Duty Heart Power

Hola Readers, I've just come off of 60 hours straight so if today's rambling is a wee bit incoherent...well let's blame it on that shall we?  Today I'm gonna ramble about Eona by Alison Goodman.  This is the sequel to the amazing and awesome Eon, which I absolutely loved.  In fact I had to run out buy and read the sequel ignoring my already overwhelming TBR pile.  How did the second book stack up?  Let's find out, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

We catch up with our favorite Dragoneye Eona as she is on the run from Sethon, the usurper Emperor.  She is with the Contraire Dela and her body guard Ryko.  Ryko was brutally injured in the previous book and at the behest of Dela, Eona tries to use her dragon power to heal him.  While in the dragon realm, Eona is attacked by the bereaved dragons of the other 10 slaughtered Dragoneyes. The attacking dragon are held off by unexpected help from Ido, the only other Dragoneye and his Rat Dragon.  Eona manages to heal Ryko, but the dragon battle that ensued, destroyed the village, killing many innocent people.  The other consequence of the healing is that Eona now has a connection to Ryko allowing her to use and control him.  There is a bunch of traveling and sneaking and Ryko being understandably pissed.  The group finally meets up with the young, true Emperor Kygo.  Eona and Kygo share a moment and Eona discovers that she has an insatiable urge to rip the Imperial Pearl from Kygo's throat...which would kill him.  More traveling and the group meets up with various resistance groups and Kygo makes Eona his Naiso, which essentially is the only person allowed to treat the Emperor like a human.  The Naiso is expected to speak hard truths to the Emperor without fear of reprisal.  Kygo is injured and Eona assists the physician in healing him using non-dragon power medicine.  Eona is summoned and in a very disturbing scene is forced to control Ryko to prove that she did not use her healing/control powers on Kygo.  Eona is upset that Kygo did not trust her word and one of the first of many lover vs tool fights takes place.  Eona and Kygo both have a hard time balancing their personal feelings vs their duty to the country.  Meanwhile Eona convinces Kygo that they need to rescue Ido from Sethon as he is the only person who can train her to use her powers. The rescue happens and Eona's training begins.  Since she used her power to heal him, Eona can control Ido, but has to use a more sensual compulsion that leads to some confusing feelings.  The group continues to travel and Eona is reunited with a mother she hasn't seen since she was sold at the age of six.  All through out this, Dela has been working on decoding the red folio that was left 500 years ago by Eona's ancesteor and the last Mirror Dragoneye, Kinra.  Eona knows just from the rage filled swords that Kinra had a huge part in why the Mirror Dragon disappeared. We discover that Kinra was the lover of the Emperor, but really loved the Rat Dragoneye.  We also find out that she was executed as a traitor for trying to rip out the Imperial Pearl from the Emperor's throat.  Eona uses her compulsion of Ido to bring the black folio and the binding power it contains to her.  She gives it Kygo as a huge sign of trust as the folio can use royal blood to bind the Dragoneye's power.  Kygo is greatful and it seems the two lovebirds are starting to figure stuff out. Eventually enough of the folio's are decoded for Eona to finally discover the truth of the dragons.  It seems that the Imperial Pearl is actually the egg of renewal that the dragons need to regenerate.  The original Dragoneyes stole it and bound the dragons with it.  Kinra learned the truth and tried to free them and was executed for her trouble.   Unfortunatly, Eona is taken prisoner by Sethon after they are betrayed by Kygo's trusted general.  Sethon uses his blood to bind Eona, and cause Kygo, Ido, Dela and Ryko to be captured. Sethon removes Kygo's pearl, leaving him to bleed out.  Eona uses the distraction of the pain of sewing the pearl into his throat to break free of Sethon's control.  Ryko gives his life so that Eona can take down Sethon.  Sethon is killed and Kygo is healed by Eona.  She then goes to give the pearl to the dragons so that they can regenerate and be free.  Ido however is not so into giving up the power and tries to get Eona to instead bind the dragons with the black folio for the ultimate power.  She refuses and Ido morally wounds Kygo, making her choose to either free the dragons and lose Kygo, the love of her life or to bind the dragons with him for the ultimate power and save Kygo.  After a moment of angst, she chooses to free the dragons.  Ido is killed and Kygo is looking to be in pretty bad shape.  The dragons go through a pretty cool renewal ritual and the young reborn dragons leave the Empire.  The new Mirror Dragon however seems to retain some memory of Eona and her gift of freedom and heals Kygo before leaving.  Kygo and Eona head home to clean up the pieces of the broken and now dragonless Empire.  Whew that was really long and not even remotely close to everything that happened...but you get the gist.

World Building - This book continued on the world building of the first book.  In this book we leave the city and the palace and move into the poorer outlying areas of the Empire.  We get to learn more customs, beliefs and other tidbits that continue to make this world feel very complete.  I appreciated the level of detailed that was very artfully slipped into almost every encounter, giving us an even more complete picture of the world this book is set in.  I found that although the main theme of the world is an Asian style medieval type world, that the author definitely incorporated some very original and varied pieces to differentiate this world from a carbon copy of any real country.

