Book Review: American Mermaid

 By Julia Langbein

• Pub Date: 2023

• Genre: Fantasy

• Where I bought this book: The Bookshelf, Cincinnati 

• Why I bought this book: Hey, I like the idea of mermaids  

 *****

    This debut novel is an uneven book, wonderful in some places, confusing and unfocused in others. At one point, I found myself identifying with a character who was "still struggling to follow" what is going on.

    The author has a varied biography that includes a doctorate in history, a stretch as a standup comedienne, and a food, art, comic book and blog writer. It might explain her wobbly style.

    Langbein loves her metaphors and similes, offering us the good, (a restaurant in a "faux Teutonic Tudor hut ... [that] looks like something Hitler build for Donald Duck"), the bad (people singing along in a room with speakers on a high ceiling as "Whitney Houston's lush vibrato pours down into the bad coffee of our voices like heavy cream"), and the ugly (an oyster dish that was "filling my mouth with the taste of original Pringles and jizz.")

    Even the author of the book's blurb seemed to have trouble capturing the essence of the tale, claiming "Hollywood insists she convert her fierce, androgynous protagonist into a teen sex object in a clamshell bra." The studio writers wanted to make a lot of changes, but that wasn't one of them.

    And that brings up that root of the novel's structure: It a novel about a novel being turned into a bad movie, and the plots merge and separate and merge again on nonparallel tracks.

    The basic story is that English teacher Penelope Schleeman's debut novel, American Mermaid, becomes a best seller, and Hollywood wants to make it a major motion picture. The advances allow Schleeman to quit her teaching job (which she claims to love), and move to Los Angeles to become a consultant on the script.

    So the book intertwines stories of Schleeman's life, chapters from her book, and the behind the scenes drama of writing a movie. There are other characters, some from real-life, others no doubt based on real-life people, and others who are solely from Langbein's imaginations. Some of the characters from the book's book mirror those of Langbein's novel, others are from Schleeman's past life as a teacher and others from her new life as a movie person. Some come out of nowhere, and disappear as quickly. Their purposes are obscure.

    Somewhere in American Mermaid is a good story warning about the power of billionaires, global warming, and the impact it may have on mermaids. But it's hard to find amidst the wandering subplots and fusion of characters. It's all very confusing, and Langbein's writing ultimately fails to carry it along. 

Book Review: You Like it Darker

   By Stephen King

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Short Stories

• Where I bought this book: Barnes & Nobel, Florence, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: If you have to ask ...  

 *****

  

   Random thoughts that arose while reading King's latest collection. (May contain spoilers, but I tried to make them non-specific.)

    It's a collection of stories by Stephen King, so tropes will abound. But aliens? Aliens who save us? 

    Indeed, some of King's worst flaws -- overwriting, repetition, and echoes of and references to  previous tales -- abound and get a little tiresome after a while. An editor could fix that. Perhaps listen to her?

    Geography nitpick. If you live in Upper Manhattan, you cannot walk nine blocks to Central Park. 

    Too many of the stories centered around the fears and meanderings of an old white guy. (OK, some were about middle-aged white guys.)  Rattlesnakes, the sequel to Cujo, highlighted this trend. It went on and on and on and on -- and on and on -- sort of like the original. 

    The bizarre "I had a dream" alibi in the midst of a police procedural led by a bizarre police detective was, well, quite bizarre.

   Starting a story about a man named Finn (should have been Fionn) with a nod to the Pogues is brilliant.

     Laurie -- an oddly overly detailed story about an old man getting a dog -- may be the worst King story ever written. And yes, I believe I have read them all.  

     The final two stories, Dreamers and The Answer Man, are easily the best of the lot. They bumped the number of stars to the midpoint. 

    The title made little sense for this collection. I didn't find any of the stories particularly dark. King has written quite a few, but these don't measure up.

Book Review: The Fragile Threads of Power

  By V.E. Schwab

• Pub Date: 2023

• Genre: Fantasy

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: Well, I've read the first three novels, so may as well keep going  

 ******

    Some great characters return in this book, the fourth in the Shades of Magic series, and the first in a new series, tentatively titled the Threads of Magic*. There's Lila Bard, the angry Antari**, a messy, unsubtle whirlwind; Alucard Emery, a wealthy lord, wannabe pirate, and consort to the king, and Kell Maresh, once cocky and now uneasy, an Antari who has lost his magic.

