The Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan

Whoa, I've got a backlog building up :-p not as much spare energy as usual. But if I wait too long, everything's going to start running together, so here's a quick one:

This first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series is a fun romp--modernized Greek mythology given the Harry Potter treatment. Twelve year old Percy Jackson is a lovable misfit, transferred from one school to another because he chronically gets into trouble, only to discover that he's actually the son of a Greek god. He's whisked away to a special school for Olympian half-bloods, where he makes new friends, goes on crazy adventures and kills plenty of monsters.

I'll probably go into more detail about the series in later reviews, 'cause it's good enough to keep reading, and the beefs I have against it are pretty much balanced by the fun stuff.

Changing Planes by Ursula K. LeGuin

It usually takes me a little while to warm up to Ursula K. LeGuin's writing, but once I do it's always enjoyable. I'm entirely sure why, maybe it has something to do with her characters or her tone, but I remember that I made it through the first two books of the Earthsea sequence with somewhat lukewarm reception before the third book really caught my interest. It may be that she spends quite a bit of her stories building up to an emotional climax which feels empty and cold as it's developing, but totally remakes the story once you reach it. I dunno :-p I should read more of her stuff, I'm basing this off of about five of her novels. (Turns out I haven't actually finished Earthsea yet, I'd better get on that!)

But anyway, Changing Planes was my first encounter with her short stories, and they were amazing. I'd hate to give away the pun in the title with too much description, but what the book amounts to is a collection of world-building stories that blend scifi and fantasy. (And in the finest traditions of each, there's a healthy and amusing dose of social commentary in there too.) Each one is a window into a new civilization, new species, new world, all told in a clever travelogue style. Because of the structure, I didn't run into any of the emotional delay I've noticed in her other stuff, and overall it was a really fun book.

The Harsh Cry of the Heron by Lian Hearn

Finally finished! Its kind of sad when that's the first impression I have of finishing a series. But that's honestly about right. By the fifth book the beauty and novelty of the setting has begun to lose its effect, and as I discovered awhile ago, the story isn't particularly interesting and the characters tend heavily towards annoying.

Although I appreciate that Lian Hearn gives her Hero the full classical/archetypal treatment, I think I've realized why Takeo in particular is such an annoying character. He's basically a perfect 21st century man, with social, mental, and moral outlooks and attitudes that are extremely modern. He'd be a paragon of politically correct virtue in any book set in the 21st century, but is jarringly out of place in feudal Japan, even fantasy feudal 'not-really-Japan-at-all-we-promise'.

To be fair, his rather unique upbringing gives him good reason to hold views that do not match his time, but it just seems all too convenient and contrived. * shrug * Maybe that was the whole point of the book, and I'd be more forgiving if those coincidentally modern morals aligned more closely with my own. Any dissenting opinions are welcome :-p

Back?

Hi!

Okay, reeeeally long break there, I actually gave up on posting for awhile. :-p In between moving back to Texas, buying and moving into a new house, and adopting a pair of adorable dogs, I haven't had much time to angst over postings.

And that was the problem really :-p I'm thinking that I might just keep this blog as a record of what I'm reading, instead of trying to do in-depth reviews of everything, and taking forever to actually post.

So, here's my two latest reads:

The Wall and the Wing by Laura Ruby, read by Renée Raudman
A kid's book that I picked up because I found the audiobook for ridiculously cheap, along with a handful of the Narnia audiobooks. It takes place in an un-named city (*cough* New York *cough*) where people can . . . fly? Except for the main character, an orphan girl, who then discovers that she can turn herself invisible. Adventure ensues.

It's good fun, once you get past a big dose of weirdness and the narrator's over-the-top voices, but better for kids than for adults that just have fun with kid-lit, imho.

Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
I mostly tackled this one to earn another feather in my literary cap, and it turned out to be enjoyable, although a little slow from time to time. The edition (can't find the narrator, but it was Blackstone Audio) was quite good, it even cut out the two prose tales that were supposedly the most mind-numbingly boring of the whole lot.

I remember reviewing Canterbury Tales in junior high; we just learned about Chaucer, the basic premise of the work, and it's historical significance. I walked away with the impression that we didn't actually read any of the stories because they were a) too hard and b) too long. Turns out that it was actually because several of the tales were nowhere near suitable for a junior high class ^o^ Scandalous stuff!

That's all I've got for now, lets see if I can keep this up!

Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card

Gasp, I actually managed a post! I guess in the whole hubbub of the holidays I lost the rythm, and since we'll be moving back to Texas in about a month, I'll probably lose it again soon. So, no promises as to regular posting, but I'll try!

