Review: Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill

Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe by Thomas Cahill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It has been SO long since I've reviewed any books. I stalled on this one, so I thought I could start back up here, and chip away at them. And suddenly, I understand why I went on hiatus for so long.

Mysteries of the Middle Ages tells of an era of history shaped by the Catholic Church and its influences. Its premise is how the modern world owes so much of its culture to the Church. While it does put down some compelling evidence, I'm unconvinced that it's as positive as the author seems to think.

Cahill does go into a lot of history that textbooks leave out. He gives the past texture, gives historical figures motives and contributing factors that turns history into an actual story. The narrative is generally entertaining. This is one of those narrative non-fiction books that generally works. It feels factual and real, at the same time as it carries the reader along.

Well. Mostly factual. I'm no religious or historical scholar, but I'm fairly sure he misrepresents the Islam faith and its proponents. Badly. He gives a stereotyped, one-dimensional characterization that falls flat after he fleshes out so many other historical details. I also disagree with his assertion that the Catholic Church led to women's rights, because Virgin Mary. But then, he views female power as only happening within male power structures, rather than being its own entity.

There are also places where the book drags a bit, as Cahill goes into great detail about a person whose significance isn't apparent until the very end of the chapter. I would've had to be an art major, I suspect, to care about the level of detail put into the chapter about Giotto di Bondone, for instance. I would've liked to learn about his influence, rather than the nitpicky details about his life. The same holds true for Peter Abelard, whose love life is discussed in the same level of detail I'd expect from a soap opera.

Overall, this book is a good starting point for people looking for ways to approach the Middle Ages. Like many entertaining non-fiction books, it lacks depth and authority, but gives a reader some good places to start looking for more information. The book's strength is in its readability and in the texture the author gives the distant past. I would recommend this book to anyone studying the period, provided it wasn't their sole reference.


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Review: Blow Me Down by Katie MacAlister

Blow Me Down by Katie MacAlister
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

By the description, this had all the potential to be like Vicki Lewis Thompson's Nerds series. Unfortunately, it fell victim to the need to shove an alpha hero mold onto its potential beta, thereby watering down a lot of character development that could've been so much more interesting.

Amy Stewart is a buttoned-up financial analyst when her daughter talks her into trying out a virtual reality pirate game. There, Amy meets Black Corbin, who's really PC Monroe, the game's creator. Not that she realizes it, at first. She takes him for just another computer character, and she's unimpressed. She beats him at a swordfighting, and he's smitten. Then they both realize they're locked in to their virtual reality headsets, thanks to a virus written in by an irate ex-employee. They need to work together to figure out which character the saboteur is hiding in, and stop his plans, if only they can quit boinking long enough to get to it.

The plot is fairly simple, though it has Amy running all over Corbin's creation to stall her progress. It takes no time for Amy and Corbin to wind up in bed together, and an embarrassingly short time for him to start spouting the L word. Even if their perception of time wasn't warped by the game, it would still be premature.

And Corbin's characterization has such potential. Instead, the game gives him the confidence to act the part of the alpha male jerk, who decides he wants Amy and can do whatever he wants to get her. And of course it feels so good she's swooning in no time. Interesting leaps in VR technology, there.

The concept of this book is interesting, but it is, at its core, romance. And, because I don't buy the romance between these two characters, especially not the way it unfolds, I wasn't on board with the rest of it. There are only two characters populating the world Corbin and Amy inhabit; the rest are constructs of the program. And yet, even the "real" people feel just as flat as the NPCs Amy interacts with. Corbin's best friend is only there to push Corbin and Amy together that much faster, and the bad guy is pure cardboard.

This story had potential, and maybe a more thoughtful author not determined to shoehorn her male love interest into an alpha male role and to hurry along the romance might've been up to the task. Overall, though, this was a disappointing read.


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Review: Kitty Takes a Vacation (Kitty Norville #3) by Carrie Vaughn

Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the third book in the Kitty Norville series. As much as I appreciate that the books don't fall into a convenient formula, it makes for some uneven quality of the books.

In this installation, Kitty is taking a break while she works on a memoir about her life and how she became a werewolf. Only, she's stuck, and doesn't know where to start. Then barbed-wire crosses start showing up on her property, as well as animal sacrifices on her front porch. And, to top it all off, her lawyer, Ben, is brought to her by her werewolf hunter buddy, Cormac, because he's been bitten.

So far, every book surprises us by where Kitty starts out, and where she ends up. For a series, there are a lot of changes from one book to the next. Kitty remains unsure of herself, but a reader can track her progress. Her reason for rising to the occasion makes perfect sense: with Ben to look out for, she has something more important to worry about.

Unfortunately, Ben drags the story down a lot. He spends a good chunk of the plot moping, and planning to have Cormac kill him so he won't have to live as a werewolf. While it does give Kitty a chance to reflect on the drawbacks of lycanthropy, the back-and-forth, stomping about, and pouting don't make for interesting reading.

There's a mystery within this book, but it's fairly obvious who's behind it. The town where Kitty's hiding out has so few people, and she interacts with even fewer than that. The mystery definitely didn't do anything to heighten the tension.

The pacing is off in this book. The main conflicts are presented to Kitty one at a time, which is awfully polite of them. The biggest of the problems takes until the last third of the book to show up, and it's so geographically removed that I wondered why the author bothered including it in this book. It made the plot take on a stuttering, start-and-stop momentum that made it hard to want to keep reading.

I do plan to pick up the fourth book in this series, but I'm not in any hurry to get to it. Hopefully the pacing is better. I don't think I could make it through another book about Kitty killing time until she's ready to join the world of the living.

I listened to this book on audio, narrated by Marguerite Gavin. She has a lovely, smoky sort of voice, the kind of voice I can imagine Kitty, herself, might have. Though, her pronunciation of "lycanthropy" gets more annoying every time I hear it.


