In a magical universe that makes absolutely no sense… The various kingdoms seen in Disney animated films are now a single entity, the United Kingdoms/SIn a magical universe that makes absolutely no sense… The various kingdoms seen in Disney animated films are now a single entity, the United Kingdoms/States of Auradon (the book uses both). Many of these movies take place in the real world and some during specific eras, but never mind. Auradon also boasts modern technology and clothing.
The leader of Auradon is the Prince once known as the Beast (not to be confused with the Artist Formerly Known as Prince), who is referred to as “King Beast” by not only his subjects, but his wife and son.
The King banished all the villains and dangerous criminals to a penal colony, the Isle of the Lost. They include Maleficent, the Evil Queen, Jafar, Cruella de Vil, Captain Hook, Ursula, and Dr. Facillier…
Wait, you say, didn’t most of those characters die at the ends of their respective movies? Yes. But our “heroes” brought them back from the dead to incarcerate them. All this was twenty years ago.
On the Isle, where everything is grimy and foul, we meet Mal, Maleficent’s angst-ridden daughter who takes out her anger on her peers. She’s friends, in a self-serving way, with Jay, strapping son of the sorcerer Jafar and accomplished pickpocket. Their paths tangle with Carlos, Cruella de Vil’s geeky son, and Evie, the vain, sheltered daughter of the Queen who poisoned Snow White. Feeling threatened by bubbly Evie, and desperate for her mother’s approval, Mal goads her squad into helping her search for her mother’s missing Dragon’s Eye scepter. The thief who lays hands on this artifact will sleep for a thousand years…
Meanwhile, in the aggressively happy-go-lucky land of Auradon, Ben, the son of Belle and the King, is good-natured and handsome but not terribly bright. Ridiculous plot devices are converging to make the perfectly healthy King abdicate in favor of Ben, who fears that he won’t measure up. The lad has been having strange dreams, of a girl among the lost souls on the Isle, which give him an idea for a kingly gesture…
Content Advisory Violence: Carlos and Jay are both severely neglected at home, and Maleficent verbally bullies Mal. Very little actual physical violence.
Sex: At a party, Mal lures Evie into a trap by telling her Jay is waiting to make out with her in a coat closet.
Language: Nada.
Substance Abuse: The book goes so far out of its way to avoid this that it becomes silly. Mal convinces Carlos to throw a party at his mom’s house while she’s away (where? They can’t leave the island, remember?). At this wild party, the kids imbibe root beer. Also, Cruella vapes these days rather than smoke.
Nightmare Fuel: The gargoyles at the bridge might frighten very young readers. Those who have a fear of tiny spaces or being buried alive might not do great with the scenes in Cruella’s secret passages or the treasure room.
Politics and Religion: As the kids scrounge for the answer to a riddle, Evie suggests the Golden Rule, which she dismisses as “Auradon greeting-card nonsense.” Jay distracts Dr. Facillier at a key moment with a stolen pack of tarot cards.
Overcrowded Crossovers and Accidental Allegories As I said in a review of a different book, Disney might be the only corporation I know of that commissions and publishes their own fanfiction on such a grand scale. They now have three properties that are mega-crossovers featuring all their beloved animated characters:
- Kingdom Hearts, an anime-influenced video game. I know very little about it, but it seems well-loved online.
- Once Upon a Time, a gothic primetime soap. I really enjoyed the first half of Season 1 but after that, the cast grew far too big and the plotlines too convoluted for my taste. That said, plenty of people enjoyed it.
- Now there’s Descendants, an unholy combination of The Selection, Percy Jackson, High School Musical, and…The Great Divorce . One of these things is not like the others.
So how is Descendants similar to The Selection? They’re both silly stories with dystopian elements tacked on. Both feature a handsome prince who’s too pure for this world, who falls in love with a girl from the lower rungs of society who initially despises him and everything he stands for. I have no idea what Maxon saw in America, and I have no idea what Ben sees in Mal either. The romance is only hinted at here, but is the main plot of the first Descendants movie.
It’s like the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus series in that everyone’s identity mostly comes from their parents. A big part of both franchises is the young heroes’ struggling to break free of their larger-than-life parents, but still—their parentage and the powers, virtues and vices that come with it are the main attribute of each character in both universes.
It’s like High School Musical since they’re both impossibly light-hearted, wholesome stories about high school, presented as Disney Channel musicals.
The Great Divorce is a C.S. Lewis novel about Heaven, Hell, and possibly Purgatory. A group of people from a miserable, hateful city are given a chance to stay in a beautiful kingdom for a while. They’ve done nothing to earn this; it was granted to them by the merciful Son of a great King. The travelers find that they’d rather stay than go back where they came from.
I doubt that any of the Disney execs who concocted this franchise have read The Great Divorce. (Sometimes it seems like Lewis has been haunting Disney since they dropped the ball on the Narnia series; a lot of his favorite themes have seeped into Mouse House IPs of late, especially the Star Wars sequels). The resemblance is all the more startling because it was clearly unintentional.
I’m pretty sure that the allegory is accidental because SO LITTLE THOUGHT WENT INTO THIS STORY. The glaring flaws are not the fault of Melissa de la Cruz, who makes the best of the material she was given. The blame lies squarely with the committee that dreamt this thing up. The world-building in this franchise is so sloppy, it makes the Star Wars universe look as airtight as Middle-earth by comparison...
Consistency? What’s That? 1). No explanation is even VENTURED for why all these characters, whose stories take place across several worlds and a millennium or two, now live in the same era and geographic location. You’d need some serious hocus pocus to pull it off, but at least try to give a reason.
2). And WHY is this kingdom of Auradon a modern place? Weren’t the timeless settings of Disney fairytale movies a big part of their appeal?
The franchise itself isn’t consistent on how much tech the characters have. In this book, Ben muses that there must be more to life than the shiniest new chariots (his parents originally lived in the 1700s and would have used carriages), yet Cruella has a run-down car that Carlos is often forced to repair. In the movie, the kids arrive at school in a spiffy black limo. And Mal uses a modern tablet for the visual aids while she narrates the opening.
