Travel Reading: Madonna House Part 3

During the four months of reading the below books, I've been at a farming community in the middle of nowhere (if anything can be called "the middle of nowhere", rural Canada can), with no electronics. It is far too difficult to write up proper reviews in these circumstances, so I'm continuing the Travel Reading series, where I simply write a couple sentences about each book read, and leave it at that. Here goes the third set of three:

"Poustinia" by Catherine Doherty
Grade: 3 1/2 stars
I love the idea of Poustinia--it's epic. And some of Catherine's ideas are just so true and beautiful, and not something you see talked about anywhere else (at least in our culture). But I struggled a lot with her style, especially her seeming anti-intellectualism. This was a very up-and-down reading experience for me because of that. But I recommend this heartily! I think almost anyone could get something new and helpful out of it, at least.




"The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene
Grade: 5 stars
SO Catholic, in the best possible sense of that phrase. Greene gets so many things--what real sanctity is, the silliness that is sin, and how people think deep down to themselves. He reminds me of a grittier version of C. S. Lewis in those ways. This is a book worth a good, long sit-down discussion over beer or hot chocolate. Yet all this might give the impression that it's a "difficult" book, or preachy, or only relate-able to Catholics or something, but that's totally false. It's easy to read, excellently written, brilliant characters, gets to the bottom of LIFE. Man, I don't even know how to describe my thoughts properly, but I am so glad I finally got around to reading this.


"In the Night Garden" by Catherynne M. Valente
Grade: 4 stars
The structure of this book! It totally thrilled me. A layered, interlocking series of tales and stories, with unexpected connections and call-backs and Inception-like depth. The unending nature of the structure was a little annoying for me personally, though. I wanted everything wrapped up in the end, in an incredibly complex bundle of imagination and creativity. Instead it emphasizes the fact that stories don't really have a beginning and end, which is probably actually the best route to take, despite my personal preferences.



"The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Henri Nouwen
Grade: 4 stars
A beautiful little book that gives you a new appreciation for Rembrandt's famous painting. I didn't find it quite as helpful as the last Nouwen I read, but excellent none the less.







"Shirt of Flame" by Heather King
Grade: 5 stars
Profound and difficult and consoling simultaneously. It came at an absolutely perfect time in my life, and gave me a relationship to St. Therese for which I'll be forever grateful. Also good coming so soon after The Power and the Glory, since King also get the grittiness and paradox and beauty of Catholicism.






"Paladin of Souls" by Lois McMaster Bujold
Grade: 3 stars
The gods in this series! With the religion in this series, and how Bujold presents the theist character of Cordelia in the Vorkosigan saga, I can't help but think she's had some experience of Faith. She just seems to get how it works (though the Bastard weirded me out a bit...). The rest of the aspects of this story were good enough, and entertaining, but I think the first book, The Curse of Chalion, remains my favourite by a large margin.





(There are some personal notes below this break. Feel free to skip them; they are pretty unintelligible anyway.)

Rags & Bones

edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt

Why You Will Like This Book:

• Neil Gaiman! Garth Nix! Gene Wolfe!
• Unlike many collections of retellings that I've read, these retell literature instead of folklore and fairytales. Not that the latter are bad things, but it makes it unique.
• There are some great little scifi gems with ideas that make you think.
• And great little fantasy gems with worlds that make you dream.

And Why You Might Not:

• The stories were of mixed quality. (Or at least mixed in nature. Some reviews I read had pretty much exactly the opposite opinion from me, so I suppose it depends on what you're looking for. Point is, it's likely that you'll really like some and not like others.)
• There were a lot of romances I didn't like: adultery, great passion, sex with a stranger, marriage rejection, etc.

Stars Above

by Marissa Meyer

Why You Will Like This Book:

• Short stories starring the delightful ensemble of characters you loved from the Lunar Chronicles (Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter).
• Backstory! Alternative viewpoints! Weddings!

And Why You Might Not:

• You've got to be a fan of the Lunar Chronicles to enjoy this. For the most part, there's no point without that, I think.
• I think most stories could be more tightly written, in terms of view point and theme. I find this quite essential in short stories, so if you do too, you might not enjoy these.

Gothic!

ed. by Deborah Noyes

Why You Will Like This Book:

• If you're looking for short, dark, and creepy, this is it.
• There are stories by some great fantasy authors such as Neil Gaiman and Garth Nix.