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Review: Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt

Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is the latest in my quest to find a romance novel that doesn't make me roll my eyes. While it had promise, the idea behind it is silly, and it was determined to take away everything I liked about it.

The premise of the book is that the Ghost of St. Giles runs around in a harlequin costume by night, protecting the weak and rescuing kidnapped urchins. By day, he's the mild-mannered Winter Makepeace, headmaster of a school for orphaned children.

And why does he go about in a costume and mask, risking his life? So he can meet Lady Isabel Beckinhall when she rescues him from an angry mob, brings him home, and strips him naked (except the mask, of course) to treat his wounds. Several more fortunate coincidences throw these two together, and the tension grows. She tells him how sad she is she can't have kids, and why there's a boy who isn't her kid running around her house. He tells her why he's a virgin, and plans on staying one. (Guess how long that one sticks. Go on. Guess.)

I could believe these two liked each other by the end of the book, though his quick study in the bedroom had me raising an eyebrow. I could believe he'd question his life as the Ghost in light of his relationship. What I couldn't believe was how easily she made the sacrifices she did for the relationship. It robbed her of a lot of the things that made her such a strong character. I'm all for compromise in a relationship, but must romance novels always end with the heroine losing herself in the hero?

I also feel that, if there's a beta hero in a story, the author should let him be a beta. Stop reminding us how virile he is. Stop making the heroine swoon under his power. There are plenty of alpha male stories that cover those tropes. Let the beta male show his strength in recognizing and respecting the heroine's.

If you like historical romance with a masked hero, and you read a broad range of romance with no quibbles with the tropes, this one will suit you fine. It's a story about a beta finding his inner alpha by putting on a mask, until the woman draws it out of him. Personally, I don't find the transformation an improvement.


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Review: If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland

If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was a gift from a college professor in 2001, the year I graduated. It's been on my to-read list a while, clearly. Hence its inclusion in my 2014 TBR Pile Challenge.

My professor warned me, as she handed it over, that it was far less useful for practical writing advice and more for inspiration. In that, she was absolutely correct. While there is some advice for how to get started and find one's voice as a writer, I found some of its advice counter intuitive, and sometimes contradictory of my process. The book is If You Want to Write, not If You Want to Be Published.

Brenda Ueland recommends an approach that ignores such words as "craft," "polish," and "honing." Her background is that of a teacher of nonwriters. She's drawn out the inner writer in her students, and the book's purpose is to do the same for its readers. She's interested in helping people find their voices as writers and finding what inspires them.

There are sections where she compares or contrasts pieces of writing, meant to illustrate her points about a looser, less critical approach to writing. At times, her point is well-made, when her students initially turn in stilted prose of the kind they feel they're supposed to write, and eventually write pieces that are flowing and natural. Other times, though, the "better" passages are purple, or just plain rambling. I understand at the time Ueland was writing, the longer, more descriptive passages were better valued, so some of my disconnect is a product of the shift in literary trends.

One of the major points in this book's favor is that it advocates pantstering, or discovery writing. It specifically recommends against outlining or planning out where the story will go. Ueland says, instead, to see where the story takes you. That's an approach I can get behind.

I wish I'd come across this book before I graduated high school. A lot of its lessons would've helped me in my early writing development. In this stage of my writing, though, it reads like a giant step backward. It tells me nothing about how to improve as a writer or how to edit what I've already written.

This book will not help you if you've already written a novel, or if you're ready to edit your pieces. Its main utility is giving a budding writer the confidence to find one's own voice. I'd recommend it to people considered NaNoWriMo; its lessons will help unclog you from the expectations holding back your word count.


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Review: The Folk of the Air by Peter S. Beagle

The Folk of the Air by Peter S. Beagle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When people talk about the books Peter S. Beagle has written, this one usually winds up as a footnote. I ran across a copy at a used bookstore, though, and thought it sounded like something I'd like. Then it languished on my shelves, unread. Hence its inclusion in my 2014 TBR Challenge.

The book starts with Joe Farrell returning to his hometown of Avicenna, California. His best friend, Ben, is dating an older woman, and they have a spare bedroom he can borrow until he figures out what his next step is. Then he runs into Julie Tanakawa, an old flame. She introduces him to the League of Archaic Pleasures, a medieval reenactment society. He fits right in, but not before getting on the bad side of their resident sorceress, Aiffe, who can do real magic. Farrell feels sympathy for her when she summons a powerful being, Nicholas Bonner, who she can't control. She has no use for his sympathy, though, being convinced she's the one with the power. Her hubris leads her to confront Ben's lover, who is no mere human, herself.

This was written when urban fantasy was still very new, so it has the feel of trying on a few tropes and tones for size. I don't think Farrell was the right perspective character for the book; his flippancy lends itself to a sense of distance from the story, and he has nothing to do in the crisis point but observe. He's a fun character, and very typical of Peter Beagle's heroes, but I don't think this is his story.

There are several remarkable features to this book, though, which might make it worth the read. First, the language and imagery are lovely. Very evocative. As ever, Beagle conjures images with such turns of phrases that he makes it look easy.

Second is the diversity of the cast. Julie is of Japanese descent, and there are several other nonwhite people in Farrell's social group, many of whom get speaking roles. There's also a diversity of body types. Farrell notes there are a number of larger bodies at the League, and feels no need to share his opinion about their shapes. None of them are described as stuffing their faces, desperate for attention, or ungainly and unable to walk five steps without being out of breath, as fat people are often portrayed in modern media. The most desirable woman in the book is described as being in her 60s with a big belly. It astounded me, that anyone could even get into the mind set to write that with sincerity.

I need the people writing to the trend of fat heroines to look over this book, please. This is how it's done.

As much as I loved the writing and the characters, this book never spoke to me. It felt like a meandering, slice-of-life story with magic and people playing dress-up. The narrative thread was too thin, and, as I noted above, the conclusion described what Joe Farrell saw. He had nothing to contribute at the climax, no reason to be there except as an observer. I'm a lot more interested in the story this book seemed to be setting up at the end.


