Author: cherylmahoney

I'm a book review blogger and writer. I have published four novels, The Wanderers; The Storyteller and Her Sisters; and The People the Fairies Forget; and The Lioness and the Spellspinners. All can be found on Amazon as an ebook and paperback. In my day job, I'm a Marketing Specialist. Find me on Twitter (@MarvelousTales) and GoodReads (MarvelousTales).

A Shadow of a Plot in a Shadow World

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews2 Comments

On my quest to finish series, I picked up The Shadow World by Jane Johnson, second book in the Eidolon Chronicles.  (Read my review of Book One, The Secret Country.)  The Eidolon Chronicles centers on Ben, an ordinary boy who finds out his mother is really the Queen of a magical country.  She came to our world to marry Ben’s father, but now they’ve discovered that in her absence, the magic is dying and the country is being taken over by the evil, dog-headed Dodman.

The second book picks up soon after the first.  Ben’s mother, Isadora, has resolved to return to her country to fight the Dodman.  Ben’s older sister Ellie follows her, and Ben and his father follow Ellie.  Isadora’s negotiations with the Dodman take a very difficult turn when he captures Ellie.  Ben and his friends, including Iggy the talking cat (my favorite character), have to go to the rescue.

This book was good for what it was and disappointing for what it wasn’t.  There was nothing exactly wrong with what was there, but there just wasn’t much.  As they say, there was no there there.  This felt very much like a sequel, especially one that’s Book Two of a trilogy.  It didn’t move anything much forward, either in plot or in character development.  Isadora goes back to the magic country at the very beginning, and a couple of villians join forces at the very end, and everything in-between felt mostly unnecessary to developing any larger story.  The main conflict was rescuing Ellie, but her capture felt contrived.

I don’t mean to make this an entirely negative review though.  The characters were still engaging, the magic was still interesting.  I just wanted more that was new.  I wanted the characters to be gaining more depth, or to encounter new and different magic.  There was a little of that, but it didn’t feel like enough.  We did get to know Ellie a bit better, and there was a little more of Awful Cousin Cynthia, who’s a great creepy villain.

This was a perfectly fun book, but it also seemed to lack any real purpose.  I’m still going to read the last book in the trilogy.  The first book introduced everything, and hopefully the third will tie everything up.  The second book probably just suffers from being, well, the second book of a trilogy, with no purpose except to mark time between the beginning and the end.  Still, if you read the first book and like it, it’s worth reading the second.  Just don’t expect too much, and plan to move quickly along to the third!

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

Other reviews:
Savage Reads
One Day at a Time
Anyone else?

Going Postal Group Read, Conclusion

On By cherylmahoneyIn Summer in Discworld14 Comments

We’re on the last week of the Going Postal Group Read, and before I get into the discussion, I want to thank everyone who participated. It’s been so much fun to see the differing thoughts of everyone reading this very fun book. 🙂

1) At this end of the book, which characters turned out to be your favorites?

This is actually quite hard, because I’m feeling very attached to a number of characters.  Stanley definitely had his moments (and Little Moments), and I liked Mr. Pump’s steadfast work ethic and surprising insights.  I liked Ms. Dearheart better the second time through the book, I think, getting more of a sense of what’s under her stern exterior and cloud of smoke.  And Groat was really funny.  So…I liked a lot of the characters here!

2) We’ve touched on Moist’s character growth throughout the discussion.  How do you feel about him by the end of the story?  Is it significantly different than the beginning, or did anything surprise you?

I loved Moist’s character growth.  It’s like Pratchett invites us to see past his charm, and invites Moist to do the same thing.  He ends up realizing that his life hasn’t been nearly as harmless as he’d like to think, delves into all the complex aspects of human nature he’d been taking advantage of before, and comes out the other side of it all as probably a nicer person than he realizes.  And he’s still maintaining a mad tap dance to stay ahead of everything.  I enjoy how he faces challenges by plunging in and creating even bigger challenges–and then fights like mad to make it work.  He’s kind of still charming at the end, but by then I think there’s something real in it.

3) Was there anything you haven’t had the chance to discuss in response to earlier questions?  Call this a “wild card” question. 🙂

This one was really for everybody else, because…I was writing the questions, so I discussed the things I wanted to cover!

4) Share your favorite quotes and moments from the final section—or let us know your absolute favorite line.

There were some good Wizard bits in this section of the book.  For instance:

…”nothing to see” is what most of the universe consists of, and many a wizard has peacefully trimmed his beard while gazing into the dark heart of the cosmos.

“Oh, please sue the university!” Ridcully bellowed.  “We’ve got a pond full of people who tried to sue the university.”

Probably not a good idea to bring legal proceedings against wizards.  I also loved the whole epilogue, and Vetinari’s final line: “You have to admire a man who really believes in freedom of choice.  Sadly, he did not believe in angels.”

Since I couldn’t even pick a favorite character, I think I’d better not try to pick a favorite line!

Wonderland Turns Urban

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews4 Comments

I’ve been meaning to review Alice for literally months–I watched it during the Once Upon a Time Challenge and have had it on my “To Review” list ever since.  But don’t take the long delay as a bad sign about the movie.  It’s actually excellent.

Alice is a version of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, retold for adults with a more urban, modern feel.  It definitely feels like it’s targeting adults, although as I think about it, nothing’s really inappropriate for a younger audience.  At the same time, it’s not the light-hearted, happy Wonderland of Disney.  The real deciding factor on the target age-group may be Alice’s age.  This Alice is a grown-up, and one with much more purpose than the wandering child of Carroll’s story.