    They are joined by a series of new magicians: Tes, a young girl who can see the threads of magic and fix broken ones; Kosika, another young girl, who finds herself the queen of White London; and Queen Nadiya Loreni, wife of the new King Rhy Maresh, a magician and scientist.***

    The locations continue to excel: There's Red London, ruled by the Maresh family -- it's the powerful London with raucous neighborhoods full of taverns and marketplaces, but it's people worry it is losing its magic; dystopian Black London, closed up after destroying its magic centuries ago; and White London, trying to make a comeback after a devastating battle with the utmost evil. We also see the return of the Ferase Stras, which you must somehow find before boarding the ship of magical stuff and paying the proper price before getting what you may need.

    So we have a bevy of cunning characters, imaginative places for them to roam, and adventurous stories about royalty and magic and betrayal, urchins and bullies, love and life and death. All of the needed background is explained in the new series, but reading the previous three is well worth your time.

    This is good stuff. The overall story is compelling; the tales and anecdotes are gripping, and we are glad to be along for the ride. Even when the books top 600 pages, they are satisfying and surprisingly quick reads.

    The only flaws I find are the scenes of the battles of magic, which sometimes get a bit overdone and confusing. But rest assured, you can rip through them and stay in touch with the stories.

    -------------------------

* When I picked up the first book, I did not know it was part of a series.

** A most powerful magician in this world.

*** After all, what is science but magic with an explanation?

Book Review: Call Me Cassandra

 

• Author: Marcial Gala 

• Translator: Anna Kushner

• Where I bought this book: The Strand, New York City

• Why I bought this book: The author's character says he is literally Cassandra

*******

      Mixing ancient Greek myths with recent Cuban history, this slim volume (just 211 pages) packs in history, culture, and literature.

1. It features Cassandra, one of the best known mythological characters.
2. It's historical fiction from the mid 1970s, an era rarely covered.
3. It was originally written in a foreign language and has an international theme.
4. The story's plot includes several Greek gods and goddesses, including Athena, Aphrodite, and Zeus, whom the main character refers to as "father Zeus" and "Zeus who reigns on Olympus," among other epithets.
5. It's a literary masterpiece, entwinning visions of Greek mythology with escapism and anti-war fervor, and transgenderism with patriotism and finding oneself. It blends death and re-birth by metaphor, allusion, and complexity.

    But that complexity, and a writing style that rambles in and out of the past, present, and future, from dreams to reality to apparitions, make it a difficult read. Parts of the book also include disturbing descriptions of abuse, including sexual abuse. 

    Raúl Iriarte is a young man growing up in revolutionary Cuba, in the small town of Cienfuegos, with an abusive father, a depressed mother, and a dead aunt. He's small, thin, light-skinned, and blond,  likes to read, and is regularly bullied at school. He likes to dress as a woman, which his mother encourages because he resembles her dead sister. He knows he is the reincarnation of Cassandra, and has the same gift of prophecy as she did. But he tell no one the latter, because, well, he's Cassandra.

    As he turns 18, he's sent off with the Cuban forces to intervene in the civil war in Angola. There, he is maligned and abused because of his looks, his effeminate natures, and his perceived homosexuality. 

    A key scene in the book is a Cassandra narration about the troops cleaning their weapons and singing a corrido, a Mexican ballet that commemorates a tragic event.

Then they move on to I'm leaving your county, and they finish with the part that goes goodbye, lady, / goodbye forever, goodbye. I'm listening to them from here, Zeus, from the earth where I lie, dust among the dust. That corrido has been with me since we were getting ready to disembark in Angola. It was our true national anthem. We sang it when we were able to score some rum, or high-proof alcohol, and if we couldn't score, we sang it, and now, under the African sun, where we are already aware of what it means to be at war, what it is to shiver feverishly with a thirst that won't go away, what it is to carry fear the size of an enormous house, we sing it now too.

     It sums up the tangled relationship of emotions, fears and contradictions of the characters. Emotions about family. Fears about the future and one's place in society. Contradictions about country and patriotism. 

    From the Achaeans invading Ilios because of a perceived slight from a member of its ruling family, to the Cubans meddling in the internal affairs of Angola, Raúl/Cassandra melds past and present, self and society, and existence and displacement into one provocative book.

Book Review: Cursed Bunny

 By Bora Chung

• Translated by: Anton Hur

• Pub Date: 2017 in Korean; 2021 in English

• Where I bought this book: Downbound Books, Cincinnati, Ohio  

• Why I bought this book: The bunny on the cover told me to, and that it was shortlisted for an International Book Prize

******

    

    Short stories are not just truncated novels but have a flow and a texture all their own.

    In the hands of Chung, short stories take on the aura of fables, using allegories that shock and horrify, and rise to the status of a legend devolving into fantasy.

