REVIEW: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

by Robin Sloan

“Walking the stacks in a library, running your finger down the spines — it’s hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.” 

Clay Jannon is desperate for a job after being laid off when the snazzy bagel company he was marketing for went belly up. When he notices a help wanted sign on the door of an independent bookstore, he is ready to try anything. As soon as Mr. Penumbra asks "What do you seek in these shelves?" Clay is hooked. It turns out this book store has secrets. Sure, it carries the the requisite number of unappreciated works of genius Penumbra loves, but in the dark corners of the store, towards the top of the tall shelves, there are books for a special clientele. They come in, return a book, and borrow a new one, all eager to continue with solving the mysteries within those pages. The curious Clay and his friends (a programmer, a CEO, a maker, an anthropologist, and more gathered along the way) follow the trail of breadcrumbs that may lead to the secret of this secret society: the formula for immortality.


I quite enjoyed this book! The structure of Mr. Penumbra comes across as a gentler Murakami or a less overwhelming Stephenson (he actually references both authors). I put it as a more modern G.K. Chesterton, lightly examining complex ideas in a reflective, fun adventure that reveals a comprehensive, heart-warming, humanistic truth. What really is immortality? How important is it?

Sadly, the stakes are rather low. Clay does not have much investment in whether the books of the secret society are decoded or not. He does not believe they hold the secrets to eternal life, but he is doing it for his friend. And the stakes tend to stay at about medium throughout the entire book. However, what it lacks in stakes it makes up for in pure librarian nerdery.


This is the perfect book for library nerds! It mixes everything that is important to us, the old and the new, ancient typography with computer fonts, secret codes with computer codes, ebooks and regular books, CGI with clay models, artifact warehouses with high tech systems, smelly bookstores and shiny Google. Sloan appears to have a great working knowledge of both sides of the information coin, and it is delightful to read.

The surprising thing is, the sides are not pitted against each other, except by the villains of the book. The protagonists are all about integration and collaboration, using new technology to preserve and enhance the old, how "Old Knowledge" (information in books that have not yet been digitized) is the great untapped mystery to Google. And yet, new technology does not replace books. They live in harmony side by side and feed off of each other, just as Clay's team of experts all have special skills (programming, fabrication, graphic design, anthropology, hacking, museum curating, etc) that mix together to create intellectual alchemy. There is a section about "digital archaeology," which blew my mind. I had never thought of it before.

I found it extra delightful that the author/ and Clay, is a NERD nerd. When he was a kid, he and his friend Neal were obsessed with a series called The Dragon-Song Chronicles and played "Rockets and Warlocks" (a tabletop RPG). Questing language is infused throughout the book. It is not uber present, but occasionally you are stumble upon delightful sentences like this: "I explain it like the set up for a Rockets and Warlocks adventure: the backstory, the characters, the quest before us. The party is forming, I say: I have a rogue (that's me) and a wizard (that's Kat). Now I need a warrior. (Why does the typical adventuring group consist of a wizard, a warrior and a rogue anyway? It should really be a wizard, a warrior and a rich guy. Otherwise who's going to pay for all the swords and spells and hotel rooms?" And we find Clay listening to The Dragon-Song Chronicles over and over like an old song he knows very well, much like the way I reread the Chronicles of Narnia.

Two things sealed the deal with this book for me. First, my version glows in the dark. I did not know this until the last night I was reading it and I turned out the lights to go to bed, and BAM! It glowed.

Second was the final paragraph of the book which, as a library nerd, made me cry:

"A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at the right time."

Books Like This:
The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton
Hard-Boiled Wonderland by Haruki Murakami
The Bestiary by Nicholas Christopher

REVIEW: Midnight in Austenland

Midnight in Austenland

by Shannon Hale

"'Have you been reading Gothic novels, Charlotte? You know what Mother would say. Women should not indulge in dark fantasies. It disrupts the proper workings of the womb.'

Charlotte snorted and coughed at once, she was so surprised. 'The proper workings of the womb?'

Eddie was trying very hard not to laugh. 'Indeed.'

