It's been five years since the second Death Star exploded. With the Emperor and Darth Vader both dead, the remaining bastions of the Galactic Empire hIt's been five years since the second Death Star exploded. With the Emperor and Darth Vader both dead, the remaining bastions of the Galactic Empire have fallen easily before the Rebels, now the soldiers of the New Galactic Republic.
Luke Skywalker is rather busy, being the last surviving Jedi, who is now instructing his sister in the ways of that ancient practice. Leia Organa Solo is a stateswoman, a Jedi apprentice, and an expectant mother of twins. Han Solo uses his smuggling background to negotiate with shady underground figures. Lando Calrissian has become even wealthier through investing in mining.
Considering that the oppressive Empire was only toppled half a decade ago, things are going pretty well for the New Republic. But it's a big galaxy, which means the war isn't quite over yet. In the far reaches, there are disturbances. And closer to home, there's a group of scary aliens stalking the Skywalker-Solo family from planet to planet...
Under the Republic's radar flies Grand Admiral Thrawn, the last Imperial leader, with a master-plan to reforge the Empire...
Lurking on a backwater planet is Joruus C'baoth, a deranged Jedi with a convoluted past and some sort of evil plan involving the Dark Side of the Force...
In the middle lies Talon Karrde, a smuggler just out for his own benefit, and his employee, a haunted young woman named Mara Jade, whose secret vendetta is gnawing away at her soul...
Content Advisory Violence: It's implied that the Noghri kill their prey in gruesome ways, although we are given no description of their killing methods and only a vague idea what their victims look like afterwards. Luke and Mara kill a few predatory beasts. Some spaceships blow up, as you would expect. There is no gore.
Sex: It's implied that the Emperor had a harem, and Mara might have been among their number before being promoted to assassin. One shudders imagining what she might have endured. Thank God Zahn doesnt give us any details. Lando thinks he might have met her once, which is a bit suggestive, knowing Lando.
Language: Nothing, not even of the "made-up words" variety. You know all the goofy gibberish in the Disney EU that's supposed to be swearing? That's not really a thing in this book. Which I appreciated, because a character who repeats "oh, kriff" every three sentences winds up sounding like a moron.
Substance Abuse: Nothing.
Politics and Religion: Just the usual about the Force, which is so vague I can't imagine it offending anyone.
Nightmare Fuel: A character gets stuck alone in deep space, which goes on for two nail-biting chapters. Also Thrawn and the Noghri are kind of creepy-looking.
Conclusions Heir to the Empire is a gem among media tie-in books. It's true to the characters and setting, smoothly adds new material, and proceeds in a logical way from where we left the story.
Obviously, a story about a happy galaxy with no evil or danger left in it would be dreadfully dull. But the Disney sequels, by simply relaunching the Empire under a new name, made Return of the Jedi seem a bit pointless in retrospect. (view spoiler)[ (This was compounded in Rise of Skywalker, since the head honchos in their creative bankruptcy brought Emperor Palpatine back from the dead, without even explaining how. I do not like any of the choices made in that movie. Even the redemption of Ben Solo and his romance with Rey were handled horribly). (hide spoiler)] And I really liked The Force Awakens!
Zahn's idea was the best way forward. He acknowledges that a galaxy is a big place, and it would be hard to depose every member of the old regime at once. He preserves the momentum of the characters from the films, without repeating their arcs or regressing their development. And he gives them a villain to fight who is menacing and mysterious without being anything like either Vader or the Emperor.
I am a big fan of Grand Admiral Thrawn. He's not really evil, so much as a grimly effective man in honorable service to an evil cause. He wants to take over the world but doesn't seem to desire power for its own sake, only to restore the order he feels was lost. He's always ten steps ahead of every other character - in fact, he is the only character in any Star Wars media I'm familiar with who could truly be called smart.
I loved Thrawn's theory that a culture's art tells you the strengths and weaknesses of that culture, and therefore what might be the best route to allying with or conquering them. Throughout everything that happens he stays cool as a cucumber. I really enjoyed the many scenes where he explains his reasoning to the befuddled Pellaeon. Their dynamic reminds me of both Holmes and Watson, and Captain Hook and Mr. Smee.
Joruus C'baoth is more of the standard power-mad, demented villain that I was expecting going in. I'm very glad he was not the main villain, but he's fine as both the foil and pawn of Thrawn. How a crazed Dark Jedi clone who wants to enslave the Skywalkers fits into Thrawn's master plan, I have no idea, but I can't wait to find out. That clones usually wind up losing their minds was a fascinating worldbuilding tidbit that I wish the films could have worked in somehow.
Karrde's all right - pretty much your standard amoral black marketeer who's out for his own gain. It will be interesting to see where his arc takes him, because he was having faint stirrings of integrity at the end of this book.
Mara Jade is what Celaena from Throne of Glass should have been: a gifted, troubled young woman, broken and bitter beyond her years by the abuse she's endured and the guilt from her own crimes. She is, at the moment, evil - but redeemable. She and Luke play off each other really well, and the chemistry between them is palpable. As for Luke, he turns into Gilbert Blythe with a lightsaber when Mara walks into the room. Pretty much every conversation they had went like this:
MARA: I'm going to kill you eventually. I can't wait. LUKE: Why? I've never met you. Why do you hate me so much? MARA: Ugh! You know why. LUKE: Well, if you ever get bored of hating me, I'd happily be friends with you. Thanks for saving my X-wing, by the way! MARA: Ugh, insufferable man.
Luke's adventures in this story are varied and exciting. He faces some major challenges in this story. There were even parts where I was really worried about him. Han and Leia are often in danger, too, but as expectant parents they've got a lot more plot armor. (This was written before shock value deaths became the norm). Leia, particularly, uncovers something rather fascinating about her father that I hope gets expanded upon in the rest of the trilogy.
The non-human film characters - C3PO, R2D2, and Chewbacca - are all utilized well. Just like in the original movies, they are a lot more than appliances or pets. They are actually characters rather than props.
My only gripe with this book is the pacing. Most of the chapters are long, and space battles can get rather monotonous without the visuals and music. It seemingly takes forever for Luke to fall into the hands of Karrde and Mara. The book ends with the other main characters only just finding out that a Grand Admiral Thrawn is behind their problems.
I can see why Disney decided to scrap the EU when they bought Lucasfilm. It would have been very difficult to incorporate hundreds of books, comics and games into a narrative that casual moviegoers could still follow. And adapting this specific novel and its two sequels would probably not have worked, given that the original cast were several decades older and recasting them probably wouldn't go over well (I think that that had more to do with the box-office failure of Solo than either Disney or the fans are willing to admit).
But I don't understand why they had to scrap the whole post-Return of the Jedi canon. I don't see how the existence of Thrawn or Mara Jade would mess up the plot of The Force Awakens. (Certainly no worse than the subsequent movies did!). I think most viewers could accept that other threats had arisen in the thirty years between films, and that (view spoiler)[Luke had married a woman named Mara Jade, who had once served the Dark Side. Heck, Disney could have used Luke and Mara's relationship as foreshadowing and precedent for the similar attraction between Kylo and Rey. (hide spoiler)]
Unlike either the prequel trilogy films or the sequel trilogy films, Heir to the Empire is consistently true to the characterizations, worldbuilding and feel of the original three Star Wars films. It's well-written, intriguing, sometimes poignant, and just fun to read. I can't wait to see where this story goes. ...more
Torn picks up right where Switched left off. Wendy Everly has just found out that she is the heir to the throne of Förening, a Trylle (troll) enclave Torn picks up right where Switched left off. Wendy Everly has just found out that she is the heir to the throne of Förening, a Trylle (troll) enclave in Minnesota, hidden from human eyes unless those humans are taken there, or invited in.