Story - Compared to the last book, I felt that this story was a little bit slow/cluttered.  I felt like we focused a lot more on Eona and her feelings and angst instead of the story as a whole.  There was a lot of traveling, a lot of introspection and a lot of things that felt repetitive.  I also wanted to get to the story of Kinra a lot sooner, I felt that knowing more would have given the story a bit more direction.  That being said this book did deliver on the previous books premise AND the story actually wrapped up in a very coherent way.  I'm not sure if I am sad or happy about the dragons leaving.  One one hand, it's pretty gutsy to so definitively end the books with the removal of the main conceit of the books...on the other hand no more dragons WAHHHH!  Overall not as compelling as the first story, but still well done.

Character - The development of characters in this book was vastly different then in the first book.  In the last book it was all about finding yourself and being true to yourself.  In this book it seemed to be more about how people responded to different situations.  Unfortunately I found myself liking some of the previous characters less in this book then in the last one.  We did meet a couple new characters that added some depth to the group and for the most part the characters stayed true to the way they were written.  Nobody really did anything out of character just for plot development, and every character had motivation, a story and presence so good job on the characters.

Editing - Editing was well done.  Again as with the last book multiple story lines were abundant, yet meshed together in a wholly readable way.  This book may have been a tad too long, a bit of paring down on some of the introspection and the repetitiveness would have been welcome, but overall very readable, very understandable good job.

Duty, Heart, Power - Along with being the title of this post, I feel like a lot of what was going on in this book was people trying to make choices based on these three things.  Eona especially spent a lot of time in the book trying to walk the line between these three.  She felt a duty to her country, her family and friends and her dragon...but sometimes these various duties did not align and doing her duty to one would make it impossible to do her duty to another.  She was constantly tempted with power, while at the same time being used, or people trying to use her to gain their own power.  Finally she had to try and learn when to listen to her own needs, what her heart wanted and weather or not it was compatible with her duty or her need.  Pretty much any time characters interacted with each other one or more of these three things came into play, and the choices that were made were based on what each character choose to make important.  Ido was constantly seeking power and most of his choices were skewed by this view point.  Dela and Ryko clashed constantly as Dela want to follow her heart, yet Ryko insisted on putting duty first...even if it hurt Dela.  Eona and Kygo were constantly struggling with all three as they both wanted/needed power to accomplish their goals, were in love with each other, but understood that their duty to everything else needed to come first.

Love Triangle - This book brought us the dreaded love triangle.  In some ways the triangle at least made sense.  Eona was the only person that Kygo felt was on his level and the trauma of their experiences together made them a natural pair.  Eona's control of Ido brought her into very intimate contact with him on many levels, coupled with the fact that he represented something very different from Kygo also made sense.  Unfortunately it came off a little juvenile for my taste.  Considering everything that was going on and everything that was at stake, a lot of Eona's angst came from dwelling on all the little stupid stuff.  Her musings about Kygo especially drove me nuts as she would dwell on the tiniest little things...It is actually pretty accurate for how it goes down in real life, but reading about it was kind of obnoxious...especially when there was so much other info I wanted.  It's not that the romance was a bad thing...I just wanted a little less of it.

Kinra - I both loved and hated the Kinra aspect of this book.  We were set up a bit for it in the first book when we learned that Eona's ancestor was the last Mirror Dragoneye, that she imbibed her swords with her anger and then wrote the red folio.  I assumed that she had something to do with the disappearance of the Mirror dragon, but was both pleasantly surprised and a bit eyerolly at how it all came out.  Her discovery of how the dragons came to be enslaved and her decision to try and free them at the cost of her own life was pretty awesome.  The convenience of her being Eona's ancestor and the way she could speak to and through her was a bit to pat for my taste.  Also I think the way things were revealed was frustrating, a bit here, a flash here.  I am still not sure how she influenced Eona even when she wasn't touching her belongings.  I'm also not sure why they didn't find a new Mirror Dragoneye, or how that type of history was forgotten but...yeah.

Overall Impression - I definatly liked the first book better then this one.  However this was still a good book.  It was a fair continuation of the first book, it answered most of the questions posed in the first one and the quality of world and characters remained high.  I have a feeling I would have liked this book even more if I didn't have the near perfection of the first one to compare it too.  I give it 7 out of 10 death plaques and recommend it to everybody who has already read the first book. I am vibing this author and will be picking up some of her other stuff to read. Oh yeah, also not as into the cover of this book as much as the last one, a bit to hip/modern teen looking for my taste. Happy Reading Everybody!

