Tag: Fiction

A Visit to Discworld to Finish the Story of Tiffany Aching

On 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 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

Jack the Giant-Killer, in Urban Fantasy

On 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

Down Time’s Rabbit Hole

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews5 Comments

I find time travel stories deeply intriguing–and Alice in Time by Penelope Bush promised an especially intriguing trip into the past.  Since the travel is facilitated by a magical merry-go-round, it’s solidly fantasy and suitable for Once Upon a Time.

Fourteen-year-old Alice hates her life–loudly and constantly.  She’s convinced that all her problems started from the birth of her younger brother, her mother’s post natal depression and her parents’ divorce soon after.  A spin on a merry-go-round sends her back seven years to just a few days before her brother was born.  She inhabits her younger body, while keeping her older memories.  Freaked out at first, Alice soon decides that this is her chance to change everything, saving her parents’ marriage and inflicting revenge on the girl who will bully her through middle school.

I was fascinated by the idea of going back into one’s own past, with the opportunity to relive life differently.  Doesn’t it make you think about what you’d do if you could go back into your own past?

Alice has definite plans, and one of the best parts of the book is Alice’s growing understanding of what really happened the first time around when she was seven.  As an older (and not emotionally-involved) reader, I saw very quickly what the real problems were in Alice’s family.  Within the first few chapters (pre-time travel), Alice’s father holds the reception for his second wedding at a pub, next to a bookie’s office, which probably tells you quite a lot too.

Even though I figured things out before Alice did, I believed in her blindness, and didn’t mind waiting for her evolving understanding.  There were also some nuances in her friendships that were, if not surprising exactly, interesting to watch unfold.

One of my favorite parts was watching how teenage Alice dealt with being seven again.  There were good things, like the closeness with her mother, and bad things, like the lack of freedom and control.  One of the sweetest parts of the book is when Alice gets to spend some time with her grandmother, who had died when Alice was eight.

I have to warn you that this book started a little slow for me–it’s a fast read overall, at a little over 200 pages, but it’s about 80 pages before Alice goes back in time, and I was starting to get impatient by that point.  It picked up a lot once the time travel came in, and became a very good read about family, friends and growing up…by being younger!

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

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Buy it here: Alice in Time

Waiting on…Friday

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations5 Comments

“Waiting on Wednesday” is a meme for book bloggers to post about an unpublished book they’re eagerly waiting for.  I’ve never actually participated…and technically I’m not participating today, since it’s Friday.  But I thought I’d take the inspiration of that meme and share about all the books I’m anxiously waiting for in the next twelve months.

I read so many older books, and so many of my favorite authors don’t publish all that frequently (sigh) that I usually don’t have a lot of books I’m waiting for…but I’ve somehow managed to stumble my way into lots of half-written series, and am now left waiting for the next installments…

1) The Pink Carnation Series: The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla by Lauren Willig (August 5) – A historical fiction/romance/spy adventure series, each book focuses on a new couple in the web of families and friends, mostly from the ton in 1806 England.  Since the books are self-contained, I’m not too desperate for the next one–although since it focuses on the sister of my favorite hero of the series to date, I am excited about that!

2) Fairyland 4 by Catherynne M. Valente (October?) – This is my favorite new series I’ve discovered in a very long time.  And I am tragically without any information on the next installment–like a title or a release date.  Since the previous ones have come out each fall, I am hopeful for an October release of the next one…and I will pre-order it on Amazon as soon as I can.  (If you read my blog often and have noticed that I put all new books on reserve at the library, then you will know that pre-ordering something is a Very Big Deal for me!)  And if anyone knows more than I do about Fairyland 4, please tell me…

3) Castle Glower Series: Thursdays with the Crown by Jennifer Day George (October 7) – The first book of this series about a sentient, constantly-changing castle was delightful, the second book ended with a cliffhanger, and now I am eager for the third!

4) Smek for President by Adam Rex (October 14) – The first book, The True Meaning of Smekday, told a hilarious and heartwrenching (a surprising combination!) story about when the Boovs landed on Earth on Christmas Day (of course), took over the planet and renamed December 25th Smekday.  No idea where the sequel is going, but the last one was so much fun.

5) Jacky Faber Series: Wild Rover No More by L. A. Meyer (November 4) – I’ve been reading the Jacky Faber series since high school…and as you might guess from the title, this is the final one!  In a way I’m sad–but I’m also excited to see how life finally turns out for the irrepressible Jacky.

6) Exile by Tamora Pierce (Fall 2014) – This is sort of a new series…and not.  It’s Tamora Pierce’s new series in her familiar world of Tortall.  Since other series in Tortall have been life-changing, I’m kind of looking forward to this one!

Dearest7) The Woodcutter Sisters: Dearest by Alethea Kontis (February 3, 2015) – Rather like the Castle Glower series, the first two books were fun and wound up with the promise of exciting things ahead…

8) The Lunar Chronicles: Winter by Marissa Meyer (February 2015?) – No release date for this one yet either, but since the last two were out in February I am hoping for a February release again (I mean, unless we can get it sooner…) and I already lamented how desperate I am to get the end of this story!

9) Magic Ex Libris: Unbound by Jim C. Hines (Early 2015) – I loved the premise of Libriomancer, and will definitely read the second one, Codex Born, long before the third one is out…so I’ll have to start waiting for that one pretty soon.

Storyteller Cover 1 - Small10) Beyond the Tales: The Storyteller and Her Sisters by Cheryl Mahoney (October 2014) – One last bonus #10…I’m not waiting to read this one, but I do very much look forward to getting it published and letting all of you read it!

Are you in the middle of any unfinished series?  What books are you most eagerly awaiting?