Category: Reviews

RIP Diana Wynne Jones

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews7 Comments

I saw yesterday on a blog I follow that Diana Wynne Jones died this past weekend.  For those familiar with children’s literature, you probably know the name already.  For those not, I’ve heard her described as “the queen of British children’s fantasy.”  She was an incredible and prolific author–I’ve read more than twenty of her books, and they are truly excellent.  If I’m browsing at the library and not turning up much, I’ll often wander over to her shelf.  There aren’t many authors I do that with, and she’s probably the most reliable that I’ll find something sitting there I want to take home with me.  She was still publishing–with one more due out later in this year–and it’s a wrench to realize there will be no more new books.  She’s an author I will definitely miss.

By weird coincidence, I already had a review of one of her books planned for this week.  It now seems especially appropriate.

Witch Week was the first book I ever read by Diana Wynne Jones, and I read it long before I discovered her as an author.  I read it when I was young enough to not know who Guy Fawkes was when he came up (more reading of British classics solved that gap in my knowledge!)  Years later I happened across another Diana Wynne Jones book–though now I can’t remember which–and started searching for her others, thinking I had found a wonderful new author.  And she is wonderful–but not so new, as I discovered that I had already read Witch Week.  Which only leaves me to wonder why I hadn’t looked for more of her books earlier!

Witch Week is set in a world very like our own, except that some people have magic–and witches are routinely burned at the stake.  The story occurs at a boarding school, where an accusation has been made that someone in a class is a witch.

Laying out the plot makes it sound all very dark and grim, like The Crucible, perhaps.  But that’s not how it is at all.  There are a few serious moments, but the book is a comedy.  The boarding school does create a more bleak backdrop than most of Diana Wynne Jones’ books (which tend to be set in a quaint village or a lordly manor or some truly fantastical other world), but the plot is predominantly funny.

Various students discover throughout the book that they have magic, but that doesn’t mean they’re experts at using their new powers.  Riding a broomstick involves a lot of scrambling to stay on it, and arguments with the broom about where to go.  Casting a spell to summon a missing pair of shoes brings every shoe in the school raining down–thousands and thousands of shoes.  Using magic usually has funny results–and the suspense is kept up because it could have tragic results too.

Witch Week is part of the Crestomanci series, about Crestomanci the nine-lived enchanter, who keeps magic in order across many worlds.  It’s more independent than most of the books in the series though–he only has a supporting role.  And obviously I never realized it was a series the first time I read it.

Witch Week is not a bad place to start with Diana Wynne Jones.  Charmed Life is actually the first of the Crestomanci series, so you might be better served starting there.  Or you could begin with one of her independent ones–a particular favorite of mine is A Tale of Time City.  But whatever you pick up, you’re not likely to go too far wrong.  In all those books I’ve read by her, since the days when I just read Witch Week, though of course I liked some better than others, I think I can pretty well recommend them all.

Author’s site: http://www.dianawynnejones.com/dwjflash.htm

Official fansite: http://www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk/

When Fairy Tale Retelling Fails

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews1 Comment

As you know if you visit here regularly, I love retold fairy tales.  But…not always.  Unfortunately, including fairy tale elements is not a guarantee of a high quality book (just a usually promising sign).  Towards the end of last year, I read a book that made this abundantly clear: The Frog Princess, by E. D. Baker.

On Monday, I mentioned that I could name lots of characters from Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles.  As for The Frog Princess…I can’t think of a single name.  Granted, I only read it once and it was a few months ago…but I don’t think it’s entirely me.

Illustration from "The Frog Prince." Emma's not this pretty.

The princess (I’ll look up her name to make this easier to describe–Emma) is one of a big crop of ordinary princesses who seem to turn up in books often.  She’s not pretty enough and she trips and she doesn’t like dancing.  Without trying, I can think of three other books with princesses like that (plus one Cinderella), and most of them have more going on to make the heroines interesting.  Cimorene, from Enchanted Forest, doesn’t like her princess lessons, so she bullies various people at the castle to teach her other things, like cooking and fencing and sorcery.  That’s interesting.  I’m not sure what Emma does, other than irritate her mother and run off to the swamp sometimes.

In the swamp, she meets a talking frog who claims to be a prince.  After a lot of balking about kissing him (by the way–he’s a talking frog and all he wants is for you to kiss him so he can be human again–just do it, it’s not asking that much and what’s the worst that could happen?) she goes ahead and does.  Only to turn into a frog herself (okay, I guess bad things could happen).  Sound a lot like the Disney movie?  I’m not sure the precise connection, but at least some editions of this have a label saying it’s the inspiration for the movie, so they must have bought rights or something.

