Books from February
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Sacred Scars by Kathleen Duey. The 2nd part in the Resurrection of Magic trilogy. The first book juxtaposed Hahp, a boy of wealth and privilege who is pledged to the magicians by his mercenary father, and Sadima, an impoverished farmgirl seeking a livelihood in the city. In Hahp's nation, magic is common (though highly expensive) magicians are feared enigmas. In Sadima's nation, magic is outlawed on pain of death. And yet--they live in the same nation...just hundreds of years apart.
The first book was almost unbearably grim. The things Sadima and Hahp live through while trying to survive and learn magic are almost too horrible to read. But Duey has created an intensely interesting world, a centuries-old mystery, and believable, unique characters. I tore through the first book in hours, and although I had to brace myself to read the second, it was equally well-written and enthralling.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M Valente. Valente is extraordinarily good at tales. She can play with them like a cats-cradle, so that a girl may be Peter Pan and an engineer and a tree all at once, and her adversary may be a princess and a wicked witch and several ages all at the same time. This is mostly the story of September, a little girl who travels to Fairyland and has extraordinary adventures there. Valente's language is beautifully baroque, with lots of word play, yet never loses its clarity. I loved this story, and can't wait to return to its world in the proposed sequel.
A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin. Matthew Swift wakes up on the floor of his apartment--two years after he was brutally murdered. Now he has no money, no clothes, and an otherworldly presence in his head. Luckily, Matthew Swift is not your typical Londoner--he is an urban sorcerer, and he has a few tricks up his sleeves...
I loved loved LOVED the magic systems in this book. This book is one of the few with thoughtful, exciting, non-traditional magic--others that spring to mind are Hellblazer, Night Watch, Neverwhere, and the Books of Magic. Another thing that surprised me was how much I liked Matthew. Unlike pretty much every urban magician I can think of (I'm looking at you, Dresden and Constantine), he's not a jaded asshole. He has a sense of wonder and delight in his city that translates to the reader. The battles are exciting, the characters interesting, and if the climactic battle is a little less climactic than I expected, well, it was still an enthralling read. I recommend this to anyone looking for an urban fantasy fix!
Bedlam Boyz by Ellen Guon. Not a good book, but no worse than most fantasy out there. A homeless teenager discovers that she has a magical talent for healing. Unfortunately, this makes her a valuable prize to the gangs of her city--and the fae that control them. Unimaginative in every possible way.
Available at Baen's free library here. But really, if you're looking for elves and healing in the big city, just read John M Ford's The Last Hot Time.
The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan. Basically, this book takes high fantasy tropes and screws with them. This is not a parody; it's not so facile. But the author has clearly read and loved a great deal of fantasy in his life, and knows the basic stories well. And when he grew tired of the easy answers and Light vs Dark epic battles, he created this.
The elves have left Middle Earth--but they were actually aliens, driven half-mad by their flight across the stars, and the half-Elven Princess they leave behind them is a black lesbian with a drug problem. (I found Arceth to be the most fascinating character of all. Her eldritch family taught her modern concepts of morality, but she's been stuck in a feudal society for hundreds of years--her high-minded ideals are beginning to wear thin.)
The "elves" also left behind a magical sword, wielded by war hero Gil. Like many war heroes in fantasy novels written lately, Gil has become a washed-up mercenary, only pulled back into the Epic Battle for Civilization by the danger posed to a long-lost female loved one. But uh, Gil is gay, and his main resistance to helping is that the *last* Epic Battle turned into the slaughter of civilians, and his oh-so-civilized city tortured his lover to death before his eyes.
His former sword-brother, the barbarian Egar, is also pulled into the fray. Egar is a great play on the usual "savage tribe" trope.
This book is not a criticism of High Fantasy--it takes it to the next level. The queer characters, the characters of color, the atheists, the questions of consent and privilege, the logical next step for a country that's just defeated their Big Foe...Morgan uses all of it. And the adventure is better for it.
Non Fiction
Why We Eat What We Eat by Raymond Sokolov. Journalist Raymond Sokolov sets out to examine the origins of commons foods and dishes. Fascinating mix of anthropology, linguistics, genetic research, and gastronomy.
