May reads

 Only eight this month.

• 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill.  This volume of short stories is a re-read.  Hill is, I think, as good at spooky short stories as his dad is.
• The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay.  And I think this one may be a re-read too, although I sure didn't think I had read it ... until I started it.  Brutal, heart-rending novel about a family on vacation and the dangerous home invaders who insist that one of them (the family) must choose to die in order to avoid the impending apocalypse.  Like, immediately.
• Sign Here by Claudia Lux (that must be a pen name, right?).  A mid-level desk jockey in Hell is on the verge of a promotion if he can just manage to get the right humans to sell their souls.  Uneven in tone, clever concept.
• Tin Man by Sarah Winman.  I really liked this one, character-driven and realistic, with nary a witch, warlock or dragon in sight.  Ellis and Michael meet as boys and grow up together.  Neither's life turns out quite as they thought but it turns out that chosen family is sometimes the very best family.
• Elemental Forces is another horror short story collection by various authors.  Mixed bag, much like the anthology movies I have such a weakness for.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas.  The first book in the series, impoverished Feyre kills a wolf to help support her family.  The wolf is a faerie in disguise, however, and Feyre is whisked away to atone.  Her captor is, of course, tall and handsome and tormented.
• Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki.  Set in mystical California, this book has multiple generations, a women-centric cult and time travel of a sort.  Each section is from a different character's POV; I liked Opal's best.
• A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik.  I may have read this one before - parts seemed awfully familiar - but this is great fun.  A boarding school for sorcerors where the school itself is actively trying to kill its students and the narrator is resisting turning into a world-destroying dark mage.  Funny, snarky, gory and immediately engaging.  The second in the series will be my first book ready in June.

Mini movie review: Maleficent

Like my mixed feelings about Angelina Jolie, I have mixed feelings about Maleficent.  Jolie is a gifted actress and uses her fame to try to make the world a better place, but I'm still a little icked out by how she and Brad Pitt got together, screwing over Jennifer Aniston in the process.  (To the extent that I think about those people at all, which really isn't that much).  With Maleficient, Disney's live action re-envisioning of the Sleeping Beauty tale, it turns the truly terrifying villain of Sleeping Beauty and turns her into an anti-hero, forced into her villainy by betrayal and brute physical assault, with the removal of Maleficent's faerie wings a clear metaphor for rape.  But the point of the story is not Maleficent's evil but how she was truly good under it all and how Aurora, through her goodness and pureness and a touch of the sapphic, brings a happy, alternate ending to the faerie tale.  The movie just doesn't commit fully to anything, though.  That the handsome prince isn't important is a nice touch, sure, and I loved the dragon - but the real villain is so one dimensional, the rules of magic in this world are conflicting (Maleficent can levitate and toss around soldiers but she can't do it to herself?), and everything is just all that damn CGI.  The best part is Jolie, who commits to the role and who, even under the horns and the prosthetic cheekbones, provides the true heart of this lightweight movie: when she awakens to find her wing-ectomy, the scream she gives is truly terrible and heartrending, and not your typical Disney fare.

Don't eff with Maleficent

Yes, that's the original Disney Sleeping Beauty dragon,

not the new CGI one.  Still excellent.

True Blood episode recap S6E4 "At Last"

Sookie and Ben put the unconscious Jason on the couch, checking for a pulse.  Sookie mutters that they need vampire blood but then runs off to call 911.  And then Ben FANGS UP BECAUSE HE IS A VAMPIRE, bites his own arm and feeds his blood to Jason.  I knew it!  I never figure this out but this time I knew it!  So weird ... can't be too many faeries who are turned into vampires then, right?  Because how else can Ben be recognized as kindred by Niall and Sookie?  Meanwhile, Niall has cornered Nora and wants to know what she knows about Warlow.  Blah blah blah Warlow is Lilith's progeny and the prophecy says that only the progeny can kill her.  Then she's all, you smell delicious and he blasts her off down the road, where she is quickly captured by the LAVTF (Louisiana Vampire Task Force?)

Over on the werewolf side of town, the pack is realizing that "the one with the crazy hair" [Nicole] got away and also Sam took Emma back.  Alcide organizes the chase party and is it me or is he just completely unsympathetic/unlikeable this season?  Out in the woods, as wolves howl in the distance, Sam, Nicole and Emma stumble out onto the road where Lafayette picks them up.

The Governor and his minions bust into Ginger's house (and she screams and screams, as she does), discovering that his prey has fled the coop.  Somewhere that is else, Eric paces while Pam summons Tara.  She shows up sullenly, at first refusing to admit where she has stashed Willa.  Eric forces the issue and Tara 'fesses up even more sullenly.

At the Bellefleur household, Andy's now preteen faerie daughters read Terry's mind and giggle over the fact that he's sad about killing Patrick. [Oh god this again? No one cares.]  Arlene chastises the girls; Terry is depressed.  Andy comes in, assesses the situation and sends the girls to bed, saying they haven't sleep since they were three.  He tucks them in and turns out the light.  Moments later, they have grown more, into full-on teenagers, and they are not about to stay in for the night.  They raid Arlene's closet and sneak out, stealing Andy's cop car and looking for a place to go drinking.  Bill and Jessica are lurking in the bushes and see the girls sneaking out.  They follow the girls to a convenience store and when the clerk cards the girls, Jessica steps in, glamouring the clerk, taking the beer and inviting the girls back to her house to party.  Back at the house, one of the girls comes on to Bill a little bit and he manages to get a sample of her blood.  Chivalrous otherwise, he sends her back to the rest of the group.  Bill takes the blood down to the lab he has now set up in his basement and gives it to the captive Dr. Takahashi, instructing him to figure it out and synthesize it.

