2.5 stars. This is a Victorian era romantic soap opera, with all the drama, self-sacrifice and long-windedness that implies.
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Written in 1873 (I2.5 stars. This is a Victorian era romantic soap opera, with all the drama, self-sacrifice and long-windedness that implies.
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Written in 1873 (I read it online at Project Gutenberg), The Doctor's Dilemma begins with an uppercrust, frantic young woman, Olivia, escaping from the rooms in London where she's been locked in for three weeks because REASONS, and haring off as far as she can go ... which ends up being the Channel Islands. There she shelters with a friendly fisherman and his aged mother in a remote cottage on the island of Sark.
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One fateful day Olivia slips and falls down a cliff, injuring herself pretty badly. Enter the handsome doctor from the nearby island of Guernsey, and love at first sight. But the handsome doctor is also engaged to a cousin of his, which was a major thing to try to upend back in that day. Also the doctor soon realizes that Olivia is the nameless woman that he saw a newspaper ad for, by someone trying to find her. Sinister or good? He doesn't know. What he also doesn't know is that Olivia has other secrets she hasn't shared ...
Not badly written, for its day, but MAN, does this novel take the long and winding road to the expected ending. Maybe it was originally written as a newspaper serial? Because I can't think of any other reason (besides Victorian, which admittedly does explain a lot) for it to be so lengthy. I have to admit I skimmed most of the second half of it.
Recommended only if you really like old-fashioned romance and don't mind if it’s a super-slow burn....more
Heads up on a giveaway: On about Jan. 14, 2021, one of the commenters on this FanLit thread will get a free copy of this book: http://www.fantasyliterHeads up on a giveaway: On about Jan. 14, 2021, one of the commenters on this FanLit thread will get a free copy of this book: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/give....
Personally I can't recommend this dark urban fantasy but I have a lot of friends who loved it. Review first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
Galaxy “Alex” Stern (the name courtesy of her hippie mother) seems an obvious misfit at prestigious Yale University. Wealth, athletic talent and academic stardom are nowhere to be found in Alex’s life. Instead she’s a high school dropout with a history of dead-end jobs and drug use, and the survivor of a traumatic multiple homicide. But she has a rare talent that to date has brought her nothing but grief: Alex sees the ghosts of dead people.
As it turns out, that talent is highly useful to Yale’s eight elite secret societies, and they’ve had their eye on Alex for a while. Each of these houses specializes in a different type of black magic — Skull and Bones, for example, performs ritual vivisections of living people, examining their inner organs to predict stock market changes — and these dark rituals attract ghosts. A ninth Yale house, Lethe, polices the magical activities of those other eight houses and is tasked with keeping the ghosts in check, preventing them from causing chaos. Alex gets a full ride scholarship to Yale, provided that she joins Lethe. When a “townie” girl is murdered, Alex feels compelled to investigate it, gradually unearthing a hidden world of corruption, abuse of privilege and evil.
I was warned by a GR friend that Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo’s new contemporary dark fantasy, might be too grim for me, but I was all, I love Leigh Bardugo! I gotta give it a shot! The SIX OF CROWS duology is dark fantasy, so I thought I was prepared.
Silly me.
Ninth House features an onslaught of horrible events, one piling on the next. The trigger list is almost too long to get into, but it includes the aforementioned vivisection, drug abuse, self-neglect, murder … and that’s just in the parts I read or skimmed. I’m reliably informed that its plot also includes child and statutory rape, other types of sexual assault, and forcible eating of human waste. It’s a deeply unpleasant world that Alex Stern lives in, and I realized fairly quickly that I didn’t want to live in it with her, not even for the few days it would take to read this book.
I’m not much of a fan of horror literature in general, and occult horror in particular. You may like Ninth House if you’re a fan of occult horror and are mentally and emotionally up to dealing with the morass of human failings and foul deeds. Ninth House is well-written and detailed, but arguably too detailed and slow-paced. It examines the patriarchy of our society and the unearned privileges of rich white men, who do most (though not all) of the ugly things in this book. Alex herself is a hard-edged survivor, but still struggling to recover from past traumas and to survive the pressures of life at Yale.
This is clearly one of those “your mileage may vary” types of books. Know your reading tastes: if you have major qualms, it's probably not for you....more
The search for older Christmas stories has led me in some interesting directions, and Anton Chekhov's 1900 short story "At Christmas Time" is one of tThe search for older Christmas stories has led me in some interesting directions, and Anton Chekhov's 1900 short story "At Christmas Time" is one of the more unexpected findings, a heartwrenching tale of isolation and miscommunication. (Do NOT read for happy holiday feels!)