The Lady in the Tower by Allison Weir. Many books have been written on the Tudors, not least on Henry VIII's notorious second queen, Anne Boleyn. Weir revisits her subject with a closer focus, writing primarily on the last four months of Anne's life in 1536. I'm a huge fan of Anne--I've even toyed with getting a tattoo of her signature. But despite it's sometimes claustrophobic focus, this book does not expand my understanding of her, or tell me much that I didn't already know. That Anne had few friends and many enemies, that she had miscarried several times, that she had openly declared herself the foe of Cromwell, that the diplomatic envoys she had encouraged had just failed, and that Henry had fallen in love with another woman--other books have covered all of this already. Weir doesn't even manage to provide more information on the trial. She repeats herself often (in one paragraph, she says, "The author of the 'Spanish Chronicle,' never reliable and incline to embroider or make up details, claims that Rochford had been espied leaving her bedchamber in his night robe on several occasions." Only a few sentences later, on the very same page, she writes, "The 'Spanish Chronicle' states that George Boleyn [called Rochford for his title] 'had been seen on several occasions going in and out of the Queen's room dressed only in his night clothes,' but it is not a reliable source." Very frustrating!) She spends chapter after chapter on conjecture and "possibly this means..." but so much of the record of this period was expunged or accidentally destroyed that little can truly be claimed. And most frustratingly, she quotes Anne very rarely. Oh, she quotes what other people said of her, the rumors, the poems, the songs. She devotes a full chapter to various claims of what Anne wore to the scaffold. She gives the versions of Anne's last words (most of which vaguely agree with each other in content, none of which match exactly). But she doesn't cite a single letter that we know Anne wrote. She sprinkles rumors of what men said Anne said throughout the book, but as to Anne herself? Nothing in her own words.
In the end, I was left frustrated and bored. I suppose this is a good book for a completist, or somehow who is interested in the Tudors but doesn't know much. But anyone who has already read even ONE of the biographies of Anne Boleyn will be left wanting. The one aspect of this book that I did enjoy was Weir's tangents on the law. There are all sorts of oddments and loopholes riddling English law. For instance, when Anne died her marriage to Henry had been annulled, but her status as Queen was assured in a Law of Succession...so technically she was Queen without ever having married the ruling king!
Consuming Passions: A History of English Food and Appetite by Philippa Pular. Pullar tries to provide a history of English food. I was torn between delight at Pullar's purple prose and horror at her lack of historical rigor.
Closing the Food Gap by Mark Winne. Winne takes a look at America's food system, using his 35+years of experience as a worker in food banks, community gardens, farms, and policy-making boards. The basic problem is one of poverty. There are fewer food choices the poorer you get, and the food itself has ever-decreasing nutritional value. Hunger is a problem in America, but poor nutrition is an even worse one--heart disease, diabetes, and the health risks due to obesity are increasing every year.
Food deserts: "This shortage of supermarkets means that poor residents must travel out of their neighborhoods to purchase food, or shop at more expensive corner and convenience stores with less selection and poor quality food. The insufficient access...reduces the purchasing power of neighborhood residents, and may exacerbate long-term health problems resulting from nutritionally inadequate diets."--the Food Trust.
Food deserts are caused because poor areas are less profitable, more dangerous, and too crowded for the huge scale that most chains work in nowadays. Food deserts are not just a problem in terms of limited, expensive access to nutrition, but also because the money city residents would have spent in the city is instead spent in the suburbs. Thus the suburbs get even more money, and the city is left with even less, worsening the cycle. Supermarkets provide access to quality food--and are also big employers, pay property taxes, keeps food-purchasing dollars in the area. Three methods of addressing food deserts: create a food co-op owned by the neighborhood; create the food co-op but leave ownership and operation to an ouside supermarket firm; advocate and agitate for city and supermarket industry to respond to neighborhood's needs (generally by using public funds to decrease risks associated with supermarket development in lower income areas, or improve public transit to get to supermarkets). Then there are ideas like the Farmer's Market Nutrition Programs which give coupons to low-income families to use at farmers' markets--which leads to increased consumption of fresh produce, plus increased money to farmers, who spend money in-state.
The basic question this book asks is how to create a food system that is good for famers, the environment, and consumers?
Fiction
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. A wealthy and feted woman falls in love with a humble clergyman, and insists on marrying him, although it loses her her dowry. The vicar cannot stop tormenting himself over all his wife gave up, to the extent that he loses what little money he has in a too-bold investment. As gentleborn, well-educated, penniless women, there are few options left for his daughters; the older takes up selling delicate watercolors, while the younger, Agnes, hires herself out as a governess. The first family she works for is terrible; she is not allowed to discipline the children, and every adult around them seems bent on ruining them. It is here that Agnes's true strength of character is revealed. Rather than allow a little boy from torturing a nest of baby birds to death, she squashes them flat. When his uncle says he will find the boy another nest to "play" with, she calmly informs him that if he does, she will kill them too. She is hard as nails. I was glad to read this interlude, because for the vast majority of the book Agnes is silent and seemingly submissive, and only her internal narration reveals her stubborn, judgmental piety. As a governess, she is never in a situation where she can reveal her true feelings, or even effect much change. She cannot discipline or reward her students with anything but her own approval or disapproval--no matter how often she thinks about how helpful a good beating would be.
