Category: cool books

Scary Stories

If you’re a child of the 80s, you probably remember the Scary Stories trilogy by Alvin Schwartz. The stories themselves were fairly tame, and it was Stephen Gammell’s illustrations that really made the books memorable. When I was a third grader, those nightmarish landscapes and grotesque figures were absolutely terrifying (the illustrations for “The Haunted House,” “The Dream,” and “Someone Fell from Aloft” were particularly spooky), and they’re still pretty damn unsettling 20 years later.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the publication of the first Scary Stories book, HarperCollins commissioned new artwork by Brett Helquist. The result is…underwhelming to say the least. Helquist is a fine artist, but his work lacks the distinctive horror of Gammell’s. Adventures in Poor Taste has a nice piece that compares and contrasts the two sets of illustrations, so you can see for yourselves just how different they are.

I have no idea why HarperCollins decided to tamper with something so iconic. The cynic in me wonders if it isn’t a deliberate attempt to sanitize the books (they were, after all, frequently challenged by outraged parents who wanted to keep them out of school libraries). Helquist’s work is safe and anodyne, and I doubt it will stick in people’s minds like Gammell’s did.

I’m glad I kept my copies of the original editions!

BOOK REVIEW: The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan

I enjoyed The Red Pyramid so much that I immediately purchased its sequel, The Throne of Fire. Happily, the sophomore installment doesn’t disappoint.

ToF takes place several months after RP. Carter and Sadie Kane have turned their uncle’s Brooklyn mansion into a school for young magicians who wish to learn the ways of Egyptian magic. But the world is once again in danger, for Apophis (the serpent god of chaos) is on the verge of breaking out of his prison. In order to stop him, the siblings must awaken the sleeping sun god Ra. Their journey takes them across the world as they try to assemble the three fragments of the Book of Ra. Then, they must plunge into the depths of the Underworld as they seek Ra’s sleeping form.

Riordan continues to do a nice job of incorporating Egyptian mythology into the book, and he weaves a number of obscure legends into the story. I really like the fact that Riordan  tries to maintain a reasonable level of accuracy, though I did notice one small error: the tale of the magician who parts the Nile is set during the reign of Sneferu, not Khufu. But overall, he’s done a great job, and I think this series remains one of the best portrayals of ancient Egypt in fiction.

My major gripe with this book has to do with the romantic subplots. They continue to feel forced, and it seemed a bit jarring to have Carter and Sadie mooning over their respective crushes when the end of the world is nigh. Then again, they are teenagers…

The third (and final) book in the series is due out next May.

BOOK REVIEW: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

I had been meaning to read this for a long time, but it wasn’t until an Amazon promotion let me purchase it for $1 that I finally downloaded it onto my Kindle. Many of you may already know Rick Riordan because of his hugely successful Percy Jackson series. I’ve never read any of those books; Greek mythology just isn’t my thing. But when I discovered that Riordan also has a series incorporating Egyptian mythology, I decided to give it a try.

The Red Pyramid is told from the perspective of siblings Carter and Sadie Kane. They are the children of Dr. Julius Kane, a famous Egyptologist. After their mother died in a mysterious accident, Carter traveled the world with his father while Sadie lived in England with her fusty grandparents. The two siblings didn’t spend much time together, so when their father suddenly brings them together at the start of the book, they’re practically strangers.

Unfortunately, the family reunion goes awry when Dr. Kane attempts a mysterious ritual in the British Museum. He shatters the Rosetta Stone, unleashing a terrifying supernatural entity. He vanishes in the process, leaving his frightened children to try to figure out what happened to him. With the help of their Uncle Amos, Carter and Sadie soon discover that, not only was their father part of a secret society of Egyptian magicians, but the Egyptian gods are real and one of their number is plotting to plunge the world into chaos. The siblings also learn that they have the potential to become quite powerful. But the other magicians don’t trust them, forcing them to puzzle out their powers while simultaneously running for their lives and trying to stop the impending apocalypse.

