Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme for bloggers who like books and lists. It's awesome and is graciously hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
This week's topic is "Ten Books You Recently Added To Your To-Be-Read List". I'm defining recently as books I've added since the start of the year which gives me a list of 80 books to choose from. That's a lot of books! No wonder my TBR is vast and intimidating. The ten listed below are the books I'm most intrigued by.
Recommended by: The Book Smugglers. A fated heroine meant to save the world who misses her moment and must live with her failure. An interesting flip side to the normally happy epic tale we are told!
Recommended by: An anthology of Sherlock Holmes fiction. I really liked Sharyn McCrumb's story in the anthology which involved a similar old wise woman characters that apparently appears in her own mysteries.
Recommended by: It's Kazuo Ishiguro. It's getting mixed reviews but it looks like an interesting historical fiction with fantastical elements. Plus I've liked everything I've read by Ishiguro.
Recommended by: Ken Liu's short fiction. I've loved his short fiction and this is his first full length fantasy novel. It sounds like an awesome character driven story.
Recommended by: Can't remember but think it was someone in the Tough Traveling Link-up. This is an older title about people from our future who travel back to the Pliocene era (6 million B.C.) in search of adventure. AND I just found the ebook of this for $1.99 - serendipity!
Recommended by: The Reading the End podcast. A web graphic novel that will be coming out in print soon - both Jennys on the podcast raved about it. I was sold.
Series: Abhorsen #3; Review of Sabriel, Review of Lirael
Awards: None
Format: Audio (cds from Library)
Narrated by: Tim Curry
Right from the start this book produced powerful emotions in me. I was so caught up in the fate of the Old Kingdom and the band of characters Garth Nix had created that I felt completely invested and anxious about how things were going to work out.
Abhorsen picks up right where Lirael leaves off and it spends most of it's time with Lirael and Sameth though there are occasional glimpses into what's going on with Sabriel and Touchstone and with Sam's friend Nick who is the unwitting slave of the evil being unleashed. This book piles on the odds against the good guys as they are facing a plot that has been in the making for hundreds of years. The action really picks up in this installment and many of the mysteries of the first book are resolved. Lirael and Sam discover their true roles and get comfortable with them as they face crisis after crisis. The book ends with a dramatic stand-off which is not without consequences.
First of all, it is so appropriate that the cover shows Lirael and the Disreputable Dog. The relationship between these two was my favorite part of the book and it is arguably the most important part. The Disreputable Dog is now firmly ensconced as one of my favorite characters of all time - definitely in the top 2 or 3 animal characters. She is goofy, loyal, fierce, mysterious, wise, disreputable and she epitomizes the love and friendship dogs offer. Just imagine if your dog could talk and had immense amounts of power and wisdom but was still, at heart, a dog. She's awesome.
Garth Nix is a great writer and extremely creative. The world of The Old Kingdom is incredibly rich and feels like a real place with a fascinating and detailed mythology. He reveals quite a bit more about the mysterious Charter which governs magic in this world - what it is and why it came to be. It's completely unique and while I normally find too much time spent on setting etc... to be dull, this is not at all. On top of being really interesting it is revealed organically as part of the story. Really everything the reader has ever wondered about the Old Kingdom is teased out and explained including Mogget's origins!
Tim Curry's narration continued to be excellent though I still wished he had done the Disreputable Dog a little differently.
FINAL VERDICT: A completely satisfying and emotional conclusion to the Abhorsen trilogy. This whole series has been superlative and has definitely become one of my favorite YA adventures! 4 out of 5 Stars!
Lirael is the second in the
Abhorsen trilogy and begins roughly 14 years after the events of Sabriel.Touchstone and Sabriel have been King and Queen for a decade and a ½ and
they’ve worked hard to restore the broken charter stones and bring a measure of
peace and stability to the Old Kingdom.However, new threats are starting the be felt and it is at this juncture
that we are introduced to Lirael, a daughter of the Clayr.The Clayr are soothsayers of a kind and along
with the royal family and the wall and stone makers are part of the charter
that governs magic in the Old Kingdom.Unfortunately, Lirael is 14 and has not yet been granted “the sight” as
all Clayr are and to make matters worse she looks very different from the rest
of the Clayr who are all blond and blue-eyed.