Triss, Not-Triss, Trista

On my epic trip of awesome I got a chance to read a book beginning to end.  I actually tossed this book in my back pack on a whim 'cause I had totally forgotten I had got it and stuck it on my shelf.  Turns out it was the perfect book to read as an October/Trip hybrid.  The book is Cuckoo Song by the ever creative Frances Hardinge.  The book, besides having a Halloween worthy cover also turned out to be a completely different read (in a good way) then I thought it would be.  What made this book so interesting, let's find out.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!

Triss wakes up all befuddled.  She is told that she fell into the river and suffered yet another illness...which accounts for her inability to think straight.  As she recovers, her little sister Pen starts to freak out, telling her she is not the real Triss.  As Triss's memories start to come back we learn that the Crescent family has all kinds of private problems.  The oldest brother, Sebastion died in the war five years ago, Triss has been sickly ever since and Pen acts out to get some attention from her parents, away from the ever sick Triss.  All of this is covered with a veneer of civility and wealth as their father is a genius civil engineer that has single handedly revitalized their town.  Triss develops an insatiable hunger that concerns her parents.  She also starts to see her dolls move and supposedly catches her little sister placing a weird phone call.  Her father takes her to the doctor after becoming worried that her recent fever has left her a bit touched in the head.  She passes it off as sleep walking and is taken for a new dress to make her feel better.  Here she meets Mr. Grace who lets her eat as much as she wants. Triss overhears her parents talking about a mysterious person who may have been responsible for her fall in the river and she investigates.  She discovers a weird creature delivering letters to the desk in her dead brothers room.  When she reads the letters she finds that they are from Sebastion and talk about a horrible place that he is trapped in.  She captures the creature delivering the letters and gets the location of the Shrike, a being associated with the Architect who may be able to help her figure out just what is going on.  One day while she is supposed to be resting she notices Pen sneaking out and follows her.  She arrives at a cinema and follows Pen into a weird back room where she overhears a conversations between her little sister and a being known as the Architect.  Turns out Pen made a deal with this creature to take Triss away so that her parents could finally be happy.  However as part of the deal, the Architect had a cuckoo made that looks like Triss and has Triss's memories but was made of sticks, leaves and Triss's memento's.  She will only live for seven days until the Architect does whatever he means to do with the real Triss.  Understandably the changling Triss is upset about the whole thing.  Back at home, tension has risen to an all time high and the girls parents decide to take Triss to a specialist.  Not Triss, as she calls herself now is taken to see several people and eventually they end up at a little cottage.  After being tricked into revealing herself, Mr. Grace appears and tells her parents what she is, not their daughter, but a changling placed by beings called Besiders, which is a type of fey.  He tells her parents that they need to burn her so that the Besiders will bring back the real Triss.  Not-Triss is saved from burning by the appearance of Pen and the girls make a run for it.  They are taken care of by the wild and strong Violet, the fiance of their dead brother who is no longer welcome at the Crescent household.  Not-Triss and Pen follow the Besider directions and end up in the Underbelly and finally get the whole story from the Shrike.  Turns out that Besiders can only live where there is uncertainty and with the advance of maps and science their living ground is shrinking.  The Architect has learned to make impossible spaces to house the Besiders but needed a legit city guy to get them built.  He offered Mr. Crescent contact with his dead son in return for passing off the ideas as his own.  Eventually Mr. Crescent no longer wants to honor the deal and this angers the Architect who goes and makes a deal with Pen.  Pen asks the Architect to take Triss away because she felt her constant illness and spoiledness was making her parents unhappy.  The Architect has the Shrike make not-Triss to distract everybody until he can exact his revenge.  Pen and not-Triss...whom Pen renames Trista after a couple of adventures bond the two...hook back up with Violet to evade Mr. Grace and their parents.  They learn that the Architect has been bringing in Besiders to eventually move into a space he created in the city and plans to get his revenge by burying the real Triss alive.  Trista decides to help the real Triss, regardless of the Architects attempts to tempt her to help him by giving her ways to live past seven days.  Trista and the Architect face off and Trista grabs a stopped watch that had been keeping Sebastion suspended in the bad place and starts it again.  The Architect is defeated and Triss and Pen are reunited with their parents.  Trista uses the watch to stop time for herself and survive.  Trista and Violet decide to start a new life together while the Crescent family tries to figure out how to move forward.

World Building - This was a great and unique world, blending the familiar world of post WWI England with just a touch of the fantastic.  I feel the author blended the Besiders world very well with our world and showed exactly where and how the crossover was.  The world was built through action and observation which meant no long rambling descriptions to break up the narrative and I loved it!

Story - This story was so different from what I originally thought it would be.  This is in some ways the fault of the blurbs.  The way the description of the book and the one line "reviews" sound, I thought it would be a bit of a horror novel OR that Triss would take the whole book to figure out what she was.  Instead I got a story of discovery and relationships.  The story very much was about a family discovering who they really where and how they needed to relate to each other.  The focus was on Triss and Pen, but all the characters had their places in the story.  In the end the story was less about drawing out the suspense and more about discovery and growing.  It had a clear beginning, middle and end.  Very original story.