The second family is more interesting, and drawn with slightly more nuanced strokes. Agnes is to polish two young ladies: Rosalie, who is beautiful but shallow, and her sister Matilda, who is boisterous and careless. It is the same basic idea as in Villette, where the poor, plain, virtuous narrator is contrasted with a vivacious, wealthy, thoughtless blonde. Both women are attracted to the kind and virtuous Mr.Weston. In Villete, the rivalry was complicated by the warmth and friendship between the two women; this is largely absent from Agnes Grey, to the book's detriment. Agnes feels only patronizing pity or anger for Rosalie, and Rosalie has no depth of feeling. A few times, her anger at her situation flashes up--even as beautiful and privileged as she is, she knows that her life is bound by the choices of the men in her life, not her own, and she takes what petty revenges she can. But in the end, Rosalie serves more as an object lesson against seeking pleasure and freedom than as a character in her own right. (As much as I hate Amy/Laurie, at least their marriage isn't a morality play in misery to make the main character's own lackluster marriage look better.)
I really enjoyed this book at first. The writing style is good, and several of the characters are well-drawn (Agnes's mother was a favorite of mine). But Anne Bronte cannot seem to help herself from making everything a lesson. The few times when she lets slip her sarcasm are fantastic, but much of this book is a drab series of events in the life of a priggish and self-satisfied woman. Agnes herself is frustrating--I found her the least likeable when I was clearly supposed to admire her the most (when, for instance, she moralizes to a sickly old woman). She has no sense of humor. She constantly martyrs herself. And the man she moons over is utterly colorless: all we know of him is that he likes visiting the poor and misses his mother. The few interactions he has with Agnes sound like job interviews: do you like to read? are you unsociable? how much charity work do you do? etc. We the reader know little about him, and certainly nothing about how he talks, for Bronte wrote more dialog between Rosalie and one of her suitors than she provides for Agnes and the love of her life. I think Bronte was actually more attracted to the story of Rosalie, but felt it wrong not to provide a moral heroine.
Sacred Scars by Kathleen Duey. The 2nd part in the Resurrection of Magic trilogy. The first book juxtaposed Hahp, a boy of wealth and privilege who is pledged to the magicians by his mercenary father, and Sadima, an impoverished farmgirl seeking a livelihood in the city. In Hahp's nation, magic is common (though highly expensive) magicians are feared enigmas. In Sadima's nation, magic is outlawed on pain of death. And yet--they live in the same nation...just hundreds of years apart.
The first book was almost unbearably grim. The things Sadima and Hahp live through while trying to survive and learn magic are almost too horrible to read. But Duey has created an intensely interesting world, a centuries-old mystery, and believable, unique characters. I tore through the first book in hours, and although I had to brace myself to read the second, it was equally well-written and enthralling.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M Valente. Valente is extraordinarily good at tales. She can play with them like a cats-cradle, so that a girl may be Peter Pan and an engineer and a tree all at once, and her adversary may be a princess and a wicked witch and several ages all at the same time. This is mostly the story of September, a little girl who travels to Fairyland and has extraordinary adventures there. Valente's language is beautifully baroque, with lots of word play, yet never loses its clarity. I loved this story, and can't wait to return to its world in the proposed sequel.
A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin. Matthew Swift wakes up on the floor of his apartment--two years after he was brutally murdered. Now he has no money, no clothes, and an otherworldly presence in his head. Luckily, Matthew Swift is not your typical Londoner--he is an urban sorcerer, and he has a few tricks up his sleeves...
I loved loved LOVED the magic systems in this book. This book is one of the few with thoughtful, exciting, non-traditional magic--others that spring to mind are Hellblazer, Night Watch, Neverwhere, and the Books of Magic. Another thing that surprised me was how much I liked Matthew. Unlike pretty much every urban magician I can think of (I'm looking at you, Dresden and Constantine), he's not a jaded asshole. He has a sense of wonder and delight in his city that translates to the reader. The battles are exciting, the characters interesting, and if the climactic battle is a little less climactic than I expected, well, it was still an enthralling read. I recommend this to anyone looking for an urban fantasy fix!
Bedlam Boyz by Ellen Guon. Not a good book, but no worse than most fantasy out there. A homeless teenager discovers that she has a magical talent for healing. Unfortunately, this makes her a valuable prize to the gangs of her city--and the fae that control them. Unimaginative in every possible way.