Lirael is one half of the
story.The other half is Sabriel and
Touchstone’s son, Sameth who is just finishing his schooling in Ancelstierre
(The Old Kingdom’s non-magical neighbor) and who is meant to be the
Abhorsen-in-waiting.His story begins
with a battle and a hugely traumatic event which has repercussions throughout
the rest of the book.
It is clear that at some point
Lirael and Sameth will be joining forces but this book takes it’s time
developing their characters and situation as well as slowly building the
tension of the bad things to come.I
thought, like Sabriel, this would be
a stand-alone story but it is in fact only the first half of a two part story
(finished in Abhorsen).I can see how some readers may find this slow
moving, it did not bother me at all and I appreciated Nix allowing me to get to
know the two protagonists and for slowly building the menace to be faced.By the end of the book, I was feeling very
anxious about the crisis facing The Old Kingdom and the danger for Lirael and
Sameth.
Lately I’ve been loudly bemoaning
my inability to handle or feel sympathy for self-pitying teenagers.In the middle of all of this irritation enter this book with two protagonists who, you guessed it, are teenagers wallowing quite
unashamedly in vats of self-pity.The
thing is they didn’t annoy me.Oh sure,
from time to time I wanted to poke them and tell them to snap out of it but
with nowhere near the annoyance and lack of sympathy I feel with many other
books.Why?Because Garth Nix is
brilliant and he writes his characters with a deft hand that knows his characters
are being silly and gently asks for you to cut them some slack for now because they
are on a journey and they will get better.
He also does a couple of things
that help keep his characters on the side of right.Lirael’s friendship with the disreputable dog
and her daring and curiosity driven adventures in the library help to dispel
her self-loathing and earlier pursuit of suicide – she’s an interesting person
who is trapped in a situation which isn’t bad but very understandably makes
her feel like an outcast and incredibly lonely.
Sameth is saved by Nix detailing
the initial conflict in Ancelstierre where Sam proves himself to be smart, and
confident with good leadership skills as well as being courageous and
self-sacrificing - it signals to the readers that the next 300 pages of him
cringing and anxious and self-absorbed are somehow not right. He has been
damaged in Death and it is supremely frustrating that no one notices because
they are understandably absorbed in the troubles besetting the Old
Kingdom. There is also a parallel with Lirael because the expectations placed on him feel very unnatural and he has no
affinity with the job of Abhorsen.It makes him feel isolated and
you guessed it, lonely.
I also can’t leave off without talking about
the Disreputable Dog which Lirael constructs unconsciously with a mixture of
charter and wild magic.Being a dog
person, I LOVED her and her relationship with Lirael.There is also some interesting mystery around
who or what the dog actually is.
Finally, I once again enjoyed Tim
Curry’s narration though I did not love how he voiced the disreputable
dog.It is meant to be a she but he
doesn’t really give her a feminine voice and I just imagined her sounding a bit
different.
FINAL VERDICT:This one topped my love for Sabriel and is a great first half in
what promises to be an epic story!4 out
of 5 stars.
Despite the fact that it got below freezing at night twice this week there were several new signs of spring that popped up! First - I saw my first Turkey Vulture! Maybe not what everybody would take as a good sign but they make me smile. Their appearance in Iowa is always a signal.
Also, prairie chicken lek surveys have begun! Thinking about and doing surveys for Greater Prairie-chickens is part of my job and I have to say I have developed a real fondness for these wacky birds even though they seem tailor made for extinction. The males gather in areas called leks where they show off and generally act all macho to try and impress the hens that stop by to check things out. The prairie chicken dancing and the truly bizarre noises they makes (low blowing sounds, cackles and whoops) make them insanely charming.
Are my orange eyebrows sexy or what?? Photo Credit
And because it is something to see here's a video to check out:
Sadly, Greater Prairie-chickens only inhabit a small fraction of their former range, the heart of which used to be Iowa. The birds need large landscapes of grass, particularly prairie which have been virtually wiped about by you know who. We've been working to reinvigorate a small population of birds in Southern Iowa - Northern Missouri where the only hope of a large landscape of grass exists.
The garden is also picking up speed. I took a chance and removed the leaf mulch off the garlic which has just started to come up along with some other bulbs. Unexpectedly (to me) the Angelica has also emerged in the herb garden.
