It's The End Of The World As We Know It

With the passing of Terry Pratchett, a great author who has contributed to the field of fantasy in a massive and wonderful way I had the urge to read one of his works.  To this end I chose Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman as this is most probably his most well known work, and I love Neil Gaiman as well so it was a win, win, win for me.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Antichrist has been born and the prophesied end of the world has now started.  Now this is understandably a big deal and with that we follow a couple of characters through the end of the world.  Our main duo are Crowley, a demon of hell who has spent a lot of time on earth and isn't really that bad of a fellow, and his unlikely buddy Aziraphale, an angel (and occasional rare book dealer) who has also spent a lot of time on earth and is not quit as angelic as one would think.  The two buddies decide that they kind of like Earth as it is and feel that the impending apocalypse might put a damper on things.  When they get recalled by their respective entities both beings decide that maybe they won't go as summoned.  Meanwhile a woman named Anathema Device has been trying to decipher her ancestor Agnes Nutter's obscure prophecies, culminating in her knowing about a whole lot of what's gonna happen without actually understanding it.  We are introduced to the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, a red woman named War who is followed by violence; A man all in black named Famine who encourages eating without substance and extreme dieting; A pale oozy man by the name of Pollution (who took over after Pestilence got a bit less scary with the advent of

Penicillin) and of course Death, who is pretty awesome and never shows his face.  The four ride pretty kickass motorcycles and are instrumental in bringing about the proper ending of the world.  Arguably the most important character in this whole book is the Antichrist...who through a mixup is being raised as an ordinary boy by the name of Adam (meanwhile Warlock, the boy everybody thinks is the Antichrist is seriously disappointing the evil minions) who runs a small gang of neighborhood kids call the Them.  Adam has an impossible imagination and runs with his gang all over town dreaming up amazing games.  As everything starts coming to a head, Adam meets Anathema, who has taken residence up in Tadfield and gives Adam some literature that lead his imagination to take an even bigger leap.  Adam starts playing games with the Them that involves some of the stuff he has read, what he doesn't realize is that while he "plays" in the real world things are happening.  For example, he and his friends imagine the raising of Atlantis...and out in the ocean an unknown island nation appears.  He also decides that the world has too many weapons and explains to his friends how he wishes all the weapons would disappear...and so it happens.  As time goes on Adam starts to realize his power and scares his friends as he lays out a vision that would essentially empty the world of people, dividing what is left between himself and his three friends.  It becomes apparent to the other players that the epicenter of the power that will end the world is in Tadfield and Anathema, The Four Horseman, and Crowley and Azriaphale all converge on the small, idyllic town.   Adam has a a crisis inside himself when he realizes that he can shape the world as he wants.  He feels the urge to follow the shape of the prophecy, but finally with the help of his friends, he decides not to end the world and there by avoiding the end.  Everybody drifts back to their lives, with just the vaguest of notions something big went down...or almost when down...or something like that.

So if that did not make any sense...I know.  This is a hard book to summarize as it is less of a plot and more a bit of this and that strung together to make a story.  If you have ever read either of these authors you will probably know exactly what I mean :-)  None of this is a bad thing, it just makes it harder to explain.  Let's discuss what I liked about this book.  To start with the premise is just fun, I

mean what other setting could possibly give us the sheer variety and craziness and irreverence as the impending apocalypse.  The biggest strength of this book is the characters, as you can probably gather from the above synopsis.  Adam is my favorite, mostly because of his imagination and the way he sees the world.  I also love the Horsemen and how the authors applied their ancient plagues to the current and modern world.  One of the things I noticed (and enjoyed) was the direct correlation between Adam and his three buddies (a girl and two boys) and the Four Horsemen (and woman).  In fact at one point the four kids and the four Horsemen go head to head in an epic awesome battle.   I liked how the small town of Tadfield was the proxy for the rest of the world.  Instead of the final battle being fought in an epic town, with an epic baddie vs awesome goodie, it came down to a small town, a child, and ordinary people (and a couple of demons and angels for good measure).  The writing is familiar in a good way as I have read both of these authors and enjoyed them thoroughly.  There were a few things that didn't really get me excited as a reader.  The over all book was a bit meandering for me, there were several points where a character was introduced  and then never heard from again, or an event that was described in great detail that while entertaining, didn't really have anything to do with the book.  There was the addition of foot notes, some of which were amusing, but a lot of which were just kind of there.  Over all it was an entertaining book that was worth the read, especially if you like tongue in cheek humor, angels and demons, good times, or small idyllic towns that house the Antichrist.   I give this book 7 out of 10  demonic Bently's.
What is your favorite version of the Apocalypse?  What is the real difference between angels and demons?  Have I ever told you my sister banned me from having kids 'cause she is pretty sure I would give birth to the Antichrist?

