Alternate History
Steampunk! Alt History! Dragons! Ok, so dragons aren’t inherent in the alternate history genre, but come one… Dragons! Dragons make everything better.
Sword and Laser video show with Gail Carriger and Lem the Dragon
Sword and Laser podcast with David Garrol
Proof:
the Sword and Laser liveshow at DragonCon vs the Sword and Laser video show with Gail Carriger. Sorry, David… Gail and Lem win.
However, we aren’t here to talk solely about dragons. We are here to talk about alternate history. And books. And conventions. Because there are conventions about alternate history! So, let us start with books and the difference between alternate history and secret history (no, not the one by Donn Tartt).
What is Alternate History?
I’m so glad you asked! Alternate history is a world in which something has diverged from history as we know it. The English won the American Revolution and we all drink tea and add the letter ‘u’ to things (which I do anyway. It’s honour and colour). Dragons are real and commonly known and have therefore changed the course of history. The same is true of magic. Almost all steampunk stories represent alternate history. There’s an entire forum devoted to discussing alternate history!
Ok, great. What’s Secret History Then?Secret history is a little bit like alternate history, but no, on the other hand, it isn’t really. Writing Excuses did a great episode on secret history and Mary Robinette Kowal explained it well. Secret history is the unknown, behind the scenes mechanization that got us to the history we already know. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln did kill vampires, but it never got into any of the history books. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth really was a man (No, she wasn’t. Leave my historical ladies alone!) Maybe warlocks worked magic to help sway the outcome of World War I. But, the point is, that all of this is under the surface. It’s a secret. And the end results are the same as those we learned in our history books.
Now that we’ve got that sorted. Let’s talk about some of my favorite Alternate History media…
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
This is one of those times that history is v
astly improved by the addition of dragons. The series is set during the Napoleonic Wars and dragons are just a thing. They are large enough that they function more like a war ship than an individual soldier. The dragons are all crewed and each has it’s one special bondmate who captains the dragon. The series opens with sea-captain William Lawrence unintentionally bonding with a rare, black dragon named Temeraire. He is suddenly thrust into an entirely different branch of his majesty’s military forces. He and Temeraire are an anomaly among the British forces. They have to fight not only Napoleon’s troops, but also the attitudes and laws within their own government.
Alternate Histories of the World by Matthew Buchholz
Buchholz has created an art book with images, like the one to the right, of historical ephemera updated with bonus content. The view presented here is of Tentaculus, the Philadelphia river monster circa 1875. He also includes the alien overlords of Boston, the robot who helped write the Declaration of Independence, Napoleon’s giant growth serum, and many, many more well-known events and monsters of historical import.
The Glamourist Histories by Mary Robinette Kowal
These books deal with an alternate English Regency period where magic is a known and accepted fact of life. A young lady’s education is not complete if, in addition to covering screens, painting, playing, singing, and trimming hats; she cannot also weave glamour. Glamour is illusion spun out of light and ether. It is tiring and cannot be worked on either a large-scale, or while moving. Therefore it has no military applications and is left to the domestic sphere. At least, for book one.
Other Regency alternate history fantasy novels that I love include Sorcery and Cecelia by Caroline Stevermere and Patricia Wrede and Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis.
Point of Honour by Madeline Robins
This is one of the subtlest alternate histories on my list. Sarah Tolerance is a fallen woman who has set herself up as a private inquiry agent in London during the regency of Queen Charlotte. That’s right. The point of divergence is that Queen Charlotte, not Prince George was appointed Regent due to King George’s incapacitation. The resulting changes in the world are subtle, but present once you start to look for them. In fact, the changes are subtle enough that one reviewer on Goodreads blasted the author for not knowing her history having completely failed to realize that the book was intended as an alternate history. This is one of the only alternate histories I’ve read that has no magic or supernatural elements to it. It’s a lovely book and I highly recommend it to those with an interest in alternate history or period mystery novels.
