A Visit to Discworld to Finish the Story of Tiffany Aching

On June 11, 2014June 7, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult9 Comments

I found myself with a slight crisis recently, short on books and still waiting on holds, wandering the shelves of my tiny local library looking for something to carry me through the week…and was delighted to stumble upon I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett. Discworld is the one series I somehow feel no pressure to finish–it’s too big and too rambling and I just dip in at random whenever I feel so inclined. But the Tiffany Aching subseries as always felt much more self-contained and continuous, so I have been meaning to finish that off.

The final book in the sub-quartet presents Tiffany Aching at sixteen, still new to her role as Witch of the Chalk, but settling into the position. But Tiffany’s dance with the Wintersmith in the previous book has awoken an ancient evil–one who hates witches. With hostility towards witches rising throughout the land, Tiffany must find a way to fight through the fear and prejudice to confront its root. And that while dealing with the upcoming wedding of Roland, her some-time beau, and the sometimes harmful help of her devoted allies, the Nac Mac Feegles.

I love the way Pratchett has presented Tiffany’s growth throughout the quartet. She has always been someone who does what needs doing, from rescuing her little brother from a Fairy Queen in the first book, to the unglamorous witch work of caring for the ill, elderly and forgotten in this final book. Tiffany has gained wisdom and confidence all along the way, but like life, it’s often been a few steps forward, a stumble or two back, a redirection and a new leap ahead. Tiffany’s not only learned how to fulfill her role, she’s very consciously had to figure out what that role is, and how she wants to fulfill it. Pratchett has done a masterful job of keeping Tiffany always the same person, while growing her throughout the series.

And then there are the Nac Mac Feegles, the Wee Free Men, the drinking, fighting, carousing, honor-bound (but always their own interpretation of honor!) clan who swore loyalty to Tiffany as the Hag o’ the Hills and will stick with her through thick and thin, no matter how many times she tells them to go away. I love how well Tiffany understands them by now, and her back and forth with them is hilariously brilliant. For instance, she’s somewhat less than surprised–and remarkably calm–when Daft Wullie sets fire to her broomstick in midair, and staunchly denies responsibility while holding a lit match…

I also appreciated that Rob Anybody, the Nac Mac Feegle chief, did get one moment of more depth. The Nac Mac Feegles, basically, are never serious…until the humans try to dig up the Nac Mac Feegle hill, and for just a moment we glimpse a very real fear and anger from Rob Anybody about his wife and children. I’m not sure I really want more than one serious moment from the Nac Mac Feegles, but one was perfect.

Having read other Discworld books, I enjoyed a cameo for Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. It’s always fun to see familiar characters from a different perspective, and I liked seeing them through Tiffany’s eyes–still the same characters as when they tell the story themselves, but with maybe a little more awe mixed in.

Pratchett’s books are all the more remarkable for being hilariously funny, while sharply insightful in their satire. Here he personifies a familiar and particularly ugly side of human nature, the hatred of the Other simply because they’re Other. Or as was said in another fantasy story, “we don’t like what we don’t understand; in fact, it scares us” (Beauty and the Beast, “The Mob Song”). There it was against the Beast; here it’s against the witches, and there’s an added subtlety in the sense that part of the hatred comes because people know that the witches do what needs doing–what people guiltily realize they ought to be doing themselves and aren’t.

I already own all the City Guard Discworld books, and I think I need to start collecting the Tiffany Aching books. They’re both my favorite kind of comedy–we have one stable, complex main character to ground us and guide us through the constant hilarity of everyone else around them. This book was a wonderful end to the quartet, hilarious, insightful and deeply satisfying.

Author’s Site:

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Buy it here: I Shall Wear Midnight

Twice Upon a Time…and Once Upon the End

On June 9, 2014June 6, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Ruminations, Young Adult4 Comments

Somewhere earlier during the Once Upon a Time challenge this year, I read Half Upon a Time by James Riley. I didn’t love it, but it had some intriguing parts to the ending, so I decided to go ahead and plunge into the second and third books in the trilogy. And I thought I’d better plunge quickly before I forgot the details of the characters and the plot twists! I didn’t love the later books either, but I do think they improved as they went, and overall I found the trilogy to be a pretty fun ride.

The first book introduced us to Jack, who considers himself more clever than heroic; May, a girl from our world who suddenly landed in Jack’s land of fairy tales; and Philip, a very proper handsome prince. The second book, Twice Upon a Time, opens with the three of them searching for answers about May’s past, and for a way to defeat the Wicked Queen. Their quest takes them to the Fairy Homeland (which has fallen under a Sleeping Beauty-style curse, thorns and all), into a slightly twisted Neverland, onto Blackbeard’s ship and under the sea, searching for a little mermaid.

As you can tell, this followed the style of the first book, mashing together familiar fairy tales and classic fantasy. Riley mostly doesn’t retell stories–instead he takes the characters and gives them a new slant, or explores what might have happened to them after the traditional story ended. Things get a little convoluted in the process, but there are some clever (and funny!) twists as a result.