Jason is feeling just fine now - doing 200+ pull-ups - and Sookie goes to pick up the living room.  She finds a drop of Ben's blood and tests it; it glows and she realizes that Ben was the one who killed all the faeries in the safe haven.  [Sorry to gloat but I so called it.]  Also, Jason has a sex dream about Ben.  So there's that.

Eric has found Willa, waiting for him where Tara left her.  She insists that what her father is doing to the vampires sickens her.  He thinks for a moment and then asks her if she really wants to help him.  I do, she says.  So he digs a big hole and they lie down in it, Willa nervous because she's "a virgin pretty much."  Eric fangs up and latches onto her neck, drinking.  Then, as she's on the verge of unconsciousness, he cuts his own neck and makes her drink from him.

In the morning, Sam throws Nicole's phone away so no one can track them through it.  She's sad, realizing that all her friends are dead.  Sam sends Lafayette away, thanking him for his help.  Nicole's like, WTF are we going to do without a car?  Sam, a little cocky, tells her that he'll carry her and Emma, seeing how she's so curious about shifters.  He strips naked and shifts into a gorgeous black horse.  Nicole:  Shit!

Back in town, Sookie shows up unannounced at Ben's motel.  She apologizes for Niall's rudeness the night before and invites him over for a home-cooked meal to say thank you.  Ben's all, I would like that a lot.  Over at the Bellefleurs', Andy is frantic about his missing girls, wanting to put out a BOLO for four Caucasian females between the ages of 11 and 50.  He is freaking out.

Jason is also freaking out, enough that he asks Niall if he's ever had a gay-themed dream.  Niall reads his mind and chuckles, "That Ben is a handsome man."  Jason mutters that he feels like he did when he was on vamp blood.  Niall considers this, ruminating that although he never heard of such a mongrel before - a vampire who walks in daylight, who has faerie powers - this must be the case.  Ben must be Warlow.  They collect some anti-vamp weapons from the sheriff's department and go to Ben's motel.  While he in the shower, they enter his room, Niall's giant ball of anti-vamp energy/light at the ready.  But he gets the drop on them, zapping Niall with some faerie energy of his own and easily exerting glamouring Jason to forget everything.  Also, he now has an English accent (as does the actor).  He tells Jason that now would be a good time if he wants to say goodbye to his grandpa; Jason: "Goodbye, Grandpa.  We tried."  After Jason has gone,  Ben/Warlow drinks Niall's blood but keeps spitting it out for some reason.

Sookie starts to make dinner, adding colloidal silver to the recipes.

When Bill checks in with Takahashi later, the scientist has bad news: the blood is highly unstable and degrades into ordinary human blood almost immediately outside of the hosts.  Bill's all, don't worry, I have donors upstairs and I'll go get more.

After Willa has arisen, Eric orders a living donor for her so she can feed.  She is giddy, delirious, ready to fight or fuck or whatever comes next.  Eric:  You're going home.  He is sending her back to the Governor, the thing he loves most turned into the thing he despises most.  She is understandably furious at being used like this but he speaks gently to her.  "I've been around for over a thousand years and you are the second vampire I have made.  I did not make this decision lightly.  I have to send you back.  As your maker, I command you: go home to your father."  She goes.

Pam and Tara walk and talk, trying to figure out the next steps.  Tara gets angry (shocker) and leaves.  No sooner than she's gone, the LAVTF shows up and captures Pam.

At the Governor's mansion, the minions have invited Willa in.  She stands before her father (and Sarah Newlin is there too, as she's currently the Governor's squeeze), telling him that she's still his daughter and asking him to stop persecuting vampires.  Sarah interjects, saying not to listen to her.  The Governor is all, shut up, Sarah, this is my daughter.  Unfortunately, Willa can't control herself and tries to bite her father.  Sarah shoots Willa with an incapacitating silver bullet and demands that the Governor put her in the camp as Willa writhes and screams.

Out in the night, Ben revives Niall with some of his blood, telling the old faerie that he'll be weak because he drained him of his blood (so he sucked it out but didn't drink it? some sort of moral dilemma?).  He's not going to kill Niall, though, because technically they are kindred.  Instead, he opens a portal and sends a screaming Niall through it.  Somewhere else, Sam puts Emma to bed in one motel room while he and Nicole talk and cry and drink and, eventually, fuck in the adjoining room.  Sam gets a decent amount of tail for a mopey shapeshifting bar-owner.

Sookie is QUITE annoyed because Ben is late for dinner (what with the disposing of her grandfather and all).  He does finally show up, bearing wine and flowers and his Southern accent again.  She serves him dinner, not eating herself.  It's fried chicken and mashed potatoes and yes, it does look delicious.  The colloidal silver does not seem to have any effect on him as he wolfs the food down.  Sookie is perplexed and tries another tack.  She tells him a little about Bill, saying that things fell apart when he lied to her.  She asks him straight out, what is it about me that you want?  Ben says that he understands her and he knows that she understands him.

Back at Bill's, the faerie girls have gotten even older - into their mid-twenties now - and they have had enough of this lame-ass party.  They head for the door, jostling an agitated Jessica.  She grabs one of them, inhaling deeply.  "You smell like honey," Jess moans, burying her head in one girl's neck.  From the basement, Bill hears the ruckus and rushes upstairs.  He finds all four girls strewn on the floor and Jessica sobbing, "Tell me they're not dead!"  They sure look dead.

