January Books: Summary and Reviews

As previously mentioned, this year I'm doing the "52 Books in 52 Weeks" challenge with the lovely people on my internet-drug-of-choice Ravelry. I don't think any elaboration as to what it's all about it called for - the title of of the group is pretty self explanatory.

I didn't do a lot of reading in January, considering that I'm on holiday and (theoretically) have a lot of time on my hands. Though then again, perhaps it makes sense - I haven't been commuting very much, and that was when I used to get a lot of my reading done. At any rate, while it didn't feel like I spent a lot of time reading, I'm still very much on track as far as the target goes.

January's Books:

1. Assassin's Quest, Robin Hobb.
2. The Black Company, Glen Cook
3. Shadows Linger, Glen Cook
4. The White Rose, Glen Cook
5. Threshold, Sara Douglass

Why yes, I am a tragic fantasy nerd. Thank you for asking!

Assassins Quest: First off, the context: this is the final book in the Farseer Trilogy. I'd read the previous two while travelling around Europe, so only had the final one to knock off in the New Year. This was a re-read too - I've read these books twice before. That said, it probably won't come as much of a surprise when I say that I love this series quite, quite madly. I don't go in for picking favourites, but they would definitely feature on any 'top 5' list that I were forced to concoct. Hands down one of my all-time favourite fantasy series.

This is probably the point where I should explain why I love this book and its fellows so much (shouldn't be too difficult since I'm always trying to convince everyone I know to read them - I was doing in last night in fact). The books have a lot of strengths, but I think that the standout for me is the characterisation. This has to have been one of the first series I read where (dare I risk falling forever into the dark pit of into ten-year-old lingo) I actually liked the protagonists and wanted "the bad guys" to "lose". I have to admit, when I read a lot of books it's actually the reverse that I'm feeling - especially within the fantasy genre, where all too often the 'hero' characters are either one-dimensional or fleshed out in such a cliched way that it makes me want to roll my eyes five times per chapter. Not the case here. When I read this book for the first time I learned to love the characters dearly, and that hasn't changed on rereading.

The plot is excellent as well - it doesn't read like somebody's Dungeons and Dragons game, for a start. It manages to develop in a way that is intriguing without becoming hopelessly convoluted as too many books in the genre tend to do (I hate having to constantly flick back several chapters as I read just to refresh my memory as to who this person was, or what happened in this particular place, etc). It's well paced, goes on for just the right length, and comes to a satisfying conclusion.

I'm not going to sit down and give a number/star rating for the books I read this year, nor do I think I'd even be capable of such a thing. It's just going to come down to whether or not I would recommend them. In this case: a thousand times 'yes'. If you like fantasy, you should read these books (as long as you don't mind them raising your standards much higher from that point onwards), and if you're one of the people who rolls their eyes at the genre and thinks that it's all about elves, magic swords, fireballs and poor writing (you know who you are), you should read these books to see just how wrong that opinion can be. Okay, I'm going to shut up now.

The Black Company series: These three books are the first part of an ongoing series - plucked randomly off the bookshop shelves on a whim just before I headed off on holidays. I do not normally do this. Though it might sound odd coming out of the mouth of someone who in fact owns hundreds of books, I'm enough of a broke student that I don't tend to buy books when I haven't read anything by the author before - or at least not unless they come highly recommended by someone whose opinion I trust. That's what libraries are for - and if I really like a book, often I'll buy it after having read the library copy. Anyway, I bucked the trend for these books, and I'm glad that I did, because I enjoyed them quite a lot.

The plot basically follows a mercenary army, and I found it refreshing because like the previous book discussed, it breaks out of the fantasy mould quite a lot, albeit more through the characters and the way that the story is told than through the actual plot. The banter and other interaction between the characters was what made this one for me - it was a pleasure to read, and felt a lot more realistic than in other books. I found myself feeling affection more for the ways that the characters interacted with each other than for who they actually were - that sounds like a criticism but it isn't.

The plot was good too - it kept me and my short attention span reading, and that's saying something. Speaking of said attention span: it appreciated the way that the chapters of the last two books were quite short. In general really, these books do not waste time. Things happen and they happen quickly, with not a lot of dawdling around in between, so if you're into action, these are great. I also got a laugh out of the way that the author tackled the issue of morality in the story (through the main character's musings on the topic) without getting too bogged down and preachy about it. I also loved the weird, deadpan humour.

In summary: I'd definitely recommend this one, though not to everyone - it's probably somewhat of an acquired taste, due to its style, sense of humour and at times somewhat "blokey" nature. It was right down my alley, though.

