Category: Reviews

Dreamhunter and Dreamquake

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews5 Comments

In a happy overlapping of challenges, I recently completed a long-time half-read duet of books, and got another read in for Once Upon a Time!  I first read Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox several years ago, and never managed to get to the second book.  So I reread the first one a few months ago, then read Dreamquake during April.

The two books are set in an island country near the beginning of the 20th-century…with a crucial difference from the world we know.  Certain people are able to enter The Place, a barren wasteland overlapping the normal world, and much larger within than its external geography.  Among those who can reach The Place, some have the ability to catch dreams, and then to return to the normal world and share these dreams with others.  Devoted cousins Laura and Rose both expect to become dreamhunters when they turn 15, legally old enough to try.  Laura’s father discovered The Place 20 years earlier, and Rose’s mother is a famous dreamhunter.  But only Laura has the ability to enter The Place, dividing the cousins just as mysteries and intrigues start to build up around them.  Laura’s father disappears, presumed dead, and Laura begins seeing a darker message within the dreams.

The concept of these books is so fascinating!  Knox has created a complex magical system around the dreams and how they work.  Dreams are grounded geographically in The Place, so dreamhunters can sleep in certain places and expect to catch certain dreams.  Dreamhunters have individual talents and abilities, like putting everyone around them to sleep when they sleep, or the ability to alter faces in dream characters.

Layered on the magical system is an economic system.  Dreams have become a business, with dreamhunters utilizing their talents at hospitals to soothe the sick, or in specially built Dream Palaces as entertainment.  On the darker side, dreams can be used for more sordid entertainment, or even as punishment.  I love all the detail around how a society decides to handle this extraordinary magic, turning it into an integrated part of the economy.

The concept was my favorite part, but the characters are solid as well.  Although we get glimpses of many characters, Laura and Rose stand out the strongest.  Rose is a natural leader, fierce, loyal and insightful.  Laura seems to be the more fragile of the two, physically and emotionally, but she’s the one who steps up to undertake an extraordinary task.

After rereading Dreamhunter, it amazes me that I didn’t go on immediately to the second book on my first read.  Dreamhunter ends with a climactic moment, but very little resolution.  Dreamquake picks up in the same moment…and gets hard to discuss without a lot of spoilers!  The tension and the stakes rise throughout the book.  What seemed like a vague social issue in the first book rises to a government conspiracy in the second.  The dreams also grow more and more sinister, with a more urgent message to impart.

Dreamquake becomes a fantastic puzzle.  It grows increasingly clear that some dreams are connected to each other, forming a larger narrative with a message at its heart.  I loved threading together the different pieces of the story, and learning the mystery behind The Place.  There was one important dream that fit in thematically but never fit into the narrative and that disappointed me a bit–but that was a minor flaw.

I originally started reading these because someone recommended Vintner’s Luck to me, but the library didn’t have it so I got a different Elizabeth Knox book.  Now that I’ve finally finished these two, and since they were so good, I think I ought to look into Vintner’s Luck again…

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

Other reviews:
The Book Smugglers
Gwenda Bond
Please Don’t Read This Book (who despite the name, recommended the books…)
Anyone else?

Buy them here: Dreamhunter and Dreamquake (I should note that Amazon has a blurb from Stephenie Meyer front and center for these books.  If that makes you want to read them, great; but if it doesn’t, don’t hold the quote source against them…)

Very Unusual Creatures

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews3 Comments

I feel sure I must have read something by Eva Ibbotson before…she’s one of those names that floats around in fantasy.  But I can’t come up with anything, so it seems that Ogre of Oglefort is my first Ibbotson.  There may be more! 🙂 As you can already guess from the title, this is another one for Once Upon a Time.

The Hag is a witch who runs a boardinghouse for Unusual Creatures.  When her familiar goes on strike, she lets herself be persuaded by Ivo, an orphan boy, that he can fill in, at least for the Summer Meeting of Unusual Creatures.  But while they’re at the convention, the Hag, Ivo and their friends, Ulf the troll and Dr. Brainsweller the wizard, are charged by the Fates with a quest: to rescue Princess Mirella from the Ogre of Oglefort.  They reluctantly set out…only to find, when they arrive, that the Ogre is the victim, harangued by unhappy people who want him to turn them into animals.  Soon they find themselves defending the castle against an invading army, some nasty ghosts, and the Ogre’s awful Aunts.

All in all, this is a cute and fun fantasy, very much on the lighter side.  It reminds me (and I don’t say this lightly!) of some of Diana Wynne Jones’ younger-targeted books.  I think Ivo is about ten, and that’s probably a good reading age too, or a little bit younger.  It’s a good adventure for that age, and a quick, fun read for adults.

Besides being just generally fun, older readers will likely also appreciate the theme that runs through the book about individuality.  Most of the characters are in some way misfits, or at least contrary to what’s expected of their type.