After dinner, Sookie puts some makin'-out music on and she and Ben immediately commence with the kissing and disrobing.  Right in the middle of it all, however, she pulls together her faerie energy ball, whispering, "You can get off me now."  Ben: Huh?  Sookie:  "Get the fuck off me or die, Warlow."  Nice.  I much prefer bad-ass Sookie to always-needing-rescuing Sookie.

Previously on True Blood / next time on True Blood

So busy

I don't mean to derail the True Blood momentum - and, in fact, I have watched the next two episodes and will get to recapping them soonish - but there's some other stuff I've read and watched recently that is pretty damn good.  (And, frankly, when compared to True Blood, very damn good.)  Take a gander and let me know if you've partaken of any of these.

• Black Mirror - A satirical British science fiction anthology series from the mind of Charlie Booker, Black Mirror is a dark and twisted treat.  Each episode - and there are only a few - has a different story and a different cast, and all of them involve technology that is not that far away from us right now.  As an X-Files, Fringe and Twilight Zone fan, as well as a fan of dystopian fiction, it's like this show was made for me.  It's got a great cast too, which made it great fun to recognize people (from Sense8, Agent Carter and the U.K. version of Skins, among others).  
• Howl's Moving Castle - I read the book.  I don't think I even realized there was a book and thought it was just the acclaimed Miyazaki animated movie.  But no, it was a book first, by British author Diana Wynne Jones.  It's a lightweight YA fantasy novel about Sophie, the eldest of three sisters and, in the world of fairy tales, thus doomed to a boring and unfulfilled life.  When Sophie inadvertently pisses off the Witch of the Waste, the Witch turns her into an old woman.  Her only chance at breaking the spell is the Wizard Howl, he of the titular moving castle.  Sophie insinuates herself into Howl's household and then the adventures begin.  Howl's Moving Castle is stuffed full of fire demons, jilted lovers, fancy outfits, animated scarecrows and plain old magic.  I got sucked in against my will and now I'm just going to have to move the movie up to the top of my Netflix queue.
• Doctor Who - It wasn't as though I was actively resisting Doctor Who, I just figured that I needed a chunk of time to watch a bunch of episodes in a row to really gain appreciation for it.  Everything I have read said that the 2005 revival, with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, is a good place to start - that those of us new Whovians don't really need to delve into the classic episodes.  I'm almost all the way through the series (I understand that Eccleston only played the Doctor for the one series) and I'm really quite liking it.  It has some fairly scary monsters for such a silly show (the Dalek, the Empty Child zombies, the Autons).  I have a big ol' girl crush on Bille Piper, who plays the Doctor's companion, Rose.  And Eccleston does a very nice job with the Doctor: he's got some darkness to him, this incarnation.  Good fun.  I'm anxious to finish out this series and see what fan-favorite David Tennant does with it.
• The Revolution was Televised  - This non-fiction book by Alan Sepinwall covers the shows that changed television into the amazing landscape that we now know it to be.  Sepinwall discusses in detail the following shows, which include several of my all-time favorites:  Oz (which I now have to watch), The Sopranos, The Wire (which I definitely have to watch), Deadwood (love love love), The Shield, LOST, Buffy the Vampire Slayers (!!!!!!!!!), 24, Battlestar Galactica (love love love), Friday Night Lights (love), Mad Men (it's on my list) and Breaking Bad (love love love).  Those are some seriously excellent shows right there.  The Revolution was Televised is easy to read, packed with information and interview tidbits and just fascinating to any of us who love good television.  Highly recommended.
• Mr. Robot - I also watched USA's Mr. Robot which is just great.  Rami Malek, as main guy Elliott Alderson, is phenomenal as the brilliant, damaged untrustworthy narrator.  The plot moves along quickly - a hacker group, fSociety, is looking to take down the largest corporation (Evil Corp) in the world, thus fomenting chaos - but it's the character beats that are the most compelling.  Great stuff and a wonderful change of pace from USA's usual blue sky programming.

Mini book review: The Accidental Highwayman: Being the Tale of Kit Bristol, his Horse Midnight, a Mysterious Princess and Sundry Other Magical Persons Besides by Ben Tripp

The Accidental Highwayman: Being the Tale of Kit Bristol, his Horse Midnight, a Mysterious Princess, and Sundry Other Magical Persons Besides, by Ben Tripp, is as entertaining a YA fantasy as its title is long.  Kit Bristol, former orphan, is in the employ of one Master James Rattle, also known as - as in a secret identity - Whistling Jack, the notorious 18th century English highwayman.  When Whistling Jack is killed, Kit takes his outfit, his bulldog Demon and his horse Midnight, and finds himself on an adventure beyond his wildest imaginings.

A witch, to whom Kit has been tasked to deliver Demon, assigns to Kit the quest his master had been on: to rescue the faerie princess Morgana from an arranged marriage with the human King George III of England.  Not only must Kit revamp his world view to include the presence of magical beings, he must now contend with those beings: feyin, pixies, goblings, ogres, gryphons, enchanted mirrors and maps and the like.  In addition, the human Captain Sterne, is convinced that Kit is actually Whistling Jack, and is pursuing him singlemindedly, determined to hang him for the thief and rascal he is.

The best word I can think of to describe TAH:BtToKPhHMaMPaSOMPB is swashbuckling.  Kit surprises himself with his bravery and loyalty, charging into his exciting adventures wholeheartedly to support the Princess Morgana and his new faerie friends.  The story moves right along, the writing lighthearted and clever, annotated with footnotes.  This volume is the first in a planned trilogy of Kit and Morgana's adventures - I have no doubt that the subsequent books will be as much fun as this first one.