    She writes about absurd ghosts and lives lived brutally, about children and capitalism, and about war, peace, and the aftermath -- which brings us back to those spirits that can haunt us. 

    These tales are seemingly simple, told with little fuss and a minimalist style. They have few characters, none more than needed, and often are nameless, with only enough detail to tell the tale without shame or scorn. 

    But, oh, do they hold power over your mind and thoughts. There's also some nods to the misogyny rampant in the culture, and a feminist take. In The Embodiment, an unmarried, pregnant woman is told -- by her doctor, no less -- to get a father or the child will not grow properly. The woman responds by going out on seon dates set up by a matchmaker for the specific purpose of finding a man to marry her. 

    The opening tale, The Head, begins with a woman seeing a head rising from her toilet, calling out for "mother." It is created from her excretions. The title story, which reads like an old fashioned fairy tale, is about a man who creates "cursed fetishes" -- in this case a lamp shaped like a bunny. A second, similarly told story, Scars, is about a man who finds riches in the most evil places.

    The stories are tough to read, and reach into places that most would rather avoid. But Chung's style belies their nature -- her basic, matter-of-fact narratives let the tales stand as the epitome of how to write a short story.

Book Review: Quantum Girl Theory

 

•  Author: Erin Kate Ryan
• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: Joseph-Beth, Norwood, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I liked the title, and the plot of a missing girl who finds other missing girls 

***

   This book tries really hard, but it turns out a muddled mess.

    Oh, it has its strong points. It's a great concept -- a women, who disappeared as a teen-ager, spends her life running and searching for missing girls. But it really doesn't know what it wants to do.

    Is it a tale ripped from the headlines of 1946? Is it a broadside against violence against women and the havoc and ruined lives it reaps? Is it a character study of how women rebel against that violence, and the harm that comes to them and society? Is it a tale of racism and questions about why some missing girls are searched for and others seem to disappear without anyone caring?

    Or is it a woman who has the gift of Sight, who can see and feel and experience the terror of being stalked and assaulted, and lives her life in fear of its  recurring?

    Yes, it's about all of them. Well, it tries to be. But over a short 257 pages, it roams and rambles, introduces new characters every chapter, mixes memory and reality, jumps around in time, and altogether just can't seem to keep a solid narrative for long.

    Indeed, it often reads like a collection of interconnected short stories. And as individual stories, they are quite good. The problem comes when you try to figure out what is happening and follow the overall story.

    It just doesn't seem worth it.

Book Review: Fairy Tale

 

•  Author: Stephen King

• Where I bought this book: Carmichael's Bookstore, Louisville, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I've read every one of King's books. I ain't gonna stop now.

*********

    

   Fairy Tale is a shining example of the genius that is Stephen King.

    It's got a great story, with wonderful characters, and it's well told. What's not to like? I'd say this is among the Top 10 novels King has written.     

    It highlights the strengths of a King story, while playing down the tropes and flaws. But they are there. Indeed, as King seems to be drifting away from horror and into the realm of fantasy and thrillers, he has heightened his tendency to over-describe and overwrite.

    I first noticed this in 11/22/63, the story of the JFK assassination, when Jake Epping/George Amberson chases Oswald through Dallas in chapters that seem never-ending. In the latter part of Fairy Tale, when the action gets fast and furious, King's penchant for extraneous details slows things down.

      But so what? By this time we are so wrapped up in Charlie Reade's adventures with his dog, Radar, in Lilimar, that we easily speed through to the ending. But here's the thing -- we like Charlie, and his dog, and what he is doing, and we really don't want it to end. Because with King, we know it could have a happy or a sad ending.

    And because we have come this far, we know Charlie. We like him. Like many a King character, he's a normal teenager in a regular middle-of-America place (there's even a crazy old man in a weird house on the edge of town). Charlie has an unremarkable life -- his mother died young; his father struggles with alcoholism, and Charlie finds solace in football and his friends.

    But remember that old guy, name of Howard Bowditch? Well, Charlie somehow meets up with him, and they grew to like each other. Bowditch tells Charlie something remarkable about that shed in the back yard; Charlie looks into it, and the adventure begins.

    He enters a different world, one of hope but exacerbation. He senses its history, and how it seems to be  falling apart. He meets people he's never known before -- could never have known before -- but knows whom to trust and whom to help. It's a remarkable journey.

    When we first meet Charlie, the teller of this tale, he speaks in the voice of a young man. We watch him grow up as we hear him age through his words. Such is the power of Charlie's story and the mystical voice that King gives him.