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Review: Alcestis by Katharine Beutner

Alcestis by Katharine Beutner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like fairy tale and mythology retellings, in general. I've read a lot of really creative and interesting ones. I've also read a lot that detracted from the original story in its reimagining. I was hoping Alcestis was one of the former, but, unfortunately, it fell into the latter category.

The story of Alcestis in myth is one of wifely devotion. She so loved her husband that, when his death came, she volunteered to take his place. Heracles (aka Hercules, Herakles, and various combinations thereof) brought her back after three days. She spent her first three days back among the living not speaking a word. She went on to have a son and a daughter. We know nothing about the daughter, but the son fought in the Trojan War.

This book gives a new spin on the story, giving Alcestis a sister who died young, and a supreme loneliness. The elements of the story are there: Apollo's intervention in Admetus's successful wooing of Alcestis, his forgetting to sacrifice to Artemis and finding his bed full of snakes, Alcestis's giving up her life for him. Her motives in this, though, are to save herself the loss of honor thanks to his cowardice when faced with death. Love plays no part in her decision, and her gratitude for his kindness turns to disgust that he put her in this position.

The most interesting part of the story is where the author can make up events out of whole cloth. No one speaks of what happened to Alcestis in the underworld, so there's a lot of freedom in the narrative there. She falls in love with a goddess and looks for people she knows, most notably her sister, Hippothoe.

I would probably feel differently about this book if I'd bought the love story. But the courtship between Alcestis and Persephone consists of inscrutable conversations where nobody is capable of answering a direct question, and Alcestis watching her have sex with Hermes once. Persephone's seduction takes place over the course of several "you don't know the whole story about my marriage to Hermes" hooks, which pay off in the flattest and least surprising way I've ever heard that story retold. I read a sanitized children's version of the Persephone/Hades story that was more interesting than the scandalous truth Persephone teases Alcestis with. I could believe that Alcestis was infatuated and in lust with Persephone. A great love, worthy of longing and sighing after the goddess for the rest of her days? Not so much.

But then, Alcestis is sixteen years old. She calls herself a woman, and many regard her as an adult, but she has a teenager's sense of proportion.

Many aspects of the book fell flat for me, or seemed contradictory. One example of many is that Alcestis remarks she's heard about Zeus appearing as a swan to a woman. But Leda's encounter with Zeus has to come years and years after the events in this book, for Helen to be still young and beautiful when Alcestis's son is called off to besiege Troy as an old man. I suppose it could be implying that Zeus pulls this trick a lot, but it seemed like an odd detail to include, if it's not meant to evoke Leda.

And I never could wrap my mind around any of the male characters. Admetus goes to such lengths to win Alcestis's hand, but he has no room in his heart for her, because he's in love with a god. I can't tell if Hades really cares for Persephone, or if he doesn't care enough to bother arguing with her. Heracles seems terrified of Alcestis, except when he's ignoring her or acting the part of the perfect gentleman. Granted, Alcestis is the perspective character and she finds these men hard to understand, but their characterizations are inconsistent and contradictory.

I think I was supposed to feel that sense of epic sadness that comes from reading a Greek tragedy. Instead, I just felt tired at the end of this book. Another retelling that forces people through the steps because it's what they're supposed to do, with no sense these are real people living these stories. The writing isn't terrible, but I had absolutely no sense of the characters.

I listened to this book on audio, which may have colored my judgment. The narrator read in this breathless voice that sounded like she was trying to force the words out through tears. It was exhausting to listen to, and it made Alcestis sound a lot more uncertain and weaker than she's probably written. I wish I'd read a paper version, so I knew if that made any difference.


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Review: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have no idea whether I liked or hated this book. I had a visceral reaction to a lot of the elements within it, though I recognize the craft and melding of cultures that went into its production.

The story is about a fifteen-year-old boy in Japan who runs away from home. He spends most of his time in a library, staffed by a young man named Oshima, and owned by Miss Saeki. Meanwhile, Satoru Nakata, who talks to cats, kills a man calling himself Johnny Walker, who's been killing cats and eating their hearts. He, too, flees to where the boy has gone, fulfilling a quest that will restore his soul to what it once was.

The book has many dream-like elements. Considering how much time Nakata spends asleep, I was ready to believe most of Kafka's happenings were dreamt by Nakata. But, these events occur even when Nakata is awake.

It's also packed full of literary references. The boy calls himself Kafka, and the story certainly contains a lot of the surreality that author is known for. He and Oshima discuss several Japanese authors and poets. The book even seems, at times, to be a reaction to a book Kafka openly admires, contradicting the premise he praises. Kafka has also been cursed to reenact Oedipus's story, though he escapes his final fate, luckily.

Yes, that means that he sleeps with his mother. He also rapes his adopted sister. Even if it only happens in a dream, he chooses to go ahead with it even when she calls it what it is. It's as pleasant to read as you can imagine.

The book also has underpinnings in classical music and philosophy. Oshima likes to listen to a flawed piece, to see how various performers make up for it. Hoshino, who takes Nakata where he needs to go, gains an appreciation for classical music in his wanderings. As for philosophy, Oshima can't seem to speak more than three sentences without bringing up a philosophical debate.

Oshima, himself, is a fascinating character. He helps guide Kafka, and hides him from a police search. He seems wise beyond his years, and remarkably unruffled. Nothing Kafka tells him seems to surprise Oshima. But then, Oshima has hidden depths of his own. I thought that aspect was handled well, for the most part, though I would've liked to have seen it revealed without having to introduce straw feminists into the plot. I was frustrated beyond words by the assertion that men coming before women is as immutable as the order of the alphabet, and outright enraged by the statement that having no separate ladies' room isn't a problem because no one has complained. (If the library only had one bathroom in all, I rescind my outrage. But the woman who brings it up has a point that it can make women feel threatened, especially if the bathrooms are in a tucked-away corner of the library.) The eventual dismissal of all of the woman's points is inevitable, but no less irritating.