Character - I think one of my favorite aspects of the book was the author's treatment of the characters.  Every single character had...I want to say two faces.  There was the facade they showed the world for whatever reason and then there was their true selves.  This was the most apparent in not-Triss as she was literally not her true self and had to discover who she was supposed to be, but every single character had multiple facets.  The book did a great job at showing us how and why the society facade came about and why each character felt they had to show a different face to the world.  We also got to discover each characters true self, their motives, loves, hates, history and all the complications of being a living being.  Fantastic job with the characters.

Editing - Very good pacing for this story.  The combination of writing and editing was great.  None of this, let's draw out the mystery just for tensions sake.  The book was more about discovery and less about trying for a gotcha twist.  I felt like I got through this book very quickly.  My only tiny editing qualm would be that the last quarter of the book started to feel a bit repetitive with the girls constantly running, hiding, sleeping and repeating.  Overall though the pacing was spot on and the whole thing actually made great sense.  Good job.

Family - At it's core I really felt that this story was about the Crescent family and how they had to deal with the massive changes in their life.  They were a settled wealthy English family who's life was shattered by the war...as was most peoples.  They all did things to adjust.  Triss was "ill and sickly" so that her parents had somebody to take care of to take the focus off of their grief.  Pen, to young to understand acted out because she knew no other way.  The parents doing what they can to cope within the strictures of a very uptight society.  The whole family just trying to cope.  The catalyst of not-Triss forces the whole family to drop the veneer and really try and figure out why they act the way they do and to re-evaluate their relationships with each other.  The fact that it was magical style creatures that brought this all to a head just made it all that much cooler :-)

Discovery - I think I have probably used this term at least 100 times in this post, but I felt that it was such a prevalent theme that I am going to talk about it some more.  This whole book was about people discovering things...which is such a refreshing change from the gotcha twists, long drawn out secrets and endless telling of some other books I have read.  We get to discover along with our characters pretty much everything.  We learned about Triss and how she came into being.  We learned about the Crescent family history.  We learned about the tragedy of Mr. Grace.  We learned about the Besiders and their story.  Every thing that was discovered added to the story and gave us another piece to the puzzle.  I love reading stories like this, they feel alive.

Besiders - The treatment of the Besiders was pretty spot on.  From reading about a zillion various books, stories and studies of the old school fey, I felt that these slightly scary guys were great.  The Besiders paralleled the humans in their need to change and adapt.  As the humans had to grow and cope with the war and progress, so did the Besiders if they wanted to survive.  I especially liked that while humans needed and craved stability and certainty, the Besiders are a mirror image, needing uncertainty and chaos to thrive.  These were also not little flitting faires and regal elves.  These were wild, varied and on occasion dangerous beings who were just looking to survive.  They were the perfect mirror to our human characters and were utilized wonderfully.

Overall Impression - I loved this book.  It was not originally what I thought it was going to be, but it turned out to be so much better.  I know many people were disappointed when the book turned out not to be full on horror...but this just goes to show you not to judge a book by it's cover...or short description...or blurb.  I am finding I really enjoy this author and her slightly skewed look on everyday life without going overboard to the flat out weird.  It is a fine line to walk and so far I feel she does it beautifully.   I give it 8 out of 10 unruly scissors and recommend it to anybody who wants an engrossing read, Victorian style fantasy and isn't afraid to ask some hard questions.  I will be reading more of this authors stuff.  Happy Reading Everybody!

The Complications of Blended Families

Hi all, sorry for the insanely spotty posting...but life...so it will probably continue for at least another couple of weeks.  Anyways how about a quick rambling?  The nicer weather has made me pull out some of my graphic novels and Saga Volume II by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Fiona Staples was up to bat.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