This story is told in two parts: In Part I, An older couple, Vasilisa and Pyotr, who live in the Russian countryside haven't seen and have hardly heard from their daughter Yefimya for four years, since she married a former soldier and moved to Petersburg. The couple is illiterate, so Vasilisa pays the local innkeeper's brother-in-law, Yegor, fifteen kopecks to write a letter for them to Yefimya. Her heart is so full, but after the first couple of lines, Vasilisa doesn't know how to continue the letter. Yegor decides to take it on himself to write whatever he feels like. In Part II, we see what happens when the letter reaches Yefimya.
The normally cheerful setting of Christmastime and the love that the couple obviously feel for their long-absent daughter (view spoiler)[and she for them (hide spoiler)] stunningly contrasts with the uncaring, selfish people around them. The family's communications and connections are hindered by physical distance and the parents' illiteracy, but even more by these corrupt and even evil people.
The last line refers to "charcot douche," which was a high-pressure shower that massaged the entire body, purportedly for health reasons. I have my suspicions as to why it would be of interest to the general.
The story appears to be Chekhov's indictment of the disintegration of Russian society. Even the general who appears at the end is a symbol of the brokenness and corruption of their country at the turn of the 20th century. It's a tragic but thought-provoking tale.
I read Green Dolphin Street as a group read with the Retro Reads crowd. I had such high hopes because I've loved the other two historical fiction noveI read Green Dolphin Street as a group read with the Retro Reads crowd. I had such high hopes because I've loved the other two historical fiction novels I read by Elizabeth Goudge, but this one landed with kind of a thud.
Marianne and Marguerite are two sisters, daughters of a wealthy merchant, who live on the island of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Marianne, who is five years older than Marguerite, is intelligent but mercurial, and not as conventionally lovely or as well-behaved as her younger sister. They both fall in love with William, who's not in their social class but is a compelling personality. They all hang out together as they grow up but, predictably, it's Marguerite that William falls in love with.
William leaves Guernsey to go to New Zealand to seek his fortune, planning to bring Marguerite there once he's settled and doing well. But he's drunk the night he writes the fateful proposal letter, and accidentally mixes up the sisters' names and asks Marianne to come to NZ to marry him. (The author claimed this part was based on a factual story.) Marianne is elated; Marguerite deeply dejected. And William, when he sees which sister shows up on the boat months later, doesn't know how to undo his mistake. This is back in Victorian days, when you just didn't do that kind of thing.
Green Dolphin Street follows their lives and adventures together. There are some harrowing times with the Maori natives, and here Goudge's normally fine sensibilities let her down. It's dated and, to say the least, racially insensitive. This book was written in 1944, and if you can't make allowances for outdated social attitudes, you'll be offended.
Between that and the Drama (with a capital D) between William and the sisters, (view spoiler)[ and the resulting difficulties in William's and Marianne's marriage (hide spoiler)], this just wasn't a book I found appealing. Elizabeth Goudge was a talented author, but I'd definitely recommend The Dean's Watch or The Scent of Water over this one.
4 stars because, when all is said and done, I think this is a well-crafted fantasy novel with an important story to tell. But it’s intensely grimdark,4 stars because, when all is said and done, I think this is a well-crafted fantasy novel with an important story to tell. But it’s intensely grimdark, and more like 2.5 stars for how much I actually enjoyed reading it. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Fang Runin (Rin) is a war orphan living with opium-dealing foster parents who physically abuse her and treat her like a slave, which is miserable enough. But when they arrange a match for her at age fourteen with a twice-divorced merchant three times her age, Rin has finally had enough. She comes up with an escape plan, managing to hold off her foster parents’ marriage plans for her for the time being through a combination of threats and promises. Rin spends every spare waking moment during the next two years studying for the Keju, a national test to find the brightest students in the empire to admit to the Academies, even burning herself with hot candle wax to keep herself awake and focused as she crams for the test. And it works: Rin does so well on the Keju that she’s admitted to Sinegard, the military school for the most elite students in the Nikara Empire.
It seems like a dream come true, but Rin’s problems are far from over. As a dark-skinned peasant with no family name or wealth, she’s shunned and mocked by most of her classmates. Characteristically, Rin fights back both physically ― which only gets her more ostracized ― and scholastically, by throwing herself into her class studies like she’s fighting a war. She finds a teacher, Master Jiang, an extremely peculiar man with an unusual gift for the art of shamanism, and begins learning from him how to access higher powers.