Mini movie review: Snow White and the Huntsman

WTF was the point of Snow White and the Huntsman?  I mean, that was AWFUL.  I continue to believe that Kristen Stewart cannot act her way out of a paper bag.  She basically didn't speak a line until the halfway point of the movie and then, even after that, barely spoke.  Which was fine, actually.  Plotwise, it seemed like huge chunks were removed from the movie:  take William (Sam Claflin), for example.  Why was the William character even there?  Not as the love interest (his kiss wasn't what woke Snow White up), nor the mentor, nor anything else.  He was completely unnecessary.  And the huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) was scarcely a developed character either - why put him in the title?  Charlize Theron did her best to chew up all the scenery she could as the evil Queen, which was at least entertaining, and she looked spectacular.  But - most egregious of all - who the hell thought the haircut on the Queen's brother was a good idea? No no no no no no no.

If you haven't seen Snow White and the Huntsman yet, don't bother.

Mini book review: Among Others by Jo Walton

Jo Walton's Among Others is not your standard YA fantasy novel.  Yes, the narrator/protagonist is a teenaged girl.  Yes, there are fairies and witches.  Yes, there is tragedy to overcome.  But there is as much discussion about actual classic science fiction and fantasy novels as anything else - this novel is the best friend of the reader who needs to line up their next book.

Morwenna Phelps has not had an easy life.  Growing up Wales with her twin sister, Morgana, was pretty happy - loving extended family, with green mountains just outside the door, and playing with the fairies in the woods.  But when the twins' magic-enamored mother went a little crazy and tried to increase her powers, the girls went up against her to stop her and it ended badly, with one twin dead and her poor sister crippled.  Mori is sent out of Wales to be cared for by her English father, whom she has never met, and ends up sent to boarding school.  She is torn away from everything she's ever known, physically and emotionally diminished, and struggling to understand the role of magic in this non-magical place.  Her only comforts are books, science fiction and high fantasy novels in particular, which she devours.

Among Others is written diary-style and through it we see Mori's struggles to find her place in the world, to find friends, to make sense of what has happened to her.  She talks in great detail about the books she reads and her recounting of book club conversations are pretty cogent literary criticism.  The pacing is fairly slow and since it's a diary, the narrator stops telling stories she is uncomfortable with whenever she likes, which means that there are gaps in the story that the reader must fill in for themselves.

I've said before in here that I prefer novels with straightforward narrative and an overabundance of plot, neither of which are found here.  But what I loved is the reading list that Walton hands over, the dozens and dozens of science fiction and fantasy titles, some of which I've read but by no means all.  After having read Among Others, I will no longer have to wonder what I could read next.

Book review: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

There are a lot of fantasy fiction books being published these days, it seems.  Harry Potter and the Twilight insanity has opened the floodgates and there is genre fiction out there for all tastes and all ages - vampires, werecreatures, zombies, witches and wizards and faeries for children, YA and grownup sensibilities.  A lot of it is rubbish, of course, but now and then a good one pops up.  Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is one of the good ones.

September is the titular girl, twelve years old and living in Nebraska around the time of WWII.  Her dad has gone off to fight in the war and her mom works in the factories, so September is left home alone a lot, reading fairy tales, washing teacups and generally not caring for her life very much.  When the Green Wind arrives on the Leopard of Little Breezes and offers to whisk her away to Fairyland, she jumps at the chance at chance for adventure - so much so that she leaves one shoe behind.

The Green Wind instructs September in the current rules of Fairyland, put into place by its present ruler, the Marquess, a strict and scary young girl with a very fine hat: (1) no iron allowed at all (except that which binds the fairies' wings, per order of the Marquess); no alchemy except for girls born on Tuesday; (3) transportation by air only by Leopard or licensed Ragwort Stalk; (4) all travel occurs widdershins (counterclockwise); (5) rubbish takeaway every second Friday; (6) all changelings are required to wear identifying footwear; (7) no crossing the borders of the Worsted Wood except for visiting dignitaries and spriggans.  Plus, the eating or drinking of Fairy food means you are bound to Fairyland for ever and ever.  September, being a capable and slightly stubborn girl, thinks she can handle all that and gladly charges onward.

The first folk she meets are a couple of witch sisters and their husband, a Wairwulf, and she accepts a quest from them.  As September continues on, she befriends A-through-L, a Wyvern (dragon with only two legs), and the adventures escalate from there, as they come into contact with a Golem, the Marquess, various fairies, shapeshifters, spriggans, pookas, wild bicycles, Marids (a water-based genie), talking furniture and Death, to name just a few.


TGWCFiaSiHOM is very much in the vein of Baum's Oz and Carroll's Wonderland books.  The heroine is a resourceful young girl but her adventures are not easy for her and her new friends: things are scary and painful and freezing cold and near-death and very often unpleasant.  Baum's and Carroll's books were much darker than the universally loved movies but even the Judy Garland version of The Wizard of Oz was frightening in spots - those horrible flying monkeys! the scary floating Wizard head! - and I remember being quite afraid when Alice fell down the well in the Disney cartoon.  Valente's book skirts the line between a children's book and a YA book: there are no coming-of-age themes in TGWCFiaSiHOM that might attract a YA audience, but there is definitely enough scary stuff that the youngest readers might not be ready for.

I really enjoyed The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.  It has an old-fashioned feel without being stodgy, clings closely to traditional fairytales and yet adds its own embellishments.  September is a great heroine: clever, stubborn, brave, only Somewhat Heartless and sometimes foolish.  She loves Fairyland and through her, even we adults can remember how to love it too.