When we last left our Romeo and Juliettesque little family they were hurtling through space on a wooden rocket ship (I want of of these SOOOOOO bad!) and had been visited/invaded by Marko's parents.  We learn a little bit about Marko's childhood on the moon Wreath and she his parents devotion to him and each other.  Upon arriving Marko's mother Klara banishes the ghost baby sitter Izabel to a local planetoid and Marko goes after her.  Marko's mother also decides to go after her son.  Alana and her newborn daughter are left with Barr, Marko's father.  After some hesitation on both sides, the two of them bond...mostly over little Hazel...but still start to warm to each other.  After some much needed sleep Alana discovers that Barr has used his considerable skills to make special cloths for the family.  He also reveals to Alana that he has only a very short amount of time to live and that he has told nobody else.  Back on the planetoid Marko and his mamma run into all kinds of fun trouble, but eventually recover Izabel...of course they also discover that the planetoid is actually a huge space egg with a deadly creature inside about to hatch.  Elsewhere in the universe many a folk are trying to hunt down our little family and especially their mixed daughter.  The Will (our intrepid freelancer) is still brooding over the death of his girlfriend The Stalk and his inability to rescue Slave Girl from her owners.  After several day dreams and refusal to continue his mission, Gwendolyn, a kick ass Wreath native...and Marko's infamous ex-fiancee...appears to motivate The Will.  She helps him find a way to rescue Slave Girl and convinces him to go after Marko and Alana.  This culminates in the wooden rocket ship being discovered and almost destroyed.  The ship is saved by Barr using the last of his strength to hold everything together, dying in the process of protecting his family. The Will and company are sent on their merry way...for the moment.  Also hot on the trail of our little mixed up family is the Prince Robot IV.  He is not allowed to go home until he has completed his mission of slaying Marko and Alana and bringing back the baby.  He has used his knowledge of the progression of the duo's relationship from prisoner and keeper to husband and wife and mother and father.  We as the lucky readers also get to watch this happen.  Essentially it is a book (so awesome) of disguised rhetoric of peace that brings them together.  Prince Robot IV discovers that the author of the book lives on the planet Quietus and surmises that the couple may end up there.  He go's and visits the author who though injured by the robot, covers the fact that the little family is already there.  This is where we end our story...for now.

Since the format of this is different from a "normal" book, I'm gonna use my original rambling format.  A lot of what I loved in the first volume of this story remains in this second volume.  I love watching the pair, and especially Alana deal with the realities of new parenthood while also trying to travel, survive and still have a "meet the parents" moment.  Learning more of the pairs history, especially Marko's really starts to give the family feel of this story some good strong roots.  Finding out some more of the details of Marko and Alana's relationship was also a lot of fun.  I really enjoyed the character of Gwendolyn and how she wasn't some bitch pining away for her man, but instead just wanted her stuff back so she could move on with life.   The Will continued to show both his brutal side and his soft side, sometimes in conflict with each other to make him our freelancer with a heart of gold.  The other thing I really liked about this installment of the series was how they showed the toll that this never ending war was taking on the rest of the galaxy.   Various species on multiple worlds are drafted into either side of the war through no choice of their own, but the whims of whatever army got there first.  Some species thrive and have become an interagal part to the Wreath and Landfall people.  Others are pressed into service or killed wholesale in the name of a people that they have never seen and have no real right to push this war and it's horrors on them.  We see a universe of wonder and variety and amazement that is becoming tired and weary and just about done.  I think this is great because a) this is a reality even now in our real lives and b) sets up so many options for future volumes.  I continue to enjoy this series and it's mix of fantasy, sci fi and domestic bliss...or what passes for it when you haven't slept in 96 hours.  I can't wait to continue this series and give it 7 out of 10 bad romance novels.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Dueling With Weapons

Hello all, how was your weekend?  Mine was busy busy busy BUT I did get to finish a book I couldn't put down, so that is good.  Best part is it is actually two books in one so you get a double rambling YAY!!!!  The book is Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith and contains both Crown Duel and Court Duel so I will do two ramblings in a row, one on each book.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Meliara and Branaric (known as Mel and Bran) promise their dying father that they will do their best to overthrow the bad king that is currently on the throne.  To keep this promise the young count and countess gather who and what they can from their poor and far flung home of Tlanth and start a guerrilla war against the king and one of his cronies who seek to get the coveted colorwoods that are part of Tlanth for themselves.  The colorwoods are protected by the Covenant, that was put in place when it was discovered that the chopping down of the colorwoods was killing the indigenous and mysterious Hill Folk.  The folk of Tlanth appear to be doing fairly well in their battle against the crown, until the young Marquis of Shevraeth comes to take command.  Mel (who is telling the story) is caught when she gets to close to the enemy camp and is taken captive.  The Marquis take Mel back to the capital city to await the kings judgement.  Along the way Mel and Shevraeth fight and bicker and get to know one another.  Mel is taken to a cell, where mysterious little kindness's are granted to her through the bribing of sympathetic, yet anonymous nobles.  Shevraeth visits Mel and informs her that unless she renounces her rebellion and turns over her land and her brother, she will be put to death.  Mel refuses and is sentenced to a traitors death.  A dear friend and spy comes to Mel's cell and helps her escape.  As she tries to sneak home, Mel encounters many people willing to help her, despite the sentence of death for any who aid her.  She also has some odd encounters with Shevreath.  Eventually she is recaptured, but Shevreath reveals that he is also trying to overthrow the king, and has been working towards the goal for quit some time.  Mel returns home to her brother who tells her the same thing and asks that she work with them instead of against Shevreath.  Mel has a hard time with this as this has been her fight her entire life, and she is not particularly fond of the Marquis of Shevreath.  She has a hard time trusting the Marquis, especially when she and her brother are attacked by what appears to be an ambush.  Shevreath once again proves his friendship and they all go to do battle with the king.  Mel and her friends get some unexpected help from the Hill Folk who seem to realize that Mel and Bran are fighting to protect them and the Covenant, along with overthrowing the king.  The battle is won, Bran is relieved that he won't have to be king (it is assumed Shevreath will take on that role), and Mel is left confused and a little lost now that her life's work has been accomplished.  She heads back to Tlanth to try and repair and restore it with their new found wealth and Bran and Shevreath head to the capital to figure out life there.  We end with Mel contemplating her place in the grand scheme of things, her ignorance of the outside world, and want she wants for her future.