I could list tons more, basically anything steampunk, but I wanted to confine myself to things that were a little closer to the events of our actual history. Some more modern alternate history novels that I haven’t read include The Mirage by Matt Ruff, Christian Nation by Frederic Rich, Blonde Roots by Bernard Evaristo, Resistance by Owen Sheers, and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon.
Lots of horror novels are also alternate history that diverges now. The Newsflesh series by Mira Grant, World War Z by Max Brooks, Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry, The Passage by Justin Cronin. Things are fine and rocking along as we know it and then, BAM, zombies. Or zombie vampires. Or owlbears. Whatever. Then there are the post-apocalyptic novels, which could also be considered extreme alternate histories like The Road by Cormac McCarthy, or Partials by Dan Wells.
Then there are movies and video games. I’m not going to go into too many, but the ones I have personal experience with are the BioShock games and Last of Us. I’ll leave it to the many, many, many game blogs to discuss those.
Conventions!
DragonCon has an entire alt history track that takes over large portions of the Westin Hotel. Steampunk is the most common flavor of alternate history, but everyone is welcome to play. Then there is Anachrocon. It’s taking place over Valentine’s Day weekend in 2014. I shall be attending and will hopefully report back with lots of exciting pictures, costume ideas, and stories.
Knitting and Books
Knitting and books; it’s a match made in heaven. Or at least my living room. I knit kind of a lot. I also read more than a little (insert obsessively here). That means that I am frequently knitting while listening to audiobooks. But what about knitting in books?
The most famous knitting character in literature is probably Madame Defarge from A Tale of Two Cities, knitting the names of Madame le Guillotine’s victims. Pity her or hate her, she leaves an impression. 
Penguin even chose her knitting as the most iconic image from the book for their recent cloth bound edition of Dicken’s work. There is even an entire series of knitting books called What Would Madame Defarge Knit? The projects are surprisingly un-bloodthirsty.
In a similar vein, but with much more sympathetic characters, there is The Grand Tour by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. This fantasy novel takes place just after the Napoleonic Wars and is a sequel to Sorcery and Cecelia, which is a splendid epistolary novel. Think Jane Austen with magic. In The Grand Tour, Kate and Cecelia are traveling with their new husbands on a honeymoon journey. They stumble across mysterious doings almost as soon as they land in France. One of their traveling companions teaches them all a form of knitted code used during the French Revolution so that they may communicate safely.
The knitting itself is full of flaws and inclusions such as twigs, dried plants, and feathers. Each dropped stitch or tiny inclusion alters the code in some way. There is a very cool website called String Geekery that has lots of ideas about how to embed codes in your knitting or other textile arts. This shawl is called the Secret Code of the Librarians and has a knitted code based on Dewey Decimal numbers.
There are lots of other books that have knitting in them or are based entirely around knitting. Goodreads has an entire list of knitting novels. There are series set in knitting stores like the Blossom Street series by Debbie Macomber, or Maggie Sefton’s knitting mysteries. Kate Jacob’s Friday Night Knitting Club was one of the first huge knitting novels when it came out in 2007.
Then there are the children’s books. Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett is a particularly adorable one. Here is the book trailer if you’d like to look at it.
Oliver Jeffers has knitting in his book, The Hueys in: The New Sweater.
Woolbur by Leslie Helakoski is another especially adorable book featuring a knitting lamb.
There are plenty of other books that have to do with textiles: Crewel by Gennifer Alban is a dystopia in which the protagonist can weave time and matter together. 
Anahita’s Woven Riddle by Meghan Sayres is a really cool merging of Penelope’s tapestry from The Odyssey and the fairytale tradition of setting one’s suitors with riddles or tasks. I also like this book especially because it’s set in the middle east, which is not an area touched on all that much in the books I read.
There are book series based around needlepoint, crochet, and quilting too. Books and textiles. They just go together.
Star Wars!
