Another box o’ books…
Well, it’s happened again…I’ve received another box of books to review (here’s a list of the previous batch, and the one before).
This time they look like a lovely mix: 4 books of short stories, 1 memoir, 1 poetry/novel, 2 novels.
Short Stories
Cobalt Blue
Silent Girl
I’m absolutely flumoxed. Tricia, me girl, that was inspired. I’m now terribly eager to read the book. (Book publishers/authors, take note: this woman knows how to market a book on the Internet!).
Out of Cleveland
I must admit, this post is turning into a “Who wins on the Internet marketing front?” — and here’s one that has almost no presence. To get anywhere, you have to put the title in quotes. Publisher — pay attention! I had to search for your site separately! (Hopeless, as web-un-savvy as this group is, they will likely not see this post. Unlike Tricia, above, who will be visiting me shortly, I’m sure!)
Red Rooms
Memoir
The Way It Was: Vignettes from My One-Room Schools
Poetry/Novel
The Given
Novels
The End of East
Living with the Dead
I will try to post something other than my first impressions as I read the books. Please feel free to ask me directly for feedback.
And Tricia? Stop and say hi! 
Vampire Fiction: my take
NO, this is not a blog post about Twilight. Oh, spare me that agony. I did read the first book, lent to me by a co-worker, on a bus trip. It was a relatively fun, mindless 2 hours to the end of the book…but it was like eating cotton candy, absolutely no sustenance.
And it is not a post about Anne Rice, although I enjoyed her vampire books. I especially enjoyed the history of each vampire. Fun, sexy books.
Who I would like to talk about is the author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. A good friend of mine intercepted me after the above-mentioned bus trip, told me, if you want vampire fiction, here is where to go. That was 2 months ago. She has since lent me 5 of Yarbro’s books, all of which I’ve devoured…but I’m only getting around to writing about them now. My apologies.
The website states the over-arching focus of the books much more succinctly than I ever could:
The books of the Saint-Germain Cycle combine historic fiction, romance, and horror and feature the heroic vampire first introduced in Hôtel Transylvania as Le Comte de Saint-Germain. In this initial novel, the character — cultured, well-traveled, articulate, elegant, and mysterious — appears in the court of France’s King Louis XV.
A ‘heroic vampire’ makes for a very readable series (of which I’ve only read 1/4…there are 20+ books so far!). Then, the conflict is in the human world around Saint- Germain as he maintains his life.
As Chelsea Quinn Yarbro explains:
The second level of questions arose from the relationship of vampires to humans — must the relationship be exploitative? And must humans abhor vampires? The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was worth trying to use a vampire as a metaphor for humanism: a person living an unnaturally long life might become alienated from humanity, as a means of avoiding the pain of spending most of your time saying permanent good-byes. Or it was just possible the vampire would, through his very alienation, seek to be part of human experience, which offered a great many more dramatic possibilities.
So, the books follow the efforts of the vampire Saint-Germain to live in each age. Of course, because of his accumulated wealth and knowledge, he finds himself embroiled in public life and that brings its own difficulties. The stories recount his activities in this public sphere, with any sucking of blood kept to the sidelines.
The most fascinating aspect of these books is that the horror and danger in a Saint-Germain novel come from the humans, not the vampire.
Any other Yarbro fans out there?
Adams and the Meaning of Liff
Much has been written about the late, great Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker series (yes, geeks, I am aware that it’s a trilogy in umpteen parts…) with their rather random sense of humour. The Dirk Gently books which always reminded me a bit of Thorne Smith (1892-1934) books.
But, there will always be a little place in my heart for The Meaning of Liff — here’s one of my favourite entries:
PELUTHO (n.)
A South American ball game. The balls are whacked against a brick wall with a stout wooden bat until the prisoner confesses.
And here it is online, in its entirety. Gotta love the Internet!
Back to Thorne Smith, because he was just a weird and wonderful writer, and yes, Dirk Gently reminded me of him. Here’s an except from the beginning of my favourite of his books, The Nightlife of the Gods (available in its entirety online as well, with others):
CHAPTER 1
CRITICIZING AN EXPLOSION
THE small family group gathered in the library was only conventionally alarmed by the sound of a violent explosion—a singularly self-centred sort of explosion.
‘Well, thank God, that’s over,’ said Mrs Alice Pollard Lambert, swathing her sentence in a sigh intended to convey an impression of hard-pressed fortitude.
With bleak eyes she surveyed the fragments of a shattered vase. Its disastrous dive from the piano as a result of the shock had had in it something of the mad deliberation of a suicide’s plunge. Its hideous days were over now, and Mrs Lambert was dimly aware of another little familiar something having been withdrawn from her life.
‘I hope to high heaven this last one satisfies him for this spring at least,’ was the petulant comment of Alfred, the male annexe of Alice.