'Never fear, protecting my womb from Gothic novels is my first priority.'

"I am very much relieved.'"

Charlotte Kinder has just gone through a messy divorce and needs to get away. She has no Jane Austen mania, like the Austenland heroine. She just needs a vacation from her life. So she decides to take it at Pembrook Park, the adult (no, not sexytime, just "for adults") roleplaying retreat manor house where actors and fellow guests leave modern society behind to live as Regency ladies and gentlemen. You can choose a new identity and be wooed by beautiful men and flounce around in lovely dresses. But when the games turn to ghost stories and murder mysteries, the line between reality and fiction blurs. Was that a real body in the attic, or just part of the fun?

This will be a short review, and please do not think it is short because I didn't like it. I loved this book! I devoured it in two days. I loved it more than Austenland. It seems much cleverer than the first book, for starters, both in narrative style and in plot.

For example, this little gem: "The pond lay dull and grey between the trees, no breeze to finger it's surface into uneasy ripples. The sky was clogged with clouds, preventing reflected sunlight from winking mischievously on the waves, as one might expect if the waters did indeed hide a secret. But the pond resisted all personification, neither begging for inspection nor warning of horrors best left alone. It just lay there, uninterested."

The prologue was a beautiful piece of writing. As this book is based on Northanger Abbey (as the first was based on Pride and Prejudice), Hale starts her book by explaining how her heroine is not a typical heroine. She was practical and nice, and never did anything unexpected or out of the ordinary. Even in this rather dull-sounding introduction, we manage to see ourselves in Charlotte. She is compelling in her normalcy.  The book jumps back and forth between the past events that created Charlotte, and the present as Charlotte tries to solve the mystery of the house and, in the process, solve the mystery of why she is so....nice.

I also enjoyed this more than Austenland because our heroine is not incredibly neurotic and obsessive. I felt that was a little off-putting about the first book. She went to be cured of something and finds love. Charlotte goes to escape, and finds herself.

It is less a girlish fantasy and more an actual journey of finding inner strength. And it is incredibly sexy and dangerous and gasp-worthy! There is just enough levity, and just enough darkness to thrill you.

REVIEW: The Magician King by Lev Grossman

The Magician King

by 

Lev Grossman

“Quentin had an obsolete sailing ship that had been raised from the dead. He had psychotically effective swordsman and an enigmatic witch-queen. It wasn't the Fellowship of the Ring, but then again he wasn't trying to save the world from Sauron, he was trying to perform a tax audit on a bunch of hick islanders…” 

The Magician King pretty much picks up where The Magicians left off. Quentin and his friends are kings and queens of Narnia-- I mean Fillory. Everything is pretty much perfect, and there is not much for them to do. Quentin longs for adventure, but the best he can come up with is an unnecessary trip to collect back taxes from an island territory. From there, the book is basically The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, with some side excursions and the mysterious Julia (self taught witch friend of Quentin)'s back story woven in.

Well, Lev Grossman does his brilliant and frustrating thing again. He lets the story meander leisurely. There are some frustrations along the way, but nothing too big. People live their lives. You come to love them, and the world they inhabit. You know something horrible is going to happen because that is what Grossman does. However, in this book it takes so long for something horrible to happen that you think, maybe this time it won't! You come to love the natural rhythms of the story, and accept the Narnian logic of things. And then within the last 100 pages, he takes everything you love, locks it in a house, and burns it to the ground. Metaphorically speaking. And damn it, it is satisfying.

It differs from The Magicians in a few ways, though. First, Quentin is no longer a dick. He has grown up into a decent person, still a little haunted by the events of the last book. Second, Julia (a minor character in the first book) comes into her own in this incredible journey of power, addiction, and transcendence as she teaches herself the magic denied to her when she failed the Brakebills exam in the last book. Third, Grossman seems to trust in Fillory just a bit more. It really comes into its own as Narnia, the land you love and long for, rather than a cardboard cut parody of Narnia. The scenes where Quentin is sailing on the ship are saturated with peace mixed with salty adventure, exactly what you wish for in a Fillory adventure.

