Gone, but not forgotten

This blog I mean.

Summer comes and life is anything but routine for 8 weeks, and while I can get reading in, the recording of said reading has taken a serious hit. 

Last I wrote, I was on Book 14. I've read like another ten since I last blogged. 

Sigh.

So here goes: 

Book # 15 is Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch. Number three in the Peter Grant, magic cop series was good, but I didn't like it as much as the first two. Aaronovitch does continue to seemlessly blend the fantasy with the urban part of urban fantasy, but London really does lend itself to that. I believe it was Chris Claremont who, way back when in an issue of Excalibur, called London "the haunted capital of a haunted realm.". Yup. 

Book # 16 is the Crown Tower by Michael J. Sullivan. This is the first of the prequels about Hadrian and Royce and details how they met. It really is a fantasy buddy road series, right down to them hating each other when they first meet. It does nicely set up what we know will eventually happen. And as much as I like reading about the two boys, it was actually the sections on Gwen and her girls attempting to set up their own brothel that I found most interesting. And left me feeling the most anxious in my hope that they would succeed. 

Book # 17 is Hild by Nicola Griffith. This book is incredibly well researched and it shows, but I think it shows too much? In trying to flesh out the early history of the girl who would become St. Hilda, I think Griffith gets a little too bogged down in her time period. I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters, and I'm still not certain if the book ended with Hild marrying her half-brother?

Book # 18 is Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch. This is Peter Grant, magic cop book 4. Where Peter discovers an old, about to be destroyed, housing project is actually a magically significant piece of architecture. Shades of Ghostbusters to be sure, but I liked it quite a bit. Aaronvitch paints such a vivid picture of his Skygarden Estates that I had to google it and see if it was real. It's not, exactly, but based on a place called Heygarden. Either way, the place certainly came to life. Oh and the betrayal at the end of the book? Well set up enough that I could see it coming, and yet was still shocked it actually happened.

Book # 19 is Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch. And with this one, I have reached the end of the currently published Rivers of London novels. Damn. Anyway, I think this was my favourite, mainly cause Faeries. I usually always like Faeries. Also, there is totally an acknowledgement of a universal law that Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman put forth in Good Omens and I was totally chuffed to see it used here.

Book # 20 is Pawn in Frankincence by Dorothy Dunnett. Holy crap. What a book. Lymond journeys all over the place to find the son that Graham Mallet has hidden from him. The twists and turns and ultimate heartbreak are.. heartbreaking. On the upside? I really liked Jerrot Blyth and Phillipa Sommerville is all kinds of awesome.

Book # 21 is Half A War by Joe Abercrombie. The conclusion of the Shattered Seas trilogy, it concluded well but also with a bit of WTF on my part. The revelation of who the Elves may have been didn't sit well with me, but oh well. But Yarvi was his wonderfully conniving self, Princess Skara was a nice addition, but the killing of a certain character wasn't really called for. This was my least favourite of the trilogy.

Book # 22 is The Ringed Castle by Dorothy Dunnett. Definitely not the emotional wallop of the last book, this one sees Lymond escape that emotional turmoil by heading to the wilds of Russia with Guzel, so he can advise Tsar Ivan the Terrible on all things military. There's some numerous, lovely action set pieces as usual, and once again, Phillipa Sommerville is awesome.

And now we are all caught up.

Some not so light jazz and some fantasy

Book # 13 is Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

The second of the Peter Grant books, still much fun and Aaronovitch is developing his fantastic London very well. We learn more about Nightingale's past and the toll WWII took on magicians, and we also meet Peter's parents. I found this one slightly more predictable than the first one, but that didn't really detract from it. There seems to also have been a more major, long term nemesis introduced with the Faceless Man, a dark magician into all sorts of sordid things, and so far, completely unidentifiable by either Peter or Nightingale. So I'm interested in seeing where that goes.

Book #14 is Half the World by Joe Abercrombie.

The second book in Abercrombie's Shattered Sea series, I liked this one just as much as the first. We meet Thorn, a girl very much built in the mold of Brienne of Tarth, although even more rough around the edges. After a training mishap, Father Yarvi takes her amongst his crew for some adventures and further world building by Abercrombie. Face paced, fun, still that dark humour, intrigue and even some romance. "Fools boast of what they will do. Heroes do it." had to be my favourite line. It's a very Abercrombie line. 

