One Million Nightingales by Susan Straight

I've read some of her early works and her style of writing made me crazy. I don't know the name of the style nor can I point to another writer and say, like that. I've read that style before and didn't care for it.

I know she's got a descriptive voice, I've read articles by her and like them. It's just her poetic style in a full length book never hit me in such a way that I could sit down for hours and read.

I picked this up because in a B & N trip we saw Linda D and she highly recommended it to me. When I said hmmmmmm, I'm not a big fan of her style. She asked why and I hemmed and hawed about the above. Man, I hate it when I can't really put my finger on something and my description is so vague. (which is one of the reasons I am not a writer. The other is my innocuous, incessent wordiness).

Linda loved it, although admitted she'd read some reviews about the style of writing that weren't negative per se but not exactly glowing either. She said she liked it so well, that she felt I would too and would even go as far as giving me my money back if I didn't like it.

How can you beat a deal like that? Bookseller giving your money back after you read the book?

All that said (whew) I liked it a lot. A whole lot. The style still made me crazy but the story was soooo good that I let that go (most of the time).

Moinette is born into slavery, a mulatto. Her mother is African and both are living on a cane plantation near New Orleans. Moinette is sold as a young teen leaving her mother behind without word, the sale happened so fast.

It is a story of her life, her thoughts, the always present thought of her mother. Yes, it's filled with hardship, rape, family and sometimes the kindness of strangers.

It has the strength of The Color Purple in all of it's characters and their lives. This isn't a sensationalism book, sometimes I find books of slavery (amongst other kinds of themes) to be more about race/bigotry than the human condition.

So yeah, read this one.

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk

If you've read Fight CLub you know Palahniuk will deliver a twisted, dark tale. And Diary delivers although it very much reminded me of Stephen King. Older King stuff. I was expecting angry, edgy but not horror ala King.

This is ultimately a horror book with a mystical supernatural ambience.

Misty is a failed artist. She was an art student and met her quirky (rhinestone brooches pinned on his sweater was also pinned thru his nipple in the name of art) boyfriend, Peter who eventually became her husband.

Misty came from trailer trash, she imagined in her art to be of the class where money was no object. To live in a old money family, be the perfect family, life is easy and full of fabulously oppulent furniture, porches and beaches. Peter came from old money and eventually they moved to the island where old money is a scent wafting on the ocean breeze. They had a baby.

The book opens with a commentary about facial muscules. It eventually becomes clear that Misty is bitterly writing a diary to Peter. Peter tried to commit suicide but before he did he vandelized many of his construction job sites. Each house where he did construction had a room or a closet closed off to hide his crazy, scrawling graffitti. Graffitti that seemed to display his increasing frustration, anger and disinfranchisement.

As Misty sinks into her own depression and drinks to excess her daughter and mother in law urge her to paint. Go back to painting. Soon many of the island residents are making small comments to her about painting.

Unfortunate things happen to Misty and she is finally confined to bed because of a broken leg. Her confinement becomes more intense as she is imprisioned in her room.

The rest of the story becomes supernatural, it turns into a creepy horror story complete with horror story ending. I'm not going to outline it here so to find out you'll have to read the book.

I liked it but I prefer Fight Club as a tale.

Martha Wells

Last Sunday I picked up Martha Well's book: Wizard Hunters. Read it right after Fitzpatricks War.

A+ for characters, plot, adventure. A fantasy book with elements of sci-fi in it. A large scale war is happening in a world where wizards are respected and part of the defense effort. The attackers have their own kind of magic, making their huge airships (much like a dirgible) pop into existance. They can also detect magic being worked much to the dismay of the wizards and people of the world being attacked.

The heroine, Tremaine is accidently called into service because her father (who is missing) had developed a sphere that could do magical spells in the hands of wizards. The wizards are trying to create spheres that do the same but so far all have failed (and killed the wizards who were trying to create new spheres). The heroine has the original prototype and is asked to bring it into the Institute.

She does and is accidently/on purpose transported along with some others to another land thru a etheric gate. They discover some natives on the island, really the natives discover them by saving them from the enemy (the Gardiers). With no language in common they find common ground in understanding the enemy and each trying to find missing persons of each group.