All in all, Red Pyramid is an entertaining read. It’s breezy in a way that reminds me of the first Harry Potter book. Both Carter and Sadie share narrator duties, but the fact that the book is ostensibly a transcript of an audio-recording that they produced makes it easier to accept the first-person narration.

But where the book really shines is in its treatment of Egyptian magic. As many of you know, I get annoyed when Egypt is used as a garnish, but Riordan does a nice job of remaining true to history. For example, his Egyptian magicians frequently use various types of animated figurines, some of which are taken directly from Egyptian mythology (such as a wax crocodile and litter-bearers that want to drag you off and beat you). Riordan also incorporates a large number of Egyptian myths into the story, ranging from the fairly well-known account of Isis and Osiris to the less familiar story of Sekhmet’s bloody rampage.

Riordan also gets brownie points for his portrayal of Set. In a lot of modern works, Set is portrayed as an evil being similar to Satan in Christianity. But that is an oversimplification. For much of Egyptian history, Set was a respected member of the pantheon (in fact, the Ramessides felt a special connection to him). True, he killed his brother and attempted to usurp the throne from his nephew, but he was also the sun god’s primary defender against Apophis. It isn’t until the Late Period that Set starts to be seen as a purely evil deity. Therefore, I was glad to see that Riordan chose to go with a much more ambivalent portrayal of Set.

I only have two real complaints about Red Pyramid. First, sometimes it gets a bit too cute. I could have done without the basketball-playing baboon, or the cat-goddess who eats Friskies. Second, the romantic elements seemed a bit hamfisted at times. But these are very minor gripes, and overall I really, really liked it.

Obsidian and Blood

I’m not going to beat around the bush: Aliette de Bodard’s “Obsidian and Blood” series is awesome, and you should read it.

There are currently two books in the series: Servant of the Underworld and Harbinger of the Storm. Set in the Aztec Empire several decades before the Spanish conquest, the books are told from the perspective of Acatl, the High Priest of the Dead. In Servant, Acatl’s estranged brother is implicated in the disappearance of a priestess, and Acatl must prove his innocence. In Harbinger, the political maneuvering that follows the death of the Revered Speaker (i.e. the Emperor) almost brings about the end of the world.

For me, the best part of the series is its historical accuracy. De Bodard clearly did her research, and it shows. At the same time, she’s skillful enough to make the world of the Aztecs come alive without resorting to a bunch of awkward info-dumps. There’s a fine line between “well-researched” and “pedantic,” and de Bodard walks it with grace.

Since this is fiction, a certain number of historical liberties were inevitable. To her credit, de Bodard discusses them in the Afterword instead of just sweeping them under the rug. I particularly liked how she dealt with the issue of names. Most of her characters are upper-class Aztecs, and upper-class Aztecs tended to have names that would strike a modern reader as terribly unwieldy. Instead of just making stuff up, de Bodard uses the shorter names borne by less-exalted Aztecs. For deities, she usually alternates between the Aztec name and its  English translation. All and all, she does an excellent job of finding the middle ground between accuracy and accessibility.

The third book in the series, Master of the House of Darts, will be released in October. I’m sure it’s going to be awesome. I’ll definitely be adding it to my Kindle the moment it becomes available.

De Bodard also has a nifty blog that’s worth a gander. In addition to fascinating reflections on the writing process, she also posts awesome-looking recipes. Someday, when I actually have a real kitchen, I might actually try them out.

Detour!

I was going to pick up Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon after I finished The Man with the Golden Torc, but along the way I got distracted by something very, very shiny: Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard.  I stumbled upon it completely by accident, but when I saw that it was a historical fantasy novel set among the Aztecs, I had to check it out.  The sample chapters blew me away and I quickly bought the Kindle book.  I have a feeling this is going to be all kinds of awesome…

The amazing clockwork circus

I can cross a book off of my summer reading list!  As you may have seen in my last post, I was unsure of what to read first, but I ended up settling on Mechanique: a Tale of the Circus Tresaulti.