Living With The Dead

October is my month for reading, every book I have read so far this month has been pretty wonderful and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean is no exception.  I have to admit, I was a tad bit anxious when starting this book because while I love Mr. Gaiman's graphic novels and short stories, his full length novels usually are not my favorite.  But the premise of this one sounded interesting, and it was in both the kids section and the adult section so I thought I would give it a go, and boy am I glad I did.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

A man makes his way through a house in England, killing a mother, father and sister, he has only one victim left, the baby. The baby however is a curious sort and took advantage of the door left open by the killer to crawl to a little graveyard near his house where he is adopted by a pair of ghosts (Mr. and Mrs. Owens) and promised to be looked after by a not dead, yet not alive being by the name of Silas.  This is how Nobody Owens (called Bod) came to live in a graveyard and be raised by ghosts.  We follow Bod as he grows from a baby to a young boy, making friends with the other ghosts and sleeping in the cozy tomb of his adopted parents.  As Bod grows a bit older he befriends Scarlett a little girl who sometimes plays in the graveyard
(which has been turned into a historical nature preserve).  He takes the girl to a very ancient tomb deep under ground and becomes acquainted with the Sleer, an ancient guardian who uses fear to protect his treasures and awaits a new master.  Scarlett eventually moves away and Bod is given a living tutor by the name of Ms. Lupescu, while Silas is out on a secret mission.  Bod is not thrilled with the lessons he receives from his tutor, which include calling for help in every language imaginable. Feeling upset Bod is lured through a ghoul stone and taken to be made into a ghoul.  Lucky for him he is rescued by a huge grey dog, which just happens to be Ms. Lupescu.  This bonds the two and Bod is more willing to learn from her.  As Bod grows, he realizes that he needs to learn more and asks to be let out of the graveyard to go to school.  Silas is very against this, as they cannot protect Bod if he is not in the graveyard.  Bod is then told of the man who killed his family, and has vowed to kill Bod.  Bod uses this knowledge to get Silas to allow him to go to school so he can be prepared to meet the killer (who is called Jack) when the time comes.  Bod slips into school and uses his graveyard skills of Fade to remain largely unnoticed, until he helps out a couple of kids who are being bullied.  After a narrow escape from the police, Bod agrees to not go back to the school, but rather get his learning from, libraries and other sources.  Scarlett moves back into the area and meets up with Bod again.  She also befriends a gentleman by the name of Mr. Frost who is interested in the history of the graveyard.  Meanwhile, Silas and some of his friends have gone off on another mission, losing compatriots along the way, but eventually succeeding at the cost of all but Silas. Back at the graveyard we find out the Mr. Frost is actually the killer Jack, who belongs to a secret society who perform evil deeds to increase there power.  The reason they are after Bod is that it was prophesied that a boy from that family would be the groups demise, and killing the rest of the family was just for evil fun.  Bod enlists the help of his ghost friends and Scarlett and traps all of the men who are after him.  This effectively ends the secret society of evil as Silas and his crew have been traveling the world eliminating all of the other members.  Scarlett is pretty messed up over the whole deal and Silas erases her memories of the graveyard and sends her home. After some time has passed Bod realizes that it is getting harder to live in the graveyard, he cannot touch or even speak to all of his friends and he is getting restless.  Silas tells him now that the danger is passed it is time for Bod to rejoin the living.  The story ends with Bod bidding his ghost family fair well and setting out to live his life.

I think part of the appeal of this book is that I started it right after visiting that amazing grave yard in Pennsylvania, so I already had the perfect setting in my head. From there this book just burrowed into my head and lived there very happily.  This book is the perfect mix of story, characters, and just enough spooky to make it perfect dark and stormy night reading.  I loved watching Bod grow up in this unusual environment, seeing the challenges of raising a living child among the dead and how they overcame them was pretty cool. The various creatures and inhabitants of this graveyard all lent character, humor, and sometimes a bit of
sadness to the whole story, really giving it some depth.  The ghouls in particular where my favorite, there macabre sense of humor, the obvious crazyness, and just the sheer weirdness of their own little realm really popped for me, I kind of picture them a bit like the Lonesome Ghosts.  A lot of my love for this book comes from the acceptance of the ghosts of this little living child, and the sheer normalcy for Bod growing up in this strange place.  The illustrations add some great atmosphere, kind of giving you a glimpse of what the story looks like, while not robbing your imagination of filling in the gaps.  I seriously want to go to every graveyard I can find now and see what stories I can piece together from the tombs, headstones, crypts and general atmosphere.  The only criticism I would have is the reason for the killer chasing Bod down so relentlessly, for being the whole reason for Bod's growing up in a graveyard I thought it was glossed over pretty quickly with a pat answer and very little detail.  That being said the story was more about Bod and his everyday life and less about constant action and danger. Overall I very much enjoyed this book, and it will probably get reread and will most definitely be given to the nephews when they are a little older.  I give it 8 our of 10 ghoul stones.

