Shadow and Bone

Title:  Shadow and Bone

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Publisher:  Square Fish (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure

Length: 356 pages

Synopsis:  Ravka is a country at war.  For the last hundred years, battles have raged at the borders, and even with the help of the Grisha, those with fantastical abilities to manipulate matter through their use of the Small Science, there seems to be no way to bring an end to the fighting.  For Mal and Alina, the war is just another fact of life.  Orphaned by the battles, they had nothing when they came to live among the other war orphans at Duke Keramsov’s estate, but they found in one another the comfort and companionship they needed to survive.  For Alina, childhood friendship has begun to grow into something deeper as the two set out to serve together in the First Army, while Mal seems more interested in the beautiful Grisha girls that attend the charismatic Darkling, leader of the Grisha Second Army.  But when a terrifying encounter in a land of perpetual darkness known as the Shadow Fold reveals powers she’d never imagined she possessed, Alina is sent away from Mal to train among the Grisha.  Alone and afraid, she soon finds herself trapped in a web of political maneuvering orchestrated by the Darkling himself.  Her powers could hold the key to bringing about the end of Ravka’s suffering, but is she willing to pay the price?

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion: There’s a lot about this book that I like.  In fact, most things about this book I enjoyed.  It’s a beautiful departure from the more typical western European underpinnings of most fantasy.  Set against a fantasticized Imperial Russia, the glittering world of the Grisha and the war-torn borders make sense together while still providing a stark juxtaposition for one another.  The world is richly imagined; Bardugo knows everything about this place, from court fashions in dress to the rationing pattern of sugar.  Occasionally, the details feel almost excessive, but usually that serves to highlight the excesses of the royal court.  The characters, on the other hand…  I felt the world Bardugo has created deserved a little better.  I didn’t want Alina to be another YA heroine sucked in by the alluring and apparently immortal tall-dark-and-handsome fellow.  I wanted Mal to be as complex and multilayered as Alina seems to believe.  There are peripheral characters that show the kind of exquisite nebulosity of which Bardugo is capable: Genya, the Queen’s pet Grisha, whose true allegiance is hard to fathom, who buries her real feelings beneath the perfect mask she’s created of her face; David, the Fabrikator who provides weapons both for and against our heroine, whose actions still make sense in the context of his world.  I wanted the main characters to have these same shades-of-grey struggles, to get a sense that there’s more to them than love triangles or conquer-the-world plots.  But the richness of the world and the other characters gives me hope.  I’m going to hunt down the next title in this trilogy, Siege and Storm, as soon as I can!

Shadow and Bone

The Ghost Bride (Audiobook)

Title: The Ghost Bride

Author: Yangsze Choo

 

Read by: Yangsze Choo

Publisher: Harper Audio (2013)

 

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Historical Fiction

Length: 12 hours and 8 minutes

Synopsis: "Would you like to be a ghost bride?"  Li Lan is shocked by her father's suggestion.  After all, though marrying off the dead is not entirely unheard of in colonial Malaya, it is rare for the bride to be a living woman who would be condemned to a life of widowhood.  Though Li Lan has no interest in becoming such a bride, she is curious about the circumstances that led to the suggestion.  Her intended, it would seem, was the heir to the Lim family, a young man she had never even met.  Now, however, all of his family is showing a keen interest in her, from the new heir Tian Bai to his dead cousin, who's begun appearing in Li Lan's dreams and is anything but charming.

My Rating: 3 Stars

My Opinion:  I did enjoy this audiobook performance, since it is somewhat rare to find a book read by its author.  Li Lan isn't exactly the most interesting protagonist, but through her explorations, we are treated to an extensive, lushly described, and sometimes fantastical view of her world, both in life and death.  The historical notes Choo includes at the conclusion of the story are nearly as interesting as the book itself.  There's a lot going on in this story, ranging from romance to a sort of supernatural version of Law & Order.  With the historical context in place, that combination makes a lot more sense, but during my first listening, I found it somewhat difficult to work out where the story was going, and why on earth that seemed like a logical option.  Though there were things about this book that puzzled me, I did enjoy the performance overall, and the concept behind it in particular.

