read: 7,214
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Fantasy Classics Challenge, Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising
January 10, 2008 at 12:52 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I set myself quite a number of reading challenges this year. I met my main goal of 100 books for the year, and I completed the 2nds challenge. For the rest, I’ve decided to make my goals slightly more reasonable, partly so that I’ll have room for some of the other interesting challenges that have cropped up.
World Lit Challenge: I actually love this challenge, and I think it will probably be an annual thing. It forced me to search out new authors I wouldn’t otherwise have heard of, and encouraged me to read books I might otherwise have avoided.
Looking over the list of books I read this year, it seems that quite a few turned out to be favourites, and there are only 3 I didn’t like (Reading Lolita in Tehran, Like Water for Chocolate, and Portrait in Sepia, if anyone’s interested.)
I managed to finish 26 books. While that falls far short of my goal of 50, it works out to one book every two weeks, which isn’t bad at all. So I’ve decided to renew the World Lit Challenge for 2008 and read a further 26 books in 2008.
Sci-fi Classics Challenge and Fantasy Classics Challenge: I’m definitely not going to meet my stated goal of 25 books for each challenge by June 2008, so I’m lowering my goal for each to 10 books.
Tags: Fantasy Classics Challenge, Sci-Fi Classics Challenge, World Lit Challenge
October 28, 2007 at 2:41 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
115. Three Against the Witch World by Andre Norton (Fantasy) 190 p.
Fantasy Classics Challenge
Tolkienesque high fantasy isn’t really my thing, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t much enjoy Three Against the Witch World. Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea (and how those names impede the suspension of my disbelief) are triplets, bound together from birth. Kyllan, the warrior, is the narrator of this first book in the Chronicles of the Witch World trilogy. When Kaththea is taken from her family to be trained in the ways of the Wise Ones, the powerful witches of Estcarp, her brothers are determined to rescue her before she can be made to take the oaths that will sever her connection to them forever. Pursued by the witches, the three escape into an unknown land.
If you like high fantasy, this might be worth trying. I don’t see much in it that sets it above any other work in the genre, but maybe it’s just not my type of book. Despite the first-person perspective, the elevated language keeps the reader at a distance from the narrator, and the tale lacks any breath of humour or warmth. I’m going to finish the trilogy, because I am interested in the plot, but I doubt it will ever be among my favourite fantasy series.
(Actually, I’ve already started the sequel, Warlock of the Witch World, and something incredibly annoying has happened, but I’ll save my rant about it for the review of that book.)
Books read: 115
Pages read: 34,131
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Andre Norton, Fantasy Classics Challenge, Witch World
July 11, 2007 at 7:40 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Children's Literature, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
64. The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (Fantasy, Children’s Fiction) 163 p.
At the age of five, Tenar is taken from her home and family and becomes Arha, the Eaten One, whose job it is to spend her life in service to the Nameless Ones at the Place of the Tombs of Atuan. When a young wizard comes to rob the tombs, she is forced to choose between the darkness of the Nameless Ones and a life different from anything she has ever known.
I’m still of two minds about Ursula K. Le Guin. On one hand, she does some very interesting things in the fantasy genre, and on that level I enjoyed this book very much. On the other hand, I felt so distanced, so aloof from her characters that they never awoke any real affection in me, or sparked my imagination, which is especially unusual in a children’s book.
Books read: 64/100 (64%)
Pages read: 18,922/25,000 (76%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Earthsea, Fantasy Classics Challenge, Ursula K. Le Guin
July 9, 2007 at 9:50 pm · Filed under Book Reviews
Another new challenge: read 25 classic works of fantasy before June 30, 2008.
My motivation is pretty much the same as for the Sci-Fi Classics Challenge: to get to know the “classics” of the fantasy genre.
Naturally, there are a few restrictions, and again, they’re the same as for the Sci-Fi Challenge. No more than two books by any one author. Novels published in the 21st century will not be included, and very few, if any, from the 1990’s. I’m going to try to read an author’s most famous book(s), or the first book in his or her most famous series. In-progress series will not be included, not even if the first book can stand on its own. I’m trying not to include juvenile or YA fiction unless the book made a significant impact on the genre.
Read so far:
- The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (1971)
- War for the Oaks by Emma Bull (1987)
- Three Against the Witch World by Andre Norton (1965)
- The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper (1973)
- Beauty by Robin McKinley (1978)
- Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (1988)
The list of possibilities (books I’ve already read are in italics):
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)
- The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris (1894)
- Lilith by George MacDonald (1895)
- Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)
- The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton (1908)
- A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912)
- The Moon Pool by A. Merritt (1919)
- Jurgen by James Branch Cabell (1919)
- The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison (1922)
- The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany (1924)
- Tales of H.P. Lovecraft by H.P. Lovecraft (1921 - 1935)
- Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945)
- Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake (1946)
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)
- The Once and Future King by T.H. White (1958)
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)
- Witch World by Andre Norton (1963)
- The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander (1964)
- Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper (1965)
- Three Against the Witch World by Andre Norton (1965)
- Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (1968)
- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (1968)
- A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)
- Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny (1970)
- The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (1971)
- Watership Down by Richard Adams (1972)
- The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper (1973)
- The Princess Bride by William Goldman (1973)
- The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip (1974) [world fantasy award]
- Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (1976)
- The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks (1977)
- The Stand by Stephen King (1978)
- Beauty by Robin McKinley (1978)
- The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (1979)
- Little, Big by John Crowley (1981) [world fantasy award]
- Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings (1982)
- Magician by Raymond E. Feist (1982)
- The Gunslinger by Stephen King (1982)
- The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (1983)
- Alanna: the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce (1983)
- The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay (1984)
- Perfume by Patrick Süskind (1985) [world fantasy award]
- Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (1987)
- War for the Oaks by Emma Bull (1987)
- Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (1988)
- Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman (1988)
- Magic’s Pawn by Mercedes Lackey (1989)
- Tam Lin by Pamela Dean (1991)
Please feel free to make suggestions for changes or additions to the list.
Tags: Book Lists, Fantasy Classics Challenge