3). The Beast is the LAST Disney Prince who should be dealing out punishments and refusing to consider others’ views. It’s like he’s learned nothing from his time as a monster, cursed precisely for his lack of compassion. If anything, he should be erring on the side of mercy. To quote King Edmund the Just, “Even a traitor may mend. I have known one who did.”
4). Not only did they get the poor guy’s character completely wrong, he is referred to throughout as “King Beast.” Would it have really hurt to give him a name? A lot of fans call him Adam, which doesn’t sound quite right for an 18th century French prince, but really suits him as an individual. What would have been interesting is if the Islanders called him “King Beast” behind his back. As an insult.
5). Same thing with the Evil Queen (who is often unofficially named Grimhilde), the Fairy Godmother, the Genie…The characters actually refer to the Evil Queen as “Evil Queen” as if it’s her name. This would work in a full-blown satire like the Shrek movies, but the Descendants franchise seems like it’s striving for poignancy over comedy.
6). The kids’ names are mostly a mess too. Mostly, not all. Evie is actually a rather clever name for the daughter of someone who tempted a girl into eating the wrong apple. Maleficent is certainly arrogant enough to name her kid after herself; maybe Jay is short for Jafar Junior as well. And Ben is a name that I’m just fond of—a character named Ben is always a good guy, even if he starts out a bad guy and has to be dragged kicking and screaming back to the Light (looking at you, Ben Solo).
But the other original character names range from uninspired to cringey. For instance, Mulan and Li Shang named their daughter Lonnie. After five minutes of searching Beyond the Name, I came across Zhihao, a unisex Chinese name meaning “will, purpose, ambition” + “brave, heroic, chivalrous.” (I accept that I got this information off the internet and apologize if the translation is incorrect). Now doesn’t THAT sound more like Mulan’s style?
7). Some of the characters are way off-base. Jafar acts more like the Governor from Pocahontas than himself, and the Evil Queen seems to have turned into Mrs. Bennet.
[image]
8). Let’s not acknowledge the existence of Doug, son of Dopey. The idea that someone took advantage of that childlike, helpless character is frankly disturbing…
Who Exactly is Our Target Audience? The Isle of the Lost also suffers for being a middle-grade book. Not that being YA these days would have saved it. It seems that YA books are getting racier and darker, MG books are getting more infantilized, and no author can bridge the gap unless their name is Rick Riordan.
Ideally, this series would have crossover appeal. It’s clean and has the middle-grade emphasis on friendship and cool clothes, but the characters are teens—half of whom are what Kenny Watson (The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963) would call “official juvenile delinquents” —and their familial and romantic relationships could be super angsty. Indeed, the Descendants movies seem to have a large teen-and-young-adult fandom even with their shallow emotional beats and garish aesthetic.
I just think that the series, both the books and the movies, could be better if allowed to explore some of the unpleasant or edgy parts of the story.
A big one is how some of the villains were raised from the dead to be imprisoned on the Isle of the Lost. Who among the Disney good guys has the power to do this, and why would any of the good guys consider it justified? Reviving your enemies just to punish them is a villain move. Punish the living criminals by all means, but let the dead rest.
Some small ones are the party Carlos throws at Mal’s behest, a wild party among delinquent teens where they dare to break out the…root beer. Or the scene where Mal acts disgusted by Cruella’s smoking habit and the puppy-pelt enthusiast reassures her that it’s only an e-cig. (Which might have its own health risks, but that’s outside the scope of this review).
Am I arguing that children’s books should feature more substance abuse? Of course not! But bending over backwards to avoid it, in a context where it’s clearly happening, just insults the reader’s intelligence. How would Cruella even get e-cigs? All the gadgets on the Isle are supposed to be hopelessly outdated.
The root beer thing isn’t unique to this book; there’s a joke about the notoriously rowdy centaurs breaking into some in The Last Olympian and it jarred me right out of that book too. The only time I’ve ever seen it work is in Diary of a Wimpy Kid II: Rodrick Rules, a scene that mostly succeeds thanks to great acting from Steve Zahn and Devon Bostick.
[image]
[image]
Other than that, either make a joke out of the trope itself, like the “age-appropriate beverages” gag from Over the Garden Wall, or have Carlos secretly switch real beer for non-alcoholic beer like in Freaks and Geeks.
Or, hear me out, let the kids drink real beer. Because they’re rotten and proud of it, and the whole point of the series is that they learn to be kinder, more responsible people.
This also applies to their ostensible quest: Mal wants to effectively kill Evie by putting her to sleep for a thousand years. I don’t remember this even being discussed by anyone except Mal. Isn’t that a major part of their arc as friends? Of course she thinks better of it once they get there, but that doesn’t absolve her of her murderous intent.
Seriously, the only actual villainy committed by these kids is petty theft, white lies, and easily-remedied acts of vandalism. That’s about as much of a redemption arc as the Hagenheim books, where characters are desperate for absolution because they talk too much or they stole something under duress when they were five.
Please. Give me Zuko or Edmund Pevensie—someone who actually messed up and needs forgiveness—over this cast of mildly rebellious hooligans.
[image]
[image]
Conclusions I don’t think any of the myriad flaws in this book are the fault of the author. Melissa de la Cruz was probably given a very short, harried timeframe to write this, and I doubt any of the main characters, settings, or MacGuffins are hers.
If anything, this book proves that her prose is pretty good, because it flows so nicely that the ridiculously convoluted plot and backstory seem simple.
The characters of the kids are all consistent and exactly what they set out to be. Mal is conniving and arrogant, Jay thinks he’s hot stuff, Evie and Carlos are actually sweet, and Ben is a cinnamon roll. The scene where Carlos and Evie leave the party to watch mainland programming on an ancient rabbit-eared TV is genuinely poignant.
This book won’t hurt or scare anyone, but it might have been better if it dared to, just a little. As is, it’s a valiant attempt to make a confusing, half-baked franchise palatable, and it does a decent job....more
The Holy Land, 1401— A little boy, grieving the recent death of his mother, is taken under the wing of a street lord and forced to steal in the marketpThe Holy Land, 1401— A little boy, grieving the recent death of his mother, is taken under the wing of a street lord and forced to steal in the marketplace for food. Until the day he is seen and adopted by a kindly priest, who takes him back to the faraway Holy Roman Empire.
