Bookish Chat - 'Eclipse'

' "Photographic memory or not, I don't understand why you like it. The characters are ghastly people who ruin each other's lives. I don't know how Heathcliff and Cathy ended up being ranked with couples like Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. It isn't a love story, it's a hate story."

"You have some serious issues with the classics," I snapped....

"What is it that appeals to you?"

His sincere curiosity disarmed me. "I'm not sure," I said, scrambling for coherency while his gaze unintentionally scattered my thoughts. "I think it's something about the inevitablity. How nothing can keep them apart-not her selfishness, or his evil, or even death, in the end..."

His face was thoughtful as he considered my words. After a moment he smiled his teasing smile. "I still think it would be a better story if either of them had one redeeming quality."

"I think that might be the point," I disagreed. "Their love is their only redeeming quality."

"I hope you have better sense than that-to fall in love with someone so...malignant." '

Did Ms Meyer just satarise her own character's relationship using 'Wuthering Heights'? I think a little bit of my brain exploded on reading this, because it so perfectly describes my feelings about Bella and Edward (although I think their love is begining to annoy me in this third book). If Meyer is deliberately undermining her own characters - well I have to give her much more credit that I ever have before...

Of course she soon throws her characters back on the out of control crazy train. Just when you think Meyer has gone to the limits of romantic ickyness she throws in a new twist. In 'Eclipse' it's the creepiness of a werewolf 'imprinting' (recognising his soulmate), only problem is she's a two year old. No worries, he will essentially lovingly groom here until she is old enough to reciprocate his feelings. And what if she doesn't return his feelings? Well she'll be able to refuse him of course, but why would she when he won't age past eighteen and he's always been around taking care of her. Please Emily, call a social worker!

This is the book where I realised that the commentators who view Edward as an abusive partner are not so far out there. His sister has kidnapped Bella and put her on lock down to keep her 'safe' and 200 pages in Bella and Edward have used the language of domestic violence frequently.

I'm not ripping through 'Eclipse' like the last two books. I'm finding it slow and as the romantic relationship becomes undermined (which is must do if Edward seems to be acting especially questionably and Bella is trying to 'escape' him to hang out with Jacob) the interest level gets lower and lower. Who reads the Twilight books for the action plot after all, it's the romance and vampire baseball that make it so addictive. Alright when I went for drinks last night we ended up watching 'Twilight' again and were way too excited about vampire baseball - but we also tried to introduce others to the joys of BBC 'Pride and Prejudice' (not sure it worked).

I almost want to go and buy my team Jacob flag, but I know it's pointless and I just can't get over the werewolf domestic violence theme from the last book. Everytime I start to think 'aww' I'm reminded of Emily's scars, which I think were prettified for the film version. I hate that the one time I actually do want the nice, best friend to become the romantic lead his chances are doomed from the start.

Steamy Endings

It’s the end of steam punk month here at Bookgazing. I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about some of the books from this developing genre and that I’ve convinced some of you to pick up the books I reviewed. I really enjoyed hearing peoples thoughts about race in steam punk and you all gave me lots of new resources to check out (especially cheerful bout someone pointing me to a steam punk novellette available for free, online). What did you think of my themed month? Would you be interested if I did another one at the end of the year (if enough people say yes the theme might be fiction about natural history, or women in sports)?

To wrap up steam punk month I thought I’d just do a little house keeping recap and tell you about some other steam punk novels I’m excited about.

Reviews

A list of the steam punk I reviewed this month:

‘The Osiris Ritual’ – George Mann
‘The Women of Nell Gwynnes’ – Kage Barker
‘Leviathan’ – Scott Westerfeld
‘Boneshaker’ – Cherie Priest

Interesting Resources

If you want to learn more about all aspects of steam punk you could do worse than follow these links, thanks to Gal Novelty and PurpleZoe who pointed me in their direction:

Beyond Victoriana
Silver Goggles
JamesNG art (lush artwork)
Steam Fashion
Steampunk 101 at Tor

More steam punk please

A list of some of the steam punk I didn’t get to this month, but am still very excited about:

‘The Windup Girl’ – Paolo Bacigalupi
‘Soulless’ – Gail Carriger
‘The Court of the Air’ – Stephen Hunt
’Mortal Engines’ – Philip Reeves
‘The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack’ – Mark Hodder

Free steam punk please

A few stories available online if you want to try steam punk for free:

‘Pimp my Airship’ – Maurice Broaddus
‘The Effluent Engine’ – N K Jemison
‘The Shattered Teacup’ - George Mann

Reading Outside the Zone

Last week Amy wrote about the importance of tackling books you think you’ll hate, in order to learn something worthwhile. I’m a big fan of this idea, especially as it’s something Jeanette Winterson is in favour of and I think she’s an incredibly smart woman. She, Amy and Laura Miller (whose article Amy quotes) all seem to advocate reading books you think you’ll hate in order to have your perceptions challenged, rather than confirmed. Good idea, so why haven’t I done it before?

For one thing I like a ton of genres and if I’m not reading from one it’s not because I hate them, it’s because I have to get up off the settee sometimes. So I want to try westerns, graphic novels etc, etc list that stretches around the world twice, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. There are a few areas of reading I’ve avoided, assuming that I’d hate them: self help, Christian fiction, pure romance (to an extent), political memoirs. Overall though I love to experiment and if I had more time/ a smaller backlog of bought books I’d read from different genre that excite me.

The other reason has to do with not wanting my reasoning to be challenged, which sounds just awful when I put it like that and it kind of is. You have to understand (and I’m sure a bunch of you know firsthand) that when you support pro-choice actions, GLBT rights, female rights and other ‘liberal’ stances it’s very easy to find people who will loudly disagree with your views. Often when you speak someone will shout you down, or worse they’ll automatically assume that your political views are the same as theirs and try to co-opt you into conversations about how awful something is. Reading outside my political comfort zone opens up the possibility of once again hearing some offensive ‘explanations’ of why things I think are right are wrong. Maybe I’ll learn something sure, but maybe I’ll once again learn something I don’t like.

It’s easy to read these kind of books if you’re looking to have your views confirmed (who doesn’t enjoy occasionally pulling apart the arguments of a book you don’t agree with) but if you’re looking to have your views challenged, to take away something useful it’s a lot harder, because you either have to assume that your views are not right (I think I’ve talked before about how I’m not prepared to accept any room for doubt when it comes down to some basic issues of gay rights, or women’s rights) or you have to look really hard to find the reasons behind the arguments and gain an understanding of the people who believe in them.

That’s a hard ask, but isn’t it what I want from those who don’t agree with my views? If someone doesn’t agree with my base views, then I at least expect them to work hard to see what creates my point of view and accept that there is legitimate reasoning behind my views even if they can’t incorporate them into their own beliefs. Isn’t that idea of searching for understanding through context essentially the personal epiphany I had while studying about societies that burned witches? When did I stop thinking that exploration was as important as opposing? Perhaps as importantly, how can I expect people to respect my views, if I only use their views as a way of educating myself for another attack on them? Have I come to believe that the only way for me to be content in my mind is to avoid such opposing views in my reading and what does that say about my real willingness to reach out to the world? Do I even owe people who oppose others rights an attempt at understanding?

Thoughts and reading suggestions much appreciated here in my chamber of confusion.

Misketch Saves the Day

See my new awesomely purdy banner? That's courtesy of Linda from 'Struggles of a Creative Mind' one of the fashion/real life bloggers I really, really like. She has great style and starts some really interesting discussions on her blog among the fashionistas. Linda's a designer by day and she has her own web shop called misketch where she sells personalised sketches.

She's also currently raising money for a charity, as her uncle was recently diagnosed with cancer. She's been raising money so his family can take part in 'The Ride to Conquer Cancer' by selling cute as bicycle necklaces. There's the classic bike seen above (my choice), a penny farthing bike and a Vespa scooter for all the mods.

