The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon

So you all know I have A Thing about debut authors and how their books are generally... not so great. That's not to say that they won't get better, of course, and if your first novel is the best thing you ever produce and your name is neither Harper Lee or Margaret Mitchell, I'm going to be pretty sad for you.

Maybe the thing that irritates me the most about these debuts is the superlatives that are used on the dust jackets. If someone's first work is stunning, gorgeous, groundbreaking, and phenomenal; where do they go from there? That's a lot of pressure! Especially when people are calling you the next JK Rowling because you're young, English, blonde, and (to be fair)  a pretty talented wordsmith at 23.

Correlation vs. causation, my dear Watson.

Now, don't get me wrong: The Bone Season is a grand ol' time and I not only enjoyed it thoroughly, I also look forward to reading more of Ms. Shannon's work while I weep in the corner about how I've done nothing with my life and young whippersnappers are published authors. But she's no JK, and The Bone Season is not "the next Harry Potter," so kindly ignore all that stupid hype.

The world Shannon has created is a kind of neo-Victorian clairvoyant Brave New World (although that's also one of my favorite books so y'know - also not the next Aldous Huxley, yadda yadda). It's got a whiff of Neverwhere about it, as well as some Soylent Green.

Paige is a clairvoyant in a London that diverged from ours around 200 years ago, when Edward VII went crazy at a dinner table, killed 5 people, and thus unleashed the clairvoyant curse on some of the population. The government operates as something of a junta, and most voyants have either joined the underground crime syndicate or sold out to the government for safety and work as terriers, sniffing out the illegal voyants. And of course Paige's strain of voyancy is special if not unique, and of course she doesn't know exactly how to use it. Clearly she needs a mentor.

You could just use honey, Mr. Miyagi, but whatevs.

There are twists and turns and Shannon does an excellent job of doling out information in just the right doses to intrigue her readers. There are some inconsistencies, and the pacing isn't super-refined. But I expect that she'll develop into a pretty phenomenal author if she can avoid the trap of writing novels in order to make movies, and it's all pretty engaging, especially if you threw it into you library request list without knowing anything about it except a vague feeling of "I heard this was good and maybe saw it on my goodreads feed."

7.5 out of 11 Ribbons for Dangling from in a Circus Act that No One Watches

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I don’t remember who it was who recommended I read this book, but I DO remember that it was more than one person. So good job, all of you.

The thing about well-translated works is that they sing in the second language as well as in the first, and this is a VERY well translated work. As an at-one-time fluent Spanish speaker, I have a soft spot in my heart for Spanish idioms and expressions, which Lucia Graves has maintained to my UTTER DELIGHT.

I dunno what you might have heard, or whether you might have (like I did) mixed this book up with Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind, which is an honest mistake because seriously, authors, get your naming conventions together. But if what you probably have heard is anything like what I heard about this book, you might be shocked to find out that the somewhat fantastical novel you expected – full of Cemeteries of Forgotten Books and whimsical quests to keep books alive is, in fact, NOT THAT THING. Instead, you will discover a Gothic romance complete with what may as well be Laurentina’s skeleton behind a tattered curtain.

Soooo scaaaaary! 

In 1945, Daniel chooses a book on his 10^th birthday from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. He is promptly accosted by many people who want the book, for mostly nefarious reasons, and the plot unfolds from there like the Marauder’s Map – all bits over here and a folded part over there, that come together to make a whole picture, but not of Hogwarts.

More's the pity.

Daniel goes along, finding stuff out about the author of the book and falling in and out and in and out of love along the way as he grows older. And it’s so, so beautifully written that when it drags about 2/3 of the way through you won’t mind much, and when you slowly narrow down the various culprits juuuust ahead of Daniel, you’ll be smug, and when it ends, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s part of a trilogy.

The second book of which is waiting for me at el biblioteca right now.