It’s the story of a circus whose performers have all been turned into vaguely steampunkish creations: there’s a guy whose lungs have been replaced with clockwork bellows, the aerialists’ bones have been replaced by hollow copper facsimiles, and the strongman has a metal spine with a clock sticking out of his back.    The circus travels around a post-apocalyptic world where governments come and go and never control more than a tiny smidgeon of the map at any one time.  Eventually, a scheming government official (known only as “the government man,” which made me think of the G-Man from Half Life) takes an interest in the circus because he believes that the technology inside of the performers could be used to create an army of super soldiers.

I really shouldn’t have liked this story.  The plot zips forward and backward like a trapeze artist and there are multiple POV characters.  Although most of the narration is third person omniscient, it sometimes veers into first person.  But you know what?  It worked.  These are all things that I usually dislike, but they never irritated me in this story.  The writing is so strong and artful that you just get sucked in.

Even though the main plot comes to a satisfactory resolution, the reader is still left with a number of unanswered questions.  It’s never explained how Boss (the lady who runs the circus and does all the machining) got her strange power.  Nor is it explained why the world was apparently engulfed in chaos.  But it really doesn’t matter within the confines of the story.  All you need to know is that Boss has this power and that the world has fallen apart.  The details are irrelevant.  And the more details you give, the more you invite your readers to peer behind the illusion you’ve created.

A final note: if I didn’t have a Kindle, I probably wouldn’t have read this book.  I’m not all that into steampunk, and I would’ve been reluctant to shell out $14.95 for the paperback edition.  But the Kindle edition was just $4.95, so I was willing to take the risk.  And I’m sure glad I did.

Next in the reading queue: The Man With the Golden Torc.

Recommendations, please

I have an idea for a new series bouncing around in my brain.  It’s still in the earliest stages of life, so I can’t go into much detail about it right now.  It will, however, be something of a change for me since it will be science fiction rather than fantasy.  However, since I have more than enough Ptahmose-related stuff on my plate at the moment, it’s going to be a while before I devote any serious effort to this new project.

In the meantime, however, I’d like to broaden my exposure to sci fi.  So far, my experience of the genre has been confined to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (plus some of its sequels) and several books set in the Star Wars expanded universe.  But I was hoping that you, dear readers, might be able to recommend some good reads.  So if you have any recommendations, please leave them in the comments!

Review of The Broken Kingdoms

Today I finished reading The Broken Kingdoms, the second book in N. K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.  You can read my review of the first book in the series here.

Rather than simply pick up where The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms left off, Broken Kingdoms jumps ten years into the future to tell the story of Oree Shoth, a young blind woman living in the city of Shadow beneath the World Tree.  Freed from their servitude, godlings cavort around the city.  But when Oree finds a silent godling in her muckbin one day, she gets pulled into a dangerous conspiracy that threatens not only her life but the very fabric of the universe itself.

As I mentioned in my earlier review, one of the great things about Jemisin’s work is the rich mythology that underlies it.  Broken Kingdoms does an excellent job of elaborating on what we already know.  In particular, we learn a lot more about Itempas, a full god who was seen briefly at the end of Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.  Jemisin does a great job of humanizing her deities so that they actually have distinct personalities instead of just being insanely powerful cardboard cutouts.

Jemisin also continues to take risks with her writing and it continues to pay off.  Rather than play it safe and write a direct sequel, she chose to give top billing to a new set of characters (though some familiar faces do appear as ‘guest stars’).  In doing so, she emphasizes that her world doesn’t just revolve around one small group of people, which makes it seem that much more realistic.  And even though I’m not really a fan of first-person narrators, I have to admit that Jemisin is able to pull it off.   She’s also quite adept at the short scene: some of her scenes are only a paragraph long but she manages to pack a lot of power into a few lines of text.

The only thing that I didn’t like about Broken Kingdoms was the sex scenes.  The breast fondling and lady-part stroking veered a bit too close to romance novel territory for my tastes, but your mileage may vary.

The final book in the trilogy, The Kingdom of Gods, is due to come out later this year.