The Rook (Audiobook)

Title: The Rook

Author: Daniel O'Malley

Read by: Susan Duerden

Publisher: Dreamscape Media (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Crime Thriller, Mystery

Length: 17 hours and 51 minutes

Synopsis: When Myfanwy Thomas awakes in a park, surrounded by corpses wearing latex gloves, she has no idea who she is or how she came to be in such a situation.  Her only clues are several letters in her pocket, addressed to her by the woman who had previously inhabited her body, the personality she'd been born with and which was mysteriously erased.  This is only the beginning of Myfanwy's trip down the rabbit hole.  Soon she begins to realize that there is far, far more to her life-- or rather, the life she's inherited-- than she could ever have guessed.  Her prior self has left her a road-map in letters and documents, but when one awakens to find oneself an administrator in the government's secret supernatural department, there are bound to be some adjustments to make.

My Rating: 3 Stars

My Opinion:  This book started well, but lost momentum before long.  I've read other reviews comparing The Rook with the film The Bourne Identity, but I really think it's really much closer to Ghostbusters.  It may have been Duerden's performance, but instead of playing as an actual thriller, this audiobook came across as a parody of one.  In truth, I can't tell which was the actual intent.  Duerden has Myfanwy sounding like a little girl rather than the competent administrator she is (repeatedly) purported to be, and the voices she adopted for some of her other characters crossed the border into ridiculous.  O'Malley has an interesting concept here, and some really unique ideas, but I did not enjoy this audiobook as much as I had hoped.

Storm Front (Audiobook)

Title: Storm Front

Author: Jim Butcher

Read by: James Marsters

Publisher: Buzzy Multimedia (2009)

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Crime

Length: 8 hours, 1 minute

Synopsis:  Harry Dresden is a wizard.  Not a magician, available for birthday parties and parlour tricks, but a wizard.  As his advertisement reads: "Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment."  But life as Chicago's only wizard is anything but straightforward.  Some consider him a charlatan, and others are terrified by the mere mention of magic.  All in all, it means that rent money is hard to come by, and Dresden often earns his keep consulting with the police department on unusual cases.  But when he's called in to solve a gruesome murder-by-magic, Dresden finds himself struggling trying to stay one step ahead of the killer.  Even worse, he's under suspicion himself!  With lives on the line, Dresden would have to risk everything to find a murderer.  How far is he willing to go?

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  I'd been meaning to get into The Dresden Files for quite some time.  A friend in college recommended them, and I promptly filed that away for future reference in a folder in my mind which was subsequently lost.  I stumbled across it again at 4:00 am whilst paging through the books on offer at Audible.com.  Without hesitation, I downloaded Storm Front and started listening, then promptly had to stop and double check that I'd heard correctly.  Yes, I had.  In a double-dose of nerdiness, this urban fantasy gem is narrated by James Marsters, known for his role as Spike on the Joss Whedon TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Even if I'd had no idea who he was, I would have enjoyed his performance.  Butcher's story comes to life in this fast-paced narrative that blends elements of classic detective stories with a modern take on fantasy.  Urban fantasy is a particular favorite sub-genre for me, and I found this perspective interesting.  It isn't high fantasy with its vast, cosmic powers left to roam on city streets.  This feels smaller and more contained somehow.  There are rules and conventions and everything feels as if it has a solid categorization: black and white where the ethereal is so often painted in shades of grey.  In general, I prefer my fantasy to feel a little less tamed, but I enjoyed that the danger here came less from supernatural power than from the very human people wielding it.

The engineering of this audiobook is slightly different from most of the others that I've heard; it ends up sounding slightly lower in quality, as there's a slight hiss in the background, but for a story set in an analog world, I found the sound less of a distraction and more part of an appropriate ambiance.  Marsters reads quickly and personably; his is a very believable voice for Dresden, an important consideration in first-person audiobooks, I think.  All in all, I loved it.  This is an eight hour book, but I found time to finish it in under a day.  Fantasy buffs, rejoice, and be sure to check this one out.