Thanks for making my blogs look shiny and glossy Linda :)

Boneshaker - Cherie Priest

Plot Summary

During the last years of the gold rush a man named Leviticus Blue unleashed a powerful drilling machine which collapsed the city of Seattle. The machine hit an unstoppable source of poisonous gas that killed many of the cities inhabitants, before turning them into flesh obsessed zombies, or ‘rotters’. In the confusion Leviticus Blue disappeared, as did a large amount of money from the city’s banks.

Sixteen year on and a giant wall has been built around the city to contain the gas. The citizens of Seattle have mostly been evacuated. While many left the area, others including Leviticus’ widow Briar and her son Ezekiel, have made lives for themselves in the Outskirts, the poor district around the wall. Briar and Zeke are reviled outsiders and eventually Zeke, unable to stand life as it is, sets out to prove his father didn’t deliberately destroy the city. In order to prove this he ventures inside the walled city through the underground tunnel system, where some people still live. When an earthquake cuts off his escape route Briar must find a way into the city to save her son.

Specifically Steam Punk Features

Tunnels: A very elaborate system of tunnels keep the people who live behind the wall from having to go topside among the rotters.

Alternate history: The whole idea of Seattle as a destroyed, walled city is an alternate version of our world, but Cherie Priest has also played about with the real life timeline of Seattle, to make this book’s plot work.

Machines and steam power: There are blimps! Steam punk novels are always better with blimps in my opinion.

Supernatural elements: From what I’ve read so far zombies are the most popular supernatural element to include in steam punk and here they are again.

Opinion

‘Boneshaker’ is essentially pioneer town fiction crossed with steam punk. Hammered down, hard working, essentially good, yet unable to communicate openly; Briar is a typical hardscrabble pioneer heroine beaten into shape by circumstances that make her life even harder than the other inhabitants of the Outskirts. Cherie Priest doesn’t reinvent the kind of stock woman found in novels about pioneer towns, because she sees the truth the cliche obscures. Lone women living in makeshift communities had to harden themselves and barrel through life, often with little support as they routinely faced suspicion, because of their single status. Instead Priest works hard to make Briar’s hard, but hurt personality as fully realised as possible, by truthfully exploring Briar’s feelings and emotional limits.

Briar constantly struggles to be uncompromising honest, but this noble attempt is hampered by the pain she feels about the past. Her struggle to remain both honest and emotionally safe informs all her relationships; her honest reaction when Zeke asks her to explore painful memories is as much a barricade between her and the pain, as it is her attempt to answer truthfully:

‘ Did his father really make the terrible machine that broke the city until pieces of it fell into the earth? Did he really bring the Blight?

“Yes,” she had to tell him. “Yes, it happened that way, but I don’t know why. He never did tell me. Please don’t ask me anymore.”

He never did ask for more, even though Briar sometimes wished he would.' .

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is watching Briar cast aside her hard won monotonous stability to save her son and yet continue to hold back aspects of her internal life from the friends she makes as she searches for him, even though revealing certain things might make her time in the city easier. once Zeke goes missing she realises the difference between privacy and exclusion, as well as the necessity of facing a story rather than ignoring it, but throughout the novel Briar is still engaged in a personal battle, as she tries to maintain the privacy she’s created as a reaction to being the widow of a monster, while engaging with others as friends. Briar’s emotional journey is what makes this book so special, as she changes from a closed down woman, to a hard woman who can still actively care about others despite knowing how fraught personal connections can be.

To encourage readers to care about this dense emotional journey Priest creates a way for readers to connect with Briar’s character through the writing style she uses to describe her heroine’s thoughts and actions. Briar is a woman of few words and when she speaks she tries to do so in a sparingly rational way. To match the way she speaks Priest describes the majority of Briar’s actions and thoughts with precise images that do not waste words, using phrases such as ‘…with words she’d measured as neatly as buttonholes…’ . These images produce striking mental pictures and convey how exact Briar’s thoughts are. Using such a contracted version of description also communicates the coiled power readers are encouraged to feel within Briar. This particular style of description is designed to provide a deeper explanation of Briar’s character, that goes beyond the actual words of dialogue and thought process she uses. It works well as it’s surprisingly easy to understand what drove Briar to exist for the past sixteen years, what she values and how interactions make her feel.

Priest’s precise writing style also makes it easy to visualise the world she has created. While her writing style is never sparse it is highly controlled:

‘The sun was rising slowly and the sky was taking on the milky gray daytime hue that it would never shake, not until spring. Rain spit sideways, cast sharply by the wind…’

and Priest concentrates on finding one perfect word, where other authors might use three. Using only the most apt words to describe the texture, the colours and the mood of places makes it easy to picture the world Briar and Zeke live in. Each description of the landscape, the buildings and even the character’s clothes is part of a determined aesthetic reflection of the threatened lives that people lead in the Outskirts and the city which again helps readers to understand the characters better.

While many novels that use description to create dark, moody worlds feel deliberately atmospheric, Priest’s writing style feels different, lighter somehow, less obviously constructed. By disassociating her dark descriptions of Seattle from the heavy foreshadowing of a traditional dark and horrifying situation Priest allows the action to flow at the fast pace that zombie chases and air crashes need to race by at. Her style reminds me of Joe Hill’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’ which contains ordinary American characters, dialogue and situations to lessen the heavy oppression that atmospheric writing places on a story, without losing the opportunity to scare readers. Cherie Priest makes horror, darkness and depression yet another part of everyday life that need to be plowed through, rather than special, escapable events that are heavily signalled. She places realism in fantasy and terrifying adventure in the everyday, in ‘Boneshaker’ bravery is just common place decency or survival. There’s no escape for the reader, nothing to do but go with Briar and her son on the horrifying escape attempt they’ve become involved in. It’s an exciting ride and the many battles with rotters and the villains that live beneath the city are just as skilfully executed as the rest of the writing:

‘ From inside the lift, a mournful groan came echoing. Pounding hands beat at the roof above, or from some toher spot around the lift’s basket. Then there was a splintering, breaking smash…and they came tumbling inside. One or two blazed the trail, and then they poured in greater numbers through whatever passage they’d forced.

The first three rotters off the lift and into the corridor were once a soldier, a barber, and a Chinaman. Briar pumped the rifle and aimed it fast, catching the first two in the eyes and blowing off the third one’s ear.’ .

Perhaps as exciting as the action is the diversity of Priest’s alternate Seattle. A genuine effort is made to present a world where racial diversity exists and every character isn’t white, or of an unspecified race. Priest includes a large Chinese community living beneath the walled city, a black airship captain and a Native American princess. She also writes Briar and Zeke as extremely poor characters. As Aarti noted in the comments the other week steam punk generally has characters who are upper class (although ‘Leviathan’ starts to look at the class divide as well), so it’s interesting to see a single parent family, living on a low wage as the hero and heroine of a steam punk novel. Finally it’s so positive and different that the gun blasting, brave heroine, who is probably inspiring romantic feelings at the end of the novel (please don’t disappoint my romantic hopes Cherie Priest), is described as looking ‘thirty-five and she did not look a minute younger’.

‘Boneshaker’ is an excellent crossover novel that both adults and teenagers might enjoy. Emotional complexity mixes with zombie battles and by the end of the book you’ll just want more. Even though the novel works perfectly well as an open ended stand alone piece I’m happy that there’s a sequel to be released next year called ‘Clementine’. It’s named after one of the blimps in ‘Boneshaker’ and as I mentioned above that a steam punk novel is always better with blimps don’t expect me to wait for the paperback.