Angry with her mother, cold Queen Elora, for imposing tough restrictions on her—including driving away Finn, her bodyguard/boyfriend of a few days—Wendy runs away, as seventeen-year-olds often do. She brings along Rhys, the human boy with whom she was switched at birth. She convinces herself that her main goal in this endeavor is to introduce her adopted brother, Matt, to Rhys, his long-lost biological sibling. But getting away from her mom and the stifling rules of the Trylle Court is definitely part of it.
The three kids have scarcely met up when they are kidnapped by the Vittra, a rival nation of trolls. Oren, king of the Vittra, cares nothing for the two human boys in his dungeon, but has a particular interest in Wendy. (view spoiler)[He is the ex-husband of Elora and Wendy’s father (hide spoiler)].
Much as Wendy dislikes her mom and Trylle society, she finds them marginally more palatable than (view spoiler)[her apparent father and his minions (hide spoiler)], and she has no intention of cooperating with him. She does, however, find a motherly/big sister figure in Sara, Oren’s much younger, kinder wife. And she feels a peculiar connection with Loki, an irrepressible Vittra tracker/guard who treats her well while Oren holds her and her adoptive brothers prisoner.
Soon Finn and his colleague Duncan arrive to rescue the three captives, and they successfully escape, helped by Loki for unclear reasons…
Back in Förening, Tove, the Trylle boy with the great psychokinetic powers, resumes training Wendy in her own power of Jedi mind tricks persuasion. She accidentally causes a lot of minor damage through sloppy use of persuasion and sees the necessity of fine-tuning her talent.
Meanwhile, Finn continues to be cold and distant, which frustrates Wendy to no end. Doesn’t he remember all their stolen kisses and fervent glances? He says he does, but Duty Comes First. He can’t risk messing up Elora’s plans for the future of the royal line. Thus, he refuses to be more than civil to Wendy, even though it tortures her.
Back in Vittra-land, Oren is pretty annoyed that his powerful daughter escaped, and Loki contrives to go after her alone. He claims that he’ll convince her to return to her father’s palace, but what is this rascal really after?
Content Advisory Violence: A lot of punching and kicking and combatants flying through windows. Little blood shown. Pretty much the same as the last time around.
Sex: The raciest material in here is Wendy’s occasional recollection of her makeout session with Finn towards the end of the previous book. They start snogging again at the very end of this installment, but are interrupted by his father. Wendy and Rhys stumble on (view spoiler)[Matt and Willa canoodling on a bed; the two older kids are quite embarrassed to be caught in this situation.
Wendy also gets kissed by Loki, who feels that the two of them are bound by destiny. He wants her to run away with him, but she refuses, confused by all the sudden changes in her life (hide spoiler)].
The Chancellor continues to be an old perv who thinks creepy thoughts about Wendy and various other women young enough to be his granddaughter, much to the disgust of Tove, who can hear his thoughts.
Language: One or two uses of “sh**” and some minor cuss words. No F-bombs this time.
Substance Abuse: Everybody lightly imbibes champagne at Trylle festivities. Rhys and Wendy are too young to legally drink, but they are under adult supervision on these occasions, so I’m not sure if it’s all that problematic.
Nightmare Fuel: The hobgoblins are kind of gross and ugly, although nothing we haven’t already seen in Labyrinth or the Spiderwick Chronicles. What makes them nightmare fuel is the fact that two human-looking Vittra can conceive such a monstrosity.
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Conclusions The Trylle trilogy has a goofy-sounding title, and the books themselves have so far been, well, goofy. That said, this series is a lot more pleasant than other examples of paranormal YA from the same era.
Why is this so? Because the melodrama in this is a lot less intense than many of its contemporaries. It’s not constantly squawking about the end of the world (which never arrives, because sequels and money) like the Maximum Ride series. It’s not swollen and baroque and using every fantasy creature but the kitchen sink, like the Mortal Instruments.
And while there remains some definite overlap with Twilight, the “love triangle” here isn’t all that much of a love triangle.
Finn’s feelings for Wendy are really just hormones, and he can easily cut himself off from her without any visible pain. Loki, meanwhile, is earnest and full of hope. He likes her not just for her looks, but for some strange affinity he senses between the two of them. He’s a sap, but he’s sincere enough to sell it.
I actually like Loki. Unlike Finn, he has an actual personality—snarky, flirtatious, kind of stupid but surprisingly brave, in case you were wondering—and his chemistry with Wendy doesn’t feel nearly as forced. During book one, I found Finn tolerable but boring. When Loki showed up, I wondered if Finn was necessary for the story at all. He almost disappears about halfway through this book and only flares up again at the end.
Wendy's still an idiot. She hasn't listened to the Beatles in years and doesn't like chocolate, all of which makes me seriously question her sanity. But by the end of this book, she has decided to put her angst on hold and go through with something uncomfortable to help out her future queendom. Good job, Wendy.
The young supporting cast—Matt, Willa, Tove, Rhys, and even Duncan—are all actually rather likeable.
Queen Elora turned out to be a more complex, interesting, and empathetic character once her backstory is told.
Oren so far is a pretty one-dimensional villain, but I thought Elora was one-dimensional in Switched, so he too might improve upon closer acquaintance.
Some people have made fun of the world of this series, populated as it is with beautiful trolls. But there is actual precedent for that in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. Some of their trolls were monstrous and brutish, like the three who harass Thorin & Co. in The Hobbit, but others were humanoid and fair and crafty like the folk in these stories.
For a much better YA treatment of these creatures, see East by Edith Pattou.
So far, the Trylle series is definitely silly, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s fast-paced and enjoyable over all. I’m curious to see how it all ends. ...more
The adventures of the very first Christians continue in the second book of T. Davis Bunn and Janette Oke's Acts of Faith trilogy.
Alban and Leah, the The adventures of the very first Christians continue in the second book of T. Davis Bunn and Janette Oke's Acts of Faith trilogy.
Alban and Leah, the titular centurion and wife from the previous installment, have fled Jerusalem and the wrath of both Pilate and Herod. But the action remains in the holy city, witnessed by Leah's best friend Abigail, Alban's army buddy Linux, and Ezra, a Pharisee whose generalized contempt for the nascent Church is about to get really personal.
Abigail is a cheery lass with a servant's heart, and considered a great beauty despite a slight limp (which would have discouraged most suitors in those days). All she wants to do is spread the Gospel and take care of her younger brother, Jacob, now a strapping and sulky teenager whose only interest in life is joining the Roman legionnaires. But Abigail, without being particularly aware of either man's existence, attracts both the lust of the bitter Ezra, and the earnest passion of hot-blooded Linux. Once she becomes aware of the intentions of the two rivals, she quickly dismisses the possibility of marrying the old Pharisee, but the handsome Roman with the piercing gaze spooks her on a level she does not yet understand.
Things are going to get better, but they're going to get very silly first.
In a good classic romance - in the tradition of L.M. Montgomery, etc. - the young lady who does not wish to marry would accordingly be left alone, and perhaps reevaluate when the better of the two suitors steps forward at the crisis point and proves himself a hero. Meanwhile we could get character development and other goodies.
But no, someone has to step in because Abigail cannot be allowed to make her own decisions. And by "someone" I mean Simon Peter, The Big Fisherman himself. You'd think he'd have better things to do with his time, being the head of the Church appointed by Christ Himself and all that, and you would be right.