Book Review: Piranesi

 

•  Author: Susanna Clarke

• Where I bought this book: A Room of One's Own, Madison, Wisc. 

• Why I bought this book: I was looking for a title by a similarly named author, and came across this instead.

*********

        Yes, there is a story in here, and it's a wonderful one, so it's worth your while to get to it.

    But what keeps you going in this magical place are the descriptions. The fantastical, detailed discoveries behind every door, in every chamber and hall, filled with statues that delight and compel and charm. 

    Yes, Piranesi's wanderings are fun to follow. His attempts to divine the origins and implications of where he is keep the tale from his journals moving along.

    It's a remarkably strange place, even for a fantasy book. It could be a world inside a building, or a building that it a world. We don't know. We explore its ramifications with Piranesi, as he speaks to us through those writings.

    Piranesi is all but alone in the world. There is someone else, named The Other. There is evidence of other people who are or have been there, but it's all speculation, based on snippets of writings he has found.  

 One sentence puzzles me: The world was constantly speaking to Ancient Man. I do not understand why this sentence is in the past tense. The World still speaks to me every day.

    Indeed, the pleasure of this book is not the story of who Piranesi is and where he is, but the place itself, and the secrets it hides. Sometimes, the story actually gets in the way of the pleasure of reading this remarkable book.

    Yes, the secrets are revealed. It is well worth waiting for.        

Book Review: No Country for Old Gnomes

 

•  Authors: Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I was looking for the strange, and fantasy is weird

*******

    I now know the difference between gnomes, dwarves, and halflings. They are all short, insulated creatures who like their routines, but have their differences and individual peculiarities. They are not adverse to adventures.

    If one must go on an adventure to save the world.   

    This tale mirrors their lives. It -- and they -- starts slowly, meandering about. Indeed, I found the beginning rambling enough that I considered abandoning it.

    But then the quest -- that should be The Quest -- began. 

    And I saw it was good.

    Here's a quick summary: Halflings are attacking the gnomes, bombing their underground huts and otherwise disrupting their lives. The various leaders of Pell are either helpless to stop the attacks, or don't care. The other creatures ignore the problem, hoping it'll go away, because it does not affect them.

    You can read this as a metaphor for society if you want.

    Eventually, the various Questors -- a robot, two gnomes, a dwarf, a halfling, an ovitaur* named Agape Fallopia, and a gryphon** who eats, speaks and hears more intensely than all the others -- come together to cross the country to find the goat King Gustave. (He literally is a former goat who magically transferred to being human, which he still kind of regrets, but is diligently learning human ways.) They also need to see the kanssa-jaarli, the gnome-halfling council meant to mediate disputes.

    All of the Questors have their issues. The gnomes are trying to break out of their gnome-shells. Agape steals salt shakers, and inserts extra A's into their speech. The gryphon is particular about language and colors. (Blü is different than blue. Respect the umlaut!) The halfling, Faucon, is a pessimistic legal scholar, who says at one point: 

To find a way to make oneself heard, and to make it matter, is rarely an easy thing, even when the courts are on one's side and one's toe hair is perfectly combed.

    The tale is, of course, fantastical, told with lots of humor, wordplay, and oddball characters -- vampires who double as dentists, and a witch who dislikes apples, for instance. The authors sometimes get carried away, but it's all in good fun.

    It lives up to the reasons I bought the book.

_________________________________________________

*Body of a sheep, head of a human,

**Head and wings of an eagle, body of a lion.

Book Review: The Chronicles of Kazam series

 

• The Last Dragonslayer (2010), The Song of the Quarkbeast (2011), The Eye of Zoltar (2014), and The Great Troll War (2021)
• Author: Jasper Fforde
• Where I bought these books: Various book sellers over the years; bookshop.org for the finale 
• Why I bought these books: Fforde is an inventive and witty writer. "Quark," said the Quarkbeast

    

********

    I recently noticed that the subtitle of The Great Troll War is A Last Dragonslayer Novel. So maybe the use of the indefinite article means it's not the end, like we are all led to believe? Maybe, just maybe, there is room in the future for more tales about Jennifer Strange, the Kazam Mystical Arts, and the Ununited Kingdoms? 

    We can only hope. 

    It was a joy for me to read this Young Adult series -- and I am a person to whom the term decidedly does not apply. The series has all the attributes of the Jasper Fforde oeuvre -- the imaginative yet cerebral tales of fantasy highlighted by clever and bantering dialogue.    

    Okay, he sometimes gets carried away, but it's all in great fun. He gives us a sardonic view of authority, farcical side tales, and whimsical if grounded characters.