Princess Mirella is more interested in animals (even bugs!) than dancing and betrothals.  The troll ends up nursing the sick Ogre.  Dr. Brainsweller is extremely educated as a wizard but very inept in normal life, and eventually realizes that wizardry is not really what he cares about most.  The Hag is a very kind witch, and Ivo is looking for a very different life than the one he has in the orphanage.

This theme is paired very nicely with the second theme about finding a home and a family.  Everyone wants to be their true selves, and to find a place and people where they will be accepted.  The main characters swiftly form a (slightly unusual) family, and start creating a home at Oglefort.  The adventures and conflicts that follow largely center around defending that home.

With delightful twists on traditional character-types, humor, adventure and deeper underlying themes, this one is definitely recommended!  Has anyone else read other Ibbotson books?  What should I try next?

Other reviews:
Good Books, Good Wine
Ms. Tami Reads
Charlotte’s Library
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Ogre of Oglefort

Up a Beanstalk and Into a Woods

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews4 Comments

I have been trying to get through my To Be Read List, and trying to believe that I will actually read more fantasy novels than I will add (ha!) during the Once Upon a Time challenge…so I decided to go to the top of the list and read the fantasy novel that had been on there longest.  That turned out to be Half Upon a Time by James Riley, which was on the list since 2010.  On the plus side, the next two books in the trilogy were published in the meantime!

As you can guess from the title, this is a fairy tale-inspired book.  Jack attends a training school for heroes, but his heart isn’t really in it–until a girl falls out of the sky literally at his feet.  May insists she isn’t a princess, but when she’s wearing a t-shirt that says “Punk Princess,” how can there be any doubt?  Soon the two are on a quest to find May’s abducted grandmother, who just might be the long-missing Snow White.  With the Huntsman on their trail, they fight a giant and a witch in a candy cottage, make an alliance with Prince Philip and a more uneasy one with the Wolf King, and try to find the magic mirror that may have a clue to locating Snow White and defeating the Wicked Queen.

This is another “throw lots of fairy tales together!” book, but I thought it worked quite well.  Since Jack and May are traveling on a quest, it felt natural that they keep bumping into new fairy tale elements.  Most are also tied together in some way, through their roles in the Great War between Snow White and the Wicked Queen.  The story is fast-paced between all the new adventures and obstacles, and there are some fun twists.  For instance, the Wolf can change shape from man to beast, and Red Hood has a cloak that makes her invisible.

I liked this book…but I didn’t love it, and I think that was because of the characters.  There’s no real flaw–they just didn’t grab me either.  Jack is clearly a fairy-tale-Jack, the non-royal, relatively ordinary hero without major warrior skills.  He has a good heart and he’s a nice guy, but he didn’t feel particularly unique to me, or as clever as the best of fairy-tale-Jacks.  May is blessedly not a pathetic princess in need of rescuing, but “spunky fairy tale heroine” has also become a Thing, and she’s a pretty generic version of that.  In a way, I think she adjusts too quickly to coming from our world to the fantasy world, losing some opportunities in that area.

Where this book mostly loses an opportunity, though, is with Prince Philip.  I wrote last Friday about Friendship Triangles in stories, and while there’s some romantic hinting, this book pretty much has a Friendship Triangle.  Philip could have redeemed the whole book, by being the show-stealing Third Character that makes the blandness of the leads matter less.  Instead, he was a pretty bland Prince Charming type…

I don’t want to over-emphasize this, though!  I think a younger reader, or someone who has read less fairy tale retellings, would have been bothered much less by slightly flat characters.  And even I wasn’t bothered exactly…I just didn’t become attached to the characters in the way I want to be.

I still plan to go on to the rest of the books in the trilogy.  There were some clever twists near the end of the book, and hints of others coming, and I want to see how it all turns out.  And who knows–maybe I’ll get more insights into the characters and end up liking them more!

Last chance to win a signed copy of my fairy tale retelling, The Wanderers! Just put #WanderersGiveAway in your comment to enter.  Contest closes April 30th!

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

Other reviews (and they all loved it, so go figure!):
The Book Cellar
Transcribing These Dreams
The Maiden’s Court
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Half Upon a Time

Twenty Mysteries with Dame Christie

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews9 Comments

Agatha Christie has been on my “should read” list for a while now, and I did read a couple of her books–but she wrote so many, I didn’t know where to go next.  The Essential Agatha Christie Stories on audio seemed like the perfect solution!

This collection provides 20 stories in 15 hours, with a variety of readers (including Christopher Lee!)  It did exactly what I wanted it to do, giving me a sampling of Christie stories, including three with Miss Marple, quite a few with Hercule Poirot, and a handful of independent ones too.

Overall I enjoyed the stories quite a bit, and I’m impressed that twenty different stories, most of them centering on a murder investigation, held my interest so well.  Christie comes up with clever twists that I usually don’t guess.  Not every story had a satisfying answer to the mystery, but the majority did.

I had been considering picking up a Miss Marple novel next, but now I’m not so sure.  Those three stories were fine, and one, “Murder vs. Opportunity” had a nice twist…but I found I wasn’t that satisfied by how Miss Marple operates.  Poirot claims to base everything on “psychology,” but it seems even more true for Miss Marple…and that doesn’t appeal to me because there’s no answer!  I like mysteries for the sake of the puzzle, and seeing at the end how everything fit together.  Telling me that Miss Marple knew the answer “because she understands human nature” is, for me, dissatisfying.

