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★★★★★★★★★★ (9/10)
Graceling: a person from one of the seven kingdoms with an extraordinary ability, possibly amazing, possibly mundane. This is a strong part of what convinced me to purchase this book whilst perusing the shelves of an unfamiliar bookstore. I've read other novels where certain characters are given extraordinary abilities, but not quite the way that Kristin Cashore does, and certainly not with the consequences that go along with those abilities.
So, basic setup. There are seven kingdoms, with not very creative names, each ruled by a king (we'll get into that later), and throughout the kingdoms are people who are Graced. A Grace could be something as simple as being able to hold your breath for a very long time, or something as impressive as mind reading or being an invincible fighter. The telltale sign that a person is Graced is that their eyes are two different colors, and the color combination varies from Graceling to Graceling. We begin in the Middluns, where Lady Katsa, niece to King Randa, has had the Grace of killing since she was eight years old. She is an extraordinary fighter that has incredible speed, stamina, and doesn't feel cold, hunger, or pain as much as a normal person does. In the Middluns, anyone who is Graced is under the jurisdiction of the king; they are sent to the king's nursery as children, and if their Grace proves useful, they must work for him. If not, they are sent home to fit in as best they can.
Katsa has basically become a thug for King Randa in that she hurts, maims, threatens, or kills people when he tells her to, and she despises his control over her. She has a humane conscience, even though she considers herself to be nothing more than a savage beast because her Grace is so violent. Still, she practices and hones her skills in order to control her Grace, to the point that she knows exactly how to use her skill to only hurt someone, or knock them unconscious, instead of brutally wounding them.
The good part begins with the appearance of Prince Greening (terrible name, but there it is all the same), nicknamed Po (I'm not sure which name is worse). He is also Graced and comes from Lienid, where the Graced are free to live their lives as they choose, under no constraint from the king. Po shows up in Randa City looking for his grandfather, who has been kidnapped. Katsa has recently saved the man from his kidnappers, and her friend, Prince Raffin, is helping nurse the old man back to health. Their intention is to keep him hidden until Katsa and her friends, who together form the Council, can find out who was behind the kidnapping in the first place (the kickoff for the adventure to follow). Po joins in after convincing everyone that he is trustworthy and will be of value to their search. Little does anyone know that he has a secret that will test the friendships he's formed with members of the Council.
What I particularly like about Graceling is the depth of the emotions and relationships between characters. Katsa is a thoroughly contradictory character because she cannot be at peace with herself, but the way that Cashore creates Katsa's relationships with Po, Raffin, and the others around her is wonderful to read. Katsa's war with herself over Po is specifically drawn out and complicated, but in a good way; I was never really sure how the situation would be resolved until it was.
Cashore's world is very well thought out, and quite detailed. It's easy to get an idea of what each kingdom is known for and how they all interact. She's also very good at keeping you guessing; there are more than a few minor twists that come out of nowhere, but make the story that much more interesting, such as how Katsa is able to overcome Leck's power over her. I also really liked the character of Bitterblue (another really bad name). She's only about eleven years old, but she such a plucky character, that I just can't help but love her. Bitterblue has to endure quite a bit and survives, while not giving up being a child.
To sum up: the character and place names tend to be ridiculous and uncreative, but the story is well worth the read, and I'm going to try to find the next novel in the series, Fire, as soon as I possibly can. I want to know what else will happen in this world of Graced people, and what new characters will come out of Cashore's mind.
★★★★★★★★★★ (5/10)
I've been reading Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels for almost ten years. I've read many of them multiple times, and I feel that I know the world pretty well. There's a certain quality to writing, plot, and character development that is essential to how the Pern functions as a creation. It seems as though every detail of the culture, geography, and character are so thought out as to have been breathed onto the page instead of written. Dragon Harper has none of these qualities. I think I could best describe it as bland and detached, which makes it practically the opposite of a good book.