Catch all

Shit, fallen behind again. Books 10, 11, 12 are

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch, The Snowman

by Jo Nesbo, and Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I loved Midnight Riot (also known as Rivers of London). Lovely urban fantasy set in London (who is definitely a character in this book) about not great cop Peter Grant who finds his calling when he gets sucked into the magical part of London and ends up part of the London police who work supernatural crimes. It's a lot of fun and I'm glad there seems to be a zillion of them.

The Snowman is my second Jo Nesbo book and I liked this one better than the Bat. The native Norweigian setting suited Harry better. The badguy was suitably creepy, but to be honest, I pretty much figured this one out fairly early on.

Buried Giant... I was looking forward to this, Ishiguro's first foray into 'fantasy', set in post-Arthurian Britain... thought it sounded right up my ally. But I found this book hard to like. Partly because I was so busy deconstructing it. It's not high fantasy, it's not epic fantasy, it's certainly not urban fantasy... it felt more like a throwback to early Arthurian legends or even Old English ballads and other Saxon tales. Which y'know, good on Ishiguro. And at one point, I thought, oh is he going to do some entrelacement now? No... not really. Anyway, when it boiled down to it, the plot is a fairly simple quest framing, to discover what is responsible for the mist that lies over Britain and tampers with everyone's memories? I did like the ultimate reason behind the mist, and I liked the journey for the most part, but despite the simplicity, it also felt like Ishiguro was trying to do too much? I don't know, it's just a hard book to warm up to. (and I say this as someone who has read early Arthurian stuff, quite a few Old English epics/ballads what not, and a lot of medieval works. So the writing style he might've been trying to emulate is not beyond me. heh)

x

More confusing than the Wars of the Roses

Number 9 is Trinity, book 2 in Conn Iggulden's Wars of the Roses series.

This one starts off pretty interesting, as Henry VI comes out of his catatonia (modern efforts to diagnose Henry's mental illness have suggested schizophrenia) and becomes quite a strong-willed man. Completely different from what he's been before. He feels he must take back his kingdom from York and Salisbury (who have been running things since he's been ill), and so launches on a procession of his land, showing the people of England that he is able to rule again (this was his extremely capable and wily wife Margaret's idea). Of course though, York and Salisbury don't take kindly to what they see as them being forced to step aside; they want recognition for their help, and they feel that Henry is being unfairly poisoned against them by other councillors, which they kinda are, but it's still a pretty flimsy excuse for them to gather an army and go meet up with Henry at the town of St. Albans so they can talk it out.

So that goes badly.

Basically, this book deals a lot more with battles and political machinations, and we get more heavily into the Percy/Neville feud... which felt rather misplaced. Only a little time was spent on getting to know Warwick further (and given how important he's going to become, I think we need some more building there), and there was a very unfortunate lack of spymaster Derry Brewer. I did appreciate that we spent some more time with Edward of York, that's kinda important too.

While I didn't like this one as much as Stormbird, I'm still enjoying the series, and Margaret was still kick ass as she does all she conceivably can to keep and win back her husband's throne, although really her motivation is now to secure it for her son.

Kings without a Kingdom and Disorderly Knights

#7 is The King Without a Kingdom by Maurice Druon. The final book of the Accursed Kings series, this is a departure from the others in that it's a first person narrative, and has skipped forward a decade to be right in the thick of the Hundred Years War. Crecy has already happened and Edward III is well established in France. The story is told from the POV of  Cardinal Perigord tells the story of King John II, second of the Valois monarchs, who is vain and cruel and a lousy king. His father was defeated horribly at Crecy, and John follows suit by getting his ass kicked by Edward the Black Prince at Poitiers. The narrative was took a bit of getting used to, as did there basically being no real 'characters' left from from the previous books. Frankly, The Lion and the Lily probably would've made a better ending to the series.