Summertime Television

Summertime television used to be el sucko.  Of course, after this year's lackluster season, once the only bright spot - Justified - ran its course, there wasn't much I wanted to watch now anyway.  To be sure, I've got all the episodes of AMC's The Killing sitting in my DVR, and I've recorded a bunch of Invasions too (although I can't remember why - is it supposed to be any good?).  Burn Notice returns sometime soon too and that's nice and light and fluffy.

But what of the new cable shows, released in the summer when there's nothing on the networks?  This time around I've got a list of them that I'm willing to try, based on some geeky blog post I read somewhere:

• Teen Wolf - 6/5 on MTV.  This remake is not surprising in the wake of Twilight.  I read something somewhere that this version is "more Incredible Hulk than Teen Wolf," but I'll give it a shot.
• The Nine Lives of Chloe King - 6/14 on ABC Family.  From the show's site: "Chloe King is looking forward to celebrating her birthday with her friends and single mother, just like every other year…that is until she starts developing heightened abilities [FMS note: cat-like] and discovers she's being pursued by a mysterious figure. Chloe soon learns she's part of an ancient race which has been hunted by human assassins for millennia —and that she may be their only hope for ultimate survival."  Hey, I liked GREEK a lot so I'm interested to see what they do with an urban fantasy-ish series.
• Falling Skies - 6/19 on TNT.  A post-apocalyptic humans vs. alien invaders show executive-produced by Steven Spielberg?  I have high hopes for this one.
• Wilfred - 6/23 on FX.  You've seen the ads, right?  Frodo's got a dog.  Everyone else in the world sees an actual dog but to Frodo, it's a guy in a dog suit with an English or Aussie accent.  Could be twisted (she said hopefully).
• Alphas - 7/11 on Syfy.  Kind of like Heroes (but only in a good way, hopefully) with a team of folks with heightened abilities.  Only this time they have government funding AND David Strathairn.

What about you guys?  What will you be watching when it's too hot to do anything else?

Book review: The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

This book review comes in honor of my story-telling aunt Terry, who wanted to know what I thought about The Book of Lost Things by Irish author John Connolly. (It is also thanks to her that I even read this book, as I’d never heard of it.) What did I think? Nutshell: AWESOME.

The Book of Lost Things tells the story of the boy David who, once upon a time, had his world collapse around him. His beloved mother withered, sickened and died, and his father – a good man, but lonely – remarried shortly thereafter. David, feeling angry and sorry for himself, retreats to his books of fairytales. When he finds himself thrust into a different world, populated by twisted variations on the old tales, he is not even that surprised – a child accepting this strange reality where an adult would have curled into the fetal position and screamed.

Instead, David accepts a quest. He meets the Woodsman (not tin, but rather grim) who tells him that this land is ruled by a dying king whose magic book, the titular Book of Lost Things, may be able to show the boy the way back home. David sets off to see the king, suffering horrific adventures along the way: an assembling army of wolves, led by a werewolf who would be king, trolls, harpies, a Beast like something out of Stephen King’s imagination. More disturbingly, David is being followed by the Crooked Man (by the old stories, if you can learn his name he’ll leave you alone, but David doesn’t know this nasty creature’s name) who has nefarious plans for the boy.

It isn’t all terror and grue, however. David meets stalwart companions as well: the Woodsman, who feeds him, clothes him and sets him on his path; seven communist dwarves; and the soldier Roland and his trusty steed, Scylla, in whose company David learns the true meaning of loyalty, courage and love. In the company of these good men, the boy takes steps to become a man, something that will help him in his fight against the crooked man.

What is so cool about The Book of Lost Things is that it’s not just a fantasy quest story; it’s also an homage to and re-telling of the old stories – the dark, unabridged fairy tales before Disney got its mitts on ‘em. In his real world, David clung to the fairy tales because his mother loved the stories and believed in their power to transform:

Once someone started to read them, they could begin to change. They could take root in the imagination, and transform the reader. Stories wanted to be read.

And in his real world, classic fairy tale tropes abound: the beautiful beloved parent dies; the decent widowed parent remarries wicked stepmother; the family goes to live in a big, mysterious house; there is the introduction of new stepsiblings and the subsequent peripheralizing of main character.

Once David makes the transition to the story-world, he finds that here, all the things he read about are real and true, but different. His new friends tell him stories, tales that seem familiar at first: how Red Riding Hood’s relationship with the Big Bad Wolf was in fact rather more complicated; how Hansel was a putz; how the Prince and the Swineherd is a story of vengeance and could have been of forgiveness; what Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are really like. There are very few happy endings in this world, it seems. As the seven dwarves tell David:

"They ate [Goldilocks] … That’s what ‘ran away and was never seen again’ means in these parts. It means ‘eaten.’” “Um, and what about ‘happily ever after? … What does that mean?” “Eaten quickly.”

My library classifies The Book of Lost Things as “fantasy” fiction, and the book jacket says it is a novel “for adults.” While there are some adult themes and quite a bit of violence – although certainly no more so than in the Grimms’ original, unsanitized fairy tales* – this is about on the level of the later Harry Potter books, so mature young adults could enjoy it. The prose reads like a fairy tale, with simple sentences and clear phrasing; the sentences have a rhythm to them that would lend themselves nicely to reading aloud. This story wants to be read. People should want to read it.

* I have a volume of the unabridged Grimms' fairy tales, and they are bloody, bloody stories.  When I get my stuff out of storage, I should probably read them again.
 

Book review: Deerskin by Robin McKinley

I’ve read one or two of Robin McKinley’s Young Adult books before; Deerskin is not like those books. Yes, the sure-footed story-telling is there, and the characters that leap off the page, and the magic and mystery. But Deerskin, while still a fantasy, is indeed a fairy tale for adults (as one of the book jacket quotes gushes) – it is, in part, nightmarish, unthinkable, the grimmest fairy tale imaginable.

