The Awesome Dragon Is A Girl

Hola Readers!  Time to get another rambling out there.  Today I'm gonna ramble about a book that has been on and off my radar for a couple of years.  I think that the book gods were making sure I saved it for a special occasion and reading Eon by Alison Goodman while at the Asian themed Wynn in Las Vegas was about as perfect as it could get.  Do you want to know why I loved it?  Ok, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The current year in our story is the year that the Rat Dragon ascends to power and a new apprentice to become this dragons next Dragoneye (more on that in a second) is chosen.  Our main character Eon has been training for years for the opportunity to be in contention for this prestigious and once in a life time chance...and oh yeah, he is actually a she...in disguise...'cause only boys can be Dragoneyes.  While she trains we learn that in this world there are twelve celestial dragons, Ox, Tiger Rabbit, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig, Rat and Dragon (also known as Mirror). Every dragon represents a different virtue, color and point on the compass.  Each dragon ascends to power once every 12 years where there power is doubled and the Dragoneye can use it's dragon's power to control elemental forces to help their country.  Each ascension see's a new apprentice chosen, the old apprentice promoted to Dragoneye and the current Dragoneye retired.  This happens because being a Dragoneye is extremely draining, physically, emotionally and mentally.  Unfortunately for this neat cycle the Dragon Dragon (also called the Mirror Dragon) has been missing for over 500 years after it's temple was destroyed by fire.  Nobody really knows what happened and the Mirror Dragons ascension year is handled in a rotation.  Ok now that we have that out of the way lets get back to the story.  Eon. besides being a girl in disguise, has the added handicap of having a permanently injured hip.  This is offset by Eon's ability to see all the dragons, not just the one she is hoping will choose her, this is super rare and the reason Eon's master went through the trouble of training and hiding her gender.  As all good stories go all kinds of troubles and trials occur to hinder our heroines path to Dragoneyehood.  Unfortunately, she is not chosen by the Rat Dragon, her friend Dillion...who is still a surprise as he was not considered a real contender...was chosen instead.  The current Dragoneye to the Rat Dragon, Lord Ido, is an ambitious and cruel man who is not happy with his Dragon's decision.  Just when the excitement seems to be over, there is a commotion and out of seemingly nowhere the Mirror Dragon appears after over 500 years of absence.   The Dragon chooses Eon and chaos breaks forth.  Eon is treated like a lord and is moved to the palace to begin her brand new role as the Mirror Dragoneye. Eon is at a very sever disadvantage as she has no one to teach her the Mirror Dragonye's ways...since there has not been one in so long.  To help her at court she is assigned the Lady Dela, a Contraire, which is a person born one gender who lives as another.  In this case Dela was born male, but lives as a female.  In some parts of the world this is a sacred position as they are thought to possess two souls, one male and one female, in other parts it is seen as an oddity and worse.  Ryko is Dela's body guard and is a eunuch, as are most of the Emperor's body guards.  Now we start to get a feel for the political state of this world.  At the moment the sickly Emperor rules with his heir the Prince Kygo learning and maturing until it is his time to take over.  There is a catch however, the Emperor's brother Sethon, a decorated general, has plans to take over and has enlisted the ambitious Lord Ido to help.  Eon, especially after meeting the Prince, essentially decides to use her new powers to help the Emperor and his son.  There is a small problem though...Eon can't use the power of her dragon.  She should have learned her dragon's name when they bonded, to call it and use it's power...but so far...nope.  Lord Ido discovers that not only can Eon not use her dragon, but that she is actually Eona.  He uses this to try and control her.  Eon eventually tells Dela and Ryko who she really is, at first causing a rift, then later a deeper understanding of each other.  The Emperor dies, a whole bunch of crazyiness ensues and Eona discovers that the Mirror Dragon is actually a female, the only female of 12 dragons and the reason that she had disappeared for so long as no female candidates were presented...stupid boys lol.  Anyways...the crew discovers that Lord Ido has a plan to control all the dragons instead of just his own.  To this end he kills all of the other Dragoneyes and their apprentices, plunging the celestial realm into chaos.  Eona tell's the Prince who she really is and after some understandable anger he is convinced to go into hiding to protect his legacy.  Sethon appears and starts a wholesale slaughter of the royal family, including the Prince's mother and infant brother.  Eona runs into Ido, who tries to force a union with her to finally consolidate all the power in himself.  With the help of Dela and Ryko, Eona finally realizes that as the keeper of Truth her dragon needs her to be honest with who she is to truly unleash her power.  This revelation finally bonds Eona to the Mirror Dragon and she is able to break Ido down and escape with Dela and Ryko.  The story ends with the trio making their escape, hoping to find the Prince and defeat Sethon.  Eona learns to accept herself and now needs to learn to control her dragon's power.  And we now we have to hurry up and read the next book!  This is not even a billionth of the important things going on in this book, but hopefully it's enough to give you a bit of the flavor.