#8 is The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett. Third of the Lymond Chronicles, we journey with Lymond to Malta, where he becomes embroiled with the fabled Knights of Malta, the Order of St. John. He arrives there just as Suleiman the Magnificent was making his push to expand the Ottoman Empire. Lymond meets the 'perfect' knight, Graham Reid Malett, who has decided to make it his mission in life to convert Lymond to the faith. Which goes about as well as you think it will. I liked this book, but almost in spite of itself it seems, because Dummett seemed to go out of her way to make Lymond thoroughly unlikeable. I mean, Lymond is often hard to like, but this time, we were talking about maybe despicable levels, especially when it came to Malett's ridiculously beautiful sister, Joleta. Of course, I knew that there was a reason for the horribleness, and Dunnett pulls it off quite well. Also, an ending that will lead neatly into the next book.

Mistboring

Number 6 is The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson.

The second book of his Mistborn series and whooboy I did not like this book at all. I started it just after Christmas, and gave up on it for awhile. But as I have a real hard time leaving a book behind, I persevered. But I realized pretty quickly in that I do not like Vin as a character at all. I don't find her interesting nor engaging. The same with Elend. And their melodramatic relationship just made me go 'ugh, please just breakup' (and I'm not one who is easily bothered by silly, young relationship drama). Some of the stuff with Sazed would've been interesting, and I wanted to see what happened to Marsh and got him to where he would be at the end, but nope. And the ending just came across as such a big mess that I don't care what happens next. I won't be continuing on in this series.

Book #5 is 11/22/63 by Stephen King.

I'm not entirely sure why I decided to read this book, other than it was lying around the house because my cousin lent it to me. I was still feeling some... King hesitation left over from my time with the Dark Tower, and we all know that I HATE time travel... and yet, I ended up picking it up.

The time travel really makes no sense, and I'm not sure I understand it's internal consistency, but it's simple, and I appreciate that. Main character Jake Epping, a recently divorced English teacher in the year 2011, is shown the 'rabbit hole' in Al's Diner, a weird breach in the time stream that leads to 1958. And no matter when you come back up the rabbit hole, only two minutes have passed in 2011, and the past immediately 'resets' itself.

Al, the original discovery of the rabbit hole, does some experiments with changing the past, has some success, and decides that a big change needs to be made; stopping the assassination of JFK on Nov. 22, 1963. But, Al ends up with cancer and cannot fulfill his destiny.

He recruits Jake Epping.

I started off with being slightly miffed at this book. Mainly because of Jake's repeated comments on how he majored in English, so doesn't know much about American history. This actually drove me nuts. Maybe I'm weird in that I have an English degree, but I like history. A lot. English literature is tied to it's history, so I guess I find the idea of being ignorant of history just because you read a lot of books to be complete bunk. (I will come clean though that in university, I took quite a few history courses, and a couple of them were on American history as I find the time period of post-war America to be really fascinating, so I do know just enough about the 50s and 60s in the US to be dangerous).

Once I got past Jake's ignorance though, I liked the story. I liked Jake's first experiment in changing the past, I liked the return to Derry. I liked him settling into his life in the past as he waited for the past to 'catch up'. I liked that the past is obdurate and fights change. I liked that the past fought change very violently leading up to the assassination.

I didn't like that the ending though, felt rather rushed despite the book feeling over long. I'm not sure we needed all the minutiae of Jake's plans and his stalking of Lee Harvey Oswald. I think I would've liked a bit more time spent in the changed present.

But anyway, I did enjoy this, time travel, historical ignorance, and everything.

Begin Again

2015!

Thank goodness, because 2014 kinda stunk in the reading dept. I vow to do better this year!

In fact, I am doing pretty darn good out of the gate, I've already read four books!

The first three, are the Riyria Revelations, which is made up of Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire and the Heir of Novron, all by Michael J. Sullivan. These are not genre changing or earth shattering, but they're fun. And they have a fairly nice happy ending, which is sometimes a good thing. The central characters are thieves extrodinaire Hadrian and Royce, and they have a nice, buddy movie vibe going for them. There's good action, good capers, a larger story that they of course become part of, and a couple of good, strong female characters. I enjoyed 'em and will probably continue on with the Riyria Chronicles at some point.