I found so much to love about this book that I'm gonna just jump right in and get started.  Let's start with Mel.  Mel is one of those characters I adore because she is SOOOOO far from perfect, and yet almost all of her intentions are, at least in her mind, honorable.  She is a girl with a mission, a purpose and a promise to a dying father.  This is what motivates her entire life.  The problem with this is that it is her only purpose, and unfortunately her upbringing, though filled with rhetoric against the depravities of the bad king, has left her woefully unprepared for real life.  Her father in a fit of rage burned his library and allowed his children free reign to run as they would, which Mel took copious advantage of...which left her uneducated, unworldly, and with a very small view of things.  I think what I like best about this book is watching our heroine struggle not only against outside injustice, but her own lack knowledge as well.  It is very interesting to read about a hero who is not the smartest, prettiest, quickest, or most gifted of anybody, she is just a girl with a naturally kind heart who's ignorance leads to their own consequences.  We get to see Mel start by being almost proud of her lack of worldliness, using it as a sort of shield against the dreaded "nobility", but she slowly starts to realize that her actions, mostly done out of impulse or misguidedness, have consequences and she has no one but herself to blame.   The best part though is her acknowledgement of said deficiencies and her willingness (eventually) to remedy them.  The Marquis of Shevreath is another great character who realizes his mistakes, especially when it comes to lack of communication percipitaitng certain events and again his ability to try and rectify it.  Shevraeth could easily come across as acting cold and superior to the poor little Tlanth nobles, but actually comes across if anything as a bit uncomfortable in his own skin, trying to balance the grand plan against individual lives.  He has enough of a sense of humor to temper him, and seriously he has become one of my book crushes.  Bran is a character who by all rights should be less developed and regulated to the side, but I can't help but love him too as he is in no way heroic, but is able to win people to him by his sheer genuineness. The mix of realisticness (that's a word right?) and complete fantasy is wielded expertly in this book, giving me enough magic to escape into another world, and enough realism for me to believe in it.  There is no instant love story, there are no easy fixes, and even at the end of this book many things are left unresolved as it would be in real life.  Just because you win a war doesn't mean everything is fixed.  Just because you become aware of your shortcomings you don't miraculously overcome them.  There are no easy answers in this book, yet it does not come across pretentious or pseudodeep.  It is readable and engaging and sets up the next book perfectly.  The few complaints I may have are some of the tidbits about the world feel like you would already have to know the history for them to make sense.  The bad king felt a little contrived with no real depth or originality, just the bad king tax good people must die type of guy.  Overall I recommend this book for anybody who likes a great story, the castle fantasy style, or great and fairly realistic characters.  I give this first book 8 out of 10 cups of listerblossom tea.  Happy Reading Everybody!
Why is it so hard to write realistic, yet likable characters?  How much background of a fictional world do you need to enjoy it?  Do I get completely different things out books then you do?

Fairy's and Moonies

I have a confession...I cheated.  I was supposed to finish at least one of the books I have been reading this weekend so I could get some sort of rambling up, but then a new book appeared in the mail and...well...I read that one instead :-) The book is actually a graphic novel called Saga volume 1 by Brain K. Vaughan and drawn by Fiona Staples.  I had seen this one pop up on all kinds of nomination lists for all kinds of awards and I like graphic novels and fairies so I decided to give it a go.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD

This little synopsis may be a bit different as it is a graphic novel instead of a traditional words only novel but I will give it a go.  In this world (which is a great fantasy/sci fi hybrid) a planet called Landfall and an inhabited moon called Wreath are at war with each other (not sure why).  After a couple of cities got destroyed they decided to outsource their war to designated zones on other planets and hire their inhabitants to help fight the war for them.  The people of Landfall resemble fairies a bit, though that is not what they really are, but they are characterized by having some form of wings and tend to be more technological.  The people of Wreath or moonies all have some form of horns and seem to be the more nature/magic oriented.  This story is