And Why You Might Not:

• There's nothing really new or exciting in this collection.

To Hold the Bridge

by Garth Nix

Why You Will Like This Book:

• Charter magic! Gloriously competent bridgemistresses! Beings of terrible power! Sherlock Holme's odd cousin! An annoyingly invasive Rapunzel!
• Basically, a collection of short stories both original and fun, with some fascinating worlds and splendid characters.

And Why You Might Not:

• There are a lot of stories in this book, and sometimes reading too many short stories by the same author in a row makes each story loose its distinction.
• Some individual stories were less good or enjoyable than others, of course, although you'll get that in any decently large collection like this.

Retro Friday Review: Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz

by Garth Nix

Retro Friday Introduction:

Retro Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Angie @ Angieville and focuses on reviewing books from the past. This can be a favourite, an under the radar book you think deserves more attention, something woefully out of print etc.

Garth Nix is a decently well known Australian fantasy author, probably most famous for his Sabriel series (which is also fabulous). I think all of Garth Nix's books are more under the radar than they should be (despite him being well-known among young-adult fantasy aficionados), but this little book is probably the worst off. However, it is also among my favourite collections of short stories I have ever read. Perfect book for a Retro Friday.

Story summary: In these three short stories, a young soldier and his magical puppet sidekick* travel the land on their mysterious business, having adventures with giant starfish, duels, beautiful soldier women, cannibalistic pirates, and god-possessed captains.

Why You Will Like This Book:

• The world-building is amazing and so cool and gives this sense of vast history. Plus it's just fun. I want mooooooore.
• It has all the adventure and brotherhood and Classic writing style of The Three Musketeers within the world of an epic and original fantasy series.
• Short stories can sometimes pack a greater emotional punch for me, as everything is concentrated and everything superfluous cut out. So it is with these.

And Why You Might Not:

• This is written in the old-fashioned, Three-Musketeers-type-adventure style, the worst part of which is the "sleeping with every pretty woman" aspect. Fortunately, the women are fascinating, well-written characters, so this ends up actually being mostly a benefit.
• I love this book whole-heartedly, so I had to look up other people's reviews to find some possible criticisms for this section. (Apparently not everyone has the same taste as me! Who knew!) Mainly some people thought it was too dark, and some didn't like the format of short stories and thought it would work better with more information and story. Both of which I could see as being legitimate reasons not to like it, if you were a person-who-is-not-me.

This Is How You Die

ed. by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki !

Why You Should Read This:

• It's an even more brilliant sequel to the awesome collection The Machine of Death.
• So in a similar fashion, it is original, and thought-provoking, and twisty, and awesome.
• But there's also more inventiveness, more world-building, and more science!

And Why You Shouldn't:

• It's all about death, so obviously somewhat dark and creepy. Frankly, that's actually a selling point for me, but it could be an issue for some.
• And...nothing else really. It's an awesome book.

The Machine of Death

ed. by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki !

Why You Should Read This:

• The awesome premise: there is a machine that can tell, from just a sample of your blood, how you are going to die. It doesn't give a date or specifics, just a slip of paper upon which is printed in block letters the words DROWNED or CANCER or OLD AGE or CHOKED ON A HANDFUL OF POPCORN.  But it's frustratingly vague: OLD AGE can mean dying of natural causes, or being shot by a bedridden man in a botched home invasion.
• Which such an unusual and interesting premise, there is plenty for the various authors to play off of. Different kinds of deaths, different meanings and varying degrees of vagueness, and different reactions from different people. Great field for originality, the study of human nature, and scientific musings.

And Why You Shouldn't:

• It's fairly dark. Again, not surprising considering the central premise. This is actually a bit of a bonus for me, most of the time, but I can see it would throw some people off.
• Personally, I found a few too many stories to have a "male gaze". In other words, there were quite a lot with hot girlfriends and sexualized women. Or at least this was an impression right after reading it. Upon skimming through it again for this review, I found many, many of the stories enjoyable and not really many examples of this. Maybe I exaggerated the number of unenjoyable ones because that kind of story really isn't my cup of tea.

Under My Hat

ed. by Jonathan Strahan

Why You Should Read This:

• Contains awesome stories by some of my all-time favourite authors: Garth Nix (author of the Sabriel series), Frances Hardinge (author of A Face Like Glass and other brilliant books), Neil Gaiman (author of Sandman and American Gods as well as Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Wife"), and more!
• So many differing view on witches/magic users. Very interesting.