For all the book's unfathomable depth, though, the pacing could drive a person up the wall. Conversations only serve to further confuse the point. Often half of the dialogue was taken up with another character rephrasing what the first said, prefaced with, "So you're saying . . ." If these clarified anything, they would've been far less frustrating. But they mostly served to distract from the aspects of the conversation that might've illuminated the reader.

Reading Kafka on the Shore is like eating a series of increasingly disgusting insects, prepared and seasoned to taste like one's favorite dishes. It takes a lot of skill to pull off, but it's difficult to avoid that "blech" reflex. Don't expect a neat ending with all questions answered. The basic plot is wrapped up, but many of the mysteries are left as they are.

I listened to this book on audio. It's about 30 hours of listening in all, which is a big chunk of time. But the story is read by several narrators, which helps to differentiate the sections and perspectives. The British accents and pronunciations took some getting used to, but it did serve as a constant reminder that this is not an American novel.


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Review: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was the twelfth and final book in my 2013 TBR Challenge, and I'm proud to have completed the challenge in plenty of time. As I still have lots more books that I haven't read, I'll be participating in 2014, as well.

I'd been putting off The Road because Cormac McCarthy isn't known for his bright, cheery writing. When I've spoken to people who've read this, the most frequent descriptors are "depressing," "dark," and "pointless." It's certainly those two former, but I disagree about the latter. There is a point, but it's not the point one might expect.

In a post-apocalyptic landscape, a father and his young son walk what remains of an old highway, seeking warmer climes. They scavenge what they can along the way, but other survivors have beaten them to most of it. The boy wants to trust and help others, but the father explains, time and time again, that others are bad guys who want to hurt them, and shows little mercy. Whether he's right or wrong, we never learn.

The prose is extraordinarily spare, skipping even many apostrophes, and all quotation marks. It makes it hard to follow conversations, sometimes, especially because all the rest of the book goes along at a nice clip. For all its bleak outlook, the book is a quick, easy read. Though, if you're not paying attention, you may stumble over some of the language. Big, seldom-used words are sprinkled throughout.

While the story is bare-bones, where it works is as an extended metaphor. The father has a plan for himself and his son. He refuses to deviate from it, often to their detriment. He tells his son to be good-hearted and generous, but his own actions are deeply suspicious, and he defaults to violence. He sets up the notion of "good guys" and "bad guys," then defines them so narrowly that all strangers are suspect. It's only when the son is allowed to decide that he's saved from his father's path to destruction. Certainly the above could apply to a lot of children of bigoted, hateful, myopic parents.

The book serves as a character study of the father. The apocalyptic aspect, little-explored as it is, mostly serves to strip away distractions so the father's true nature comes to the forefront. He's blinded by the love of his son, who's all he has left of a world he hasn't entirely let go of. The cold, ashy landscape is all the son has ever known, though, and the father's attempts to shield the boy's innocence are simultaneously depressing and touching.

Overall, I found The Road to be neither as pointless and boring as I'd feared, nor was it worth the hype. But then, few books are.


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Review: The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman

The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was the December book for my SF book club. I might not have gotten around to it if it hadn't been. I know I wouldn't have finished it.

The Half-Made World is Western Steampunk in a world nothing like ours. As the title indicates, the world isn't even fully formed. There are two major forces battling it out for the a recently formed portion. Into this mix comes Liv Alverhuysen, a psychologist who just wants to make people better. She's come to the edge of the world to treat people hit by weapons devised by the Line, the dominant force taking over the world by building railroads to traverse it. She's kidnapped by John Creedmore, an agent of the Gun, the chaotic faction opposing the Line. She's not the main target, though. Her patient, who served as a General in a third force that was wiped out, is Creedmore's goal. The senseless old man has the secret of some weapon locked away inside his mind.

A lot of the narrative is spent on travel, and the destination isn't always clear. I felt the strongest part of the narrative is when the characters settle down in a place, even if just temporarily. When they're traveling, the narrative meanders, seemingly going nowhere. I found myself wishing those long passages had been summarized. The descriptions are creative and unique, but I didn't feel they justified the narrative space. The book made me impatient.

It didn't help that I felt no connection to the characters. I liked Liv, and any time when she affected the narrative was a high point. Unfortunately, that wasn't often. She spent most of the book being dragged around by one force or another.

Creedmore, though, is your typical swaggering antihero found in Westerns. He's careless with human lives, selfish, sleeps around, and is often just as compelled as Liv. He resists Marmion, the entity that gives him his power, but he refuses to let go of it. For all his swaggering, he's just the Gun's pawn.

Lowry is a Linesman who's also assigned with unlocking the secrets inside the General's mind, and he's just as helpless as the rest to affect the narrative. He has the Engines to order him around, and they enforce strict discipline. Failure isn't tolerated, much less even thinking about rebellion.

I might've forgiven the book's pace if I'd felt a sense of closure at the end. Instead, it sets up the next book, without ever resolving the question of what the General knew.

There are those who like the plodding narratives, the antiheroes everyone loves to hate, and not knowing whether the author even knows where they're going. I'm not one of them, though there are clearly plenty. This book is popular and well-liked.

And so, I conclude that this book simply wasn't to my taste. It wasn't poorly written, it just failed to engage me.


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Review: Divergent (Divergent #1) by Veronica Roth

Divergent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'd resisted picking this up, because I knew it couldn't possibly live up to the hype. I'd heard of it as the successor the The Hunger Games, a YA triumph, and other such hyperbolic descriptions. I wasn't tempted until my book group couldn't stop talking about it, and proposed an outing to see the movie, when it comes out. So I gave in to the hype, and gave it a chance.