Especially since the early Christians weren't big on arranging marriages. They believed that Jesus was liable to return and establish the Kingdom in Earth literally any day now, which would entail a certain amount of temporary chaos. "When you see The disastrous abomination set up where it ought not to be..." He had told them before His execution, "those in Judaea must escape to the mountains; if a man is on the housetop, he must not...go into the house to collect any of his belongings; if a man is in the fields, he must not turn back to fetch his cloak. Alas for those with child, or with babies at the breast, when those days come!" (Mark 13:14-18). Not a good environment to start a family in; in fact Jesus seems to be strongly encouraging His listeners not to do so.
In fact, perusing the stories of the ancient martyrs, it appears that many young women joined the Christians partly to escape arranged marriages.
So if Peter were to step in at all, it would be to tell both Ezra and Linux to kindly back off. But nope, he decides for Abigail that she should marry neither of them, but instead an outspoken young believer named Stephen. As if on cue, Abigail abandons her plan to be a consecrated virgin and starts swooning over Stephen because he's so godly and non-problematic. Unlike Linux, who makes her stomach feel weird and might have cooties.
The real St. Stephen was 100% consumed with zeal for evangelization and probably had even less interest in marriage than his fellow Way followers. He could have been married before his conversion, but after? Yeah, not likely. Assuming that this far-fetched thing would happen, he and his wife would probably wind up living as siblings, marriage unconsummated. In fact, that's what I thought happened, until (view spoiler)[Abigail reveals at the end that she's pregnant. What happened to "Alas for those with child" ? (hide spoiler)]
While all this anachronistic nonsense goes down in the Christian neighborhood, Linux's army assignments send him across the province. He's in a fine temper, having found out that Abigail has been married off to someone else, and he's also grappling with the drastic changes in his old friend Alban. We get some good character development from him, as he confronts his anger against the world and eventually decides to follow Jesus.
Then Linux returns to Jerusalem and asks Peter to catechize him. Who does Peter assign this task to but Stephen, because that's not rubbing salt in Linux's sounds at all. Seriously, why would you do this?!? You want to make converts, not drive them away! And Linux, being a much better human being than any of the other characters give him credit for, actually comes to admire Stephen, despite this universe's Stephen being kind of smarmy.
The other Scriptural saints don't fare much better. Peter is largely bereft of personality, and as previously discussed, most of his actions are far out of character and unlikely in historical context. Mary Magdalene has vanished from the story. Mary, Mother of Jesus, and John the Beloved aren't even mentioned. Saul of Tarsus is a generic menace who only appears in a few scenes despite being responsible for the most important event in the story.
The one exception is Martha of Bethany, here portrayed as a Marilla Cuthbert-like character who keeps the congregation alive, being the only person who remembers that they still need to eat.The authors seem genuinely fond of her, and it was nice to see this unglamorous Biblical figure get some attention for once.
Unfortunately, the most pivotal events in the book - the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, the gladiator combat witnessed by Jacob, and the martyrdom of Stephen - are left entirely on-screen (off-page?). The scenes don't need to be gory, although the graphic portrayal of Stephen's death in Taylor Caldwell's Great Lion of God left an indelible mark on my imagination. But there's really no good reason to exclude them from the novel.
Congratulations, Colin Meloy, for producing a second installment that was noticeably better than the first!
A few months after Prue McKeel and Curtis MCongratulations, Colin Meloy, for producing a second installment that was noticeably better than the first!
A few months after Prue McKeel and Curtis Mehlberg entered the Impassible Wilderness to rescue Prue’s baby brother from an evil sorceress, life has returned to mostly normal for the McKeel family, although Prue is struggling in school and her parents don’t know why. The Mehlbergs have had no such luck. Curtis is still missing, and the parents are so desperate to find him that they flew to Turkey, leaving their two daughters, Rachel and Elsie, at the decidedly creepy Unthank Home for Wayward Youth.
Meanwhile Curtis has been happily training as a bandit in the Wildwood, almost never remembering his parents and sisters. The mad Dowager Governess was defeated (although we all know the drill with fantasy “deaths” without a body to show for it) leaving chaos in the wood. Warring factions have sprung up and no one seems to know who the leader should be. Iphigenia, Chief Mystic and priestess of the Great Tree, insists that Prue needs to come back if the Wood should be saved. The girl’s destiny has not yet run its course.
Back in Portland, Prue confides in a concerned new teacher, Ms. Thennis. Prue suspects the Wood is calling her back, but what’s wrong now?
Content Advisory Violence: Like the first book—not much, but what’s there is startlingly bloody for a middle-grade book. We see a shape-shifter get stabbed, and her shape changes from her human to animal form as it dies. Assassins are sent after children, and while they are unsuccessful, that’s not for lack of effort or menace on their part. Joffrey Unthank forces children to labor in his factory, and some have been maimed or terribly injured in said factory. Some rebellious kids burn down a building.
Sex: Prue notices that Curtis’ shoulders are starting to broaden. That’s it.
Language: None.
Substance Abuse: None.
Nightmare Fuel: The aforementioned shape-shifter is described in a frightening way, and one of the illustrations portraying her in mid-morph gave me the willies. That said, it’s a lot less scary than the first book. Know your kids. Kids, know yourselves.
Miscellaneous: There’s a villainous Ukrainian character who speaks in a stereotypical accent and generally acts like an evil agent from the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon. She’s not super offensive, but she still comes off as a product of accidental xenophobia.
Conclusions The first volume in the Wildwood series, simply entitled Wildwood, really rubbed me the wrong way for a variety of reasons. The characters were hard to empathize with, the story took too long to get where it was going, and the whole thing was so hipster it had never heard of itself. Not to mention that the narrator’s fondness for obscure vocabulary words made it hard to picture what was happening at some points.
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However, the book had a lot of potential. It stole from the best—C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett, Jim Henson, and a wee dash of J.R.R. Tolkien at the end—while bringing its own Old Americana aesthetic and an agreeably spooky mood. The illustrations by Carson Ellis (who happens to be Meloy’s wife and album-cover artist) were charming pieces of folk art. The first book dashed my hopes, but for some reason the second one called to me. And while not the greatest general-audience fantasy novel ever written, it’s actually quite agreeable.
The addition of Joffrey Unthank and his orphanage/factory is straight outta Lemony Snicket, which both is and isn’t an improvement on the first book. It’s an improvement because a lot of the weirder “real world” parts make sense if the “real world” in this universe is a Snicketesque realm of absurdism. Yet it’s also a step back because there was no indication in book one that this world was like that. It’s a good ret-con, but still a ret-con. And even in such a surreal place, Mom and Dad Mehlberg leaving their two remaining children in such a place while they go to search for their son doesn’t jive with what little we know about them. Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire wound up in situations this bad and worse, but their parents were dead. Big difference.
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On a related note, the almost bloodless battle between the kids and the Industrial Titans’ goons was underwhelming after the spectacle at the Plinth in the first book, wherein people actually died and there were fantastical creatures. This one felt a little too much like the end of a '90s family comedy. It just did not go with the tone of the previous book, or this one up until that point.
As for the Titans themselves, Big Business being the villain has become cliché, but it usually doesn’t share antagonist duties with faceless magical forces, so watching the heroes battle both in Wildwood Imperium should actually be interesting.
The hipster milieu from the first book has also been greatly toned down. It has receded to the background, where it’s just fine. Prue and Curtis no longer try to wriggle out of their destined duties, and they certainly aren’t ranting anymore about emotional support while everyone else is marching off to die. They have figured out that pacifism is a good policy in Portland, but will not save you from an evil sorceress or a shape-shifting assassin. When one lives in two different worlds, one can accommodate two different worldviews.