Next Saturday is Star Wars Reads Day! I will be at the Homewood Library from 1:00 -4:00 doing awesome Star Wars stuff. We’re going to have crafts, activities, games, and story time. Adults are welcome. Costumes encouraged. We will have goodie bags for anyone who comes full of posters and books and awesome things that the publishers have sent me.
And, to celebrate here on my blog, I will be giving away a copy of Darth Vader’s Little Princess by Jeffrey Brown from Chronicle Books. Click Here to enter the giveaway This is the second adorable comic that posits Darth Vader as a good dad. The first book, Darth Vader and Son was hugely popular and I adore both of them. I’ve got two copies to give away and the contest is open internationally.
Here are some of my favorite Star Wars books:
Bo
nnie Burton is amazing! And she makes awesome stuff and is on the internet in many, many places. She even has a Geek DIY show on YouTube. You should look her up – Twitter, her blog, Pinterest, Google+
Bonnie has done lost of Star Wars books, but the craft book is my favorite. I made my Jabba the Hutt plushie for DragonCon based off her pattern.
R2D2 beeps in iambic pentameter. Enough said. Shakespeare’s Star Wars is really well done. Verily, A New Hope is something you should absolutely read out loud at your next party. You do that, right? It’s not just me and Joss Whedon, is it?
I’ll be honest, I haven’t actually read Razor’s Edge yet. But… it’s about Princess Leia! It’s an entire novel about Princess Leia set between episodes IV and V! Entertainment Weekly has a preview if you’d like to get your Leia on in sample size. I’m currently trying to get a Leia costume put together for Saturday. Wish me luck!
Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn introduces Mara Jade. She’s the only other woman kicking around until the prequels started. I remember reading this book when I was twelve or thirteen and thinking, ‘She’s awesome!’ She’s a girl who can use a lightsaber. Now that’s no big thing. There are plenty of female Jedi and Sith. But back then, in the 90’s there was pretty much just Leia and she wasn’t a Jedi. Yet. Don’t get me wrong, Leia was and still is awesome. And she was a brunette, which was convenient for my costuming purposes. But back in pre-school when we played Star Wars we had to invent a twin sister for Leia named Leah because there were two of us, but only one girl in the movies. So, Mara made things more even although, by 1992 I was rarely playing Star Wars. (Yes, I still was, but I like to pretend that I was cool).
Giant Tamora Pierce Post
Yes, I know I said it was a giant Tamora Pierce post. And it will be. But first – Darth Vader wants you to read a book! Or wear a tee shirt with him holding a book. Star Wars Reads Day is coming up on October 5. This is a celebration of all things Star Wars that have been committed to paper. From Bonnie Burton’s Star Wars Craft Book to the extended universe novels of Timothy Zahn, it’s all awesome!
There will probably be at least one event near you if you’re in the US. Here is a map with most of the events marked. I will be participating in an event at the Homewood Library from 1:00 – 4:00. I’m hoping to have a costume made in time, but we’ll see. It’s for all ages that want to celebrate Star Wars, so feel free to drop by if you’re in the area. We’ll have goodie bags and we’ll be doing some giveaways too.
Ok, now onto the aforementioned giant Tamora Pierce post.
Battle Magic comes out on Tuesday. It is the newest book 
in the Magic Circle series and follows Briar, Rosethorn, and Evey on their trip through the far east. They start in the mountainous kingdom of Gyongxe. This magical land houses temples for almost all of the world’s religions. It is said that in Goyngxe you are closer to the gods than anywhere else on earth.
After spending a comfortable winter making friends with the First Dedicate of the Living Circle Temple and the young God-King of Gyongxe, the three are invited to view the Imperial gardens of Yanjiang. This is too much for the plant mages to pass up. But Briar is troubled by the God-King’s information about Yanjiang’s military aspirations in the region.
The Imperial gardens are everything that Briar and Rosethorn could have wished, but they seem to be a beautiful veneer on a core of rottenness. The Emperor is cruel and his empire is founded on terror and overwhelming strength. And he has now turned his eyes toward Gyongxe and the treasures hidden within its temples.