It turns out my gut instinct was right. This is a pale imitation of other YA successes. I wanted to enjoy the story and characters on their own, but I kept running across logical problems with the world and its inhabitants that distracted me too much.

The world is a dystopian Chicago, where people are grouped into one of five factions: Abegnation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. No, I don't know why there are three nouns and two adjectives; the book doesn't explain. People are raised within one of the five factions, but they go to a school until they're sixteen, at which point they're tested, and they can choose which faction to belong to for the rest of their lives. If they fail the initiation or don't choose, they're Factionless, and perform the menial jobs while living in poverty. Which faction they choose decides their eventual career paths, but only after they're initiated.

Beatrice, who goes by Tris once she makes her choice, comes up in the tests as Divergent, meaning she could go to one of three factions. She chooses Dauntless, because that's the only one with an exciting initiation. I'm sure there are character-driven reasons why she makes the choice, but damned if I know what they are.

The bulk of the book is her initiation, learning to be fearless and falling in love with a boy and angsting about whether she fits in. The number of times she "finally" feels like she fits in, only to hesitate paragraphs later, gave me whiplash. While I understand her struggle on an intellectual level, on the page, it was too inconsistent. Meanwhile, she has to hide her divergence, for reasons that aren't entirely clear until the ending. Even then, if she'd been up against any other villain with any other endgame, it wouldn't have mattered.

My biggest issue with the book is Tris's passivity. Her choice to join Dauntless is the only one that makes any difference, up until the plot shows up in the last 10% of the book. While she's learning and participating in events around her, she doesn't have any impact on them until the very end. Even then, she spends more time staring dumbly at people while they kill people, or are killed for her. She does kill one person, which, after her hesitation to dispatch another (and patting herself on the back for her choice), is bizarrely inconsistent. She could've wounded that person, to the same effect, and thinks little of her choice to go for the lethal approach.

The factions, themselves, also make little sense. Very few people are born with only one trait. And, if the argument is that they learn to show that trait, then why are people allowed to cross factions when they choose? Why are kids taught at school at all, if intelligence is valued only by one faction? And it was never clear how much mixing there was between factions.

This is a debut novel, and it shows. It was like watching a play where the backstage workers all wear gold lamé and move the set pieces around in the middle of scenes. I could see things being set up for the characters, rather than the characters acting on the world around them in an organic way. The world, itself, existed the way it did because that was what was needed to justify this story.

I'm told the second book in the series helps fill in a lot of that, but I'm not impressed enough by the characterization or writing quality to give it that chance. I need the first book in a trilogy to stand on its own merit, and this one doesn't.

I listened to Divergent on audio, narrated by Emma Galvin. I have no complaints about the quality of the narration. She did fine, for what she had to work with.


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Review: Nine Princes in Amber (Chronicles of Amber #1) by Roger Zelazny

Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up the audiobook of Nine Princes in Amber because it was an Audible daily deal, and I've been meaning to read the Amber books for years. I thought it would give me a nice start.

It is, indeed, a start. It actually reads like a prequel novel: all setup, very little payoff.

The story starts with our hero waking in a hospital bed, and taking out the orderly who's come to medicate him. Using just his wits and a kind of supernatural strength, he soon confronts a doctor, steals enough money to go visit the person who's paid for his hospital stay, gets some real clothes, and goes to meet his sister.

Gradually, his memories start to return, and we finally get a name. He's called Corwin, and he's part of a magical family destined to rule Amber, the greatest city in the world. To do that, he has to depose his brother Eric, who may be the most powerful of them. He recovers his memory, finds some of his brothers, drums up an army, and makes his way toward Amber.

The method of travel to Amber is explained in excruciating detail, yet I never fully understood it. Nor did I understand what was so hard about walking the maze he uses to recover his memories. It's supposed to be so difficult that only a Prince of Amber can walk it, but its difficulty eluded me.

In the end, Corwin winds up set back even farther than where we started. The point, apparently, was to introduce the reader to Amber and its magic systems. By the end, we don't even know what magical quest Corwin will have to complete in order to go up against his brother with better odds.

The oddest thing about this book was the language. It's a curious mix of archaic language mixed with modern (for the 1970s) slang. It led to some truly excruciating exchanges among the characters.

I'll probably read the next book, mostly because these are such quick reads, and to see if it gets any better. The narrator, who read in a noir, rapid-fire patter, may have detracted from my enjoyment of this book, though I have no other complaints about his delivery. It seemed true to what was written.


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Faithful by Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan

Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stewart O'Nan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the ninth book in my 2013 TBR Pile Challenge, and the only nonfiction. I'd been meaning to read it since it came out in 2005, but I just hadn't been able to make room on my reading list until I signed up for the challenge.

Faithful is written as a series of email exchanges, diary entries, and just plain narratives of the 2004 baseball season, following the Boston Red Sox. Stephen King grew up a fan, but Stewart O'Nan came to it later in life, though he's no less avid for being a Red Sox Nation transplant. He wasn't born a Sox fan, but he got here as quick as he could.

Their sections are easy to tell apart, even without the font changes. Stewart has his superstitions, and an entire family rallying around his project, while Stephen's family is mostly grown up and his wife is spoken of little, except as a tolerant bystander. Stewart likes to relate the play-by-plays, while Stephen's passages are, more often, general musings on baseball fandom, the team itself, and his own agony as a lifelong Sox fan.

I rarely follow baseball minutiae, so a lot of the jargon went over my head. The nicknames for players, the slang or abbreviations for plays, and the references to past rivalries were all lost on me. These details certainly filled the pages and ramped up tension for a baseball season whose ending I already knew, but they weren't illuminating in the least. Had I been less of a Red Sox fan, I would've given up on this book.

I like to think I picked up a couple of things, though, and that what I picked up made me a better fan.