I also seem to know Anne's writing style well too because what bothered me the most about Dragon Harper was that it was nothing like reading a Pern novel. The writing was completely different (in a bad way), and it didn't really feel like Pern was at the heart of the novel. This was more like a generic novel with bits of Pern thrown in. I wasn't drawn into the story as I usually am; I wasn't even very sympathetic towards the main character, Kindan.
At first, I thought that it would just take a while for the story to get moving; perhaps Todd's writing style is one that takes more time to build up to the major crisis. I kept thinking that until I finished the book before I realized that my speculations were wrong. Then I thought that perhaps I was just unhappy with the subject: a super-flu plague that kills off about 1/3 of the planet's population. That's depressing enough, and I don't particularly like depressing, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Todd's level of writing familiarity with Pern was what was getting on my nerves. He clearly knows the culture and reasoning behind the fictional world, but he's missing a level of involvement that is critical to making a Pern novel work. Perhaps he should have included one or two characters from previous novels to help make the connection better. If there was already a defined character he could build off of, it might have helped to make Dragon Harper more Pern-like.
It's difficult to explain why a book that has all of the elements of a Pern novel (dragons, harpers, Holds, Weyrs, etc.) just doesn't come through as genuine, but this is exactly why I don't think I'll read Dragon Harper again anytime soon. I kind of feel bad for Todd because he even had his mother (the woman who created the whole fantasy world of Pern in the first place) to collaborate with. I would have thought having her along would guarantee a better novel.
The story itself isn't too bad. Kindan, a young apprentice at the Harper Hall, is our hero. His goal in life is to become a journeyman harper so that he can fulfill his dream to become the harper at Benden Weyr, maybe even Impress a dragon while he's at it. Unfortunately, a plague starts circulating the planet at the wrong time, and he's forced to give up his dream in order to save the lives of those he loves. This is where Todd makes his most fatal mistake. He kills off a character that Kindan loves. In a Pern novel, no one important ever dies, or if they do, they're old when it happens. Personally, I really don't like it when major characters are killed off, so this added to my dislike of a book I already wasn't fond of. Still, the plague changes Kindan's life in good ways because he now has a future in the Harper Hall as a healer, or whatever he should choose to be.
The "epilogue" threw me off too. It consists of about 1/4 of a page and nothing happens. I'm not even sure what's going on in the ten lines on the page. I turned the page expected there to be more, and I found nothing. Was there supposed to be something else, and it didn't make the publishing deadline? This is something that in a second edition, I would hope that the McCafffreys add on a bit to make their vision clearer as to what happens to Kindan.
I recently bought another Pern book, written by Todd alone, and I'm very wary about reading it after reading and being disappointed by Dragon Harper. I'm going to take a break from Pern for a while, and maybe some mental distance will make it easier to read this other Todd novel. Here's hoping to a better grip on writing about a world he knows so well!
★★★★★★★★★★ (7/10)
I didn't realize until after I started reading The Betrayal of the Blood Lily that I was coming into the series a bit late. I'd never heard of this series, and was a bit surprised to find that this was the sixth novel in a series of flowery named spy novels. Nevertheless, I forged ahead, regardless of what I might not be clued into (having no idea if this was the type of series where you would need to have read the previous ones to understand the current selection). And, I must say, this was a terribly delightful book! I felt like I was being thrown curve balls every few pages, and was kept on my mental toes to keep track of what happened, but the experience was wonderful.
The whole thing starts off with a grad student, Eloise, working on her dissertation. (Eloise is a bit of a strange name for an American, though. I think of Eloise as being a six-year-old children's book character.) Of course, she's writing about spies, but like many a grad, she'd rather keep researching than commit to writing out a thesis. Strangely enough, her boyfriend's family has a connection to her research and the story of Penelope Deveraux, or Lady Frederick Staines, comes about when Eloise in going through the boyfriend's aunt's notebooks from an office in India. So, there's a lovely change of time period and location throughout the novel; Willig takes me from London in the relatively present day, to India around 1804. I don't quite see how Eloise contributes to the novel, except that maybe she is what connects them all, or that she serves to increase my suspense about what will happen in Penelope's story. However, overall, I think that Eloise's life is believable, detailed, and amusing, in it's own way.