I first read this book about ten years ago, before I was an Orson Scott Card fan. At the time I was slightly uneasy with the book's apparent religion = bad, magic = good conflict and not quite sure where it was going in that vein, so I didn't go out of my way to pursue the series any further. Now that I'm a big fan of Card and more familiar with his personal philosophy, I'm not at all worried that it'll turn into something like His Dark Materials.

Overview
Seventh Son is the first book in the Alvin Maker series, which takes place in an alternate-universe colonial America. In this world a large number of colonists possess 'knacks' or minor magical skills that earned them heavy prosecution in a puritan England. These include everything from the inborn ability to dowse or start fires to a skillful use of hexes and charms. The time is roughly equivalent to 5-10 years after the Revolutionary War, and anyone with a basic knowledge of American history will run into plenty of vaugely familar names, places and events.

Into the mostly-untamed wilderness of the Susquehanna valley comes Alvin Miller, his pregnant wife and their thirteen, very-soon-to-be fourteen children. We learn that if the coming child is a boy he will not only be the family's fourteenth child, but the seventh son of a seventh son and destined to be a Maker (whatever that is).

I hope it's no spoiler to point out that he is indeed born, and throughout the rest of the book we learn more about this strange alternate world and watch young Alvin as he begins to discover his power, potential, and the great dangers that threaten him.

Recommended for: Fantasy fans of all ages.

Parental worries: One violent death and one very serious injury, along with the aforementioned religious tension (which is less based on theology and more on the personalities involved).

Audiobook comments: Read by a cast, with a different narrator for each character's point of view. The reading is beautiful, and it really helps set the tone for each character. My only complaint is that one character who hails from Scotland only picks up his accent when the point is actually brought up in the story.

Ramblings:
In the book's afterward, Card explains that his original motivation to write the story of Alvin Maker was jealousy of the rich tapestry of myth and legend that England and Europe have inherited over the centuries. In this series he attempts to build a similar backdrop for America, and with the obvious admission that no one man or one work could come close to rivaling centuries worth of legend and mythos, it's off to a pretty impressive start. He paints a vivid, exciting picture of early pioneer life and builds his alternate-history America in tantalizing bits and pieces. (or maybe it just seems that way without the maps that I'm assuming accompany the actual book)

There's something about the phrase "The sword that cut off George Washington's head" that sends a chill down the spine, and Card uses it to great effect. The twisted history has a haunting, bittersweet feeling--there are several changes that we could wish had been part of our real history, and several that we're glad never took place.

Card also has an amazing ability to bring characters to life, and since my early American history is slightly fuzzy, it felt like every other character I met could turn into someone straight out of a history book (either one of our history books or one belonging to the alternate world). Which I guess is another way of saying it manages to pull off the feel of an epic very well :-p

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett

Hm, I usually try to come up with a witty opening section, but I've been sitting on this review for far too long as it is :-p So without further ado, we have the next book in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

Overview
It's a busy time for the Watch, now that they've expanded from night duty to 'round-the-clock City Guard. One result of this is the opening of CSI: Ankh-Morpork. (Okay, so maybe the new forensics division consists of a single dwarf who managed to blow the Alchemist Guild sky-high one too many times, but it's a start) And it turns out that they need all the extra hands they can get, because someone is poisoning Vetinari and someone else is killing harmless old men. It looks like a golem is responsible for the murders, but these fantasy equivalents of robots aren't allowed to hurt people, so what's going on?

Recommended for: Everyone :-p It's not a bad place to start, if you're new to Discworld, but if you've got a choice, Guards! Guards! or Men at Arms might be better.

Parental Worries: Hmm, minor language and violence? I can't remember exactly, so probably not much. A bit of religious spoof, if that's your idea of a bad time.

Audiobook Comments: Read by Nigel Planer, who does a wonderful job as usual.

Ramblings
Three books into Discworld's Watch sequence, and various schemers in Ankh-Morpork are still trying to put a king on their ancient (and rotting) throne. Everyone seems to want a king, and if a willing candidate does not appear, they're ready to make one out of the commonest materials.

Since we've spent the last two books listening to why Vimes doesn't like kings (and you still get a bit of that, don't worry), it's interesting to finally get Carrot's side of things. Why hasn't he stepped up to claim his obvious birthright? (other than the threat of Vimes, that is) The most forthcoming answer is that the desire for power is completely against Carrot's character, a subconsious thing that ironically makes him even more suited to the throne. But assuming it's all subconsious does Carrot a bit of a disservice--as Angua points out in this book, you have to be very complex to appear as simple as Carrot. It's quite possible that he's been avoiding the crown for his own sanity; it appears that kingship tends to drive people mad, and just in case the idea hadn't occured to him before, this little adventure provides a very good demonstration.