It really takes a long time for Grossman to pull the rug out from under you, but when it happens he nails you not once, not twice, but three times in quick succession. Just when you think everything is safe (though you have a small voice telling you it might have been too easy) he will get you, but never in a way that you expect.  The ending is desolating and painful, but strangely right. Almost like Eustace scratching away at his dragon skin to become a new man in Dawn Treader. 

Another brilliant book from Grossman. I can't wait for the third!

REVIEW: Un Lun Dun by China Mieville

Un Lun Dun

by China Mieville

"'There it was in the index. "Shwazzy, Sidekicks of the.'' Below that were subheadings, each with a single page reference. 'Clever One,' she read. 'Funny One.' 

'Look...' the book said. 'It's just terminology. Sometimes these old prophecies are written in, you know, unfortunate ways...'

'Was it Kath who was supposed to be the clever one?' Deeba said. She thought about how she and Zanna had become friends. 'So... I'm the funny one? I'm the funny sidekick?'

'But, but, but,' the book said, flustered. 'What about Digby? What about Ron and Robin? There's no shame in -'

Deeba dropped the book and walked away. It yelped as it hit the pavement."

Deeba has noticed something strange about her best friend Zanna. There was a picture of her face in the clouds. Animals behave strangely around her. Someone spray painted "Zanna forever!" on the wall. When Zanna and Deeba follow a strangely animated umbrella one night, they leave London and enter Un Lun Dun where Zanna is proclaimed "the Shwazzy": the Chosen One who will help save their city from the Smog. Only things don't happen exactly as they were prophesied and Deeba has to take on her friend's mantle to save the city she has come to love.

This book was pretty insane. And awesome. It took me a while to get used to the world; trash with a life of it's own, city bus airships, men with pins in their heads and clothes of books, houses with forests in it, a man who is a bird with a human body as it's vehicle, "binjas" (trash can ninjas), bookaneers (librarian adventurers), the Umbrellissimo (the man who controls the broken umbrellas that find their way to Un Lun Dun). It helped as soon as I started picturing it animated like a Studio Gibli film.

I loved the way it played with the idea of choice and free will, of prophecy and how it limits us. How those who were not supposed to do things can just say "fuck it" and do them because they need to be done.

This is another juvenile fiction book that does not coddle the reader in any way shape or form. Mieville paints, waltzes and plays chess with words. It doesn't matter that a word is not supposed to be in the vocabulary of a child. There is an incredible sequence with Mr. Speaker, the leader of words, who speaks and Utterlings appear to do his bidding. Deeba cleverly banters with him that words do not always mean what we want and turns his words against him.

Deeba is an amazing heroine. First, she has brown skin, which I am sorry to say is rare in science fiction and fantasy. I was so happy to see a non-white heroine! Second, she is urban London, lower class, and speaks in London slang. Another anomaly in sci fi/ fantasy. Third, she is clever as all get out. She outwits and logics (or un-logics) her way around Un Lun Dun, learning the rules, using them, and breaking them as she sees fit. She goes from being a side kick who just wants to go home to a true heroine and full-blooded citizen of Un Lun Dun.

Yet another kickass heroine who must lead her troops into battle, deal with losses, make mistakes, and outwit terrible enemies. And in the end, when she must choose between Un Lun Dun, and real London, she turns convention on its head!

And I must say, the epilogue is one of those pump-your-fist-in-the-air-yelling-WOOO! moments. Damn, it's a fun ride.

REVIEW: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairy Land in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Vanente

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making

by Catherynne M. Valente

“There must be blood, the girl thought. There must always be blood. The Green Wind said that, so it must be true. It will be all hard and bloody, but there will be wonders, too, or else why bring me here at all? And it's the wonders I'm after, even if I have to bleed for them.”

September is a heartless girl, bored of her life, fed up with her mom who works in a factory all the time, and with her dad who left for war. So, when the Green Wind comes to abduct her to Fairyland, she doesn't even say goodbye, or leave a note. She must do favors for witches, befriend a wyverary (a wyvern whose father was a library), outwit the evil Marquess, and, as the title implies, circumnavigate fairy land after she looses her shadow and her heart.