What is your favorite kind of ghost story? Does visiting certain places make reading books set there better, or do you prefer to leave it all to your own imagination?  Is it creepy that I want to go live in a graveyard for a little while?

Werewolves, Unicorns and Carnivorous Ink Blots OH MY!

Do you know what I love (I mean besides books, coffee, sparkly things, sleeping in, vodka, etc.)?  I love an unexpected happiness.  You know those times when you go to the mail and some relative you forgot even existed decided to send you a birthday check this year, or your favorite store has a random sale on just that item you were looking for, you know small things that seem to just happen, usually when you need it the most. 

That is how I feel about this short story collection I just finished reading, Unnatural Creatures with stories selected by Neil Gaiman.  This was one of those random buys, it was sitting on a shelf in the wrong section, just tossed there by somebody who had changed there mind, and for some reason, without even looking at the title I put in my to buy pile.  I cracked this book open and immediately fell into some of the best short stories ever, so so so many awesome, different, amazing, cool, funny, weird, scary, stories. The theme of this book is creatures who should only exist in ones imagination.  Lucky for us that is a pretty broad theme and the stories in this collection push this idea to the very edges (think living coat hangers).  There is talk of the Museum for Unnatural History and the creatures that may inhabit it sets the stage for our stories.  I could seriously go on and on and on about this book, but instead I'm going to try (and this is going to be pretty impossible) to give you a quick taste of my favorites (favorite being relative because every single story in here was awesome in its own way).

**__**  by Gahan Wilson-Ok so the story I start with has an impossible title as it is more of an inkblot then words, but that totally goes along with this story of a spot that grows and moves anytime one is not watching it.  This story is only 15 pages long and is both hilarious and creepy, perfect start to this book.

The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees by E. Lily Yu-This story pretty much has everything one could want from a short story.  There is politics, power struggles, war, genetic breeding, cartography, anarchy, and oh yeah it all plays out between the bees and wasps.  After reading this I will never look at those black and yellow insects the same way again.

Gabriel-Ernest by Saki-This is a super short, super horrific, super awesome werewolf/untamed beast story that will give you more chills per page then anything I have read in a while

The Flight of the Horse by Larry Niven-This story cracked my up.  I loved the whole premise of it, I loved the scifi element of it, I LOVED the humor of it...just so much to love.  Pay close attention when you read this story and you may "learn" where some of our own myths and legends come from.

The Smile on the Face by Nalo Hopkinson-This story really got to me.  It is in the voice of a teenage girl trying to find a way to accept herself and it is a story any human can relate to.  Our girl finally finds her inner hamadryad and learns to accept it.  If I were a teacher, I might be tempted to make this one required reading.

I think there is a two fold strength to this collection.  The first being the selection of the authors from Diana Wynne Jones through Nalo Hopkinson to Larry Niven to so many more made this book truly one of many view points.  The other strength is that the stories were taken from so many time periods, the oldest story in this collection was published in 1885 and the newest being first published in this anthology in 2013 so you not only get a variety of authors, but a huge variety of style and glimpses into other times and places and people. Ok I lied there is a third strength and that is the illustrations by Briony Morrow-Cribbs at the beginning of each story add the perfect touch to each creation.  As an added bonus buying this book resulted in money being donated to 826DC which is a program works with the 6-18 crowd (and there teachers) to inspire the art of creative writing which is awesome and has the added benefit of making sure there are still decent authors around in my old age :-) I recommend this book to anybody and everybody, but especially you quirky people who love a good, twisty short story. This is without a doubt going on my favorites bookshelf, I give it 9 out of 10 Carnivorous Ink Blots.

What is your favorite unnatural creature?  What constitutes an unnatural creature?  Do reading stories like this make museums super scary (yet oddly thrilling)?

