The Golden Cat

Title: The Golden Cat

Author: Gabriel King

Publisher: Ballantine Books (1999)

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy

Length: 350 pages

Synopsis:  King returns to the high-fantasy world of cats he created in the prequel, The Wild Road.  The world is different now, following the final confrontations of the prequel.  The King and Queen of cats are tending to their three golden kittens and Tag is settling into his role as Majicou, the powerful guardian of the mystical paths that run across the world, binding past and present in the infinite soul of the Felidae.  Not all is well, however.  Something foul stalks the wild roads, turning them sour, forcing them to take where they should give.  Sealink, returning to her birthplace in New Orleans, finds that a city once full of dreamy-eyed cats has become hostile and barren, ruled over by the vile queen Kiki la Doucette.  When kittens begin to disappear, Tag must step into his role as guardian and act, but how?  How can he fight an enemy he cannot find and cannot see, an enemy he thought had been defeated?

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion: 

High fantasy is not easy to write, and to find high fantasy as lyrical and whimsical as this is always a treat.  Cats seem to offer a particular window on the cosmos, and King has turned that to his purpose quite ably.  The tale blends magic and science, deities and daily life to create a world that is at once totally alien and completely recognizable.  After all, who knows what our companion felines are really thinking as they stare into the dust motes in a shaft of sunlight?  But though they exist in a world of their own, these characters are quite relatable.  Their sense of humor brings jokes even humans can appreciate, and the terror and longing of a cat is as painful and terrible as our own.  Very occasionally, the language of the story seems to become overly enamored of its own elegance, but it never descends into melodrama.  Anyone looking for a change in the usual high fantasy wands-and-wizards would appreciate the world of unlikely heroes King has created here.

Divergent

Title: Divergent

Author: Veronica Roth

Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books (2011)

Genre(s): Young Adult Fiction, Science Fiction, Post-apocalyptic Fiction, Dystopian Fiction

Length: 487 pages

Synopsis:  Of all the five factions, Beatrice is sure that her parents' faction, Abnegation, is where she least belongs.  Soon, though, she will have to make a choice.  Does she dare do what so few Abnegation children have done, and leave her family behind forever?  When the tests meant to guide her choice leave her with more questions than answers and with tensions between factions growing every day, Beatrice doesn't know where to turn.  Is she brave enough to walk away from Abnegation?  Is she selfless enough to stay?  She has only  one chance and only one choice.

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion:
This felt to me like a slightly grittier version of The Hunger Games.  I say grittier because unlike so many novels that have teens battling it out in physical confrontation, these kids hurt.  They don't have the slick skills that let them easily excell and every inch must be earned.  I liked Tris and how her character grows and expands and feels and thinks throughout this story.  She doesn't have it all together; she's scared and selfish and cruel as often as she's kind and brave and caring, just like so many of us.  She isn't perfect, but she does what she has to.  Nonetheless, the last quarter or so of the story spirals quickly beyond the scope of the individual, setting Tris not only against herself and the immediate threats of faction life, but also the political upheaval and turmoil of her futuristic city.  It felt like the final confrontation came too fast to me and that it was relatively easily resolved, though of course there's plenty still to be told in the sequel, Insurgent.  It's always hard to set a single individual against an entire power structure, and though it may not be entirely effective here, neither is it quite the same as the obvious parallel, The Hunger Games.  This still feels more personal, and I'd like to see it stay that way in the next book.  Roth's characters are her strength, but with such sweeping plot possibilities, I fear she might sweep them right away.

If You Liked This Bestseller, Then...

 When a book hits the top of the bestsellers' lists and decides to stay there a while, chances are people will hear about it.  When people hear about it, it gets read.  This, of course, is great for all involved.  Really wonderful books get discovered that way.  But there are some real gems that no one ever hears about, books that, in my humble opinion, deserve just as much attention and readership.  To that end, I've decided to pick a few of the big name, easily recognizable blockbusters of the literary world and let you know about a few of the unsung heroes that have quite a bit in common with them.  If you're looking for an excellent read, these are a few good places to start.

If you liked the Harry Potter Series, try:

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Darkhenge by Catherine Fisher

Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede
The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer
Into the Land of the Unicorns by Bruce Coville

If you liked the Lord of the Rings, try:

The Paradise War by Stephen Lawhead
The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams
Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

If you liked The Hunger Games Trilogy, try:

Unwind by Neil Shusterman
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve
Airborne by Kenneth Oppel
Feed by M. T. Anderson
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

If you liked Twilight, try:

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Firethorn by Sarah Micklem
The Ruby in the Smoke by Phillip Pullman
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

If you liked The Da Vinci Code, try:

Codex by Lev Grossman
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
A Bone from a Dry Sea by Peter Dickinson
The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh

Happy Reading!