8 of 11 Brains Rotted by Reading, Just Like that Sancho Panza

Elantris - Brandon Sanderson

I’m on a kick with this guy lately; his work is interesting and I am amazed by the scope of his undertakings. And also, I’m waiting for him to finish all ten (10!) of his books in the Stormlight series, for which I will be waiting approximately another 15 years. At the rate I’m reading, I should run out of his previously published material in… a couple of weeks.

This isn’t looking good for the rest of the fantasy writing world.

I’m looking at you, Terry Goodkind and GRRM

Speaking of GRRM, I canNOT have been the only one who thoroughly enjoyed the Epic Internet Meltdown that happened a couple of weeks ago over the Red Wedding, can I? AT LAST my wide-eyed, slack-jawed reaction from 2002 is justified!

Ok, back to Brandon Sanderson.

This is his first novel, weighing in at a hefty 658 pages without too much infodumping, which in itself is pretty impressive. It’s something of a post-apocalyptic novel in that the world as the inhabitants know it changed cataclysmically 10 years ago and no one really knows why or what to do about it, and there are plenty of interesting characters.

I don’t know how to be funny about fantasy novels, you guys. No one but me seems to read them in our (really awesome) set, and I’m not generally a fan of the SF/F fandom – just the books.  And this isn’t the kind of SF/F that I’d recommend starting with (see above re. 658 pages), soooo…..

I’ll just be over here, reading cheerfully till 3am and talking to my cat about it.

7.5 of 11 Books You Didn't Write in Grad School, Haters

The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson

This is the tale of a teenaged girl who fell in love with books with dragons on the covers. One day, after having finished everything Melanie Rawn had written and also having been enraged about the ending of The Ruins of Ambrai, someone handed her a 500+ page mass-market paperback that said “Volume 1” on the spine.

Roughly four thousand pages later, she emerged from book six, blinked a bit, and groped around blindly for book seven.

But alas, book seven had yet to be published! And, as it happens, neither had books eight through twelve fourteen. On that day in a sunny bedroom in Alaska in a room with a strange-if-you’re-not-a-teen mixture of kittens and pop stars on the walls, she vowed that she would not read another word of the Wheel of Time series until it was finished, because Robert Jordan would probably die before the damn thing was done.

And thus it was with sorrow but also a small degree of

 that I heard of Robert Jordan’s death before the ending of The Wheel of Time. But lest you think I am too high on my horse, allow me to tell you that I’m current with A Song of Ice and Fire, and there’s no end in sight for that one either.

I love me some epic fantasy, is what I’m trying to say. For years it was the brain candy I used to take my mind off of studying, or in between stints worshipping at the feet of Anthony Trollope or Edith Wharton. These days, most of my book recommendations come from the other book blogs I read, and it’s safe to say that there are not a lot of dragons flying around the covers of their books.

My friend Jeremy also loves fantasy and sci-fi, and since we occasionally share a brain, he suggested I read The Way of Kings. What he neglected to tell me was that this is the first book of a series of ten, and that only this one has been published so far.

WILL SHE EVER LEARN NO I DON'T THINK SO.

You’d think the guy who was commissioned to write the end of Wheel of Time would be a little leery of planning at 10,000+ page series, wouldn’t you?  BUT NO. He cares not for fate and her wily ways.

Anywhatsis, if you like this kind of thing – that is, epic, world-building stories that could reasonably be used as weights and take a torturously long time to get written and published – this is pretty close to as good as it gets. 

8.5 of 11 Glowy Rocks to be Used as Currency

Who Could That Be at This Hour? - Lemony Snicket

Have you read A Series of Unfortunate Events? You should. It’s clever and fun and sad and lovely all at the same time. I’m not generally a huge fan of things aimed at middle-grade kids, but for Lemony Snicket, I will always make an exception. Which explains why I snatched this book off of the 7-Day Loan shelf right in front of some middle-grade child and ran away, cackling with glee.

I love you, Ru.

Who Could That Be at This Hour? starts with our Lemony having just graduated from school at the tender age of 12. One of the most brilliant things about this author is his willingness to leave large swathes of information out of the text, thereby leaving them up to the reader to fill in. He fills the void that was created when Harry Potter ended; you know the one – the thing where I learned to grasp at every tiny shred of information like a murder victim snatching at her attacker’s hairs to provide some clue as to whodunit.  