    Take this series, for instance, set in the Ununited Kingdoms, a place similar to Great Britain in an alternative dimension. It is a land where trolls -- 25-feet tall, the tattooed characters eat humans and consider them vermin -- are confined to the northern tier, and the Kingdoms routinely go to war with them, and routinely lose. 

    In Fforde world, this accomplishes several things: It allows the various kings, moptopps, dukes, potentates, and other inept rulers to have an enemy to blame for their failures, test out their new war toys, and provide more orphans who are the key to their society.

    Oh yes, there are dragons, quarkbeasts, tralfamosaurs, and other magically created beasts. And while magic is on the decline, it remains useful for things such as repairing bridges and the like.

    Enter Jennifer Strange, whom we first meet in the first book at age 15 when her orphanage apprenticeship has her going to work for Kazam Mystical Arts Management -- and who ends up running the place, despite her lack of magical skills.

   Fast forward through three books while she does her duty, and we learn more about the skills of this irreverent and brilliant character.

The Great Troll War with my breakfast*

    In this long-delayed fourth book, The Great Troll War, the trolls have taken over and surrounded most of the Kingdoms, creating Greater Trollvania. They are on the verge of invading the Kingdom of Hereford, where Jennifer and her magical friends live, but have been stopped at the border by a ditch filled with buttons (it's one of their few fears; so is a certain shade of cerulean). 

    Jennifer must somehow fix this problem. Her army includes a dozen spoiled princesses and two teenaged dragons. Along the way she negotiates with Molly, a troll who cannot eat her because she is part of the 6.67 percent of vegetarian trolls. (Keep that math in mind. It's important.) (Also, because there are quarkbeasts, physics may be involved. But just a little.)

    So, that's the plot, more or less. I may have explained some things improperly, but it's sometimes hard to keep track of everything in the Ununited Kingdoms. But it sure is amusing to try. 

                _______________________________________  

*Tea and scones play a role in the books as a treat or snack. Particularly at the Globe, "a late-night scone bar . . . that served top-quality scones until the clotted cream ran out or a fight started."

Book Review: Alternative Ulster Noir

 

•  Authors: Colin Bateman, Stuart Neville, Sharon Dempsey, Gerard Brennan, Kelly Creighton, James Murphy, and Simon Maltman

• Where I bought this book: bookshop.org (Check it out; it's like a local bookstore online.)

• Why I bought this book: It had a story by Colin Bateman, one of my favorite NI writers 

*******

    One of the difficulties of reading a short story collection by different writers is trying to get into their individual heads and attune yourself to their separate styles.

    This is particularly true when you're unfamiliar with most of the writers, and while the settings have a vague familiarity, it's not like they are outside your front door. But the idea of stories inspired by or based on songs is quite original, so you're willing to give it a shot.

    Which is a good choice.

__________________________________________________________________

Hot tip: Listen to the songs first -- they are all online. It'll get you in the mood.

 Hot tip #2: Listen again after you've read the stories. It'll give a new perspective.

__________________________________________________________________

    With that said, let me tell you: This tiny little volume (120 pages) full of short (10-15 pages each) stories is well worth your time. It's unique, contains lots of weird stuff, and is chock-a-block full of original writing and dark interpretations from a merry band of writers from Northern Ireland.

    The stories are set in Northern Ireland, and tell of crimes and other dastardly deeds, some in or around Belfast, and they may or may not have secular connotations. They are also based, some more and some less, on songs by Northern Ireland-based artists.

    For instance, James Murphy's contribution takes the title of the song How to Be Dead by the band Snow Patrol and turns into a chilling suggestion of the nature of a witness protection program. 

    My favorite story, Black Dog Sin, by Gerard Brennan, starts with a man in the throes of a grief-and-alcohol-fueled binge, and ends with a strange, dark and cynical twist. It closely follows the song by Joshua Burnside, but then takes a warped turn.

    And the penultimate story, by Simon Maltman, who also edited the collection, tells a darkly humorous tale about a serial killer who tags along on a tour -- of which Maltman is the illustrious guide -- of Northern Ireland's noir haunts in Belfast. Based on Trigger Inside, by the punk band Therapy?, it literally takes a line from the song to give insight into the killer's mind. 

Book Review: Gwendy's Final Task

 

•  Authors: Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio

• Why I bought this book: King is my favorite writer 

*******

    As the title hints, this is the final book in the Button Box trilogy. It's only the second I have read; I skipped the middle one because King wasn't involved.

 

    And make no mistake, this is a King story. I am not quite as familiar with Chizmar, but all the King trademarks are there: the strong if ordinary characters put in an extraordinary situation, the fate of good versus evil played out in the plot, and the references to the King universe -- including the city of Castle Rock, Maine, which plays a prominent role.  