Book number four is Stormbird (Wars of the Roses: Book One) by Conn Iggulden. Poor, sickly, naive Henry VI was just not cut out to be king. We're given a rather pathetic (but sympathetic) portrayal of him. We meet fierce, loyal and indomitable Margret of Anjou shortly before her marriage to Henry. The Duke of York is a little one dimensional and definitely set out as the bad guy, so it would seem (so far) that Iggulden is a Lancastrian. His best character though is the one he invented; Derry Brewer, Henry's spymaster. This book ends with King Henry's mental illness rendering him basically catatonic for months and Parliament appointing Richard, Duke of York (a man with an even better claim to the throne than the King has), as Lord Protector of the Realm. I'll be moving on to the next book in this series. I do love me some Wars of the Roses. 

Pooched

How much did I pooch this blog? Last entry was in Oct. 2014. It's now the back nine of January 2015.

Sigh.

Part of my apathy was that I read the fewest number of books I have in awhile. I only managed 33, and three of those were re-reads. Meh.

So what did I read after A Queen's Play...

• The World of Ice and Fire - GRRM, Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson (loved it)

• Celtika - Robert Holdstock (kinda liked it)

• The Best Laid Plans - Terry Fallis (didn't like it)

• The Bat - Jo Nesbo (liked the ending)

• Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson (liked it, but not liking the follow up)

• The Lily and the Lion - Maurice Druon (loved it)

I tried to branch out this year, with the reading of a couple of sci-fi books. It just reminded me why I don't read sci-fi.

I was introduced to the sublime Dorothy Dunnett and her creation Lymond of Crawford.

Lev Grossman finished his Magicians books, and I think that was my favourite of the year. Special mention goes to Serpent of Venice and Boy, Snow, Bird.

Time to up my game again for 2015. I WILL do 50 books this year darnit!

Book # 24 is Queen's Play by Dorothy Dunnett.

So while I liked the first Lymond book, I loved this one. Lymond, in disguise!, travels to France in the company of an Irish Prince, Phelim O'LiamRoe, for the express purpose of ferreting out a plot to kill 8 year old Mary, Queen of Scots. He's also there to protect her of course, and he does so with his usual, flashy (and yet also strangely subtle) aplomb.

This book runs from one action packed set piece to the next. All the attempts on Mary's life are huge and amazing; there's an elephant stampede, there's a hunting accident (complete with cheetah), there's a night time foot race over rooftops, there's a horse race, there's poison, there's boats and gunpowder. It's all glorious and grand.

And midst it all, Lymond plays his usual games and people are hurt and end up dead and Lymond himself nearly ends up dead a few times as well. There's the poor, sad figure of Robin Stewart, who comes to hero worship Lymond and of course, be let down. There's the mysterious Oona O'Dwyer, who styles herself a patriot and may play the game nearly as well as Lymond himself, and the O'LiamRoe himself; who goes from being a rather silly character into something else entirely.

Definitely looking forward to the next one now.

Wow, really behind now. Books 21, 22 and 23 coming up!

Book 21 is Half a King by Joe Abercrombie. I love Abercrombie's books, and decided to give his first foray into YA fiction a shot. It was very enjoyable and while not as dark as his adult books, there was still enough of his dark humour and revenge themes that marked this as definitely an Abercrombie book.

Book 22 is Here be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman. I branched out in my historical fiction reading to Wales, with this tale of Welsh prince Llewellyn the Great and his marriage to King John's bastard daughter Joanna. Very interesting and dramatic, Penman did a really good job of making John still horrible, but with some redeeming qualities to his daughter. It was an interesting take on him.

Book 23 is The Widow's House by Daniel Abraham. This is book 4 in the Dagger and the Coin series and I am really enjoying these. The world is devolving farther into war, and the dragon that Wester and Kit found at the end of the last book isn't quite the savior they hopped for. I also don't think that I've ever come across a fantasy book where they're going to attempt to save the world through banking. I mean, obviously it was going to come up due to Cithrin's presense, but yeah... different tack for sure. Still really loving Clara Kalliam though, she's a great, great character.

Rogues, Gods and Magicians

Whoops, falling behind again.

Book # 18 is another short story collection edited by GRRM, Rogues. It had stories from some of my favourites, Abercrombie, Rothfuss (I wasn't expecting to like his short story about Bast as much as I did, but I rather loved Bast running something like a black market for the nearby children) and of course, GRRM himself. Once again, GRRM's contribution was written as a historical account of the civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. I'm enjoying getting a good handle on that time period in Westeros.

