The Last Santa

Rambling time!  Yep I have finally finished an actual holiday book and am ready to ramble...only four days before Christmas...oh well.  I found this book When Santa Fell to Earth by Cornelia Funke and illustrated by Paul Howard and was totally stoked to have my Christmas book all set.  It is a short book compared to the behemoths I have been reading and yet it still took me a while to get through (stupid Westworld taking up all my time...lol).  Anyways it is done now and it is time to ramble.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Niklas Goodfellow and his caravan falls to Earth when his flighty reindeer Twinklestar gets frightened an breaks his harness.  He falls into a typical suburban town filled with your typical suburbanites.  Niklas and his two Christmas angels the motherly and bossy Matilda and shy and quiet Emmanuel put the caravan to rights while the tiny, swear prone elves get to work on repairs.  Ben is an athletic middle grade boy who while great at sports is not so good and speaking out loud, his thoughts never come out the way he intends them too.  He is dared by his nemesis Dean to knock on the mysterious caravans door and wait for an answer.  He does this and meets Niklas, a tired looking young man for a brief second.  During this brief interlude, Ben see's the unbelievable sight of a tiny man chillin in Niklas's pocket.  Feeling guilty Ben goes back to visit Niklas.  Ben is invited inside and is astonished to see many of the little men (elves) working on repairs, and the two angels baking gingerbread.  He is also astounded to find the interior of the caravan to be much larger then the visible exterior.  After some conversation, Ben learns that Niklas is one of many "Santa Claus's" that work Christmas.  He tells Ben that a nasty Santa by the name of Goblynch took over and made new rules for the rest of the Santa's to follow.  Now all presents are only made after a parental request and payment.  Goblynch has turned almost all the reindeer into salami and fired all the elves as he finds it cheaper to just buy the presents from Earth.  Niklas and six other Santa's refused to follow the new rules and continued the old ways.  This entailed gathering wishes from children directly from their dreams and sometimes surprising them with something completely different.  Unfortunately Goblynch set his evil nutcrackers after the rouge Santa's, catching all of them but Niklas.  Matilda tells Ben that if the nutcrackers catch Niklas, they will take his boots and if he looses his boots for more then 24 seconds then he will turn into chocolate...which is what happened to the other Santa's.  The next day, a shy quiet girl by the name of Charlotte also gets invited to visit Niklas.  She offers her dog to search for Twinklestar...who is invisible while on Earth.  Ben and Charlotte have a bit of an adventure, but eventually get the rouge reindeer back where he belongs.  Ben gets teased at school about his continual belief in Santa.  To this end he makes a bet with his nemesis on whether it will snow or not, with Ben winning if it snows in the next couple of days.  Ben and Charlotte ask Niklas if this is possible and he says it is, but it is risky.  Niklas agree's to the risk and tells the kids that they need to take a pipe/hose through the White Door to Yule Land and pipe snow to the snow machine.  The risky part is that the White Door is where the nutcrackers will come through if they get a whiff of Niklas.  The kids just manage to get enough snow and through the door before the nutcrackers come through, winning the bet with Dean and making the kiddo's happy.  Unfortunately their little escapade brought Niklas to the notice of Goblynch and his henchmen.  There is a pretty awesome little battle with the tide turning when shy Emmanuel and Twinklestar free the elves and save the day.  Goblynch is turned into chocolate and Niklas is free to be the best Santa he can be.  He personally brings Ben and his parents super awesome presents and promises to see him next year.  Niklas leaves with the hope he can recruit some new Santa's who will bring the true magic back to Christmas.

World Building - The world in this book was three fold, the mundane suburbia that could literally be anywhere, the cozy homey holiday magic of the caravan and the frosty, cold mystery of Yule Land.  The three very different area's all compared and contrasted with each other to create a perfect tiny little world in which to tell our story.  It is not sweeping, their is not a ton of back story, but it is the perfect setting for the narrative that the author was trying to tell.

Story - This was a great little Christmas story.  It has everything I love in a holiday tale, kids, magic, Santa, elves, angels, danger, greed, wishes and a very happy ending with the bad guys getting whats coming to them and the good guys triumphing over the darkness.  I liked how this story had many traditional elements, but the story itself was wholly original.  Good story.

Character - So much fun when it came to the characters.  Ever single being with a line had some sort of personality.  My favorites where the elves and angels, but seriously every single character was well done.  Nobody was perfect, nobody was stock, everybody had motivation and stayed true to themselves.  Pretty awesome if you ask me.  But seriously my favorites are the interactions between the bossy Matilda and the lazy swearing elves.

Editing - The book was readable, the flow was good, it was the perfect length...not much more to say.