This is probably the darkest book that Pierce has. I’ve read all of her published works, and while some of them do tread on dark territory it felt at times like this book was channeling George R.R. Martin. Only not really, because she’s not killing everyone off left and right. But she puts them, and with them the reader, through hell. I read the first 50 pages of this book on Friday and then finished the next 390 last night after work. I kept telling myself I’d go to sleep at the end of a chapter, but was too afraid of what I’d dream to stop where I was. However, nothing is gratuitous. Every horrible thing that happens is necessary to explain why such a small force must fight against the overwhelming power of the Emperor and his armies.
The world that the Circle books is set in is fairly recognizable. Emelan is a decent analogue to Renaissance Europe, Namorn stands in for Russia, Chamorn for India, and Yanjiang for China. Which makes the mountainous and mystical Gyongxe easy to compare with Tibet or Nepal. It’s enough for us to fill in the concept of landscape and broad cultural strokes, without trying to be a 1:1 comparison. 
While this book technically comes right after the Circle Opens quartet I would probably read it in publication order. You need the hints from Melting Stones and The Will of the Empress to prepare yourself for what happens in Battle Magic. In a way, this is the scary and disturbing parts from Tris’s Book all grown up. My recommended reading order is, therefore:
Sandry’s Book
Tris’s Book
Daja’s Book
Briar’s Book
Magic Steps
Street Magic
Cold Fire
Shatterglass
The Will of the Empress
Melting Stones
Battle Magic
Although, the last two could be switched around to fall more in chronological order.
The Tortall books can be read in almost any order, although, chronologically they go:
Terrier
Bloodhound
Mastiff
***********
Alanna
In the Hand of the Goddess
The Woman Who Rides Like a Man
Lioness Rampant
************
Wild Magic
Wolf Speaker
Emperor Mage
In the Realms of the Gods
************
First Test
Page
Squire
Knight
************
Trickster’s Choice
Trickster’s Queen
I’m looking forward to more books in either universe. Tamora Pierce is one of my favorite authors and while Battle Magic isn’t my favorite of her novels, it is a wonderful addition to her universe.
Returned From the Great Beyond
Yes, once again, I disappeared. I’m sorry. There’s been a lot going on lately. Here’s a quick recap:
1. My boy-nugget and I wrote a novel. An actual novel. A really, really long novel. So, now we’re editing it and we’ll see where it goes from here. But, it was a great experience to write with him and to finish something, which I’ve always had a hard time doing (I’m sure you guys haven’t noticed that).
2. DragonCon. Costumes! Craziness! No sleep! Jonathan Maberry! I won’t do a whole DragonCon recap here, but it was a wacky fun time. Here is my flickr set for all the photos I took. The two major highlights for me were the GI Joe photo shoot with The Finest, which is a GI Joe costume club along the lines of the 501st Legion, and the SparkFun workshop where I got to play with conductive thread.
3. The Mary Robinette Kowal book signing at Little Professor. That was amazing. I’d show you pictures, but I was so busy being excited and making sure everyone had tea that I forgot to take any. Oops. Mary was charming and wonderful and looked much better in her gown than John Scalzi did. She read to us from Valour and Vanity which will be out from Tor in April of 2014. She also gave us a shadow puppet show! It was lovely. And then I got to go to dinner with her and a few other people. We talked about books, writing, movies, and (most importantly) my Glamourist Histories cosplay for next year.
I will, by hook or by crook, do a Jane Elsworth cosplay next year. Mary and I spent a bit of time over dinner discussing how to best simulate glamour in my costume. I think we’ve come up (and by we I mean Mary) with an ingenious device involving magnets, a satin tube, gloves, cheese cloth and wires. I may have to add LEDs now that I know how to sew them onto fabric. Also, I have agreed to play a Shades of Milk and Honey LARP once Mary comes up with the rules. I’ll be looking for like minded people to dress up and play with me when the time comes. Cravats, will be flounced about necks, to misquote the Scarlet Pimpernel musical.