Also no more posturing about expensive jeans or coffee. They were actually believable twelve-year-olds this time around. And Curtis got called out for being selfish and oblivious—by Prue, by the narrator, and by his own conscience. Character development. It’s a good thing.
Rachel and Elsie, Curtis’ sisters, are not terribly unique—Rachel is a typical sulky goth teen, Elsie is a typical bright-eyed little girl who brings her doll everywhere—but they were believable and likeable enough. They reminded me of both Susan and Lucy Pevensie from Narnia, and Wirt and Greg from Over the Garden Wall. Both very nice sets of sibling characters to be reminded of.
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The most interesting new addition to the ensemble hasn’t even shown up yet. Remember Alexei, son of Alexandra? When he died, she went mad with grief and forced two Daedalus-like geniuses to rebuild him as an automaton, only for Alexei to figure out what he really was and destroy himself. Well, Prue has been told by the Great Tree that her task is to revive Alexei somehow, that only this can save the Wood.
Some reviewers think this refers to an act of dark magic, and while it might, I can see another possibility: Prue must descend into this universe’s Land of the Dead, find Alexei, and help him “return to the Sunlit Lands” (h/t The Silver Chair). I really hope this is what Meloy means: the descent and return of figures like Persephone, Dionysus, Orpheus and Psyche are some of the most potent stories in all of mythology.
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All told, this was a decent book, much better than I expected one in this series to be, and my curiosity is piqued for the third and final installment....more
Jane Bell is a young widow running the family inn of her late husband, John. Brought up as a gentlewoman, Jane was not raised to work, and struggles wJane Bell is a young widow running the family inn of her late husband, John. Brought up as a gentlewoman, Jane was not raised to work, and struggles with maintaining a business. She gets help from her farrier, Gabriel Locke, but little to none from her brother-in-law Patrick. And Jane is beginning to learn that John was keeping secrets from her, financial and maybe worse.
As if Jane weren’t stressed out enough, she has to make room for her uptight, disapproving mother-in-law, Thora. Thora’s presence is not entirely unwelcome—she knows this inn better than anyone. But Thora only cares about the establishment. She never liked Jane, and the younger woman suspects that the elder Mrs. Bell wants her to fail.
There’s also a hotelier named Mr. James Drake, who just bought Jane’s childhood home and plans to rehabilitate it as a coaching inn to rival hers. But while he’s set up a competition between himself and Jane, James doesn’t want to be enemies…
Julie Klassen weaves an intricate web of friendships and courtships forged and sundered and sometimes healed in this novel, the first in a series. The characters and their relationships are very well-developed. Even though Thora garners two suitors and Jane gets three, everyone is so low-key and subtle and English about it that the story never feels like a soap opera.
No content advisory included because none is needed. YA and middle-grade readers might find the subject matter dull, but there’s nothing in here that would be inappropriate for them to read.
The Christian element of the novel is very discrete and well-integrated; the characters act consistently like Anglicans from Regency England. While marketed as Christian fiction, I can see non-Christian readers who enjoy the Regency genre enjoying it thoroughly.
There is an adorable, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bonus for Jane Austen fans in the last few chapters. Nothing shall induce me to give it away.
Are you looking for a cozy historical fiction free of violence, sex, and melodrama? Are you a fan of Cranford, Downton Abbey or Lark Rise to Candleford? Then I warmly recommend The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill. ...more
The remnants of the Empire have reforged as the First Order, led by a mysterious power known as Snoke. The Rebels, now branded the Resistance, attemptThe remnants of the Empire have reforged as the First Order, led by a mysterious power known as Snoke. The Rebels, now branded the Resistance, attempt to protect the nascent New Republic. They are led by Leia Organa Solo, who's searching for her brother, Luke Skywalker, last of the Jedi, who vanished years ago. He left a map behind—most of it has been archived in the Empire’s library, but the last part is within a Resistance droid. This droid—a brave little snowman-shaped specimen named BB-8—is hunted by the First Order. Protecting him, the Resistance pilot Poe Demaron is captured by Kylo Ren, a First Order commander who hides himself under a silver-striped helmet and a black cloak.
BB-8 escapes into the sandy wastes of Jakku, a giant junkyard with a mysterious ability to suppress the Force. Eventually he runs into Rey, an orphan girl who ekes out a meager living by salvaging working parts from wrecked spacecraft. Rey acts tough, but has a gentle heart, and takes the droid in.
Meanwhile, a young Stormtrooper is traumatized by his first battle and shakes off his conditioning. He frees Poe and they escape, after antagonizing their enemy like the crazy boys they are. Poe gives his new chum, coded FN-2187, the name Finn. But they were piloting separate crafts, and when they crash far apart on Jakku each young man assumes his new friend dead.
Finn stumbles around the desert until he reaches the outpost where Rey lives, and she begrudgingly accepts him as an ally—and after a few scrapes, a friend. They flee Jakku when the First Order bombs the outpost, in a lemon lying around the junkyard that turns out to be the Millennium Falcon. It should surprise no one that, having had his ship stolen from him, Han Solo has been tracking it down for some time, and Chewbacca is there with him. They quickly learn that Finn, Rey, and BB-8 are on their side.
They land on the sylvan planet Takodana so Han can consult the old pirate Maz Kanata, who serves all manner of rogues in the dining hall of her lakeside castle. Han and Finn are both scheming how to weasel out of joining the Resistance—Han and Leia are still technically married but haven’t spoken in years—and while Maz chides the men for their cowardice, Rey (accompanied by her loyal little droid) follows a mysterious noise into the castle’s basement.
Here she discovers a relic—a lightsaber—and has a terrifying vision. Some of these scenes already happened; others are “the shadows of things that will be or might be” (hat tip to A Christmas Carol). In many she’s being stalked by an aggressive being in a black cloak and mask, wielding a giant red lightsaber. Maz finds her crying and tries to explain, but Rey flees rashly into the forest, BB-8 at her heels.
On a cold and sterile planet called Starkiller Base, the First Order nukes an entire solar system to send the Resistance a message. Kylo Ren does not participate, and it’s implied he’s disgusted by this genocide.
Having traced the droid to Takodana, the First Order start bombing the castle. Kylo enters the woods, ostensibly looking for BB-8 but really pursuing Rey. He calls off the search for the droid and carries the girl away in his arms instead. The Resistance show up; Han and Leia struggle to face each other. We learn that what drove them apart was the loss of their son to the Dark Side…and that son, Ben, goes by Kylo Ren now.
While the Resistance debates how to take out Starkiller Base before its weapon of mass destruction can be aimed at them, Rey wakes up on the former planet, with her abductor watching her. He removes his helmet for her, revealing himself to be a human (and striking) youth. He uses his telepathy, ostensibly to scry the map, but gets sidetracked by her unhappy memories and she is able to reverse the probe and break into his head. He blurts out her most painful secret and she responds in kind. He is summoned by Snoke and takes his leave. They are thoroughly confused by each other.
Finn convinces the Resistance that he can disable the shields around Starkiller, and Han and Chewy go with him. A battle ensues in space and on the snowy planet, and all might have ended well—but Leia charged Han with bringing Ben home. Father and son meet on a bridge within the First Order fortress. Han tells the young man to drop his Dark Side pretensions and return. Kylo is unhinged, begging for help—and then skewers his father with the red saber, slaughter of one’s parents being a requirement for First Order officials. Chewy shoots him. Rey and Finn witness the monstrous crime, and Ren pursues them into the snowy forest outside.