    Heck, even the men in the yellow coats make an appearance.

    I don't think I missed anything in the second book because it's not a complicated story, and this one quickly brings you up to date.

    In short: When she was 12, a stranger gave Gwendy Peterson a special box to watch over. It looked like a normal box with buttons and switches, but it had extraordinary powers. In Book One, Gwendy's Button Box, she finds out what those powers can do.

    Now, U.S. Sen. Gwendy Peterson, D-Maine, a successful writer and politician, has another visit from Richard Farris. He again gives her the box, this time with another message: Get rid of it.

    How she does so -- and why some people are committed to stopping her and grabbing the box for themselves -- is her final task.

    The writing here is compelling, as it brings you into the story, easily explains what background is necessary for the tale, and gently carries you to the end. The characters are people we know, if a bit exaggerated  -- the good senator from Maine is a bit too thoughtful and concerned, and the businessman is so dramatically evil you expect him to wear a top hat and twirl his mustache.

    At times, the dues ex machina is flagrantly used, and the writers employ other tropes such as excessively helpful characters, to move the plot along. 

    It's a King-driven story, meaning that supernatural or superhelpful things happen at the right time. But it works. It's a good story, well told.

Book Review: This Is How You Lose the Time War

 

•  Authors: Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

• Where I bought this book: after words, Chicago

• Why I bought this book: It has birds on the cover

***

  A short novel that nevertheless feels neverending.

    Perhaps that's an inherent problem when you set your story in everlasting time and every place. It goes on and on, and nothing really matters, because characters can go back and change everything.

     It's the quantum form of the Butterfly Effect.

        

    That said, I could find several reasons to like this book. It has an interesting concept: Two sentient beings who can travel through time and space as they represent different factions become pen-pals -- or whatever the quantum equivalent is.

    And it's well written. Some of the writing is poetic, soaring with metaphors and philosophy. Literary concepts come hard and fast -- at times, the characters are literally writing onto the tea leaves, and drinking the tea means reading it while consuming the thoughts on those leaves.

    Yet, the authors get carried away, leaving the notion that if anything is possible, reality cannot exist.

    A striking, disturbing theme carries the novel: that war, competition among life forms, is the point of it all. Winning, and being on the winning side, is the reason for existence.

    That's how the novel begins, with the two authors competing to see which side thrives in the end. Either Red, who comes from Agency, a "post-singularity technotopia" (???) or Blue, from Garden, "a consciousness embedded in all organic matter." 

    Yet, as the pair continues their correspondence, they show signs they know they are merely pawns in the game. Blue expresses this thought:

Let me tell you a secret: I loathe Atlantis. Every last single Atlantis across all strands. It's a putrid thread. Everything you've likely been taught about Garden and my Shift should lead you to believe we treasure it as a bastion of good works, the original Platonic ideal for how a civilisation ought to be: How many bright-eyed adolescents have poured the fervour of their souls into lives imagined there? ... The work we do to maintain these notions is more subtle than you might think, given the publishing peccadilloes of a dozen twentieth centuries. 

    Indeed, cultural and literary figures abound across all times and dimensions. Historical figures pop in and out, but because of the omnipresence, the novel is ultimately ahistorical. 

    Red and Blue's letters go from hate and distrust to love and desire before doubling back. It's a frustrating novel. It wants to cover all the passions of a relationship. It wants time to double back and repeat, so anything and everything can happen in the worlds.   

Book Review: Summerland

 

•  Author: Michael Chabon

• Where I bought found this book: Kenton County Public Library giveaway at the Pride Festival, Covington, Ky.

• Why I bought collected this book: Magic. Baseball. A perfect double-play. And it was free.

******

    A motley crew of young children, faeries, giants, and assorted folkloric creatures inhabit our four worlds, but a combination of ecological destruction, meanness, and a bored creator who wants to end it all threaten its very existence.

    Enter baseball, a game with a mythology all its own, which could either make things right or cause further destruction.

    Indeed, baseball is already at least partly responsible for the latter. Author Chabon -- obviously a fan of the traditional game --  posits that the introduction of the designated hitter tore a hole in the fabric of the universe, leading to its current downward path. 

    This is a fun, if sometimes unwieldy undertaking. At 500 pages -- precisely the number of lifetime home runs that once ensured enshrinement in Cooperstown -- it's sometimes overwhelming. And its characters -- including a girl who loves the game and plays it well, and a boy who is uncertain about it all, but accedes to his widowed father's wishes that he play -- tends to be, shall we say, tropes of the trade.