So, that is why I have been away. But, think how much fun I had! I’ll be back soon with another book review!
Curtsies & Conspiracies
“When did life become so complicated?” she wondered to Dimity.
“Boys,” said Dimity succinctly. ”
Boys have come to Madame Geraldine’s and it is not all that one might have hoped. Sophronia and her friends have had their initial examinations and Sophronia has gotten the highest marks. Unfortunately, that has put her at odds with all the other students, including her dearest friends. Only Soap and Veve are sticking with her. The boys of Brunson’s Academy for Evil Geniuses are accompanying the Madame Geraldine’s girls on a trip to London. What could be more exciting than a trip to the capital?
Well: Dimity is the target of a kidnapping scheme
Monique is having her coming out ball
The anti-supernatural forces are clashing with the vampires
Professor Shripdittle of Brunson’s and Professor Lefoux are working on a mysterious project together despite being at odds
Felix, Lord Mumsey seems to be interested in courting Sophronia
It’s really all too much for one young intelligencer in training. Fortunately, Sophornia is not your average Madame Geraldine’s girl.
I was thrilled when I managed to get an ARC of Curtsies & Conspiracies. This is book 2 in Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series. They take place 25 years before the Parasol Protectorate books, but have many familiar characters. Genevive Lefoux, our intrepid milliner cum inventor is a scamp of eleven known fondly as Veve. In the latest volume we also see some of our vampire acquaintances from previous books.
It is very confusing when one is dealing with prequels. One feels that one knows the characters, but since it is actually the past for them, one has not been properly introduced. Perhaps I should ask Lord Akeldama what the proper form of address is when encountering an acquaintance I don’t officially know yet.
Curtsies & Conspiracies will be out on November 5 from Little Brown Books for Young Readers.
Parasite
I love Mira Grant. She does not want me to sleep easy at night though. I’m pretty sure it gives her little shivers of delight when a reader tells her that they have nightmares. Well, you could follow her on Twitter and find out for sure. She’s actually Seanan McGuire, urban fantasy novelist of some repute. It’s funny, her urban fantasy books are actually probably darker on the whole, but they don’t give me the screaming heebie-jeebies like the books she writes under the Mira Grant pen name.
My first experience with Mira Grant was the Newsflesh trilogy, which I have talked about a bit before. That trilogy is comprised of Feed, Deadline, and Blackout. The series takes place after we’ve more or less won the zombie apocalypse. The zombies are still out there and they still want to eat all your tasty flesh, but we basically know how to deal with them. The majority of people avoid them. There are crazy safety measures in place to prevent an attack. If someone even thinks you are infected it is their moral and legal duty to put you down. Animals that are big enough to turn into zombies are more or less illegal. It’s considered insanely dangerous and not a little irresponsible to own a large dog or work with horses. People still do it, but the rest of society tends to avoid them. 
Then there are the bloggers. Back when the outbreak occurred it was the bloggers and other social media experts that got word out quickly and, to the best of their ability, accurately about what was happening and what you could do about it. While mainstream media was still calling this a new type of flu the internet was using the word zombie and telling you to aim for the head. That gives bloggers a major presence in the post-zombie world. They can make major money and are providing a constant stream of news, action, and fiction to keep their readers tuned in. Sean and Georgia Mason run a modestly important blog. Then they win a contest to be the only bloggers covering Senator Peter Ryman’s bid for the Presidency. They will accompany the campaign on it’s tour and stay with the senator all the way through election night. Things quickly begin to go horribly wrong.
This trilogy will grab you with one hand on your heart and one hand in your brain and shake you. And you’ll love it. You won’t sleep very well, but you’ll kind of love that too because it’s more time to read. I finished all three books over the course of a weekend and they’re not small books. Then I read all the novellas available in the universe. (There’s a new one coming out on Tuesday. I have it pre-ordered. It’s about Australia!) Then I found out that Mira had a new book coming out called Parasite. And I started my campaign to get an early copy from Orbit. It worked and I devoured it in a day. (Hee hee, I said I devoured a book about tapeworms. I’m funny. I’ve also had really a lot of coffee.)
