Month: November 2013

Classic Review: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews6 Comments

One of the rereads I planned this year was Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which are among the very best fairy tale retellings I’ve ever read (and that’s saying a lot!)  I’m midway through a reread right now, so because of that and because I consider this series an inspiration for my soon-to-be-released fairy tale novel, it seems an appropriate time to share this particular review again!

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I was recently sketching over the plotline of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede for a friend, and realized that I actually remembered all the character names.  As I’ve mentioned, I am bad at character names.  Oh sure, I remember the main character (maybe!), but the main character’s best friend?  Probably not.

But for The Enchanted Forest Chronicles…Cimorene is the heroine, and her best friend is named Alianora.  And I could give you at least another six or seven names besides.  All of which should say something about how great this series is!

Don’t mind the creases–they’re well-read

It all starts with Cimorene, a princess who decides that she’d rather be kidnapped by a dragon than marry the boring prince her parents picked out.  Princesses are kidnapped by dragons sometimes, you know.  Taking advice from an enchanted frog, Cimorene goes off to find a dragon and volunteer.  The dragon Kazul agrees to take her on, especially after hearing that Cimorene can cook cherries jubilee.

Is that already enough to convince you these are wonderful books?  If not, I can also tell you that the story goes on with evil wizards, all manner of enchanted creatures, a magical forest (of course) and endless fun references to fairy tales.  They’re funny, exciting, and even romantic in spots.

It’s not a romance with that boring prince from the beginning–Prince Therandil does turn up, but he stays insufferable.  He comes to fight the dragon to rescue Cimorene; he would have come back earlier in the book, except that he was waiting for Kazul to defeat an impressive number of challengers first.  He’s very put out when Cimorene explains no one’s actually fought Kazul–she’s been talking the challengers out of it, which has been very inconvenient and time-consuming.

Wrede has created one of those wonderful things in retold fairy tales–a world where there are strange and marvelous things like djinns and enchanted swords and magical caves and (of course) dragons, but where you also have to deal with getting the right pot for your cherries jubilee, and cleaning the dust out of (non-magical) caves.

The series is a quartet, plus a couple of short stories.  I think my favorite book is the third, narrated by the witch Morwen, who has nine talking cats (who only she understands).  This one also features a rabbit named Killer, who has a penchant for stumbling into spells, piling layer after layer of enchantment on himself.  In a magical, rabbit sort of way, he’s not unlike my character, Jones.

I don’t think any of the books retell any specific fairy tale, but they’re all riddled with references, sometimes made quite casually.  When Cimorene’s parents want her to get married, she says she’s too young.  Her mother replies, “Your Great-Aunt Rose was married at sixteen…One really can’t count all those years she spent asleep under that dreadful fairy’s curse.”  In the second book we meet a giant who’s very friendly as long as your name isn’t Jack, and a dwarf named Herman who tried the Rumpelstiltskin trade, but got stuck with tons of children when no one could guess his name (and he thought Herman would be easy).

I could probably go on citing incidents and examples for a long time…but better to just read the books.  They’re good adventures, very funny–and obviously, have memorable characters!

Author’s site: http://pcwrede.com/

Other reviews:
Adventures in Bookland
Disrupting Dinner Parties
Bookzilla
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

Heroic Journeys on (and Under) Discworld

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews4 Comments

Last Hero (1)I was feeling like some Terry Pratchett recently, and elected to read The Last Hero.  This one is described as “A Discworld Fable,” and is shorter than most of the other books–and it’s beautifully illustrated!

The story centers around Cohen the Barbarian and his friends, the greatest heroes Discworld ever knew…some sixty years ago.  They’ve grown old, and are decidedly unhappy about it.  They set out on the ultimate final quest, to the mountain-top home of the Discworld gods, with enough explosives to blow the mountain up–creating a chain reaction that will destroy all of Discworld.  Meanwhile in Ankh-Morpork, the wizards of Unseen University and Lord Vetinari assemble a team to stop Cohen, relying on the technical genius of Leonard of Quirm, who devises the first ever ship designed for flying outside the Disc.

The plot is a bit convoluted, with a lot of players, but suffice to say we get lots of satire of traditional hero stories, with some space travel satire thrown in.  And the real brilliance is that we get it all with Pratchett’s wonderfully hilarious characters and wit.

My favorite part may be all the excellent plays on hero story tropes, especially as we see them through Evil Harry.  He’s a Dark Lord Cohen and company know from way back, who joins forces with them here–warning them that of course he’ll have to double-cross them eventually, because that’s how things are done.  He’s also very proud that he found the stupidest henchmen possible (because Dark Lords always have stupid henchmen…) and takes comfort from the rule that the Dark Lord always escapes mysteriously at the end.

The best part, perhaps, is that Cohen and his friends all agree that Evil Harry knows the rules, and none of them can fathom the young people these days who don’t understand how things should be handled.

This is a fun one for Discworld fans, because we get a lot of regular characters putting in appearances.  Rincewind and Carrot go with Leonard on the journey, lots of wizards feature, and even Death gets a cameo.  He’s in the middle of trying to understand Schrodinger’s Cat, and never quite grasps the metaphor–but doesn’t approve of the whole business, as he doesn’t hold with cruelty to cats.