Accidental Find - So possibly one of my favorite things about this book is how I found it.  I was perusing my local used bookstore in the middle of summer...possibly only so I could be somewhere with AC.  I was stumbling through the kids section when the authors name caught my eye.  Her Inkheart Trilogy is one of my favorites in the world so I am always looking for more by her.   I was kind of surprised to see it was a Christmas book 'cause I did not know that she had ever written one. I then had to make sure I actually remembered that I had it...which I did...so yay me...and yay for random book finds of perfection.

A Little Dark - I love a Middle Grade book that does not shy away from realizing that most kids, especially by the time they hit those middle grades might actually have a clue to what goes on in the real world.  This book is one of those.  The bad guy is not nice and some of the scenes...especially the illustrations are down right scary.  That being said, everything has a reason for being in the book and the way the kids deal with the scary stuff is dealt with really well.  It is not your typical sugary Christmas story where the bad guy gets redeemed...he pretty much gets turned to chocolate...and I for one am very happy about that.

Multi Santa's - The story is not super detailed on whether there was an original Santa that hired help, or if there have always been multiple Santa's, but I think the concept works.  It gives so much plausible explanation to how Santa can be everywhere at once.  It also helps explain some of the physical and story differences that abound when the various stories are told.  I also liked how even the Santa's were not immune from human greed and how that affected Christmas as a whole.  An original concept that was very well executed.

Overall Impression - I enjoyed this little Christmas book.  It had everything I was looking for in a Christmas story and is one I would recommend for anybody old enough not to have nightmares from the demonic looking nutcrackers.  Overall I would give it 7 out of 10 polar glow worms and am now going to start looking at everybody who might possibly be a Santa.  Happy Reading Everybody!

One Messed Up Christmas

I decided to start of my Christmas reading this year with something a bit on the irreverent side...ok... a lot on the irreverent side.  I had been feeling a wee bit stressed and just wanted something that  required little thought and a bit of relief.  To this end I picked up The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore.  Did it give me the holiday break I needed?  Let's find out, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

First things first, this is not a family tale of magic and wonder, it is the complete opposite and has a fair amount of all the stuff that makes a book rated R so you have been warned.  Pine Cove, California is a picturesque town that is still small enough to be considered charming to outsiders.  The denizens of this town are varied and a bit...well...crazy.  The main players in our tale are Dale, an "evil" and developer, his ex-wife Lena, Tucker a free-lance helicopter pilot and his fruit bat Roberto with a thing for Lena, Mavis the old broad of a bar tender (with a penchant for spiking her fruitcake), Theo a pot-head constable and his certifiable wife Molly who when she off her meds morphs into Kendra Warrior Babe, complete with sword wielding prowess.  Lena and Dale get into it one night, resulting in Lena accidentally killing him with a shovel.  Little Josh see's this and as Dale is dressed as Santa, his little child mind thinks that Santa is now dead.  Meanwhile the angel Raziel (who must have whatever form of ADD angels can have) has been tasked with fulfilling the Christmas wish of one child.  In between consuming human treats Raziel wanders over to the chapel that is hosting the Lonesome Christmas party where most of the town has gathered.  Taking the wish literally, Raziel raises all the dead in the area so that "Santa" will be alive.  This results in the dead coming back as very interesting zombies and terrorizing the party.  All sorts of crazy hell breaks loose which I cannot even begin to describe.  Little Josh freaks out and tells the angel he just wants everything to go back to how it was.  Poof, the angel grants the Christmas wish and all is well.

The book itself is a completely twisted mish-mash of personal stories interwoven with the main one, making it impossible to really sum up, but that is part of its charm.  The book was fun, violent, weird, crude, vulgar, silly, insane, but fun.  It is the type of book one reads when they are in that weird sort of mood for a tale that makes your life seem normal in comparison.  This book will make even the most messed up of holiday's seem sane in comparison.  Besides all of the weirdness and un-PCness, the author still managed to keep the gist of the holiday spirit through out the book.  The entire time I was reading, I got the sense that the people of Pine Cove were trying their hardest to be good people and to ensure their friends and family were doing ok regardless of what was going on. The characters were the best part of the book. each one having their own quirky past and interesting present.  I will forever have a soft spot for my schizophrenic Molly/Warrior Babe and I will probably read more of this authors books just to read more of her.  There is really not much more I can say about it other then if you like this sort of book, it fits in wonderfully for a little bit of a saucy holiday read.  I give it 7 out of 10 lasagna's and recommend it to anybody who likes something a bit different and does not get offended even moderately easily.  Happy Reading Everybody!

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?