Years pass, and the boy grows to young adulthood in the duchy of Hagenheim. They call him Aladdin now, which the book treats as a Westernization of Ala ad’din. He’s the big brother of every orphan in town, and he’s nursing a wicked childhood crush on the duke’s daughter, Kirstyn, whom he once saved from a bear attack and has the scars to show for it.
Aladdin knows that a duke’s daughter can’t marry a man with no title or fortune, so he leaves Hagenheim in the hopes of becoming rich. In the next city over, Lünesberg, he gets embroiled in a deathly quarrel between a wealthy merchant and his maladjusted son. Kirstyn is also swept up in it, and all she wants is to go home…
Content Advisory Violence: A young woman is violently kidnapped, tied up, imprisoned in various dark and unsanitary basements, struck, and repeatedly threatened with death. A young man beats his girlfriend. Another man hits and threatens little kids.
Two men duel and the victor stabs the loser through the heart.
Sex: It would appear that a disturbed young man lured a vulnerable orphan girl (who’s about fourteen years old) to accompany him between cities for sexual purposes, although nothing is shown or stated. The same man is said to have molested his own sister. Al and Kirstyn engage in a bit of kissing and snuggling.
Language: Nothing.
Substance Abuse: Michael and most of his allies have drinking problems.
Nightmare Fuel: Kirstyn is often held hostage in small, stuffy, dark rooms. The whole experience of being kidnapped leaves her with symptoms that the modern reader knows point toward PTSD.
Politics and Religion: The book pirouettes around the subject of the Crusades. The wars themselves had ended by the time this story takes place, but their aftereffects were just beginning.
The book never explicitly identifies any characters as Muslim, even though we know that they almost certainly were. One is Aladdin’s mother, a poor artisan with a noble soul whom we never properly meet, since the novel opens at her funeral. Another is a violent thief lord named Mustafa, who takes the newly orphaned child Aladdin off the streets in exchange for petty thefts. Aladdin himself is adopted by a priest as a little boy, so it’s not surprising that he becomes Christian while still a child.
Dickerson has finally tired of bashing Catholic clergy—there are two living, wholesome priests in this story. Unfortunately, she addresses the elder and more important of these characters as “Priest” instead of Father, and has the younger priest tell Kirstyn to “call him Francis.” As a Catholic, I can tell you that THIS JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN.
That said, at least the characters now do Catholic things like cross themselves, bless themselves with holy water, genuflect before the Tabernacle, look upon actual Crucifixes with Corpuses, and meditate on the suffering and death of Jesus. Previous books in this series found characters acting like modern Evangelicals several centuries before that denomination even appeared, so having them observe the rituals that made up a huge part of daily life in medieval Western Europe is a big step in the right direction.
A Whole New World, a Whole New Boring Point of View Aladdin always struck me as a folktale that wouldn’t adapt well as magic-free historical fiction. So much of the story depends on the Genie, and so much of the Genie as we know and love him depends on Robin Williams.
[image]
The well-loved Disney version is already far removed from the source material…
“Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp” is not even part of the Thousand and One Nights proper. It was added in by translator Antoine Galland, who also grafted in the tale of Ali Baba, in a French translation of the tales from 1709. There is no known prior Arabic source to either tale. The original story is ostensibly set in China, although clearly viewed through a Middle Eastern cultural lens.
The Disney version, almost certainly the best-known variant in modern times, moved the setting to a magical medieval Arabian kingdom, changed the name of the princess from Badroulbadour to Jasmine, re-sequenced some of the main events (the wedding of Aladdin and the princess happens about halfway through the original story), and altered other aspects (the Genie of the Ring has been replaced by the magic carpet). Of course, we all know that the real main character of the 1992 film is the Genie, whose frenetic energy the screen can scarcely contain.
[image]
Unfortunately, the mood of the story is completely lost when the setting is changed to medieval Germany. The desert, caves, gardens, and vast skies of the Near East are as fundamental to “Aladdin” as the Black Forest and flowered meadows of Germany are to “Snow White and Rose Red” and “The Goose Girl.” The later environment is the setting for all Dickerson’s other retold fairytales (save the two that take place in England). And they work fine for those stories. But “Aladdin” needs the desert and “The Little Mermaid” needs the sea or at least the coast. Sheesh.
Granted, this series is named the Hagenheim series, and most of the books are about the children of Duke Wilhelm and Lady Rose. That said, they follow the children even when they venture outside their parents’ duchy—usually just to other parts of Germany, but still.
I don’t think it would have hurt this book—in fact, I think it might have helped it tremendously—to set the story in the Middle East, perhaps in Jerusalem itself. Kirstyn could easily have gone there on pilgrimage. The factions and unease in the city would have given the tale some badly needed tension, and the setting would have been fresh.
Prince Ali, Nothing to See The stale setting would have been alright if the characters had pep. Alas, they just meekly plod wherever the plateau of a plot tells them to go.
Michael is wantonly cruel and demented because the story needs a villain. The villain who actually belongs in this story is a power-hungry authority figure who demands the heroine’s hand in marriage, but Dickerson couldn’t use that guy—let’s call him Jafar—because she already shoehorned him into The Silent Songbird, an ostensible Little Mermaid retelling which could have really used a fiendish female villain with designs on the prince (or earl, in that case).
Then there’s Herr Kaufmann. He could never have eclipsed a blue genie who does Groucho impressions, but he could have been fun, and at first I found him promising in a Fezziwig kind of way. Alas, he instead turns out to be morose and maddeningly gullible.
We’re told that Kirstyn is insecure, feeling always overshadowed by her adventurous older siblings. The narrator repeats this fact several times, but the book never examines it in any depth and it feels hollow. She is brave and compassionate, which we see in action when she finally escapes from Michael, or reaches out to Anna despite the latter being complicit in what happened to her. So Kirstyn is nice, but doesn’t have much of an internal life. Whereas there was a bit of steel in Jasmine—other Disney Princesses have songbirds for pets, this one has a tiger.
Our boy Al is pretty vapid and blank. If you drew a map of his brain, one hemisphere would be labeled “Earning a Fortune to Impress Kirstyn” and the other one would be labeled “Petty Theft Committed Under Duress at Age Five, Which He Still Feels Very, Very Guilty About.” The latter is as close as this character ever gets to having a conflict. You’d really think Father (I’m not calling him “priest”, because that’s disrespectful) would have talked this over with him.