Other People's Words

All my words now seem to be about book buying (look out for future posts) and how a sense of not quite getting the world increases my need for other peoples words (do not look out for posts, mostly look for me running off to find saner sources of chat after I’ve distractedly exposed myself to inflammatory news stories). So I will leave you with some other sources of much better talk while I go away and wonder about the state of mainstream media yet again (or maybe I will think about old English sheepdogs, which remind me of magic carpets).
Now the sources of sensible, awesome talk:

Sarah Ryan’s post ‘I did not expect to be writing an identity-related post tonight’ made me decide I needed the follow up to ‘Empress of the World’, ‘The Rules for Hearts’ right now! The overall message is something like ‘people know who they are better than you do’ which is a very sensible message that amateur psychology encourages us to ignore.

Zetta Elliot guest posted at Justine Larbalestier’s blog about race and reviews. There’s lots to think about regarding who gets to have the final word on cultural authenticity in literature.

There’s been some really interesting discussion about Philip Roth at ‘Incurable Logophilia’ (recently added to my feedreader). Roth’s reported misogyny is why I’ve so far been anxious about approaching his books, in the same way I steer clear of Norman Mailer although I’m repeatedly told he’s a genius. The comments on these posts ask insightful questions about whether Roth is critiquing misogyny and if he’s not, whether his identification with misogynistic arguments unintentionally allows his work to contribute useful lessons about the state of our society.

This weekend’s ’Not the TV Book Group’ discussion was about ‘The Girl with Glass Feet’. I’m not going to review the book, instead I’m going to point you at the comments. I contributed a little at the end and I loved reading everyone’s different reactions to the book. Sometimes it is so fun to read what everyone else is reading so you can discuss alternative opinions on specific bits of a book.

‘Random Thoughts of a Crazy Liberal’ pointed me to a post at ‘Gender Across Borders’ called ‘The Eyes Have It’ about the twisted way society tries to ensure women’s safety. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, a lot recently. Increasingly the pressure of messages bombarding me with the idea that as a woman I need to exist in a state of constant fear and if I don’t I’m not taking the various threats seriously enough makes me want to go an live in a hermits shack. I want to kick out at these messages, because they’re just ridiculous, but in doing so I expose myself to people telling me I’m being reckless (and this concerned counter argument usually comes from other women, which makes me sad). It’s nice to know others are concerned about this issue.

Enjoy!

Book Buying (Part One)

I'm absolutely exhausted today. A friend of mine is looking after a rescue puppy for a day and I went to help her walk the puppy, her own collie and her brother’s old English sheepdog. We let the bigger dogs roam around the fields, but couldn’t let the puppy off the lead and he pretty much just plowed after the big dogs with me waterskiing on the end of his lead. Phew – tired, but full of puppy love.

Energetic weekend activity is a nice contrast to the slug slow pace of the rest of the week. Work is slow, it’s still not quite light enough for me to put in bursts of activity in the week by walking after work and the snow keeps coming back, making me feel like I want to hibernate. This slow tempo does make book buying seem like an especially good idea for some reason and I’ve had a few big buying splurges this week, which means you get to see some new shiny books that have already arrived. I tried out a new balanced buying policy this time as a bit of an experiment by picking the same amount of young adult and adult books, because sometimes I feel like young adult books are all I buy, all I read and I miss adult fiction just like I’d miss young adult fiction if I cut it out of my life.

First the young adult novels:

‘Bleeding Violet’ – Dia Reeves: I kind of get a ‘Liar’ vibe from this book. It sounds gritty and features a no messing female character surrounded by complex issues that are driving her a little crazy. The main character moves to a new town where crazy things happen, but that’s ok because she’s a little crazy herself.

‘Shine, Coconut Moon’ – Neesha Meminger: This book has one of my favourite ‘normal’ covers of last year, it’s not trying hard at all but the placement of the jewellery and the colour choices declare its status as a cool, contemporary book. It sounds like a story of family discovery and follows a girl learning about her Sikh heritage just after the terrorist attacks of 11th September.

‘The God Box’ – Alex Sanchez: Despite a growing interest about different ways of interpreting the Bible there still seems to be a resistance to examining the Bible’s attitudes to homosexuality. I don’t know much of the Bible and increasingly I feel I need arguments from scripture to combat the idea that gay people are wrong ‘because the Bible says so’. An openly gay young man, who is also a Christian begins to stir new understanding in the Christian main character.

Now the adult novels:

‘The Coral Thief’ – Rebecca Stott: A novel about the development of natural history, brought to my attention by Danielle. A man is travelling by coach to London, clutching the specimens that will open all kinds of significant scientific doors to him. He falls asleep and when he wakes up his case is gone! Could the beautiful young woman who shared his coach really have taken them?

‘The Greatest Knight’ – Elizabeth Chadwick: Again a review by Danielle sparked my interest. I kept picking this one off the 3 for 2 tables and putting it back because the blurb sounded kind of dull, but I think I might have been wrong. This takes place at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who I’m sure I learnt about in school but I don’t remember much about her. Refresher novel to the rescue.

‘Wench’ – Dolen Perkins-Valdez: I’ve seen this mentioned on at least five blogs, but I think the review that decided me was from ‘White Readers Meet Black Authors’. It sounds like a great book for me because there are mistresses (yippee), escape plans (you can only see ‘The Great Escape’ so many times without warming to the escape montage) and American history (yes I am a philistine, I like American history almost as much as British history).

‘The Snake Stone’ – Jason Goodwin: The second in a really original mystery series. It’s set in Turkey, during the time of the Ottoman Empire and the main detective figure is a eunuch (although apparently eunuch is a bit more of a flexible term that I’d previously realised).

There will be some pre-ordered books turning up throughout the next few months because I just couldn’t resist and I guess they tip my balancing act of buying into the nearest puddle, because the majority of the book I pre-ordered are young adult novels. I think pre-ordering may be my new addiction, as it spaces out your book payments and you get ‘surprise’ packages a few months after your immediate book purchases arrive. Anything nice arrived in your house recently (puppy or book related)?

Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld

Reading steam punk reminds me how exciting it feels to tear through a book where dramatic things are always happenings. At the moment I feel wary around adult fiction that promises big adventures, because I keep picking up novels where the adventure just isn’t that exciting, or the battle scenes rock, but the characters are unbearably pretentious.

‘Leviathan’ by Scott Westerfeld, showed once again that young adult novels can handle adventure narratives well and that creating an explosive battle scene is an endeavour of craft.

‘Leviathan’ begins in 1914, just after Archduke Ferdinand and his wife are murdered. Their deaths are the catalyst for the First World War, but in Westerfeld’s version of events their deaths also affect their young son Alek, who must flee from powerful, political enemies. In his family’s Stormwalker (a small war craft that walks on two legs) Alek and his two tutors journey to the neutrality of Switzerland. They are never at ease and must constantly fight for their lives.

In London, Deryn Sharp attempts to enter the Air Service, dressed as a boy. This is a steam punk novel so the British Air Service is a little different, the air craft are live pre-fabricated creatures, manmade whales and jellyfish, which need hydrogen to keep them afloat. The creatures were originally produced by Darwin and only Monkey-Luddites and I’m sure you can get a sense of how others view them from that slang phrase, object to these beasts being used for the good of the British Empire. Deryn’s first flight test is to board a Huxley, which is like a large, nervous jellyfish, but with happy memories of flying with her dad she’s sure she has the natural ability the Air Service values. An unexpected storm sweeps her off course and she is found by the ‘Leviathan’ airship and taken aboard as a midshipman. The crew of the ‘Leviathan’ will eventually come into contact with Alek and the two characters become wary allies, then friends as shared experiences allow them to bond.

Westerfeld’s steam punk world is exactly what I hoped to explore when I came up with the idea of reading steam punk for a month. It seems I prefer steam punk societies where the new technology is an active part of the story and technology plays a significant part in ‘Leviathan’. A political divide is drawn between form Clanker powers (countries that favour machinery) and Darwinist civilisations (countries that advocate using pre-fabs). Just as religion created many real political alliances throughout history, technology determines which countries fight against each other in ‘Leviathan’. The two different forms of technology also become homes to the main characters, as Deryn and Alek live in their war ships and this allows the author to explore the mechanical logic that makes the technology work in detail. Having the characters live in the technology, provides a way to make technology personal and important, in the same way that setting your character’s lives on a ship can make the way a ship works more interesting. There’s plenty of imaginative technological detail to enjoy, like bats that excrete metal and the differences between classes of Clanker warships, but the way the technology works is explained simply for younger readers so even technophobes like me can understand how the pieces fit together.