He fights Finn and leaves him for dead, but his demeanor changes markedly when up against Rey. He is so unguarded with her that she’s able to defeat him, untrained though she is. Snoke breaks into her head and tells her to kill Kylo, but she restrains herself. Chewy takes her and Finn aboard the Falcon; Stormtroopers rescue Kylo; the planet collapses.
Finn is comatose and hospitalized. The Resistance now has the whole map to Luke, and Leia sends Rey and Chewy to find her brother. The film and the novel end with the girl offering the grizzled hermit-hero his old weapon.
This novelization reminds me of A.C.H. Smith’s one of Labyrinth, which is interesting given some thematic similarities between the films themselves (both Lucasfilm productions). Both spend way too much time on the silliest parts of their respective movies (exploding spaceships, self-dismembering firebirds) and leaving the most interesting parts (the Hades and Persephone plots and fraught family relationships in both) undercooked.
These authors barely describe their dramatis personae when they have actual actors with faces to study. Foster isn’t even necessarily accurate (at one point he mentions Rey’s “dark brown eyes” which Daisy Ridley does not have). He's sure to tell us that Poe is handsome—pointing out that Oscar Isaac is handsome is like pointing out that water is wet—but leaves Kylo almost blank. The Victorian writers would have fought each other for the chance to describe Adam Driver. Look at what I was able to scribble out:
[image]
Poe: Lor San Tekka gave Poe a fatherly smile; the young pilot’s wit and confidence reminded the elder of his long-ago friend, Han Solo. Dameron was petite but well-built. His handsome face with its chiseled, black-stubbled jaw was framed in dark waves of hair; his eyes under their thick black brows were also dark, and fiery. One knew after meeting that gaze that the young man’s snark and bravado was a façade for his single-minded devotion to his cause. [image] Finn (John Boyega): Poe was surprised when his rescuer removed his helmet. He had never really given any thought to what the enemy might look like under their armor, and was taken a bit aback by the kindness and sincerity of the very human face that appeared. The man was about ten years younger than himself, with deep brown skin and black hair cropped right next to his scalp. He had dark brown eyes, at the moment wide with adrenaline and absolute terror. Below those emotions Poe sensed the same fire for justice that helped him wake up every morning. This young man, braving the wrath of the whole First Order, was a kindred spirit. [image] Rey: Finn hadn’t exactly met a lot of girls, and he was immediately drawn to this one despite her quick-moving staff. She was only a little smaller than him, wearing the grey drab clothes of the desert folk. Her brown hair was bound and her hazel eyes bored into him with suspicion, but no malice. He felt rather pathetic splayed on the sandy ground looking up at her. [image] Kylo was almost certain that this was the girl he had seen in his visions. She was tiny, with a pleasant figure draped in the pleated, trailing off-white clothes of a desert-planet dweller. He paced around her, studying the clean lines of her pretty face; the large, long-lashed hazel eyes staring at him with fear and loathing; the full lips hanging open as she gasped for breath; the constellations of freckles across her nose and flushed cheeks. Her brown hair was bound tightly behind her head in three buns stacked atop each other. It was a childish style: he had the sudden urge to gently Force-pluck her hairbands and let her mane fall across her shoulders. [image] Kylo/Ben: Her captor removed its helmet, almost as if it had been hoping she would mention it, and rose to its—his—full, imposing height. She had been expecting some sort of monster, and was shocked to see a man between twenty-five and thirty years old staring back at her. His face was long, with full lips for a male and a nose too large for conventional beauty, pale, framed in shoulder-length waves of glossy jet-black hair like a starless night sky. He had large brown eyes, which glittered at her with unnerving intensity. No one had ever gazed at her like that, and she wriggled, nervous. He was either the ugliest or the handsomest man she had ever seen, and she felt stupid for noticing or caring…
“Don’t you know I can take whatever I want?” he asked in that low, deceptively kind voice, and he came so close that she could smell peppermint leaves on his breath. At this range she could see that his eyes were actually hazel like hers, but his erred more to brown while hers erred more to green, and his lashes were long and thick and dark like a girl’s. His pale face was spotted with sporadic moles, and the sculpted mouth hung open slightly as if he were thirsty. He leaned his head close to hers—she felt a minor headache that she supposed was him entering her mind, and at the same time she felt him breathing on her ear. If the planet below broke open and swallowed her, she would not complain. [image] Finn had never seen Ren unmasked, and under different circumstances he might have chuckled. The horse-like features, almost demonically twisted in rage, did not mesh with the terrifying persona.
If my scribbles sound like they’re foreshadowing a romance between Kylo/Ben and Rey, that’s because they are, because that’s what the movie did. Unfortunately, the novelization is muddled about which young man our heroine will wind up with and tries to lamely set up for all three possibilities. Her feelings for Finn are clearly sisterly in the movie, but here she seems to have a bit of a crush on him. In the book, she shares an awkward celebratory hug with Poe; in the film, they never even interact. But the impression I got from the film was that Finn has a puppy crush on Rey, Poe might be vaguely aware of her existence, and Kylo is hopelessly infatuated with her. Foster tries to downplay that last connection, dismissing Kylo as “ordinary-looking” and making him sound much snootier than he comes across in the film.
My other major complaint is the minimization of the two duels on Starkiller Base. The Kylo vs. Finn fight takes about five sentences, and the climactic chase/fight between Kylo and Rey is tucked away in two lousy paragraphs. That second scene is nothing like the average bad guy vs. good guy fight, and very much like every deadly/amorous sylvan chase in Metamorphoses, and if I were Foster I would've made it the biggest moment in the book. You know, like it is in the actual movie.
I was also baffled by the indifferent reaction Rey had to hearing a foreign, sinister voice in her head. She never thought about it after it happened, when such a troubling incident should definitely weigh upon her mind.
There’s interesting details in here, and it definitely helped me with the Kylo Ren vs. Edmund Pevensie meta I’m currently writing, but unless you too are writing a Star Wars meta—or just a mega fan of the franchise—there’s probably not much here to hold your interest. I was confused by Foster’s fascination with the shallow parts of the movie—the parts that don’t translate well in book form—and indifference to the pathos, and the most significant relationship in the story.
Supposedly the junior novelization is better. It’s also half the length, which in cases like this is often a good thing....more
Remember when authors talked about landscapes, and you could tell that they might have actually stepped outside once or twice in their lives?
Remember Remember when authors talked about landscapes, and you could tell that they might have actually stepped outside once or twice in their lives?
Remember when the male lead and the female lead in a YA book were allowed to develop a strong friendship and partnership, and any romance was left for the later books in the series?
Remember when male characters admired the beauty of female characters but didn’t act like pigs about it?
Remember when not every YA novel featured a love triangle?
I remember two series from the last decade that were really popular among my elementary and middle school friends that could be described as Star Wars in Middle-earth. One was Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle. The plot of its first novel, Eragon, was traced over from Episode IV, while book two, Eldest, was more interested in dwarf mythology, scantily-clad Elvish women, and narcissistic descriptions of the author’s self-insert character getting progressively hunkier and more magical. For over nine hundred pages. I want to give that series a snarky re-read soon, but that’s a story for another time.
If the Inheritance Cycle were a person, it would be a stereotypical nerd boy who likes dragons, mistrusts women, and is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. And if the Books of Pellinor were a person, they would be the IC guy’s reserved, introspective, gloomy yet idealistic twin sister. Of the two, I would much rather be friends with her than him.