Then there’s a moment of startling violence on Aladdin’s part, where he’s dealing with a known villain and stabs the guy through the heart without first offering clemency or trying to disarm him or anything. That’s not very chivalrous of him. It reminds me a lot of the very ending of the Aeneid, where Aeneas, who has spent the whole poem up until that point building an image of honor and grace, viciously stabs a grievously wounded enemy who cannot defend himself and is begging for mercy.
Turnus was an awful person and so was Michael; they certainly deserved their fates, but choosing mercy would have been a major character milestone for Aeneas and Aladdin. I doubt that was the effect Dickerson was going for. It’s completely at odds with the tone of the book up till that point, and a paragraph after the stabbing, we’re right back to love letters and skipping through the sunny fields. Something’s not quite right.
I also found it a bit weird that Abu immediately started referring to Al and Kirsty as “Father” and “Mother” when they’re only about twelve years older than him.
Conclusions One of Dickerson’s weaker books. It’s not messy and bizarre like The Healer’s Apprentice, but it is largely free of plot, character development, or a pulse. On the strengths of the well-crafted Merchant’s Daughter, the rollicking Golden Braid, and the flimsy-but-action-packed Silent Songbird, I’m curious about the upcoming book, which is about Mulan and will likely feature some actual conflict. I just wish this one could have been as much fun as those three....more
A parallel England, 1604 Thomas Fawkes is embarrassed. He’s sixteen now, the only student at St. Peter’s Color Academy in York who hasn’t been given hiA parallel England, 1604 Thomas Fawkes is embarrassed. He’s sixteen now, the only student at St. Peter’s Color Academy in York who hasn’t been given his own mask and can’t speak to any color. (I’ll explain to the best of my ability, something the book itself neglects to do).
Thomas gets booted from school. With no friends or family to take him in, he heads to London, drawn by the rumor that his father, Guy Fawkes the famous mercenary, has returned to England. After a number of misadventures, Thomas stumbles upon his father. But dear old Dad isn’t nearly as enthused about discovering his long-lost son as he is about the plot he and some allies have concocted to assassinate King James and all of Parliament.
This plot is just the latest escalation in a century-long war between two different philosophies of magic. The Keepers believe that each individual should only manipulate a single color, and the White Light at the source of the color spectrum is too dangerous for anyone but the wise to talk to. The Igniters commune directly with the White Light and use it to manipulate all the colors.
Thomas is a Keeper like his father before him. But he learns that someone else has a plan about that…
Content Advisory Violence: Several brief but rather nail-biting sword fights, and a shootout at the end. A man goes about stabbing people and animals with an infected knife and giving them the plague. The MC and his young lady friend are frequently menaced by hoodlums and conspirators in dark alleys. One of these scuffles leaves Thomas bleeding profusely.
There are two mass hangings, one including a child, who escapes the noose and runs. Brief discussion of the full punishment for treason: hanging until nearly dead, drawing (disembowelment) and quartering (dismemberment).
A man strikes his fiancée across the face. She hits back.
The whole plot revolves about a bunch of men plotting to blow a building filled with hundreds of people to kingdom come.
Sex: Some verbal sparring, buttoned-up, costume-drama flirtation, and a single kiss between Thom and Emma. Our hero watches with contemptuous amusement as a young couple sneaks away from a party with obvious horniness.
Language: One or two uses of “bloody.”
Substance Abuse: Some of the plotters seem to be heavy boozers. In fairness, they could hardly drink the water in 1604 London…
Nightmare Fuel: This universe suffers a magical blight called the Stone Plague, which literally petrifies its victims. Sometimes it spreads quickly through the host body, turning them into a statue in a matter of minutes. Other times it fastens to a particular part of the anatomy and destroys it long before it kills the victim. When we first meet Thomas, he has a stone eye and eyelid which he hides under an eye patch. (view spoiler)[He briefly becomes entirely stone, before the plague recedes but maintains its hold on both his eyes. A while later, he regains his sight in a highly symbolic manner (hide spoiler)].
Politics: We see the beginning of racism in England as it joins in the African slave trade. Many Londoners get spooked when they see a black person. King James holds a masquerade with a slavery theme, wherein white nobles paint themselves ebon—it’s not quite the same thing as the vile minstrel shows that appeared in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but this is where it started. Thomas rightly feels uncomfortable watching.
Religion: The whole thing is an allegory of the Protestant Reformation, veiled very thinly indeed. The White Light is clearly God, Who is portrayed with more affability and snark than grandeur.
[image]
Kill the King, Brandes’ historical notes at the end of the book are extremely brief, and assume the reader already knows most of the true story. I myself knew little of this particular episode, so here’s some background info. Let’s start with a timeline of the Reformation:
1517 – Martin Luther, disgusted by the corruption of the Renaissance Vatican, writes the 95 Theses, starting Reformation fever throughout Europe.
1532 – Henry VIII, driven by paranoia over a lack of male heirs and an obsession with one of his wife’s ladies-in-waiting, declares the Pope has no authority in England. Catholic religious, and secular subjects who refuse to follow Henry as religious leader, are executed.
1553 – Mary I, Catholic daughter of Henry and Catherine of Aragon, inherits the throne from her Protestant half-brother Edward VI. Intending to eradicate Protestantism from England, Mary has nearly 300 Protestants burned at the stake as heretics.
1570 – Pope Pius V issues a papal bull declaring Elizabeth I, Protestant daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, illegitimate and absolving her subjects of having to follow her. Elizabeth doesn’t want to kill subjects just for having a different religious practice—it didn’t exactly make her father or sister popular—but she has no qualms about executing those she sees as disloyal, and as her reign goes on, these people become disproportionately Catholic (or Puritan, but that’s a story for another time).
1603 – James VI of Scotland becomes James I of England. English Catholics hope for an ally in James, since his mother Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was a staunch Catholic. But James is Protestant and continues his cousin Elizabeth’s legacy of persecution.
Ostensibly, Catholics in England had the right to worship as they chose, provided they professed the British crown, and not the Papacy, was the most important power on Earth. But thousands of Catholics cherished the Church above the State and were called traitors for it. The punishment for treason, as mentioned earlier, was hanging, drawing, and quartering.