narrated from the future by Hazel a child born from a Landfall mother and a Wreath father with traits of both species.  Alanna and Marko met and fell in love while he was her prisoner, got married and had a kid.  Most of the book deals with Hazel's birth and her parents attempt to escape the higher ups on either side of the war.  Various forces are sent against them as they search for the fabled Rocketship Forest and they continually escape by the skin of their teeth.  They meet up with a ghostly teenager named Izabel (who owing to stepping on a landmine is only the top half of a girl) who helps them escape in exchange for being allowed to bond to Hazel.  Alanna, Marko and Hazel dodge army forces from both sides, and a creature called The Stalk who apart from being a bizarre (and kind of cool) cross of armless human and albino spider is also what is known as a Freelancer, a feared hired sword who is sent to kill Alanna and Marko and bring back the baby.  Other hunters include a very human looking Freelancer called The Will (who is a cold blooded murderer but risks his neck to save a child Slave Girl), the Prince of the Royal Robots (who are human bodies with screens for heads...very weird) and various contingents of military personnel from both sides.  At the end they make it to the Rocketship Forest in one piece and Izabel helps them activate on of the remaining Rockets (so so so cool) and they zip into space...just as Marko's parents arrive on the ship!
The story it self is pretty simplistic, very straight forward and to the point most of the characters that we met were pretty moralistic and wanted to do the right thing.  The bad guys were immoral and corrupt and the in between characters where torn between duty and the right thing to do.  All that being said the premise is pretty awesome and well executed.  The reason I picked it up was because it was about a family.  A mom, a dad, and a baby and you just don't see a lot of adventure stories with that dynamic.  The creators did a fantastic job in having the parents have to deal the reality of having an infant, the constant feeding, burping, changing, jiggling, comforting, waking up constantly reality of life, regardless on weather you are on the run or not.  I liked how the author allowed the parents to be traditional parents who very much loved each other
and their tiny daughter.  The other characters were hit or miss.  The Stalk looked pretty cool, but you don't get to know her all that well.  The Will seems like your stock "I'm a big, bad, mean guy, but underneath I really have a soft heart", but we will see in later volumes if this holds true.  The Robot Royals...I'm not really sure what part they play yet.  It is kind of a weirdly cool dichotomy to see this technological head on a body that dresses in 18th century clothing, along with all the royal quirks that go along with it.  Izabel cracks me up, on her world when you die you hang out as a ghost helping to defend your people, but she doesn't really want to do that.  She is very teenage like in her interactions, but with a mature streak that is plausibly explained as her being the oldest of 7 children.  Overall the story was fairly simple, predictable and very graphic novely (that is a real term I swear), but with an original, well executed premise.  I will definitely be picking up the next volume soon.  I give it 7 out of ten horns and wings.

Do you read graphic novels?  Do you consider them books?  Have you ever tried to shoot a ray gun while nursing a baby?

Stealing Words To Stay Alive

Wow...um...hmmm...gee's, well I'm not really sure how to review this book so I guess I will just jump right in and hope you can figure out what my jumbled little brain is trying to say.  I just finished The Book Thief, it was a really tough read, but I am so glad I did.  First off, there will be spoilers, yep lots and lots of spoilers so you have been warned.  This is also a kind of jumpy all over the place book, so my rambling will probably be even more jumpier and all over the place than usual.  Ok here we go.

