Bookish Thoughts

Considered by many to be the best book in the Discworld series, Small Gods stands up really well to a second reading. And probably will to a third or fourth as well. It's a ruthless take-down of organized religion, while managing to be respectful of faith itself. This book displays Pratchett at his peak, with a razor wit, a tight plot, and a most satisfying ending. It's no wonder that many people recommend this as an entry point to the series. Despite being the 13th book, it takes place nearly a century before the rest of the series, showing how one of the major Discworld religions, Omnianism, came to exist in it's present form. Other than the ripples the church sends out through the remainder of the series, and the brief reappearance of the history monks, this book doesn't really tie into the rest of the series. It helps with the world-building, but these characters are long dead by the time Esme Weatherwax and Sam Vimes show up on the scene. But for a...

I was beyond excited when Bujold announced recently that she was releasing another story in the same universe as  The Curse of Chalion . I was even more excited when that book showed up sooner than I could have hoped for. Of course, this ended up being because it was released only as an eBook, which dampened my excitement somewhat. As much as it makes sense to release electronic copies of stories with no physical counterpart, especially for short stories and novellas, I still prefer the physical book. But it gave me an opportunity to check out the new Kindle app on my tablet, which actually has a few features that I like. Notably the "timer" that told me how long it would take to finish a chapter (or in this case the whole story). I also liked being able to change the background color - sepia was easier on my eyes in the late evening. The story itself was fun. Penric is so innocent and good-hearted (the classic third son) that you can't help but root for him. He's p...

The Spirit Ring  was Lois McMaster Bujold's first foray into fantasy, and it kind of shows. This book is fun and has some interesting characters and a truly lovely romance. But it's simply not as good as the Chalion books. Everything is pretty straightforward, with clear demarcations between the good guys (stalwart, true, and pure of heart) and the bad guys (greedy, power-mad, and deceptive). What is most interesting about this book is the early shades of Chalion's religion and magic system. This book is set in our past, with such famous people as the Borgia's and Medici's populating the cast. There are fantastical elements, and magic is certainly real in this alternate history, but it's tied to the Catholic church. Bujold's ideas about souls and demons and morality are confined by Catholocism's doctrines. They don't really flourish here the way they do in the Chalion books. But it's still fun to see those ideas in this earlier form. All in a...

I have very little memory of reading  Pyramids  the first time around. I assumed this meant it was just meh. Now that I've re-read it, I'm chalking up that reaction to all the other stuff that was going on in my life at the time. When I opened  Pyramids , an old plane ticket fell out. Checking the date, I realized it was from the first time I flew to DC to visit Kevin. Amongst all the uncertainty in my life at that point (job, relationship, life in general), it's no wonder this book didn't make a huge impression on me. I'm glad I revisited it, because I ended up liking it a lot this time through. I still think it gets somewhat overshadowed by some of the later books in the series (it's neither as good as  Guards! Guards!  nor as bad as  Eric , the next two books), but it stands on it's own pretty well. Especially for a book that actually stands alone. With the exception of Death, I don't think any of the characters in this book ever make an appearance ...

Bless Me, Ultima  is a book I missed back in high school. My sophomore year was American Literature. The school decided to start a new class that combined American Lit with American History into a single 3-hour class. But because I was science track, I opted for the regular, easier english and history classes that year. And I ended up with a different reading list because of it. So while all my friends read and fell in love with  Bless Me Ultima , I was keeping busy with  The Great Gatsby  and  Catcher in the Rye . (My friends probably read those, too. I think the advanced class had an expanded reading list, not a different one.) Recently I saw this book on a best-of list, then encountered it at a used book store for $1. Which meant that I basically had to read it. I think I may have enjoyed this book more had I read it in a classroom setting. It reads like a lot of the other books I read for school, heavy on the metaphor. And each chapter works fairly well ...

I came at this book from an interesting angle. At my mother-in-law's suggestion I watched the movie before reading the book so that I could experience the various layers of the text.  I can't really judge, having never experienced this story any other way, but I'm gonna go ahead and say she was right. Knowing the ending made certain scenes much more horrific. And it made it easier to follow what was going on. The story in the movie is far more linear than the one presented in the book. It makes sense for the book. For the bulk of the story, time has no real meaning or relevance. And presenting the action as a series of disjointed events which may have happened in any order fits with the frame of Pi remembering this journey. That said, it bugged me that Richard Parker was named, but not revealed to be a tiger, until well after he arrived on the life boat. Though that's probably just because I knew he was a tiger and was waiting impatiently for that reveal....

I came to Narnia later than I probably should have, though there was no one to blame for that but myself. I'd been gifted the series twice before I finally got around to reading them sometime in middle school. And even then I was so lacking in a religious upbringing that the religious allegory went right over my head. I only barely understood why the humans might be referred to as Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. After learning a bit more about the relationship between these books and Christianity, I decided to give the series another read. But that was derailed when I came across Harry Potter. I always sort of meant to revisit Narnia, but it never happened. And then we had a March snow day during which I was only half longing for Spring, and I decided it was the perfect time to pick up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and experience the long, cold winter giving way to Spring at last. Several things surprised me on this re-read. The first was how short the ...