After all the painstaking detail and speculation of the earlier sections, the final parts about the pennant win against the hated Yankees, and then their World Series victory, seemed almost cursory. I didn't feel the excitement of the earlier chapters, and the tension seemed to have been used up. I remember I was ecstatic at the Game 4 pennant win, and my elation only grew with each subsequent victory. I felt little of that from either writer, which was disappointing. Surely they could've captured some excitement, instead of focusing most of their narrative on the tragedies at the Boston celebrations.

If you're a Boston Red Sox fan, and you understand baseball jargon, I think you'd love this book. Because I only fit one of the two criteria, I found it acceptably entertaining, if a bit dry in places.

If I ever decide to reread this, I'll make sure I read Baseball for Dummies or the equivalent, first.


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Review: Shadow and Bone (Grisha #1) by Leigh Bardugo

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'd been reading rave reviews of this book. I thought I'd learned my lesson about that by now. Apparently not. While it was a perfectly readable book, there was nothing to distinguish it from a slew of other YA paranormals.

This book was like YA Mad Libs. (Girl's name) lives in the magical land of (made-up place), where the elites can (magical thing). (Same girl's name) doesn't fit in and isn't pretty, and is in love with (boy's name). Then she finds out she's (same magical thing), only special. She's whisked off to (place name) to learn how to use (same magical thing), but it's hard and nobody likes her, except for (another boy's name). Then she's torn between (boy #1) and (boy #2).

It's pure YA paint-by-numbers. While not all YA books follow this plot, it was close enough that I felt like the variations had been pulled from a hat.

In this book, the action is set in Ravka, a fantasy version of Russia, and the girl is Alina Starkov, an orphan. She discovers she's not only a Grisha (magical user), but one who might be able to heal the rift of darkness bisecting her country. The Darkling, the most powerful Grisha in the country, is suddenly paying her special attention, while most of the others are jealous, or They Just Don't Understand Alina's Pain.

The frustrating part of the book is that most of the conflict is internal. Alina needs to figure out how to use her power, how to control it, and how to amplify it. But the answers are all a matter of her figuring things out, or conveniently remembering certain events. Outside conflict stays on the back burner for about 80% of the story, while Alina whines and tries to figure out what's wrong with her. When the plot relies on a character figuring things out, some outside impetus can help. Otherwise, the reader is often left with the distinct impression the narrator is an idiot. She's not, but I was frustrated with waiting for her to be whacked upside the head with a clue-by-four.

I listened to the book on audio, and Lauren Fortgang did a mostly acceptable job. Her Darkling sounded a little too flat for my tastes, but I suppose it was what the narrative called for. My biggest complaint is that, while she was usually able to handle most of the pronunciation, it was inconsistent, and her "typical Russian" accent sounded like Boris Badenov. If I were Russian, I would've been insulted.


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Review: Metatropolis by Jay Lake, Tobias S. Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, and Karl Schroeder

Metatropolis by Jay Lake
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a promotion on Audible, and the premise seemed halfway interesting, so I picked it up. Sadly, it shares a lot of the same problem of most anthologies: inconsistency. It had its high points and its low points, leaving it to average out to "meh."

Metatropolis is a shared-world anthology, meaning that all of the writers set their stories in a near-future dystopia they developed collaboratively. This near future is violent, corporate-owned, and clannish. The police force is run by Edgewater Corporation, and its representatives are nicknamed "Eddies." Cities are independent enclaves, scrabbling for survival, and most jobs are picked up on the equivalent of Craigslist, in a process called turking. They're fleeting, and a person may never meet his or her employer. Technology is a few steps ahead, except where people are too busy figuring out the whole survival thing to mess around with wires and shiny toys. John Scalzi provides interim narration, explaining the concept behind the anthology and introducing each story.

The first story is "In the Forests of Night," a military SF-esque tale of the fall of Cascadiaopolis. That's a crunchy granola settlement in the Cascades, and, for reasons that are never entirely clear to me, some corporation owner needs to break in. The story is told through several different perspectives, and introduces several characters. As it's a short story, this was a poor choice, and I wound up confused and annoyed. If this had been a later story, I might've been able to follow it better, but later stories seem to hinge on this city serving as a warning to the others.

"Stochasti-City" by Tobias Buckell is the second, and it takes place in Detroit. Our hero, Reginald, is turked out for a job, and it screws him over. When he goes for payback, they hire him to cripple the city without turning it into a war zone. Reginald is clever on his feet, and the patter he uses to address the reader is almost musical. It was a vast improvement over the first story, and I finally started to get a handle on the world. The message in the story is rather anvilicious, though; they didn't need Reginald to agree with their message to agree to work with them, so why all the persuading?

"The Red in the Sky is Our Blood" by Elizabeth Bear is also set in Detroit, perhaps a few months after the events of the previous story. We see its marks in the city Katy, our no-nonsense narrator, rides her bike around. She gets an offer of employment, too, but her instinct is to run from these well-organized idealists, who may be just trying to trap her for her Russian Mob ex-husband. Her caution is understandable, and her exhaustion at being alone in such a harsh landscape is palpable.

"Utere Nihil non Extra Quiritationem Sui" ("Use everything but the squeal") is John Scalzi's offering, and it's a third strong point in an anthology that had so much potential. He tells of regular city life in New St. Louis (same as the old St. Louis, but for some energy conservation and socialist values). The story is told through the eyes of a young man getting his first job, and getting himself tangled up in an attempted insurrection. Benjamin starts off as a jerk, as the narrative points out to us, but his breezy attitude is easy to latch onto, and he's certainly more likable than the guy kidnapping the girl he likes.

The last story is "To Hie from Far Cilinea" by Karl Schroeder, which involves augmented reality, 3D games, the next generation of Google Glasses, and radioactive material, on top of the above trappings. It adds layers of complexity to a world that's already alien, and I felt like the author was doing it just to mess with me. The story is told through Gennady Malianov, a Ukranian agent who retrieves radioactive material. This job involves going through several layers of augmented reality, and we find out he's nearly crippled by social phobia, a factoid that may have been there to make Gennady more sympathetic, but that doesn't go anywhere. The ploy doesn't work, and I'm left swamped with bizarre details about an esoteric world, navigated by someone I don't particularly like. At least it was over quickly.