A Game of Thrones (Audiobook)

Title: A Game of Thrones

 

Author: George R. R. Martin

 

Read by: Roy Dotrice

Publisher: Random House Audio (2003)

 

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy

Length: N/A

Synopsis: The Seven Kingdoms have enjoyed an uneasy peace since Robert Baratheon and his allies ousted the Targaryen line and claimed the Iron Throne.  With the last heirs of the Targaryen line exiled to the Free Cities beyond the sea, King Robert's days of war are over, and he's grown overly fond of his luxurious life in King's Landing.  Far to the north, his friend and ally Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, is glad to avoid the political maneuvering of the capital, content to watch over his lands and his family.  But not all families are content with their lot.  Queen Cirsei Lannister has deadly secrets that threaten to upend the kingdom, and, far across the sea, the heirs of House Targaryen, the Blood of the Dragon, have not forgotten their birthright.    Winter is coming, and the Seven Kingdoms stand on the brink of war on multiple fronts.  The board is set, and the game of thrones begun; who will arise the winner?

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  This was one of the most stunningly performed audiobooks I have ever had the pleasure of hearing.  Dotrice maintains distinctive voices for each one of the multitude of characters in this complex tale without resorting to caricature.  Without a such skilled performer narrating, the story would have been all but impossible to follow.  At 33 hours and 50 minutes long, this unabridged version still posed an occasional challenge of comprehension.  The alternating chapters and their multiple interwoven plots require a sort of mental gymnastics to keep straight without the visual signposts of text.  The characters, however, deserve nothing less.  They are fascinatingly constructed, each with flaws and strengths that lift them off the page into three dimensions.  Everyone has his or her own agenda, and the lengths to which some will go to pursue them are incredible.  The story is a rich tapestry of political intrigue and high fantasy, written in an accessible and compelling set of voices.  For those whose knowledge of this series comes exclusively from the televised version, I would recommend taking a look at the original, whether text or audiobook.  Perhaps I'm beating the point to death, but the complexity of this story is really what lies at its heart.  People are not simple, and if it takes nearly 34 hours to tell the first part of their story, so be it.

The Diviners

Title: The Diviners

Author: Libba Bray

Publisher: Little Brown Books (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Young Adult Fiction, Steampunk

Length: 578 pages

Synopsis:  It's an age of jazz and glitter, movie stars and bootleg liquor. Evie O'Neill of Zenith, Ohio, is determined to make the most of it, but at seventeen, she's long outgrown Zenith's nightlife.  She craves the rush and excitement of the big city and when her parents decide to send her to New York City to stay with her uncle, Evie jumps at the chance.  Soon she's whirled into the kind of life she's always dreamed about: nights spent dancing in exclusive speakeasies, days shopping and sightseeing with friends.  But not everything is as it seems.  Everyone has a secret to keep, even Evie herself, but when a string of gruesome murders with ties to the occult rocks the city, she, and her secret, may be the only way to save them all.

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion:  Hats off to Libba Bray!  She's managed to put together a massively complex book that's clearly only the tip of her creative iceberg.    This book is a pop culture collision of everything the self-proclaimed "nerd" demographic will love (and I say that as a self-identified nerd and without an ounce of condescension): magic, monsters, ghosts, demons, cults, mutants, superpowers, con men, showgirls, even a nod at steampunk.  With the new film adaptation of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby renewing interest in the Roaring 20's, I think this book has hit the right audience at the right time.  The stars are aligned for the next big hit, but I think that something is just the slightest bit amiss.  

 For me, books seem to come most alive when they are more than the sum of their parts, rather than the sum of more parts.  True, this book has everything, but I think that everything was, in this case, a bit too much.  The main characters are often driven by the central plot, which is excellent...until the plot finishes before the book does.  Many of the characters are merely being set up for the sequel, and though I don't mind loose ends at the end of a book, I am perplexed when characters who seem important never quite interface with the aspects of the text I had thought most important.  This is particularly concerning given the plot-based drive of the book's action.  I tried re-framing the text under a character-driven lens, but it just doesn't work.  There are too many characters so focused on doing so many things that there wasn't space for their development to be the story's central anchor.  