Story! Snicket has reason of his own for choosing S. Theodora Markson – dead last on the list of 52 - as his official chaperone, but to his great surprise she takes him out of town to a village called Stain’d-by-the-Sea, where the sea itself is no longer nearby and the major revenue comes from rapidly drying pockets of octopus ink.

The story gets odder and more entertaining from there, and as always I’m disarmed by the word-play and sly references:

“There’s an easy method for finding someone when you hear them scream. First get a clean sheet of paper and a sharp pencil. Then sketch out nine rows of fourteen squares each. Then throw the piece of paper away and find whoever is screaming so you can help them. It is no time to fiddle with paper.”

“Do you know how to pick a lock?”
“Not really,” I said, “I received a grade of Incomplete. I know how to throw a rock through a window.”

“I’m reminded of a book my father used to read me,” she said. “A bunch of elves and things get into a huge war over a piece of jewelry that everybody wants but no body can wear.”
“I’ve never liked that kind of book,” I replied. “There’s always a wizard who’s very powerful but not very helpful.”

In conclusion, Lemony, I would like to go to your school and have adventures with you. And I promise not to steal your weird little statue.

7.5 of 11 Typewriters on the Stairs

Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo

I’m pretty sure I thought this book and The Book of Blood and Shadow were the same for a long time. Oops.

SO! There's a story, and it's not that one! Alina is an orphan and a soldier in the Border Wars army, along with her best friend Mal who, of course, never notices that she’s a girl with feeeeeeelings. Specifically, feelings for him. Men!

Good call, Liz. 

There’s this thing in their homeland called The Fold, and it’s basically a wide piece of hell full of darkness and scary harpy-like creatures that have been known on occasion – every occasion – to try to kill anything human that tries to cross it. Alina’s division tries this journey because the coast is on the other side and it’s not really clear why, but during the battle Mal gets hurt and Alina’s long-hidden power presents itself: she can push back the darkness, possibly eventually enough to destroy The Fold and reunite the country.  Hurrah! But she is only a teenager and already behind in her studies of... magic stuff... because she's been busy kicking ass instead.

And then The Darkling, whose very TITLE screams BAD GUY but does anyone notice? NO, takes her to his little palace to help her learn how to use her power at something like a school for magic people, but since she’s the only one of her kind and he’s the only one of his kind, she falls for him a little right before Alina realizes that The Darkling is an anagram for King Lard (not really but it is) and runs away because he wants to control her. Seriously, MEN!  Always trying to make the ladies put their lights under bushels!

Alina runs away and meets up with Mal in the woods, there’s a bit about a stag with magical antlers, and then the end happens which I won’t spoil for you because I’m nice.

The front of this book trumpets, “Unlike anything I’ve ever read.” – Veronica Roth, Author of Divergent. On the flip side, if goodreads is to be believed Bardugo did about .35 hours of research into Russian Naming Conventions and Onion Domes before basing her world squarely in Mother Russia + Magicland. Here’s the thing: if Ms. Roth hasn’t ever read anything remotely like this before, then she doesn’t read enough, although that seems to have worked out pretty well for her own writing since she's wicked popular and all (MORE ON THAT LATER...). A second thing is: goodreads people are ridiculous. It’s a fantasy world, and while it may be based on Slavic culture, it’s pretty much the prerogative of the author to change things as she sees fit. Regular WASPy people wouldn’t be throwing a fit if the author had co-opted some Traditionally Western Stuff for her setting, so if you’re either 1) basing your knowledge of Russian culture on a fantasy novel or 2) not smart enough to figure out that this is FICTION, then you have bigger problems and should probably read a nonfiction book or Wikipedia or something.

Rant-y ran rant rant.

Anyway, this was interesting and the world was, for my money, very prettily realized and richly populated. I will pick up book 2 when the Internet starts jumping up and down about it, and I will hope for the best.