Unfortunately, the book only had the one good idea.  Disney, wisely, used that single idea and nothing else.  Emma and the frog (Eadric, I looked him up too) go off to find the witch who enchanted him, and have a series of adventures along the way.  Which is all well and good, but kind of like Emma doesn’t stand out at all as an ordinary princess, the adventures and the world they’re in don’t stand out either.  There was nothing at all distinctive about it.  I’m not looking for Tolkien, who invented entire languages for his magical races.  But when you have a generic princess having generic adventures in a generic magical kingdom…not very memorable.

If all this genericness was the backdrop to something else–funny scenes or interesting relationships between the characters–this still might be passable.  But it’s really not that funny.  A few “help, I’m a frog” jokes.

The relationships were overwhelmingly flat too.  No one had any depths of emotion.  I’d forgotten the characters’ names, but I did remember a scene where they’re talking about something or other, and Emma tells Eadric he’s her best friend.  This should be revelatory.  They haven’t known each other long, they spend as much time arguing as not, it’s not like saying that to an old friend who already knows it.  Yet Emma says it off-hand, and Eadric–doesn’t react!  I think I actually stared at the page for a few seconds wondering if I’d missed something.

Sometimes I’ve heard someone comment that they don’t expect as much depth in children’s or young adult books.  It’s a comment I actually disagree with–children’s and YA books may cover different emotions and perhaps explore them in different ways than books for grown-ups, but the good ones will still have depth.  There is no reason a children’s book can’t sound deeper emotions in the areas of friendship, finding one’s place in the world, dealing with a life-altering situation, falling in love for the first time or going on an extremely dangerous quest.  But I think those people who don’t expect depth are imagining a book just like The Frog Princess.  It’s a kid’s book, so even though all that’s going on, we don’t really need to explore any of it.

I rarely recommend a movie over a book, but in this case, if you want a story about a girl turning into a frog, watch the Disney movie.

Author’s site: http://www.edbakerbooks.com/

Disney’s site for The Princess and the Frog

Meeting Fairy Tales in the Enchanted Forest

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews5 Comments

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 in at least one other post, I am bad at character names.  Oh sure, I remember the main character, but the main character’s best friend?  Possibly not. 

But, for The Enchanted Forest Chronicles…Cimorene is the heroine, and her best friend is named Alianora.  And I could probably 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, so, 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 jubillee, 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/index.html

She also has a blog with great writing advice!  http://pcwrede.com/blog/

Journeying to Mars to Meet Tavia

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction7 Comments

Having just reviewed one of my favorite authors, L. M. Montgomery, it seems only fair to also review my other favorite author this week: Edgar Rice Burroughs.

They have some interesting differences and similarities.  The differences may be more obvious: Montgomery wrote about the small things of life in a rural village.  Burroughs wrote exciting adventures set in the jungle, or on the surface of Mars, or deep under the Earth.  But they both knew how to create a vivid world (albeit very different ones!) and how to write beautiful prose and wonderful descriptions.  Montgomery almost always has a young girl as her lead character.  Burroughs almost always has a strapping, warrior man as his hero.  But they both wrote sweet and very discreet romances–those warriors of Burroughs are also perfect gentlemen.  They also have in common that I’ve read book after book after book by them, and very, very rarely found one that wasn’t top quality.

An odd coincidence of a similarity: they were born less than a year apart.

Since I showed all my Montgomery books, why not all my Burroughs books too.

I already reviewed Burroughs’ most famous book, Tarzan of the Apes.  As you can tell from the picture above, he went on to write a lot of sequels about the lord of the jungle–over twenty.  But what I really want to write about today is his other most famous series: his Mars books.

They begin with A Princess of Mars.  John Carter is in a desert in Arizona, where he has a strange out of body experience.  He looks up at the sky, and sees the planet Mars.  He holds his arms up to the sky, and wishes–and finds himself on the plains of Mars.  In Burroughs’ world, Mars (called Barsoom by the natives) is populated by a number of warlike races, from the red Martians who look much like us, to the giant, twelve-foot-tall green Martians.  There are all kinds of other strange animals with six legs or weird stripes or bizarre abilities.  John Carter goes on to have a series of adventures full of swordplay and races against time and endless hazards and escapes, all to win the beautiful Dejah Thoris, princess of Mars.

The first three books in the eleven book series, as well as a few later ones, focus on John Carter.  My favorite, however, is A Fighting Man of Mars.  John Carter is referenced, but the action focuses on Tan Hadron, a red Martian warrior.  In some ways it’s not unlike every other Burroughs adventure: swordplay and kidnapping and a desperate quest to rescue the girl.  (Burroughs only had two plot devices, kidnapping and castaways, but he spun them into 70 adventures.)  A Fighting Man of Mars, however, is different because of Tavia.