In the final installment in her Inheritance Trilogy, NK Jemisin greatly increases the scope, focusing not on a single week or month, but encompassing an entire mortal lifetime. The changes that were set in motion in the first book finally reach their inevitable conclusion here, in a pretty stunning and thoughtful book. I found myself torn between wanting to race to the end and wanting to savor every sentence, which is a pretty rare thing. But there are some hard truths in here, about privilege and tradition and the human condition, that Jemisin does a spectacular job of highlighting. Unlike the previous two books, our narrator this time around is a god. And a trickster god, at that. It makes for a story that tends to jump through time and space rather unexpectedly, because the narrator can't really be bothered with time on a mortal scale. It also means that I spent a great deal of the book waiting for the other shoe to drop, because why would a trickster just tell ...

The Hallowed Hunt is the third book in Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series. Though that's a bit disingenuous, since this book doesn't take place in Chalion. Nor does it contain any of the characters from the previous two books. Even in cameo roles. Even mentioned in passing. But the gods are the same, as is the universe, so it's part of the same series. There's some chatter among the fans that it should really be referred to as the Five Gods' series, or the Fivefold Path of the Soul series, since all of the books are examinations of this fascinating religion Bujold has created. But either of those names would imply a series of five books. Since there are currently three, with no hint of another forthcoming, those titles don't entirely fit either. The lack of familiar characters is only mildly disappointing, as all of the new ones are really great. There's sweet, naive Ijada who doesn't know a ton about real-world politics, but is p...

In the sequel to The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms , NK Jemisin deals with the fallout of that books climax in a rather surprising way. The first book focused on the elite ruling class, the people in power and the way they interacted with the gods. The second book shifts focus to the working poor to examine how they've dealt with all this upheaval. The first book ended with an extreme shift in power. A god who was thought dead was reborn. The captor and imprisoned gods switched places and the newly powerful god is out for vengeance. Balance hasn't been restored to the cosmos, but everyone has started down that path. The second book doesn't do anything to further shift power dynamics (I imagine that will wait for the final book), but it does start everyone down the path to healing. All of this is narrated by a blind woman who can see the effects of magic. This ability helps her navigate the complicated world of the gods and their children, the godlings. She, of ...

NK Jemisin's debut novel The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms  is different from the majority of fantasy I've read lately. There's no grand adventure or epic battle.At it's heart, this book has more to do with family politics than anything else. Some millenia before this book begins, the three main gods got into a fight that escalated into a war. Ultimately one was killed, one was enslaved in human form, and the third took it upon himself to be the grand ruler of all. The world has been a little off-balance ever since, as exemplified by the cruel and twisted ruling family, the Arameri. But this story focuses on Yeine, newly named heir of the current ruler, Dekarta, despite the fact that her mother was disowned for marrying her father. She finds herself summoned to the capital city, where she must navigate not only her own family politics, but those of the gods who are kept as slaves. The story isn't entirely linear, which I usually love. It mostly works...

But how could she gain the road? Roads were made for young men, not middle-aged women. The poor orphan-boy packed his sack and started off down the road to seek his heart's hope...a thousand tales began that way. She was not poor, she was not a boy, and her heart was surely as stripped of all hope as life and death could render it. As Ista herself points out in the first few pages of the book, this should not be her story. At least not traditionally. According to all the tales, Ista is done. She was raised a princess and married a king. She lived to see her husband and son die and her daughter ascend to the throne. She has recently celebrated the birth of her first grandchild and is now mourning the death of her mother, making her officially a member of the older generation. Now it is time for her to sit quietly in her castle and live out her days, content with the life she has left. But that's not what Ista wants, and it's not what the gods have planned f...

My mom got my Lois McMaster Bujold's The Curse of Chalion  when I was in high school. I read most of it then, but I put it down and never finished it. All I can think is that the next Harry Potter book was coming out, because now I can't imagine putting this book down. Especially since my bookmark indicated that I'd made it nearly 3/4 of the way through. Wait, I need to show you the bookmark I was using in high school. It makes me really happy. So back to this book, which is high fantasy and has magic, but is also inspired by Spanish history. In fact, the map of this world is supposedly the map of Spain, with north and south switched. It's more concerned with politics than action, which is possibly why I less interested in it as a teenager. But now I find that sort of thing fascinating. Cazaril is the main character. At the opening of the book he is trudging home after escaping from slavery aboard a galley ship. When he makes it home, he finds a s...

This was my second time through Marion Zimmer Bradley's epic retelling of the King Arthur legend. The first time was over a decade ago, when I was still in high school. I remember really liking the book and wanting to read it again. I also remember punching it at one point because of something Gwenhwyfer did. But mostly I remember a fun fantasy that was a cool twist on the Arthurian legends; the tale is told entirely through the point of view of the female characters. What I manage to forget, somehow, every single time I come back to King Arthur, is that this tale is a tragedy. I think this may be because I usually only listen to the first half of the Camelot soundtrack. The story is the Golden Age of Camelot and all the great, chivalrous deeds that the Knights of the Round Table perform. But it's ultimately about the destruction of that Golden Age. Arthur's rule was too good to last. People are not fundamentally good and desires and loyalties twist into si...