‘I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting,’ came a thin disembodied voice from a dark corner. ‘Night and day I’ve been waiting and expecting—’
‘And hoping and praying, no doubt, Grandpa,’ interrupted Daphne, idly considering a run in her stocking and wondering what she was going to do about it, if anything, and when would be the least boring time to do it if she did, which she doubted.
Madeleine L’Engle dies at 88
Did you know that the author of the classic “A Wrinkle in Time” wrote as much as she did (over 50 works published)? I must admit I was a fan of that utterly timeless classic, but never went further with her work.
I think I can credit this woman with my fascination with speculative fiction.
Rest in peace.
Hope for the Mediocre
A co-worker and I have discovered that we both read fantasy novels. She took it upon herself to lend me a rather silly series, by a writer I’d never heard of before — Tamora Pierce. A quick Google search tells me that she is a fantasy author who writes books for young people. That just tells me that publishers don’t think young people can handle any richness to their writing. Here’s her motivation for writing, from an interview (quoted here):
I got into this to write about girls who kick butt. In the mid-’70s, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Sheri Tepper, C.J. Cherryh, that crowd particularly, started to change the field. For me, there was a problem that a number of these characters were gay or celibate female warriors, and I was neither. So I wrote fantasy with female warrior heroes who like guys. Robin McKinley and Barbara Hambly both started to publish their fantasy at the same time, so I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
Is she comparing herself to Robin McKinley? Author of The Blue Sword? Funny though, how Pierce’s heroine, Alanna — who isn’t a lesbian, no way no how! — has a series of adventures very similar to those of Harry/Harimad-sol in McKinley’s book. Desert adventure, finding her powers…
Thank goodness, she’s not comparing herself to Bradley, Tepper, or Cherryh!
What problem do I have with this writer?
- She takes absolutely no time to develop her characters beyond the bare minimum.
- She tells, and tells, and tells, and never once shows.
- The plot points are so transparent it’s annoying — since she doesn’t take any time to develop the world or the characters, when someone blinks, you know it’s significant.
- Three words: Deus ex machina. Magic is unexplained, it just bang! is there to save the day.
- Each of the 4 books in the series I read (oh yes! All 4…I’m not complaining on the strength of only reading one — not too onerous, they were quick reads), had enough action for 3 or 4 books. Huge quest material, dealt with in 4 chapters. Move on to the next with a “And they all went back to the city.” Come up with another 3 adventures, some innocent shtupping (’cause remember, she’s not a lesbian. NO. Not a lesbian!), some more ways for Alanna to be utterly wonderful and perfect and strong and the best fighter and . . . ingredients for one more Tamora Pierce book, 3 more for any other writer with a modicum of talent for exposition.
I wish I could say I was exaggerating. But if I’d been introduced to this as a pre-teen, I would have been scarred for life, my ability to appreciate good writing forever damaged.
I’ll go back to Lois McMaster Bujold (or Sheri S. Tepper or . . .) any day.
I interrupted my reading of this tripe to pick up one of Bujold’s latest, that I’d been trying to ignore, trying to prolong the anticipation — The Sharing Knife: Beguilement. (Read the first couple of chapters here!)
Bujold really takes the time to develop her characters, and their world. In one sequence, 2 of the characters ride 3 hours into town…it takes 15, beautifully written pages.
Pierce would have done it more efficiently: “They rode three hours to town.”
Gads. I don’t usually write negative reviews, but I need something to show for the wasted time!
Perfume
I wonder if it’s significant that two of the more memorable books I’ve read have to do with perfume…
Jitterbug Perfume is my favourite Tom Robbins book [not linking to any TR sites...there just seems to be Wikipedia and fan sites -- nothing definitive]. If you’ve never read any Robbins, then you don’t know that he’s got a bit of thang for many a topic, and will take on a major theme or two in each book, going on these wonderful rants that end up being rather heady, like a warm brandy. In Jitterbug Perfume, the main theme is, of course, the power of our sense of smell….and sex, but then it’s always sex….oh, and beets.
Anyway, the sense of smell.
On the same theme is the brilliant novel by German author Patrick Suskind, Perfume. It’s an adjective-rich descriptive soup of a novel…where you can almost perceive the stench of Paris in the Middle Ages rising up from the pages. Imagine reading it in the original German!!
We watched the movie version of Perfume: The Story of a Murder last night — well done! It was so nicely done that it was almost scratch’n’sniff (a la Odorama of John Waters)! Fetid Paris streets, foul tanneries, odiferous breath…ick. And the most difficult detail of the novel was subtly portrayed: that the main character, John Baptiste Grenouille, with his superhuman nose, had absolutely no aroma of his own. It’s an odd detail, covered in much more detail in the book, but conveyed in some very interesting ways.