Amongst the regular enemy, there are societial issues to overcome. The natives believe magic is evil despite having wizards amongst their own people. Cavorting with wizards is a way to get yourself killed or marked as one who has been cursed. Unfortunately they see everything of technology (electric lights, guns, modern materials) as magical and cursed. It's a bit of a struggle for Tremaine and her friends to get Illias and Giliead to trust them with their knowledge of technology, not to mention some of their party are wizards.

Chaos ensues. :-)

I finished this book pretty quickly and ran to Borders yesterday to get the next book: The Air Ships. By this time the natives Illias and Dilliead and the people from Il-Rien have (mostly) gotten used to each other and have an uneasy truce regarding magic. Now they've got to get Illias/Giliead's people to accept help from Tremaine and company and become allies. More adventure, interesting matriarchial society and patrichial society clashes, multiple worlds overlaid one another, a long sea voyage, missing people pop up in the strangest places and more chaos ensues.

So I finished that book. I had to check the marthawells.com website to find out when the 3rd and last book comes out. I guess I have to wait til July 25th. Bummer.

BUT, the good thing is there are 4 books previous to this series theat deals with the same world, some of the same characters but they take place prior to this time. Must go find them!

Fitzpatricks War by Theodore Judson

Brilliant. Not only the storyline and characters but the author. Sci fi is so often formula: Set in the future, some fantastic world with futuristic weapons, a misfit hero who conquers all despite himself.

The book is a book within itself. The author, a professor (Van Buren) who is commenting on a document written by a intimate (Bruce) of a man (Fitzpatrick) who conquered the world in 4 yrs. The professors book is published some 20 yrs after the death of Bruce.

The world of the future looks very different than today. Todays age is called the Electronics Age and electronics is no longer a force in the world. The world now is run by steam. The mores, dress and lifestyle has reverted back to Victorian/Edwardian times. It's over 300 years in the future and the world no longer remembers countries, states, etc of our times. The prose is Victorian/Edwardian which at first I thought would grate on me but it did not.

This is Bruces story of how he rose from a lowly born commoner, went to a military school and was risen into the ranks of noblity students by Fitzpatrick. From then on he lived a charmed military life, although he continued to question his character as he continued to accept favors from Fitzpatrick. Bruce is a man of morals, of honesty and he finds it increasely difficult to particpate in Fitzpatricks rise to ruler. Yet he does.

There are many groups vying for power, a huge political machine that spans decades in the making of a despot or two. Fitzpatrick is seduced by power (guided at first by his mother) & becomes more and more corupt and paranoid as his posse of military men fawn around him, including Bruce. Fitzpatrick has a Swengali like personality for these men and later the world. History, with a captial H is what rules the population. The conspiracy of Fitzpatricks age is guided by a larger conspiracy, the Timerman. The History of the Timerman is secret, they appear in the book early, are absent in the middle and return at the end.

His wife, who is picked for him quite early is a headstrong woman of lowly birth. She is (according to the professor) his bad influence, as Bruce loves his wife and children and she is always his voice of concience.

Bruce paints an ugly picture of Fitzpatrick, who the public believes is a hero. The Professor has a multitude of footnotes discounting Bruces memory and basically refutes much of Bruces testimony. Constant is references to Gerald who has written the definitive book on the age of Fitzpatrick; a book of heroics and upstanding morales.

The book is quite detailed in it's portrayal of locations all over the world, of the native peoples and of war: strategy and tactics. His love of History is evident on every page.

If you want a complex, detailed futuristic book, this is a great one to read.

An Ordinary Man : An Autobiography by Paul Rusesabagina & Tom Zoellner

6/12/06: I started this book last night right after I finished the last McKenna book. I got about 1/3 of the way thru.

I thought it might take me a little longer to read (than say, a sci-fi or fantasy book I devour). But so far it's an easy read and I'll finish it way before Book Club.

There is a bit of history that must be explained and it's done with what I imagine a different voice than how I picture Paul. It doesn't take a way from the book, it's just a little jarring from what I imagine. It is necessary.

I am comparing it to the movie, even tho it would be better not to...but alas, I've seen the movie so I can't really separate the two.

I'll complete this when I complete the book.

6/16/06: I took a week off from reading this book. The original pub date of this post was the 11th. I changed it to today to allow it to float up to the top of the posts.