And Why You Shouldn't:

• There are few very good stories. Couple good ones, couple entertaining ones. A lot of the rest I was a bit underwhelmed with.

Wizards

ed. by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois

Thoughts: Entertaining selection of short stories including several authors I really like: Garth Nix, Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, etc.

Most of the stories didn't pop out at me as ones I particularly loved. But on the other hand, I didn't dislike any of them either, which is somewhat unusual. Here are a few notes on stories that stood out to me in one way or another:

"Holly and Iron" by Garth Nix. I always enjoy Garth Nix's stories. I didn't fall in love with this one as much as I sometimes do, but it was still a really interesting take on a combined Robin Hood/King Arthur re-telling.

"Color Vision" by Mary Rosenblum. Lots of fun. I liked the synesthesia aspect, and think this could also make an interesting full length work.

"The Ruby Incomparable" by Kage Baker. This was great, with lots of potential. I was a little put off by how equivalent Good and Evil were portrayed, but the characters were all interesting

"Fowl Tale" by Eoin Colfer. It was surprisingly funny, and I was reminded again how much I actually enjoyed the first bunch of Artemis Fowl books (though this story was not related to them, just by the same author).

"Stranger's Hands" by Tad Williams. The worst thing about this was the insinuation that religious people (specifically Christians, since the world seems similar to ours) are intolerant. To quote (pg. 122): "[T]he big one was plainly touched, perhaps even demon-possessed, and almost no one felt anything for them but horror and disgust." The only exception was the priest, who "had experienced a crisis of faith, leading him to doubt many of the most famous and popular tenets of his own religion." Because of this, "he was [...] unwilling to assume the guilt of someone else simply because they were not part of the familiar herd."

"Stone Man" by Nancy Kress. This was one of my favourites. There was lots of potential for a longer book here, and I'm going to look up Nancy Kress and see what else she's written.

"The Manticore Spell" by Jeffrey Ford. A lyrical and strange story. But I enjoyed it.

"Zinder" by Tanith Lee. The one I came closest to disliking. Zinder is basically just this perfect guy who helps everyone and everyone loves him. And that's it. Also the slight insinuation that religious people are deluded.

"Billy and the Wizard" by Terry Bisson. The other one I came close to disliking. It was creepy, but not in a way I enjoyed. The style was similar to a small child's story, which made it all the creepier.

"The Magic Animal" by Gene Wolfe. I liked this one, and could have really liked it, but in the end it was rather strange and I found it difficult to understand. This was a similar reaction to what I had with the novel by Gene Wolfe I read, The Sorcerer's House. I'm intrigued to read more of him, as he is considered (as it mentions in this book) "one of the best--perhaps the best--SF and fantasy writers working today." (pg. 299).

"Stonefather" by Orson Scott Card. Also really liked this one. Apparently it's related to several full length novels, which I'll now look into. The magic system and world-building was quite interesting.

Grade: 3 stars

Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories

by C. S. Lewis

Grade: 4 1/2 stars

Thoughts: It's C. S. Lewis. It's obviously going to be fabulous. The first section of this book is a collection of essays about writing, with an emphasis on speculative fiction. In the second section, there are four short stories, again with a SciFi/Fantasy bent.

The first part was especially good. These essays, among many other important things, defended views I've held for a long time, but never been able to defend very well. Such as: children's books can be as good and well worth reading as adult books, it is not lame to re-read books many times, speculative fiction is not worthless escapism, and SciFi is awesome. I could fill this review with quotes discussion, but that would deprive you of the pleasure of finding things out for yourself. (Plus it would be way too much work.) So here goes a much smaller selection (but still very long, compared to the rest of my reviews).

"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often more) worth reading at the age of fifty--except, of course, books of information."
"On Stories", pg. 15
Hah! Take that, people who think people who read children's books as adults are weird and immature!
There's also some interesting discussion in this essay about film vs. "popular" fiction (in other words, the pretty badly written stuff). There's a section early on that is talking about excitement, and how the film of King Solomon's Mines lost what made the original book special by (among other things) exchanging the particular  and atmospheric fear of being shut in the dark cave, with general "excitement" and violent danger. I thought it very applicable to most modern action movies (although I do actually enjoy many modern action movies).
Also:
"If you find that the reader of popular romance--however uneducated a reader, however bad the romances--goes back to his old favourite again and again, then you have pretty good evidence that they are to him a sort of poetry."
"On Stories", pg. 15