As ‘Leviathan’ is written for younger readers (the book jacket recommends from 10 years old and up) the sentences were compact and the paragraphs were often exceptionally short, which I guess is designed to hold the attention of younger children. The fact that I didn’t feel anything lacking because of the writing’s compact style opened my mind to reading more of what Americans call middle grade fiction, which I’ve always assumed is a bit too simplistic to satisfy adult readers (I know, I know, I am converted now, sorry about that). The style was actually better suited to battle scenes and adventure episodes than the longer sentences similar adult fiction often uses. Books full of action should be purposeful, with tight description, so the simpler style of writing for younger readers really fits with extremely active narratives. The writing in ‘Leviathan’ reminded me of some of my favourite action/adventure novels from my childhood, which were fun and always felt like they made every word count , like Tamora Pierce’s ‘The Song of the Lioness’ series,. The freshness of the writing and the ease with which Westerfeld relates the excitement in a scene is invigorating and it makes me question why other writers weigh down their action scenes.

The only part of the book I disliked was the love story, which emerged at the end of the book. I have a multitude of feelings about this one small plot point and most of them are irrational. It’s irrational for me to hold the fact that Deryn contemplates giving up everything to protect Alek’s secret against ‘Leviathan’ but I do. By establishing such a strong friendship between Deryn and Alek, Westerfeld has set up valid textual reasons why Deryn would risk everything to protect Alek’s secret, but part of me sees Deryn falling in love with Alek, only to be transformed from a spunky, brave character into a plucky girl, whose bravery now comes from sacrificing what she wants for the good of others. It’s a little matter as Deryn realises her feelings for Alek at the end of the novel, but my mind just goes to these kind of things when I read. It’s irrelevant to say I think their friendship doesn’t need to become a love story (well it does, deal with the book at hand not the book you wish existed), but I don’t think it does and there it is. I’ll probably get over it.

That’s my review then. Now I’ll just go and wait patiently for the second book to be released (oh only later this year, well that’s much better than 2011). ‘The Leviathan’ will arrive in the Ottoman Empire and we’ll all find out what is in the eggs the ship is carrying. Can’t wait!

Other Reviews

Villa Negativa
GuysLitWire
Necromancy Never Pays
The Zen Leaf

There are easier ways to quit...

I know this is a book blog, but sometimes the general news is just so funny I have to share it here.

In 2009 the government decided it would let the public vote on the kinds of community punishment they’d like to see offenders carrying out. The vote goes on until April, but today the radio told me that the government have already had to throw out a number of ideas because quite a few people suggested things like ‘public flogging’ and ‘bring back the stocks’.

Who would have expected that? Oh right, EVERYONE!

When your blurb blabs

I had a lovely lazy weekend reading and watching a bit of tv. ‘Dancing on Ice’ still seems like a very long programme, they have too many contestants this year and only a few show any real sparkle. ‘Australia’ burst my Luhrmann love bubble and dented my ‘I Heart Hugh’ tin star. I enjoyed catching up on ‘The Cleveland Show’ which is a bit more family friendly than ‘Family Guy’, but no less funny for the adjustment. I even watched a bit of the winter Olympics, which I find harder to get invested in than the main Olympics. The coverage is on at odd times over here and the British medal hopes are quite a bit lower (come on women’s tobogganing though) but I have to admit events like the luge have got an extra element of excitement that hurdling just doesn’t have.

As for reading, on Saturday I finished Scott Westerfield’s ‘Leviathan’ for steam punk month. It was a rattling good adventure story, which I highly recommend and I’ll be reviewing it a bit later this week. Reaching the end reminded me why I don’t read a ton of sci-fi, or fantasy related books, even though I love the genres – every time I pick up a book I inadvertently get sucked into a series. My reading list is already too long authors! I will now go and wait not so patiently for the second book to appear.

On Sunday I started ‘The Girl with Glass Feet’ by Ali Shaw, which is the next ‘Not the TV Book Group’ selection. I’m just over half way through and I have mixed feelings about this novel. I like one element of the book but feel rather unenthusiastic about another element, so there are parts where I’m coasting along enjoying the relationships between the characters followed by parts that I have to reread over and over to gain a sense of the scene. I’ve said before that I’m not a visual reader, only exceptional novels cause images to pop into my head fully formed, so perhaps that lacking in myself is holding me up. I can’t shake the feeling that the descriptive writing just isn’t as polished as it needs to be in places, but then part of me suspects I may have had high rise expectations of this book that just weren’t realistic. Anyway more on that Saturday during the official discussion by which time I expect I’ll have cried and completely revised my opinion.

As I read the first few chapters of ‘The Girl with Glass Feet’ where Shaw keeps the nature of the heroine’s foot condition secret from the readers I thought about how much the book’s title and blurb had impacted on my experience of those first chapters. I knew exactly what was wrong with Ida’s feet because the title tells me that a girl in the book probably has glass feet and the blurb tells me which girl it is. The blurb isn’t providing the annoying back cover spoiler, which readers hate, it’s simply describing the main premise of the book to get readers interested. However it seems that the writer has created an initial meeting between character and reader that tries to encourage the reader to feel some mystery about what is wrong with the heroine’s feet, so in some ways it is a spoiler for the blurb to let the secret out. It’s common to know quite a bit about a book’s plot before reading a book, even if you avoid major plot spoilers and I was just wondering how you feel this impacts your reading experience of some books. Would your experience be significantly different if blurbs were more vague?

Let me know how your weekends went. I know some of you were planning to wallow in books and some had Valentine’s plans, so I hope everyone had fun.

Will March be Warmer?

This is going to be a bit of a mish mash post because it feels like a mish mash time of year in February and I didn’t fancy doing short, separate posts. Mostly this will be about books so do not flee just yet.

How are those challenges going for everyone? I must admit that I haven’t started a couple of mine yet (but let’s not talk about those) but I’m quite pleased with my progress in the ones I have begun.

TBR Challenge: 6/20 – This is my biggest challenge success so far. I’ve read 6 books form my original list and I’ll be getting right back to working through my other choices in March as I must, must read ‘Guernica’ soon and possibly ‘Howards End’ as well. It seems like I’ve been telling them, ‘soon, soon’ for so long.

Year of Biodiversity Challenge: 1/3 – For me having read one non-fiction book by February is an achievement, especially when that book is about sciency things. I’ve almost completed my related task as well, by watching a natural history television series called ‘How Earth Made Us’. It hasn’t been my favourite natural history series, but there have been interesting facts even if I think the presenter stretches a point sometimes. It must be quite a challenge squishing all the history of how different elements helped to shape society into five hour long programs. I’ve been enjoying a couple of ‘Natural World’ one offs more and have learnt plenty about prairie dogs and leopards. I’m still making some bigger natural history outing plans, so hopefully I’ll be able to tell you about Kew gardens, or The London Natural History Museum later in the year.

Women Unbound: 2/8 – I have veered away from my planned list and am just submitting links to this challenge when I feel they’re appropriate. I’m dithering about whether ‘To the Lighthouse’ could qualify as a third challenge book, since so much of the book was about women being forced into social roles. Let me know if you think I should count it. Argh had forgotten about the non-fiction requirement! I must start getting some of the books for that part of the challenge.

GLBT: 1/12 – At least I think I’m aiming for Rainbow level. I need to go back and check what I signed up for, because I might have been feeling sensible that day and picked a lower level. Either way my total needs to be bumped up which is why I bought that Lucifer Glass book and have ‘The God Box’ flying to me.