Overall, the book works.  It's a quick read, cleverly written, well thought out, and meticulously researched, but for me, there's too much material for this one thick tome.  There's enough in Bray's imagining to have written series following each of her intriguing characters.  Of course, there's always the sequel, Lair of Dreams, which I plan to pick up as soon as it's released (supposedly spring of 2014). 

Dracula (Audiobook)

Title: Dracula

 

Author: Bram Stoker

 

Read by: Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, Katherine Kellgren, Susan Duerden, John Lee, Graeme Malcolm, Steven Crossley, Simon Prebble, James Adams

Publisher: Audible Unabridged (2012)

 

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Horror, Audiobook

Length: N/A

Synopsis: The mysterious happenings surrounding a group of friends and the enigmatic Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula, are revealed through the personal papers of those involved.  From Jonathan Harker's perilous first visit to Castle Dracula to the Holmes-esque musings of Dr. Van Helsing, here is the whole story of this most famous of vampires performed by an all-star cast of voice actors.

 

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  I have not read the text version of Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Nor have I seen the movies, actually.  I know the story, of course (who doesn't?), but this was my first encounter with the original, and I must say I was absolutely delighted.  The structure of the story lends itself well to a full cast of performers, reading out "their" diary entries, letters, and newspaper clippings as the story of the Transylvanian count unfolds, and the horror in the voices of these skilled actors is more effective, I think, than any big-budget Hollywood film.  In fact, not being able to see, even just the text, adds to the nerve-wracking nature of this experience.  There's no looking back to double check that the door was locked and barred, and no peeking ahead to see if that dog in the street was really the count in disguise.  By the time the true nature of the count was revealed, I was completely hooked.  I listened to the vast majority of this book in one sitting (true, that one sitting was a twelve hour drive and there wasn't much else to do, but I think the point is still valid).  My one disappointment comes not from this performance, but from the text itself.  After so much build up, risk, and peril... the end of the book degenerates into repetition, followed by a quick, neat ending that doesn't feel nearly as satisfyingly emotional as the rest of the text.  There's not even a sense of shock that the whole ordeal is over.  Even with the brief, sentimental epilogue, it simply ends.  Though the text ends poorly, in my opinion, the legacy clearly lives on, and as Halloween gets closer, I'm sure we'll see still more the effects this classic work of literature had on our culture.  

Beauty (Audiobook)

Title: Beauty

 

Author: Robin McKinley

 

Read by: Charlotte Parry

Publisher: Audible Unabridged (2013)

 

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Young Adult Fiction, Audiobook

Length: N/A

Synopsis: Beauty is a plain, bookish young woman, who feels the irony of her nickname quite keenly.  Always more comfortable with horses and books than people, she was always considered the tomboy of the family.  Her older sisters, Hope and Grace, are both lovely young society women, and all three are the darlings of their father's heart.  When a sudden change in fortune leaves the once-wealthy family impoverished and forced to leave their townhouse for a country cottage, Beauty begins to feel she's found her place at last.  She and her horse, Greatheart, are well known and liked in the little village that huddles at the edge of the great dark forest, a forest that is rumored to house a secret at its heart.  One winter, disaster strikes the family yet again, and Beauty is forced to make a decision that will take her from her family forever.  She's been set a challenge she can't begin to fathom, a challenge that will take all her wits, kindness, and perseverance to overcome: Beauty has been sent to the castle of the Beast.

 

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion:  I love the print version of Beauty.  It's been a favorite for years, and when I had a chance to spend a few hours listening to the audio version, I jumped at it.  I wasn't...disappointed, per se, but the text didn't quite sparkle like it did in my own mind.  The descriptions were as vivid as I remembered them, and Parry reads well, but I found her variation in character voices distracting.  Obviously readers try to put as much of the character into their performances as possible, but I felt that she was, perhaps, trying too hard.  When only one person is presenting an entire cast of characters, the listener accepts that there are limitations to the variety of performances that the narrator can give.  We don't expect that Beauty's sisters sound completely distinct from one another, just as they probably don't in our own internalizations of the story.  It would be difficult to accept that the Beast sounds exactly like Beauty herself, but I believe that rather than overemphasizing the differences, a great deal can be accomplished by a subtle shift in cadence or inflection, a slight lowering of tone or particular emphasis on diction.  Less is more, in my opinion, and though I don't think this performance in any way devalues the text, I think that readers encountering only this audio version may not be able to fully appreciate the way the words can kindle fires all of their own accord.