In a vast land, studded with peaceful cities amid desolate and ruined stretches like stars and the darkness between them, there’s a petty walled village near the base of the mountains. Thane Gilman is a tyrant in his tiny domain. The servants and slaves are afraid to make a run for it, because Gilman keeps fierce hunting dogs and the mountains beyond are full of evil entities and bloodthirsty beasts.
One of these slaves is a young girl named Maerad, a dairymaid who also entertains the Thane and his friends by playing upon her lyre. Maerad’s mother died when she was little, and the other slaves are hostile to her, believing her to be a witch. She has no support network and no hope of escape.
Her luck changes when a strange man from distant parts enters the cow-byre, and she is the only person who can see him. His name is Cadvan, and he is one of the Bards, a group of wise and (ideally) benevolent mages whom Maerad had always believed were myths. But it turns out (su-prise, su-prise, su-prise) that Maerad’s bursts of “witchery” mark her as a Bard, too.
Cadvan’s path will take him across a dangerous landscape, and now he knows he’s morally obligated to take the girl with him. They will learn that a dark power, once thought vanquished, is rising again (no way!) and that corruption has reached the highest ranks of the Bards themselves.
Content Advisory
Violence: Cadvan and Maerad are frequently attacked, and sometimes seriously wounded, by supernatural beings, Bards, humans, animals, and monsters. They come across a slaughtered family in a wasteland that includes a baby. Some evil creatures order a child to murder his friend, and when he refuses they kill the second kid anyway. A traitorous Bard sets a harbor and most of its ships on fire. Maerad has scattered, disturbing flashbacks, about the sack of her home before she became a slave; a little girl of about five years, she saw her father beheaded, her mother sapped of her powers, and her home burned. As a slave, Maerad is frequently beaten, and her fellow slaves once tried to drown her in the duck pond.
Sex: Shortly before the story begins, a male slave jumped Maerad while she slept and tried to force himself on her. He did not get far in his attempted rape before she snarled a word of power at him that sent him flying and blinded him for three weeks. She remembers this incident and panics after a nice young man named Dernhil gets a bit too excited and kisses her. She panics, he apologizes, and they part as friends.
Once they get to a hospitable place and are given baths and clean clothes, both Cadvan and Maerad are struck a bit shy, because they never noticed how good-looking the other one was before. This is not sexual content per se, but I’m not sure where else to put it: Maerad’s menarche has been delayed by poor nutrition, and it hits her unexpectedly. Poor Cadvan is the first to see her after this, and gets almost as panicked as she does. Croggon brings it up three or four more times for no apparent reason.
Language: Nil.
Substance Abuse: There’s a lot of wine at feasts, but no one ever gets drunk.
Anything Else: In Croggon’s “historical notes” at the back of the book, she takes strange pains to clarify that, despite their talk of Light and Dark and Good and Evil, the Bards did not follow any “monotheistic notions” of a personal God. This was fairly obvious from the way Light and Dark are discussed in the book—much closer to the abstractions of Star Wars than the more Biblical Creation-mythology of Tolkien. So I wondered why Croggon had to phrase it like that. It sounded rather disdainful of the Abrahamic faiths, and I thought that was unnecessary. However, one can easily skip the appendices without missing anything interesting.
Conclusion
The Naming is an odd, hard-to-classify book. Contrasted with other, similar Aussie YA high fantasies from the same general era, it’s much less inventive than Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series, has almost no whimsy or romance compared to Juliet Marillier’s Shadowfell, and is wordy and dour compared to Kate Constable’s The Singer of All Songs. Then there’s the small fact that this 466 (492 only including the appendices) page book has no twists and very little plot, and frequently lifts similes and occasionally even dialogue right out of Tolkien.
So what kept me turning pages? Why the high rating?
Because Croggon created two wonderful characters in Cadvan and Maerad. They are noble, they are flawed, they have seen far too much death and darkness and it shows in their behavior. They want to help the downtrodden, they want to be bulwarks against the encroaching Dark, but they also know how badly a well-meaning plan can go wrong, and they are wary of everything and everyone.
It is beautiful when two souls like theirs begin to open timidly up and trust each other. In this book, it happens with perfect timing, with a lot of sweet, tiny moments of respect and friendship that I think (and hope!!!) might blossom into romantic love. Instead of manufacturing sexual tension and decoy love interests (view spoiler)[(Dernhil dies) (hide spoiler)], Croggon simply stands back and lets the reader observe what a great team these two make in every way.
Recommended to anyone who’s getting sick of the instalove and drama that comes part and parcel with YA these days, and doesn’t mind slow-paced chapters with lots of landscape description.
You may also like:
- The Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix - The Shadowfell trilogy by Juliet Marillier - The Chanters of Tremaris trilogy by Kate Constable - The Annals of the Western Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin - The Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale - Chalice by Robin McKinley...more
Original rating five stars, because when I first rated the book I thought the series was actually going somewhere. This turned out not to be the case.Original rating five stars, because when I first rated the book I thought the series was actually going somewhere. This turned out not to be the case. This installment is pretty good, for this series, but it still leads to a dead end.
Cooper brings the whole gang together in this, volume three of The Dark is Rising. Simon, Jane and Barney return to Cornwall for a holiday, and Merriman brings Will along. Logically, the kids would bicker and eventually bond, and everybody would go on an adventure. But because this is Cooper and ordinary humans are worthless, Merriman and Will have Important Old One Business to attend to, in which the Drews become entangled by accident.
The Dark is still Rising at its painfully slow rate, and there's a creepy painter in town who acts strange around the kids and brainwashes Barney when he gets too close. We know this man is evil before he does anything suspicious though, because he has black hair. Merriman actually points this out at one point. I would think most people on Planet Earth have black or dark brown hair, and I doubt that they are all agents of The Dark. This is actually a kind of racist implication. Progressive critics have raked Lewis and Tolkien over the coals for less. But Cooper gets off scot-free. Odd.
Also, the women of the town are building something called a Greenwitch - a humanoid figure built of leaves that gets constructed away from the eyes of men and thrown into the ocean. This ritual is so old that no one really knows what it means.
Jane watches the making of the Greenwitch and is intuitively aware that the thing is alive. In an experience she assumes is a dream, she reaches out to the creature with compassion. Her compassion is misguided and causes all kinds of trouble, but the fact that she pitied this creature makes her far more of a hero than the robotic, pompous Will.
Actually, Jane is the strongest character in the whole undercooked ensemble and probably should be the protagonist throughout.
The rest of the plot is vague to me, and I'm starting to think the problem is with the series itself and not with my memory.
At one point, Jane has a vision of the past and a burning ship pulling into the harbor. She sees Merriman and Will being all protective and powerful and Old One-y on the shore and wishes she could join them, but is prevented either by shyness or magic. This was a well-written scene, though I can't remember what the point of it was.
Also, Barney got kidnapped. Again.
While I agree with a lot of other readers that post-Twilight YA is far too focused on romance, this book and series could have been greatly improved with a bit of the stuff. Will and Jane are about the same age, reasonably attractive, unattached, and part of the tiny group that knows the world is in danger of ending. Cooper drops a crumb here and there, but these two are teenagers. They are going to think about each other a lot. They are going to seek each other out. They are going to have a crush on each other. The fact that almost nothing happens with them is just further proof that Will could be replaced with a cardboard box without affecting the plot.
In this book, The Dark is Rising comes its closest to actually being a good series and living up to its hype. Unfortunately, it does not get better from here, but steadily worse....more
Our story picks up several hundred years after the collapse of the United States—an event briefly discussed in this book that involved Russia, China, and lots of money that couldn’t be paid back. I remember that some reviewers made fun of this, but as far as end-of-America scenarios go, it’s pretty believable.