World Building - This world was pretty cool.  It was definitely inspired by Asian culture, and yet it was original and wholly it's own entity.  It was complete with it's own customs, laws, government, society and culture.  It is a I guess you would call it medievalish era, maybe a bit more modern time period with both practical and magic elements as part of the natural world. I was easily able to immerse myself in the world and felt like I mostly understood how everything worked.  This is the kind of world I can see myself going back and visiting over and over.  It has parts that are familiar and identifiable and parts that are completely new and they meld beautifully.  Very happy with the world building.

Story - Somebody compared this story to ones told by Tamora Pierce...who is one of my favorite YA novelists, so that got me excited.  I totally understand the comparison and it is a good one.  The story was complex without being overly stuffed, the various story lines were clear and all melded into each other in a way that made sense.  I wanted to keep reading the story, I wanted to find out what happened next, I wanted to tell the story to someone...You could totally see this story becoming a legend that got told over and over in this world it was set in.  It had all the elements that a good story wants, we had conflict, we had battles, we had personal moments, we had friendships, we had romances, we had difficulties to overcome, we had DRAGONS!  Loved the story.

Character - The characters were pretty much awesome.  Eon/Eona was not perfect, but she was also not overly bitchy, or overly tough, she was just a person who kept getting thrown into circumstances out of her control and it wasn't until she took charge of her self and accepted herself did she gain any control.  In fact that seems to be a theme with the characters in this book.  They were all varied and all had various motives for what they did, they were all layered and wonderfully complex without being ridiculous, but they all had to find a way to accept themselves before they moved forward...but more on that later.  The variety and nuanced way the author dealt with the characters was fantastic.

Editing - This book is a great example of how to take multiple storylines and ideas and find a way to pare them down and fit them together to be readable.  One of my literary pet peeves is when an author has all these great ideas and tries to squash all of them into one book and the editor does nothing to try and make it coherent.  In this case, the editor seemed to take the myriad of various storylines, characters, ideas and world building and figured out how to make it eminently readable. I can't really put my finger on why this book with it's fullness was so readable, when so many who try the same thing are not, but I'm gonna go with the editor was perfectly paired with the author and regardless it makes me very very very happy.

Acceptance Of Self - This book was chock full of alternate identities/lifestyles.  Some people chose a different life, some people had it forced on them and some just needed to discover who they were.  I would say gender identity was the biggest obstacle that a lot of the main characters faced.   Keeping in mind that this is a male dominated society with gender roles pretty clearly defined and adhered too. Eon/Eona as our main character was our biggest example of this as she had to hide so much of herself both by necessity and by choice.  The choice came in as she was born female, identified female and chose to live as a male.  The necessity came in when she felt that being a boy was the only way to achieve anything of importance in her life...oh yeah and when they would kill her if it was revealed she was a girl.  Dela on the other hand was a completely different ball game.  She was born a male, but identified as female, feeling she had no choice but to live as a woman because in her heart that is what she was. I found it interesting in some places she was revered for her ability to accommodate both the male and female within herself, while other places she was reviled as an abohrasion (I can not figure out how to spell that word...hopefully you all know what I mean).  Ryko was not given a choice when he was made a enuch, and yet he has learned to live and identify as a male, regardless of his equipment, not letting it define him.  On a less definitive note we watch as Kygo has to learn to trust and believe in himself before he can become a leader.  Lord Ido has purposely squashed all empathy as to become cruel, which is what he felt he needed to succeed, and it isn't until this is restored that he in any way becomes human.   The ultimate message though was the fact that it wasn't until Eona accepted her whole self, not just the fact that she was female, but also that she was smart and capable and fallible and needed help that she was able to in any way shape or form use her Dragon's power.  I love that this was the main message and that it wasn't delivered in a preachy way, or in a tell you what to think way, or that any one way was right.  Just until you can accept and trust yourself, your not gonna get very far.