Available at Baen's free library here. But really, if you're looking for elves and healing in the big city, just read John M Ford's The Last Hot Time.
The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan. Basically, this book takes high fantasy tropes and screws with them. This is not a parody; it's not so facile. But the author has clearly read and loved a great deal of fantasy in his life, and knows the basic stories well. And when he grew tired of the easy answers and Light vs Dark epic battles, he created this.
The elves have left Middle Earth--but they were actually aliens, driven half-mad by their flight across the stars, and the half-Elven Princess they leave behind them is a black lesbian with a drug problem. (I found Arceth to be the most fascinating character of all. Her eldritch family taught her modern concepts of morality, but she's been stuck in a feudal society for hundreds of years--her high-minded ideals are beginning to wear thin.)
The "elves" also left behind a magical sword, wielded by war hero Gil. Like many war heroes in fantasy novels written lately, Gil has become a washed-up mercenary, only pulled back into the Epic Battle for Civilization by the danger posed to a long-lost female loved one. But uh, Gil is gay, and his main resistance to helping is that the *last* Epic Battle turned into the slaughter of civilians, and his oh-so-civilized city tortured his lover to death before his eyes.
His former sword-brother, the barbarian Egar, is also pulled into the fray. Egar is a great play on the usual "savage tribe" trope.
This book is not a criticism of High Fantasy--it takes it to the next level. The queer characters, the characters of color, the atheists, the questions of consent and privilege, the logical next step for a country that's just defeated their Big Foe...Morgan uses all of it. And the adventure is better for it.
Non Fiction
Why We Eat What We Eat by Raymond Sokolov. Journalist Raymond Sokolov sets out to examine the origins of commons foods and dishes. Fascinating mix of anthropology, linguistics, genetic research, and gastronomy.
The Lady in the Tower by Allison Weir. Many books have been written on the Tudors, not least on Henry VIII's notorious second queen, Anne Boleyn. Weir revisits her subject with a closer focus, writing primarily on the last four months of Anne's life in 1536. I'm a huge fan of Anne--I've even toyed with getting a tattoo of her signature. But despite it's sometimes claustrophobic focus, this book does not expand my understanding of her, or tell me much that I didn't already know. That Anne had few friends and many enemies, that she had miscarried several times, that she had openly declared herself the foe of Cromwell, that the diplomatic envoys she had encouraged had just failed, and that Henry had fallen in love with another woman--other books have covered all of this already. Weir doesn't even manage to provide more information on the trial. She repeats herself often (in one paragraph, she says, "The author of the 'Spanish Chronicle,' never reliable and incline to embroider or make up details, claims that Rochford had been espied leaving her bedchamber in his night robe on several occasions." Only a few sentences later, on the very same page, she writes, "The 'Spanish Chronicle' states that George Boleyn [called Rochford for his title] 'had been seen on several occasions going in and out of the Queen's room dressed only in his night clothes,' but it is not a reliable source." Very frustrating!) She spends chapter after chapter on conjecture and "possibly this means..." but so much of the record of this period was expunged or accidentally destroyed that little can truly be claimed. And most frustratingly, she quotes Anne very rarely. Oh, she quotes what other people said of her, the rumors, the poems, the songs. She devotes a full chapter to various claims of what Anne wore to the scaffold. She gives the versions of Anne's last words (most of which vaguely agree with each other in content, none of which match exactly). But she doesn't cite a single letter that we know Anne wrote. She sprinkles rumors of what men said Anne said throughout the book, but as to Anne herself? Nothing in her own words.
In the end, I was left frustrated and bored. I suppose this is a good book for a completist, or somehow who is interested in the Tudors but doesn't know much. But anyone who has already read even ONE of the biographies of Anne Boleyn will be left wanting. The one aspect of this book that I did enjoy was Weir's tangents on the law. There are all sorts of oddments and loopholes riddling English law. For instance, when Anne died her marriage to Henry had been annulled, but her status as Queen was assured in a Law of Succession...so technically she was Queen without ever having married the ruling king!
Consuming Passions: A History of English Food and Appetite by Philippa Pular. Pullar tries to provide a history of English food. I was torn between delight at Pullar's purple prose and horror at her lack of historical rigor.
Closing the Food Gap by Mark Winne. Winne takes a look at America's food system, using his 35+years of experience as a worker in food banks, community gardens, farms, and policy-making boards. The basic problem is one of poverty. There are fewer food choices the poorer you get, and the food itself has ever-decreasing nutritional value. Hunger is a problem in America, but poor nutrition is an even worse one--heart disease, diabetes, and the health risks due to obesity are increasing every year.