If the story thus far sounds like a fairly standard, if Chinese-inspired, road to triumphing over adversity, debut author R.F. Kuang has far more in mind in The Poppy War, a Nebula and Locus award-nominated novel. When Rin finishes her studies at Sinegard we’re only two-fifths of the way through the book, and terrible experiences await her as a member of the Empress’s militia, particularly when she’s assigned to the infamous thirteenth division. The Nikara Empire has already had two Poppy Wars against the Federation of Mugen, a land divided from their country by only a narrow sea, and hostilities between the countries explode in the latter half of The Poppy War.
The similarities to the conflicts between China and Japan are readily apparent, and in fact Kuang has deliberately created a fantasy version of the twentieth century conflicts between these countries, complete with an analog of the Nanjing Massacre. The Poppy War is a close look at the underside of war, all of the cruelties, treacheries, and suffering that war brings with it, and the prices people pay, both individually and as a society.
Kuang does not pull her punches: the brutality and cruelty continue to build throughout the pages of this book, building a terrible picture of the worst that’s in humanity. The triggers are almost too numerous to list, but include self-harm, physical abuse from an admired superior, drug use, rape, vast amounts of violence, human experimentation (a la the Third Reich ... but Japan was doing similar things), murder, and even genocide. The addition of fantasy elements to this tale ― the magical powers that come when people are god-chosen ― are not comforting or charming; rather, they magnify the effects of the hatred and revenge that are in the hearts of Rin and other characters.
Rin is a difficult character to like ― even Master Jiang tells her that she’s too reckless, holds grudges, and cultivates her anger and rage until it explodes ― though there’s much to admire in her determination and sheer grit. She fights with her foster family, fellow students, teachers, enemies, fellow soldiers, and even the gods. She totally rules at rote memorization and sheer willpower, though! But her single-minded determination plays a negative role as well as a positive one in Rin’s life, and her anger and resentment lead her to some incredibly dark decisions.
The Poppy War is an extremely intense, grim and gritty military fantasy in a Chinese-inspired country. Bitterness, betrayal, pain, death and genocide haunt the characters and the pages of this book. It wasn’t really an enjoyable read for me (grimdark fantasy is aggressively not my thing), but I have to acknowledge the scholarship that went into the creation of this novel and the power of its storytelling. Rin’s story will be continued in The Dragon Republic, due in August 2019, and a third book in the series is in the works....more
3.75 stars. Colleen Hoover takes on a troubled marriage here in a heart-wrenching but insightful story. Quinn and Graham first meet when she unexpecte3.75 stars. Colleen Hoover takes on a troubled marriage here in a heart-wrenching but insightful story. Quinn and Graham first meet when she unexpectedly shows up at her fiance Ethan's apartment door to surprise him, and finds a fuming Graham waiting outside Ethan's door. Graham announces to Quinn that his girlfriend is in Ethan's apartment, having sex with him at this very moment.
After the initial shock wears off, Quinn and Graham wait for Ethan and Sasha to come out the door, and steal and eat the Chinese takeout food that Ethan's had delivered to his apartment. As a running theme, we have this quirky but profound advice from Quinn's fortune cookie:
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All Your Perfects was a difficult but engrossing novel. It alternates between two timelines: Quinn and Graham's meeting and initial romance (sexytimes alert!) and seven years later, when their marriage and relationship is on the rocks after years of struggling with Quinn's inability to get pregnant. She's so deeply distressed by her infertility that she's torpedoing her marriage, and Graham is at his wit's end. Both make mistakes - some huge, serious ones.
It was helpful to have the uplifting early timeline to balance out and leaven the profoundly sad and angsty later chapters. I was unhappy with the characters for many of their choices (omissions as well as actions), but people do behave in self-destructive ways when they're deeply unhappy. There's a bit involving THE BOX that seemed to be more heavily laden with portent and meaning by Graham and Quinn than it really deserved. It made a nice way to bring the plot to a climax, but was maybe a bit too easy.
It's a heavier story, more drama than fun. It's not really subtle in its message, but if you don't mind a bit more heavy-handed approach in literature, it offers a great lesson in hanging on to what's important in life and not letting the problems, however large, ruin what's good in your life. There are some good secondary characters, especially Quinn's sister Ava, and the earlier timeline is a very heartwarming romance. Really in the end it's all heartwarming (I don't consider this a spoiler because, CoHo romance novel), but this romance ship has a lot of stormy seas to sail through.