Book #19 was Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. My dear husband picked this book up because an aborted attempt at making it a movie back in the 70s became the pre-production materials used by the CIA in the 'Canadian Caper' (aka Argo). The concept art was done by Jack Kirby, so yeah, in geek circles, this is big stuff. Now as we know, I'm not much of a sci-fi fan, but I'm trying very hard to branch out this year (...ok, this is really only my second attempt, but two is better than none!) so I decided I'd try it, especially since I've read other Zelazny (although I haven't got very far with his Amber stuff). Well. It took me a long time to realize that much of this book was actually told in flashback. heh. I'm not usually so narratively challenged, but I sure was here for some reason. The book follows Sam (aka Siddhartha, Buddha, Mahasamatman and another name I don't remember right now) in his attempts to defeat the fellow colonists he travelled with who have set themselves up as representations of various Hindu gods and are ruling (and kind of suppressing) the normal population. Now that I think about it, the book is nicely divided up into each of Sam's various attempts, but yeah, something about it I found confusing at the time. Overall, it was very interesting, and Zelazny parcelled out what was going on very well. I think my favourite of the stories was Sam becoming 'Buddha' and turning the assassin Kali had sent to kill him into his greatest disciple.

Book #20 is The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman. Need we say how much I was looking forward to this coming out? No? Yeah, I definitely was. Last we had seen Quentin Coldwater, he'd been kicked out of his beloved magical land Fillory and could never return. He was dealing 'ok' with this loss by returning to Brakebills as a teacher... but then he got fired from there too, and so strikes off on his own. The whole 'Magicians' trilogy was originally marketed as 'Harry Potter for grownups', but really, it's far more 'Narnia without all the Christian allegory for grownups'. The only true Harry Potter part is the school of Brakebills, because after that, it's pretty much all Narnia, all the time, and that is not a complaint, because damn do I love those books, heavy handed Christian allegories and all (which, for one who was raised in a very non-religious household, didn't see the Christian allegories until they were pointed out to her). Because while Quentin and friends went to a school to learn magic, Quentin didn't want to be Harry Potter, he wanted to be a Pevensie. He wanted to find his way into Fillory and have grand adventures and rule as a king there. And he did. The second book was a reflection of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Magician's Land is very much a fun-house mirror held up to The Last Battle. So much so that I want to re-read the Last Battle just so I can compare and contrast the apocalyptic descriptions better. Because that's what this is, the final race to save Fillory from reaching the end of it's lifespan. And it's a hell of a quest. The book does feel a tad disjointed and perhaps a little too... pat? And yet it worked for me. I love the techno babble of Grossman's magic system, and I loved all the familiar faces (it actually managed to make Janet slightly more interesting and less of 'stock bitch' character). And I loved how Quentin has, over the course of the books, grown up and is less of a prat. He's still not perfect, not by any means, but he's reached a level of self awareness where he is capable of seeing his own mistakes. And I loved how we see the psychological effects that Fillory had on those from our world who have journeyed there. And it's not always the nicest thing. That was something we never really got from the Narnia books; Peter and Susan seemed to take their ejection from Narnia not too badly (we only ever hear that Susan rejected it for 'bad' reasons, not that perhaps she did because she was hurt by being rejected by Narnia first), and that being in Narnia made the rest of them 'better'. That wasn't the case for Fillory and I liked that the fantasy aspect of it destroyed, because living in a fantasy isn't usually a good thing. Anyway, I could go on and on about this book (and the others), but suffice to say I really freaking enjoyed it.

Number 17 is The She-Wolf of France by Maurice Druon

Book number 5 in the Accursed Kings series, this one deals with the titular She-Wolf, Isabella, the only daughter of King Louis the Fair. Isabella, at the tender age of 12, was married off to Edward II of England. It was not a good match.

Edward II  was a weak king. Overfond of certain favourites, and perhaps homosexual, he quarreled with his barons nearly constantly, alienated his wife and ended up having to abdicate his throne to his son, who would become the very compentent and extremly war-like Edward III.

Most of the book concerns Isabella and her unhappiness. Her mistreatment at the hands of Edward's favourite pet, Hugh Despenser the Younger was enough that eventually she fled home to France and when she finally returned years later, it was at the head of an invasionary force, with her lover, the exiled baron Roger Mortimer.