Perfect Reading Situation - Like I mentioned earlier, part of the appeal of this book is that I go to read it in the most perfect of circumstances.  I got to read it in a place that was essentially desgined to match the books mood and setting.  Couple that with the fact that I spent half of the vacation in a tub so deep I could float with a glass of wine or whisky at my fingertips while reading also helped.  I was totally stoked at how much I wanted to just sit and read this book 'cause for once I had time to do just that.  This book will forever be associated with one of my vacations of awesome.  I love it when the literary stars align and I get to add a new book to my favorite list.  It will always be one of those book associated with something very specific and something very good in my life.

YA Reading Like It Should Be - I have a love/hate relationship with YA books.  I find them to be either amazing or horrible.  It seems that a lot of YA authors want to come across as too hip and write like they have never met a real teenager before.  Sometimes the books turn into nothing but an overwrought love story, or somebodies 20 year old wish fulfillment.  THEN you get books like this, ones that address realistic teenage issues while not talking down too, or over their heads.  You also get a great story that utilizes the unique position that teenagers are in, to straddle the world of innocence and childhood, and maturity and adulthood.  Books like this make me want to shout to all the other authors THIS IS HOW YOU WRITE A BOOK FOR EVERYBODY!  Given this is targeted at the 12-16 age group, and probably geared more for the females, but seriously I can see anybody of any gender and any age reading this and enjoying it.  This is a book you read and any age...and then reread again.  Yay!

Dragons! - Have I mentioned that I love dragons?  Seriously I am a huge dragon fan, especially in books.  The dragons in this book, again were fairly well realized and integrated perfectly into the world and story.  It is very different from a lot of the standard European dragons and I love the change of pace and the little original touches that the author put in...perfection.

Overall Impression - I think it's pretty obvious that I very much enjoyed this book.  It hit all the right notes for me and it was exactly what I needed when I read it.  There are some frustrating loose ends...essentially what happened 500 years ago that made the Mirror Dragon disappear and why did everybody forget...but the good news is that there is a sequel (that I am already reading!) that promises to fill in the gaps.  I really really enjoyed this book and hopefully enjoy the next one as well.  I am now on my way to buy all the other books by this author in hopes that they are just as good.  I give it 9 out of 10 Story Robes and recommend it to pretty much anybody, but especially those who are fans of Tamora Pierce, Anne McCaffrey, Brandon Mull, Rick Riordan and the like.  Happy Reading Everybody!

It's Ok To Be A Girl

One of the few good things about the holiday's being over is that I can get back to my normal reading pattern.  I always feel a bit nostalgic right after the holidays and since for once I didn't have a deadline looming over me, I picked up one of my favorite series by one of my favorite authors.  I read Alanna: The First Adventure, the first book in the Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce.  How did it hold up over the years?  I'll tell you, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Alanna and Thom are pre-teen twins with a crappy father (as all good MG/YA books start).  They both have the Gift, a form of magic certain people posses in the realm of Tortall.  To this end, Thom wants to become a mage, and Alanna wants to become a night, the problem being that females can't become knights, and their father insists that Thom go become a knight instead of a mage.  They decide to switch places and Thom goes on to the City of the Gods to become a mage ('cause both guys and gals can practice magic) and Alanna becomes Alan and signs up to be a Page at the court in Corus, the capital of Tortall.  Only Corum, Alanna's trusted friend and guardian knows her secret and helps her when he can.  Alanna works extremely hard to overcome her smallness and the beatings of a much larger bully.  In town one day Alanna (in the guise of Alan) meets George Cooper, the King of Thieves who takes her under his wing and teaches her how to fight.  Between this and all her extra work at her Page lessons, Alanna earns her place among her fellow Pages and Squires.  She