All as she was growing up, the Princess Lissar was ignored, overshadowed by her beautiful, generous, overwhelming parents – the queen the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms and the king clever and brave and handsome enough to win her hand. When the queen died, the king went mad with grief for she was his life, and while she was living, they only had eyes for each other. The princess grew up quietly, unnoticed except by her beloved pet dog, a greyhound-esque hound named “Ash,” a gift from a neighboring kingdom’s prince as slight consolation and comfort at her mother’s death.

At the princess’s seventeenth birthday, she got a coming-out party, and the court was amazed to discover that this princess, who had been for so long completely eclipsed by her mother’s beauty, was actually the very image of her mother. The nightmare did not truly begin, however, until the king realized the same thing.

Lissar and her devoted dog fled the castle and the unspeakable horror (which McKinley does, in fact, speak of in awful, heart-rending detail) contained within it. Through strength of will, resilience of body and not a little magic, she and Ash embarked upon a journey that brought them wonder and danger, loyalty and betrayal, healing and home. The brutalized princess had lost her memory, repressing not just recent events but all prior history, and eventually found her way to a far off kingdom where she got work in the prince’s dog kennels. I know I’m being very vague with the plot, but this is an excellent story and it deserves to be read, not spoiled here.

McKinley makes a note at the beginning of the book which says:

There is a story by Charles Perrault called Donkeyskin which, because of its subject matter, is often not included in collections of Perrault’s fairy tales. Or, if it does appear, it does so in a bowdlerized state. The original Donkeyskin is where Deerskin began.

All the old, unDisneyfied fairy tales are violent, often horrifically so: two out of every three princes dying during impossible quests, evil stepsisters hacking off bits of their feet to squeeze into party shoes, princesses dancing all night until their feet bleed. Donkeyskin and Deerskin go much further than any of those. This modern fantasy novel is indeed a fairy tale, following the traditions and tropes, but it is brutal and disturbing, no less so because McKinley writes so well.

But it is also full of strength and love – and dogs. Lots of dogs, actually – McKinley is obviously a dog person. Lissar regains much of her strength in the royal kennel, surrounded by happy dogs and puppies. For every act of wrath there is one of rebirth. I read a lot of fantasy novels but rarely does one stay with me for very long after I’ve closed the cover. Robin McKinley’s striking Deerskin is one that has.

Book review: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

America is a vast country with room for many. Inhabited by Natives and settled by peoples from across the globe, the continent embraces its people and the beliefs they bring with them, seeking solace and livelihood and freedom. It's a good thing the country is so goshdarn big because the people came from all over - from Scandinavia to Africa, from Ireland to India and all the places in between. They brought their gods and their demigods, their faeries and ifrits and boggles. The people brought their old gods and the land welcomed them, allowing them to settle and flourish. Until the people got a little more sophisticated and newer gods began to make themselves known: telecommunications, electricity, transportation, television. The old gods retreated in the face of modernity. And then they fought back.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman is the story of the battle of these gods - and the man caught in the middle. Shadow is about to be released from doing his three years in prison when he is told that his wife Laura has been killed in a car crash. Bereft, travelling home for her funeral, he meets a charismatic grifter named Wednesday. Wednesday knows all about Shadow and offers him a job as sort of an aide de camp. Figuring why not, Shadow accepts.

Wednesday is more than he appears to be, however, and so is the rogues' gallery of his confederates to which he introduces his new employee: Mr. Nancy (Anansi), Czernobog, Whiskey Jack, Easter (Eostre) - all gods making their way in a now-hostile world. On a wild roadtrip through some of the U.S.'s more memorable roadside attractions (like this and this), Shadow finds himself entangled in an epic struggle that he had no idea was happening.

This is my kind of book, no question about it. As a kid I plundered the school and town libraries, reading (and re-reading) every mythology book I could get my hands on - Norse, Greek, Egyptian, Native American, Celtic, African. I devoured those stories. And now, finally, the stories have all come together in Gaiman's uber-capable hands. As I turned the pages of American Gods and discovered a different god - or an oblique reference to a different god - I had such fun trying to recall what I might still know about thunderbirds, Thoth, Anubis, Bast and Horus, Kali, Morrigan, kobolds, Urd's Well and Loki. (By the way, each of these deities play a role in this big book - and that's not all of them!)

I loved this book. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Devoured it. Reread pages because they were so good. Got cranky when I realized I was nearing the end. In fact, I would venture to say that I had the exact opposite reaction to American Gods as I did to that friggin' stupid Mermaid Chair book. It's not all gods and monsters - Gaiman is nearly poetic about road-trips and small towns, and there's a murder to be solved - but while this is clearly fantasy, it doesn't have that swords-and-sorcery feel to it. American Gods reads easy like a straight-fiction thriller ... it just happens to be about, well, gods and monsters.

Titles Nine - #8 -- comics edition

In honor of the Watchmen movie opening today, I thought I'd give you my comics/graphic novel collection as the theme for Titles Nine. Only problem is that I've only got eight in my bookshelves. So the ninth is the comics series that is next on my list to read, and possibly collect, in my continuing quest to consume all things Gaiman.

• Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. This book is just amazing, not only as a comic but also as an actual book. I'm only a slight fan, having read it through in its entirety twice and currently working my way back through for a third time.


• Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Season 8 - Joss Whedon et al. What would have happened next.


• Fray - Joss Whedon. As you might imagine, the future-Slayer kicks all kinds of ass.