    They include a mournful Sasquatch -- don't call her bigfoot! -- a mean giant, a changeling boy who feels lost in our world, and a ferisher scout who may not be immortal but has Seen It All. Also, a Major League star -- a ringer!! -- who defected from Cuba, a car that can fly and runs on moonshine, and a magical bat taken from the tree that feeds the worlds.

    They come together to save the universe in a novel that is themed, inspired, and timed by baseball. It's enjoyable -- the writing is (for the most part) crisp, the characters are wonderful (if a bit predictable), and the story is a magic fable tied together by a love for baseball.

Book Review: The Three-Body Problem

• Author: Cixin Liu 

• Translator: Ken Liu

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio

• Why I bought this book: The title spoke to me, and in retrospect, the cover is cool

*****

     In the end, I think I'm just not smart enough to read this book.

   

    There is some serious science in here, and much of it is over my head, even though I have read and understand the concepts of astrophysics.

    My first concern was chapter 17, which described how a group without access to mechanical computation solved a complicated calculation by building a human computer. Literally. It used 30 million people to stand in for the inner workings: the hardware, the motherboard, and the other elements that mimicked the zero-one method of computer calculation. It sounds fascinating, but I'm not sure I understood how it happened.

    Then, in another section, it works on solving a problem by creating artificial intelligence, which in turn could force a proton to shrink from 11 dimensions to two -- and why three could not work. Again, a brilliant idea in theory, but far above my understanding.

    Like its science, the novel is complicated. It's difficult. It poses existential questions within a closed political system. 

    Now beware of this review. A spoiler alert is coming up. Fair warning -- even though it will be hidden, and you don't have to click on the link.

    Author Liu spends a lot of time introducing the characters and setting the scenes, in many different, confusing ways. The story is set in China, and we know something momentous is going to happen. Something, indeed, is happening, but we don't know what.

    The author -- and his excellent translator, who gives insight into the Chinese mindset at the time of the novel's setting -- provide us with a lot of hints. The three-body problem, perhaps, is a planet system with three stars, Or moons. Or planets. (Understanding how three bodies in space stay in a stable orbit is a pressing problem in physics.) Or it's about earth. Or it's a video games. Or it's aliens. War may be involved. Heck, even religion seems to come into play.

    OK. I can't resist. Spoiler alert    

    Meanwhile, deep in rural China, something else is going on. It's secret, and because we are in the period of the cultural revolution, it's a big secret that people will kill and die for. Or maybe they won't. Like I said, it's a secret.

    If this all sounds very confusing, that's because it is. Complicating matters is that the  characters are Chinese, with Chinese names and backstories. (For a native English reader, with a limited knowledge of the culture and history of China, it's difficult to relate to.) 

    And it jumps around in places and times. It doesn't tell a linear story. We learn about various characters over the spans of their lives.

    

    Still, once you start to figure out who is who and what may be going on, you'll find those characters are an interesting group, and their motives, once revealed, make sense. The story does come together with a (mostly) logical explanation in the end.

    But, of course, it is the first book in a trilogy. So my last question is whether I am smart enough -- or dumb enough -- to delve into the next two.

Book Review: A Darker Shade of Magic

 

• Author: V.E. Schwab

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books and Coffee, Newport, Ky.

• Why I bought this book: A tale of many Londons intrigued me.

********

       

    Sometimes, when you're reading a novel with magical inspirations, you just have to let go and forge ahead. You may not completely understand what is happening or why it is taking place, so you keep reading, enjoy the moment, and hang on for the ride.

    Trust the author. She know where she is going. She will take you there. And you will like it.

    Such is the case with this mesmerizing, bizarre, and oddly enchanting book, first published in 2016. I didn't know when I picked it up that it's the first in a series. I have since learned it's a trilogy, and the next two books are in the TBR Stack.

    I fell in love with the story, along with its remarkable and compelling characters. Those include Kell, a foremost practictioner of the art of magic, and Lila, an edgy, cunning castaway living on the streets of London.

     Actually, Lila lives in one of the four Londons -- Grey London, the dullest and most realistical of the Londons with King George III at its helm and of its magic gone. Meanwhile, Kell lives in Red London as the magic emissary for the Maresh Empire. He is one of the few remaining Antari, who can travel between the various Londons. 

   Except for Black London. No one goes there because nothing exisits but pure evil.

    Kell does visit White London, though, where trouble is brewing. White London has evil magic, and is run by those who are selfish and cruel.