Druon gives Isabella a good account, she is generally a strong woman, but her relationship with Mortimer is wrong, and she realizes enough that she is a hypocrite, but she also wants to finally be happy, and realizes that such a thing would never be possible with Edward. She is fortunate enough that her husband was a lousy king, so she wasn't the only one who wanted to be rid of him.

We also check in on the current King of France (the third of Isabella's brothers), Charles, another not strong ruler, who never forgives his sister for the part she played in the downfall of Charles' first wife, Blanche, and who basically spends his time letting his uncle of Valois rule (until Charles of Valois passes away) and hoping that his third wife will bear him a son.

Also of course, there is Guiccio, the young Lombard, who finally returns to France to see the son he has never before met. Of course though, he doesn't know that this isn't his son, but the rightful king of France, the son of Louis the Hutin. He is never told, but the wily Pope manages to worm the truth of Lord Bouville (pretty much only of the only, seemingly truly nice and good characters in these books), and learns of the Prince's existence.

The book ends with Edwards gruesome (and most probably not true) death. I liked this book a lot because, in dealing with England, it was more familiar territory for me, so I was able to 'place' when things were happening easier. With the death of Edward II and the soon to be ascension of Edward III, the Hundred Years War is bearing down on the French with frightening speed.

Kings aplenty

Couple behind again, so another 2fer.

Book # 15 is The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett.

This book came recommended by my favourite author, Guy Gavriel Kay. And whooboy could I see the influence this book had over his writing. I don't say that in a bad way though, more in a 'that's very interesting' way.

The Game of Kings deals with the time period just after Henry VIII's death, when his young, sickly son, Edward the VI is on the throne. The English and Scots are fighting, and part of the fighting is to force the nobility of Scotland to marry their young Queen, Mary, to Edward, and unify the two nations. Of course the Scots aren't particularly in favour of this idea.

This book introduces us to noble rogue extrordinaire, Francis Crawford of Lymond. AKA one of the obvious templates for my absolute favourite character of Kay's, Prince Diarmuid dan Ailel. The similarities are absolutely striking, from their appearance, their love of a certain tavern, the stormy relationship with an elder brother... just so many. Lymond's a fascinating character, brilliant, misunderstood, dangerous, Machiavellian and too smart for his own good. He's often impenetrable though, and sometimes, the novel is like that as well.

This isn't an... easy read. There's untranslated French, a fairly vast cast of characters to keep straight, and enough literary illusions to give even this English major some pause. But all that said, I really liked this book, especially when Lymond is humbled a little. The other characters are quite good too; especially Lymond's mother and Christian Stewart. There are great themes of betrayal and loyalty and a heck of a lot of things not being what they seem, which is what gives this book, and Lymond himself, a lot of their drive.

Book #16 is NOS4A2 by Joe Hill.

Joe Hill has written a wonderfully creepy book that evokes all the good stuff about his father's early work, but also with his own stamp on it. The supernatural in this book isn't really explained, it just IS, and I'm good with that. Victoria McQueen is a very messed up bad-ass with a special ability to find things. She crosses paths with the very bad Charlie Manx, kidnapper of young children and 'creator' of Christmasland, the place he spirits his charges away to, in his 1920s Rolls Royce Wraith. And basically, bad things happen. Also important to note, that despite the title, this is not yet another vampire book. There's some very, very slight vampiric tones, but nothing overt, and I liked that subversion of it. The action was also good and scary and there were numerous times where I didn't think anyone was getting out of this alive. So the stakes were appropriately high. And well done.

I oshied this thaven book...

Oh crap, I'm like a book behind. Book #14 is The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon.

This was an interesting book with an interesting premise, but also one not without it's problems.

The overall arc of this book deals with the breakdown of communication. The 'death' of reading and language and the over reliance we have as a society on things like cellphones and online communication. Language is a fluid thing, but there still has to be meanings we all agree on, and when meanings are changed and disregarded at a frightening pace, and for monetary exchange, then language is no longer meaningful and communication breaks down.

Graedon achieves this through something called a 'word flu', a virus a shady company infects the world with as they try to corner the market on language. And those with the flu start substituting nonsense words for every day words and those characters become harder and harder to understand. She peppers the characters' thoughts and conversations with nonsense, making it hard to understand, but it lends a nice bit of weight to what's going on, as we experience what everyone else is experiencing.

