Can't Say That I Was Moonstruck

Moon Called

by Patricia Briggs

Published by Ace

2 Out of 5 Stars

Move on. Nothing new to see here.

That's my biggest complaint about Moon Called. For someone new to the fantasy/supernatural world, it's probably entertaining enough but it definitely has the smack of "been there, done that" for the seasoned genre reader. I would have loved it 10 to 15 years ago.

Moon Called does have a few things going for it, especially the fact that too often books like this are just an excuse to have "things that go bump in the night" bump uglies in the middle of the night (*cough* Sookie Stackhouse *cough*). Usually they're just sex with fangs and fur--and nary a plot in sight. Not so in Moon Called. Nothing throbs, nothing is exposed, and there is a plot, albeit a fairly standard mystery.

The other thing the novel has going for it is the addition of Native American mythology to the supernatural genre. Sure, there are werewolves, vampires, gremlins, witches, and all the standard *yawn* European characters, but Mercy Thompson provides an unexpected dash of something new. Part Blackfoot Indian, Mercy is a skinwalker, a shapeshifter who can take the form of a coyote. So many possibilities here for something unpredictable and refreshing and . . .

That leads me directly to the other letdown of the novel. Mercy could be so bad ass, so awesome and instead she just serves as the observer through which we see the werewolf and vampire culture. It's possible to go entire chapters and forget how extraordinary she should be. Her character serves to provide info dumps on the supernatural world around her and, no matter how many times she claims to be her own agent and not a part of the werewolf pack, she sure seems like their bitch. Mercy's an in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time character, seldom shaping events or making choices on her own.

I do respect some of the choices made by Briggs and there are a few interesting spins on some fairly standard world-building, but in the end it's not enough to make me sign on for such a lengthy series.  

This Knife Dulls by the Trilogy's End: Chaos Walking

The Knife of Never Letting Go

by Patrick Ness

Published by Candlewick Press

5 Out of 5 Stars

In a world where we're bombarded with technology, our senses are often overwhelmed by the amount of noise and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find true quiet anymore (especially since most of us just plug into our computer or iPod as soon as it is quiet). A constant stream of sound and images feed us information, prod us toward rampant consumerism, and entertain us. I've become increasingly aware that many of my students seem uncomfortable with simple quiet--always wanting some sort of noise to help them concentrate and focus. It's sad that our world has become one in which quiet is such a rare and undervalued commodity. And that, according to Patrick Ness, is the inspiration for The Knife of Never Letting Go.

Inventive and unlike anything I've ever read, The Knife of Never Letting Go is billed as a young adult dystopian but there's very little that's young adult about it other than a 13 year old protagonist. In fact, a lot of the language is violent, graphic, and brutal by young adult standards, but it has to be to capture the world that has been created by Ness.

Todd Hewitt is only days away from becoming a man by Prentisstown standards. Prentisstown is a town on New World, a planet that is being "settled" by the people of earth. What's unusual about Prentisstown, though, is that it's a town that consists entirely of men. The women were killed twelve years earlier when the Spackle, the indigenous alien race, utilized germ warfare in an attempt to win the war against the pioneers. The men, however, were not entirely immune to this germ. Instead of killing them, it made every man's inner-thoughts (both verbal and visual) visible to those around him. There are no secrets in the Noise. As a means of coping, some men turn to drink, others attempt to run away, and some kill themselves. Life here is bleak under the totalitarian rule of Mayor Prentiss and the bizarre radical teachings of the holy man, Aaron. As far as Todd knows, Prentisstown is the only place on the planet.

As Todd nears his 13th birthday, he finds something in the swamp that shouldn't exist--silence. Shortly after discovering this peculiarity and unable to find its source, he's forced to flee Prentisstown and go on the run with only his dog, a knapsack of supplies, a hunting knife, and a book written for him by his mother. To tell you the how and why for all of this would be to ruin the suspense that drives the entire novel. Todd struggles for survival and begins to unravel the lies that he's been told his entire life. During his journey, he discovers the truth about New World and about Prentisstown.