This was an exceptional book, even more exceptional that it was juvenile fiction. It did not pull punches, either emotionally, complex-ily (if that is a word... meaning that it did not paint the world in black and white), and vocabularically.

It reads as a modern day Alice in Wonderland. September is just as curious, just as impertinent, and just as heartless as Alice, and she meets strange and fantastic things, like the herds of bicycles that roam the land, or the half-people who can only speak in complete sentences when joined together, discarded furniture that takes on a life of its own when it is 100 years old, or the land of Autumn.

While Alice simply wanders and has things happen to her, however, September struggles with morality in a morally grey world (does she aquiess to the evil queen to save her friends? Is the evil queen very different from herself?). There is a wonderful theme of what it is to be chosen and what it is to make a choice.

Early in the journey, she is given the choice to loose her way, lose her mind, or loose her heart. Since she was heartless, she chose to loose her heart. She managed quite well until she grew to deeply care for the friends she made. When she looses them, all hell breaks loose, and you can see what a twelve-year-old girl is really capable of.

This is not pretty Narnia adventure hardship. September must make a raft using her clothes and her hair so she stands naked and shorn against the elements. She bludgeons a fish to death out of desperation, and nearly die horribly several times to get where she needs to go, and even then, she has not faced the worst.

She is the embodiment of badass heroine who does what needs to be done and sacrifices what she has to to save the ones she loves.

It also make an incredible statement about regulation. The marquess has started to bring over rules and regulations to Fairyland to make it "safe" for children who cross over. But that is not the point of Fairyland. It must be dangerous and hard, so the children can emerge strong and confidant and brave. Same thing could be said with a lot of things in our world, including regulation of books and education.

I recommend this to everyone!


There are so many good quotes, I have to add this one at the bottom:

“When you are born,” the golem said softly, “your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk, and crusty things, and dirt, and fear, and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it’s so grunged up with living. So every once in awhile, you have to scrub it up and get the works going, or else you’ll never be brave again.” 

REVIEW: A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

A Tale Dark and Grimm

by Adam Gidwitz

“You see, Hansel and Gretel don’t just show up at the end of this story. 
They show up. 
And then they get their heads cut off. 
Just thought you’d like to know.”

It is true. Hansel and Gretel get their heads chopped off. And then their story begins. Hansel and Gretel were the son and daughter of a king and queen. In order to save the life of a loyal servant, they had to chop their children's heads off, so the children thought that after that, they should probably go and find new parents. 

They travel through different, more obscure fairy tales with themselves as the main characters, starting with "Faithful Johanness," "The Seven Swallows," "Hansel and Gretel," "Brother and Sister," etc trying to find a better family to take care of them, and in the process, they grow up. And they deal with some pretty deep stuff. Each of them makes mistakes with deadly consequences, but they learn from them. Each of them have to make terrible sacrifices. But they gain strength, intelligence, and willpower so they can safe the kingdom and come to grips with their horrible parental trust issues. 

This was a fantastic book! The style was delicious! Each section begins as a fairy tale; "Once Upon a Time, there was a ______" It continues in that style with frequent interruptions from a very chatty narrator, snarkily judging the character's decisions, explaining to the reader the feelings the characters must be going through, and most of all, vehemently warning of the impending gore and frightening subject matter, employing the readers to take the children out of the room, etc. It is absolute genius. It warns them, but then dares them to read on, and when bad things occur, the reader is prepared and brave, and is able to go on. They are not shocked by the horrible things happening and have to put the book down. This is juvenile fiction after all. 

In the back, the writer tells the story of how someone came into his second grade classroom and read "The Seven Ravens," in which a girl cuts off her finger. After being assured that he was not fired, he realized the kids got a lot out of it, and they begged him to tell more stories, asking questions, shouting responses, and getting involved in the story telling. 