Alice (Caterina Scorsone) is from the modern world we all recognize.  Her life takes an unexpected turn when boyfriend Jack is abducted, right after giving Alice a mysterious and valuable-appearing ring.  A strange man tries to steal the ring and when Alice chases him, she falls through the Looking Glass into a very odd Wonderland.  She finds out that people from our world are being captured and taken to Wonderland, where the Queen of Hearts drains their emotions, which she uses to pacify Wonderland’s inhabitants.  Alice joins forces with the Hatter (Andrew Lee Potts), who says he can connect her with a resistance movement who’ll help her find Jack.

As I type this, I realize it sounds very convoluted!  Basically, Alice goes journeying through adventures in Wonderland looking for Jack, with Hatter and, later on, a White Knight as companions.  Along the way, they get tangled up in much bigger forces opposing the Queen of Hearts.

The characters are wonderful here.  Almost all the characters from the original are here in some capacity, but given a modern twist.  Everyone’s human, but somehow embodies the original characters as well.  Alice is tough, but vulnerable.  Her father disappeared when she was young and she never stopped looking for him, something that gives her good depth as a character.  She has trust issues and insecurities, while being a strong lead who takes an active role in her adventures.

The Queen of Hearts is a delightfully insensitive villain, played by Kathy Bates, paired with Colm Meaney as the King of Hearts.  If the name doesn’t mean anything to you, you might know him as Chief O’Brien from Star Trek.  If you can’t picture him as a villain, that’s okay, he’s not exactly.  He really just wants to make his wife happy, and it’s just rather unfortunate that his wife is so horrible.

My favorite character, though, is the Hatter.  Not at first, but he’s one of those who grows on you.  And I’m such a sucker for heroes who claim they don’t care about anything even though it’s SO not true.

There are some dark moments in here, but also a lot of comic ones.  There also must be quite a bit of CGI, because Wonderland is very bizarrely laid out.  It’s sort of…vertical.  I don’t quite know how else to explain it.  A whole city of terraces and chasms but not even as logical as that makes it sound.  Whatever it is, it’s really quite interesting.

This was originally a SyFy channel miniseries, with two hour-and-a-half episodes.  I saw it on DVD and it was just put together as a three-hour movie, so I’m not sure what the original break between episodes was.  Despite that, I do think the second episode was better.  It’s good from the beginning, but it’s also a little haphazard at first.  The second half has more focus, and the characters (well, Hatter) have become more engaging by that point.  So if you start it and have doubts, stay with it!

There are a lot of Alice in Wonderland retellings out there, and this was a very different one.  If you like Alice or if you like urban fantasy (because that’s definitely the feel), I’d recommend giving it a try!

Other reviews:
Fray’s Movie Reviews
Love Romance Passion
Divergent Musings
Anyone else?

Saturday Snapshot: Iconic London

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot21 Comments

I didn’t plan to post London photos two weeks in a row…but with the Olympics starting this weekend, it just seems to be a natural focus!

Tower Bridge, not to be confused with London Bridge
Guards marching at Buckingham Palace
The famous Big Ben
Bobbies on Horses

Check out At Home with Books for more Saturday Snapshots!

Guarding Ankh-Morpork

On By cherylmahoneyIn Summer in Discworld3 Comments
Not Pictured: Snuff, which isn’t in paperback yet

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about one of Discworld’s most frequent recurring characters, Death.  This week, let’s look at my favorite group of regulars, the City Guard of Ankh-Morpork.  There are eight books focused on this group of rather hapless police officers, and they’re the one subseries I’ve read all the way through (but completely out of order).

The City Guard are led by Sam Vimes, the relatively sane focus point in the middle of some very odd characters.  I think Vimes is what makes these my favorite set of books.  Besides being an awesome character, he’s the straight man who makes the comedians even funnier.  Vimes is a world-weary police officer with a cynical streak a mile wide, who nevertheless believes in honor and justice and above all, the rule of law.  He’s uncorruptable while completely practical about the corrupt city he guards.  He undergoes more evolution than most Discworld characters, and even though I read him all out of order it’s interesting to see his character grow through the books.

Vime’s righthand man is Corporal Carrot, biologically a six-foot human and culturally a dwarf (it’s complicated).  He’s simple, but not stupid.  He also believes in honor and honesty, but unlike Vimes, he believes everyone else is honorable and honest too.  The funny thing is, around Carrot, they are.

Sargeant Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs typically appear together.  Colon always knows the best place for a drink or a smoke, and the best ways to avoid any and all trouble.  Nobby has to carry around a card to verify that he’s human; descriptions are vague, but I picture him short, skinny, pimply and hairy.  He’s convinced of his own vast wisdom and sophistication, and is a guardsman who is nevertheless addicted to petty theft.

There are a few women on the force: Cheery Littlebottom is a dwarf who breaks dwarfish taboos by openly admitting to being female, and Angua is a brilliant fighter and tracker, largely because she’s a werewolf.

There are some other regulars among the guards, but those are my favorites.  They’re a motley and very funny crew, who generally manage to pull success out of chaos.  Guards! Guards! is the first in the subseries, and Jingo, Night Watch and Thud! are among my favorites.  But really, they’re all good, and you can probably just grab any you like.  It’s Discworld–you’ll figure things out.