Threshold: I just finished this one this morning (yes, I know that it's February now, but I started it in January so I'm counting it here), so it's still fresh in my mind, and because of that, I'll probably go on for longer than I should about it. I should probably start off by saying that of all of the books I read last month, I got through this one far and away the fastest, even though it was not the shortest, and I didn't have any more time on my hands than I had when I read the others. I had less in fact. But that's the kind of writer that Sara Douglass (another one of my all time favourite fantasy writers) is: her books are totally compulsive. Perfect binge reading fodder. I have an incredibly short attention span at times, yet I simply cannot put her books down.

There's a bit of a story behind this one actually. Without getting too bogged down into the rest of the author's books, the plots of Threshold, Beyond the Hanging Wall (another stand-alone book), and two of her other trilogies, all form the origin of the series that she is working on at the moment (does that sentence make grammatical sense? Don't ask me!). I had read all of the other books, and indeed also what had been written of the current series, but I had never read Threshold. I'd passed it a few times in the library, flicked my eyes over the blurb and felt a bit ambivalent about it. Another time I was tossing up between it and Beyond the Hanging Wall - I went with the latter because I thought it sounded more interesting. Last year I was in the bookshop and I must have felt wealthy, since I decided to invest in a copy, figuring I'd get to it eventually. And then it sat on my shelf for a few months while I read other things. But a few days ago I finally picked it up, thinking that it was finally time. Threshold and Anna - together at last. I have to say I loved it.

The thing that I like so much about Sara Douglass' books, aside from their aforementioned addictiveness, is that they're so easy to read in every other sense of the word as well. I don't want to say that they're simplistic, because plot-wise they aren't, but it almost feels as if they are because they're written so clearly. You don't need to puzzle over what the hell is going on, or struggle to recall the relevance of some earlier event/person to which the author keeps alluding: everything makes sense at the right time, there's no confusion, and you can just sit back and enjoy watching the story pan out in front of you. I guess if you like demanding books this might not be quite your cup of tea, but it works for me. This was pure and simple and vivid and wonderful, with no wasted words.

The characterisation was good too. I wasn't head-over-heels thrilled with the main character (that's not to say I didn't like her - I just didn't adore her madly), but I liked all the others. I found some of the character development a little abrupt in some ways, but that's probably because I've just come off the back of reading a bunch of trilogies, where the writers have had three books to drag these things out torturously slowly. It didn't bother me too much, anyway - even if the characters weren't as complex as some I'd encountered lately, I liked them better anyway, so it didn't matter!

Lastly, I very much enjoyed reading a satisfying stand-alone fantasy book. It had definitely been a while. Sometimes I tend to veer away from them because I find them so unsatisfying, in terms of both plot and character, but this was definitely not the case here. I got everything I needed from a story, but in one book instead of three, four, six, etc. Lovely. Only problem is that now I want to reread all of her other related books again, which is going to make the rest of this challenge a little repetitive for all those watching at home... Oh well...

Would I recommend it? Short answer: yes. Once again, it might not be everyone's cup of tea, especially if you like your books intellectually taxing, or if you tend to go in for multi-book series. And it wasn't particularly revolutionary in a lot of ways. But I found everything I want in entertainment right here - no question.

Incidentally, the only down side to all of this is that after finishing the book I remembered that I hadn't checked in at the author's website in a while. I did so, and found out that she's spent the last few months fighting ovarian cancer (at which point I spent a few moments feeling thoroughly guilty that I hadn't read the site earlier - man, but the internet does weird things to your conscience). Now I'm having to sit very firmly on my hands to curb the overwhelming impulse of my not-so-inner obsessive knitter to make her a hat. Because that's a normal reaction upon finding out that someone you greatly admire is ill...

And now I'm definitely going to shut up. Jeez - this post is enormous! I had been intending to do a monthly review of the books I was reading, but looking over this I'm now thinking that perhaps fornightly might make for more managable blog posts! Oh, and yes, I know that the reviews here are all positive. No, it isn't odd. Is it so weird that I pick books that I think I'll like? Don't worry - I definitely don't like everything that I read. Hopefully there'll be a scathing review at some point in the future...

Crossing Genres Assignment #2

And here's the second installment (see last entry for the explanatory whatnot):
Disclaimer: it's a little longer, and I use a couple of naughty words in it *gasp*

Morning Tea:

I woke up, and wondered why I was awake already. Oh yes, that odd tension again – I knew from instinct alone, even before memory kicked in, that today was a day when I would be ordered to do things. Not just things, but Things. Of the immoral, illegal, and usually somewhat messy kind. The Supervisor was coming to see me, and he was coming today. To give me my details of my mission. Shit – where had the last week gone?