[image] I received a free copy of this ebook from the publisher for review. Thank you!
Just published in June 2018, Tell Me Lies is an in-depth examination of a young woman's toxic relationship with the wrong person, a guy she meets her Just published in June 2018, Tell Me Lies is an in-depth examination of a young woman's toxic relationship with the wrong person, a guy she meets her first year in college and stays more or less entangled with over the next several years. If you've ever dealt with a sociopathic lover who's hard to give up, or known someone in that situation, or would just find it fascinating to see the same situations from the points of view of both the vulnerable partner and the user who has no mercy or conscience ... I'd recommend this book.
Lucy Albright has no idea what she's in for when she lets Stephen DeMarco into her life when she's a freshman in college. He's attractive but not all that, but he knows how to appeal to women. In fact, he makes a study of it, deliberately creating a persona that his target young lady will like ... and lying ruthlessly and without conscience. Mostly so he can juggle several different sexual relationships at the same time. Sex and money are his only real cares - well, along with alcohol and drugs. And both Stephen and Lucy have secrets they're hiding.
The chapters alternate between Lucy's and Stephen's points of view. Stephen's chapters were chilling but effective. The author never tries to hide the ball or surprise you about what's going on in his head.
Stuff like that used to happen throughout my childhood and into my teenage years—events or moments when I’d lack the specific emotional response expected of me. Time and time again, the empathetic reactions that seemed to be required never came... I learned about appropriate responses; I began simulating them when appropriate. And somewhere in that haze of it I came to the realization that I was different. I didn’t want to hurt people, but I could, and when I did, there was something cathartic and liberating about it, especially because any collateral damage was almost always rectifiable. I know about guilt, and it doesn’t apply to me—I don’t carry the burden of it. It actually works to my advantage, most of the time.
Tell Me Lies kind of accidentally got put on my NetGalley approvals (I was asking the publicist for two other books and this one just got approved along with them) so I took a look at it, even though this really isn't my type of book. It's hard R-rated, with lots of college parties, drinking, drugs and sex. F-bombs litter the pages like confetti. I ended up skimming most of it, and it was rather slow-paced, but it was compelling in a hard-to-look-away kind of way.
Some readers will love this book; others will hate it. Know yourself.
I received a free copy of this book from the publicist through NetGalley for review. Thanks!...more
As I'm winding up Volume One of my Le Guin Hainish stories, I'm being gifted minor jewels like this story, a 1972 Hugo nominee. A group of ten intelliAs I'm winding up Volume One of my Le Guin Hainish stories, I'm being gifted minor jewels like this story, a 1972 Hugo nominee. A group of ten intelligent but misfit scientists takes off on a spaceship trip beyond the edges of galactic civilization, looking for something new and truly alien. They find it.
The characterization is thin and occasionally given to stereotyping; Le Guin seems to be more interested in ideas here. And it is a good idea, especially for its time. She weaves an exploration of the nature of intelligence together with a study of fear and hatred, of each other and of the unknown.
2.5 stars for this short story, free on Tor.com. karen (in her review thread for this story) suggested to me that that I needed to look deeper for mea2.5 stars for this short story, free on Tor.com. karen (in her review thread for this story) suggested to me that that I needed to look deeper for meaning, when I was initially very dismissive of this story. I did. I even read the whole thing a second time. I'm still feeling dismissive. :p But YMMV.
A young wife, who seems to have recently moved with her husband into a new home, struggles with visions of flocks of starlings that flutter all around her and whisper with a thousand shadowy voices. She develops a mistrust of her apparently loving and concerned husband, who is blending into a terrifying starling king type of figure in her mind. She feels totally unable to communicate with him or her friend about her troubled mind and heart. Meanwhile, a terrifying voice speaks to her of fearfully running through a cornfield, of monsters waiting for her and calling to her in the dark, and of debts owed.
“Shape Without Form, Shade Without Color” (the title is taken from a line in T.S. Eliot’s 1925 poem “The Hollow Men”) is highly fantastical on one level. There’s some interesting imagery here, including a creepy cornfield element, perhaps inspired by Stephen King’s “Children of the Corn,” as well as terrifying birds that Hitchcock would have approved of. But once you cut through all of the bird imagery and evocative language, it’s entirely straightforward at its heart: the story of a mentally disturbed woman who’s gradually going over the edge. I don’t believe this is even a fantasy, except to the extent we’re getting inside of the narrator’s head.