I wonder if it would have been harder to discern if I hadn’t been looking for it?
Two very good books. One rather disturbing movie.
A great SF writer
Have you ever picked up a book by Sheri S. Tepper?
Known for her women-centered novels, like The Gate to Women’ Country (1988), Tepper’s writing is so much more than her early feminist sf roots. Oh, all of her books expand upon themes that are obviously dear to her heart — women’s issues, the environment, the evils of religious extremists — but her writing is so much more.
Her books are virtually indescribable. How do you explain a book in which such unusual events take place?
“Well, her book Grass is about this planet where, uh, there are these things like, uh, horses, but they’re not horses, see? They’re malevolent beings that take control of their riders…”
Merely describing a Tepper book makes it sound so flat, so lame. But she can truly make it happen, make you feel the wonder, and the fear, along with her characters.
I just finished reading (and re-reading) her book The Visitor (2002) — a pre- and post-Apocalyptic story of magic and religion. I was trying to explain it to my husband, in terms he would understand: “It’s like Terry Pratchett meets Stephen King.” Very off-the-wall unusual things happen, and it’s quite scary in spots. Again, inadequate.
Most of her books are stand-alones (very important to many readers, in this world of series after series) — even the books in series (like Grass (1989), Raising the Stones (1990), and Sideshow (1992)) are often essentially stand-alone.
Warning – to truly appreciate the book The Family Tree (1997), do not read anything about it prior to opening it up. You’ll ruin a wonderful moment if you get a spoiler.
Quest fulfilled
So we did it. Traveled all the way to Portland, OR, to visit Powell’s City of Books…a mecca of sorts in the book world.
Was it worth it? Well, it was raining in Portland, so it wasn’t like we were going to do any other sightseeing. We’d woken up late in our campground, which was not in itself a bad thing, but instead of breakfast we had brunch…and we ended up driving all the way home that day/night, instead of either camping in the wet or getting across the mountains and setting up camp at night.
But, I’m not answering the question. Yes. It was worth it. It’s a fabulous bookstore. It makes me happy knowing that there exists a place I can get numerous John Fante or Lawrence Ferlinghetti books, should I need to. It had 4 copies of one of the books on my wishlist, Ursula LeGuin’s Dancing on the Edge of the World…now no longer on my wishlist, but in my library.
Another treasure that is now in my library, for a great price, is the New and Collected Poems: 1931 – 2001 of Czeslaw Milosz, Polish poet & Nobel Prize winner. One of the reasons I wanted a book of his poetry was A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry — a collection he edited. The choices he made, and his commentary, put him firmly in the category of Poets I Like.
I will leave you with one of his poems, entitled A Boy.
A Boy
Standing on a boulder you cast a line,
Your bare feet rounded by the flickering water
Of your native river thick with water lilies.
And who are you, staring at the float
While you listen to echoes, the clatter of paddles?
What is the stigma you received, young master,
You who are ill with your apartness
And have one longing: to be just like the others?
I know your story and learned your future.
Dressed as a Gypsy girl I could stop by the river
And tell your fortune: fame and a lot of money,
Without knowledge, though, of the price to be paid
Which one does not admit to the envious.
One thing is certain: in you, there are two natures.
The miserly, the prudent on against the generous.
For many years you will attempt to reconcile them
Till all your works have grown small
And you will prize only uncalculated gifts,
Greatheartedness, self-forgetful giving,
Without monuments, books, and human memory.
Enjoy.
SF (& what it means to you)
Interesting how the genre of SF has changed over the years. No, I’m not going to start a history lesson…go to Wikipedia for that.
But, what do they really stand for, those two letters? Science fiction? Speculative fiction? Science fiction & fantasy? Does it matter?
The point is, the literature of alternate views of reality is a wonderful thing…a laboratory of possible outcomes, a playground for ideas, and a place where absolutely anything goes. In my bookmarks, I’ve been holding on to a useful one, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. The main page has a great list of upcoming releases, in all forms, including audio. [So now I really know what my bookstore isn't stocking!]
While I’m on about releases and new books, have you folks been to Baen’s Free Library? It’s a great marketing ploy (and a transparent one, if you read the first page), but there’s one point that’s not made there:
How many people are really likely to read a book online?
I might read the first chapter, get into it, and decide to buy the book (or find it at the library), but I don’t see myself reading all of it while sitting at my computer.
Questions for the public: Do you read books online? On your computer, your PDA, whatever. If so, why? How? How many? Is it better than a physical book (perish the thought!)?
Obviously, I’m biased to the ‘real thing’. I want to hold a book in my hand, curl up in a comfy chair (or flake out on the sofa, or sit up in bed…), and turn pages. I’ve read a book once on the computer, as an experiment. It was The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle by Hugh Lofting.