Parasite is a medical horror novel about what happens when we get something too good to be true. SymboGen has engineered a modified tapeworm that functions as a secondary immune system. There is no more diabetes. There are no more allergies. You don’t have to be obese, or worry about birth control. Your designer implant will take care of all of that for you. Great!
But what happens when those tapeworms wake up and decide they’re tired of taking care of everything for you? What if SymboGen cut a few extra corners and spliced in a couple of extra genes? What if those secrets let the parasites take over?
So, that’s my quick blurb suitable for things like the Indiebound newsletter and publisher marketing. I actually don’t want to tell you too much more because, OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO READ IT!!!!!!!!!!
What I will tell you is that Parasite takes a giant thing and makes it mostly about a girl. You have to have a girl (just ask Bioshock Infinite, which is also bouncing around in my brain and scrambling my thoughts right now.) Without the girl everything is giant and scary and terrible, but it’s easy to push away. Just look at the news. Sally Mitchell was in a horrible car accident. She shouldn’t have lived, but somehow, a miracle happened and she did live. She’s a testament to the power of the Intestinal Bodyguard and something of a SymboGen mascot. So she’s right in the center of things when they start going wrong. You care about the girl. You want her to succeed and be safe and happy. You care. And that’s how the author gets you.
Yesterday I took my first off day in 32 days (in case you were wondering where I’ve been). Instead of staying home and resting like a normal person I drove to Nashville to see Neil Gaiman. He’s this guy. You may have heard of him. He’s written some stuff.
I first read Neil back in the days of yore when I read a copy of Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophesies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. This book probably also started my lifelong love affair with incredibly long titles. My mother gave me a hardcover copy of Good Omens when I was 11 or so. This was a big deal in our house. We couldn’t afford hardcover books very often. I’m not sure what it was about this particular book that made her pick it up, but I loved it. I’ve read it probably once a year since I got it. However, to say that I discovered Neil at that time would be to imply that I didn’t lose him again immediately. Which I did. I read Good Omens and thought it was brilliant and then didn’t read anything else by Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett. I think I was going through my Arthurian phase around then so I probably wandered off to read Mists of Avalon or Witch of the North. Jump forward to college. I found friends. Yay! They handed me Sandman. I read it and was amazed. That was when
I really discovered Neil Gaiman. I then read lots and lots and lots of things by him. Neil actually came to Tuscaloosa while I was living there, but the tickets sold out before I could refresh my browser, so I didn’t get to go see him. But finally, yesterday, my moment arrived!
It was pretty great. I drove to Nashville early and wandered around the Tennessee State Museum to enjoy some air conditioning before I took my place in line. I was far from the first person there, but I think I was in the first 15 or so. It felt like DragonCon! Geeks standing or sitting in the southern heat and sweating together. The book tables opened at 3:00 so we could pick up our copies of The Ocean at the End of the Lane from Parnassus Books. They did a great job with the event! There’s no really good way to keep 1,700 sweaty fans completely happy, but they got the doors open on time, seating was easy, and they even figured out a way to make sure people at the back of the line weren’t screwed when it came time to get their books signed.
Sadly, I didn’t get to stay for the signing itself. More on that later…
So, Neil Gaiman. He’s as adorable as I’d hoped and twice as British. He was charming. He was sweet. He read us a special part of his book because it was storming! There’s a bit around the middle of the book with a thunder-storm in. And, as it just so happened, we were having an actual thunder-storm as the reading was going on. So, we got to hear that bit. He did a Q&A session after the first reading and that was lovely too. He told us about his writing ritual. Neil writes his stories out longhand in notebooks. He uses a different color of ink every day so that when he looks back through his notebooks he can see how much he got done each day. He also uses a fountain pen, which makes me very happy. I’ve not become a total convert to the fountain pen, but I do love my Pelikano Jr. (Yes, I use a large, friendly, plastic fountain pen intended for children. It’s very reliable and when I eventually break or lose it the replacement cost won’t make me cry.)