The bulk of the novel is devoted to a very short time in India. It must be only a month or two that goes by from beginning to end, and a good deal of that time is spent traveling from Calcutta to Hyderabad, so not too much goes on there. Willig starts off with a scandal, and gives more details about it as the story goes on. At first, there's just a vague hint that Lord and Lady Frederick's marriage is tainted somehow. It's a quick hook, and I took the bait and kept reading, but the story is about something more than their relationship, which isn't a good one. It's about so many things, and none of them are really more important than the others. Everything is necessary and vital to whatever happens next, and it's difficult to recap the novel without going through it in a ridiculously detailed way.
Suffice it to say that Penelope gets a happy ending, and I hope that means she learned from her mistakes. I wish there had been more spying involved, but the novel was lovely all the same. I also would like to know who/what the Blood Lily was meant to be, since it's not mentioned in the novel at all, as far as I can remember. I really liked the descriptions of India, and the relations between the British and Indian cultures, as well as the way Willig created such a twist at the end that I never saw coming. I've already purchased two other novels in this series, in no particular order, and look forward to being as delighted by the as I was by Blood Lily.
★★★★★★★★★★ (10/10)
My 10 star rating does coming with a warning: I am ridiculously partial to Jane Austen, all of her characters, and any novels either take part in, so it is likely that this estimation of Mr. Darcy's Diary is extraordinary biased.
However, it's wonderful to see that an author cared about the other side of Pride and Prejudice. I've read the novel, criticism of Jane Austen, essays on various characters, histories of the era, and I even own a book on the life of Miss Austen, but I've never come across a novel like Mr. Darcy's Diary. Amanda Grange covers every episode from P&P and creates what happened when Mr. Darcy was out of the picture, but best of all, I could really believe that Grange knew how Darcy would think. Each entry in his "diary" was true to character: logical, proud, sometimes a bit cold, not too embellished, and straight to the point. I don't think Austen herself could have done a better job with Darcy's inner workings.
Grange also includes insights into other characters as well, ones who are more connected to Darcy's world than the Bennets'. Bingley's mind is better known through this novel because Darcy includes their conversations, Bingley's flaws and virtues, and Darcy's own opinions of the way Bingley acts. Caroline Bingley's malice is even greater than in P&P because Grange allows the reader to see what she really thinks when Austen wasn't looking. There are even scenes where her almost shameless flirtation and pursuance of Darcy make her look more manipulative and disgusting than I already thought she was. Best of all, since this is Darcy's diary, there is more thought on Georgiana. There is very little in P&P, mostly because she just isn't that important. She is a vehicle for Wickham's downfall, and a soft spot for Darcy himself. Now, Grange imagines what Austen might have done with Georgiana if the story had taken a different tack. I'd want Georgie as a little sister if she could be anything like this!
Collectively, I think that Mr. Darcy's Diary only took me about 5 or 6 hours to read. It was quick, but I think that it had something to do with my delight in the subject. Even with it being over so quickly, I was immensely happy with the book as a whole. I especially enjoyed Grange's imaginings on how Elizabeth and Darcy's married life would be. They are married in November, but Grange continues on into March with his entries. What happens after the wedding is probably one of the biggest questions ever asked about P&P and I loved Grange's ideas about how Darcy would think and feel about his new life. The changes in characters like Kitty and Anne de Bourgh, after November, are particularly to be noted.
This novel is best read after reading P&P for the first time or knowing it front to back by heart, otherwise, you might be tempted to compare the two as you go, which defeats the purpose of Diary. It's written by a person who obviously loves P&P, and who has taken great care to be accurate and to to Austen's original. As quoted on the back of the paperback edition, "Amanda Grange has perfectly captured all of Jane Austen's clever wit and social observations to make Mr. Darcy's Diary a must read for any fan." She's spot on for every detail, every scene, and every wish that readers have had for years.