"I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story."
"On Three Ways of Writing for Children", pg. 24
In this essay, he also has a whole defence of fairy tales being read to children, even though they can be terribly frightening. (Have you read the original fairy tales? They are dark.) "Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage." (pg. 31) It also reminded me of Doctor Who (the awesomest), and how people remember hiding behind the sofa whilst watching it, but loving it all the same.
Another fascinating discussion was concerning the idea that kids who read fantasy will lose themselves in escapism. I strongly disagree with this, and thankfully, so does C. S. Lewis. In fact, he basically argues the reverse, that love of fantasy makes people less inclined to escapism, especially compared to real-world stories.  "[A child] does not despise the real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted." ("On Three Ways of Writing for Children", pg. 29-30) He talks more about escapism, but from an adult perspective, in the essay "On Science Fiction".

I could quote so much more, sigh... But this is getting too long already, so I'll leave the essays and go on to the stories.

Somewhat unexpectedly for me, I didn't enjoy these as much as the essays. My favourite was actually the unfinished story, "After Ten Years". It had enormous potential to be the kind of story I would treasure for my whole life. And strangely enough, it was the least scifi of the lot, being about the aftermath of the Trojan war. The more actual scifi stories almost seemed a little dated, especially "Ministering Angels" and "Forms of Things Unknown". I liked "The Shoddy Lands" a bit more, but seemed to fit more with The Great Divorce (splendid book), and more interesting when you came at it from that point of view than expecting cool scifi stuff.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu

by Susanna Clarke

Grade: 4 stars

Thoughts: Firstly, a command: read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It's brilliant.
Now I can continue.

Susanna Clarke is by far the most effective author I know at writing in a late 18th/early 19th century style. She really is Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, plus magic. This is the sort of thing that ends up being claimed in many book blurbs, but generally there is more than one factor which gives away the 21st century style. But Clarke is different: not only is her spelling and method of speech pitch perfect, but even the way ideas are presented is authentic to that style. One of the big issues with historical fiction (I find) is an anachronistic style of thought. So even if the authors manage to get the method of speech right (which they often don't), they so frequently incorporate ideas which were simply not thought of (or at least not discussed to that extent) in the era being written about. Often this is our current brand of 20th century feminism.
But let's get to the book itself.

"The Ladies of Grace Adieu"--The only one of these stories to contain characters from JS&MN. It was great to see Strange again, though I wish I remembered this part of the book this story is referring too.

"On Lickerish Hill"--A retelling of sorts of Rumpelstiltskin. I have not too much to say about this one. The dialect it was written in was interesting, though distracting.

"Mrs. Mabb"--This one has a few scenes which show off Clarke's clever and creepy way of writing insanity. Except in this case (as opposed the madness of Strange in JS&MN), the protagonist is not actually mad at all, but interacting with fairies. However, Venetia is to all appearances insane, so the descriptions of her forgetfulness and butterfly killings and endless dancing are still wonderfully eerie.

"The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse"--There is a note at the beginning of this one stating that it takes place in the world Neil Gaiman created for Stardust. Which means that it's basically glorified fan-fiction. Personally, I love fan-fiction (although ONLY when it's really well done) and I'd love it if more published authors wrote stories like this.

"Mr. Simonelli or The Fairy Widower"--I think this was my favourite. Simonelli was an interesting character, and I'd really like to know what happened to him after the events of this story. The introduction mentions his "extraordinary career", so I can hope that he went on to do many strange and adventurous things.

"Tom Brightwind or How the Fairy Bridge Was Built at Thoresby"--This was fascinating for the fact that this is the first time I can think of where a fairy is one of the "good guys". How did such a friendship between a fairy and a mortal possibly come about? Mostly how could Dr. Montefiore stand to be around Tom so much? This, like several of the other stories in this book, feels like there are fascinating back-stories and future events surrounding it. Susanna Clarke really needs to write more.

"Antickes and Frets"--A fairly short story about Mary Queen of Scots and her jealousy of Elizabeth. Slightly creepy and slightly sad, as much of Clarke's writing tends to be.

"John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner"--Amusing, and the illustration is gorgeous.

In general, this was worth buying, and is a good companion to JS&MR. It was interesting to see more female characters (as JS&MR was somewhat lacking in them), and the illustrations were beautiful. I can't wait till Clarke writes more--although considering it took her ten years to write JS&MR, I shouldn't get my hopes up.