The plot was entertaining, although at times I felt we were drifting pretty far from the main conflict, the fight with the Wicked Queen. However, each individual adventure is pretty cool, so as long as you roll with it a bit, it works!

The third book, Once Upon the End, brings the Wicked Queen back to the center of the story. There are fewer mashed together fairy tales (though we do get quite a bit of “Jack and the Beanstalk”), with the focus much more on Jack, May and Philip, and some very hard choices they each have to make about if, and how, they’re going to take a stand against the Wicked Queen.

That brings me nicely to why I think these books improved throughout the trilogy–the characters. My main reservation on the first one was that the characters just didn’t grab me, feeling like basic fairy tale archetypes (even may as the “spunky princess”). Fortunately, they gained more depth. Philip was the one I most disappointed by, and he had the most satisfying growth. He stayed the proper prince–but we got into the conflict of how hard it could be to always be noble and honorable and honest and good. And what happens when two noble causes conflict, or the greater good requires a dishonorable act.

Jack got more interesting too, as he went on what was essentially a hero’s journey, finding his skills and his strength. This was particularly apparent in the third book, where circumstances at one point make it very clear how far he’s come.

May, I am sorry to say, got more obnoxious in the second book, or so it felt to me. However, she reined that back a bit in the third book, and went through some more complex character growth around who she can trust, and how to protect her friends.

The third book also gave us Penelope, also known as Sleeping Beauty. And she was amazing! She uses cursed spindle splinters as weapons! And she gives Philip a stern lecture on how sometimes, he just needs to back off and let her handle things because she has a plan and he is not helping by swinging his sword around. Penelope was not in this book enough, and I want another one about her.

I think this trilogy rides somewhere in between Middle Grade and Young Adult–the characters are sixteen which seems to imply YA, but the style feels a bit more Middle Grade. A little lighter and a little simpler–so if you enjoy that, and fairy tale mash-ups, and are willing to ride with a little randomness…then this is just the trilogy for you!

Author’s Site: http://james-riley-author.tumblr.com/

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Buy it here: Twice Upon a Time and Once Upon the End

Blog Hop: What I Want To Know When I “Meet” Your Blog

On June 6, 2014June 4, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop, Ruminations7 Comments

This week’s Book Blogger Hop question: When you view someone’s profile, what information do you like to see?

I presume this means blogger profiles… 😉 I would say that when I’m visiting a new blog and clicking over to the About page, I want to see something to tell me what to expect on the blog. That includes a little sense of the blogger’s personality and perspective, and what kind of posts they typically put up (book reviews, reflections, fiction pieces…? Oh look, I do all of those!) For book bloggers specifically, I want to know something about what they like to read, so that I can decide if they’re likely to cover books I’ll be interested in.

I also look for something that may be a little less obvious…I want the story of the blog. What is this a blog about? It’s kind of contained in the stuff listed above, but not exactly. Book blogs are usually straight-forward (it’s about books!), but could be complicated if there’s a more specific focus. If you’re reading your way through the Newbery winners in alphabetical order, say, it would be nice to have that mentioned!

More often I run into this exploring other kinds of blogs. I get frustrated when I click onto a random post midway through the life of the blog, find it interesting and get intrigued by vague references that are clearly part of the ongoing discussion…and then can’t find anything on the About page to explain!

For a positive example, I follow a blogger who writes about her adventures as an aspiring actress in New York, with (some) emphasis on dating. That’s basically the story of her blog, and she makes it really clear in her header and her sidebar. Without that explanation, I suspect I could easily click on a random post about either an odd job or a bad date, and feel lost on the context.

With an example that does it well, it seems so easy and obvious! But it is surprising how many blogs will have no About page, or one that really doesn’t explain…well, anything! And then I don’t know whether to read more posts, because I can’t figure out the story and whether it’s one I want to follow.

And yeah, of course I think of blogs as having a story rather than a topic or a focus or an area. 🙂 I’m a writer–life is a story!

What do you look for in a blogger profile?

Jack the Giant-Killer, in Urban Fantasy

On June 4, 2014June 2, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews9 Comments

Katy from A Library Mama recently guest posted about her favorite fairy tale retellings, and I was delighted to hear about a Jack the Giant-Killer retelling from Charles de Lint. That one went straight on my list! The only copy the library had was an omnibus, Jack of Kinrowan, which combines Jack the Giant-Killer and its sequel, Drink Down the Moon…so naturally I wound up reading them both! Perfect for Once Upon a Time. My favorite de Lint tends to be his urban fantasies, and these were classic examples.

Jacky Rowan, midway through a personal crisis, stumbles on a gang of supernatural bikers, the modern-day Wild Hunt. Jacky finds herself on the fringes of Faerie, a world of hobs and goblins existing invisibly side-by-side with the mortal world. There are deep troubles in Faerie, with the Unseelie Court growing in strength, fed by mortal man’s belief in the darker side of stories. Jacky impetuously volunteers to help…and once you’ve seen Faerie–and Faerie has seen you–there’s no turning back.