The novel is told in first person stream of consciousness, which really works because it's like we as readers are able to "hear" Todd's Noise just as the other inhabitants of Prentisstown would. It also means that we learn as Todd learns and, as his mind shies away to avoid truths that he can't yet accept, information is sometimes withheld from us. In addition, some of the words are written in dialect to help better capture how Todd sounds. There are some unusual narrative techniques used throughout, such as a different font to indicate the Noise of different individuals and animals (that's right--even animals have Noise; I particularly enjoyed the depiction of Todd's dog Manchee) as Todd encounters them. Instead of finding them gimmicky, I thought it a very effective way of visually demonstrating the intrusion of other people's thoughts into one's own.

In some ways, the novel reminded me of the television series Firefly, but only in that these space travelers are the new pioneers. While they have a lot of new technology, the struggle for survival is a very real one and never certain. The novel ends with one hell of a cliffhanger and I find myself for the first time in a long time wanting to dive right into the second novel of the series.

The Ask and the Answer

by Patrick Ness

Published by Candlewick Press

4 Out of 5 Stars 

**Some Spoilers Ahead for Those Who Haven't Read the First Novel**

I didn't so much read the first book in this series, The Knife of Never Letting Go, as inhaled it. Original and disturbing, Ness is not afraid to take some risks as he tells the story of Todd Hewitt, a boy about to become a man in Prentisstown--a town inhabited only by men. As we read, we find out that Todd lives on a colony planet so distant from Earth that it takes decades to get there. Upon arrival, the first colonists went to war with the indigenous inhabitants, the Spackle. In a desperate effort to defeat the invaders, the Spackle release a germ that kills all of the women. The men survive, but with a strange side-effect: they can hear each other's internal monologue. At least this is the story Todd was always told, but when he discovers a real girl in the swamp Todd is forced to flee for his life and learns that everything he thought was true is a lie.

The Ask and the Answer picks up where The Knife of Never Letting Go left off. Todd and Viola, whose uneasy truce forged a devoted friendship, are separated when Mayor Prentiss (the antagonist from the first novel) names himself President, quarantines the women from the men, and establishes martial law in New Prentisstown. As Mayor Prentiss exerts his power, a female rebel force known as the Answer rises against him, and Viola finds herself swept up by their cause. Meanwhile, Todd is forced to do President Prentiss's bidding in order to keep Viola safe. He's put in charge of managing the enslaved Spackle workforce being used to build the New Prentisstown envisioned by the President.

What is so fascinating about the novel is how Ness explores the brainwashing and mind games employed by each side as they use Viola and Todd as expendable pawns in their quest for victory. Viola struggles with the terroristic tactics used by the Answer against innocent civilians in the name of their cause, while Todd is forced to face his shame in killing a Spackle in the first novel as he witnesses the dehumanizing treatment of the thinking and feeling alien race. As Viola and Todd try to navigate the labyrinthine truths, loyalties, and beliefs that are relics from a war that occurred before either of them were born, they begin to question themselves and their trust in each other. This psychological complexity is heightened by the fact that the reader still isn’t sure who the bad guys and who the good guys are—if, in fact, there are any good guys. There are no easy answers and Ness forces readers to think through the complex issues of war, justifiable violence, and racism.

Monsters Of Men

by Patrick Ness

Published by Candlewick Press

3 Out of 5 Stars

If you read my reviews of The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer, you'll find that I was a smitten kitten with the Chaos Walking series. In the carbon copy world of young adult literature, these are inventive books with powerful themes resonating throughout. I have been anticipating the moment when I would finish the last book in the trilogy, expecting to savor the return to Todd and Viola's world. So what effin' happened that led to a tepid 3 star rating? I'm still trying to figure it out.

Maybe it was series fatigue or maybe I waited too long between reading books 2 and 3 (I hate getting locked into series books, so that is a possibility). For whatever reason, Monsters of Men never grabbed me in the way the first two books did. It felt repetitive. War with the Spackle, conflict between Mayor Prentiss and Mistress Coyle, Todd and Viola don't know what to do, and round and round it goes. Each time I picked up the book, I felt like it was Groundhog Day--I could have sworn I read the same damn thing yesterday. The war is somewhat anticlimactic and I never felt any real tension. I'm rather out of sorts about this because I feel as though I somehow let down the book instead of the book letting me down. Did I miss something? Is there something I'm just not getting? These are the thoughts that plague me because I wanted, nay, needed to love this book. And I just didn't. Todd and Viola's angst over being separated is irritating to me because I could not for the life of me understand why they insisted on being apart ("Just walk your ass up the damn hill, Todd," I kept encouraging him throughout, but he never listened), Mayor Prentiss doesn't seem like that big of a bad ass threat, and the one twist the novel is relying on is fairly predictable.