The narrator’s thoughts on her mental illness are occasionally intriguing:
Some of us want the light left on. But others of us want to surrender to the darkness. Everyone is eager for us to get over it. What we represent. What we are. What they sense. In our terror we become terrifying.
While I felt pity for the narrator and sympathy for her husband, ultimately this story failed to particularly interest or move me, and it didn’t especially illuminate the problem of mental illness....more
This classic 1853 Herman Melville novella is absurd and bleak, darkly humorous and heart-wrenching at the same time. It's the first time I've read it This classic 1853 Herman Melville novella is absurd and bleak, darkly humorous and heart-wrenching at the same time. It's the first time I've read it since a college English course years ago, when I didn’t much care for it. I appreciated it much more this time around.
Bartleby is a scrivener - essentially, a human copy machine, back in the pre-Xerox days - working for a Manhattan-based lawyer who is the narrator of the tale. His co-workers: two other irritable scriveners of dubious temperament, and a office boy, identified only by their odd nicknames. Initially an industrious employee, Bartleby declines to participate in certain normal office tasks, giving no reason other than his oft-repeated mantra: "I would prefer not to." <----If you say if often and implacably enough, other people will grudgingly accept it and move on.
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But as Bartleby's reluctance to do his work expands to more and more tasks until it becomes all-consuming, his employer, though sympathetic to Bartleby's forlorn, lonely life, has to decide what to do with him.
Bartleby is an elusive work. It's partly a cry out against materialism and the dehumanizing effect of the pursuit of money (the subtitle is "A Story of Wall Street") and partly an examination of isolation and depression, but there's much more to it, and it defies easy explanation. Some observations toward the ending are heart-wrenching:
Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? ... a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.
Gah! Those last lines killed me!
And just because it's interesting, I'll share the one observation my college English professor made that has stuck with me through the years. There's a reference in the end to Bartleby sleeping "with kings and counselors" that the professor pointed out is a reference to these lines from the Bible:
"13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept; then would I have been at rest 14 with kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves, 15 or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver"
Job 3:13-15 (KJV) - It's a reference not just to death, but to a certain equality men have in death, despite their differences in worldly fortunes. Food for thought, like so much of this story!...more
3.5 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature. Some spoilers for the first book in this series, Warm Bodies:
When we left R, the recover3.5 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature. Some spoilers for the first book in this series, Warm Bodies:
When we left R, the recovering zombie, and his human love Julie at the end of Warm Bodies, things were looking hopeful. But not so fast: becoming fully human again after years of zombie-hood isn’t as quick or easy as R hoped. His body is still stiff and clumsy, and his memory of his prior life is still a blank to him (in fact, he’s not at all sure he wants to remember his prior life). The recovery of the other zombies that have taken over America is equally tentative, one small step at a time, with many zombies not recovering at all, and others backsliding. It’s a spectrum: Living, Nearly Living, Mostly Dead, All Dead, with unsettlingly fluidity between them. R has no idea what to do next.
If this weren’t difficult enough, a new group, Axiom Corporation, shows up in force at the stadium where R and Julie live. Axiom has weapons, helicopters and lots of very disturbing minions with plastic smiles, ready to take control and restore order. In fact, the Axiom people are insistent on it, smiling all the while, and willing to do almost anything to get their way. When R, Julie and their friends end up on the wrong side of Axiom, they go on the run with the somewhat reluctant help of Abram Kelvin, a renegade Axiom employee who is the older brother of Perry ― Julie’s old boyfriend who was eaten by R at the beginning of Warm Bodies. But are they escaping to a new life somewhere else, or running into the jaws of more trouble, or going on the attack against the forces of evil? And let’s not forget the innumerable zombies.
The Burning World (2017), Isaac Marion’s sequel to his 2011 Romeo-and-Juliet inspired zombie tale, left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, Warm Bodies felt like a stand-alone story. I didn’t feel like it needed a sequel and I’m not certain that Marion originally planned for one at the time he wrote Warm Bodies; it feels a bit like an afterthought. On the other hand, The Burning World doesn’t simply rehash the same story and issues raised in the first book. Marion expands this world dramatically, both in setting and thematically.
The Burning World fleshes out the characters from the first book, but takes them and the plot in a wholly different direction that opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities. It’s an on-the-road adventure … with zombies … and a truly horrific, power-hungry corporate entity that exhibits a dog-eat-dog mentality taken to extremes. The reader is left with the indelible and uncomfortable impression that humans can be, and often are, worse than zombies. As R begins to recover some of the memories from his human past, his “first life,” the horror that men can sink to begins to take on added meaning for him, and for us. Julie’s human flaws become more apparent as well, as she endangers those around her in her single-minded quest to find and save her mother.