Food deserts: "This shortage of supermarkets means that poor residents must travel out of their neighborhoods to purchase food, or shop at more expensive corner and convenience stores with less selection and poor quality food. The insufficient access...reduces the purchasing power of neighborhood residents, and may exacerbate long-term health problems resulting from nutritionally inadequate diets."--the Food Trust.
Food deserts are caused because poor areas are less profitable, more dangerous, and too crowded for the huge scale that most chains work in nowadays. Food deserts are not just a problem in terms of limited, expensive access to nutrition, but also because the money city residents would have spent in the city is instead spent in the suburbs. Thus the suburbs get even more money, and the city is left with even less, worsening the cycle. Supermarkets provide access to quality food--and are also big employers, pay property taxes, keeps food-purchasing dollars in the area. Three methods of addressing food deserts: create a food co-op owned by the neighborhood; create the food co-op but leave ownership and operation to an ouside supermarket firm; advocate and agitate for city and supermarket industry to respond to neighborhood's needs (generally by using public funds to decrease risks associated with supermarket development in lower income areas, or improve public transit to get to supermarkets). Then there are ideas like the Farmer's Market Nutrition Programs which give coupons to low-income families to use at farmers' markets--which leads to increased consumption of fresh produce, plus increased money to farmers, who spend money in-state.
The basic question this book asks is how to create a food system that is good for famers, the environment, and consumers?
Fiction
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. A wealthy and feted woman falls in love with a humble clergyman, and insists on marrying him, although it loses her her dowry. The vicar cannot stop tormenting himself over all his wife gave up, to the extent that he loses what little money he has in a too-bold investment. As gentleborn, well-educated, penniless women, there are few options left for his daughters; the older takes up selling delicate watercolors, while the younger, Agnes, hires herself out as a governess. The first family she works for is terrible; she is not allowed to discipline the children, and every adult around them seems bent on ruining them. It is here that Agnes's true strength of character is revealed. Rather than allow a little boy from torturing a nest of baby birds to death, she squashes them flat. When his uncle says he will find the boy another nest to "play" with, she calmly informs him that if he does, she will kill them too. She is hard as nails. I was glad to read this interlude, because for the vast majority of the book Agnes is silent and seemingly submissive, and only her internal narration reveals her stubborn, judgmental piety. As a governess, she is never in a situation where she can reveal her true feelings, or even effect much change. She cannot discipline or reward her students with anything but her own approval or disapproval--no matter how often she thinks about how helpful a good beating would be.
The second family is more interesting, and drawn with slightly more nuanced strokes. Agnes is to polish two young ladies: Rosalie, who is beautiful but shallow, and her sister Matilda, who is boisterous and careless. It is the same basic idea as in Villette, where the poor, plain, virtuous narrator is contrasted with a vivacious, wealthy, thoughtless blonde. Both women are attracted to the kind and virtuous Mr.Weston. In Villete, the rivalry was complicated by the warmth and friendship between the two women; this is largely absent from Agnes Grey, to the book's detriment. Agnes feels only patronizing pity or anger for Rosalie, and Rosalie has no depth of feeling. A few times, her anger at her situation flashes up--even as beautiful and privileged as she is, she knows that her life is bound by the choices of the men in her life, not her own, and she takes what petty revenges she can. But in the end, Rosalie serves more as an object lesson against seeking pleasure and freedom than as a character in her own right. (As much as I hate Amy/Laurie, at least their marriage isn't a morality play in misery to make the main character's own lackluster marriage look better.)
I really enjoyed this book at first. The writing style is good, and several of the characters are well-drawn (Agnes's mother was a favorite of mine). But Anne Bronte cannot seem to help herself from making everything a lesson. The few times when she lets slip her sarcasm are fantastic, but much of this book is a drab series of events in the life of a priggish and self-satisfied woman. Agnes herself is frustrating--I found her the least likeable when I was clearly supposed to admire her the most (when, for instance, she moralizes to a sickly old woman). She has no sense of humor. She constantly martyrs herself. And the man she moons over is utterly colorless: all we know of him is that he likes visiting the poor and misses his mother. The few interactions he has with Agnes sound like job interviews: do you like to read? are you unsociable? how much charity work do you do? etc. We the reader know little about him, and certainly nothing about how he talks, for Bronte wrote more dialog between Rosalie and one of her suitors than she provides for Agnes and the love of her life. I think Bronte was actually more attracted to the story of Rosalie, but felt it wrong not to provide a moral heroine.