With all the discussion recently about if kids can handle dark fairy tales, I think the answer is a resounding YES. This book shows that kids can have the strength to go through dark times and come out the other side. Kids need dark stories to know that people can survive and be better for it. If they don't put themselves in the right story when they encounter a dark time, they will crumble. If they think of themselves as a hero with a possibility of winning, they will fight. 

This is my favorite quote in the book:

“There is a certain kind of pain that can change you. Even the strongest sword, when placed in a raging fire, will soften and bend and change its form. So it was with Hansel. The fire of guilt and shame was just that hot.

Trust me on this one. I know this from personal experience. I hope that you never will, but, since you're a person, and therefore prone to making horrible, soul-splitting mistakes, you probably will one day know what this kind of guilt and shame feels like. And when that time comes, I hope you have the strength, as Hansel had, to take advantage of the fire and reshape your own sword.” 

Oh and check out the trailer. It is awesome!

ARCHIVED REVIEW: Briar Rose (8/5/11)

Briar Rose

by Robert Coover

"You are one of the lucky ones, the old crone says, wagging a gnarled finger at her. Your sisters were locked away in iron towers, lamed and stuck in kitchens, sent to live with savage beasts. They had their hands and feet cut off, were exiled, raped, imprisoned, reviled, monstrously deformed, turned to stone, and killed. Even worse: many of them had their dreams come true. My sisters? Yes, well long ago. Dead now of course."

This is a very odd story. It isn't even really a story. It is more of a post modernist exploration of the quest for a sleeping beauty.

There are three characters: the Prince, the Beauty, and the Old Crone. The action: the Prince is struggling through the briars, his confidence waining as the thorns thicken, and he obsessively turns over and over his mission, his destiny, the possible outcomes, and the reasons why, eventually drowning in his thoughts.

The Beauty sleeps and dreams of "princes" waking her with odd and disturbing sexual acts - her father, dead princes, a gang of drunken peasants etc. She believes they are all trying to remove the thorn from her, which pricks her in a hidden place. She is comforted by her frequent trips to the safety of the kitchen/ nursery/ her parents room (in the dream state it can be all at once), where she speaks with the Old Crone, the fabled fairy responsible for her pricking. The author claims Sleeping Beauty has no memory, but she has memories of remembering, so (I assume) is left with a constant state of deja vu. She knows she is asleep, and is trapped in this dream-thick stasis.

The Crone tells stories of other Sleeping Beauties to the sleeping princess, each story a mixture of actual Sleeping Beauty stories, and other tales of horror. It never ends well for the princess, as she is raped, killed, eaten, and/ or neglected in every story. It is unclear whether the Old Crone is torturing her for fun, corrupting her innocence to spoil her for the waking world, or preparing her for potential disappointment. It is revealed that the Crone is both the Good Fairy and the Bad Fairy, and even she is unclear which gift was kinder: endless sleep, or death as an innocent.

The reader takes the lazy river through each of their stream-of-consciousness. Nothing really changes. The characters each hit a breaking point, but then they give up. You get the impression that they are all trapped here, and the story will constantly cycle back to where we found them at the beginning -- maybe with a new prince, after this one, too, dies in the thorns.

And there are no quotation marks. Post-modernism drives me crazy that way.

All in all, it is an intriguing exploration of archetypes: what it means to be the questing prince, what it means to be the sleeping beauty, what it means to be the old crone. However, if you are looking for a coherent narrative, this is not the book for you. If you want incisive poetry, go forth and enjoy.

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Fourth Bear (8/1/11)

The Fourth Bear

by Jasper Fforde

"You don't get it, do you?... In the world of nursery crime, some things just happen, despite my best endeavors. Humpty takes a nose dive, the pigs boil the wolf -- and Riding-hood and her gran get eaten. In my world, the world of the vaguely predestined, you have to work five times as hard to involve yourself in the unfolding of the case, and ten times harder still to change the outcome." - Jack Spratt

The Fourth Bear is a very difficult novel to describe. In it's broadest sense, it is a detective novel, starring a man who solves Nursery Rhyme mysteries, the first book in the series being about the possible murder of Humpty Dumpty in his fabled fall off of the wall. This book is about the death of Goldilocks. Sort of.