There are several interlude “We” chapters that are told from the viewpoint of an unspecified, omniscient group who watch the world and the people and creatures in it. They float through the earth and the sky like a collective consciousness, watching us with concern. It’s interesting to speculate on who this nameless, intangible “We” is … though I’m not certain there’s a single, specific answer.
The adventures of the characters are gripping, but The Burning World is largely a grim book with only brief glimpses of hope and joy. It exhibits much less of the underlying sweetness that imbued Warm Bodies, while upping the ante on grittiness and violence, and exploring the darkness in men’s souls.
The Burning World is part of a novel that grew too large and was broken into two separate books for publication. As a result, it ends inconclusively, leaving most of the plot threads hanging, along with the fates of our characters. The second part of this story, The Living, is due to be released later in 2017.
Content advisory: Isaac Marion writes well, but this is a gritty and frequently gruesome story, with violence, torture and hard-R language.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review....more
Another Kindle freebie romance (now 99c). The plot of this one is pretty unique: Jessie and Blake have been married for 13 years, trying unsuccessfullAnother Kindle freebie romance (now 99c). The plot of this one is pretty unique: Jessie and Blake have been married for 13 years, trying unsuccessfully to have children the entire time, which has put a major strain on their marriage. Worse, they had a stillborn baby several months before the story starts, and now Jessie definitely can't have children. As the story begins, Blake drops a bombshell on Jessie:
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He had a one night stand with Jessie's old roommate right before he married Jessie, during a brief break-up, and now he's just found out that he has a 12 year old daughter with her.
The rest of the novel is exploring the ramifications of this stunning surprise and whether Blake and Jessie can work their way back to a good relationship and marriage. Both of them have fairly major issues that they need to work through -- especially after Blake's young daughter comes to live with them.
It's realistically written and doesn't pull its punches, much, but it is a little slow and repetitive and could have used some tightening up. Not a whole not happens in the novel other than the working through of relationship issues and dealing with life generally and a new child/stepchild specifically. I did like the characters, including the daughter, even when I was frustrated with them and their issues. But this story is one big huge load of relationship drama.
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Maybe 2.75 stars, rounding up to 3. This novel won't be everyone's cuppa tea, but it's not bad for a self-published novel, if this type of storyline sounds interesting to you. ...more
This short story is set in the same alternative universe as Jo Walton’s novels Farthing, Ha'penny andFull review, first posted on Fantasy Literature :
This short story is set in the same alternative universe as Jo Walton’s novels Farthing, Ha'penny and Half a Crown. In this universe, the U.S. decided not to come to the aid of Great Britain in WWII. As a result, as Marion explains in her Fantasy Literature review of Ha'Penny, “Europe is largely under the control of Hitler, who is at war with Stalin for the rest. Britain negotiated a ‘peace with honor’ with Germany and has now fully embraced fascism.”
In this story, Walton turns her attention from Britain to the United States. Charles Lindbergh is the ex-president of an isolationist United States, which avoided involvement in the “European War” ― but now, in 1960, that choice two decades ago has borne fruit, and the repercussions are certainly beyond what the isolationists expected or desired. The U.S economy has never really recovered from the Great Depression, and Nazi beliefs and practices have begun to infect the American way of life.
The story is told through a series of brief vignettes, with scenes from the life of a bakery waitress, who is struggling just to get by, alternating with commentaries from people waiting in the soup kitchen line, and newspaper headlines and excerpts that add color to the story.
“Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction” is a fairly straightforward alternative history work, more of a sketch than an actual story with a substantive plot. But the genius — and the heartbreak — is in the details. It’s a very grim story, but well-told.
Several of Mary Balogh's old Regency romance novels have been reissued in pairs, two novels under one cover. A Promise of Spring was included in one vSeveral of Mary Balogh's old Regency romance novels have been reissued in pairs, two novels under one cover. A Promise of Spring was included in one volume with The Temporary Wife, which had been recommended to me, and which I loved. This one, not so much.
It has a couple of interesting twists for a romance novel: Grace Howard is 35 years old, single, and living with her single brother Paul, a rector, who has just died. She's estranged from the rest of her family because, way back in her reckless youth, she got pregnant and had a son out of wedlock when her boyfriend (a neighbor and friend of the family!) abandoned her and married someone else. Her son died when he was only 4 years old, triggering the fight that led Grace and Paul to leave their family.
