Tag: 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!

Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods

If you’re looking for a good book about ancient Egyptian religion, you should pick up Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods by Dimitri Meeks and Christine Favard-Meeks. It’s not new, but I hadn’t gotten around to reading it until now. And I’m sure glad I did: it’s probably one of the best general reference books I’ve ever read.

Originally published in French, the book treats the Egyptian gods as if they were an ethnic group being studied by anthropologists. At first, I thought that sounded like a gimmick, but it’s a surprisingly effective approach. But where the book really shines is its use of primary sources. The authors draw upon some very obscure texts, which allows them to provide a level of detail that you rarely see in general reference works. Unfortunately, many of these texts are only available as hard-to-find French translations, so accessing them can be almost impossible unless you can consult a dedicated Egyptological collection and are reasonably proficient at reading French. But thanks to this book, the general English-speaking public can at least get a glimpse of them.

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

I recently finished The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, which is rather shameful since it’s been out for almost a year now and Rothfuss is one of my favorite authors. What can I say? Life intervened, as she so often does.

TWMF continues the story of Kvothe, the music-loving arcanist first introduced in 2007’s The Name of the Wind (which I keep mistyping as The Name of the Rose!). The whole series is actually a story-within-a-story. Kvothe (now masquerading as a simple innkeeper named Kote) is telling his life’s story to an itinerant scholar known as Chronicler. And it’s quite the story: in TNOTW, Kvothe was orphaned at a young age when his parents were killed by the mysterious Chandrian. After spending years begging on the streets, Kvothe finally enters the Arcanum, a school for the study of the arcane arts. Although Kvothe soon shows himself to be a talented arcanist, his temper often lands him in trouble, and he makes a lasting enemy of a young nobleman named Ambrose.

In TWMF, Kvothe’s feud with Ambrose takes a sinister turn when it looks like Ambrose is using ‘sympathy’ to try to hurt him. Sympathy involves forging magical links between objects, and Kvothe believes that Ambrose has used some of his blood to create a sort of voodoo doll. Eventually, Kvothe triumphs over his rival, but he is then arrested on charges stemming from the events in the first book. Although Kvothe escapes punishment, it is clear that Ambrose and his family hold a deep grudge, so Kvothe’s friends and instructors convince him to take a break from his studies until things have cooled down.

During his ‘vacation,’ Kvothe heads to Severen to gain the patronage of the local Maer. Kvothe is ultimately unsuccessful in obtaining full patronage, but along the way he foils a plot against the Maer, hunts bandits, has copious amounts of sex with a Fae woman, and learns a nifty new set of combat moves from a mysterious warrior race. By the time he returns to the Arcanum, he’s a much different person. Kvothe the boy is now Kvothe the man, and he has finally begun to learn how to effectively control his powers.

TWMF has received the same near-universal acclaim as its predecessor, but I’m afraid I’m going to be one of the few dissenting voices. Don’t get me wrong: TWMF is a very good book. I think Rothfuss is one of the best world-builders in fantasy, and I really, really like his prose. Like N.K. Jemisin or Genevieve Valentine, he writes elegantly yet simply, without the ponderous prolixity that often mars fantasy novels. Rothfuss has also done a wonderful job developing Kvothe’s character. He could have very easily become a ‘Marty Stu,’ but his flaws help keep him believable.

My biggest problem with TWMF is that it the story often bogs down. The scenes with Felurian (the uber-sexy fae woman who has a reputation for humping men to death) drag on and on. Interesting things do happen (such as his encounter with the Cthaeh), but they’re obscured by the repetitive sex talk. Similarly, Kvothe’s time among the Adem felt a lot longer than it really was. The Lethani is a cool concept, but I sometimes felt like I was being beat over the head with it.

There were also a few WTF? moments. Kvothe’s trial came out of left-field, and it sort of felt like that whole episode had originally been intended for the first book. It seemed strange that Ambrose’s family would have waited so long to have Kvothe brought before a judge. Maybe it just took them a while to grease enough palms.

Kvothe’s sudden decision to run after Felurian also struck me as odd. Granted, Kvothe can be the King of Bad Decisions at times, but his eager pursuit of her made me scratch my head. He’s supposed to be returning to the Maer’s court, yet he drops everything to make time with some Fae harlot. I suppose one could argue that Felurian’s supernatural allure combined with Kvothe’s natural brashness to make him cast reason aside, but it still seemed weird. I did not get the sense that Felurian’s appeal was impossible to resist; the other male members of Kvothe’s group managed to keep their distance from her.

Ultimately, the entire book felt like one big digression from the main plot. I would have liked to have learned more about the Chandrian and the Amyr, which have lurked at the margins of the plot since the beginning of the series. Given Rothfuss’ talent, the side road is still an attractive proposition, but I sure was glad when Kvothe returned to the Arcanum (and the main plotline) at the end.

 

 

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.

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…