The problem though is that I didn't find the main character, Ana Johnson, to be terribly interesting, even though she, through her missing father, lexicographer Doug Johnson, is fairly central to what's going on. She seems quite helpless and scatterbrained and just... dull.

It's hard to recommend this book, as I said, there were parts that I liked, but the language is trying too hard to be clever in some ways, and I can perhaps understand this, to show how things will degenerate, but when I can hear the writer behind the dialogue, I get frustrated. There were a couple of times when I had to check who was speaking, as I found the 'voices' of the characters didn't alter that much.

So basically, interesting premise, not so interesting characters.

Lucky number 13 is The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore.

We once again visit with Pocket, the protaganist of Fool, who has gone to Venice on behalf of his Queen, Cordelia, and has of course, gotten himself in trouble. He ends up falling into a situation that combines the Bard's Othello and the Merchant of Venice, and somehow, this works surprisingly well.

There's the usual mad, bawdiness of Pocket (who could definitely become annoying, but it's testimony to Moore's craft that he never does), lots of violence and plotting, and of course, there's always a bloody ghost.

Only Christopher Moore could take a tragedy and a psuedo comedy and make a definite comedy complete with happy ending. And a dragon. Cause Shakespeare could actually use more dragons.

Needs more ghost

Book #12 is Bellman and Black: A Ghost Story by Diane Setterfield.

I really loved Setterfield's previous book The Thirteenth Tale. It was a wonderful book so when I saw that she had another one out, awesome.

The main character is one William Bellman, the son of the black sheep of the well Bellman family (William's father had married below his station, and then ran out on William and his mother) who own the town's mill. As a boy, William and his friends are out playing one day, and, in a fit of boyish cruelty, kill a rook. This sets things in motion.

Or does it? The problem with this book is that it calls itself a ghost story, but there's really not much 'ghost' to it. You keep waiting for it to kick in somewhat. Oh there's lots of death, and death even becomes William's obsession as he goes into the mourning business, but... the ghost of the story, Mr. Black, really isn't there.

It's a beautifully written book, and it's testament to Setterfield's skill that she can make Victorian-era milling and commerce actually kind of interesting... But beyond that, the characters don't leap off the page, and William is so focused on his work, or I guess what he sees as his atonement, that he drives all personality out of himself. Which I guess is the point, since other characters even remark as much about it.

I didn't hate this book, I didn't even dislike it, but I definitely expected... more.

World War Snow White

Whoops, fell behind a bit again.

Book #10 is The War That Ended Peace by Margaret McMillan. I'd read McMillan's previous book, Paris 1919, about the WWI peace process and really loved it, so thought I'd check out her treatise on how the Great War was started in the first place. Especially since, this being 2014, it will be 100 years ago this summer that the War to end all wars broke out.

This was an EXTREMELY dense book. I mean, she is dealing with a cast of thousands and years of events that led to the war breaking out. It's tensions between Germany and England. And France and Germany. And Russia and Germany. And Austria-Hungary and Russia over the Balkans. And just a million other tensions and personality conflicts and war-mongering and just refusal to believe that an all encompassing European war could actually happen. Upon reading this book, you realize that the assassination of the Arch-Duke Ferdinand was really the last step before the War rather than the first step towards it. An excellent read, but definitely not an easy one.

An easier read was book #11, Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi. A loose retelling of Snow White, the book takes place in the 1950s and centers around, and is mainly told by Boy Novak, a woman who escapes an abusive father and moves to a small town in upstate NY where she meets and marries a man and becomes step-mother to the enigmatic, beautiful young girl Snow. Now all is well until Boy has a child and that child... is not what Boy expected. Snow is sent away, Bird is raised without her half-sister and family secrets are brought to light. It's a very, very good book and there is a hell of a bomb dropped at the end, to the point where I hope to heck there's a sequel.

It's a Busy Life in Camelot

Another double up. Books 8 and 9 are Camelot's Destiny and Fate of Camelot by Cynthia Breeding.

Alright, so in Camelot's Destiny we get to most of the meat of the Legends; fighting Saxons, Mordred (or Medraut in this book), the Arthur/Lance/Gwen triangle and all it's complications, Camlann and Arthur's death.