eventually befriends the Prince Jonathan, and her ability with the Gift is revealed when she uses it to heal him after an awful illness called the Sweating Sickness sweeps through the city, killing many.  It is thought that the illness was sent by a sorcerer, who may have targeted the royal family.  After saving the prince, he and Alanna, along with a few other guys get to be good enough friends that she introduces them to George, who in turn helps them by keeping an eye on the city.  Eventually Alanna gets older, and as it goes, hits puberty.  Since she has no mother, and not female to talk to, Alanna is understandably freaked out by her first period and goes to George's mother, a healer to find out what is what.  Mrs. Cooper explains the birds and the bees to her and gives her a charm against pregnancy and encourages her to be a girl when she can. She also let's George in on the fact that she is a girl.  The prince's cousin, Roger the Duke of Conte arrives to teach the pages/squire's with the Gift how to use it. A bunch of stuff happens (don't you love how I skip over all this stuff in every rambling :-) )   The bunch of them head off to hang out at Persopolis, an oasis city in the middle of the desert.  In site of the encampment is the Black City, an evil place that compels people to come and they are never seen again.  Roger, goad/tricks Jonathan into going to the city and Alanna follows him.  They confront an ancient evil called the Ysandir and defeat them using Alanna and the princes combined Gifts.  In the process, Prince Jonathan discovers that Alanna is really a girl.  He decides he is ok with this, agrees to keep it a secret and the book ends with him choosing her as his squire once he is knighted.

This is one of those books where a lot of stuff happens very quickly.  If I remember correctly just this book spans the course of at least 5 years and each page if packed full of stuff.  Most of the events are pretty simply described, with out a whole lot of detail or angst, and while this makes things a bit quick, it keeps the pace up.  This book, and series in general is pretty cool in that the main message is that it is ok to be yourself.  Alanna is hellbent on being a knight, even at the tender age of 11 and she thinks this means she pretty much has to turn herself into a boy.  While this is true to some degree, she learns that it does not have to be her whole life.  Through out the book, she is lucky enough to have several people encourage her to be who she wants to be, if that's a knight, great go for it, but don't let that completely squash your femininity if you don't want it to.  I really like the idea that it is ok to be whatever, a girl who likes to swing swords and wear a pretty pair of earrings.  A boy who wants a quieter life of study, but is still able to ride a horse like a pro.  Just because you like one thing, or are good at something, does not automatically mean the rest of your life has to follow suite.

 I also really like how hard Alanna has to work to achieve her goal.  Besides her Gift (which she is afraid of AND many other people also have), she is not all that special.  She is small so she has to work extra hard just to be as good as the other guys.  Through out the book (and the series) she makes no secret of the fact that there are some things she will probably never be good at.  The only real "convenient" part that bugs me a bit, is her ability to have people fall head over heels to help her out of most situations.  George Cooper, while a great character, for some reason decides to take the scrawny little Page under his wing even before he knows she is a girl, same with the Prince (though I guess saving his life helped with that).  It is a bit convenient for her to have a lot of support in a time and place where she should have very little.  As this is a reread, I always like to compare the first time I read it to subsequent rereads.  In this case, I still love the book, but found it to be a bit simpler then I remember.  The time frame in which it is written makes it go fast, and certain things go unexamined and stuff gets glossed over. I think it is a great first book in this series and is a great pace for a younger reader to really get into.  I love it for anybody who struggles with reconciling who they are with what they do, or what they like.  It has adventure, intrigue, swords and magic and it will always have a spot on my shelf.  I give it 7 out of 10 crystal swords.
What books do you feel like rereading this year?  Do you have changing feelings about books you reread?  What would a sword fighting tutu look like?

Boys Who Write Girls Who Write Boys Who Write Girls

As we all know a lot goes into a good book.  You need setting, situation, world building, a decent grasp of the language you are writing in, and of course characters. A really good character is one that you can fall in some sort of emotion with, it could be love, hate, sympathy, empathy, whatever, but a well written character is one you fell something for. Most people tend to like characters that they can identify with in some way.  How many times have you read a book and been "I totally know what that character feels like!" or "not that I would ever do that, but I understand why that character did what he/she/it did".  At the risk of sounding completely biased I would guess that most (not all) people tend to have a stronger identity with characters they have something in common with e.g. gender, race, religion, hobby, talent, location, family, problems and so forth and as potentially limiting as that sounds, I personally think that it's ok.  It does not preclude a person from loving a character that is different from oneself, or even identifying with a character that is completely different, it's just in human nature to find similarities to identify with.  All this preaching and yammering to get to a completely different point. 