I rolled out of bed none too gracefully, and was greeted yet again by the view of the Riverview Hotel that my window afforded. I’d be stationed in this flat for the last three weeks, watching and waiting for more information. I had suspicions of course, as to why I was there – I knew very well who was scheduled to stay there in the next few days, and there’s no such things as coincidences that huge. Not in my line of work. I knew full well what it was that I was going to be asked to do – I just wasn’t willing to admit it to myself. If I thought too hard about it, then I’d be too scared to move. This was my first major job.

But no point in letting thoughts stray down that path. The Supervisor first. I had to get ready for the Supervisor. Bugger me but I should have kept this place cleaner, I thought as I hastily picked up dirty clothes from the floor and sent them arcing across the room into the laundry basket. Some of Michael’s discarded underwear revealed themselves in the process. Whoops. Glad I found those – the Supervisor has never approved of mixing business with pleasure, but with Michael stationed only two floors below and the tedious but tense boredom of the last few weeks, well, these things happen. Still, clumsily dealt with. And what kind of person in our profession forgets their underwear? After stacking up the scattered books, I tugged the bed-sheets into some semblance of neatness. Right, bedroom fixed.

I stumbled out into the main room of the tiny flat. Thankfully there wasn’t that much to clean up here – the bedroom had been my chief headquarters for time killing, and of course the only way to keep up my watch of the hotel entrance was the window there, so the living room had been mainly neglected. I don’t think that the television had been on once in the entire time that I’d been here. A quick straightening of the couch cushions would about do it. Now, onto the kitchen.

The kitchen itself was neat enough – I think that every on-duty assassin must live on a diet consisting mainly of takeaway meals and breakfast cereal, because heaven knows that there’s not much time to spend cooking – but it wasn’t the cleanliness that I was concerned with. It was the contents of the fridge. The Supervisor’s love of routine was legendary throughout the whole organization. If the old bloke was deprived of his morning tea and biscuits, then things could turn unpleasant, and I didn’t sit in this hole for the last three weeks, twiddling my thumbs, only to be dropped from the job now. White with one sugar was how the tea had to be. In a scrupulously clean cup - I recalled in time to give the waiting porcelain receptacles a bit of extra attention. Three biscuits, and ‘none of that sprinkled, chocolate chip kiddy bullshit’, if I recalled correctly from a co-worker’s recounting of a past dressing down. That was fine - I had some perfectly sober looking shortbread. The Supervisor’s tastes were austere. I’m surprised he even took milk and sugar in his tea.

I opened the fridge. Shit. There was no milk. I looked again. Still no milk. Double shit. I closed the fridge and rocked back on my heels. I looked at my watch. Only 8:30am - I still had time. It was risky to be seen in daylight this close to the job at hand, but I didn’t see what options there were. I scanned my eyes around the kitchen, hoping in vain for some alternative. There was a small carton of soy-milk sitting in a corner. I tried to picture the Supervisor’s reaction to soymilk, but suspected that nothing I could conjure would quite be able to match his contempt. He is always relentlessly articulate in his contempt. The shops it was then. The best I could do was look inconspicuous.

Five minutes later I was ready. Long coat – slightly out of season, but not so much as to attract notice. Hat and scarf, knitted by my mother. I always wonder what she’d think if she knew the jobs on which I’ve worn them. At least she picked unobtrusive colours this time. Bright primaries don’t mix well with subterfuge. My hands were shaking as I dutifully fixed all the locks on my door. Wouldn’t do for someone to get in by accident. I made my way down the stairs, all ten flights of them. I had reconciled myself weeks ago to the lift not being a valid option. Long flights of stairs are another occupational hazard.

Just before I got to the back exit, I ran into Michael entering in off the street. Awkwardness abounded for a few seconds. “Where are you off to?” he asked with a frown. “Supervisor visiting today. I’m out of milk”. It was a little embarrassing to admit. More than a little, actually. He didn’t say anything in response, only held up a grocery bag. A carton of milk peeked out cheerfully through the plastic. “I’ve got enough to share,” he said, and I threw my arms around him in sheer relief before he even had a chance to lower the bag again. After a moment, I came to my senses and pulled away, just in time to see him blushing slightly. “Come up then,” I muttered, and we ascended the stairs, both relieved to have a task to set ourselves to. People in our business don’t tend to be big on social skills.

He decanted some milk into a small jug and stashed it in my fridge. “Good luck today,” was all he said before leaving. I let out a breath and sat down at my miniscule kitchen table. Milk obtained. Supervisor’s whims catered to. I got up restlessly, wandered back to the bedroom and sat on the floor, back against the bed, looking out the window. The Riverview Hotel loomed large and implacable, filling the view completely. Morning tea sorted. Now all there was left to do was wait, and think of all of the hundreds of other things that could go wrong.