• Y: the Last Man - Brian K. Vaughan. What happens to the world when all the males of all the species die - except one man and his capuchin monkey? A damn good story, that's what happens.


• Fables - Bill Willingham. My kind of comic: the main characters are taken from fairy tales and folklore, but reinterpreted to make sense in a modern world. Or, as much sense as fairy tale folks can make. Great stories and pretty pictures.


• Mouse Guard Fall 1152 - David Petersen. I own the hardbound book (previously mentioned here) and am looking forward to the next one. Mice with swords!


• 300 - Frank Miller. Saw the movie first and was then compelled to buy the book.


• Maus: A Survivor's Tale - Art Spiegelman. A memoir of Spiegelman's father's struggles as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust. Jews are anthropomorphized mice, Germans are cats, etc. This was the first graphic novel I ever bought, years and years ago.


• The Sandman - Neil Gaiman. Haven't read it yet, but I'm sure gonna.
  

The Greatest of All

Sometimes serendipity strikes: the following is a Japanese folk tale, recounted on the tag of a Folkmanis stuffed animal.

Once, long ago in Japan, a family of mice made their home in the Emperor's palace. Father Mouse was a proud creature with sleek white fur and long whiskers. One day his daughter, Chuko, asked permission to marry. "He is a handsome field mouse. May I, father?" she begged. "My daughter marry a humble field mouse?" he cried. "Never! Your husband must be the greatest of all." And so Father Mouse went to ask the Emperor to marry Chuko, for surely the Emperor was the greatest of all. "Oh, no," said the Emperor, "I am not the greatest, for when Sun beats down, even I must take shade. And when Cloud covers the sky, even Sun must hide his face. And when Wind blows, Cloud must run away. And when Wind hits Wall, Wind is stopped. Go ask Wall, friend mouse, for he must be the greatest." And so Father Mouse went to the ancient wall at the edge of the field. "There is someone even greater than I," said Wall, "who tunnels inside me and one day will bring me down. His name is Ko Nezumi, Field Mouse. You must ask him. He is the greatest of all." And that is just what Father Mouse did.

Strange but weird - Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere

I can't remember exactly how I discovered Neverwhere. I think I was checking the definition of "malevolent" for a Deadwood recap and hilariously found (on the first page of the Google search, no less) tomatoesareevil.com, which was created by Neil Gaiman. I poked around there and found a link to Gaiman's main site which lists all the stuff he's done: comics, books, theater, movies.

Neverwhere was a six-part television series made for the BBC in the 1990s - and each of the six parts is only a half hour, so it's a pretty quick viewing. The DVD also has a BBC interview with Gaiman that I only watched a few minutes of, but he mentioned that part of his inspiration came from the London Tube map with its imagination-firing place names: Angel Islington, Earls Court, Turnham Green, Piccadilly Circus, Hammersmith, Limehouse, Goodge Street. Set in those underground tunnels and sewers below London, this is the story of how a normal guy, Richard Mayhew, gets sucked into a nightmarish alternate world, all because he stopped to help a hurt girl. The girl is somewhat of a princess in London-Below and Richard helps her on her quest to avenge her murdered family, along the way discovering hidden depths about himself.

This little series is nuts - like a really, really, REALLY low budget Time Bandits. It looks as though it was filmed on videotape; the special effects are giggle-inducing. But all of the actors are playing it straight and they manage to nearly sell this crazy world. Two of the characters, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandermar, steal every scene they're in: they're murderers for hire and do their job with much humor and relish. "Can't make an omelette ..." says Mr. Croup near the end, and Mr. Vandermar (who likes to eat the rats and frogs he kills in his spare time) finishes, "... without killing some people." Hee.

Having now seen both Stardust and Neverwhere, I'm intrigued enough by Gaiman's work to want to move Mirrormask up in my queue and also to pick up some of his books, comic and regular. I'm not sure I'd recommend Neverwhere as the introductory course in a Gaiman education but it is definitely worth it as an elective along the way.

Fables: Animal Farm

This book holds the second story arc in Bill Willingham's Fables series: the Farm Fables, who cannot pass for human, are mad as hell at being stuck out in the middle of nowhere and are not going to take it anymore. Led by Goldilocks (who can actually pass for human but chooses to stay nearby her Three Bears ... and who may be sleeping with Baby Bear, I'm not sure) and two of the Three Little Pigs, these Fables are planning a rebellion to retake their Homelands, and perhaps knock off a few of the leading Fable politicos in the process. It's up to Snow White, Deputy Mayor of Fabletown, her sister Rose Red, and the sassy fox, Reynard, to put things right.

Whatever I said here about the illustrations, etc., ditto. Plus, the sheer numbers of recognizable characters this time is amazing: Puss-in-Boots; the Walrus (but not the Carpenter) and the Playing Card Soldiers from the Red Queen's Court; Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit; Chicken Little; the Tortoise and the Hare; Shere Khan, Bagheera, Kaa and King Louie; the Three Blind Mice (who pop up in nearly every panel); the Old Woman in the Shoe and all her attendant Children; Cock Robin; Tom Thumb and Thumbelina; Badger, Toad and Mole (from Wind in the Willows); and the Billy Goats Gruff ... those are just the ones I could identify. There's dozens more. So cool.

Willingham and his team are either huge faerie tale fans or really, really thorough in their research. I am just in awe of these books. The only problem I have with them is that I only bought the two and it's going to be a while before I can go get more.

P.S. I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to post in the next week or so due to over scheduling of my precious free time, but I'll do my best.