Enthralled

edited by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong

Grade: 2 stars

Thoughts: I got this book because of Sarah Rees Brennan (of the Demon's Lexicon series), and hers was one of the only stories I actually really liked. Ok, there were a few more that were somewhat interesting. However, most of those were stories set in the worlds of the novels of those authors. And I'm not interested in those particular series of novels, no matter how interesting the short stories were.

However, Sarah Rees Brennan is almost always awesome, and as I mentioned, I quite liked the story "Let's Get This Undead Show on the Road". There were interesting characters, with growth and everything, and there was no weird Romance (which most of the rest had (especially Melissa Marr's story--boy, that was...uber Romantic)). Also, there was this exchange (which may be funnier in context, and if you happen to be Canadian, like me):

"The man came from an enemy nation," Faye told him.
Bradley hesitated. "Canada?"
"They're a rebellious people. All that ice hockey, it fires the blood. I required soldiers to bring them down."

I wasn't hoping for too much from this collection, since I already knew I wasn't a fan of some of these authors, and there were no awesome authors I already knew about, except for SRB. The book is subtitled "Paranormal Diversions", so I was hoping for at least a little more good stuff. Ah well.

Geektastic

ed. by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

Grade: 2 1/2 stars

Thoughts: All in all this was rather depressing. It started out mostly quite fun, with awesome references to things I love like Buffy and Doctor Who and The Lord of the Rings and Stargate and a myriad of other awesome things. And of course, tons of references to things I wish I knew about, but have not found the opportunity yet, like D&D and Farscape. But it seemed as though as the book went on, the stories got progressively more and more unpleasant. I'm supposing most geeks had a pretty awful  time in school, which I got to miss as I was homeschooled. But that doesn't give you an excuse for being downright cruel, as the girl in "The Truth About Dino Girl" by Barry Lyga, who completely destroyed another girl's life, or the boy in "Quiz Bowl Anitchrist" by David Levithan, who was constantly taunting another boy with nasty sarcastic comments. And many of of the stories contained, if not main characters that were cruel, at least situations that were highly unpleasant and disturbing, like "The King of the Pelinesse" by M. T. Anderson or "Secret Identity" by Kelly Link.
And somehow, I found these had a different feel than the more disturbing books that I sometimes like. You see, I like gritty stuff. I like realistic stories where bad stuff happens, and even stories with cruel people who destroy other people's lives--like "Evil Genius" by Catherine Jinks (although I'm not sure that book is exactly realistic...). But these stories were different. They seemed to be trying so hard to lift the geeks out of social disgrace, that they ended up embracing, along with the geek passion and uniqueness, the tendency towards revenge on people who were unkind to them and also many alternative lifestyles. While the stories I like, even if unpleasant or tragic or terrible, have some sort of view of the world as a Good place. I'm not sure how to describe it exactly. So there it is.

But among this there were a couple stories I actually liked. "One of Us" by Tracy Lynn was rather fun. "Definitional Chaos" by Scott Westerfeld wasn't awesome, but all the discussion about alignments was really interesting. (Although I definitely disagreed with the basic premise, which is that Neutral Good is boring and tepid. But I won't discuss that further as I could go on for quite a while about that.) I was somewhat disappointed in Garth Nix's story solely because I almost always adore him, and in this case, "The Quiet Knight" was really good, but not quite as memorable as I usually find him.

Anyway. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up: I had hugely high expectations for this book, considering it was all about geeky stuff, and featured authors such as John Green and Garth Nix. But the good stories were not nearly frequent enough to make up for the stories I disliked, of which there were many. And some of them were downright disturbing.
Thus: disappointment.

P.S. WHY did they keep calling Doctor Who "Dr. Who"??? Seriously? They're supposed to be geeks! They should know better!!!

Zombies vs. Unicorns

ed. by Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black

Grade: Good
Story: Short stories exploring the long-standing battle between zombies and unicorns. Which makes for more powerful stories? Which has more creativity and passion? Which is more AWESOME? Read to find out.


Review: Unicorns won. Sorry Larbalestier.
The unicorn stories were, in general:

• More fun.
• Equally as creepy without being simply gross and unpleasant.
• Less concerned with the type of romance which is not to my taste.
• Definitely as unique and original, and arguably more so. Lots of people do zombies nowadays.