Garlic
Angelica
I started a bunch more seeds last Sunday and most have already germinated! I'm still waiting on the peppers (Healthy and Sheepnose pimento), Basil and St. John's Wort. Also the Butterfly Milkweed seed has to stratify (you plant the seeds than expose them to colder temperatures for 2-3 weeks - they need this for germination) so is sitting in the garage doing so. The Kale, Calendula and Hyssop has sprouted as have both varieties of tomatoes (Juliet and Beam's Pear).
I need to get my second bank of lights installed PDQ!
Lastly, I've been thinking about going ahead and direct planting those seeds that should be sowed "as soon as you can work the ground". I think we're there and I would like to get them out!
LIFE
Work has continued to be insanely busy. Between meetings, seminars and field work I've had about six hours at my desk this past week and the next two weeks promise to be the same. Part of the reason I became a wildlife biologist was because I didn't want to get stuck behind a desk all the time but when you have a mountain of things on your desk to do, it sucks away some of the enjoyment in the variety of tasks my job provides.
I did get some good news this week. My cat Rosie has been diabetic for about 3-4 years now. This has been sad for her and has also made caring for her very high maintenance because she required two meals a day at the same time each day followed by insulin shots. Trying to juggle this care need with my unpredictable often weather-dependent travel for work was pretty stressful. I couldn't just leave her with some water and a big bowl of food if going away for a couple days. A little over a month ago she started having low blood sugar episodes almost every day which led the vet to believe she may have gone into remission! We've tried her without insulin for 4 weeks now and checked her again yesterday and her blood sugar levels were good, so it does in fact look like she is no longer diabetic! Yoo Hoo!
Miss Rosie feeling pleased about her new found health.
And because National Puppy day was this week I'll also include a few pics of Jasper as a puppy. Sadly I don't have any pics of Rudy as a pup because I didn't get him until he was a year old.
The old sweetheart in this pic is Darwin who I lost at the age of 14 a year after Jasper moved in.
Rudy and Jasper a couple weeks ago.
WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING
I mentioned last week that I started watching The Vicar of Dibley last weekend and I ended up sticking with it and doing a complete re-watch. Such a delightful show! I haven't really started anything else but was feeling called to do a Farscape re-watch and I thought I might even begin a set of posts about the show. That requires me to really concentrate when watching and take notes however and I'm not sure I'm up for that kind of involved TV watching at the moment.
In reading news, I finally finished Devil's Bride by Stephanie Laurens this week and surprisingly didn't like it very much. The hero is the ultimate, uber-macho, alpha male type and I just didn't like him at all. Interestingly, I started another Regency romance that I got from NetGalley from a relatively unknown author and I am adoring it! Like not being able to put it down to go to sleep adoration. It's called The Miss Mirren Mission by Jenny Holiday. I am also still listening to The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey and reading The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons which are both pretty great! I also started listening to Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - this book and author have been on my want-to-read list for a long time and I'm glad I'm finally getting there!
SUNDAY: Review of Lirael by Garth Nix
MONDAY: Review of Abhorsen by Garth Nix
TUESDAY: The TTT topic this week is the top ten books you recently added to your TBR. Easy peasy!
WEDNESDAY: Wild Card day. Will likely have a review of some book or no post at all. It will be a total surprise to you and to me:).
THURSDAY: The Tough Traveling topic is Enforcers which currently I am drawing a complete blank on.... I hope to participate though!
That's it for this week. Any signs of spring or garden activity to report? Any miraculous pet healings? I'd love to hear about your week!
Tough Traveling is a fun meme that aims to tour all the tropes big and
small, abhorred and loved that are littered across the fantasy landscape. It was conceived of and is hosted by Nathan
at Fantasy Review Barn and here's how it's explained on the blog:
Each Thursday, our copy of ‘The Tough Guide to Fantasyland’ in hand, we shall tour the mystical countryside looking for adventure and fun (and tropes) from all over fantasy.
This week's trope is Beloved Mounts:
A combination of suggestions from several people, as it seems many want
to talk about the various animals that people in fantasyland ride. So be
they horse, bear, or other let’s talk about favorite rides.