And overall, it's serviceable. But you (ok, I) can really see Breeding's influences in this book. She leans heavily on Mists of Avalon for Nimue and Lancelot and the old religions and whatnot. Which is fine, just noticeable. Her Gwen is also pretty much right out of Persia Wooley's Guinevere books. Once again, that's fine, just noticable. I'm very glad she didn't take Mists' Gwen, cause she is a horrible creature. Fortunately, her Lance, Gwen and Arthur are fairly likeable. There's still too much arguing between Arthur and Gwen, but when your wife is also in love with your best friend, that does kind of make sense. Medraut is a creepy bastard and he and Morgana make good villains.

Fate of Camelot kinda... goes off the rails as Breeding attempts to do a Once and Future King kinda thing. I appreciate her trying to do a completely different take on things, but there were a few details that just didn't work for me. Seems Arthur did not die at Camlann, he was taken to Avalon, but he was healed there. Gwen had to go with him to help, basically because she's Queen. Or something. But then it gets all weird with her being stuck in Faerie because the god Cerunos is infatuated with her and yeah... I like the supernatural in my Arthurian legends, but I find it works best if it is on the edges, interacting but not intersecting. But here we have unicorns and faries and it just seemed too much. Eventually Lance rescues Gwen from Faerie (of course), and Arthur says she can go with Lance, since Arthur is too busy roaming Britain and whatnot trying to keep the peace with the Saxons. Morgana's still running around, but she's kinda ineffectual for most of the book where she just pops up now and then basically to mention, numerous times, that she has to kill Guinevere. Which she does at the end, by unleashing the bubonic plague on Camelot. Uh ok? Anyway, Morgana also dies in a most unsatisfying way and I just found a lot of this book basically that, unsatisfying.

Now what I DID like is that she got the Grail Quest with Galahad and Peredur just right. All their stupidity and wanderings and whatnot and all the details are very good, and even if her Galahad is a prat, he's not as bad a prat as Galahad's often are. I kept just wanting to stay with Galahad and groaned whenever I started a new chapter and we were back to Lance and Gwen. Cause they got boring.

A fun little read.

I combined books 6 and 7 into one post as they are books 3 and 4 of Maurice Druon's Accursed Kings series, The Poisoned Crown and The Royal Succession.

The Poisoned Crown picks up where the Strangled Queen stops off; Louis X is now free to marry Clemence of Hungary and shore up succession, since his daughter, poor little Jeanne, could now be considered a bastard.

This book picks up more on how horrible a King Louis is; he's not terribly bright, he has a horrid temper and he gives in to pretty much any request made by his powerful, strong-willed uncle, Charles of Valois. Louis launches an incredibly ill-fated campaign against the province of Flanders, and what he had hoped would be a war that would leave him in good standing, did nothing but further his reputation as a weak king.

We meet sweet Clemence who, at first, is pious and greatful at her lot in life, to be Queen of France, but she quickly sees her new husband is definitely not a great king like she was hoping him to be.

Our tragic, young Lombard, Guccio, becomes a favourite of the Queen when he escorts her to France, and he nearly dies because he is showing off, and so he cannot immediately be reconciled with his secret, pregnant wife, Marie, who's family has basically disowned her for marrying the Italian, and who has been sent to a convent to bear her 'sinful' child.

And the formidable Mahaut, takes it upon herself to put a king on the throne that she can deal with, namely her son-in-law, Louis' younger brother Phillipe. The Game of Thrones starts in earnest.

To me, The Royal Succession felt the most SoIaFish so far. I can definitely see some inspiration here for GRRM. The election of a new Pope through some tricks definitely put me in mind of a certain election towards the end of Storm of Swords. Plus the succession here IS a mess. Louis X without a male heir. His wife, Clemence is pregnant, but of course, they don't know if she carries a boy. Even just selecting a Regent for the kingdom in the meantime calls for great expediture of bribes and political manuevring, till at last, Phillipe, Louis's brother, comes out as Regent. Louis son, Jean I is born, but that goes horribly wrong, and then there are swapped babies and lovers torn assunder and more murder and rebellion and even though Phillipe is crowned at the end of this book, one doesn't feel like the good guy has won. Which is often a feeling GRRM gives you too.

And now, I wait for the next volume to be released. Which is also very GRRM-like.