"The Highest Justice" by Garth Nix
Garth Nix is so awesome that Team Unicorn won almost immediately simply from having him on their team. This one wasn't the best GN I've ever read, but it was still interesting and well done.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Meh. Didn't like this one. Didn't finish it. I find it very difficult to like love stories anyway, and this one wasn't good.

"Purity Test" by Naomi Novik
I seem to like Novik's short stories considerably more than her novels. She's good at unique dialogue and characters, which I find pretty essential for short stories, but I'm never quite interested in them enough to last through a whole book.

"Bougainvillea" by Carrie Ryan
Meh. The changes in time were simply confusing.

"A Thousand Flowers" by Margo Lanagan
Creepy, creepy. Bleh. It was fascinating, but rather horrible.

"The Children of the Revolution" by Maureen Johnson
This one was creepy, but in a good way. I think it might have been my favourite Zombie story. Unlike the two stories before it, it felt very contained and to the point, which I like in short stories.

"The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn" by Diana Peterfruend
This was lots of fun, though I can see inklings of some of the issues CH might have had with her longer novels.

"Ioculata" by Scott Westerfeld
This was ok--some interesting ideas.

"Princess Prettypants" by Meg Cabot
This one was simply Great Fun.

"Cold Hands" by Cassandra Clare
Probably my second favourite zombie story. Slightly creepy, but not overwhelmingly so, and a love story that was strange, but not too much for me (actually, I'm not even sure if it counts as a love story, exactly).

"The Third Virgin" by Kathleen Duey
Again slightly creepy, but I liked it. Quite a different take on unicorns than even all the other original takes in this book.

"Prom Night" by Libba Bray
I didn't really get this one. Maybe because I was trying to read it and listen to a fascinating conversation at the same time? At any rate, I didn't understand quite what happened, plus it seemed like a not quite as good version of Michael Grant's Gone series.

Stranger Things Happen

by Kelly D. Link

Grade: Unfinished
Read: Part way through the first story.

There was something in the first story that disturbed me. I was going to read through some of the rest anyway, but I ran out of time and energy, and it was overdue at the library.

The Dragon Book

ed. by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois

Grade: Good

"Dragon's Deep": I didn't really like it. People who I liked and thought were good turned out to be quite wicked. And there was a weird part that disturbed me.

"Vici": Naomi Novik is a good writer, I think. Her novels which I didn't finish were not left unfinished because they weren't good. I think they just weren't my type of book, and I didn't really like any of the characters. This was the same, except that I liked it much more because it was so short. I didn't have time to get tired of not liking the characters.

"Bob Choi's Last Job": Wow, I love Jonathan Stroud. This story could so easily be a splendid and wholly original novel, or series of novels. That is one great problem with short stories--they are so short. Sometimes it works perfectly, and you get something which is just clever and contained and awesome. But then you get stories like this. I really wished there was more of this. He is so good at creepy and strange and original.

"Are You Afflicted with Dragons?": Awesome, funny, and I loved the ending.

"The Tsar's Dragons": Meh. Not my favourite. Partly because none of the characters were at all likable.

"The Dragon of Direfell": I liked the twist on this one, even thought it wasn't totally unforeseeable. And I liked all the characters too. I would quite like a novel set in this world, hopefully with the return of Lord Cygne. Or the new Lady Porthlois. She was great.

"Oakland Dragon Blues": Really good, and somewhat meta, which I love. I have to check out Peter S. Beagle now.

"Humane Killer": I skipped this one. It seemed like most of the bad guys were Christians, and I didn't feel like having to go through that. Maybe I was wrong, but it didn't grab me right away anyway, so I thought I wouldn't bother.

"Stop!": Great and original, as Garth Nix always is.

"Ungentle Fire": I really liked this one, especially the imagery of the dragon made of web spanning the canyon.

"A Stark and Wormy Knight": I didn't love this one. It was supposed to be funny, I think, but I didn't find it so. Mostly just annoying.

"None So Blind": Good. I don't really have anything else to say.

"JoBoy": DWJ is always one of the most original and enjoyable story tellers in any collection, and this story was no exception. She always has such clever ways of tying her magic into the real world.

"Puz_le": I loved this one. It was strange and clever. Gregory Maguire's other books are like this too, from what I remember. But there were things that made me dislike his novels which couldn't really be present in a short story. (Somewhat similarly to the Naomi Novik story.) I wished it were a bit longer, though. I'm afraid I didn't quite understand completely what was going on. Who exactly was the bad guy here? Was it her mother or the dragon? Maybe there wasn't supposed to be a bad guy at all. I think I probably didn't understand it because I'm tired and was trying to finish this far too quickly.