Despite this, I liked the addition of the narration from 1017's point of view. Told in the language of the indigenous people of New World, Ness does a good job of making the voice seem alien and foreign. These chapters are somewhat difficult to read in terms of adjusting to the syntax and invented phrases, but it added to my ability to believe in the Spackle as a separate sentient species from humans. Also, the questions raised (is there morality in war, what makes a terrorist, how do we know when we can trust our leaders, is violence ever justified) are all complex and worthy of our attention. Ness skillfully asks these questions without glorifying war nor necessarily vilifying it, which makes this an above average young adult read.

Ahoy, Me Mateys!

The Dust of 100 Dogs

by A. S. King

Published by Flux

4 Out of 5 Stars

This is definitely one of the more interesting premises that I've encountered in young adult fiction and, given all of the carbon copy Twilight/Harry Potter series books out there, it deserves high praise for that alone.

Young Emer Morrisey has a loving family and a happy childhood until her parents are brutally killed and her village destroyed during Cromwell's invasion of Ireland. From that point on, Emer's life is one disappointment after another: poverty, arranged marriage, abusive uncle, hunger, imprisonment, and rape. It's no wonder that she loses hope in goodness and kindness and, when fate brings her to the pirate haven of Tortuga, she decides to take from others as viciously as life has taken from her. That's right--Emer is kicking ass and taking names as the captain of her own pirate ship and it's not long before she manages to make a name for herself as one of the most cunning and bloodthirsty pirates to ever sail the seven seas. When Emer crosses the wrong man, she is killed and cursed with "The Dust of 100 Dogs," meaning that she will be reincarnated 100 times as a dog before finally being reincarnated as a human being and able to take care of unfinished business.

The novel begins with the birth of Saffron Adams, the human reincarnation of Emer after she has endured several canine lifetimes. Saffron is her own person, yet still has all of Emer's memories and knowledge. As Saffron searches for the treasure Emer was able to bury before her death, the novel deftly switches from past to present as we learn of Emer's past and Saffron's future. If all of this sounds bizarre and confusing, well, it is, but in a good way. The novel maintains suspense and draws all of the storylines together to a satisfactory conclusion. The one expectation that wasn't met for me is that we learn very little about Emer's dog lives; instead, the chapters are interspersed with short vignettes about what Emer the dog learned about human nature from various owners in various time periods. This is probably a smart move on the part of King as reading about the lives of 100 dogs, while intriguing, could become pretty tedious somewhere around the third Milkbone treat given, leg humped, or fire hydrant peed upon.

In reading other reviews, many readers were shocked by the brutality and the sexuality in the book (which I actually found to be pretty tame). Um, yeah, I think that it could be because it's a FREAKIN' PIRATE book and not a Disney theme park ride. Others seemed to be shocked to find such content in a young adult book, but I have no such worries. I'm sure teenagers have already figured out the sex thing, yeah? And they've probably done it from unsupervised watching of cable television and unmonitored Internet usage their parents make accessible. And it's a hell of a lot better than reading three books of Bella lusting after sparkling Edward's cold, hard . . . well, you know. (*removes self from soapbox and drags it back to the corner*)

So, yes, good book, definitely enjoyed it, and suffered no negative side effects other than a desire to walk around saying, "Arrrggghhh, me matey" to everyone I met for a week.

Riotously Fun

Midnight Riot

by Ben Aaronovitch

Published by Del Rey

3 1/2 Out of 5 Stars

Peter Grant is a Probationary Constable in London who, despite his dreams of being a detective, possesses a propensity for detail and a knack for paperwork that makes him the perfect candidate for the Case Progression Unit (a department that does the endless paperwork on behalf of "real" detectives). Before he's doomed to a pallid indoor office complexion and a life of carpal tunnel syndrome, he receives a breakthrough in a significant case. Only one problem: it's from a ghost. And thus begins Peter Grant's introduction to the world of Detective Chief Inspector (and wizard) Thomas Nightingale, sole investigator of the mystical and magical threats to the Queen's peace in London, and the Folly, headquarters for the study of the unknown. Suddenly, Peter's tendency to be distracted by seemingly insignificant details at a scene (on one memorable occasion he was distracted during a New Year's Eve celebration at Trafalgar Square, ignoring drunken fights while reading the plaque on the bum end of a statue lion) serves a relevant purpose. He's more sensitive to the vestigia, or magical residue, left behind by the supernatural, and this makes him the perfect candidate to apprentice with Nightingale.