Last weekend I spent a lot of time in the cinema (and a bit of time in the pub). I finally saw ‘An Education’ with my mum after our cinema saw fit to put it on for about four days after it received its Oscar nomination. It only went to our second nearest city on its first showing and was on at such funny times we settled down to wait for the DVD. I may have ranted about this before, but apparently our area is not cultured enough to receive any films ranging from those with subtitles (‘Coco Before Chanel’) to documentaries (‘March of the Penguins’). Yep we are not deemed intellectual enough for a film where Samuel L Jackson narrates shots of fluffy penguins.

ANYWAY....

’An Education’ was great, so easily accessible, lush and ‘romantic’ in places that I fear our area is assumed entirely dense and uninterested. There were bits that made me think about how such a story could never be set in modern times without censure from the community and a great big smack in the nose for the male lead, because the age difference is quite large, although legally this is not a Lolitaesque story. The ending was lovely, so simple and so rejuvenating in contrast with the way modern ‘girl makes one mistake’ stories usually end.

Then on Sunday I went to ogle (sorry appreciate) Clooney in his Oscar nominated film ‘Up in the Air’. This was also good, it was one of those rare films when Clooney makes a good judgement call, picks a perfect script and ends up with great co-stars. It was not another ‘Men Who Stare at Goats’, ‘Burn After Reading’ fiasco. It was a funny, but also kind of heartbreaking look at modern society’s preoccupation with isolation and our fear of connection. It’s also about the different forms of connection that make us feel good, or poison our lives and how even negative contact can makes us feel like human beings.

So this year I’ll be able to offer real opinions about Oscar choices for best film because I’ve seen three nominated films. I might see if I can sneak in a few more and be a really well rounded Oscar watcher, instead of the usual superficial girl who is mostly interested in red carpet outfits.

Last news of the week is that after totalling up all the donations raised for ‘The Years of Readers’ it looks like the grand total is a very large £2,190.17 which is roughly $3509.53 raised for various literacy related charities. Thanks to everyone who took part and raised cash, or donated themselves. My contribution went off to ‘Room to Read’ last month and in February I’ll be making the donation I promised to ‘EcoLibris’ (a penny for each book read). With 1269 books as our final group total I’ll be rounding up my contribution to $15 and planting 3 new trees from the ‘Year of Readers’ team.

I was a bit excited when my pay check came in this month (it seemed so long since I had money) and since new book are about the most inexpensive thing you can buy I made a few book purchases, which have just started arriving so I hope to be back with a stack of them to share with you soon. Plans this weekend are non existent and with the cold weather that’s been going on for so long I find it hard to be bothered to work out yet another warm, yet nice looking outfit for going out. I really just want to chuck on my biggest layers and curl up to finish ‘Leviathan’. I need to spend a little time paying bills and reordering some pre-ordered books from Amazon.com as seems my credit card expired in between ordering and the books being ready to ship. Apart from that I feel a bit like watching some episodes of 24 and lying in front on ‘Dancing on Ice’, which are just a couple of the pleasures us single gals can look forward to during Valentines. Have a cheery weekend everyone.

Race, History and Steampunk

Steam punk is, as far as I can see, essentially a form of alternate history; the history of mechanical invention has changed, but the social conventions of the historical period largely remain the same. This imposes certain limitations on the stories that the genre can tell, because it operates within realistic historical constraints despite messing about with the timeline of mechanical history. The limits history placed on women and the poor can be circumvented if authors disguise their characters, for example in ‘Leviathan’, which I started reading last night, a girl dresses as a boy to be able to join the armed forces. It’s not so easy for authors to make Asian, or black characters the heroes and heroines of steam punk novels, while upholding a realistic version of history. I’ve just read two steam punk stories set in Victorian London, where all the characters are white and I’m currently reading ‘Leviathan’ set at the outset of WWI, which also follows white main characters. In all three cases it’s hard to see how the authors could have set their stories in the worlds they chose and included a black or Asian character, without making a whole host of other characters extremely progressive for the time period.

I want to explore this issue a bit further, looking at both the challenges of creating a steam punk world with black, or Asian characters and the possible ways of getting around those problems. I expect this discussion could apply to Latino and Native American characters as well, but I’m in the UK so I’ll stick with the majority racial groups that you’d find here. It seems to me that the biggest challenge is that if steam punk is set in a historical version of the Western world then any black or Asian characters in steam punk novels would face immense prejudice, would likely not be able to own steam punk technology and would not be able to enter organisations, like the army, the government, or a spy ring, where they might have access to this technology. If an author tries to escape these plot problems by setting their steam punk novel outside of the Western world it might not be believable that other countries had the ability to create such advanced technology, as lack of financial resources, or the controlling forces of Western empires would surely keep them from technological development. It would be difficult to create a believable premise that allowed black or Asian characters to be the main characters in a steam punk novel, without making the plot and the world of the steam punk story convoluted, but it seems like a worthwhile struggle for authors to try.

It seems that steam punk has to be set in the 19th century, or early 20th century, which makes sense because this is the age of steam power, especially in Britain. So, unfortunately my first idea for avoiding problems of prejudice, ‘set steam punk in an earlier time period, in a non Western country’ falls down straight away. 15th to 16th century China seems the perfect non Western setting for steam punk, because the Chinese were leading the world in technology, art and production. At this time China had wealth, so it would have been financially able to develop steam punk technology. Due to the time period this is not an option for standard steam punk it seems, but it would be interesting to see general sci-fi explore this idea.

The idea of setting steam punk in other areas of the world during the 19th century is also impractical, at least when it comes to China. While watching ‘How Earth Made Us’ I learnt that China’s rich seams of coal (coal made the advance of steam travel and other technology possible) were never fully exploited as the British did, as it was nearly impossible to transport coal quickly from the mines to the towns by the coast, because of the geographical distance and the impassibility of the Yellow River’s rapids. Other countries never had much coal below ground and were less financially able to produce technology (recently I read an Indian authors thoughts about how the countries poor financial situation has prevented a tradition of Indian sci-fi literature from developing). Clockwork technology and other forms of mechanical advancement found in steam punk fiction could still be possible, but in order to place some steam punk technology in China and other areas of the world, an author would have to majorly alter the known world. That brings me on to a related second idea for putting black and Asian characters into steam punk narratives - ‘drastically alter the world as we know it’.

In steam punk an alternate view of how technology actually progressed is presented, but how much other alteration of history is allowed? For a kind of answer to this I’ll quote an informative blog post by GD Flaksen, posted at Tor:

‘The line between steampunk and period Victorian is extremely narrow, and often the two are indistinguishable. They are separated only by steampunk’s status as science fiction, albeit heavily inspired by the historical fact of the Victorian period.’

So it appears that changing an entire society’s prejudices, or systems so that black or Asian characters are happily accepted is not an option for steam punk. However, if an author wanted to create some kind of radical mishmash of massively altered history and steam punk technology, this might result in an exciting novel. How strict can the guidelines for writing a piece of subgenre fiction really be anyway? The more important question is, would it be alright to provide this kind of extreme fantasy that departs from the way we know our world to be? Malinda Lo and David Leviathan have both created happy, gay accepting societies in their books, but is it appropriate to write such a fantasy with regards to race?

If keeping the rest of history the same is essential in steam punk my third idea is that authors could just ‘represent racial conflict as it was’ and explore ways of working this into a hero or heroine’s narrative. Slavery still existed until roughly thirty years into Queen Victoria’s reign and it seems like steam punk, which always contains some kind of adventure, would be the perfect genre for a slightly different twist on the story of slaves escaping. Indian soldiers were instructed to fight by the Empire during the Crimean War and WWI, which seems to present lots of opportunities for a heroic adventure story with an Indian main character. Chinese immigrants arrived in Britain and in America in Victorian times and while there would have been prejudice that doesn’t necessarily mean Chinese characters couldn’t be used as steam punk heroes and heroines. They might not own steam punk technology, but they could appear in steam punk society in prominent roles. Perhaps accidental, or illicit contact with steam punk technology could even be part of the reason for their adventure. It seems like this is a big barrel of complication and opportunity waiting to be tapped by writers.