"After the Third Kiss": There was a part on page 305 which says this:

                          'I think often on a passage the fat priest in the little chapel used to cite to us: "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons."

                          'I always hated those lines, thinking it deeply unfair that God would punish children for the actions of their parents. But now, finally, I think I understand. The verse does not speak of what God will do, but rather of how the world works. For when you do evil, when you create pain, at the same time you create an enemy. And not just one enemy; you make an enemy of all those who loved the one to whom you gave the pain.'

It reminds me of how M. H. described this concept to C. S. one Thursday evening. C. seemed to understand all of a sudden when M. described it this way. It still doesn't quite make sense to me, but that's ok.

This wasn't my favourite, but it turned out well in the end, and I liked that.

"The War That Winter Is": I didn't like the ending of this one. What about all the people being killed all the time? They're just left to die forever more?

"The Dragon's Tale": Well, it's Tamora Pierce. It's going to be well written and easy to read and amusing. I don't know how much being familiar with the world would have helped, but I certainly enjoyed it without being familiar with the characters like Daine and Numair.

"Dragon Storm": Good enough. I don't have much to say about this one either.

"The Dragaman's Bride": It was probably very good, but it didn't do much for me. It was too strange.

Well, all in all a good set. "Bob Choi's Last Job" was my favourite, but "Are You Afflicted with Dragons?", "The Dragon of Direfell", "Oakland Dragon Blues", "Ungentle Fire", "JoBoy", and "Puz_le" were also really great. And even the ones I didn't like so much were still pretty enjoyable and easy to read.

The Diary of Adam and Eve

by Mark Twain

Grade: All right

At first I thought the forward guy (John Updike) was speaking rubbish when he talked on and on about "[h]is quarrel with God" and all that. But actually, it does get a bit like that in "Eve Speaks". But it's an understandable emotion, at least, even if not accurate to the meaning of Genesis.

 "Passage from Eve's Autobiography (Year of the World 920)" is very strange indeed. I don't quite see its point.
"The Diary of Adam and Eve" is my favourite, and is quick and amusing without being irreverent.
The rest are ok, but not worth writing about at this time of night.

Troll's Eye View

ed. by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Grade: All right

Some of these stories were really clever, but all in all, I would have liked a little more substance to this book.

"Wizard's Apprentice" was good.
"An Unwelcome Guest" was a clever twist on Rapunzel. I think it was one of my favourites simply for the twist.
"Faery Tales" was an interesting poem.
"Rags and Riches" was not my favourite. I guess partly because the fairy tale it's based on (The Goose Girl) has never been my favourite. Also I didn't quite get it.
"Up the Down Beanstalk" was clever and amusing. One of my favourites.
"The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces" was all right. Not exactly a "Troll's Eye View" though.
"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" was creepy and clever and I loved it.
"Troll" was good enough.
"Castle Othello" was ok. I didn't love it. I wonder how much of that rascally pope stuff was accurate? Plus--polygamy?
"'Skin" was good enough.
"A Delicate Architecture" was strange and clever. I liked it a lot.
"Molly" was ok. She sure made me annoyed with Molly. I guess that was the point, but I think she succeeded a little too well.
"Observing the Formalities" was disappointing only in that it was Neil Gaiman, so I was hoping for a strange and clever short story, instead of a poem.
"The Cinderella Game" was also creepy and clever. Another of my favourites.

In fact, now that I go through all of them, I realize that I liked it better than I thought. "The Cinderella Game" and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" were both marvellously creepy. "A Delicate Architecture" and "An Unwelcome Guest" were both very clever. "Up the Down Beanstalk" and "A Wizard's Apprentice" were both  very good and amusing.

So that's 6 out of 12 stories. I guess it keeps it's label of "All right".

Lips Touch, Three Times

by Laini Taylor

Grade: Unfinished
Read: To page 27.

The illustrations are GORGEOUS!!!!! (By Jim Di Bartolo, by the way.)
I stopped because of the sexy boy love interest. Who, it turns out, was bad and evil and a goblin, I think. But I'd already stopped by that time. Plus, by the cover, you could guess there'd be a lot of kissing. So I don't mind to much that I stopped. But boy! were those pictures beautiful.