I know that Grange has a whole series of these diaries from characters throughout Austen's novels, and I can't wait to read them all! I'm glad I started here, with Mr. Darcy's Diary, because retellings, or alternate tellings, of Pride and Prejudice can be very tricky. I've seen some fail utterly. Yet, if an author can do such a superb job with it, I can only imagine other writings in the same vein can only be as good, if not better.
★★★★★★★★★★ (8/10)
Stealing Athena is a wonderful comparison of the differences and similarities of the lives of women in ancient Greece and the world of nineteenth century Great Britain, but through the narrative stories of two women who are as alike as they are different. The novel gives a taste of European and Middle Eastern affairs during Napoleon's exercises in Imperialism, the philosophic age of ancient Athens, and the troubles women faced in both. I was highly entertained reading this novel, and hope others will be as well.
The novel is divided between two women: Aspasia, who is the courtesan of Pericles, and Mary Nisbet, who becomes the wife of Lord Elgin, a British ambassador. Aspasia lives in a unique time when the great buildings and temples of the Acropolis are just being built, and philosophy, logic, and democracy are the highlights of Grecian society. She becomes Pericles's lover when she is basically sold by her brother in law to Pericles as a concubine. Luckily for Aspasia, Pericles is not the brute that her brother in law is, and she comes share a loving relationship with the most powerful man in Athens.
Yet, Aspasia is unique, because she studied with a well-known philosopher, and is a woman who will speak her mind, and her mind is filled with some of the sharpest logic Athens had ever seen. This causes problems that bring forth the conflict in her tale. Through all this, Aspasia sees the cultural standards of the treatment of women in her new city of Athens. She is appalled that women are expected to be silent and anonymous, regardless of their intellect or worth. Even well-born women are kept at home, almost the same as the women in Turkey's harems were in Mary's time.
Speaking of Mary, there is a tragic story to tell. Life began for Miss Nisbet as happily as it possible could have. She was beautiful, intelligent, clever, and ridiculously rich, and she was content with her life. Mary knew that her duty to her family was to marry and have children, and this was something she did aspire to. Her life led her to Lord Elgin, who lived just over the hill. He wooed her and married her just in time to take her to Constantinople for his next ambassadorial assignment, while she was pregnant with their first child. This woman went through more pain, discomfort, and bizarre circumstances than any noble woman would be expected to, and oddly enough, she handled it much better than her new husband.
Unfortunately for Mary, her happy life was not to be happy forever. Constantinople brought the Elgins to financial difficulties due to the upkeep of the embassy, and Lord Elgin's personal belief that he would be the savior of the Fine Arts in Britain by bringing home some of the most celebrated art in Athens: the Parthenon's artistic treasures, Acropolis temples, and other works by the master Phidias. Lord Elgin spends money left and right because he believes he has the money to spend. Little does he know that Mary's father planned for just such a possibility, and didn't give Elgin any control over Mary's inheritance.
This is when their relationship starts to fall to pieces, but the story continues with other interesting adventures for all parties. Aspasia is prosecuted, Mary finds true love, and Pericles learns to respect women, even if he only listens to Aspasia. Stealing Athena brings two eras and two cultures together by linking them with time-tested truths: money always divides people, women will forever be considered inferior (even if they are declared equals), and you should always pick which battles you fight. Still, it's always painful to read about the strange ways past societies treated their citizens, even when that history isn't too far in the past. It makes me grateful to my recent predecessors that I am not forced to be dependent on marriage or friendly, albeit distant, relations. If Aspasia and Mary could have lived lives without such dependencies, I wonder how their lives would have differed.
Stealing Athena was a lot of fun to read, both for the historical aspects of it, and for Essex's imagination of Aspasia's and Mary's fortitude and character. A story lost to the memory of time is brought back to light, and a controversial acquisition forgotten in shame is remembered through one woman's perseverance. Athens rises again in this tale of love, politics, money, and exotic travel that seems to be a hope for a better future. For my part, I hope Lord Elgin rots in whatever grave he was put in for his crimes against his friends and against history.