I picked mounts that play a very instrumental or at least a very large part in the story.
Boy do I love a good British Navy during the Napoleonic War era story and Boy do I love dragons. This series combines them. How awesome is that. Will Laurence, Captain of a regular old British Navy ship ends up capturing a dragon egg and bonding with it's occupant, Temeraire. Temeraire and Will can talk with one another and they enter the British service in a new capacity in the skies instead of the sea. It's a great series and I'm not sure why I haven't read further into it!
I could have potentially put Aslan here because Lucy and Susan, at least, hotch a ride but A Horse and His Boy is one of my favorites (though a fellow blogger rightfully pointed out recently that it's kind of racist). Bree is a talking horse of Narnia who was enslaved to a Calormen nobleman and he steals the young boy Shasta (also a slave) and they make a break for Narnia. Bree is a good bit more cosmopolitan than Shasta and not only teaches him to ride but also a little about the world. He also learns a lesson about being too proud.
Kind of a cheat since this is primarily a television show but I LOVE Appa and pretty much the entire concept of sky bison. He is more than Aang's mount - he is also Aang's spirit animal and best friend really. They share a very tight bond.
A really fantastic re-telling of the fairy tale of the same name. Ani, the Goose Girl/Princess has the ability to talk to animals and one of the first bonds she creates is with her horse, Falada. Falada, and Ani's love for her, play a pretty big role in the story but I don't want to reveal to much more than that!
This one's a stretch as Iorek cannot rightfully be called a mount - he's an armored bear, sentient and king of his people. He's an important character in the books and I think he lets Lyra ride him at certain points but I have not read these books in an age - they are on my want to re-read list! There are certainly plenty of images out there depicting this including one on the cover!
So besides Temeraire, I came up with all YA and middle-grade books. Interesting. As usual I feel like I am missing a lot so will look forward to everyone else's brilliant lists which are found over on Fantasy Review Barn!
This is, perhaps arguably, a
modern classic of the fantasy genre.I
call it a classic because I feel like it shows up on people’s lists as a
favorite especially amongst all the epic fantasy that was being
produced in the 1980’s and 1990’s from Terry Brooks, David Eddings and many
others besides.I’ve had it on my TBR
for so long, it got a place on my 100 Books Project List as I felt it
was important that I read it.In the
end, I found this book quite odd and somewhat disappointing though I did like
it.
The first thing I would
characterize as unusual was that this was my first experience with what I would
call “military fantasy”.Sure, a lot of
fantasy deals with war but this book reminded me of a Robert Heinlein novel
(like Starship Troopers) transplanted to a generic European-type fantasy
setting. The military structure is basically exactly like the modern American
military except with swords and horses and the person in ultimate charge being
a Duke.There’s a boot camp and
companies with sergeants and captains; there are non-commissioned officers and
commissioned officers, a mess etc….
It is into this military
environment that the sheepfarmer’s daughter, Paksenarrion or Paks, runs because she dreams of a life as a soldier.She joins a reputable mercenary company that allows women and begins her
life as a soldier.This first volume
details Paks first 2-3 years in the company and how ever-so-slowly, day by day,
her star begins to rise and it becomes apparent that Paks is something
special.
The second unusual thing, is
alluded to in that last sentence.This
is a VERY detailed and rather mundane narrative.The reader is with Paks from day one of her
training and, it seems like, every day after that for the following three
years.It gives a very clear picture of
the life of a soldier – the training, the first battle, methodically looting a
city, the death of comrades.There are a
few fantastical happenings but the story seems to concentrate on the everyday
details.Sometimes I found this very
interesting and other times I found it dragged.The prose is also pretty straightforward and matter-of-fact which fits
the military focus and also lends to the air of mundanity.
Everything I’ve mentioned thus
far was fine and gave the book a unique flair.The methodical approach to the storytelling dragged at times but that
wasn’t a major problem.A major problem
was that the characters, even Paks felt very shallow.Very few of the secondary characters in the
book are fleshed out in any real way and it was somewhat difficult to keep
track of the rotating, basically identical-except-for-rank fellow
soldiers.Paks herself is simple and
straightforward with very little interest in anything beyond soldiering -she’s not
interested in men, she’s not interested in religion, she’s not even that
interested in the other cultures that they encounter.I in turn wasn’t that interested in her and
that is what ended up making this just an okay read.