Then, we got another reading! Neil read from his forthcoming book Fortunately, the Milk which will be out in September from Bloomsbury. It’s technically middle grade, only not really because he put in jokes for the grown ups too. It’s everything whimsical that I thought House of Secrets was going to be, but wasn’t. A father goes out to the corner store to get his children some milk for their breakfast cereal. And for his tea. And that’s where things go terribly, terribly wrong. First there’s… and then… oh, and after that! And the piranhas! But, fortunately, the milk is safe in his pocket through aliens, and letting the space/time continuum in, and pirates, and…Neil was accompanied during this reading by Bela Fleck on banjo. Neil and Bela became friends over the audio for The Graveyard Book wherein Bela performs Danse Macabre on banjo. I have to say, it’s pretty epic. The reading finished up and Neil took a short break before he set out to sign all the books brought by approximately 1,700 fans.
Sadly, I had to leave at this point because I had to be at work at 8:00 this morning. That’s where the mermaid thing comes in. Let me explain it to you by quoting a letter I wrote to a friend earlier today…
I have decided that Mother Nature must have wanted me to become a mermaid. Based on the amount of water she dumped on me I can only assume she was attempting to persuade me to embrace the life aquatic. You see, there was a storm during the reading. But it had moved on by the time I left. I innocently got onto the highway and headed south. Twenty miles outside of Nashville the skies opened and a quantity of water rivaling the volume of one of your smaller seas began to bucket down onto my helpless car. I made friends with the nearest set of tail lights and together we crept through the tempest. This state continued for about sixty miles. By chance the storm stayed in Tennessee while I crossed back into Alabama and dry land. I suspect that had I not had the protection of eco-friendly, Japanese engineering I would even now be sporting fins and gills in some little known Tennessean waterway. Alabama, however, liking me as a walking, talking, tax-paying citizen, provided me with dry land upon which to return home.
There were mermaids in Fortunately, the Milk. Sort of. A new kind of mermaid With legs! Maybe that’s what I am. I’ve almost got mermaid hair as it is!
So, no book review today, but I’ll have a review of Parasite by Mira Grant out this weekend. Spoiler warning: I loved it.
I Hate to Say It…
… but I’m going to.
I haven’t been reading much lately. I know! What’s wrong with me? Well, lots, but I’m not going into that publicly. If you really care about what’s wrong with me go read my totally-private-and-not-all-over-the-internet Twitter feed.
To say that I’m not reading at all is inaccurate. I have ARCs from Ian Tregillis, Seanan McGuire, Suzanne Johnson, and Tina Connolly. And I’m super excited about them. In a kind of distant way. I’m reading Something More Than Night by Ian Tregillis very slowly, because I’ve been waiting for this book for two YEARS. He read a chapter of it at LepreCon in Tempe, AZ when I first met him. And I was hooked. And then I had to wait. And wait. And WAIT! So, I’m savoring. I’m nibbling the chapters ever so gently because when it’s over this thing that has been glowing in the back of my brain for ages will be over. Granted, I’ll have something new. I’ll have the whole story. And I want that. But I want to take my time getting there.
Something More Than Night is a noir mystery set in Heaven. The archangel Gabriel has been killed and it is up to a mixed up angel named Bayliss to fill the void he’s left in the Heavenly choir. Oh, and not get rubbed out next for sticking his angelic nose into whatever mess got Gabriel snuffed in the first place. Did I mention there was also a girl? A redhead named Molly who gets caught up in Bayliss’s mess. Because there’s always got to be a dame in these kinds of things. And Molly is a great one. She’s nobody’s doll. She’s confused and pissed off and a little lost. But she’s tough and human in a way Bayliss aggressively isn’t. Tregillis is one of my favorite authors of this last decade anyway. And I’m so glad that I’m finally getting to read this story. But I’m reading it slowly.