Understanding the political climate gives greater understanding to how the genocide happened and Paul's writing is easy to understand and matter of fact. What's lost in the book is the vivid descriptions of the horror. It was pretty easy for me to read that people were hacked apart by machete and that shouldn't be easy for me to read or digest. I know the book isn't focusing on the bloodshed but rather the ways simple humans can get around the monster machine but there would have been more impact had he given more human faces to some of the people in the hotel. I know they all have stories, very similar I'm sure yet it's thru the human thread that I'd be able to connect more solidly.

The movie was better at doing that, even tho it was mostly thru the eyes of his family. The film was fairly clean of blood and guts and I find thats the most horrifying of the media today. We are so protected by the site of blood, guts, dead bodies that we don't get it. Everything is so cleaned up for us, I assume so we, the public will allow our own war to be fought without rising up.

I am glad I bought the book, the reason is to allow Paul and his family to survive in comfort for the rest of their lives. That he is a voice that, by the grace of God, is heard helps a little bit in the struggle for peace. If we'd only remember.

That said, the movie is pretty true to Pauls story and is probably more accessible. This would be a good book for HS kids, along with the movie. All told it took me about 4 hours to read the entire book.

Elantis by Brandon Sanderson

I had high hopes for this one. Lots of great comments from fantasy writers in the first few pages of the book.

I didn't like it tho. It has a great premise and I did like the first few chapters. 2 cities, one a normal city, the other a shining, glowing city filled with beautiful glowing beings that could heal, create about anything with a wave of their hand. But 10 years previous something happened and all the shining beings turned into the living dead. They aren't really dead but they are. No heartbeat, they don't die exactly but any injury causes them great pain and suffering. They don't need to eat but a great hunger gnaws at them. Normal citizens from the other city sometimes turn into these living dead and are basically tossed into the dead city to fend for themselves, no longer welcome in the other city.

The hero quickly turns into one of the living dead and begins to learn about his new city. The heroine is his new bride that has never met him but nonetheless is still married to him and is now a widow.

She is saavy beyond all measure and what made me detest the book was all the characters saw transitions in a paragraph or two and the author HAD to explain it to the reader. Which imo, assumes the reader is too stupid to figure it out himself. Or herself in my case. The mysteries of the Elantis people were figured out in a snap and then it was explained directly to another character.

Not only is there a mystery to the city of Elantris but there is also a religous war on their doorstep and because the city is only 10 yrs in the making the ruling class (of which the hero is the crown prince and the heroine the newly made princess of this country) is still finding it's feet. The ruling class used to be the merchants, how they were ruled prevous to the the fall of Elantris I can't remember. So there are monarchs to be disposed of, and financial (read: nobility) alliances to be made.

The time line is gawdawful, all of this takes place in less than 3 months. The religous group is cult-like and eventually the leading priest is overcome by some fantastical superhuman religous super priest of the same religion but a different sect. THis bothers the first priest and he finds salvation by helping the hero and heroine.

I was surprised by the reviews on Amazone, I took a look at them after I finished the book. It gets a 4.7 overall rating. I'd give it a 2.5. Only because the dialog was sooooo juvenile.

Don't bother - it's 656 pages of ambitious work but too simplistic in it's delivery.

Juliet E McKenna: the other 4 books

It's rare for me to find a whole series that I haven't read. This one was great. I went out and got the other 4 books (books 2 thru 5) and finished the last one last night.

What I loved about this series was that it was serial but not. Characters were introduced either by name or deed in each book, yet not all characters Played a role in each book. The second book has Chosen man Ryshad turning into a romantic partner. Book 3 has Ryshad in one city doing his thing while Livak goes adventuring in the mountains with her old partners (only briefly mentioned in book 1 & 2) and some of the mages but not all of them from book 1. Book 4 is mostly about Ryshad and what he did while Livak was in the mountains in book 3. Book 5 has many of them coming back together. Each book is roughly 500 pages so it's a chunky read reading all of them back to back. yay.

The main thread thru all the books is learning how to deal with 2 kinds of magic. One is earth magic, the other is more aetheric. They don't work the same, there are warring factions who use one or the other type of magic. How do they overcome not being able to fight fire with fire? There are 4 different kinds of people (more actually but some are legend) and they all have their different rules around using the magic. There are social, financial and moral threads to the stories.

In any case, I liked the series. Now I'm about to go out and find the other series she has on the shelf.
Tales of Einarinn
1. The Thief's Gamble (1999)
2. The Swordsman's Oath (1999)
3. The Gambler's Fortune (2000)
4. The Warrior's Bond (2001)
5. The Assassin's Edge (2002)