An interesting point that I just discovered: According to The Annotated Pratchett, (which is an excellent guide to all the little historical, literary and popular references in the books) golems originated from Jewish legend, which is why they all have Yiddish names and speech patterns (at least in this book, I don't think that's kept up in the golem's later appearances).

Quotes!

"Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk [...]"--Carrot, quoting Vimes

"I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. I TURN UP ONLY ONCE."

"People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they´re standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don´t look quite like real science.(That is to say, the sort you can use to give something three extra legs and then blow it up) But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity."

"'Is It Frightening To Be Free?'
'You said it.'
'You Say To People "Throw Off Your Chains" And They Make New Chains For Themselves?'
'Seems to be a major human activity, yes.'"
- Dorfl the golem tries to understand human nature

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

I've got to admit, I still harbor a slight resentment against this series because so many people have compared it to Lord of the Rings, even though I stand by my statement that they're completely different animals. My resentment is only heightened by the fact that I couldn't help but immensely enjoy and admire this second installment of the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Overview
The Game of Thrones has come to and end, and now the land is in the midst of an all-out war. Four different kings struggle for dominance when the book opens, we pick up another as we go along, and that doesn't even include the exiled princess/queen who's roaming the far corners of the earth but eventually plans to make a comeback. There's two different ways I could summarize the plot: outline the different warring factions or trace the movements of the Stark family, which by this point is spread to all corners of the land. The Starks are the more interesting, charismatic group--but their comings and goings are also more convoluted, so it'd be simpler to stick with the kings.

First we have Prince Joffrey, who's the apparently legitimate heir, being the son of Queen Cersei. He's not only currently sitting on the Iron Throne, but his mother's family is the richest in the land. Problem is, he's not only a inbred bastard (literally), he's also a sociopathic monster. So the real legitimate heir is Stannis Baratheon, younger brother of Robert, the previous king. Stannis is fair and stern, but extremely bitter about perceived slights and so blinded by the righteousness of his claim that he's well on the way to losing both honor and sanity. Stannis has a powerful navy, but not much strength on land. Third is Renly, the youngest of the old king's brothers, who has no legitimate claim. But he's charismatic, a bit of a dandy and extremely popular, so he decided to elbow in on the fun. Renly probably has the largest force, but no-one in his camp is granted POV in the story, which means he's got no chance whatsoever. These first three are all clamoring for the Iron Throne, which rules over the Seven Kingdoms. King number 4 is our own Rob Stark, who has re-claimed his ancestor's title of King in the North. He's not technically fighting for the same prize as the others, but only trying to carve out a nice chunk that used to be independent way back when. The latecomer to the party is Balon Greyjoy, who staged a rebellion ten years ago and is giving it another try while everyone else is all confused and looking the other way. Balon's ace in the hole is his son Theon, who was a fosterling/hostage to the Stark family for a decade. Rob Stark trusts Theon as a brother, which turns out to be a big mistake since Theon is one disgusting piece of work and even more megalomaniacal than his father.

* Deep breath * get all that? There will be a quiz later--just be glad I didn't include the other three story lines.

Recommended for: Fans of fantasy, history or historical fiction, but start with the first book in the series: A Game of Thrones.

Parental Worries: Just as many as the last book >_< Brutal violence and lots of sex.

Audiobook Comments: Read by Roy Dotrice, who does an excellent job.

Ramblings (Spoiler Threat: Moderate)
Clash of Kings has more fantastic elements than the first book in the series, and it makes good use of them. But this isn't a series where the magic is a big selling point--the plot and characters carry it all.

I think I've finally figured out how I want the power struggle to turn out: Rob Stark gets to keep his family's old lands as King in the North, and Daenerys Targaryen (the exiled princess, daugher of a long line of kings whose father was overthrown by Robert Baratheon) will come back to claim her birthright but be content with the southern lands. That's not so much because I'm overly fond of Daenerys, but because at this point the other contestants for the throne have less to offer. Plus, Daenerys has dragons ^_^ Odds of this actually happening are extremely slim, but meh :-p at least I've got something to cheer for. My actual prediction is that John Snow (who is supposedly Ned Stark's bastard son and was raised as a full brother with all the other Starks), after defeating whatever ominous threat is looming in the far north, will discover his true birthright, which is really complicated but basically turns out with him being the best suited to take the throne and re-unite the land. Yay!

P.S. Okay, so I lied about the quiz :-p Or maybe, if you could follow that last paragraph at all, you passed the quiz.

A Review of Reviews

Since I seem to be varying from my standard format, I'll sneak in this post. I ran across a pair of Harry Potter reviews from earlier this year that address two opposing Catholic viewpoints of the books. Unsurprisingly, I completely agree with the positive essay by Paolo Gulisano, which talks about the book's emphasis of weakness over strength and the central theme of death and what lies beyond. I was somewhat startled, however, to find that although the final conclusion was flawed, the negative essay by Edoardo Rialti rose to meet the story on its own terms and made several good points along the way.