Last Hero (2)

This is also excellent just for the gorgeous illustrations.  They’re beautifully-drawn and frequent, throughout the whole book.  I do love a beautifully-illustrated book for grown-ups every now and then!

If you’re new to Discworld, the rule is always, “jump into the series wherever you feel inclined.”  Considering this one is short, covers a lot of major characters, and has gorgeous illustrations, it wouldn’t be a bad choice…

Author’s Site: http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/

Other reviews:
Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Reviews
Losing It
Things Mean a Lot
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable

Saturday Snapshot: Novel Proof!

On By cherylmahoneyIn Novel News, Saturday Snapshot10 Comments

I’ve mentioned a time or two 😉 that I have a novel coming out…and we’re getting close!  Launch Date, November 15th, is less than a week away!  The Wanderers will be available in paperback and ebook.  Ebooks aren’t so easy to photograph, so today I’m sharing pictures of the paperback.  Technically this is the final proof, but it’s what the published book will look like too…

Wanderers (3)Wanderers (4)Wanderers (1)Wanderers (2)Every writer I know agrees that the arrival of the proof is one of the most exciting parts of the process…suddenly it’s all real! 🙂

I hope you have a wonderful weekend–and you can visit West Metro Mommy for more Saturday Snapshots.

Blog Hop: Scheduling Memes and Reviews

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop5 Comments

book blogger hopThis week’s Book Blogger Hop question: When you are out of town, do you still participate in weekly memes or do you have your post scheduled to appear on your blog and perhaps check back? Or do you not participate at all?

Handling memes while out of town isn’t too challenging for me, because all the memes I regularly participate in are ones I can easily prepare ahead of time.  With only the occasional exception, I schedule all my blog posts (for instance, I’m writing this on a Monday…)  You may have noticed they all publish at the same time of day!  Scheduling ahead lets me avoid the stress of needing to do last-minute writing, which for me works much better.

Anyway, the challenge when I’m out of town isn’t putting the memes on my blog, but getting my post linked on the host blog.  Sometimes I link up very early before I leave town, or use my smart phone later.

So all that adds up to–yes, I do generally still participate while traveling.  It’s not as much fun, of course, because I usually don’t have time/opportunity to interact with the other participants…but I can still be involved a bit by posting.

Anyone else who’s run into this?  What’s your strategy on memes-while-traveling?

Addendum: So it turns out I misread the schedule, and answered last week’s question!  Meaning you’re getting a double-feature today…  This week’s question is: Do you post your book reviews as soon as you have completed the book or do you wait a few days?

As noted above, I don’t post hardly anything immediately.  The more relevant point may be whether I write the reviews as soon as I finished the book or wait, and…I don’t have a definitive answer.  Often I wait a few days until I have a convenient space to write up a review.  Sometimes I’m so inspired that I write a review immediately.  Other times books sit around for a couple of weeks before I get around to writing the review.  Oddly, it doesn’t seem to have much to do with how much I enjoyed the reading…

So–how do you schedule your writing and/or posting?

Eight Characters In Search of a Shore

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews5 Comments

You may remember I spent much of the fall watching Hitchcock movies for the R.I.P. Challenge.  Today I have another one that I never got to a review of during the challenge: Lifeboat, from 1944, about the survivors of a German u-boat attack, trapped in a lifeboat together with one German soldier.

I realized over the course of my Hitchcock kick that my favorites where the ones “in which nothing happens,” and this seemed like another good rewatch for that goal.  I figured–how much can happen in a lifeboat?

Although the external crises are certainly an impetus to the story, mostly this is about nine people stuck together and how they react off each other and the circumstances.  Connie Porter (Tallulah Bankhead) is the most striking; a wealthy journalist, she arrived on the lifeboat with her fur coat, jewelry, camera and luggage, but gradually loses everything–and gains some heart–as the movie goes on.  Alice (Mary Anderson) also has an interesting story, as she was en route to London to be a nurse–and to meet a man she had previously carried on an affair with.  A married man, and for 1944, I’m surprised the censors let that plot element in!

I think I was most fascinated, though, by the German soldier, Willy (Walter Slezak).  The whole movie I wondered where it was going to go with him, because there were moments when it seemed to me he could be played from a sympathetic angle.  A complicated sympathetic angle, considering we know all along that he shelled the original boat, and is now deceiving the survivors about certain things like their heading.  But for most of the movie, I could still see where he was coming from too.  He was acting as part of a war, and he’s now in a very precarious position among a group of British and Americans.  And I can’t really blame him for hoping to find the German supply ship in the area, rather than striking off for the very distant Bahamas.

However…the movie was made in 1944, so I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that Willy does not ultimately turn out to be a good guy.  It’s too bad, because I feel like he could have been a complex character and morphed instead into an almost caricature villain.  He was a villain not because there was a good in-movie reason for it, but because of the climate of when the movie was made.  It’s hard to present a sympathetic Nazi soldier now; I’m sure it was impossible in 1944.

Of all of the Hitchcock movies I watched recently, Lifeboat is the only one I’d particularly like to see a remake of.  I’d be very curious to see how Willy’s character could be done now, almost 70 years after the war ended.  Although on the other hand, the blood and the horror of it all, so discreet under Hitchcock, would probably be so awful in a modern movie that it wouldn’t be worth it!

Other reviews:
MovieFanFare
Cinema 24/7
Derek Winnert
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Lifeboat