I have to start by saying how much I love that Jack the Giant-Killer is a girl! Jacky is promptly accepted by the denizens of Faerie as a Jack, a wily trickster; the designation is part role, part title and part birthright, but gender doesn’t seem to make a bit of difference. Jacky is believable as someone who is both out of her depth but trying to rise to the occasion–and generally managing, with a lot of luck to help. Luck, of course, is a classic feature of any fairy tale Jack.

If there’s anything I found less believable, it was Jacky’s initial plunge into the situation. There were moments early on when she still could have walked away, and I don’t know that I ever quite understood why she didn’t. She was having a personal crisis and trying to prove something, but all the same… Still, that was a bump early in the book, and once I accepted she was in the situation, the rest of the book rolled along just fine.

Jacky is joined in her plunge into Faerie by her best friend, Kate Hazel (or Crackernuts, which also has folklore origins). We saw in Blue Girl that de Lint has a flair for presenting stories of strong friendships, and this is another good one. There was a little romance around the edges, but the friendships were the central relationships of the story.

I’ve read a few other de Lint urban fantasies, and this has much the same feel–which I mean as a compliment! He has a real skill for bringing magical creatures into the modern world, fitting them into the crevices and dark shadows of an urban landscape, and still keeping a fascinating otherness to them. I’ve never been good at defining the difference between folklore and fairy tale, but de Lint seems to be drawing from the folklore side of things. His magic is tied to nature and the land, to old traditions and ancestral memory. No sparkles and little pixies here!

Drink Down the Moon follows closely from Jack the Giant-Killer, bringing back Jacky and Kate and introducing a few new characters too. The threat-level rises admirably, matching Jacky and Kate’s growing ability–but they’re still new enough to Faerie that a fair bit of scrambling goes on to confront the crisis. The second book also brings in more musical elements, which seem to be common in de Lint’s magical stories. If you ever meet a fiddler in a de Lint book, they are probably not what they seem!

I would recommend this as a good book(s) for someone not familiar with de Lint. Neither book taken alone is very long (about 200 pages in my edition, though it was small print), and they feel like a good introduction to de Lint’s world. Many of his urban fantasies connect together in a loose web, with characters appearing here and there (a bit like Discworld). These two are pretty much independent; all I spotted was a couple passing references to musicians or folklore experts whose names I recognized from other books. If you haven’t read de Lint’s other books, I don’t think you’ll ever feel like you’re missing something!

Author’s Site: http://www.sfsite.com/charlesdelint/

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Buy it here: Jack of Kinrowan: Jack the Giant-Killer and Drink Down the Moon

Alchemy and Meggy Swann

On June 2, 2014May 31, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Juvenile, Reviews, Ruminations4 Comments

I rarely pick a paper book up randomly anymore, but I do browse for audiobooks sometimes. That’s how I landed on Alchemy and Meggy Swann, because it’s by Karen Cushman and I thought that was a good indicator. And then after I had checked it out, I discovered it was being read by Katherine Kellgren–which would have sold me on it anyway! This also is a nice pick for my largely-ignored goal this year to read more historical fiction.

Meggy comes to London in the mid-1500s, summoned by a father she’s never known. Master Ambrose is an alchemist, consumed by his “great work,” who had hoped for an able son to help him. Besides being female, Meggy is crippled from birth, only able to walk with the aid of two sticks. Ignored by her father, Meggy has to find her own place in the loud, sprawling city of London.

Meggy goes through an excellent evolution throughout the book. As it begins, she’s sympathetic but not very likable. No one (except her grandmother) has ever been kind to her, and she meets the world now “with her fists up,” ready to give as good as she gets. She gradually softens, as small acts of kindness back and forth build up tentative friendships with a few people around her. She loses her fierce anger, while gaining self-confidence and appreciation for her own worth.

One of Meggy’s first friends is Roger, her father’s former apprentice who has now joined a theatre company. Meggy is not eager to be friends and he’s perfectly willing to spar back. The range and creativity of the insults they exchange would make Shakespeare proud!

Meggy’s character arc was the part that really seized me, but there’s also a bit of a conspiracy plotline, and a lot of good historical information too. This isn’t built around any major historical events, but the atmosphere of 1500s London is very strong, with the crooked streets, the crowds, and of course–the stenches! Like Cushman’s best-known book, Catherine Called Birdy, this one never skimps on the dirtier side of life in the past. There’s a lot on alchemy too, and the quest for the Philosopher’s Stone. I don’t have a lot of scientific knowledge, but I knew enough to know where the alchemist was going wrong in his interpretation of what his experiments told him. It was interesting to see what learned men of the day thought they knew–and to wonder what people 500 years from now will think of our science!

This was a very engaging book and, almost needless to say, Katherine Kellgren’s reading was as excellent as ever. I now want to read more Cushman books! A reread of The Midwife’s Apprentice, I think, and I’ve been meaning to read Will Sparrow’s Road…which should be good for that historical fiction reading goal…

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