Midnight Riot is riotously fun to read. It's treading on familiar territory (a super secret agency entrusted with explaining the unexplainable to those in power, but keeping it hush-hush from ordinary people), but Aaronovitch creates a world that is engaging if not entirely original. As a protagonist, Peter Grant is both naïve and a charming smart ass, with emphasis on charming--a concept that a lot of authors in this genre have difficulty pulling off without the character becoming insufferably smug and more interested in firing off one-liners in the heat of battle than kicking ass (Harry *cough* Dresden *cough*). It's also refreshing to have a protagonist with a diverse racial heritage as his background and family situation bring a little more to the table than one normally expects in this type of novel.

So why only 3 stars? Well, it's really more of a 3 1/2 star read. Midnight Riot is entertaining in a quickly forgettable way, which is all it purports to be. And, in that, it almost entirely succeeds. However, despite an inventive premise for the supernatural killer (which is hinted at pretty broadly on the U.K. cover of the novel, but I won't reveal anything here as mum's the word on the cover and blurb of the U.S. edition), some of the pieces don't quite fit together smoothly and there are some pretty giant leaps in Peter's logic that allows him to connect events. Also, there are really two intertwining narratives: the supernatural serial killer and a territorial dispute between the Mother Thames and Father Thames, water deities with no love for one another. Because Aaronovitch has to jump between these two narratives, neither really gets the full exploration it deserves. His concept of the water deities and the hierarchy involved is fascinating enough for a novel all its own.

It also bothered me how quickly Peter could forget that which should have been important. In the end (no spoilers, promise), his friend Leslie is in grave danger and yet Peter seems to rather nonchalantly walk away from the situation and returns to his parents' home. That plus a rather awkward segue into a brief story about vampires certainly leads to some hiccups in the narrative flow.

These, however, are rather minor irritants in a light novel that, because of the strength of its characters, I thoroughly enjoyed. It's because of these characters (Peter Grant in particular) that I look forward to reading Moon Over Soho.

Self-Serving Piety Is the Real Villain

Under the Dome

by Stephen King

Published by Scribner

3 1/2 Out of 5 Stars

This is my first full-fledged Stephen King novel, so I'm not sure how it measures up against other King classics like The Stand, It, Salem's Lot, or Carrie. Sure, I've read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, but only because it was described as a young adult novel (King-lite, if you will). I have spent most of my life actively avoiding Stephen King and here's my story as to why Mr. King and I parted ways before I even read anything by him.

When I was but a wee little girl, full of innocence and a precocious love of reading, my mom was also a voracious reader. As I was consuming Little House on the Prairie books (my earliest encounter with book rape--thanks, grandma) and Nancy Drew, I began noticing that mom was always reading these big ass books with KING running down the spine. When she wasn't reading these books, they were always placed on top of the refrigerator which was well out of my grasp. Eager for us to share this love of reading (Mom curiously had no interest in the plight of the Ingalls family), I begged and pleaded to be allowed to read the King books. "Gee, wouldn't it be fun if Mom and I read the same books? Then we could talk about them!" I thought. Days, weeks, months went by and, eventually, my constant wheedling became too much. She relented, but the deal was that she would pick the scene I was allowed to read. She chose a particularly horrific and descriptive scene from The Stand. I read with increasing horror--Nancy Drew never encountered messed up shit like this! When I finished that scene, I handed the book over and never asked to read King again. And I stepped lightly around Mom from that day forward. I suddenly understood that, if that woman snapped, it would be ugly--and she would know what to do with the bodies.