Books for Boys

Supposedly, boys are pickier readers than girls are... I'm not sure where that assumption came from, nor do I have any statistics to back it up.  I do, however, have quite a few friends and family members who are English and Language Arts teachers, and they report a certain luke-warm attitude toward reading among their male students.  I, of course, believe that everyone is a reader, and if someone claims not to be, he (or she!) just hasn't found the right book yet.  That being said, here are a few suggestions that might appeal to the gentlemen:


Historical Fiction:
       The King Raven Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
       Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
       The Song of Albion Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
    
Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror:
       Abarat by Clive Barker
       Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
       American Gods by Neil Gaiman
       The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
       The Myth Hunters by Christopher Golden
       The Magicians by Lev Grossman
       A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
       The Road by Cormac McCarthy
       The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
       The Matt Cruse Trilogy by Kenneth Oppel
       The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
       Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson
       Dragon and Thief by Timothy Zahn
       Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies
       Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
       Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
       The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
       Unwind by Neal Schusterman
       The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
       Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
       Feed by M. T. Anderson
       The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
       From a Buick 8 by Stephen King


Mysteries/Thrillers:
       The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
       Thr3e by Ted Dekker
       The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson
       The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
       Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
       Acceleration by Graham McNamee
       The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Perez
      

Nonfiction/Memoir/Biography:
       Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
       The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
       The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston
       A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
       Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
       Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northerners by Gary Paulsen

The Name of the Wind

Title: The Name of the Wind

Author: Patrick Rothfuss

Publisher: DAW Hardcover (2007)

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy

Length: 672 pages

Synopsis:  Times are grim at the Waystone Inn.  There are few patrons at the bar each evening, and the rooms, though neat and comfortable, are empty.  There are bandits on the road and war looming in the distance.  But for Kote the innkeeper, none of this has much to do with him.  He can only shrug and accept the hardships of current times with the rest of the townsfolk and listen as his few customers spin tales of Kvothe the Bloodless and Taborlin the Great beside the fire.  Chronicler, a man who collects and records the great stories of the world, had heard all these before, and when he arrives at the Waystone, he’s come for a story of a different sort: Kote’s story, a story from a lifetime away that even now is bleeding into the present.

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion: I picked up this book a year ago after catching the tail-end of an NPR interview with the author.  I hadn’t heard of him before, but listening to him describe this book, I added it at the top of my reading list.  He talked about fantasy as a genre, and the kinds of fantasy we read as young people, complex stories that nonetheless follow unspoken rules of archetype and story arc.  He wanted to write books like that, he said, new stories that still have that familiar fantasy scope.  I knew immediately what he meant, particularly when he started listing books in the same vein and I recognized some of my own favorites.  So I downloaded a copy onto my Kindle to read on the long flight from JFK to Dublin and off I went.  I loved this book the first time I read it, and I loved it again when I re-read it this past week.  Or rather, as I listened to it.  Though the Kindle text-to-speech function is nothing like the thrill of an audiobook, it does make for conveniently hands-free reading.  Despite the robotic drone of the e-reader, Rothfuss’ words came to life, weaving a story that is unselfconsciously aware of its status as just that: a story.  It is, in essence, a story about a story, and all the stories that were spun off from a central truth.  It’s a fairy tale that doesn’t feel cute, a mystery that doesn’t dwell on the unknown.  It’s plot rather than character driven, as there is really only one character with any great sense of depth and understanding.  This, of course, makes sense as he is both hero and narrator, literally telling his story to an attentive audience, and, of course, an attentive reader.  I’ve also read the sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear­, which I did enjoy but shall discuss at length in its own review.  For now, content yourself with settling in to listen to a tale that is wonderfully rich, uniquely magical, mildly disconcerting, and, of course, just a little bit tall.