This was the environment in which several desperate, unhinged Catholic Englishmen concluded that the only way to stop the persecution was to blast King James and Parliament to smithereens.
The plot itself proceeded quite closely to how it was portrayed in the novel. The only major difference, besides the given one that the real plotters had no magical powers to help them, is the presence of young Thomas Fawkes. The International Genealogy Index (IGI), compiled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, records that Guy Fawkes married Maria Pulleyn, daughter of his schoolmaster, in 1590, and their son Thomas was born in 1591. But these records are considered a secondary source, and there’s no other known information about the marriage or Thomas.
Covered in the Colors, Pulled Apart at the Seams I give Nadine Brandes all kinds of credit for coming up with this world. It’s colorful (I’m sorry), exciting, and a fine place to immerse yourself for a few days of reading.
There’s just one problem. The magic system, while beguiling, doesn’t make any sense.
Magic is a hard thing to write well. Too much explanation takes the wonder out of it, when wonder is the whole point of having magic in the first place. But at the same time, too little explanation of the magic in a given story can be maddening. Especially if it’s one of those books where Everyone is a Mage. Fawkes is one of those books.
My favorite example of a magic system remains the one Garth Nix created for his Old Kingdom universe. It’s consistent and as lucid as magic ever could be without completely stripping it of mystery and glamour. He spends a few pages in the early chapters of Sabriel detailing the MC’s magical education and methods. By taking a little time to explain, instead of dropping the reader headfirst into a foreign world, Nix never needs to repeat it, and we can follow the rest of the story with ease. When Sabriel writes a rune in the air or rings any of her sacred bells, we know precisely what she’s doing, why she’s doing it, and what the likely result will be.
Whereas when Emma Areben, Benedict Norwood, and the other characters of Fawkes did their color-speaking, I often had no idea what to picture. Below, the magic system of this book as far as I could understand it:
In this universe, colors are semi-sentient entities. A given person can bond with a specific color (never really explained how) and the objects around them that are their color obey them. Someone who communes with Red can drain the blood from an enemy’s body, or alternatively coax the heart of a freshly-dead friend into beating again.
[image]
A Blue-speaker can manipulate water.
[image]
A Grey-speaker can lift rocks.
[image]
A Brown-speaker, like Emma, can command wood and soil.
[image]
It would appear that everyone but beggars has some color power in this society.
Wearing a mask painted a given color solidifies a person’s bond with that color, which is why Thomas is so ashamed to be the only conspirator with no mask. But the function of the masks themselves is unclear. This is a good place to mention that THERE’S NO FUN IN A MASQUERADE BALL IF EVERYONE WEARS A MASK ALL THE TIME ANYWAY.
The most powerful color is the White Light, which is the font of all other colors.
Let the Spectrum In
[image]
By the time this story begins, the color-control system has been in place for one-thousand six-hundred years.
In the olden times, the White Light reached out to people directly, but the wise men taught that ordinary people were too weak to speak to it, the source of all power. So for centuries, only those sages could interact directly with the Light. Ordinary folk were discouraged from seeking it out and told to ignore it if it sought them instead. Each mage was allowed to only manipulate a single color…
…until the mid-sixteenth century, when someone whom the book refers to only as “Luther” and some unnamed allies had a breakthrough. Why, everyone should be able to talk to the White Light! And use it to manipulate all the colors! These radical dudes became known as “Igniters”, opposed to the “Keepers” of the old ways.
It’s like the Verities vs. the EƋians in My Lady Jane, only without the humor.
Brandes actually does an excellent job showing the brutality of the Protestant English regime to its Catholic subjects. But while the book is sympathetic to the Catholic plight, it’s still based on a misunderstanding of what the Reformation was really about.
What a lot of people don’t know about Martin Luther is that he really didn’t want to split from the Church in Rome. He had no problem with the Catholic practices modern Protestants tend to find unnerving—perhaps most startlingly, he maintained a lifelong devotion to the Virgin Mary. Luther never even left the Church of his own volition; he was excommunicated by the Pope.
He felt compelled to speak against Church corruption, which by his time was rank. Luther was sent to Rome for a conference of his monastic order, where he witnessed priests mocking their faith and participating in debauchery.
In 1516 – 17, Pope Leo X initiated a new program of indulgences—wherein people paid the Church to forgive their own sins or let the souls of their dearly departed out of Hell. The Vatican coffers were empty because Leo emptied them on hunting expeditions and depraved parties. The higher branches of Church bureaucracy were heavy with equally rotten fruit.
From Luther’s famous anti-indulgence post on the cathedral doors, other thinkers piled on until they had a movement, and what had started as an uptight, fiery German monk trying to clean up the extant Church became innumerable men building churches of their own. Heads of state saw the opportunity to drive papal authority out of their lands. Henry VIII was about as spiritual as the average aardvark, he just wanted the power to grant himself divorces.
Back to Fawkes . Keepers = Catholics. Igniters = Protestants. White Light = God. Talking to the White Light = prayer/reading the Bible.
So Brandes is implying that the Catholic hierarchy did not even allow the faithful to pray to God directly. Wow. What?!? And then there’s that “They weren’t even allowed to read the Bible!” meme that Melanie Dickerson already beat to death five books ago.
The average pauper or peasant during the medieval and Renaissance eras couldn’t read, period. Public schools didn’t exist; only the wealthy could afford tutors or college. But the Church, for all its other horrifying problems, really did want the people to know the foundational stories of their faith.
So they covered churches in art depicting scenes from the Bible and the lives of the saints. The major episodes of the Life of Christ were also told through the specific artwork/meditation combination called the Stations of the Cross, and the lengthy meditative prayer, the Rosary. The lower classes may not have been able to quote the Scriptures word for word, but they knew what they believed, and they prayed frequently, multiple times a day.
The idea that the entire Catholic Church conspired for centuries to keep the populace ignorant of the Bible’s contents is ludicrous. If you want to make the Reformation look like a good or at least necessary thing, all you need to do is tell the truth. The Vatican was a playground for power-hungry monsters, and they preyed on peoples’ fear of Hellfire to take their money. Someone needed to shine a light on these cockroaches, and Luther (who had some serious issues himself) wound up being the one who started it. As a Catholic, I’m grateful that someone did it, because I hate to imagine what my church would look like now with no reform.