Therefore, unlike most teenagers, I skipped over the desire to consume everything King between junior high and high school. And this brings us to present day and my first King novel. At 1,072 pages, this is definitely a doorstop of a book. However, it reads fairly quickly. My main complaint is that many of the characters are one dimensional stereotypes. There are no shades of gray in the small town of Chester's Mill. At first, this bothered me; however, I think maybe individual characters had to be sacrificed in order to portray the real character--small town America and how it reacts to cataclysmic events. If King shorthands individual characterizations, he nails the panic and herd-like mentality that takes over when uncertainty is the order of the day.

The premise of the novel, as blatantly presented by the title, is that Chester's Mill one day finds itself cutoff from the outside world by a mysterious dome that perfectly conforms itself to the borders of Chester's Mill. In the days ahead, the people wait and worry as the United States government desperately tries to free them. As hope begins to dwindle, reason is in short supply as people trade in their humanity for mass hysteria and panic.

The dome is not, however, the ultimate villain in this tale. The real villain is Big Jim Rennie, the town selectman who has been waiting for just such a "clustermug" so that he can claim control of the town. Big Jim is the most vile type of Christian, one who believes that being able to quote scripture and abstain from saying cuss words is all it takes to be amongst God's chosen. Big Jim does everything in the belief that God is on his side and damn anyone who tries to get in his way, for not only are they his enemies, but enemies of Christianity itself. It is possible to have religion without true faith, and Big Jim is proof of that. He has customized his religion to serve his needs; indeed, his belief in God is little more than a manifestation of his own belief in himself as superior, as "chosen," to be above all others.

It appears that my review may be destined to be as long as the book, so I'll cut it short. Weaknesses: there are a few clunker sentences that pulled me out of the story, there is an abundance of detail that I could have lived without, and I was disappointed in the reason for the dome because it seemed so obvious. Strengths: King deftly keeps his cast of characters straight and realistically interacting with one another, he captures the terror and bovine-like stupidity that takes over when day-to-day life is disrupted and threatened, there are some colorful cuss words that I hope to employ in the near future, and there's a catastrophic scene toward the end that is one of the most terrifying and well-written that I've ever read. 

A Fount of Fonts

Just My Type

by Simon Garfield

Published by Gotham

4 Out of 5 Stars

Drowning. Feuds. Nazis. Bestiality. Probably not topics you expect to find in a book about fonts. Granted, the drowning was of the Doves font (its creator threw the matrices and the metal letters into the Thames river instead of bequeathing his perfect font to anyone else after his death). And the feuds range the gamut from public backlash over IKEA changing its font from Futura to Verdana to the online movement against Comic Sans (the world's worst font, allegedly). And detail-oriented Nazis declared an official font--a form of German gothic--before later outlawing it because of its connections to Jewish bankers and printers.

But a dog did get buggered, good and proper--and not by a font.*

Just My Type is admittedly not a book for everyone. However, I love fonts. I'm one of those rare people who love to see the page in the back of the book that tells what font the book was set in and provides information about its origin. I'm the type of person who will sit in front of the computer screen for an hour trying out different font types and sizes until I have the perfect lettering for conveying the all important message to my students that they should "Go to the library and bring your notebook." I can spot Garamond or Courier or Verdana from one hundred paces. Yes, I freaking love font. Ergo, I really enjoyed Just My Type, although it's not the sort of book I could sit down and read in one sitting. Instead I opted to dip in and out periodically while reading other books.

Garfield writes with humor and knowledge about the history of print and the impact it had (and continues to have) on the world. It's difficult to believe the tedious and time consuming process that goes into creating a font, and equally difficult to believe is how important getting the right font is for daily routines (such as the effort that went into selecting a proper font for London's subway system). My favorite parts of the book are the "fontbreaks" that appear between chapters; these are very short stories about the origins of some of the world's most notorious or revered fonts. Also helpful is that, when mentioning most types, the actual type in the book changes so the reader can see what the type looks like (although this isn't done consistently and I would have preferred to see it done throughout). If there is a fault with the book, it would be the one I find in most non-fiction books: some information is repeated ad nauseam and there are occasionally abrupt shifts in topic. Other than that, if you're looking for an entertaining and not particularly technical look at fonts, I'd recommend giving this a go.


*Oh, said dog was pestered by Eric Gill, creator of Gill Sans. And noted ass hat.