Ironically, both essays use Tolkien and Lewis as the epitome of excellent fantasy, but while Rialti claims that "There is no hero more antithetical to Harry Potter than Tolkien’s young man Frodo", Gulisano points out that Rowling's use of small (or sometimes very large) acts by unlikely characters is very reminiscent of Tolkien. Gulisano wins the point in that debate, I'd say. Harry was always meant to be more of an Aragorn than a Frodo anyway, both were laden with more destiny than they knew what to do with.

However, if we're going to pick at how Rowling falls short of the Tolkien ideal (not just LOTR, but Tolkien's definition of a transcendent story, see "On Fairy Stories"), I would say the real problem is that the magical world of Hogwarts and wizards was not far enough removed from the real world. The purpose of fantasy is not to frown upon real life, but to see the magic that is already there. Because we kept running into the Durselys and the likes of the muggle Prime Minister or the Riddles, anything muggle comes across as ridiculous or tedious, despite all the main characters' defense of the non-wizarding world.

This not-quite-separation is the real cause of what Rialti calls "a deep and serious lie, the . . . . temptation of joining salvation and the truth with a secret knowledge". It is not the magic itself that causes the problem, but its placement so close to the mundane world. In fact, the main problem I have with Rialti's essay is that he over-emphasizes the significance of magic in the overall theme of the story. He claims that the real heart of the story is witchcraft: "proposed as a positive ideal; violent manipulation of things and persons thanks to occult knowledge . . . . the ends justifies the means, since the wise, the chosen, the intellectual know how to control the dark powers and turn them into good". I found this claim to be interesting because Rialti is describing a real, tangible danger. Tolkien called it a "morbid illusion" and Lewis a "spiritual lust", but it basically boils down to the same thing--a desire for secret knowledge, for elevation above the masses that was once embodied by alchemy and sorcery, but can be built on anything from new-age spirituality to science or even selective faces of religion.

The fundamental problem here is that Harry's magic is not gained through occult knowledge or a pact with dark forces, it's simply a talent that certain people are born with. If you are not born a wizard, no amount of study or knowledge will change that, and even with no knowledge of magic whatsoever, it is possible to perform it. The inclusion of the non-magical world is a flaw that opens the door to the real danger that Rialti warns of, but not a fatal flaw because of the way it's handled throughout the story. In the world Rowling created, magic is a plot tool and a hook for the real story of love and self-giving that follows it.

I once knew a boy who really, truly thought that magic could give him power. He had a very difficult home life, was bullied or excluded at school, and thought that a circle of salt or the right words said at midnight on a full moon would give him the control and revenge that he so desperately wanted. In between other attempts to dissuade him, I tried to get him to read the Harry Potter books, thinking that the magic would interest him enough to pick up on the story's deeper, more valuable lessons--but he wasn't interested in the slightest. There was nothing he could use in those books, nothing that fed his desire for secret knowledge and power. Any time someone mentions how dangerous the Harry Potter books are, I think of him, and how much good it might have done him to read them.

Grass for His Pillow by Lian Hearn

I finally decided that it was time to pick up Tales of the Otori again--time to grow up and get over my disappointment from the last book I'd read. Grass for His Pillow turned out to be less intense than the first two books, with no major surprises or twists. There's still a fair amount of action, tragedy, etc, but this volume is suffering from the 'middle of a trilogy' effect. (despite the fact that there's five books in the series :-p)

Overview (Spoiler Threat: Moderate)
It's hard to give a summary of the middle book without giving away some of the earlier books, so if you care about spoilers, it's probably a good idea to skip this whole review and just check out the review for Heaven's Net is Wide.

When we left off, Evil Overlord was dead and Beautiful Not-a-Maiden-Anymore was left heartbroken because Lonely Emo Hero had to go pursue his destiny.

Okay, that's an unfair simplification, but only kind of. Luckily, Takeo quickly regrets his decision to join the Tribe, sticking around just long enough to learn a few more crazy ninja skills. Unluckily, this poor kid has a triple helping of destiny, so he's still got to restore the Otori clan and save the Hidden (or do something for the Hidden, it's not quite clear). Meanwhile, Kaede picks up some character development as she works to hold onto her father's lands and claim the much large domain she inherited from her aunt. (confused yet? yeah, I don't know if it's a good idea to review individual books that fall in the middle of a series)

Recommended for: Fantasy fans and anime fans, but only if you've read the first two books, don't start here.

Parental Worries: Less sex and violence than the first books, but there's still a fair amount of both.

Audiobook Comments: Read by Kevin Gray and Aiko Nakasone, who do a very good job.