The reality is a much better story than the Don’t-Let-Them-Read-the-Bible conspiracy.
Conclusions Fawkes merges history with fantasy elements, which don’t always make sense but are certainly entertaining. The book is a lot of fun for its own sake and would make a fantastic movie. That said, I found that it misconstrued what the fight between the Gunpowder Plotters and the King was really about. Just remember that it’s meant to entertain more than educate and I think you’ll enjoy it as I did....more
On a cold, remote, seemingly backward planet with two distinct, isolationist cultures, a boy and a girl, he a settler and her a native, dream of beingOn a cold, remote, seemingly backward planet with two distinct, isolationist cultures, a boy and a girl, he a settler and her a native, dream of being TIE pilots for the mighty Galactic Empire. Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree won’t let anything get in the way of their shared dream. But while they are strong together in the face of disapproval from their families and snobbery at their imperial piloting academy, they break apart when confronted with proof of the Empire’s evil. Thane, the firebrand, can’t stand for this and eventually joins the Rebellion. Ciena, the principled one, stays on an increasingly Dark Side due to a misapplied sense of honor.
But even as the War drags on, and these two childhood friends/on-again off-again lovers meet in battle after battle, they still can’t make themselves kill each other…
Content Advisory Violence: The violence here is about the same amount and intensity as that of a Star Wars movie. Both Death Stars and a number of smaller spaceships get blown up—here we know some of the characters on those ships. Thane tries to convince Ciena to abandon her ship and reluctantly fights back when she strikes him (he is eventually able to capture her). As a child, Thane was regularly beaten by his father.
Sex: Thane and Ciena impulsively hook up twice, in spite of dire consequences for both should they be caught together. These scenes are not raunchy or overly detailed, but they do contain a lot of these two hormonal kids kissing, snuggling, and ogling each other. On another occasion, one of Thane’s bros makes a mild pass at Ciena, and continues to have a crush on her throughout. There is a brief reference to a boy watching a pornographic hologram in his dorm room. I will be ranting about this last point later in the review.
Language: A few “damns” and “hells”, in addition to nonsense words that are only swears in this universe.
Substance Abuse: Thane gets roaring drunk a few times to deal with his dreadful circumstances. One time Ciena joins him, but she usually has tighter self-control.
Nightmare Fuel: Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious is really creepy. So is Vader. I figured everyone here would know that, but one can never be sure.
Conclusions In Lost Stars, Claudia Gray’s adorable enthusiasm for the Star Wars universe is on full display. Unfortunately, so are many regrettable tropes she probably picked up from the mainstream YA market.
While I certainly felt bad for Thane and Ciena, neither has much going on in their heads. If one were to draw maps of their brains, one hemisphere would be labeled “Hormones/Relationship Drama” and the other would be labeled “Getting in a TIE Fighter/X-Wing and Blowing Things Up.” Thane has three moods: miserable, angry, and enraged. Ciena is more stable, but she’s also willfully blind and unable to adjust to change. The most interesting character in the book is Thane’s pal Nash Windrider, who has a far bigger reason to hate the Empire than either protagonist (he’s from Alderaan) yet remains staunchly loyal because he’d go insane if he let what happened to his home planet sink in. Nash spends the bulk of the book with an unrequited crush on Ciena, and I kept hoping she’d give him a chance because unlike Thane, Nash actually has more than two thoughts.
As for the (excuse the pun) star-crossed romance at the center of this novel…it’s 99.9% pure raging hormones, which is odd because these two characters grew up together and would have noticed each other that way long ago if they were romantically compatible. If they’re really friends from early childhood, then their relationship should be less intense and more chastely portrayed. If they’re mutually attracted enemies who hate that they want each other, they should have met as young adults. But Thane and Ciena are so thoroughly marinated in lust, it’s like they barely know each other, yet we’re told that they have been inseparable since age eight. It just doesn’t add up.
My friends Neil and Angelica, in their reviews, pointed out that the culture portrayed in this book is very modern, frequently crass, and generally a lot more like Star Trek than Star Wars. The galaxy far, far away seems so old-fashioned in most ways that it seems unlikely that its members are this cavalier about sex or alcohol. Not to mention that the films themselves are some of the cleanest blockbusters on the market. The parts about Thane getting drunk, or his and Nash’s obnoxious roommate watching porn with them in the room, just felt weird. Like a Lord of the Rings fanfic where hobbits trade bawdy jokes, or a Narnia fic portraying Tumnus as a womanizer. It did not feel consistent with the spirit of the saga.
Aside from the romance, there is very little story here. The plot is a sped-up, abridged version of the original film trilogy, with Ciena and Thane just tagging along. It’s like the old PBS Kids show Liberty’s Kids, only with Star Wars instead of the American Revolution. This was a fine plot structure for Liberty’s Kids, because it was meant to teach history and aimed at eleven-year-olds. But this is ostensibly YA/adult and really ought to just have more going on in it. Take away the personal journeys of Luke, Leia and Han—and their connection with Vader, unknown to most around them—and there’s not much here but spaceships going kablooie.
[image]
Speaking of Liberty’s Kids, that’s not the only similarity between the two seemingly disparate works. The cartoon also featured two young folks on either side of the war, who started out zealots for their respective sides, became attracted to each other, and eventually came to seriously question the righteousness of their causes. In both cases the young man has only one mood, a plateau of angst, while the girl is more reserved and traditional but deadly when angered.
But the relationship between James Hiller and Sarah Phillips in LK is actually developed a lot better than that of Thane and Ciena. James and Sarah met in their mid-teens and immediately clashed. Yet it was obvious from the beginning that he was drawn to her, and she started (slowly) softening towards him when she realized that for a seditionist and traitor, he wasn’t a bad fellow. Both started out the war absolutely sure that they were right, but had to grapple with their beliefs when they witnessed both sides commit atrocities.
And because this was a middle-grade show (on PBS, not on Nickelodeon where Zuko could take his shirt off on a regular basis), James’ growing (and eventually reciprocated) interest had to be shown in subtle ways—he gave Sarah his coat when she was cold, he made her a necklace (with his dead mother’s ring for a pendant) when she lost her own choker, he got very annoyed whenever another young man paid her attention…I’m not saying that this book needed to be that buttoned-up, but if Thane had ever made a kind gesture like that for Ciena, or she for him, that would have meant so much. It would have proved that they actually cared about each other as people, that they felt love and empathy for each other as opposed to only lust.