Crossing Genres Assignment #1

Okay, so here's my first attempt at one of the writing challenges from the Ravelry '52 Books in 52 Weeks' group (since I was a lazy bum and never got around to writing something for the first challenge).

The instructions:
Step 1: Pick a short story topic. (ie walking to the store, going to class, picking up milk)
Step 2: Pick two or three genres of writing style (ie romance, horror, fantasy, mystery, humor, etc.)
Step 3: Write your short story in the style of each of those genres.

Anyway, I kind of latched onto the milk thing, so both of these are about waking up and realising that you need to get some milk. I decided to go with fantasy (gee whiz, what a surprise), and something that ended up some kind of weird blend between a spy novel and satire. Here's the first one (I'm posting them separately as to avoid another Enormous Blob Post of Doom):


Fridge:

I was woken up earlier than I would have liked. It was my day off – the first in too long – and I would have liked to have slept on for a more fittingly indulgent amount of time. It was going to be hot today too – and I wanted to enjoy being lazy by choice before the heat forced it on me. But the Fridge had other ideas. That bloody Fridge…

Shuffling out of my room, picking my way across discarded clothing, I made my way towards the kitchen. Not that it was strictly necessary to do so – the Fridge has ways of making its wishes known, so I already knew what was bothering it. It sat regally in the kitchen, humming away busily to itself as if it didn’t really care for whatever reason it was that I had come to see it. I leaned my head against the cool white expanse, so it couldn’t possibly ignore me any more. Milk, the Fridge said. Rather to the point this morning – the Fridge can be very articulate when it chooses, but obviously today was not one of those days. “It’s hot,” I grumbled in response. “The shop around the corner isn’t open yet, and it’s too hot to walk all the way to the supermarket”. Milk, the Fridge insisted. I could sense that it was also none too pleased about the power bill that I’d stuck atop its face with a magnet shaped like a smiling octopus, but at least it wasn’t actively complaining about that yet.

I put the jug on to boil. “I have everything I need for my breakfast right here,” I pointed out. It was true – I always take my tea black, my toast with honey, and all required ingredients were present and accounted for. If it was possible for a major appliance to give you a dirty look, then Fridge would have accomplished the feat at that moment. I did my best to ignore it and sat at the table, jiggling my teabag up and down in the mug and eyeing yesterday’s crossword, for all the world as if Fridge wasn’t there at all. The impatience in the air was palpable.

Fridge tends to demand a certain respect. After all, it has lived here for longer than I have, so apparently that puts me lower in the pecking order. It was there when I moved in originally. The landlord hadn’t made any mention of it, but when I staggered into the kitchen under the weight of a rapidly disintegrating cardboard box full of cutlery, there it was. One less new thing to arrange, I had thought after a brief inspection had shown it to be in fine working order, if none too clean in the vicinity of the vegetable crisper. I had later inquired about its presence to the landlord, who had simply shrugged and said that it had been there when the last tenant moved in, so presumably it was from the tenant before. She didn’t seem puzzled, so I resolved not to be either. Perhaps this kind of thing happened all of the time. Turns out it doesn’t, but it hasn’t been a bad arrangement. When the Fridge isn’t being a stroppy pain the arse.

“What do you want milk for anyway?” I finally asked – the tension in the room had grown too much, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my tea and do the crossword until Fridge had been placated. What kind of Fridge doesn’t even have milk? It’s a staple ingredient. The thought was indignant, but tinged with a little bit of embarrassment. I grinned, somewhat unkindly. “Getting self conscious, are we?” Fridge’s fan motor skipped a little, as if it flinched. Then it gathered itself to retaliate. In a single second my mind was suddenly saturated with reminders of how hot it would be that day, as well as a singularly vivid image of what all of my perishables would look like if Fridge were to decide that it felt like taking the day off. Vegetables wilted, cream curdled, iced tea icy no longer. It did not sound pleasant.

“Fine, fine,” I grumbled, swigging the rest of my tea down in a hurried gulp. “You win”. I felt Fridge positively oozing smugness as I stumbled into the living room, threw on an old t-shirt and began pulling on my sandals. The feeling continued as I fumbled for my purse and keys, and didn’t abate until I had closed the front door and started off down the street. The sun was already hot, and it was well over a kilometer to the supermarket. Stupid Fridge. Oh well, I thought with a smile. Revenge would be had. Fridge still hadn’t discovered the Tupperware-encased leftovers of my brother’s valiant but unsuccessful attempt at cooking osso bucco that I had banished to the back of one of its shelves. Two weeks ago. I looked forward to that moment with childish glee as I tramped down the street, grocery bag in hand. The heat suddenly seemed less oppressive.