Ramblings (Spoiler Threat: Low)
I feel like a bit of a hypocrite, because I complained so much about the plot twists in Across the Nightingale Floor, and now that we have a nice calm book that's basically all exposition, I'm criticizing that too. In fact it was so calm, and things were going so well for the heroes, that when I looked down to discover there were only 30 minutes left in the book, my automatic thought was 'Okay, just enough time for the shit to hit the fan and leave us hanging for the next book'. But no, we sailed smoothly through the last 30 minutes. We're promised shit hitting the fan as soon as the next story starts, but that's in the future. (and I am learning not to trust Hearn's promises, anyway) The ending of this book is actually quite happy ^_^ I approve.

All in all though, I've got to admit that I'm not really reading these books for their plot or their characters. Both are interesting and likeable, but frustrating and occasionally annoying at the same time. I'm really reading these books for the beautiful setting that Hearn paints, the oriental aesthetic that pervades the entire series. For authenticity, I'd be better off reading the ancient Chinese and Japanese classics, but the Tales of the Otori are much more accessible (in several different senses of the word) and it's not like I'm cultured enough to know the difference ^_~

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

Men at Arms was the first Discworld book I read that actually belonged to a continuing character arc, so I've always considered it to be a flagship of the series. It's not a bad place to start, either, since several new characters are introduced and the old ones are expanded upon, but there's not so much backstory that the reader gets lost. It's an excellent book, both on its own and as part of the series.

Overview
Affirmative action has come to Ankh-Morpork, but because this is Discworld, the Watch's new minority hires consist of a dwarf, a troll, and a . . . well, women aren't technically a minority, but everyone assumes that's the group Lance-Corporal Angua is representing. Captain Vimes is not thrilled with the new arrangement, but since he will shortly be married and retired, he figures it's not his problem.

Meanwhile, the young assassin Edward d'Eath, outraged at his family's fall into poverty and obscurity and increasingly obsessed with ancient royalty, thinks he has discovered the long-lost heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork and plots to put him back in his rightful place. A half-crazed assassin shouldn't have been too much trouble, but Edward manages to get his hands on a strange new weapon that gives him incredible power--the gonne. In a world where the crossbow is the height of weapons technology, even a single firearm can cause quite a bit of trouble, especially since this one seems to have a mind of its own.

Other topics on the table for your enjoyment include clowns, dogs, monarchy, the properties of springs and the superconductivity of silicon. They all fit together, I promise.

Recommended for: Everyone. You don't have a good enough excuse not to.

Parental Worries: As before, these books are written for adults, but the target audience mostly comes through in the jokes. Unlike most Discworld books, there is some sex, but never actually 'on screen' as it were. You can figure out what happens, but they don't spell out any details.

Audiobooks: Read by the amazing Nigel Planer, who takes the already colorful characters into a whole new dimension.

Ramblings (Spoiler Threat: Low)
One of the reasons I'm particularly fond of this book is that Carrot and Vimes are both over the growing pains from their first novel. Carrot is no longer the green kid that arrested the leader of the Thieves Guild--he's solid gold, and so is everything he touches from here on out. It would be annoying, if he didn't make up for it by being embarrassingly earnest and completely hopeless at anything involving subterfuge. Vimes is . . . well, I can't say he's entirely reformed his ways, 'cause that's half his charm, but he's definitely benefited from having Sybil to look after him, and this book is where he really starts moving up in the world. (kicking and screaming all the way, but moving up nonetheless ^_~ )

I can't decide what Pratchett is trying to say (if anything) about gun control in general, because the circumstances in the story don't really apply to anything in the real world today. (One gun in the world vs. a world full of guns) He makes a couple of points that seem to be ridiculing bits of gun rights activism, but Pratchett is too smart to suggest that all guns should be illegal, he actually makes a point in another book about the stupidity of outlawing all weapons, so that only criminals are armed. I doubt it's even an issue in Britain, so the gonne may just be a convenient plot device, and not a social commentary :-p

Quotes Time!

"'There's stranger people in this world than Corporal Nobbs, my lad.'
Carrot's expression slid into a rictus of intrigued horror.
'Gosh.'"

"There were such things as Dwarf gods (...) they'd seen the need for gods as a sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, 'Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-coninuum!' or 'Aaargh, primitive-and-out-moded-concept on a crutch!'"

"Dwarfs are very attached to gold. Any highwayman demanding ‘Your money or your life’ had better bring a folding chair and packed lunch and a book to read while the debate goes on."

"But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."
--Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness.

"‘Coalface? In the Watch?’
Dink. ‘Corporal Carrot says there’s some good buried somewhere in everyone,’ said Detritus.
‘And what’s your job, Detritus?’
Dink. ‘Engineer in charge of deep mining operations, sah!’"

"Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness."

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

I'd heard quite a bit about the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin before I actually steeled myself to read it, and what I'd heard justified the use of the word 'steeled'. 'Wonderful story!' they said 'epic and complex, with such real characters! But very dark, lots of violence and sex, very gritty!' (I like that word, gritty, for these novels--think Frank Miller does fantasy)

Overview
Surprisingly enough, they were right. I went into the book expecting to dislike it, because it was obviously setting itself up as Lord of the Rings all grown up. (Seriously, look at the author's name! Even if your middle initials are actually 'R.R.', it still screams "I'm just like Tolkien, see my epic fantasy skillz!") And any story that employs graphic sex and violence to get its point across must be lacking in basic narrative, right? But to my mild surprise, it didn't take long to get so deeply wrapped up in the story that I didn't mind the dark bits. Actually, my expectations of darkness and death led to a couple of nice surprises when characters survived after I'd written them off as dead.

Anyway, on to the summary: Due to some magical mishap back in the mists of time, the natural course of the seasons has slowed, leading to summers and winters that last anywhere from two to ten years. Currently, the land is experiencing a summer that has lasted a decade, but it is coming to an end, and a long summer always means a long winter to follow. Into this setting of approaching doom, we follow (mostly) the Stark family, an ancient line that has always lived at the northernmost tip of civilization, first and last to face the long winters. Currently, the family consists of Ned Stark, his wife Catelyn and their 5 children, plus a bastard son who is only occasionally treated as anything but fully legitimate. The children are fairly young, ranging from 15 to 3, and part of the book's darkness is that these children are major players in its terrible events.

Ned Stark is fully content to stay in his ancestral home and prepare his family and lands for the coming winter, but a summons from the King to serve him at court tears Ned away from his life of peace, entangling him in the dangerous game of thrones, where you either win, or you die.

Recommended for: Fantasy fans ready for a commitment, and historical fiction fans willing to try something new.

Parental Worries: Gosh, where do I start? Incest, statutory rape, disembowelings, demonic forces, on and on. If you made a list of the things you don't want your kids reading about, you'd probably find 95% of them in this book and (I would assume) its sequels.

Audiobook Comments: Read by Roy Dotrice, who does a very good job. Thinking back on the book, I was under the impression that they had a female reader to do the female POVs, which is both a strong compliment to his skills and a sign that I'm still channeling Tales of the Otori.

Ramblings (Spoiler Threat: Low)
I have to grimace at that summary, because I'm pretty sure several lines of it are ripped straight from the back of the book. Unfortunately, it'd be really hard to summarize it any other way in less than 3 pages. I could go into the many different warring factions, the reasons for the throne's instability in the first place, and the completely separate but sinister albino Morgul-wraiths sweeping down from the winterlands, but really, at that point it's just easier to read the book. I will say though, that Thrones keeps up with its complex plot very well. Its many branches threaten to overwhelm the reader from time to time, but it manages to keep us afloat.

Martin has created a lush, beautiful world complete with history and at least a basic mythology (although he's got at least three more books to build with, there's plenty of room to expand both). He escapes many fantasy cliches by making everyone human, and in fact this first installment reads more like historical fiction than fantasy, with only a few fantastic bits, mostly at the beginning and end of the book.

One of the things I find frustrating about Thrones is that in the end, there is no clear 'evil' side. That's going to be a plus for many readers, but although I have no problem with complex characters and sympathetic antagonists, I do like to at least have a side to cheer for. I honestly liked at least one member of, and occasionally hoped for the success of, each of the three major factions in the game of thrones. Each side has its villians and champions. Nothing is clear cut, all exists as shades of gray. The balance and internal conflict it creates speaks of great skill on the author's part, but what it gains in interest and impressiveness, it loses in pure, deep-seated satisfaction. So overall, the series is promising and impressive, but anyone who considers Martin to be Tolkien's successor has been reading the wrong genre.

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

I guess it’s about time I started reviewing Terry Pratchett books on here, least any Discworld fans lured in by the blog’s title accuse me of false advertising. Not that I need an excuse to re-read any of them for the fifth or six time, I’d do it eventually anyway ^_^

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett is a series of fantasy comedy/satire--Douglas Adams meets Tolkien, Mark Twain with a more whimsical twist, Monty Python in novel form. They're not only hilarious and fun, but full of little truths and big truths that make you stop and think.

Discworld books tend to follow several different sets of characters; the most closely followed are the wizarding faculty of Unseen University, a trio of witches in the small mountain kingdom of Lancre, and the city watch of Ankh-Morpork, Discworld's largest city. Several minor sets of characters also feature in multiple books, and a few books stand alone, with no more than cameo appearances by the more well-known faces. It's basically huge jumbled mess, and that's part of the charm.