The last two books I finished were disappointments. We’ve already gone over House of Secrets and why that wasn’t what I was looking for. The next book was great. Until the end. I’m not going to name names because I’m about to spoil the snot out of it. It was a light romance. I don’t expect great things from them. But if you’ve spent the entire book with the woman telling me she doesn’t want to get married I’m going to believe you. I don’t want those things myself. Great! We’re on the same page. We can totally be happy and fulfilled without… Wait! What do you mean the only way she can bring herself to trust him is if he marries her? Because marriage suddenly eliminates any doubts you might have had about this guy before. Right. I see.
Oh wait, there’s more? Of course there’s more! Oh, she wants kids now? And she went ahead and got pregnant without telling her husband who, as far as they’d discussed, still was adamantly opposed to kids? That’s awesome! No, wait, I mean that other thing… reprehensible! That’s it. That’s reprehensible. So that’s made me a little gun shy about books I don’t trust. I just, I’ve been hurt too many times.
House of Secrets
So, I don’t usually post negative reviews. But this is a book I was pretty excited about and seems, on the surface, like it’s perfect for a large portion of my audience. I mean, Chris Columbus! He directed Harry Potter! It has to be fun and full of whimsy, right? There are pirates, and knights, and witches, and houses that travel into books. This should be right in my wheel-house.
Let me give you a quick synopsis:
The book focuses on the three Walker children; Brendan, Eleanor, and Cordelia. Their father was once a famous surgeon until The Incident. It takes us a while to discover what The Incident was, but it resulted in him losing his job and most of his money fighting legal battles. The family has had to downsize from a posh mansion to a very small apartment. But, perhaps their luck is about to change! They have a line on a beautiful Victorian house in San Francisco. It’s being sold absurdly cheaply with all the antique furnishings included. This could be the first step to getting their old lives back.
The house is amazing! It’s got beautiful antiques, a library full of rare volumes by the original owner for Eleanor to love, an attic bedroom for Brendan, and even a dumb-waiter for Cordelia to send her dolls up and down in. Dr. and Mrs. Walker buy it on the spot! The only strange thing is that Brendan meets a crazy lady out back. She comes back on their first night in the new house and reveals herself as the Wind Witch. She sends a tornado tearing through the house. Brendan is knocked unconscious, but not before he sees his parents seriously injured.
When he wakes up, Brendan discovers that the house, sans parents, has been moved into a primeval forest; complete with giant, carnivorous dragonflies. They are beset by bloodthirsty knights, rescued by a WWI flying ace, and eventually attacked by pirates. Eleanor soon realizes that they are inside a series of books written by Denver Kristoff, the original owner of the house. To get an idea about Denver Kristoff think Lovecraft meets Poe. This is not a nice place to be and it will kill them if it possibly can.
The Wind Witch has brought them here to force them to find the Black Book for her. It was the original source of her power, but her father hid it away from her decades ago. Only a completely selfish action can bring the Black Book to light. Can you see where this is going yet?
I don’t want to do a complete blow-by-blow of the book, but lots of terrible things happen. And not in a whimsical way. The only actual whimsy in the entire thing is on the first two pages as Eleanor savages the real estate agent who is going to show them Kristoff house. Maids are murdered, resurrected, and then murdered again. The pirate captain, rather than being a Jack Sparrow-like figure enjoys practicing vivisection on his captives. The Walker children all take their turn acting on a selfish impulse and being faced with the book. Oh, and did I mention that it’s a series, so no matter how many horrible things happen this time, there will be more of them in the future! I can totally see why this wasn’t made into a movie. It would have to be categorized with the SAW series for gratuitous violence and gore!
I recommend staying away from this one. I kept reading because I kept hoping it would live up to the promises on the dust jacket. Eventually, I finished it so I could know what to warn my customers about. I hate to write a totally negative review. In fact, I think this might be the first one on this entire blog. But please, give this book a pass.
Medusa's Library 