What I [hope to] read on my summer vacation – by FM

It’s that time of year again: before summer's end, the Mice will be heading to the lake for a week of fishing, beer-drinking, sunning and reading on the dock. I haven’t had a full week’s vacation since last August: I am in desperate need of a break. As I’ve done every lake-week for the last five or so years, I’ve collected a stack of books from the library and from hoarding any recent purchases. Mr. Mouse usually gets through 1-2 books during vacation; my current record is 17. [To clarify: (a) he is a lot more active than I tend to be on vacation and (b) I read really quickly.] Here is this year’s list: 18. I’ll reconvene after we get back and report on how many I actually got through.

• The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins (1860). This one scarcely counts as I only have 200 pages to go.
• Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett (1989). From my friend Kevin C. It’s about dragons – I love dragons.
• Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield (1998). Since I’ve already read about the Battle of Thermopylae in the original Greek and in Frank Miller’s graphic novel (not to mention seeing 300), this should give me the last point of view I need.
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss (2003). About punctuation. Right on!
• Portrait in Sepia, Isabel Allende (2001). Translated from the Spanish, this one was a gift from my mom.
• A Good Dog, Jon Katz (2006). It’s about dogs. Impulse buy (3 for 2 table) at Borders.
• The Summer of My Greek Taverna, Tom Stone (2002). $4 table at Borders.
• Long Ago in France, M.F.K. Fisher (1991). Ditto $4 table.
• The Best American Short Stories – 2003. Ditto $4 table. I don’t read many short stories so I figured this would be good for me.
• The Children of Hurin, J.R.R. Tolkien (2007). Finished posthumously by Tolkien’s son. How could I not?
• Mike and Psmith (1909) and Enter Psmith (1935), P.G. Wodehouse. I read a mention of the Psmith books a while ago which said they were very funny. I’m a sucker for British murder mysteries of this era so I thought I’d branch out.
• Blandings Castle, P.G. Wodehouse (1935). Six short stories.
• Tales of H.P. Lovecraft (collection, 2005). I’ve never read any Lovecraft: the book jacket calls him “the 20th century successor to Poe as the master of ‘weird fiction'.” I like weird.
• The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell (1996). This book was mentioned on this blog (which I think is very funny and a great source of information). That’s all I know.
• Archer At Large, Ross MacDonald (omnibus, 1970). Three Lew Archer novels.
• Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson (2003). Other than TWiW and the Archer omnibus, this is the only really big book I’ve got this time: 916 pp. As I mentioned, I read quickly so big is good. Plus it’s the start of a series so I hope I like it.
• Cell, Stephen King (2006). This one I’ve read before once so it’s my emergency book in the event I get through all the others.

Stardust - mini-review

What would you get if you took LoTR, one of those Pirates movies, a Harry Potter flick and Witches of Eastwick, and put them all in a blender? You might get something similar to Neil Gaiman's Stardust. Gaiman has done a lovely job of presenting a fantasy world that probably 98% of the movie audience knows nothing about and making its mythology accessible [Ahem, M. Night? You taking notes?] and, in fact, I'm now quite interested in reading the novel from which the movie was adapted. The movie is quite gorgeous visually: costumes, locations (all over Great Britain and also in Iceland); the story has a lot of heart and is a much sweeter tale than fantasy fare of late. It does seem a little confused at times, though, unable to decide between wanting to be a serious quest film and or a funny one. It absolutely has lighthearted moments and I chuckled out loud a couple of time, but it's no Princess Bride.

Michelle Pfieffer gives the Wicked Witch of the West a run for her money in the competition for Best Movie Hag: she is stunning and hideous and scary, and clearly enjoying the heck out of this role. Young Charlie Cox does a fine job of carrying the film and Rupert Everett made me giggle each time he was on screen. I think Claire Danes may wish to try a movie where she doesn't have to do an English accent; she was fine but I found the accent incredibly distracting, just as I did in Stage Beauty. And it will be a long, long time before I purge the image of Robert DeNiro in a pink feather boa out of my head [shudder ... and hee!].

Fables: Legends in Exile

I just now finished reading Bill Willingham's Fables: Legends in Exile, a collection of the first five issues of the Fables comic book series - wow! I'm a comics-neophyte, having just come to realize that my three decades old assumption that comics were just about superheroes in capes and tights is completely incorrect. After reading this first Fables book, I'm now pretty confident in the books I've chosen with which to educate myself.

The premise behind this series is that all the denizens of the Lands of Make-Believe, both human and non-human were - hundreds of years ago - under attack by some mysterious adversary. After this Adversary decimated the Land of Oz and and the Land of Narnia, the rest of the faerie tale folk found an escape from their worlds into our mundane world, and they now live in New York. Those who can pass for human [Cinderella, Pinnochio, the witch from Hansel and Gretel, Bluebeard, etc.] live in Manhattan; those who can't [elves, trolls, faeries, three pigs, blind mice, and so on] live on farms upstate. These comics tell the tales of the Fables trying to live in our modern times.

The illustrations are simply amazing, far surpassing anything I could have expected. Each panel is so detailed, rife with fantasy references - total eye-candy to a faerie tale fan like me. The story arc of this first collection seemed to fizzle out slightly at the final reveal - these are fantasy folks and I wanted a fantastic climax! But the whodunit turned out to have sprung from the characters' mundane motivations and I guess that fits better, given that these Fablefolk are trying to fit into a mundane reality.

No matter. I adore faerie tales (I have a copy of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm which is a treasure - 279 tales in 729 pages and so much bloodier in the unabridged version!) and I am thrilled to have discovered a whole new venue in which to indulge. The second collection, Animal Farm, is lined up and ready to read next. I can't wait!