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!

Magic Space Christmas

To continue my foray into weird holiday moods I picked up an old school short story collection called The Magic of Christmas edited by John Silbersack and Christopher Schelling which is a collection of seven short stories that are either holiday themed sci fi or fantasy.  It was an interesting little read, with each of the stories having a various success in getting me in the Christmas mood.  Since there are only seven stories, here they all are.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Star of Wonder by Julian May - A people who have lost their home planet to a super nova search for a new one.  Meanwhile the captain, burying his wife on an unsuitable planet gets to witness the supernova of his home planet leading the primitive people of this little world to a child in a manger...yep an alien observes the oldest Christmas story.  I liked this bittersweet story that gave a new perspective on the Christmas miracle.

The Ornament by Dennis L. McKiernan - A cherished acorn ornament is the symbol of a special Chrismtas story.  A young boy is befriended by what can only be called elves and to reward him for his help one Christmas Eve an acorn is carved with the story.  The boy grows up and has a family of his own, passing on the fantastic story before he is taken by his childhood friends to live with them in their magical realm.  This is a perfect and sweet tale to tell by the fire side, I loved it.

A Very Dickensy Christmas by Andre Norton - For this tale the author takes the style of a Dickens ghost story and gives us a bit of a modern twist.  A girl with no family is hired to play the part of a ghost girl for the benefit of a wealthy group interested in a Christmas at an old family house.  Little does she know that the boy she is playing oppisite of is no actor, but a true ghost of the old family.  The atmosphere in this book is perfect and in the exact style of Charles Dickens and feels like an extension of his famous works.  Definitely a good one.

What Are We Going to Do With Grandfather? by Christopher Stasheff - Set on an astroid a titled family worries what to do when the patriarch appears to go a bit batty.  Turns out the guy is finally free of his duties and his need to be so formal with his noble peers.  It ends with the more tender and eccentric part of the family embracing the story that Grandfather is trying to impart...best part of this story is the way he makes it snow on the astroid for a Christmas gift for his daughter in law.   I like the mix of sci fi and fantasy in this one, it is the exact type of story and setting I like to read.

I Sing of a Maiden by Judith Tarr - A researcher studying the Canterbury Cathedral finds that she and the spirit/ghost/being of Thomas Becket can cross into each others worlds.  To be honest I did not really get this story that much, but it was still cool in it's own almost wistful way.  The only real Christmas part was the season in which the story is set. On a complete side note, I very much love the song I Sing of a Maiden that the title of this story is based on.  

Tidings of Comfort and Joy by Gael Baudino - Possibly my least favorite story in the collection as again, besides the season this story had very little to do with the holidays.  The story is about a Wiccan and a Catholic priest who come together to help a mutual friend who has died move on to the next world.  Not really my style of story, but I'm sure there is an audience for it. 

Holiday by Richard Christian Matheson - This is a super short, yet very well written story about a man who encounters Santa while on vacation.  The man gets to here from Santa's point of view on a couple of topics that seem to bug non-believers.  The perfect grown up tale.

Overall the book was a bit uneven with the actual holidays only really making an appearance in a couple of the stories.  I was hoping for something a bit more festive oriented, but there were still some great gems.  I give it 6 out of 10 Christmas foxes and recommend it for anybody who wants something a bit different for their holiday reading.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Elves, UFO's And Dimensional Travelers

I have read several short stories by Andre Norton, one of the first female Science Fiction writers, but for some reason have never actually picked up one of her full novels.  This has been remedied by reading Children of the Gates, which contains two of her novels.  The one I will ramble about today is the first one in the collection, Here Abide Monsters.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Nick Shaw is headed to his lake house for the weekend to escape a bit of a difficult situation at home.  He meets up with a young woman named Linda and her Peke dog Lung.  She is headed to a friends house and has to drive a road known as the Cut-Off which seems to be responsible for various peoples dissaperances over the years including Nicks own cousin a few years ago.  Nick has a bad feeling and offers to escort Linda to her friends house.  The two encounter a wall of fog and end up in another world.  They meet up with a band of people from 1940's Britain and learn that they have ended up in a very strange world indeed.  The natives of the world seem to be creatures that come from Earth myth, the theory being that they may have slipped through the same portals that brought the humans to this world, thus creating the myths.  There also appears to be humans from every era and place on Earth roaming around, some more violent then

others.  To top it all off, an unknown alien race is running around in their spaceships beaming people up and capturing them in their ships.  As the group hides and runs and hides and runs they tell the new comers that at some point a man called the Herald will come from one of the big shining protected cities and offer them a choice.  If they accept his offer, they will be protected from the violent factions and the aliens, but they will become changed, something not quite human.  Nick gets captured by a medieval group, intent on violence and some arcane sorcery.  Eventually they leave Nick tied to a tree in the hands of some very vicious monsters.  The Herald appears and tells Nick that if he accepts his offer he will be forever protected and part of this fantastic world.  Nick asks for more time to decide and the Herald tells him he has his own power.  Nick discovers with great concentration he can create illusion and manipulate objects.  He is reunited with his group, who learn that they too can use this new found power to varying degrees of success.  Nick has another conversation with the Herald and also one of the group who had accepted the Heralds offer.  The two tell Nick that a great evil is coming and unless the humans accept the offer, they will probably not survive.  This is where it gets a little mushy and I'm not quit sure what happens, but in the end a lot of the group dies and the rest decide to accept the Heralds offer and the change that comes with it.

I have mixed feelings about this story.  It starts off really awesome, written in the style of the old school SciFi that I LOVE!  There was tension, excitement, monsters, UFO's, choices, action, everything that should make a great story...but it never really came together for me.  The characters seemed half formed, like they had a story to tell, but couldn't quit get it out.  The story also suffered from a lack of clarity.  The best I could figure is that this world has something bad in it and the bad is just compounded by aliens and roving bands of lost Earthlings and the only way to be able to survive is to choose to change into one of the native Elf type people.  That was it, except it wasn't told that simply, there were innuendos, hints, there was the tease of a greater story, of a bigger picture, of a vast universe, but the story never really delivered.  The imagery was beautiful, there were certain scenes and passages that really stuck in my head as truly stunning.  The beginning was especially good.  I like how she wrote the knowing dread of Nick as the wall of fog rolled towards him, I loved the descriptions of some of the native inhabitants of this alternate world, I have decided I really need to go find some of the fantastic creatures from this world and make them my pets. Also the cover was awesome!  Overall I appreciated the imagery, but wanted a story that I could follow.  I give this book 6 out of 10 portals to another universe.