Guards! Guards! is the first book in the Watch sequence, and a very good place to start if you're new to Discworld. (I would, in fact, not recommend starting with the earliest published books: The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic, and Equal Rites. They're still very good books, but not Pratchett's best, and Discworld's fractured character lines mean that you aren't missing anything)

Overview
It's very hard to summarize a Discworld book; the bits I really want to talk about aren't necessarily related to the main plot. That's because plot is only a small measure of what a Discworld book is actually about. The plot of Guards! Guards! is that a giant dragon is terrorizing the city, and since the ruling tyrant has no daughter or half-kingdom to offer as a reward for killing it, it's up to Ankh-Morpork's Night Watch to save the day. Unfortunately, Ankh-Morpork's Finest are a pack of dysfunctional misfits, and that's also what it's about: underdogs, whether they be down-on-their-luck policemen or evolutionarily challenged swamp dragons (smaller cousins of the one terrorizing the city). And to top it all off, Pratchett manages to fit in a general grab bag of satire and irony along the way. (kings and magical swords, proper dungeon upkeep, and the mysterious workings of statistics all come to mind)

Recommended for: Anyone and everyone.

Parental worries: The books are written for an adult audience, so there might be a few jokes that fly over younglings' heads, but there's not much to actually educate in those areas. (okay, make that a lot of jokes, including a city Guild of Seamstresses who aren't very good with needlework, if you know what I mean) Also some mild language, if memory serves me correctly.

Audiobook comments: Read by Nigel Planer, who does a truly wonderful job. The colorful characters of Discworld require some real vocal acrobatics, and he's spot on for all of them.

Ramblings (Spoiler Threat: Low)
The Watch is my favorite set of Discworld characters, so here's a quick run-down on them:

First of all, there's Captain Sam Vimes, who we first come across lying drunk in a gutter, mumbling about his love/hate relationship with the city. Vimes develops into one of the coolest, most bad-ass characters in Discworld and probably all fiction, so don't let this unpreposessing introduction fool you. He's a copper's copper, with a scorching disdain for the upper classes and no illusions about the lower ones.

Next up is Carrot Ironfoundersson, who was informed by his parents at the tender age of 18ish (and height of 6 feet) that he was not, as he had always assumed, a dwarf. Turns out he's a human who had been adopted by dwarves and raised in a mine. The fact that he had to be informed of this tells you quite a bit about Carrot. His family decides that he needs to be near his own kind, so they arrange for him to join the Ankh-Morpork Night Watch. Before he leaves, however, his father gives him a sword that was found not too far from the spot where they'd discovered the infant Carrot. So, we've got a young man, born in mysterious circumstances, heading off to the big city to seek his fortune, carrying an ancient sword. Oh, and he has a birthmark shaped like a crown. I'll let you do the math.

Next up in the ranks is Sergeant Fred Colon, who is "one of nature's sergeants". Fred is the Watch's Everyman, in a way that Vimes and (especially) Carrot fall a bit short of. He's also great comic relief, particularly when paired up with Nobby Nobbs.

Years ago, Corporal Nobbs was Ankh-Morpork's Artful Dodger, but now he's all grown up and learned that he can get away with multiple minor malfeaseances much easier from the enforcement side of things. He's still a cheeky, lovable urchin on many levels, but it's slightly less cute from an adult. And by slightly less cute, I mean that Nobby is the only person in Ankh-Morpork with a certificate signed by the Patrician affirming that he is indeed a member of the human race. Otherwise, there might be (and still is, occasionally) some confusion.

One of the coolest things about the Discworld books is that at some point, all the humor and slapstick fall away, and what you're left with is a wonderful story, with a beautifully cinematic climax. That's what sets Discworld above and beyond Douglas Adams, Monte Python and the rest of the comedy and satire world. Pratchett not only knows how to make us laugh, he's also mastered true narrative--he can make us feel, and make us think.

And here's the part where I get to put in some of my favorite quotes from the book ^_^ Have fun!

"People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh.Sorry. I thought you were someone else." --Carrot's voyage to Ankh-Morpork

"It's a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn't bad enough, it's also a bloody great hot flying thing."--Vimes

"Never trust a ruler who puts his faith in tunnels and bunkers and escape routes. The chances are that his heart isn't in the job."--Vetinari (Patrician of Ankh-Morpork)

"There was a thoughtful pause in the conversation as the assembled Brethren mentally divided the universe into the deserving and the undeserving, and put themselves on the appropriate side."-- The Elucidated Brethren see the light

Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn

After finishing Heaven's Net is Wide, I couldn't wait to get started on the next book in the series. I was in for a bit of a shock, however. While Heaven's Net left me with a warm fuzzy feeling of hope and a foreshadowing of vindication and justice delivered, Nightingale left me absolutely furious with a bad taste in my mouth. Most of my rage came from betrayal that 80% of the promised justice and vindication never showed up, and the bad taste came from the 20% that did. Don't get me wrong, Nightingale is still a good book. (the fact that I became so emotionally involved is a testament to the author's skill) I'll finish the series eventually, but my enthusiasm is significantly dimmed.