Finally if authors find the barriers of prejudice cause too many plot problems they could try doing what historical fiction writers do with many female characters and ‘make an exception’. In order to make their heroines intelligent, fearless and financially independent, when society wouldn’t have educated or encouraged them, authors of historical fiction allow their heroines to be raised in exceptional circumstances. The skills and often the independent income they gain from an unconventional upbringing allow them to leap over the prejudices of society, although there is always the possibility of physical violence against them. I think in Victorian times there were a minority of wealthy black and Asian figures, as well as ex-slaves who earned high enough wages to support themselves in a reasonable style. There were also an even smaller group who found wealthy benefactors among the progressive factions of society. Now 19th century history is not my strongest subject, so feel free to correct me if making a character an exception to the rule would not be a realistic way to circumvent the limitations history would place on a black or Asian character. I did almost fail my second year because I never went to my Victorian history lectures.

Do you think there’s a way to include black or Asian heroes and heroines in the steam punk genre and do you have any ideas about how this could be achieved? Are there any great examples of steam punk without white main characters that I’m missing?

Edit: I googled around a bit and found this interesting article about race and steampunk which answers my questions about how much you can alter other areas of history in steampunk (short answer: yep it's all up for grabs, change what you like) and this blog called 'Beyond Victoriana' which talks about steampunk in other countries and in it's first post mentions Chinese technology that could be included in steampunk.

The Osiris Ritual - George Mann

Plot Summary

‘The Osiris Ritual’ is the second book in George Mann’s ‘Newbury and Hobbes’ steam punk detective series.

In this instalment the private detective team of Sir Maurice Newbury and Miss Veronica Hobbes are preoccupied with a case of missing girls, who disappear after a travelling magicians show.
Veronica sets out to investigate the case alone, as Newbury is distracted by a request from Queen Victoria (Newbury is also a secret agent, working for the Crown) to hunt down a rogue agent named Ashcroft. Ashford was presumed dead by all the other agents after a fatal battle with a deranged rogue agent years before, but it is revealed that the Queens physician reanimated him, grafting machinery into his flesh and sent him to work in Russia.
A strange historical mystery also presents itself when Newbury attends the unrolling of a mummy and realises that the man was mummified alive. When the people who uncovered the mummy start to show up dead Newbury sets out to uncover the murderer, with the help of an enthusiastic young reporter.

Specifically Steam Punk Features

Gadgets: Newbury owns a clockwork owl. The rich are served by automatons (kind of early robots). Several characters have been fitted with mechanical parts.

Steam powered vehicles: There are subways, ground trains, steam powered hansoms which resembles early cars and blimps.

Alternate history: It is 1902 and Queen Victoria is still not dead!

The supernatural: Newbury is interested in the supernatural and it seems the murderer is too, as Newbury begins to uncover the identity of the mummified man.

Opinion

I feel that this series is a nostalgic kind of steam punk. Although the Newbury and Hobbes series includes forms of technology that were unknown in Victorian times, Mann makes use of conventions established by earlier writers of detective stories, especially Arthur Conan Doyle. This series is essentially a tribute to Sherlock Holmes, set in a steam punk world with a female Watson. Mann’s world feels familiar and almost cozy despite the violence that emerges at times. It is lovely to see someone who obviously admires early detective stories produce such an affectionate spin on the genre.

However this reinvigoration of an earlier style of writing can sometimes stray into cliché. The dialogue between Newbury and his friend Charles Bainbridge often sounds predictable (insert quote):

' "God damn it, Charles! That's ridiculous. How can she equate me with a man like that? I have a mind to head back there now, to have it out with her myself."

Bainbridge slammed his drink down on his desk with a bang. "Don't be a fool, Newbury! Didn't you hear what I said?" '

There’s a thin line between having fun with genre standards and falling back into unimaginative formula dialogue, which Mann sometimes fails to navigate successfully. Perhaps he includes too many of the typical detective genre elements when his strength lies in creating a steam punk situation that revitalises the pastiche at the heart of the series.

Concentrating more on the steam punk society the team’s adventures take place in might also have helped to deflect focus from the weaknesses of the Mann’s mystery solutions. In ‘The Affinity Bridge’ Mann had to explain the steam punk elements of his version of Victorian London, such as the werewolf, zombie plague of revenants that haunts the slums. In ‘The Osiris Ritual’ much of the steam punk world is established and while he continues to throw in new gadgets and advances ‘The Osiris Ritual’ focuses on the detective’s attempts to solve the three mysteries. I might be in the minority, but I think Mann’s mysteries are the weakest element of his writing. They start off with promising set ups like a magician who makes girls disappear for good, but in the end their solutions are largely unsatisfying.

In comparison, the friendship between Newbury and Veronica and the brief glimpses readers see of her relationship with her clairvoyant sister always spark interest. By making the mysteries the focus of ‘The Osiris Ritual’ and minimising developments in the relationships between the main characters, Mann exposes the weaknesses in the way his writing tries to honour authors like Conan Doyle, as the endings to his mysteries are weak while theirs were accomplished, even if readers were unable to solve them.

I’m not sure I want to recommend this book to anyone, because it just didn’t provide the kind of light, entertainment that ‘The Affinity Bridge’ did. Personally I think steam punk should have a sense of fun above all else. Even though there can be darkness and peril in steam punk literature, it’s an irreverent genre that tinkers with historical adventure stories and there should be a sense of barely contained excitement about any novel that dares to mess about with history. ‘The Osiris Ritual’ felt too almost too ponderous for steam punk and at times I did think Mann might have been more successful if he’d set his detectives in the real London (and produced a better mystery solution). If you enjoy old style detective stories, or want a familiar feeling setting and set of characters to break you into steam punk I’d suggest trying ‘The Affinity Bridge’, or sampling the free short story by Mann at the Snowbooks website.

The Women of Nell Gwynne's - Kage Baker

I thought I’d change my reviewing ways a little for this themed month of steam punk reading, to highlight a little about what I think makes them fit the steam punk genre. Then at the end of the month after I’ve read a bunch of steam punk books I’ll do a final post to try and explain any other connections between the books, that add to the wider definition of steam punk conventions. I finished two books from my steam punk pile this weekend and I think I’ll begin by telling you about a slim, steam punk romp called 'The Women of Nell Gwynne’s’ by Kage Baker.

Plot summary

Set in the times of the British Empire and Victoriana, ‘The Women of Nell Gwynne’s’ follows a young aristocratic girl, as her life is changed by the death of her father and the rejection she faces from the rest of her family. Forced to earn a living, or die she sews a scarlet dress and hat, then begins walking the streets looking for rich customers to pay her way to retirement. Marked out as a special kind of prostitute, Lady Beatrice is soon recruited to join an elite brothel, which acts as a special information gathering arm of The Gentlemen’s Speculative Society, the Empire’s premier organisation when it comes to spying, inventing and generally safe guarding the Empire. The women’s directive is to use their natural intelligence and their bodies to loosen the tongues of their rich and influential clients.

Sometimes gathering information involves doing a bit of field work and during the novella Lady Beatrice and a few of her housemates are sent on a special mission with their leader, Mrs Corvey, to uncover what secret invention a certain Lord Brandon is inviting international millionaires to come and see. Off the girls go to be the entertainment at Lord Brandon’s planned unveiling party at his run down castle, described as ‘an ancient motte and bailey of flints’ . The castle geek in me went ‘hurray’ at this point.

Specifically steam punk features

Gadgets: Mrs Corvey has mechanical optics screwed into her face in place of her eyes, which went blind in her youth. They allow her to see again, zoom in and have a night vision feature. The Gentlemen’s Speculative Society also has lots of interesting gadgets to offer the girls for their mission, like sleeping draught dress buttons that dissolve in drinks.