If all of the stories had been as strong as the first three, this would've earned a much higher rating. As the two others bookended this anthology (and Scalzi rhapsodized about how much I'd love Schroeder's world-building in his commentary), it gets a "meh."

The anthology is narrated by John Scalzi, with five different narrators for the five different stories. It worked well, and all the narrators knew what they were doing. I have no complaints about the audio quality.


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Review: A Death at Pemberley by P.D. James

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've been branching out to some of the Austen pastiches lately, now that I've read all of the novels published during Jane Austen's lifetime. I'd heard some of them were really good, and this one is often listed as one of the books worth reading. I'm sad to say, I felt like it didn't add a whole lot to the world or characters, though it was plausible enough.

Five years after the events of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are preparing to hold a ball when Lydia shows up, distraught that her husband has run off into the woods chasing his old friend, Denny, and they heard gunshots. Lydia is prone to melodrama, but, it turns out, her panic is justified. Denny has been killed by blunt force trauma, and Wickham seems to confess to his murder, except that he's very drunk and upset.

The book goes through the initial investigation, the trial, and the murderer's confession. The matter is far more complicated than it appears, and of course Wickham isn't entirely blameless in the way things play out. He's learned very little in the last five years, and grown up not at all.

The story references characters from many of Jane Austen's novels, not just Pride and Prejudice. The Elliotts are mentioned, as is Emma's good friend Harriet. There may be other crossovers, as well, but those are the ones I recognized.

The book has a lot of details not included in most of Austen's work. There's a lot of discussion of servants and what keeps Elizabeth busy from day to day. The investigation and trial are certainly matters Austen never dealt with, and war and drunkenness are discussed more openly. We get some insight into Darcy's internal life, and the upbringing of his and Elizabeth's children is discussed in passing.

Mostly, though, the story seems like a pointless inclusion, adding nothing to the Austen oeuvre. Nor is it much of a mystery novel; the characters do very little investigation of the matter, and the confession falls into their laps without any intervention on their part. The story, itself, felt uneven and badly paced, and I kept getting jarred out of the story with its sudden leaps.

If you're a Jane Austen fan, unless you're a diehard who'll pick up everything associated with her name, you might want to give this one a pass. I didn't feel like this was a particularly strong related work.


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Review: Among Others by Jo Walton

Among Others by Jo Walton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I decided to pick this book up because it won the Hugo for Best Novel, and I'd heard good things about it. In the end, I was left with an unflattering opinion of the entire award process. I can see why a lot of Hugo voters might have liked this story, but I don't think it was the best SF book to come out during the eligibility period.

The book is a series of diary entries written by Morwenna (Mori) Phelps between September 1979 and February 1980, with a brief stop in 1975. She has an injury that makes it difficult to walk, and she has a twin sister who died in some tragedy she doesn't specify until much later in the book, except that she blames her mother for it. Mori is Welsh, and the bulk of the narrative takes place in England, where she feels out of place and lonely.

When the story opens, Mori has run away from her mother, and is living with the father she never knew. His half-sisters send her away to an all-girls' boarding school, where she befriends the librarian and feels even more alone and bemoans the lack of privacy.

Mori can do magic and sees fairies, an ability she says most children grow out of. She says her mother wanted to use magic to grab power for herself, and vows never to become like her. To that end, she decides she won't use magic, except to protect against her mother.

The mother remains a shadowy figure for most of the book. She sends Mori some letters, and pictures of the twins with Mori's image burned out of them. Mori frets about her mother finding her, but the mother's presence is barely felt within the narrative. The bulk of the story is about Mori finding an SF book club at the library, making friends with the members, finding a cute boyfriend with a bad reputation, having awkward conversations with her father, who she calls by his given name, visiting Wales, and, mostly, reading SF books that were current to the late 1970s. Her comments may have been relatable to someone who's read all those books, but I was either mystified, or I didn't agree. I violently dislike Heinlein, so to hear her going on at length about what genius he is rankled, and I honestly don't think Tolkien was the literary god Mori posits him as.

Honestly, it wasn't a bad book, and I might've given it four stars, if not for all the acclaim. But I felt it was transparently pandering to a certain audience, and I was not that audience. If you grew up during that same time period and worship Heinlein and Tolkien, you'll probably like this book a lot more than I did. I just don't think the resonance with that certain audience makes this book worthy of one of the highest genre awards.

I listened to this book on audio, and I happened to listen to it with someone with a better ear for accents than mine. She pointed out how awful the Welsh accent was, and then I couldn't unhear it. The narrator's British accents were fine, but the Welsh was obnoxious and overdone. I recommend a paper copy, unless your ear for accents even worse than mine.


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Review: Zorro and the Pirate Raiders by Johnston McCulley

Zorro and the Pirate Raiders: A Radio Dramatization by Johnston McCulley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Of all the Zorro dramatizations I've listened to, this is the weakest. Not because of the acting, but because of the story. This story is a mess.

In this installment of Zorro's adventures, Diego de la Vega is all set to marry the pretty Lolita Pulido when pirates raid their wealthy little pueblo. They've been sent by Captain Ramon, the sleazy governor's man who didn't learn his lesson the last time he lost to Zorro. The pirates kidnap Lolita, Don Diego's friends go after them, and Zorro sneaks aboard the ship to comfort Lolita and to make the pirates think the ship is haunted.

Zorro is captured three times within this story, convinces everyone he died twice, and dashes all over the countryside (and the ocean) in pursuit of the pirates. Lolita, meanwhile, manages to get her hands on two different daggers while she's in captivity, proving she's far more useful captive than her dear Zorro.