[image]
The world Lucas created is interesting and fun, but does not hold up under close inspection. We’re talking about a universe where humans, humanoids, and other large sentient life-forms can thrive on all kinds of planets, including gas giants! All the planets appear to rotate on the exact same schedule and contain the same amount of gravity. Every atmosphere contains enough oxygen for humans to breathe and apparently no poisonous gases. Let’s not even discuss that time that two dudes in heavy robes had a sword fight on floating islands in a stream of lava—in our world or a world anything like ours, their blood would have boiled in their veins and their skulls might have exploded (just ask the poor citizens of Pompeii or Herculaneum).
What makes Star Wars magical for me, in spite of the massive suspension of disbelief required for its universe to exist, is the characters...
Anakin, the frightened (man)child forced into a destiny he was never ready for. Obi-Wan, the proud young warrior who learned too dearly the consequences of hubris. Padme, the gentle and lonely young queen who believed the best of her husband even when all the goodness in him was naught but a dulling ember. (The prequels had terrible scripts, but the characters’ struggles are compelling when described by anyone but Lucas)...
Luke, the fatherless boy whose worst fear came true. Leia, the dauntless princess whose only goal was to serve the galaxy. Han, the mercenary who found himself offering his own life to save his friends...
[image]
Poe, the reckless zealot with the Empire/First Order in his crosshairs. Rose, the tough and kind Resistance mechanic who never forgets what they’re fighting for. Finn, the traumatized Stormtrooper who might have altered the prophecies. Rey, the noble-minded scavenger with a heart full of anger, grief, and a frightening power. Kylo—Ben—the broken and beastly prince, the dark and splintered knight, a being of incredible strength and passion yet a haunted child still, slowly dying under the weight of his family’s sins, desperately reaching for the girl who cared enough to hold his hand from light-years away.
[image]
[image]
[image]
And that is ultimately why Lost Stars fell flat for me—the Skywalker-Solos were distant figures. Other than Vader, they didn’t even have any lines. And I missed them. Anything else would have been far-fetched, granted—there’s no Thane, Ciena, or Nash mentioned in the original films, so they can’t have been part of either Light or Dark inner circles. But still—the drama between these characters felt manufactured and cheap compared to the truly inspired, epic journeys of the core movie characters.
That said, I still like how Claudia Gray writes and would read more stuff by her, Star Wars or otherwise. Maybe they should commission her to write a book about Padme or Kylo. I share her sympathies for those characters and would love to read her take on them....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
So this, while a completely different kind of story, goes up with The Queen of Attolia as an example of that rare phenomena, a second installment expoSo this, while a completely different kind of story, goes up with The Queen of Attolia as an example of that rare phenomena, a second installment exponentially better than the first. (Not that The Thief was bad, but I digress). Full review coming soon...boy, am I tired of writing that phrase. Soon, I shall have my laptop back! *cackles maniacally*...more
After reading and reviewing so many stupid books, it makes me very happy to introduce a good one.
Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson takes place iAfter reading and reviewing so many stupid books, it makes me very happy to introduce a good one.
Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson takes place in an imaginary land - the Hundred Kingdoms - very similar to India under Moghul rule during the 1500s - 1700s. The natives worship twelve gods and practice vegetarianism. The invaders are monotheists.
Diribani and Tana are the daughters of a poor widow. Diribani is beautiful and kind. Tana is plain and snarky, but clever. In a twist patterned on a Perrault fairytale, both girls give a drink of water to a goddess in disguise - for which she rewards them. Now Diribani can't speak without flowers and precious gems spilling from her mouth; likewise Tana can't speak without spitting out toads and snakes.
It's no spoiler to say that Diribani's gift attracts a position at court and a handsome prince. But Tana is feared and hunted by the invader authorities, who believe her animals are evil. (The natives believe frogs are lucky, and snakes eat household pests).
Tomlinson clearly did her homework on Indian flora, fauna, food, fashion, and architecture. Her writing is so descriptive as to be transporting. Despite all the detail, the chapters are short and the pace never flags. Her protagonists and supporting characters are relatable and empathetic.
This richly-imagined, squeaky-clean book is warmly recommended
You may also like: - Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier, another fairytale adaptation featuring a quasi-historical setting and awesome sisters - Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst, set in an alternative ancient Middle Eastern culture - Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale, set in an alternative medieval Mongolian culture - Jahanara: Princess of Princesses by Kathryn Lasky, a look at a real-life princess whose existence was much like that of the fictional Princess Ruqayya in Toads and Diamonds...more
Mara calls herself “the daughter of Nobody and Nothing.” She has been a slave for as long as she can remember, but her pale eyEgypt, mid-1400s B.C. –
Mara calls herself “the daughter of Nobody and Nothing.” She has been a slave for as long as she can remember, but her pale eyes and ability to speak Babylonian suggest that once she was free—and did not come from Egypt. Now in her late teens, she’s endured a succession of cruel and ignorant masters. She yearns, above all else, for freedom.
Freedom comes—with a steep price. Mara is purchased by a nobleman in Queen Hatshepsut’s inner circle. He needs a spy to report on the Queen’s brother, Thutmose, who might be planning a rebellion. If Mara betrays her master’s plans, her death is assured.
On the barge that will bring her to the royal city, Mara falls in with Sheftu, a young nobleman close to Prince Thutmose. Sheftu is part of the planned rebellion. He offers Mara, whom he thinks is just a runaway slave with no agenda, two options—spy for Prince Thutmose, or face death.
So this devious young lady finds herself a double agent, caught between two sides that will stake everything on keeping or gaining the throne. At first, it seems like a grand game. Mara gets to be an interpreter for a visiting foreign princess. For the first time in her life, she’ll have enough food, not to mention nice clothes, scrolls to read, and an unlimited supply of eyeliner (a quality-of-life issue for every ancient Egyptian). It helps that Sheftu is unconventionally handsome, with a witty, enigmatic mode of flirting that Mara finds enthralling.