For a long time Season of Mists was my favorite volume in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. It's the volume that really made me fall in love with this series, and it stayed my favorite for a few years until I got around to reading the eighth volume, Worlds' End . (It took me a long time to collect the entire series). The premise of Season of Mists is pretty straight forward. Fed up with his duties and just plain bored, Lucifer quits. He kicks everyone out of hell, locks the door, and gives the key to Dream. This concept completely hooked me. I loved the way this played with Christian mythology. Maybe the Devil is sick and tired of the endless war with heaven. Maybe he'd rather just chill on a beach somewhere. For his part, Dream has to deal with a host of mythological being who all want Hell for their own. Odin, Thor, and Loki want to move in so they can avoid Ragnarok and the end of their world. Egyptian and Japanese gods want to expand their current la...

Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian was an incredibly slow, dry book. There was a good amount of suspense and spookiness surrounding the search for Dracula that spans three generations. But there was a whole lot of history mixed in. I found myself unable to read large chunks at once, because my mind would start to wander. That's not to say it was a bad book, though. The horror was good and some passages were genuinely frightening. It's just that it was mixed in with an incredibly thorough history lesson about the conquest of Transylvania, Hungary, and Bulgaria by the Ottoman Empire. There's a lot of allusion to the historical and present-day conflict between Islam and Christianity in the region. And the legend of Vlad the Impaler is interwoven so seamlessly that I has trouble telling what was fact and what was fiction at times. There was a lot of cool speculation about the legend of Vlad Dracula. And I really liked seeing how that intersected with hist...

Dreamers of the Day is the fourth novel by Mary Doria Russell, who has already cemented herself as one of my favorite authors. I'd heard this book wasn't as good as her previous three and almost avoided it for this reason. I'm really glad I didn't. While it's true that it's not as good as The Sparrow, Children of God , or A Thread of Grace , it's still an incredibly good book. Dreamers of the Day is part romance, part historical fiction. The narrator,  a forty-year-old school teacher named Agnes Shanklin, inherits a large amount of money that allows her to take her dream vacation to Cairo. By a twist of narration, Agnes happens to meet T. E. Lawrence and Winston Churchill who are in the process of redrawing national boundaries in the Middle East following the Great War. Agnes finds herself on the outskirts of these talks as she spends some time with Lawrence, Churchill, and various other players. Although she doesn't participate them, ...

In the climax of Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass , the final book in the His Dark Materials trilogy, two twelve year olds save the world by having sex and declaring their undying love for each other. This is something that I do not like. I find it weird and uncomfortable and it keeps me from re-reading this book. I probably would have continued to ignore it, if not for the Mark Reads project, though it is nice to reaffirm my own view of this book. It's a shame, because there's a lot about The Amber Spyglass that I really like.Dr. Mary Malone is a great character. The mulefa and their world are endlessly fascinating. I love all the thought and detail that goes into this completely alternate evolutionary chain. Lyra and Will's journey through the underworld is great and manages to bring some Greek mythology into play with all the Christian mythology that dominates the trilogy. Unfortunately, as interesting as the bulk of the book is, the ending is e...

I view American Gods  as a summer book. Most of it takes place in the winter, but I always seem to read it in the middle of summer, when the days are hot and endless. The first time I read it was shortly after my 18th birthday, in those long, lazy days between high school and college, swinging in the hammock my dad no longer owns. The last time was shortly after I moved to Virginia, in the aimless days between accepting a position at a new company and actually starting work. I'm sure I read it, or at least parts of it, other times in the middle there. This time, the days are long and hot, but they are filled with work and other life stuff. The book still transports me to those endless summer days that are mostly a thing of the past now. I wonder, when they adapt the story for HBO, how the new gods will change. Will Netflix have usurped Television, or will she just be another aspect of the same god? Will Apple, Google, and Microsoft be brothers, constantly bicke...

The Subtle Knife is the second book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Instead of picking up where The Golden Compass left off, this book opens in an entirely different world and introduces the character of Will Parry, who will eventually be the Adam to Lyra's Eve. In all honesty, I don't like this book as much as The Golden Compass . Instead of an exhilarating adventure story, Pullman starts to delve into his philosophy. It comes off as a bit preachy. Lord Asriel's ultimate goal is revealed: he's going to kill God.  The problem is that most of the characters don't really question this. Mrs. Coulter, resident bad guy, is trying to stop Asriel and gain power for herself through the church/Magisterium. But nearly every other sympathetic character is in complete agreement that God needs to die. Pullman reveals that, in his world, it was Lucifer and his rebel angels who tempted Eve with the apple, and that this was a good thing. This ...