Sir Peregrine Lampwick, who is 10 years younger than Grace, was her brother's best friend. Perry is truly a good guy: handsome, kindhearted, intelligent, caring ... I'm not sure he has any faults? He's kind of a beta personality, not into conflict. Anyway, Perry has always liked Grace in a platonic kind of way and feels sorry for her, as she'll have nowhere to go now, and for these not-particularly-compelling reasons decides to propose marriage to her. Even Grace's story of her youthful troubles doesn't faze Perry.
So far so good, but after the marriage is when trouble rears its head. Grace told Perry that Gareth, the father of her deceased child, had died as well, but it turns out that's not true. When Perry and Grace visit her family about a year after their marriage to mend fences, Gareth is now the neighboring viscount. When he sees Grace again for the first time in 15 years, he wants her badly (probably because she's now married and contented). It doesn't really matter to him that she's married -- in fact, that seems to make it more of a challenge for him. So Gareth starts pressuring Grace to leave Perry (or not; an affair would be fine with him too) and take up with him. He's that kind of alpha guy.
Grace doesn't want to have anything to do with Gareth's plans, but she's kind of like a deer in the headlights, not sure how to deal with Gareth. Plus she feels guilty about everything, and somehow that makes her think maybe she doesn't deserve Perry and it's her fate to be with Gareth. And when Perry finally figures out what's going on, he thinks he needs to sit back and let Grace make her own decision.
All. The. Drama. People who could solve most of their problems if only they'd be completely honest with each other. It drove me batty. Plus there were a lot of secondary characters (several of them from prior books in this series) that I never developed any interest in. I skimmed most of the second half.
Not recommended.
Content advisory: a mildly explicit sex scene....more
Donna Jo Napoli retells the folktale of Rumpelstiltskin here, with lots of luscious and presumably historically accurate details about spinning by hanDonna Jo Napoli retells the folktale of Rumpelstiltskin here, with lots of luscious and presumably historically accurate details about spinning by hand, dished out to you with a large dose of really bad choices and personal tragedy.
We begin with a poor young tailor, so desperate to marry the beautiful girl he loves that he steals a valuable spinning wheel to make his beloved a golden wedding dress out of straw. He succeeds, but in the process he madly (and magically) spins himself into becoming a repulsive-looking cripple, with an equally repellant attitude. His lover is quickly married off to a prosperous miller instead.
Years later Saskia, the daughter of the miller (who is now a drunken widower) takes up the trade of spinning, creating marvelous skeins of yarn. But she runs afoul of a king with a desire for more gold and a belief that Saskia can spin it for him, as well as the crippled tailor.
Initially I thought that this retelling (view spoiler)[was going to go in a different direction, but Napoli ends up sticking fairly closely to the original fairy tale (hide spoiler)]. It's rather dismal for everyone involved, but at least there's some lovely writing to make you feel better?
Content note: The book begins with a post-lovemaking scene. Despite what another reviewer says, it's really not explicit. But if the mention of two unmarried lovers being naked together is a showstopper for you, be advised....more
2020 update: I'm bumping this up to all 5 stars on reread. This Russian tale of an introverted man and his trials relating to an expensive (for him) o2020 update: I'm bumping this up to all 5 stars on reread. This Russian tale of an introverted man and his trials relating to an expensive (for him) overcoat really hit me on second read. The characterization is so in-depth for a shorter work, especially as it relates to Akaky, the main character, his tailor, and a small-minded bureaucrat. There's also some really interesting symbolism relating to his overcoat and how it affects both Akaky and the people around him. Recommended!
The English translation on Project Gutenberg (linked at the end of this review) from the original Russian is excellent, except that it still irks me that it's called "the cloak" rather than the overcoat. (It has sleeves; it's an overcoat)
Original review: In my preparation for reading The Metamorphosis, I did some background reading of critical analyses, including this one by Vladimir Nabokov (thanks to Cecily for the link!), where he does a fantastic dissection (heh) of The Metamorphosis but also talks about Gogol's "The Carrick" (aka "The Cloak" or "The Overcoat") and tosses off wonderful ideas like this:
"The beauty of Kafka's and Gogol's private nightmares is that their central human characters belong to the same private fantastic world as the inhuman characters around them, but the central one tries to get out of that world, to cast off the mask, to transcend the cloak or the carapace."
And then there's this haunting quote, attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky: "We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'." (ETA: Even months later, every time I think about this story, that quote comes to mind.) So off I went to read Nicolai Gogol's short story.