Tunnels: It seems like every steam punk novel needs a network of tunnels to feature in its story. Nell Gwynne’s is attached to a respectable house, where a rather large number of ladies live by a tunnel so no one ever sees gentlemen arrive at the respectable house. There’s also a network of tunnels under Lord Brandon’s castle.

Opinion

‘The Women of Nell Gwynne’s’ is excellent. The premise of prostitutes acting as spies, working for good, not evil, is out of the ordinary and as always the inclusion of prostitutes in fiction opens up many interesting avenues of discussion. In particular, through the portrayal of Lady Beatrice readers can examine the idea of privilege in prostitutes, as it can be argued that it is Lady Beatrice’s aristocratic upbringing which makes her so suited to the work at Nell Gwyne’s, where they serve the highest reaches of male society. Connections with her father’s friends secure her introduction to Mrs Corvey. There’s a clear distinction made between Lady Beatrice and the common streetwalkers who take what they can get, ending their nights drunk. However, can Lady Beatrice be viewed as privileged when it’s necessary for her to sell her body to survive, even once she’s taken under Mrs Corvey’s wing? Is her previous aristocratic privilege the only reason she elevates herself above other prostitutes, or is her personality, described as ‘true as steel’ more important in gaining an advantage?

There’s more to be explored when you consider that even as the ladies’ services are respected by the men of The Gentlemen’s Speculative Society there’s never any question of the women moving into other areas, like invention, even in this covert world hidden from general society. They’re still stuck within traditional gender constraints, despite acting outside of Victorian society’s construct of proper womanhood. This keeps the spy community historically realistic and avoids changing it into a fantasy outlet for how we all wish men had treated women in Victorian times, yet the denigration of the women is avoided by having the male spies respect them for their courage and their talents. It would have been remarkable for women to find their work appreciated and attributed to them during the nineteenth century. Even though the gentlemen of the society sleep with the women for free, this is an active choice that the women make, not something that is forced upon them. Again in a situation where prostitutes are partially reliant on a group of men for their security this would have seemed a gift and as the narrator says ‘Life for the ladies of Nell Gwynne’s was, placed in the proper historical, societal and economic context, quite tolerably nice.’.

That’s all very interesting from an analysis side of things, but I think the most important thing is that this book is fun to read. The girls adventure at Lord Brandon’s castle is very much a spy romp, including elements of physical comedy like unstable costumes fashioned from bed sheets and a dessert of ridiculous proportions that the ladies are expected to dance around. The women all have wry senses of humour and light, practical sides to their characters that make them capable of carrying on regardless, or fainting, as the situation requires. As a group, they’re a joy to be around, with a spirit reminiscent of friends from a boarding school novel and the tone of their dialogue is often dry and smirking, without being bitter, despite their careers in prostitution. The secondary characters add to the comedy, even if they are not as fully developed as the main characters and I expect there would have been more to come for them in later books if the author had not sadly died this year. It seems that some of the plot is not conclusively tied up by the end of the book and I can’t decide if I’m missing something, if it’s meant to be left mysterious, or if it had to go to publication slightly unfinished because the author was so ill.

I can’t talk this book up enough, it’s a little bit different, but not overly steeped in sci-fi for anyone unsure about that element of the steam punk genre. If you enjoyed ‘The Crimson Petal and the White’ or Sarah Water’s Victorian novels I think you could happily spend an entertaining afternoon with ‘The Women of Nell Gwynne’s’. On a side note I’ll should probably mention that this novel is kind of a prelude and offshoot to Kage’s main series of novels about The Company (which is what The Gentleman’s Speculative Society will become) which I haven’t read yet. While I could tell some characters might have special significance for fans of The Company novels I never felt I needed to have read those books to understand this one. It stood alone well and was a wonderful book in its own right.

Other Reviews

Chasing Ray

What Book is This?

Birthday Books

It has been almost three weeks since my birthday and I’ve suddenly realised I haven’t mentioned the books people got me for my 25th, or the sneaky little books I might have bought while on annual leave. How can this be, my floor is covered in books, how can it have slipped my mind to post about them?

Let’s start with the most wonderful surprise of all – a book from a friend. This never, ever happens, my friends do not buy me books and I think my experiment of giving books alongside other birthday and Christmas presents this year has been a serious failure, as everyone talked about their other presents happily, but didn’t really talk about their books (in case you’re wondering I bought ‘Magyk’ for a recovering Harry Potter addict, ‘Ten Cents a Dance’ for a fellow history lover, who is taking her MA in museum studies and ‘Flygirl’ for an army pharmacist whose fiancé has every book every written about the history of war). Even the friends who read (museum studies lady and army woman) don’t tend to send books as presents. This year someone bought me ‘A World without Bees’ to accompany the gift of a hive to Heifer International. They couldn’t really have picked better, as this will make a perfect second read for Sylvia’s ‘Year of Biodiversity’ challenge and I know I’ve seen reviews which made me want to get interested in bees.

My parents consulted with me before shopping and picked up a few novels I especially wanted. I’m now the cheerful owner of ‘Daphne’, ‘The Happy Island’ (Dawn Powell may be my new literary obsession) and ‘Heaven’s Net is Wide’, the prequel to the Tales of the Otori fantasy series. It turns out ‘The Girl with Glass Feet’ is one of the choices for the ‘Not the TV Bookclub’ Simon from Savidgereads and a couple of other bloggers are running this year, so I’m happy I finally got a copy. A couple of these books got stuck in the snow, so I had a lovely steady stream of presents that kept arriving after my birthday and I feel pretty chuffed I remembered to only ask for books that were out in paperback this year – I save people money.

I might have made a few sneaky little purchases recently as well. I couldn’t resist Tracey Chevalier’s ‘Remarkable Creatures’ once the paperback edition appeared. I know some people really weren’t impressed with her most recent novel, ‘Burning Bright’ but I liked it just as much as I liked her older books (very much indeed) and I find her to be a generally strong storyteller. ‘Graceling’ is here now and I totally that purchase down to review pressure, there are only so many wonderful reviews I can take from bloggers I trust before breaking down and buying books. ‘Anila’s Journey’ was a random find and I’ll talk a little more about how I came to buy it in a later post. A historical novel about a girl who joins a naturalist on a river exploration fits with my current interest in stories about early naturalist and botanists (must get to ‘Flower Hunters’ this year as well). Lastly I bought the first Lucifer Box spy series, ‘The Vesuvius Club’, which features a gay Edwardian secret agent – flimsy book buying excuse number 109 ‘I needed change for the bus’.

I am considering a bit of a buying binge right now because I’m feeling a little down (no Paul McKenna I still do not want to be cured of my emotional spending ways, books are not that expensive) but I do wonder where I’d put them all. Need some sort of magical filing cabinet if anyone is looking for a project.

How to prepare for the Apocalypse

Lenore is having her own themed reading month over at ‘Presenting Lenore’ and I think our two themes match up nicely as she’ll be reading tons of dystopian fiction and I’ll be reading steam punk, which often takes place in dystopian societies. Never say book bloggers aren’t as cheery as a Clinton’s interior during the Valentine’s month (if you would prefer something more sweet and pink let me recommend a trip to bookarama, where there’s a big Blog Luv Fest going on during February).

In her initial post Lenore recaps why some bloggers say they like dystopian fiction and they all offer good reasons. It started me thinking about what we all take away from dystopian fiction, or more usefully what we can learn that will help us to survive the (almost certainly on its way this time) Apocalypse.

Only the Amish will survive: If I’ve learned one thing from dystopian fiction it’s that technology is bad and science is not always to be trusted either. They will almost certainly be the downfall of our civilisation and we would all be best avoiding anything the Luddites would not have been happy with. So step away from your computer right now people, it’s probably just biding its evil time.