I rarely like it when males write females and vice versa.  Hold on now, before you all start freaking out on me, hear me out...then feel free to let me have it :-)  I have been trying to branch out my reading lately (to some small degree of success) and have been trying new authors, styles and genre's.  The one consistent thing I have found is for the most (again not all) part as hard as they try, it is seems to be difficult for another gender (and I am talking all of them male, female, gay, bi, trans, ect.) to fully write a completly accurate portrayal of another gender.  I think without the experiance you can only write what you think the other genders feel/act/think like. This becomes especially problematic when the author uses a first person narrative.  I rarely like the use of first person narrative because it gets you stuck in peoples head to much, but sometimes it works.  When a person from a different gender uses it for the voice of the main character, well to me it's a study in what a person thinks a person should think/feel, versus what a person would probably really think and feel.  Hmmm let me see if I can explain it a little better.  I can only really write this from a straight female perspective so that is what I am going to go with.  Almost every time I read a female character written by a male (especially first person narrative) it always feels like they are trying to get there character to do and say what they think I as a female reader would want them to do and say.  They are either super strong and sassy, or super sweet and vulnerable, or super bitchy and controlling, or super something else.  I have seen this go the opposite way as well, I have read male characters written by female authors and even though I am not a guy been able to see, um yeah that is probably a female talking in a boys voice.  I think it has gotten better to some degree more recently, where it is more allowable for all genders to do whatever they want.  Boys can become nurses, teachers and cooks without too much flak, and girls are actively encouraged to go into traditionally boy fields (says the girl who works at the

firehouse!). Some genre's are better at cross gender writing than others.  Sci-Fi has almost always been a better place for all the genders to meld.  Fantasy, especially some of the newer stuff is starting to explore a more fluid concept of gender, which makes it easier for all genders to get there hands into it. YA is a mixed bag, I have seen some amazing gender study level stuff come out, but there still seems to be a very overarching girls are either super sassy or super sweet and boys are either bad boys with a heart of gold, or the perfect best friend.  Of course there are always glaring exceptions, Robin Hobb is a female author who among other wonderful books wrote the Farseer Series  which not only employs the dreaded first person narrative, but used a male voice as well.  I totally fell in love with the book and the character and it totally blew all my expectations out of the water (note to self, do a rambling on this soon).  Now to be fair, I am not a boy so I'm not sure how well she portrayed the maleness part, but it seemed pretty spot on to me.  Scott Westerfeld has done an amazing job with his Uglies series in which a female is not only one, but two of the main characters. Obviously there are amazing authors out there that can handle any character thrown at them, but for every one of those, there is five that should do a tad more research before attempting to write a different gender. All of this ranting and rambling to say...well...I'm not sure really, just kind of in the mood to rant. 

What do you think of writing for a different gender?  What are some great examples of cross-gender writing?  What are some awful examples of cross-gender writing? How does non-traditional genders play a role? Do you think I am crazy and read way to much into these books?

A Thorny Problem

I am not one hundred percent sure why I picked up Champion of the Rose this time around.  I know why I had it in my stack, I had read a couple of reviews that had some intriguing concepts in it, but for some reason I did not expect to like it that much.  Shows how much I know because I really enjoyed this book.  I was in desperate need of a true fantasy book with magic and elves and all that good stuff and this fit the bill in an unexpected way.  It is full of magic and the Fair Folk, but there is so much more to this world then fairy tale trope.