After a few failed governments in the interim, a very rich man named Gregory Illéa very nicely stepped in to single-handedly fix the economy. He was also related by marriage to some royal family in (one assumes) Europe. Thus the new nation on American soil was named Illéa, and a monarchy descended from the man was established. Gregory sounds like a shady character to me, and the history lesson scene smacks of propaganda. I hope that this is explored at least somewhat in the following volumes, although it’s clear that Cass herself isn’t that invested in her own world-building.
What is Cass invested in? Read on...
There’s a caste system in Illéa: Ones are the royals and nobility, Twos are lower nobility, Threes are really rich folks, Fours actually work but are paid well, Fives are artists and poor but not starving, Sixes are servants, Sevens are lower servants, and Eights are untouchables. Our heroine, America Singer, is a Five. She wants to marry her secret boyfriend Aspen Leger, a Six, though Aspen (hereafter referred to as Snake Tooth) is a terrible human being. If I were America, I would be happy to escape him.
America is sixteen years old and now eligible to be drafted in the Selection—a televised process by which the Prince of the realm chooses his bride. Like the Hunger Games, the contestants come from all over the country (which used to be the U.S. in both cases) and the whole proceedings are meant as a morale-boost to the nation. Unlike the Hunger Games, no one gets killed during a Selection, so it might actually work as a morale-boost.
If this sounds like a dystopian take on Cinderella’s ball to you, you are absolutely right.
America is selected for the Selection, much to her own displeasure. But her mother, who reminds me a bit of a more competent Mrs. Bennet, is thrilled, and Snake Tooth is happy about it too. Selected girls who don’t become princess are automatically Twos, and their families get taken care of for life. Snake Tooth is riding his girlfriend’s coattails in hopes of becoming rich. It has never occurred to him that the Prince, Maxon, might take a fancy to America himself.
At first America bristles against her fellow competitors and their restricted lives at the palace. She vows to forget Snake Tooth after seeing him with another girl (unfortunately it doesn’t work), she misses her parents and younger siblings, and she worries about the mysterious rebels who lurk on the edges of the capital city and occasionally break onto the palace grounds. There’s two groups of these, one that kills and another that prefers to kidnap, and the royals have no idea what exactly either faction wants.
But America finds a kindred soul in the other person there yearning for something a little deeper than this artificial palace existence—Prince Max himself. At first she vowed to hate him, but she’s not good at keeping promises to herself, and they quickly start falling for each other.
Cliques and conspiracies, Snake Tooth-induced melodrama, and occasional bursts of rebel violence ensue. The book doesn’t end so much as grind to a clearly temporary halt. Dare I hope that the other volumes will actually answer some relevant questions in between all the love-triangulating?
Content Advisory: Violence: Very little is shown or described. The rebels menace the palace dwellers and force them to hide in the basement. One of America’s palace-assigned maids tells her that a coworker was almost raped by a rebel who broke into the palace; the man was killed by a guard and the girl was trapped for several minutes underneath the corpse. Celeste tears at America’s dress out of spite, scratching her arm in the process. America mistakenly thinks Maxon is making a pass and knees him in the groin.
Sex: There’s an unnecessarily steamy makeout scene between Aspen and America in Chapter Two, a briefer one in Chapter Three, and another one towards the end of the book. He likes to make her sing while he gives her hickeys. Snake Tooth, Erik the Opera Ghost just called and he said that even he thinks that’s weird. Max and America also kiss a few times, but those are chaste. The kingdom has a law on the books against non-marital sex and it’s surprisingly effective, so even the racy scenes don’t escalate. A palace official asks America to affirm that she’s a virgin before signing on, which humiliates her.
Language: Nada.
Substance Abuse: Nada.
Anything Else: The young serving-woman who was almost raped is understandably traumatized, and has crippling panic attacks whenever the rebels attempt a coup.
Conclusion A fluffy read, perfectly appropriate for girls 14 and up, that made me smile and roll my eyes in almost equal measure. Snake Tooth is insufferable. America is good-hearted but maddeningly impulsive and none too bright. Maxon is a treasure, and I want to continue for his sake more than anything else
That, and it’s been so much fun making snarky status updates and chatting with you all about this one. Thank you, friends. Coming soon: The Elite....more
North and South opens in London, where Margaret Hale’s cousin Edith has just gotten married. While close to the pretty, sanguine, frivolous Edith, ninNorth and South opens in London, where Margaret Hale’s cousin Edith has just gotten married. While close to the pretty, sanguine, frivolous Edith, nineteen-year-old Margaret has been blessed with brains and empathy as well as beauty—and like most people so abundantly gifted, she’s a bit full of herself.
No longer required as her cousin’s companion, Margaret gets shipped back home to the little town of Helston, where her father is the vicar—only to discover soon after that he’s had a crisis of faith and feels compelled to leave the Church of England.
Mr. Hale takes a job tutoring in a Northern factory town called Milton, where he soon moves the family. Mrs. Hale quickly sickens in the climate extremes and smoky air of her new home. Margaret is disgusted by what strikes her as a crude and callous culture, as exemplified by a pupil of her father’s, one Mr. Thornton.
John Thornton is a rising star among factory bosses. At thirty years old, he’s young for his job but old to be reading Homer and Plutarch for the first time, as he does under Mr. Hale’s tutelage. Margaret sees him as a shallow, sometimes cruel man, who cares nothing for his workers (workers like Nicholas Higgins and his dying daughter Bessie, whom Margaret befriends). But she also disdains Thornton for his being a businessman in the first place.
Thornton is attracted to Margaret immediately, but, like Mr. Darcy, he doesn’t have the “happy manners that enable [him] to recommend [him]self to strangers.” He reaches out to her, but he’s awkward and moody. She becomes convinced that he sees her as an object, with no more soul than the cotton fluffs clogging the air inside his mill, and therefore believes herself justified in being a complete ice queen to him. He is eventually forced by this strong and unfamiliar emotion to propose to her. She shoots him down with the chilly indignation of (to use another reviewer’s comparison) Artemis chasing off Actaeon.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Hale gets sicker and sicker, and begs to see her son Frederick before she dies. But Frederick was part of a navy mutiny against a cruel captain and has been living in exile in Spain, knowing he could be hung if he sets foot in England again.
And John Boucher, a poor and gentle man broken by the system, wonders desperately how he can possibly keep his wife and increasing number of children fed when both the bosses and the rising Union have cast him out.
Gaskell takes an Austenian plotline of a man and a woman misunderstanding each other and drops it in the middle of a Dickensian hellhole. The desolation of Milton, and its poorer inhabitants who have never known a world outside what Blake termed the “dark satanic mills”, is vividly evoked. Like Persephone, Margaret is forced from a verdant, flowering country to a harsh, grey world of strife and sorrow. A girl sheltered all her life from death now has five deaths in quick succession dumped on her head.
But here lies the beauty of the novel: for Margaret, who started out sympathetic only to the workers and loathing their nouveau riche bosses, learns to see everyone’s point of view. This allows her to reach across the artificial lines caused by class or allegiance to the Union, able to help whoever needs it. She also learns, as she gets to know John Thornton better, that she has misjudged him horribly—and that her heart knows no peace without him.
Once you have oriented yourself to the Victorian mode of storytelling—long paragraphs, slow pace, and compulsively detailed physical descriptions of characters—the book is hard to put down. You’ll be drawn into Margaret’s world, and bleak though it is, you won’t want to leave. The ending is a bit abrupt, but that’s not Gaskell’s fault. She wanted a few more chapters to tie up loose ends and show the softening of Thornton more, but the novel was being published serially, and her editor/publisher—an obscure fellow by the name of Charles Dickens—told her she needed to wrap it up.