Swords Without the Sorcery in a Blood-Drenched West

Red Country

by Joe Abercrombie

Published by Orbit

4 Out of 5 Stars

This is my first foray into the world of Joe Abercrombie and for those of you who are about to make the mistake of starting with Red Country like I did, my advice would be to go back and start with the First Law books. Red Country is marketed as a standalone novel and one can certainly enjoy it without having read Abercrombie’s other work, but the reason I’m giving it only 4 stars is because I always felt like I was missing out on something--that there was critical, need-to-know information from previous books that would have elevated this one to giddy kick ass heights. Reading the reviews and comments of other diehard Abercrombie fans, my suspicions have been proven correct. Without reading the previous books, I was doomed to live in the dark as references and revelations that should have held a “holy-shit-you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me” relevance whizzed right on by. Despite feeling like the kid who decided to start wearing stonewashed denim the day after stonewashed denim became decidedly uncool (as it should forever remain), I still really enjoyed the novel.

Red Country is a western/fantasy, a combination that never fails to hook me. However, this is fantasy in the sense that Game of Thrones is a fantasy: there’s little/no magic (although it hints that it may exist, but in a darker, more sinister form than in lighter fantasies), nary a fantastical creature in sight, and no prophecies or fates to fulfill. This is fantasy in that the world in which the novel is set doesn’t exist; however, it’s written so realistically that it seems like the history of ordinary pioneers whose stories were simply swallowed by time. In fact, it’s possible to go entire chapters while forgetting that it is a fantasy, which at first bothered me. It’s so true to the western genre that I thought, “Why not just write a straight western?” The answer, of course, is that the novel fits into the context of a larger world created by Abercrombie and, if I had been exposed to that world by reading the previous books, such a trivial concern wouldn’t have bothered me. As it stands, Abercrombie’s tale of the main characters’ journey to the Far Country (the equivalent of the the Wild West) is gritty, blood-drenched, and populated by people who see violence as a tool to be wielded by those strong enough to use it when necessary. It’s a world where there aren’t anti-heroes so much as anti-villains—all of the characters have dark pasts shaped by need and want and necessity, carrying the guilt of doing what had to be done while possessing a moral code that leaves them painfully aware of why it shouldn’t have been done. All live with the ghost of regret and hope they have left their more violent selves behind.

Such is the case with Shy South, a young woman trying to raise her younger brother and sister while managing the family farm. Shy is a hard-worker and a ruthless negotiator, much too young to bear the burden of providing for so many and much too young to have to outrun a past that includes murder and theft. Shy’s hell-bent on seeing to it that her siblings don’t have to make such dark choices. However, when Shy returns from town to find her farm in smoldering ruins and her brother and sister kidnapped, her past serves her well in her quest for revenge. With only her passive and cowardly step-father, Lamb (whose past, much to Shy’s surprise, makes him far more equipped for the ensuing violence than she is), to help, Shy goes on a journey that brings her into contact with outlaws, pioneers, savages, mercenaries, and a soggy, hilariously droll lawyer named Temple while attempting to find her siblings and bring them home.

Shy’s tale is the axis around which Red Country revolves, but it’s not her tale alone. The novel follows a large cast of characters; it’s like True Grit meets Lonesome Dove. What makes the novel stand above typical fantasy fare is Abercrombie’s talent as a writer. There are no info dumps, and he’s happy to skip ahead to move the action along (for example, when Temple begins building a store for another character, there are plenty of writers who would have drug us through every damn day, describing every nail and every board). He also writes with humor and wit, refusing to imbue his characters with idealized perfection. They wake up with morning breath, they reek after months on the trail, their lovemaking does not read like sexy-time-porn, and they have physical as well as character flaws. What impressed me the most is how he takes characters that from the outside seem like stone-cold bad asses unfazed by anything and explores their internalized fears, regrets, and worries. Their actions may seem heartless, but his revelation of their motivations often makes them anything but. Theirs is a brutal, hardscrabble life where easy choices are hard to come by and an aversion to violence can place serious limitations on one’s shelf life. As one character is told, "The world out there is a red country, without justice, without meaning" (298). That these characters still go on without the guarantee of justice and meaning gives them a heroic bravery despite some often unheroic choices. And, if you ask me, that's the stuff of life, not fantasy.