But the deeper Mara gets into these parallel intrigues, she realizes that she’s already chosen a side…she’s lost her loyalty and her heart, and is now soon to die a traitor’s death.
Content Advisory
Violence: A slave is beaten in the early chapters of the story, and a bloody, near-fatal beating occurs near the end. A guard is quickly slain when he tries to alert authorities to a group of rebels lawbreaking. Characters mention being impaled on stakes or thrown to the Nile’s crocodiles, but we don’t see any such executions occur in the story. Someone is forced to imbibe poison, out of view of the POV characters.
Sex: The Canaanite princess, Inanni, is scandalized by Egyptian fashions—the women wear translucent sheath dresses and the men usually wear naught but kilts.
Language: Nothing.
Substance Abuse: Some background characters get drunk.
Politics and Religion: Fleeting moments of Egyptians showing ethnic prejudice against non-Egyptians. Various Egyptian gods are casually mentioned. We don’t hear much about them, and frankly none of the characters appear to believe in them strongly. Except for that head-scratching part where the POV shifts to Nut, the night-sky goddess, injecting a fantastical note into an otherwise very grounded narrative.
Nightmare Fuel: Let me put it this way—if you suffer from a fear of being trapped underground, there is a chapter in this book that you might find troubling. Some rebels break into a tomb, risking the death penalty for blasphemy if caught, to retrieve an item for the prince, and their torch goes out…in a room far underground full of creepy tomb paintings and guardian statues. Boy, that chapter was tense.
Conclusions This book does not bat a thousand for historical accuracy—Hatshepsut was actually Thutmose III’s stepmother, not his half-sister as portrayed here. In real life, she died at age fifty of bone cancer after several years of poor health, a far cry from the coup and Socratic suicide portrayed in the novel. In fairness to McGraw, a lot of this information wasn’t available at the time that this book was published (1953).
That said, while the book is not flawless as a history lesson, it is near perfect as a classic YA spy novel with a strong and clever heroine, royal intrigue, romance, and an evocative historical setting. Mara was hard to like at first. While it was understandable that her hard life had made her bitter and closed-off, the flippancy with which she treated her role was bothersome, as was her mean thoughts directed at Inanni and the other foreigners. The more Mara grew to care about Egypt, the more likeable she became. McGraw set up this seemingly heartless character and then yanked the heart from her chest. The last few chapters were nail-biters, because Mara finally understood what she stood to lose. Well done.
Sheftu is just my type of hero—witty, charismatic, always three steps ahead of his enemies, good-looking in an offbeat way, and both more principled and more caring than he lets on. The blogger at You, Me, and a Cup of Tea compared the dynamic between Sheftu and Mara to that between Han Solo and Princess Leia, albeit he’s the aristocrat and she’s the seemingly amoral, self-serving scoundrel/guttersnipe. Although Sheftu is definitely a nerf-herder. I can picture him sitting down for a drink with Eugenides, Howl, Jareth, George Cooper, Han Alister, and Morpheus the Netherling, and they would have a blast, rearranging the world and commiserating about their terrifying wives.
Ancient Egypt is an inherently fascinating culture. While the Mesopotamians fought amongst themselves and the Greeks were still figuring out how to read, Egypt kept doing what it always did—live along the Nile, build magnificent structures, watch the stars, and perseverate about Death. There’s a sense of timelessness, stability, and inexorability about their myths and their art and their artifacts that no other civilization can match. You can tell that McGraw loved Egypt, and her characters seem organic to the place.
Recommended warmly for fans of The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Bronze Bow, The Sherwood Ring, The Perilous Gard, Johnny Tremain, and Rosemary Sutcliff’s Roman Britain novels. ...more
“Black lives matter” is a slogan that should not have to exist.
Because we should take for granted that everybody’s life matters—no matter their skin c“Black lives matter” is a slogan that should not have to exist.
Because we should take for granted that everybody’s life matters—no matter their skin color, religion, ethnicity, hair color, age, health, abilities, addictions, mental status, or beliefs.
But every day, black people—especially black men—are told, implicitly or explicitly, that their lives don’t matter. That they’re expendable. That they can be shot, stifled, hung, stuffed in a gym mat, or die of a broken neck in the back of a police van—and the people who killed them will never face justice.
I don’t know this from personal experience. I’m white. No one has ever decided I was suspicious—and therefore should be shot—because I was wearing a hoodie. A lot of us white people take it for granted that we’re safe walking after dark, that the police will help us if we need it.
We’re so far removed from this reality that we forget it exists—and when it intrudes undeniably into our safe little worlds, many of us cover our eyes and ears. Some of us can’t empathize with the victims because such things have never happened to us—
—which is why books like How It Went Down and films like Fruitvale Station need to be read and watched by everyone.
Tariq Johnson, our protagonist, is one of many black kids in a poor neighborhood who is shot by a white man, at night, on his way out of the convenience store.
Accounts differ as to how and why this happened. Some say Tariq had a gun; others, that he was holding only a candy bar. Some say that he was in a gang; others, that he hated the violence around him and had vowed never to be a part of it. Some say he had dreams of college and success; others, that he was headed nowhere good. As the community grieves, the media descends like the vultures they are.
We hear the perspectives of everyone—Tariq’s family, friends, frenemies, distant acquaintances, media personalities, even friends of the shooter—except for Tariq himself, and his killer, Jack Franklin.
The question of Tariq’s guilt or innocence is never resolved. All that is known for sure is that Jack Franklin had a gun, and he killed this young man, and he did not face justice.
After a while all the voices start to blend together. There’s no real closure to the plot. But I think both are devices deliberately used by Kekla Magoon, to great effect. She places the reader inside this community, of people grieving and questioning and knowing that this terrible event, for all their pleading and praying and anger and sorrow, will happen again.
NOTE TO SCHOOL LIBRARIANS: This book contains a lot of harsh profanity, a few sexual/drug innuendoes (including the implication of an inappropriate relationship between a pastor/media personality and a young girl), and violence throughout. I didn’t think anything was gratuitous, but I still wouldn’t recommend it to middle school kids.
This is a quick, searing read that will linger with you long after you’re finished with it. It could not have appeared at a more appropriate time. Recommended for everyone mature enough for it....more
Loading...