I recommend this book to anyone who loves English and/or nineteenth century literature. Gaskell is more than worthy to stand with Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Trollope, and the Brontës, and it was only the overweening misogyny of lit critics that has barred her from their company for so long.
The BBC made a miniseries of this novel in 2004, which is engrossing and only has the smallest deviations from the novel. The characters are perfectly cast, the cinematography is excellent, and the score will haunt you. ...more
Katharine Tulman is a sixteen-year-old orphan, the ward of her cruel Aunt Alice. As the average female in Victorian England, Katharine is shut out of Katharine Tulman is a sixteen-year-old orphan, the ward of her cruel Aunt Alice. As the average female in Victorian England, Katharine is shut out of her family’s inheritance.
Speaking of the inheritance, Aunt Alice worries that her brother-in-law, Frederic “Tully” Tulman, is squandering it on the remote ancestral estate, and she sends Katharine to investigate.
Katharine is spooked by the moors, the thunderous weather, and the dark, labyrinthine house of Stranwyne itself. She’s also suspicious of the servants, particularly Mrs. Jefferies, the grouchy cook, and Lane Moreau, her uncle’s moody young manservant.
But she warms almost at once to her sweet, childlike, and slightly “mad” Uncle Tully. Today, we would probably call him developmentally delayed. He’s brilliant at math, effortlessly designs lifelike windup toys, and yet he cries and panics like a toddler when his routine is forced to change.
Katharine knows that, even if her aunt throws her out on the street, she can’t send this helpless man into the hellhole of a nineteenth-century insane asylum. Knowing Uncle Tully, she realizes that Mrs. Jefferies and Lane have only appeared hostile in their zeal to protect him.
As Lane and Katharine realize they’re on the same side, a nascent attraction and tenderness develop between them, in spite of his low social rank and French ancestry.
But between protecting Uncle Tully from those who would incarcerate him, and investigating suspicious activities on the estate, there’s precious little time for courtship. And as Katharine suffers from increasingly dark nightmares and sleepwalking episodes, she fears that she’ll wind up in an asylum herself.
Content Advisory for Schools, Libraries, and Discerning Readers
Violence: A man, who pretended to befriend Katharine, imprisons her in the basement of his house. Later that same man kidnaps a child for ransom. A ship explodes with two people on it—one is certainly killed, the other might have survived. Katharine discovers she’s slowly being poisoned; luckily, the damage to her system is not irreversible. A man shoots an animal that he falsely believes is rabid.
Sex: Lane and Katharine kiss a few times, and once when she’s sick in bed, he sits at the foot of the bed and holds her hand.
Language: Nothing to worry about.
Substance Abuse: Some of the servants conclude from Katharine’s sleepwalking that she has a drinking problem, much to her embarrassment. They’re wrong.
Conclusion
This is a high-quality, highly underrated period piece with a light touch of steampunk and a great deal of mystery. Sharon Cameron writes convincingly as a proper young lady of mid nineteenth century England; her situations are familiar but inventive, and her characters are lovable.
Even the pseudo-Byronic Lane turns out to be neither mad, bad, nor dangerous once you get to know him—just a fierce young man with a strong sense of justice and self-sacrifice. He and Katharine have a chaste relationship with wonderful chemistry.
The intrigue, romance and adventure continue in A Spark Unseen, which is up next on my to re-read list.
Lucien Mulholland has terminal cancer. He's always tired, his body is weak, his thick black hair has fallen out, and he can't play the violin anymore.Lucien Mulholland has terminal cancer. He's always tired, his body is weak, his thick black hair has fallen out, and he can't play the violin anymore.
With little to cheer him up in his last days, Lucien is given an antique notebook - a very old antique, as in Renaissance Italian. Falling asleep with the notebook in his hand, he is transported to a magical place that is and yet isn't sixteenth-century Venice.
While he was terribly sick in England, Lucien is healthy and vital in this other world. In the city-on-a-marsh, Belezza, he quickly becomes a "mandolier" (gondolier) due to his good looks, an alchemist's apprentice since the alchemist recognizes him as an inter-world traveller, and a friend to Arianna, a girl with purple eyes and a hot temper. They call him Luciano there.
But when Lucien falls asleep in Belezza, he wakes up in England, and all is as it was before.
Then he falls asleep in England with the notebook and goes to Belezza again.
The Duchessa of Belezza is struggling to maintain her city's independence against the machinations of the di Chimici family from the north of the land of Talia, who have subjugated most of the other city-states.
The di Chimici, being of the villainous persuasion, want to control as much territory as they possibly can. They have heard rumors of another world with more advanced weaponry that they would love to harness. They know of travellers between the worlds called Stravagantes, and they would like to control these people and learn their secrets.
The Duchessa wants to protect the Stravagantes, for both political and personal reasons. She wants to keep their powers out of di Chimici hands, but also (view spoiler)[seeks to protect the alchemist Rudolfo. Years ago, she and Rudolfo were in love, but could not marry. They had a daughter, whom Sylvia (the Duchessa) bore in secret and gave away. (hide spoiler)]
The di Chimici are gunning for Rudolfo, and his young apprentice, Luciano, is also a target. And Luciano is easy to find, because he casts no shadow.
While there is peril in this story, the stakes never feel terribly high, and Hoffman is fond of deus ex machina and false alarms. The synopsis of the story sounds intense, but her pacing is so off and her narration so wordy that the plot becomes fuzzy. Sylvia and Arianna are instantly recognizable easily angered Italian women, but the other characters have mere scraps of personality, and even the two mentioned above are underdeveloped. The dialogue is so bland one senses even the characters are bored of it.
Hoffman's world-building is what keeps the pages turning. Her Talia emerges as a magical place, an impossibly romanticized and cleaned-up Renaissance Italian Wonderland - all duels and masquerades without the plagues and filthy streets that went with them.
But despite its beauty, Talia never becomes more than a dream-world. Its workings are poorly explained.
There is no solid explanation given for why this world sprang up parallel to ours but became frozen in the 1500s while ours kept marching on. There is also no explanation for why the chemical properties of silver and gold are reversed in Talia, or why a goddess-cult persists there a thousand years into the Christian Era.
Hoffman explains in her notes that there is no Protestant Reformation in her parallel world, because Mary I, Elizabeth I, and Edward VII were all the children of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon (!!!). Interesting, considering Catherine was well past childbearing years when Elizabeth was born and dead by the time Edward was. If she had been able to bear more healthy children than Mary, they might well have been named Elizabeth and Edward, but these would not have been interchangeable with Anne Boleyn's daughter and Jane Seymour's son. Hoffman is English; she should know this better than I.
This book is, by itself, very kid-friendly - assuming they can handle the terminal illness plotline. However, the later books in the series contain references to sex, drug abuse, bullying, and self-harm. REFERENCES. Nothing is shown. Hoffman isn't trying to glorifying bad behavior, but rather using it to illustrate an after-school special style point. I would caution parents and teachers with this. City of Masks is fine for a ten-year-old. The sequels are not.
Overall, a cute little book with an entertaining plot and a nice atmosphere, but the prose is so clumsy and the pacing so awkward that you feel like you're watching the story unfold through a foggy glass. This improves with subsequent outings in the series, which I read because I love all things Renaissance Italian. However, I can't guarantee that anyone else will want to stick around for them.
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