Image taken from ERBzine.com

People who have known me on the internet for a long time will know that when I need a fake name online, a username for example, I will usually use Tavia or some variation on it.  In a way it’s a habit–I started doing that at about thirteen, and it’s easy to carry on using the same name whenever this comes up.  And it got started because Tavia is a wonderful character in a wonderful book by one of my favorite authors who, I must admit, rarely wrote a really good heroine.

But Tavia is actually capable.  She escaped on her own out of a harem (fleeing when the King first noticed her–Burroughs heroines get into dangerous situations but are never actually harmed).  She’s pretty much as good with a sword as Tan Hadron.  She’s extremely capable at almost anything that needs doing on their adventure.  Though I do think she’s pretty, her internal characteristics are emphasized much more than her external beauty.  And I find this to be one of Burroughs’ more meaningful and compelling romances.

Sure, there are more impressive heroines when you look across the range of literature.  But Tavia is a great character in her own right, and she’s the best of the ones that Burroughs gave us.  It’s the combination of all of Burroughs’ strengths of writing and excitement and world-describing, combined with a much more appealing heroine, that makes A Fighting Man of Mars my favorite Burroughs book.  It’s the seventh book in the Mars series, but don’t feel obligated to read the first six first.  They’re great books too, but it’s an independent story and Burroughs even provides a helpful overview of Martian society in the foreword.  So I think you’ll do fine if you want to jump ahead to number seven to meet Tavia.

Exploring the World of L. M. Montgomery

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young Adult10 Comments

It occurred to me that I have not actually reviewed L. M. Montgomery.  She’s been woven throughout this blog, referenced here and there, but somehow I have not actually reviewed her yet.  Even though she’s among my top two favorite authors!

Maybe the problem has been that I don’t know where to begin.  I’ve read 20 novels, 199 short stories (believe me, I’m searching for a way to get my hands on a 200th one!), her autobiography, three books of letters, and her five volume journal.  If it’s in prose, I’ve read it.  And now, where to start?

My L. M. Montgomery collection. I have...a few of her books.

I suppose I could take the obvious route.  Anne of Green Gables was her first novel, and the one I name when people look blank after I say L. M. Montgomery is my favorite author.  It’s a good place to start reading if you’re not familiar with her books.  Anne is a red-headed orphan who is adopted by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert by mistake–their friend was supposed to bring them a boy from the orphanage, who could help Matthew on the farm.  The story follows how Anne found her place in Green Gables.  Anne is precocious, whimsical, imaginative, deeply in love with nature, and, though always well-meaning, apt to get into scrapes.  Once she dyes her hair green–another time she breaks her leg after walking on a roof on a dare.  Anne is a wonderful character and her adventures are funny and endearing.

That’s a good place to begin.  But I don’t want to stop there.  Because there’s also Emily, a dreamy writer, and Pat, who fiercely loves her home, and Valancy, who only starts to live her life when she thinks she’s dying.  And beautiful, tragic Kilmeny; Marigold with her imaginary and magical friend; capable and confident Jane.

I don’t know why Anne of Green Gables is Montgomery’s most famous book, because she wrote so many others that were at least as good.  The great gift of Montgomery is her ability to create appealing characters and place them in a beautiful world.  With very few exceptions, her books are all set in small towns in Prince Edward Island.  She herself grew up in Cavendish, a small town in PEI, and her books very much harken back nostalgically to the Cavendish she remembers in her childhood–a close-knit community where everyone knew everyone, and the chief social events were quilting circles, lectures and small dances–and weddings and funerals, of course.

Her books are also filled with nature.  Like Anne, Montgomery had a passionate love for the beauties of nature.  Pine trees, flowers, a range of hills against the sunset–from her journal you learn first-hand how deeply these affected her, and that carries into her books.  I once read a book that combined quotes from Montgomery about nature, with pictures that were meant to correspond.  I was amazed to find that none of the pictures were as beautiful as what she was describing.  She felt beauty so intensely–she was able to see it and then convey it in words, where someone else wouldn’t have seen the same thing at all.  A picture may be worth a thousand words, but not when the words were written by L. M. Montgomery.  She has a very unique writing style, which I obviously love–it may not appeal to everyone though, which is why I sometimes recommend starting with her short stories to see if it’s a style that works for you.  The Road to Yesterday or Chronicles of Avonlea are good collections.

Don’t get the impression, though, that her books are long treatises on nature.  The beautiful surroundings are the backdrop to human adventures.  They’re funny, exciting, romantic, sometimes tragic.  She had a gift for drawing out the emotions in events small and large–from the pettiness of carping relatives to the deep betrayal of a disloyal suitor to the fun of a picnic in the woods to the humor of an awkward dinner party.

There are some books I feel I’d love to live inside, and L. M. Montgomery’s certainly sit high on the list.  After reading her journals, I think she felt the same way.  Her life was not always happy, and the sunny world of her writing was sometimes an escape.  Fortunately, she’s made that world available to the rest of us too.