The story is about Soren who has been chosen to be the Champion of the current ruling monarch...the only problem is that there is no King or Queen, and has not been in close to 200 years.  In Tor Darest the fictional country where our story is set, the set-up is a bit unusual.  The beginnings of the country started when the Queen of the Fae gifted the land that became Darest to Domina Rathen a powerful mage who in turn placed a powerful enchantment over her whole future lineage and the country itself.  The enchantment manifested in the form of The Rathen Rose and it's job was to pick a person who was most suitable to
become whatever the current ruler needed most, protector, lover, advisor, parental figure, it varied from ruler to ruler.  The Rathen Rose would do whatever it could to protect the Rathen line.  Eventually the Rathen line died out and the country has been held by the Reagent's who while powerful mages themselves can never wield the true power that a Rathen can.  This is the state of the kingdom when a blooming rose is discovered on the vine for the first time in centuries and Soren sets of to find her king or queen.  She eventually stumbles upon a man called Strake who it turns out has been caught in some sort of time phase thingy which eventually makes some sort of sense and has now returned 200 years later.  On their way back to the palace the Rose takes over both Soren and Strake and forces them into an act which results in Soren being impregnated with Strake's child.  This understandably causes no end of tension between the two, with Strake not able to separate Soren from the Rose that perpetrated this pretty awful act.  Meanwhile a killer from the past seems to have followed Strake through time and is now

hunting him again.  Soren and Strake return to the palace and immediately try to set things to right.  Many court games are played, and Strake tries to find a way to end the enchantment of the Rose.  Unfortunately they discover that any move against the Rose would probably end in Soren and her unborn child's death so they decide to try and find a different way.  Meanwhile they hunt and try and find out more about this mysterious killer who can appear and disappear, who uses razor claws to dismember victims and who has the appearance of a you Fae boy.  A council of the Fair and Humans is called and surprisingly we get some straight forward answers...which I will not reveal (don't you love how sometimes I spoil everything, and others I make you go read for yourself, I'm fickle that way) and all seems to be going right...until an assassination attempt on Strakes life from a very unlikely source happens (which actually did take me by surprise which was cool).  This provokes the Rose into taking over Soren again and she has had enough of being controlled.  She convinces Strake that they need to destroy the enchantment once and for all so that nobody else including their unborn child can be controlled.  The ending is quick and I will let you read it for yourself.

OK so this sounds like a pretty typical fantasyish story and it is, but there are a couple things the author did that I really liked.  The main thing was the world she built felt very complete.  There were traditions, religions,  taboos, commerce, festivals everything that a society of that time period would have...with what I think is an awesome twist.  Genders are completely...hmmm I'm not quit sure how to put it...fluid is the only word I can think of.  The author treats both genders completely equally, not giving dominance to males or females and relationships in the world are fluid as well, with both genders loving across all boundaries equally,
male/female, male/male, female/female.  It is not unusual for a person to be with a male lover and then later a female in fact tri-bonding is a common way for two females and a male or two males and a female who all love each other equally to form a type of family and enable the birth of children.  The best part was that this was not a big deal at all, it is just the way things are, nobody is gay or lesbian or bi, they just love each other regardless. Now I know this is not every body's cup of tea, which is totally valid, I just thought it made this world even more unique and different from our own, just one more way to not make it Medieval England with faeries.  I also like how the author played with our assumptions and would turn even little things around on you in the blink of an eye.  I personally did not care for the ending, it happened very quickly and a little to neatly/happily ever after for my taste.  It was like she thought she might write a sequel so she did not answer every question (which is fine), but she wasn't sure if she would get around to it so she gave it a complete ending just in case.  This is one of my pet peeves is when you read this great book and then the last 20 pages are just a quick "oh crap I have to finish this somehow um yeah here ya go".  The author also has a couple of favorite words that get old very

quickly (seriously if somebody shutters their eyes one more time!) and the reconciliation between Strake and Soren was a little quick/forced but other then that I enjoyed it.  I have heard a lot of mixed opinions on the event at the beginning of the book the leads to Soren's impregnation and a lot of people have called it a rape that the Rose forced Soren to do to Strake, but when I read it, it seemed the Rose took over both parties and the reason it was marginally worse for Strake (even though it was Soren who has to carry, give birth and raise a a baby) was that he could struggle enough against the Rose to be more aware of what was happening, while Soren was completely blanked out by the Rose.  Read it for yourself and let me know what you think on that particular matter.  Over all I would recommend this book for the over 15 crowd, I found it thought provoking and fairly well written and well worth the read.  I will be looking for another book from this author to see if she continues writing in this thoughtful manner.

What do you think of forced pairings as a plot device?  How do you feel about gender fluidity on worlds that are not supposed to be Earth?  Are you starting to get why I call these ramblings?