Akaky Akakievich is an absurd, pathetic figure of a man. His name would translate as something very nondescript like "John Johnson," except you also have this deliberate allusion to "kaka" (or caca = feces) in his name; one review site suggested you think of him as Poopy McPooperson. He is a "titular councillor" (read: minor official) who in fact does nothing except act as a human photocopier, all day, every day, for very low pay. He even takes his copy work home with him in the evenings. His only joy in life is derived from his copy work. Even being asked to make the most minor changes to the original version throws him into a tizzy. His co-workers make fun of him, but other than a pitiful protest of "Leave me alone! Why do you insult me?," he quietly carries on.
Until one day, when he realizes that his overcoat has become so threadbare that it won't keep off the cold St. Petersburg winter. After a few skirmishes with his tailor about whether the old coat can be patched up or not, he caves and agrees to save up money for a new coat, which will cost like 20% of his annual wages. Gradually Akaky gets more and more excited about his new coat. And when he finally gets the finished overcoat -- lined with cat fur because marten fur is too expensive (sorry to my feline-loving friends!) -- it causes a sensation in his workplace.
Of course, this being 19th century Russian literature, you know it's going to go south for poor Akaky. (view spoiler)[Akaky's coat gets stolen the first day, when he goes out at night to a party his co-workers throw to celebrate his new coat. He fruitlessly tries to get the police and some government guy to help him, gets totally shot down, walks home in the freezing cold, gets sick and dies. (hide spoiler)] But the surprise for me was the ending. (view spoiler)[The ghost of Akaky Akakievich starts haunting St. Petersburg, pulling coats off of pedestrians. And is that a tougher, more masculine Akaky ghost at the very end, or a different ghost? I'm not quite certain but I'm inclined to think it's Akaky. (hide spoiler)]
I'm still a little bemused by the unexpected turn from existentialist dark humor to gothic at the end. It didn't quite feel integral to me, Nabokov's inspired praises notwithstanding. So, four stars from me, even though I actually though it was an amusing ending and I liked seeing a certain character get his comeuppance.
Free online several places, including here at Project Gutenberg in a collection of Russian short stories. ...more
Sometimes you just have to say, this is not the book for me. I could plow through it for the sake of my book club, but why put myself through 3 or 4 hSometimes you just have to say, this is not the book for me. I could plow through it for the sake of my book club, but why put myself through 3 or 4 hours of angst and misery, reading about a wildly dysfunctional family trying to create their own utopia in the jungles of the Honduras?
In an intellectual way I appreciate that the father, Allie Fox, is an amazing character, but he's just painful for me to read about. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. He pursues one scheme after another, with his family deep in poverty. He thinks society and technology are degenerate (unless it's something he himself has invented). He's brilliant, loud-mouthed, rude, abusive to his family, mentally unbalanced, a know-it-all, and doesn't listen to anyone. It's a combination guaranteed to drive me nuts in real life, and I just can't enjoy reading about him, or what he puts his poor wife and kids through.
So I skipped to the end and read the last few pages. Don't tell my husband -- he hates when I do that. #sorrynotsorry
How can a historical romance that contains so much manufactured drama be so banal? How many different ways can a heroine find to be an idiot? How hardHow can a historical romance that contains so much manufactured drama be so banal? How many different ways can a heroine find to be an idiot? How hard is it to find a competent proofreader to fix your punctuation?
This is one of those books that either speaks straight to people's hearts or leaves them completely cold. I'm in the latter camp: I found noth[image]
This is one of those books that either speaks straight to people's hearts or leaves them completely cold. I'm in the latter camp: I found nothing in this book that moved me, or struck me as significant, or any way changed my life. I was annoyed by everyone and everything in this book, start to finish.
But then, I was one of those bookworm, straight-A, goody-two-shoes teens who never got into any significant trouble or had any really major angst, other than getting teased by the cooler kids at school. Which was stressful for me, but not, I think, the kind of life stress this book is dealing with. So I respect that this book has been vitally important to a whole lot of people, but all it did for me was waste a few hours of my time....more
I lost interest in this sci fi action/adventure about halfway through, when the relationship angst got added to all the other stress and problems thatI lost interest in this sci fi action/adventure about halfway through, when the relationship angst got added to all the other stress and problems that were going on. A peek at the end (I know, I'm sorry, mea culpa) let me know that pretty much all of Jax's problems continue past the end of this volume in the series. The first book was a fun romp, but this one just didn't do it for me.
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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