FINAL VERDICT:A unique, very detailed-oriented military
fantasy that I ended up having trouble engaging with because of lackluster,
generic characters.I’m not sure I’ll
pick up the sequels.3 out of 5 Stars.
NOTE: I just realized that last Wednesday I review The Mermaid's Daughter. I am unknowingly in a reading streak of books about people's daughters. Odd.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme for bloggers who like books and lists. It's awesome and is graciously hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
This week's topic is the top ten childhood reads that we'd like to re-read. As I've documented before, I feel like I missed out on some pretty iconic childhood reads so I'm not sure if I have a full ten childhood reads I want to re-visit.
I must have really enjoyed this series as a teenager because I have dragged around all the books in both series through many years and like 15 moves. I better re-read it some time!
This was my favorite romance story as a youngster - it's the story of teenage girl, Cat, on the frontier who is kidnapped by Indians and falls in love with a young brave named Blue Quail. And yup. I just pulled out those names from my memory. I may have read it a few hundred times. One more re-reading would be great.
It's about a group of cats along a street that plot to kick out all the humans and take over. My copy looks just like the one in the picture including all the nicks and scratches.
I had a thing for King Arthur as a kid.... Funnily, when I went to look this up on Goodreads, I found that there are a whole passel of books in Stewart's Arthurian Saga that I haven't read.
And I also just found a TTT post from November that was about re-reads and I mentioned several of these in that post too, so sorry for the repetition!
Avatar: The Last Airbender– The Rift
by Gene Luen Yang, Gurihiru, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko
Original Publication Year: 2014
Genre(s): Graphic Novel, Fantasy
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender #3
Awards: None
Format: Paperback from Library
Narrated by: NA
NOTE:This is a review of all three parts within
the volume.
I adore the three seasons of
Avatar: The Last Airbender so much and remember being incredibly disappointed
that the show was not based on an existing series of graphic novels. So my excitement knew no bounds when I finally
discovered that the story was being continued in graphic novel form!This is the third such collection that
continues the story of Aang and his friends.
The Rift re-visits some of the
themes from the first graphic novel set (the Promise); Aang’s sadness over the
loss of the Air Nomad culture and the difficulties of integrating nations that
are more used to being rigidly separate.It also tackles the conflict between progress and honoring tradition
(and our natural resources).
When Aang drags along his
friends as well as the air acolytes to revive an ancient Air Nomad ritual he is
horrified to find that a place sacred to air nomads has had a thriving city
built on top of it during the 100 years he was frozen.The spot is in the Earth Kingdom and Toph is
immediately enamored by the lively city and particularly by a highly mechanized
factory.This sets up a conflict between
Aang and Toph as it becomes clear that there is more at stake than just Aang’s
disappointment at the loss of a sacred site.
First of all I really like the
theme addressed in this one and think it is explored pretty well and
with an even hand.Humans will always strive
to better themselves and progress which has its positives and negatives.Knowing what to embrace and what to be wary
of isn’t always clear cut.Aang
represents a clinging to tradition while Toph embraces progress and they BOTH must
find a middle ground.
There are also several
interesting developments and other details I really enjoyed; some conflicts from Toph’s past are
addressed, Katara is confronted with old friends from the Southern Water Tribe,
and the last Air Avatar, Yangchen, makes an appearance and is fleshed out a
bit.
My only complaint is that there
was some awkward storytelling midway through the book that I didn’t think made
a lot of sense.Aang takes off in the
middle of some fighting to continue the Air ritual with his acolytes without
checking in to see if any of his friends are okay.Which of course they’re not.It was clumsy conflict set up but that’s my
only nit pick.
One final question is whether
these Graphic Novels would work for readers who have never watched the show and
I’m not sure they would.One of the best
things about them is that they usually address something that wasn’t
effectively resolved during the show (like the fate of Zuko’s mother in The Search).Coming in cold to these relationships would
also be a little difficult.I think
these are definitely intended for fans of the show.Which if you are not a fan of the show, you
should be :0)!
Final Verdict:Another great addition to this “mythos” that
continues the character and relationship growth while also telling a fast-paced
mystery story.4 Out of 5 Stars.