    That's because, as Kell explains, magic is in the blood. Literally. Red is the color of magic in balance, of harmony between power and humanity. Black is the color of magic without balance, without order, without restraint. (I'm not sure how White fits into this scheme, unless it's what happens to magic as it's going bad.)

    Anyway, the story has Kell being not only an emissary, but a smuggler between the Londons. This is illegal, and could bring about severe punishment if he is caught. But Kell does it for fun, partly because he is bored.

    Lila -- remember Lila? -- lives and works on the street. She and Kell find each other, for better or for worse, and must work together keep the magic in balance and save Red London. It's tough for both of them.

    It's a wild ride. Hang on and trust the writer. You'll find it worth your while.

Book Review

Under the Whispering Door, by TJ Klune

• Where I bought this book: The Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, Colo.
• Why I bought this book: I enjoyed his previous novel, The House in the Cerulean Sea

* * * * * * *

    The main transfer station in the afterlife is a tea shop. With scones and a baker who enjoys blasting punk music on the radio.

    I can live (or die) happily with that thought. And Klune's novel, while a bit long-winded in parts, truth be told, is an  uplifting story about how we can overcome what life and death may throw at us. 

    Charon's Crossing Tea and Treats is a homey, if unnerving place. You are taken there after death by a reaper to meet people whose stated purpose is to help you cross over. But to where? That they don't say.

     You're upset, scared, and disbelieving. Eventually you meet the proprietor, one Hugo Freeman, who is mellow, soothing, and gentle. He offers you a cuppa tea, and calmly explains what happens next. You may or may not believe it. You may or may not need more time to figure things out.

    For Walter Price -- a meticulous, prideful, and implacable attorney in his life -- Hugo doesn't make a good first impression. Walter demands an end to the nonsense, and insists on leaving. When he does flee, he discovery why he should listen to those who know more..

    So he returns and winds up spending time with Hugo; Nelson, Hugo's wisecracking and wise ghost of a grandfather; Apollo, grandad's ghost dog, and Mei, the reaper who found Walter at his own funeral and brought him to Charon's Crossing. She's also the punk fan and scone-maker at the shop, and the force who holds everything together.

    We learn a lot about them, their lives, their loves, and their fantasies. A potential gay romance. Other characters come in and out, and while they add to the tale, their asppearance could have been shortened and written tighter.

    Walter is in the middle of all this -- sometimes exasperated, sometimes accepting, sometimes questioning. In life, he was a lawyer focused on the prize. In death, he's trying to figure it all out.

    And that's the genius of this novel -- like Walter, you'll yawn and wish you could slip past the parts in the middle. But by the end, you'll be wanting more. 

Book Review: Every Heart a Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

 

   If you are seeking a world to fit into, look for a door. It likely won't be an ordinary door, or you may not recognize it as one. But go to it, and twist what passes for a knob. If it turns, step inside.   

 

   This is your place. It's real, and it should make you happy. 

    Such is a message from Doorway, a strange tale from strange writer. 

    But its message is also acceptance, a plea and a command to welcome  others as they are. Don't judge. What you may think of as others' demons, their quirks, or their differences, may merely be their means of getting by in this world. 

    Doorway is a small, short book -- the first in a series of many, which was first published in 2016. I just discovered it last month.

    It's set in an unusual school in the wilderness somewhere. There, children who have found but returned from the doorways to their worlds -- whether it's a tiny fairy door set into their bedroom wall, or a retangular hole slashed into the air -- are sent to cope and struggle through their desires and the reactions to them. Most want to return, but they cannot find their doors again.

    So they try to make the world they are in their world, and seek to adjust to their differing realities. 

    These children, Nancy, the narrator; Jack and Jill, twin sisters who need each other; Christopher, who came from a world of skeletons; and Kade, a transgendered boy whose parents think should return only as the little girl they wanted; and several others, all go to Eleanor West's school. Miss West, of an undeterminate age, also wants to return to her doorway, and her world. But she cannot find her door -- or perhaps doors are only for children -- so she has created a world of her own, as well as for others.

... her family had owned the countryside for miles around, and now that she was the last, every inch of it belonged to her. She had simply refused to sell or allow developments on any of the lots surrounding her school. ... Some of her greatest detractors said she acted like a woman with something to hide, and they were right, in their way; she was a woman with something to protect.

    So, on this land, with these children, there is an adventure, and a murder mystery, along with sadness and despair. But at times it's light-hearted, warm and fuzzy, and it will leave you with a good feeling. You may not like or enjoy each character's emotions and reactions, but you will come to understand and accept them.

    That's a credit to McGuire's imagination, her kindess, and above all, her outstanding writing.