7.5 out of 11 Pseudo-Russian Patronymics

Sapphire Blue - Kerstin Gier

I want to kiss whoever designed these covers on the mouth.

Remember how I got all excitable about The Fire Chronicle being a Good Middle Book in a trilogy, and how that is rare? (Review of Book 1 here)

This is another example! I am tickled pink. I may like this one even better than the first book, but at the very least it’s a photo finish. 

So do you, David. So. Do. You.

All right. There have been 10 time travelers before Gwen (the Ruby) and Gideon (the... Diamond? I had to return the book to the library...), and two of them went rogue. They - Lucy and Paul who went rogue, not Gwen and Gideon - stole the chronograph with the blood samples of nearly all of the previous time travelers and disappeared with it into the past so that the final travelers couldn’t be “read” in - that is, put their blood in the machine - and complete the Circle of Twelve, which we learn could be a Very Bad Thing instead of the Goal of the Circle as we previously thought. Those of us who have read Justin Cronin's books will immediately recognize the number twelve as a very. bad. number. indeed.

There’s a page in the book where all the gemstones are attached to their correct people, along with their musical notes, spirit animals, and a VERY VAGUE reference to their specific magical power. I am lazy and forgot to mark it, but Gwen’s magical power is something about speaking with the voice of the raven, and I am like “I KNOW WHAT THAT POWER IS” because waaaaaay back at the beginning of book 1, Gwen reveals that she sees and interacts with ghosts. And ravens, in case you come from a different place where this is not canon, are messengers between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

This guy also saw ghosts!   

Ok, but lest we forget, Gwen is a teenager, so she is ALSO busy figuring out what on earth Gideon is doing, because he makes out with her one day and then berates her for not knowing how to properly gavotte the next – and really, who can blame him? Doesn’t everyone know how to gavotte? Silly Gwen.

I imagine it looks something like this.

And in the mean time, there is more time travel and more costuming and more creepy 18^th century shenanigans, along with the Drinking of Punch at a Ball! And Gwen gets adopted by the ghost of a gargoyle named Xemerius, who says things like this:

“Leave her alone, can’t you see she’s unhappy in love, bonehead? All because of you!”

I need one of these little guys to follow me around and yell hilarious things at bonehead dudes. Or just people in general, even if I'm the only one who can hear him.

I basically laid in bed for an entire Saturday and read this book, and I wasn't even sick! The pacing is brilliant, the Golden Rule of Show-Don't-Tell is followed scrupulously, and everything is brilliant. Book three can be published any time now. Do you hear me publishers? ANY. TIME.

8.5 out of 11 Glasses of 18th c. Punch - Alcohol Included for Fun! 

The Fire Chronicle - John Stephens

As you may recall, I thoroughly enjoyed the first Book of Beginning, The Emerald Atlas.  And when one is so charmed by he first book in a series, one is presented with an interesting dilemma: obviously one will read the next book, but how many sequels or second novels are as good as the first?

Each of the Books of Beginning follows one of the Wibberly children through their search for the three books… of… right. Three kids, three books.

The way Stephens tells Michael’s story while still weaving in a reason for Kate to be around (she’s already gotten her book, after all) is brilliant. There’s time travel and an Oliver-style band of orphan children and dwarves and their nemeses, elves.

And as much as I like the dwarves with their drinking and vaguely Scottish-inspired snark, you guys, I am so amused by elves. They are giddy and vain and just look:

“Oh, wonderful…you’ve already fallen in love with me!”
“I have not-“
“Don’t be silly! You should see the ridiculous look upon your face! By the way, have you noticed the way my hair moves?”

And then there’s this:

“And my father is well?” asked Wilamena … “Tell me captain, what is the state of his hair?”
“Not as lustrous since your captivity, but I’m sure it will regain its natural fullness and bounce once you are home.”

I just… I can’t even.

To paraphrase S. Morgenstern, there is a shortage of perfect sequels in this world. It would be a pity to miss this one. 

9.5 out of 11 Soulful, Big-Eyed Youths