Jasper Fforde yet again manages to create an incredibly complex and convoluted world. He throws dozens of plot lines up in the air at the beginning of the book: the death of Goldilocks, the serial killer The Gingerbread Man's escape from prison, the purchase of a surprisingly unused used car from a Mr. Dorian Gray, the impending marriage of the detective's daughter to Prometheus, the surprisingly banal space alien who works in his office asking his partner out on a date, the appearance of new and quarrelsome neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Punch, a porridge ring catering to addicted bears, a suspiciously giving and kind mega-corporation, and the dubious status of our hero, Detective Jack Spratt, as a PDR - Person of Dubious Reality - himself). The reader is never certain which is essential to absorb, and which is merely colorful world-building.

I was uncertain whether or not it was helpful to know the book world was actually established as a refuge for nursery rhyme characters in Jasper Fforde's other series Thursday Next. That series depicts the lives of book characters who are quite aware they are in a book. When they are "performing" for those reading the book, they follow lines and actions like they are in a play, but when they are not being read, they can do whatever they want. The first book of the Nursery Crime series was originally a dull regular detective novel, and destined never to be published, which Thursday Next hides in for while. As a reward for its help, the book becomes a refuge for nearly forgotten nursery rhyme characters and thus it rises out of its mediocrity to become an odd, quirky, successful novel.

In this second book of that world, where aliens, humans, and nursery rhyme characters exist side by side with no explanation, the characters have odd meta moments where they let the reader know they are aware they are in the book. For example, they discuss which plot device to follow: #26 Look for the serial killer even though they were ordered not to, or #38 in which they follow orders until the inept detective on the case begs for their assistance. At other times, they lament the poor jokes they were written to say. However, I was bewildered, because a book in the meta book world of Thursday Next would never be allowed to make such self-references.

Even though the story rather dense and tangled, it is still another delightful book from Fforde. He has the clever wit of a Douglas Adams with a literary bent (i.e. the town of Obscurity has dozens of graveyards because many people die in Obscurity). He leaves lots of whimsical breadcrumbs for book lovers and mystery enthusiasts alike.

The book also has "Extras". To see the website of the Nursery Crime Division, click here: http://www.nurserycrime.co.uk/

If you liked this book, you may like:

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Magicians (1/4/11)

The Magicians

by Lev Grossman

"For just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever." 

— Lev Grossman (The Magicians)

From the back of the book: "Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he's secretly fascinated with a series of children's fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams may have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined..."

This was an excellent book for both die-hard, old-school honor-and-glory fantasy and for the modern urban fantasy cynics. It is stuffed to the gills with winks and nods to Narnia, Harry Potter,and a little sprinkling of the Wizard of Oz. Its both an homage to and a satire of these idyllic fantasy worlds. It examines the real consequences of what would happen if you take a depressed angsty teenager and give him incredible power, and then set him out in the world where there are no epic battles to fight, no quest to follow.

The Brakebills school section is charming and intricate. Magic is hard and complex and yet there is still the college atmosphere of late night drinking with a tight gang of friends, and warm days of doing nothing. There are dark threads that hint at the corrosion and danger to come, but the Brakebills part could be its own separate book.

The post-college section feels like Hemingway, or F. Scott Fitzgerald, about the now-graduated students, a group of young people who have all the power and money in the world but no direction. They inevitably spiral into sex, drugs, and self-loathing.

And then suddenly, out of the blue, one of them discovers their way into Fillory: the magical land of their childhood dreams. They will go on a quest and becomes kings and queens! Surely it will make all their hurt and meanness melt away, and they will become their better selves in the presence of Ember and Umber, the magical ram gods (Aslan in sheep's clothing). But Fillory is not like the books. Well, it is, but think about the paragraph long description of a battle in the Chronicles of Narnia, and what it is actually like to be there, to kill something, and to watch your friends die. Reading about it is a lot easier than doing it.