Girls get your guns: Women’s rights are almost always the first thing to go in a dystopian society, meaning it’s probably a good idea to learn how to shoot a gun now, before people turn up chanting ‘Rights. You don’t need no stinking rights.’

Your money is no good here: Start stock piling tradable supplies. Those people piling their trolleys with cans and mountains of bread at Christmas time will make you dance for food if you don’t get on with it.

The world can end, as long as I have you: Don’t worry there will still be plenty of time for lurve in a dystopian society (of course walking around pointing guns at men’s privates may make it harder for women to find ‘the one’). The world may flood, freeze or dry up but it’s likely that these conditions will help you find that special someone, rather than hinder your search for love. Ok, you won’t get along right away, you’re on a quest while they’re all about scavenging, but then your eyes will meet as you’re fighting off the packs of giant (probably genetically modified) rats and you’ll realise they mean the world to you (the old world, not this awful new world). Just don’t expect to see in your silver wedding anniversary with them.

If all else fails, dig!: Underground tunnel systems are the way to travel in a dystopian society, but they take time to create. Why not start setting some up now? No, I’m sure you don’t need planning permission, the council will understand when you tell them about the upcoming Apocalypse.

See it does not all have to be doom and gloom in dystopia land as long as you prepare. What dystopian lessons do you have to pass on from your reading? Anyone want to volunteer to build my underground shelter (hammers are not my friends).

Whirlybrain

I think my attention span may have been broken these last few days. I haven’t read anything in book form for four days and I had to make the decision to put down ‘Boneshaker’ because it is brilliant and every time I picked it up my head would spin off to think about something else, while my eyes continued to scan the page, until I snapped back to the present and realised I hadn’t been taking anything in at all. I hate when that happens.

My head is in a whirl about job interviews at the moment. I’ve had one already (didn’t get through to the next level) and have two more next week, one where I have to create a presentation on the spot, about an unknown topic and one where I have to take a test. The process is nerve wracking, especially as I am well aware that I don’t often make a good first impression.

Luckily my steam punk month idea still allows for lots of variety in reading so today I decided to try again with one of the lighter reads. ‘The Osiris Ritual’ is from a series of steam punk mysteries beginning with ‘The Affinity Bridge’ which I read a couple of years ago. It’s about a steam punk series with a very cozy, familiar feel. Yes I realise a mysterious plague creating werewolf zombies in the London slums and automatons with the potential to kill may not be everyone’s idea of a cozy set up, but there’s only a low level of violence, the plots tend to revolve around the upper classes and you can be sure that even if they’re in peril the main characters will get out alive. They’re the steam punk equivalent of an extended visit with Sherlock Holmes, if Watson was a woman and Holmes didn’t have a problem with that.

So far so attention taming. A young reporter has been sent to cover the social event of the season, a party where the host proposes to open up the wrappings of a newly uncovered Egyptian mummy to prove that it is an entirely unique find. I am absolutely sure that idea will not cause untold horror to be unleashed. Oh aristocrats when will you learn mummies are not for collecting, try matchbox cars instead.

Talking of attention spans and accidental scanning last weekend I was talking to someone about how many books I read for ‘The Year of Reading’ and she said, not meaning to be harsh (although I did kind of feel like she was saying I’d conned her out of her donation), that I must skim so much to read so many books in a year. Umm, no, what would be the point of skim reading a novel or a non-fiction book, unless I was researching something, I wouldn’t get the experience I’m reading to get. Sometimes I accidentally scan without keeping my mind of the text, but I usually go back and reread those bits because the plot gets confusing, or I skim when books annoy me, but otherwise I try to read sentence after sentence, word after word. Now I’m curious, does anyone else skim for pleasure?

The Mariposa Club - Rigoberto Gonzalez

‘The Mariposa Club’ follows four gay teenagers living in “mostly-Mexican southern California” who set out to form a GLBT club at Caliente Valley High School as their final, fabulous act before they graduate. They try to support each other through family problems, while also dealing with the inevitable fall out that goes along with intense teenage friendships. At the same time they aim to make their last year in Caliente as fun as possible and start to plan for the future, although their options sometimes appear limited.

Maui, Isaac, Lib and Trini have spent years as ‘The Fierce Foursome’, a group of close gay friends who identify with the flamboyant side of gay society. They adopt many practises traditionally associated with women, for example Trini wears blouses and dresses and the characters refer to each other as ‘the girls’, but they add their own twist on their behaviour, which makes it part of the unique gay culture. It’s hard to describe because I keep wanting to say their behaviour is quite extrovert, but that’s only true of Trini and Lib. Maui and Issac aren’t loud, or especially outgoing outside of their small friendship circle, but within that circle and in daily life they still do and say things that would be considered flamboyant if a straight man did them. This is a section of the gay community I’ve always found really hard to understand but this book definitely caused me to have a little personal epiphany and bumped me down the road to greater understanding (more reading and listening needed). Yet another reminder that fiction equals powerful.

The strength of this book is the characters and their relationships with others. All four main characters are created as distinct, interesting individuals with interests and personalities that are developed throughout the book. The complexity of the friendship between the boys feels realistic and their relationships with each other are sketched simply but strongly, so even though they fight and make up regularly it seems believable that they could so quickly forgive each other, because of the depth of their friendships. I love the detailed character portraits presented, that show Rigoberto Gonzalez knows everything about his main characters and one of my favourite things about ‘The Mariposa Club’ is how anti-generic the boy’s world seems. Skin colour, religion, cultural heritage, looks and economic background are all defined for the main characters and many of the supporting characters. It’s rare to see so much thought go into what can easily turn into invisible issues.

Although the secondary characters like Maddy, the sheriff’s daughter who is the fifth member of the proposed GLBT club (named The Mariposa Club because mariposa means butterflies and ‘fluttering butterflies’ is how Mexicans refer to gay men), aren’t as fully developed as the main characters I did feel like they were described enough for me to get to know them and understand their relationships with other people. It may not be possible to get an intensely detailed picture of the feelings of Maui’s dad, or Tony the closeted member of the local gang, but with light handed, brief sketches Gonzalez provides their moods and emotions in a way that allows easy access to their core characters.

‘The Mariposa Club’ deals with some serious issues about the conflict between straight male culture and gay teenagers, but it also aims to be a fun book about teenage friendship. It seems like it would be hard to realistically portray characters who have been hurt badly, as going through much of life like average teenagers who can be as cheerful as they are gloomy but Gonzalez has managed to strike an effective balance between the overbearing issues the boys face and the exciting feeling of being a teenager. While I remember the book’s message about the extent of the prejudice the boys face, I also remember the fun times they have. The book’s overall tone is light and the writing is quick and cheeky, making it a buoyant read that aims to bring readers to serious issues, by way of engaging, exuberant characters.

Quite a bit happens throughout the book and sometimes it feels like the author is trying to cram too much plot into such a short novel. There’s all the usual teenage drama like fights and ditching school, the issues that comes specifically from the boys sexuality like trying to set up the Mariposa club and fights with parents about being gay and there’s the extra, sort of unrelated plot lines the author throws in to move the action in a specific direction like parental health scares. It does feel like some plot points get lost in the background until Gonzalez is ready to resurrect them to further other, more dramatic plot incidents. This is especially true of the boy’s attempts to establish the Mariposa club, which gets shunted out of the way as bigger issues come up, but then is brought back near the end of the book to enable a dramatic ending. Mostly though this isn’t a big issue, as the novel flows from plot point to plot point, casually referring back to previous episodes on occasion, but sometimes the inclusion of so many different plot points left me feeling that the book was overcrowded.

‘The Mariposa Club’ is a smart, fun young adult novel that presents an interesting set of friends and treats its characters as unique and different human beings. If you enjoy it so much that you want to review it be sure to leave a link to your review in my comments section.

PS Make sure to check out my post about the racial and gender issues with this novel’s cover.

Other Reviews

Queer YA
The Happy Nappy Bookseller
Fledgling