The Book Thief is about a lot of things, it is about life, death, words, power, hunger, friendship, family, neighbors, idea's, and hope and that is just in the first chapter.  The book is narrated by Death, which at first threw me off as his prose was a little flowery and disjointed for my taste (not everything needs to be described like modern art!), but as I got into the book the rhythm started to flow a lot better. Having Death as the voice for this book was a great choice as it allowed the reader to pretty much know everything in a way that made sense.
Death tells us the story of Liesel Meminger, a young girl who will also be known as the book thief.  She and her younger are on their way to a foster home, when the boy dies on the train, this is Death's first meeting with Liesel.  The boy is buried and Liesel picks up a book dropped by the apprentice grave digger, it is her first foray into book thieving and she does it without even knowing the reason why.  She is taken to Himmel Street in a little town outside Munich and left with Hans and Rosa Hubermann.  Rosa is a foul-mouthed slab of a woman who shows her affection with vulgarities and pet names such as Saumensch which translates into pig.  Hans is a quiet man who takes to Liesel immediately.  Liesel has nightmares about her dead brother and Hans comes in to comfort her every night.  One night he discovers her stolen book and asks her if she would like to read it.  Liesel does not know how to read, she does not even know what her book is called (The Grave Diggers Handbook) and so begins her lessons. Hans (who is a painter by trade) takes his foster daughter to the basement and has her paint words on the walls until she knows them, and they read a little bit of her stolen book every night after she awakes from her nightmares.  This begins Liesel's attachment to books and words.  One night she is at a book burning in honor of the Fuhrer and she steals a book that escaped the flames, the book is called The Shoulder Shrug.  She is seen taken this illicit book by the mayors wife.
Meanwhile the Jewish son of a man who saved Han's life in the first war has arrived at the home of the Hubermanns.  Max is hidden in the cold basement in an attempt to save him from the growing persecution of the Jews by Nazi Germany.  Liesel befriends him and they start a beautiful, fragile friendship.  Through out all of this Liesel and her best friend Rudy (who once painted himself black and ran around the athletic track calling himself Jesse Owens) are constantly getting themselves into one scrape or another.  Rudy is in love with his friend and is constantly asking her for a kiss.  I wish I could better describe Rudy for you all with out rehashing the whole entire book because he is a great character, a good friend, strong, protective, brash, silly, confused, all of these things and so much much much more.  Liesel makes friends with the mayors wife who allows her to read the books in her private library, until one day she angers Liesel and in retaliation she starts to steal books from the mayors library.  Later it is discovered that the mayors wife was leaving the window open for Liesel and even leaving out cookies and such for the young book thief.  Max writes a book for Liesel using the painted over pages of the Nazi propaganda book Mein Kampf .  The book is called The Standover Man and is given to the girl for her birthday, this becomes one of her most beloved possessions. Bombings start to occur with a regular occurrence and while everybody is jammed into the bomb shelters, Liesel starts reading aloud to the group to keep everyone calm. Parades of captured Jews are soon brought marching through the town on their way to Dachau, the site of a concentration camp.  Hans and Liesel go to watch and Hans cannot help but try and alleviate the suffering of these wretched humans as they pass.  In punishment Hans is drafted into the army and sent to fight in Russia.  Max decides it is to dangerous for the Hubermanns if he
stays so after a tearful goodbye he leaves the family.  Rudy's father is also drafted into the army after refusing to let Rudy be taken away to be made into a super soldier.  Life and death continue on Himmel street and Liesel continues to steal books as a way to manage the chaos in her life.  One day Rosa gives Liesel another book that Max had left for her, this one is called The Word Shaker complete with illustrations, this has to be one of the most beautiful parts of this book.  Hans is injured in the war and is allowed to come back home to his family to the great joy of his wife and foster daughter.  The war continues and more Jews are marched through the streets.  While watching this dreadful parade, Leisel sees Max and goes to him, this results in a whipping for both of them.  Liesel in a fit of rage sneaks into the mayors wife's library and rips up a book, she leaves a note apologizing and says as punishment she will no longer come to the library.  The mayors wife show shows up on her doorstep with a blank journal for Leisel to write her own story.  Liesel takes her blank book down to the basement, the same basement where she learned to read, and where she spent time with her friend Max.  The painted words and pictures are still on the walls.  Liesel is in the basement finishing her story when one last bombing occurs.  This bombing completely wipes out Himmel street, along with two others.  Everybody is dead, Hans, Rosa, her neighbors, Rudy.  She is saved only because she was in the basement, saved by the very words that she had stolen over the years.  Leisel says finally kisses the dead lips of her best friend Rudy and she tries to say goodbye to her parents in the rubble of the street she had called home.  She is taken in by the mayor and his wife and eventually is reunited with Max who survives the concentration camps.  Death informs us that she eventually moved to Sydney Australia, got married and had children and grandchildren.  The last page is Death finally having a brief conversation with the book thief.

As long as that synopsis was, it did not capture even a little bit of what this book was about.  Every character, even ones only mentioned once or twice has a story.  The best part about Death being the narrator is that he could put in all these little asides (almost mini announcements) about what a character did, or was thinking, or what ultimately happened to them.  This book is technically mainly about Liesel, but

Rudy, Hans, Rosa, Max and all of the characters I did not have room to mention play just as big a role as the title character.  This is not a happy book at all, it is dark and depressing, yet oddly compelling.  The horrors in this story are all there for a reason and dealt with in a very humane way.  The portrayal of Death as a weary tired entity, just doing his job made each death that more poignant.  I liked the premise of this fairly ordinary little town in Germany and everything that they had to endure during the war.  We are so used to pointing to Germany and Germans being the bad guys in WWII, but I think we sometimes forget that it was a twisted man and a group of loyal idiots who inflicted most of the horrors on the world.  These little towns had to give everything to the cause, money, resources, family members, and if you did not agree with what was happening you suffered the hideous consequences.  These people lived their lives in fear, hunger and cold, they listened for the air raid sirens and were killed by bullets and bombs, just like the Allied countries. This glimpse into the lives of ordinary people really drives home the insanity of any war, where the people who suffer the most are the ones who have no say in the matter.

Again, I can not really express everything this book is without reprinting the whole thing, but I would recommend it to most people.  Be aware this is not a sweet book about a little girl overcoming adversity, it is a look at lives lived, lost, shattered, and put back together again. It is not a linear story told beginning to end (Death gives out spoilers generously throughout the book, in fact you know within the first few chapters that Rudy is going to die young in a bombing).  This book is not about surprises, or twist endings, but about humanity. It might take a little while to get into the flow of the book (it took me about 50 pages to get really immersed in it), but once you do it is hard to put down.  Read it and let me know what you think, I really want to hear other peoples reactions to this book.