I think I’m more likely to try a Poirot novel, as I fared much better with him.  My two favorite stories in the collection were both Poirot stories.  The first was “Four and Twenty Blackbirds,” and Poirot combines both an understanding of psychology and physical clues to deduce the answer to a murder, starting from something as simple as a change in the dead man’s habits.

“Murder in the Mews” was my other favorite, one of the longer ones in the collection, focusing on a suspicious suicide.  This one was complex, full of details and a few red herrings, with a satisfying answer in the end.  I listened to this collection on CDs in my car, and this was the only story that got me to take the CD out of the car to listen to the ending after I finished driving for the day.

I also met Captain Hastings in this collection, an apparently regular figure in Poirot stories.  He plays a very Watson-type role, the somewhat blundering friend who narrates the detectives adventures.  He was fun for a few stories, but began to wear on me.  The joke of Hastings thinking he’s being clever when he isn’t only worked a few times, and somehow Poirot seemed to come across as more ridiculous when through Hastings’ eyes.  On the other hand, Hastings did provide the vehicle for a Poirot-narrated mystery, “The Chocolate Box,” told in a nearly story-length flashback.  That was another one with clever details and a good answer to the puzzle.

In the non-Poirot stories, I especially liked “The Girl on the Train.”  It’s full of wild and improbable hijinks, and splendid wit.  Take this paragraph:

“It was true that George embodied a veritable triumph of the tailor’s art.  He was exquisitely and beautifully arrayed.  Solomon and the lilies of the field were simply not in it with George.  But man cannot live by clothes alone–unless he has had some considerable training in the art–and Mr. Rowland was painfully aware of the fact.”

Love it!

On the audio side of things, most of the readers were good, and Christopher Lee was quite good!  The only sour note among the readers was the final story, “Yellow Iris.”  The reader tried a little too hard to do different voices, I think, and it didn’t fly at all…but nineteen out of twenty stories had good reading to back them.

So, Christie fans–have you read any good short stories from her?  And where do I go next with the novels?  Any Poirot ones I should try?  Should I give Miss Marple a chance after all?  Let me know! 🙂

Other reviews:
Bookshelves of Doom
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Essential Agatha Christie Stories (it’s expensive…try the library, that’s where I found it!)

A Griffin in a Tower

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews5 Comments

First of all, happy birthday to Mr. Shakespeare!  Did I ever tell you that I once was in a college Shakespeare class that happened to meet on Shakespeare’s birthday?  I brought cookies.  The professor was (adamantly) not a Stratfordian, but that was actually part of the fun…

Anyway, on to the business of the day!

When I read Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George, I loved the concept of a sentient castle, constantly remaking itself.  So I was excited to revisit Castle Glower in Wednesdays in the Tower (spoilers to follow for the first book in the series).  This fits Once Upon a Time, and my goal to read more sequels.

Princess Celie knows Castle Glower, and its quirks, better than anyone else.  But even she’s not sure what it means when the Castle shows her a new tower, with a mysterious orange egg in it.  The egg hatches into a griffin–and Celie finds herself trying to raise a mythical creature in a castle that won’t let her reveal the griffin’s existence to anyone except her wizard brother Bran, and his friend Pogue.  Celie does manage to enlist her younger brother Rolf in helping her look for any information on griffins, which seem to have mysterious ties to Castle Glower’s history.  Meanwhile, the castle begins behaving increasingly erratically, and a very ominous wizard has arrived to look into matters.

The Castle was my favorite part of the previous book, so I was glad to see it, and its mysteries, take such a prominent role in the sequel…I think! I’m a little worried that finding out too much (in the third book still to come) will ruin some of the mystery…but what answers we have so far are intriguing, so I’m optimistic!

I felt like Celie grew as a character in this book, both through taking care of the griffin (who she names Rufus), and through trying to determine her proper place in the castle. At first she seems to have found that place, as the Castle Cartographer, but it isn’t long before she’s feeling shunted to the side and still looking for her role.

Rufus is great fun as well, and rather adorable! It’s funny that I just read another book (The Pinhoe Egg) about raising a baby griffin, but this felt distinctly different. Rufus has a very different personality (even though, unlike Cat’s griffin, he can’t talk). I loved it when he started learning to fly, and was so eager about it!

Unlike the previous book, this one ends mid-story, with a definite cliffhanger. And now sadly I have to wait for the next one! The disadvantage of catching up with current series…but I get to look forward to Thursdays with the Crown (and to wonder if there will eventually be seven books—one for every day!)

Don’t forget, you can win a signed copy of my fairy tale retelling, The Wanderers! Just put #WanderersGiveAway in your comment to enter.

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

Other reviews:
Shelah Books It
Batch of Books
Escaping Reality (One Book at a Time)
Charlotte’s Library
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Wednesdays in the Tower