So Many Gods So Little Time

I finally finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman.  I must admit it took me a lot longer to get through then anticipated, especially for a book I was looking forward to because I usually really like Mr. Gaiman's work.
Let me start with an extremely quick and dirty  synopsis of the plot.  The main plot follows the character Shadow who starts the book by being released from jail a couple days early to attend the funeral of his wife who had been killed in a car accident.  Shadow is met by a mysterious guy who goes by the name Mr. Wednesday who hires him to be his driver/whatever else he needs guy.  Turns out that Mr. Wednesday is Odin, or at least the American version of Odin and he is trying to recruit other old gods to help him battle the new gods (Media, Internet, Mr. World etc.) for dominance in America.  Much chaos, killing, traveling and meeting ensue culminating in Shadow being hung in a tree (by choice) as Odin was in the old myths.  Shadow dies and travels through the under world before being brought back to life with the help of his zombie wife (I know I know, it actually makes some sort of sense in the context of the book).  Shadow realizes that the war between the gods was just a sham started by Odin and Loki to gain power for themselves.  Odin thrives on the bloodshed and Loki thrives on the chaos.  The combatants retreat back to their homes to live out the rest of their diminished lives.  Shadow helps his zombie wife die for real this time and continues on.  Interspersed with the main plot are stories of how the old gods came to America and some set in modern times of how they are trying to survive.
Overall...I don't know...I liked pieces of the book very much.  I could have read a thousand of the stories about the gods coming over in different peoples minds and how they took root here, I also like the stories on what they had to do here to survive.  I loved the concept, the idea that the old gods existed because people wanted them to and they were kept around and sustained through humans need and sacrifice.  I also like the idea of the new gods being what people "worship" in modern times, things like media and television.  Shadows story seemed a little disconnected from it all, I had a hard time tearing myself out of one world and being plopped back into Shadows fairly depressing one.  His story seemed to be one of a guy who just pretty much did as he was told and went along for the ride.  I'm not sure if he was intended to be more of an observer character to let the reader know what was going on, or an illustration of how little power one can have in the big picture, but I never really got into his story...which was the main story.  In the end it was an okay book, I am glad I read it and may even go back an reread parts of it.  I kind of want him to write a whole short story series just on how the gods got to America and what they are doing to survive because that was very well done.  I give this book 6 out of 10 cups of coffee :-)

What do you think of the idea that gods are ideas?  Am I missing the whole point of this book? What "new" gods do you think we have now?  Do you think there is a moldy cheese god in my refrigerator?

My Favorite Big Girl Fairytale

I love a good old fashioned fairytale, I also love new stories and Stardust by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by the wonderful Charles Vess is the perfect combination of both of these. 

The story is a well rounded plunge into a world on the other side of the Wall into the land of Faire and Stormhold.  There are evil witches who pursue a young beautiful fallen star to obtain a live beating heart to retain their youth.  A set of brothers intent on gaining the throne through any means necessary even to the extent of fratricide. Lightning harvesting pirates who sail through the skies on a flying ship.  And in the middle of it all a young man who is born of both worlds who is thrust into the midst of it all, with no higher intent then winning the heart of his school boy crush.  The interaction between the characters is entirely believable which sometimes belies the wondrously unbelievable world in which most of the story is placed.

The story reads very much like a classic fairytale with the young handsome man, protecting the lovely damsel in distress, only the damsel is a star that was knocked out of the sky by a flying pendant and the young man is only protecting her to take her back as a present to his supposed true love.  There are multiple villains, giving you plenty of people to root against, which is great until they fight each other and then your not quit sure who's side your on!  I think my favorite part though is the flying pirates who give our intrepid pair a place to rest, learn and heal.  This is but a bare surface scraping of the wonderful depth that this little tale hides.  And of course like all good fairy tales they all mostly live happily ever after.
Neil Gaiman does an excellent job in keeping a surrealistic, eccentric, slightly out of control feel, while still maintaining the idea of traditional story telling.  Charles Vess takes an already wonderful story and turns it into something amazing with his illustrations highlighting the story without overwhelming it.  If you are looking for a good book to help you escape for a little while this is the one you are looking for.

 
There is also a movie that is excellent, they stray from the book for sure, but all in all I love it.  The acting is great, and the story is mostly altered to fit a movie format as the book is not entirely filmable.  Watching the movie still gives you the essence of the book, which to me is the best part. I would highly recommend the movie as well as the book
What do you think, are fairy picture books only for little kids, or is a grown up version just the thing sometimes.  Do you love the originalness as much as I do?  Who do you like to read to escape for a little while?

The Simpsons!!!!

I Love the Simpson's, yes that funny animated yellow family on Fox.  Last week they showed a funny episode called The Book Job.  Homer recruits a bunch of Springfield folk (including Neil Gaiman!) to help him cash in on the tween book craze. It is a pretty hilarious look at the supposed process of writing all those fad books.  Definitely one of my favorite episodes:-)