In Fillory, Quentin has to go through a crucible of spirit, and in the end, you are not sure if he is truly whole or healed, or even if he is on the right track. But you hope so, and you want to see what happens next.

Luckily, the sequel comes out this summer!

If you liked this, you may like:

The Chronicles of Narnia

Harry Potter

The Wizard of Oz

ARCHIVED REVIEW: Fool (6/25/10)

Fool

by Christopher Moore

This book was extremely funny, and full of raunchy frolic, but I felt that it was lacking in depth. It may be b/c I've just finished reading The Blade Itself and Before They are Hanged, which spoiled me depth-wise. But I have also read and loved Lamb by Christopher Moore, and I liked that better. It had great jokes, but I felt that the world and the characters were really surface-y.

All in all, though, a must read for Shakespeare dorks!

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Unwritten #1 (Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity) (5/9/10)

The Unwritten #1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity
By Mike Carey and Peter Gross

I actually read this in one sitting, so that is why it had no "currently reading" status.

It is a fascinating premise: Tommy Taylor is a fictional boy wizard with two friends (Sue and Peter) and a flying cat, and he must fight the evil Count Ambrosio throughout many books of his series. (Sound familiar?)

These books were written by Wilson Taylor, who mysteriously dissapeared. His son Tom Taylor, reluctantly shackled with his fictional counterpart, carries on his father's legacy at conventions.

Suddenly, events in his life start to resemble events in the book and he is catapulted into a quest to search for his missing father and understand what the hell is going on.

I have a hard time judging comic books and especially the first volume of a series. But I really want to keep reading! And the message of the story seems to be something that is only written in the cover art:

Stories are the only thing worth dying for.


If you like this, you may also like:
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
The Magicians by Lev Grossman

ARCHIVED REVIEW: Thursday Next: First Among Sequels (4/26/10)

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels 

by Jasper Fforde

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels is Jasper Fforde's return to the Thursday Next series after playing with Nursery Crimes for a few years. He seems to treat it as a re-introduction to the world, even though I don't know how many people would read it without reading the first 4 books. It re-enters the Thursday-verse when she is 50 and has 2 (3?) kids. She works for Acme Carpets, which is a front for a now defunct and free-lance Spec-Ops, which is a front for her work in Jurisfiction (the policing force of Bookworld). Sound complex? That's just the simple stuff. Friday, her son was supposed to join the Chronoguard (the time police force) a year or so ago, but he hasn't and his future self is pissed. Goliath (evil corporation) is back, and suspiciously kowtowing to Thursday, their nemesis. Sherlock Holmes is dead (killed at Reichenbach falls, which apparently wasn't supposed to happen). Thursday is training the two Thursdays from her previous books to be Jurisfiction agents and one of them is evil. A nemesis from her past might have returned.... I'm just scratching the surface here, folks.

First off, Bookworld is an amazing creation. It is the world behind literature. The characters in books know that they are characters in books, and act the part while being read. When the narrative is not focused on them, they can do what ever they want! Jurisfiction is the intra-literary police force that makes sure there are no Pagerunners (people who illegally jump through books - which is the reason why Feste had to be replaced by Fabian in the gulling scene of Twelfth Night), grammasites (beasties that will try to eat all of your verbs, so you can't do anything, or all of your adjectives so that you are nondescript),etc, and much more. Books are built in giant airplane hangers in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all book ideas start). You can buy plot devices at a store, like "suddenly a shot rang out." There is a giant central library with every book in English run by the Cat formerly known as Cheshire (they redistricted, so he is technically now the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat). You can jump into (almost) any book.

This, again, is just scratching the surface.

However, as with most of his books, the first half of the book is all exposition and world-building. You tend not to meet the villain or the crisis until 3/4 of the way through the book. However, when you do, all the exposition he has built up becomes essential in the solving of the problem. It is brilliant, but you will only enjoy it if you can bask in the glory that is Bookworld.

Overall, this wasn't my favorite of the series, but I love how Bookworld gets richer and more complex with each book.