Captain Ramon's plans might've worked in this episode. The pirates far outnumber the police force and the citizen's brigade, and they're bloodthirsty, at that. But Ramon gets in his own way as often as he plots and plans. In the end, the plan collapses under its own weight as much as by Zorro's intervention.

I listened to this story on audio, acted out by The Colonial Radio Players. They always do a fine job with these roles. They're clear and understandable, despite their accents, and people sound distinct enough to keep them apart. The audio dramatizations are a really fun way of taking these stories in.


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Review: Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer trilogy #1) by Robin Hobb

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I decided to try out Calico's Dares with this book. Once again, I'm left wondering what's wrong with me, that I dislike a book other people are gushing with praise over.

Assassin's Apprentice follows a Prince's bastard (through first-person perspective, no less) through his first decade or so of life in a fantasy world. Magic is a talent that mostly royalty and the upper classes possess. If the lower classes have it, it's shameful and something to be avoided or feared.

Fitz, as the narrative calls him (we learn about halfway through that his full name is FitzChivalry Farseer) comes to the king's keep when he's six. He doesn't remember his life before then. He's handed over to the care of his supposed father's servant and carer of horses, hounds, and hawks, Burrich. Though the resemblance between Fitz and Prince Chivalry is unmistakable, no one dares legitimize it. And Fitz grows up, learns to read and to poison people, tries to learn magic and fails, makes friends and loses them, and deals with political machinations.

The world is extremely well-developed. I got the feeling there's a lot more going on in the world than in Fitz's small corner of it. The fantasy elements weren't merely plugged in to serve as fantasy backdrop. It really felt like an organic world that could've evolved in tandem with its magical elements.

Unfortunately, very little is left to implication or hints in the worldbuilding. Fitz's scope of knowledge is too grand, and he crams that all into his story. He's often privy to conversations that make no sense to him, but that he recounts word for word, nonetheless. They turn out to have strong portents later, or they serve to fill in information he doesn't know, but it dragged the story down. I could've done with a lot more summarizing and glossing over.

The book is very light on the action. There are precisely two events with any narrative tension in them, and, for the first, I couldn't understand what the big hurry was, or what he was supposed to do when he got there. It serves to later help him make it home safely from some silly test, but, other than that, I was mystified as to its inclusion.

Had the majority of the book been taken up by the journey to the mountains, I think I would've enjoyed it a lot more. I liked the society we found there, especially the royal family, and I felt like the book finally came alive then. But, that was a small portion of the overall story.

Mostly, this book felt like it was building up to the rest of the story. I do understand that this is the first book in a trilogy, but it failed to draw me in to the rest of the story. It felt too much like we were being held back just so we wouldn't get to the interesting part yet that it sucked all the tension out. I wanted to be done with reading this book, and not because I cared what happened.

I listened to this book on audio, narrated by Paul Boehmer. He also narrated The Way of Shadows, another book about a fantasy assassin I didn't much care for, which may have colored my perception of this book. I had no complaints about his reading, though his pace often felt plodding. I couldn't tell you if that was because of the narrative or if he was reading too slowly.


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Review: Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women by Nancy Madore

Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories For Women by Nancy Madore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a collection of fairy tales with an erotic spin. The author states in the foreword that she deliberately framed them as common female fantasies, which sets it apart somewhat from other such collections. Overall, it has hits and misses, and is ultimately repetitive and forgettable.

"Beauty and the Beast" posits that Beauty prefers the Beast to his human form, because the Beast is more enthusiastic and well-hung. (It also contains the cringe-worthy, "It's not going to fit!" nonsense.)

"Bluebeard" has a room full of S&M delights, and the wife is punished for her curiosity, but not with her life. The BDSM is actually rather tame.

"Cat and Mouse" has the two protagonists competing in a series of contests, with the final stakes being that Mouse has to marry Cat if she begs him to have sex with her. Many other readers have singled this out as their favorite, but I was rolling my eyes too hard to enjoy it.

"Cinderella" catches up with the princess after she's married, and the fairy godmother has given her magical sneakers that motivate her to pursue what she wants instead of sitting passively by.

"East of the Sun and West of the Moon" seemed the most seamless of the tales; I couldn't remember why the hero of the story had to work so hard to hide himself, if he wasn't sleeping with the heroine. The premise of her working her way through a room of 100 suitors to find her true love was an intriguing one, too.

I was glad "Goldilocks and the Three Barons" changed the species of the homeowners Goldilocks breaks in on, and the story just begged for another too hard/too soft/just right line. It was a creative take.

"Mirror on the Wall" is the first of two Snow White adaptations, this one with the premise there's a spell on the land that makes only artificial beauty seem attractive. Unfortunately, there's a level of detachment in the story that made it difficult to connect to the characters.

"Mrs. Fox" is about a pair of wives who plot to trick their husbands and swap for one night, and they wind up valuing their own husbands all the more for it (though they also have fun).

"Snow White in the Woods" is the second Snow White tale, and this one has the seven dwarfs transformed into princes with a kiss. Snow White can't choose between them, so they don't make her choose.

"The Empress's New Clothes" involves an exhibitionist empress and her clever husband, who commissions a device to allow her to show off all she likes without risking her political career.

"The Goose Girl" changes the relationship between the princess and the maid so that they're in love with one another, and the maid repents for her betrayal by the end of the story. It's a very different kind of happily ever after, and I think it was an improvement over the original tale.

"The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing" has a woman dressing up as a prostitute for her husband, and being treated accordingly. This is the weakest story in the collection, both for the wife's musings about the role of women in society, and the impassive narration.

"The Ugly Duckling" is the least erotic of the stories in the collection, but one of the most enjoyable. Instead of growing into a beautiful swan, the ugly duckling finds a husband who loves her, and winds up happier than the sisters who set out to exploit their beauty.

While the collection does have its high points, I found it overall repetitive, with little variations in the sex scenes. It's entertaining enough, but I can't see myself rereading it.


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