Falling Kingdoms

Title: Falling Kingdoms

 

Author: Morgan Rhodes

Publisher: Razor Bill (2012)

 

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy

Length: 412 pages

Synopsis: The land of Mytica was once a peaceful place.  Its prosperity and harmony were maintained by the power of the Kindred, four crystals uniting the power of the four elements, but the crystals were lost long ago.  Now the land and the people are divided, separated into three kingdoms with no love lost between them.  Tensions are rising, and soon war seems inevitable.  The king of Limeros to the north is prepared to make alliances with the chieftain of Paelsia, ready to march on Auranos in the south.  Princess Cleo of Auranos, however, has concerns of her own.  Her elder sister Emilia is dying, and nothing short of powerful magic can save her.  She's prepared to brave hostile territory and her father's wrath to find the cure, but there are powers even greater at play in Mytica, powers that were prophesied more than sixteen years ago...

 

My Rating: 2 Stars

My Opinion:  I knew that I was not going to like this book about ten pages in.  I found myself rolling my eyes at the situations and dialogue that early, and while I hoped that it just needed some time to get up to speed, it never did.  The characters' speech has a tendency to sound out of place in this supposedly high-fantasy world, and while there does seem to be a solid skeleton of plot beneath this story, it's clad in spiderwebs rather than flesh.  The characters are marched through the story, told where they're going and how they feel by the plot, rather than letting their unique traits dictate their actions.  I was immediately put off by the "Cast of Characters" listed in the front of the book... the cast is really quite small, and if the reader can't be expected to remember even that scant list... well, if that's the case, I'm not sure how anyone ever got through a work by Tolkien.  I do read a lot of fantasy, both good and bad; while my expectations are high, I also understand what makes a good fantasy and where they fall short.  This one, sadly, had all the latter qualities.

Among Others

Title: Among Others

Author: Jo Walton

Publisher: Tor Books (2010)

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy

Length: 302 pages

Synopsis:  Mor's life has been turned upside down.  Her twin is gone, her mother mad, and she's been sent away from the only family she's known, a close-knit web of extended family in South Wales, to live with a father she's never met in England.  The only constant in her life are the books, science fiction and fantasy that brings her closer to her father and to new friends she meets away at boarding school.  But Mor has a secret as well.  For her the fantasy is just a touch more real, for hidden in the hedgerows and the sidewalk cracks, Mor can see fairies.  As told through her diaries, Mor's story is one of pain, acceptance, and more than a little magic.

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  This was a remarkable book.  It's not quite like anything I've ever read before, and yet it's all at once incredible familiar.  Of course, this might just be because I've read so many of Mor's favorite books!  It's a very real fantasy, with hints that a story worthy of its own book might have occurred in the background, but it's only ever hinted at.  This is very much about what happens after the evil witch is conquered and the dragons slain.  Not everyone goes home to live happily ever after.  At least, not right away.  Among Others is sharply honest and delightfully conversational, but the audience for that conversation may be rather narrow.  Anyone without a vested interest in science fiction and/or fantasy might find the book largely incomprehensible, as the characters are wont to ramble on about the merits of their latest literary conquest... rather like myself, I suppose.  Readers looking for strongly plot driven books will also likely find this one wanting, though I found Mor to be a compelling enough narrator that I was willing to sit and listen to whatever she had to say, whether it was about magic, books, boys, or philosophy.  The book is set in the late seventies and early eighties, but it's very easy to believe that if Mor lived in the internet age, you'd probably be reading her blog instead of mine.  Without that option, I suppose you'll have to check out her book instead.  Walton's done an amazing job, and even if her audience is narrow, I expect that audience will be as delighted as I was.

My Book Addiction

So I finished off the last book in my latest stack of library acquisitions just over a week ago, and with the prospect of final exams looming, I decided it would be in the best interest of my degree if I refrained from another trip to the hallowed library halls for a bit.  While it may have freed up some time in my hectic graduate-student schedule to cram in all the lessons I should have been learning all semester long, it also left a gaping hole in my life that I hadn't quite expected.  It wasn't until last night that I realized that I am almost never without my next literary conquest.  Even if I don't have time to read it, I've almost always got my next book on hand, taunting me from shelf or nightstand, reminding me that it'll be waiting when I get my homework done or when I get home from work.  One week bookless was enough to drive me just a little more insane.

Oh, I wasn't entirely bookless, of course; in a pinch, I can make do with the well-read friends on my shelves.  But I am hopelessly addicted to storytelling, and there's something about the way a book sounds inside my head that nothing else can fill.  Believe me, I've tried this past week.  I've blazed through episode after episode of television series on Netflix, scrolled through pages of Pinterest finds, flipped through every page of every magazine in the house...which offered meager pickings given that I only subscribe to a weekly news summary and a monthly science and technology mag.  None of it worked.  Something was missing, even with all the stress of final exams, presentations and papers.  I wasn't whole without the banked embers of a story in the back of my brain.

I caved in today.  I was trying not to check out any library books that I'll have to remember to return over the summer, given my hectic new work schedule, but I figured "just one can't hurt, can it?"  I was so proud of myself when I walked out of the library with, yes, just one book.  I sat in the sun, enjoying a well earned chocolate and caramel tart from a local bakery (a true genius decided to put the farmer's market between work and the library... I try to avoid that walk on days when the market is running, since my relationship with baked goods is similar to that with books) and dove into a story.

I was trying to discuss this with my mother this evening.  She's a high school English teacher (whose students used my "Why I Read" post for a class exercise...thus all the comments) and in general she understands exactly where I'm coming from, but tonight I got so tongue tied I'm not sure even she understood what I meant.  I was describing the voice in this new book, Jo Walton's Among Others.  Not the voice of the narrator, per se, but rather the voice of the book itself, the way it sounds and feels in my head.  "Most fiction," I said, "feels very dense and layered and sort of furry, like velvet, or a tapestry with all these different threads woven together.  It sounds in my head like a soundtrack that's been expertly edited and balanced so that all the pieces fit together.  It doesn't sound like reality."  I went on to explain how my new read is different, but part of my brain fixated on that description.  I'd never realized it before, but it's true.  There's a place in my brain where stories play out, and though they all feel different or sound different, they're all staged in the same place.  To butcher some biochemistry, it's like books are their own special kind of neurotransmitter, and though I can try substitutes (television and movie stories, articles), my brain knows they're substitutes.  Eventually it starts craving the real thing.  I am addicted to books in ways I never even realized.  Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad.  Either way, it makes for an interesting finals week.