Another difference between the two is that unlike the first book, which is told in third person from various points of view, this one is alternately in first person and third person. The main character Takeo is the only one who has the privilege of narrating for himself, anyone else whose viewpoint is required for the story has to make do with third person. It's an unusual structure, but it works.

Note: For an intro to this series, read the first half of my Heaven's Net is Wide review

Overview
The book opens with a description of Tomasu's childhood in the village of the Hidden (a Christian sect). It's an idyllic life, although the young Tomasu is slightly restless, with the age old 'I'm-bigger-than-this-town' syndrome. As we find out later, Tomasu’s case is justified—he is descended from a secretive race known only as the Tribe, who possess semi-magical powers. This is quickly and brutally cured when the evil warlord Iida Sadamu, who has a particular vendetta against the Hidden, shows up and murders everyone he can get his hands on. Fortunately, he can't get his hands on Tomasu, who flees the villiage with soldiers close on his heels. This is the point where the first book ended, and the fleeing boy meets Otori Shigeru, who saves him from the soldiers, takes him under his wing, and renames him ‘Takeo’ to hide his Hidden origins. The story continues with Takeo’s adoption into the Otori clan, the development of his Tribe skills, and his training in the arts of the warrior and the assassin. (or samurai and ninja, if you prefer the Japanese names, although they are very pointedly avoided in the book) As time goes on, Takeo realizes that his encounter with Shigeru was no accident, and that he had specifically been chosen and trained to be the assassin of Iida Sadamu: the most evil, powerful, and paranoid man in the Three Countries.

Recommended for: Anyone who’s read the first book, or fans of fantasy and anime

Parental worries: Not for the kiddies: sex, violence, attempted rape, all that jazz. (and some hints at bisexuality, if that bugs you)

Audiobook Comments: Read by Kevin Gray and Aiko Nakasone, not the same readers as Heaven’s Net, but still the same format: male narrator for male POV and vice versa. The names of people and places are also pronounced slightly different for these two readers, with more accurate Japanese accents.

Ramblings (Spoiler Threat: Low)
I'm trying to decide whether my decision to read the prequel before the original was a good one, and I'm leaning toward yes, because there is so much in Nightingale that would have really come out of left field without the backstory from Heaven's Net. I guess I lost the joy of discovering the world of the Otori at the same time as Takeo, but it was as much fun (if not more) to watch him discover what was already familiar to me. Also, Shigeru is a very enigmatic character in Nightingale; I probably would have become completely fed up and slightly disgusted with him if I hadn't known his history. (i.e, why he was willing to adopt a stranger for the express purpose of training him as an assassin--shaping and forging the boy as a weapon against some random bad guy) I’ve also thumbed through some of the Amazon reviews for Nightingale, and it sounds like the lack of explanation ranks pretty high as a complaint among the bad reviews.

On the other hand, reading the prequel first meant that my focus was off--since the first book involved Shigeru suffering horrific tragedy and insult at the hands of Sadamu and his uncles, all I really wanted was to see was Shigeru claim his revenge against them all and take his place as the rightful ruler of the Otori. That's what I felt was promised throughout the first book and most of the second. That is not at all what happened. While the ensuing disappointment would only be enough to whet the interest and compassion of someone not acquainted with Heaven's Net, to me it was a complete and utter failure of the whole affair. Never mind that in the wider scheme of things, Takeo is the center and Shigeru's tragedy is only meant to give Takeo's life direction, to spur him on to a greater destiny. I think that’s a failure in the story arrangement: if you haven’t read the (admittedly very good) backstory, then you don’t understand enough, but if you have read the backstory you get hung out to dry.

The second largest problem I have with this series so far is that Hearn simply cannot write romance. When she tries, the result is either creepy (for the pairings that aren’t your ‘made in heaven, lasting for all eternity’ variety) or painfully clichéd and overdone (the love at first sight, ‘we must have been lovers in other lives’ variety). I can understand that the plot doesn’t leave too much room for romance, but there’s got to be a better way of fitting it in.

Extra Rant (Spoiler threat: Very High)
That's right, this rant gets a section all to itself (for easy skipping, ‘cause it probably won’t make sense unless you’ve actually read the book):

Screw Muto Kenji and the horse he rode in on! It's not enough that the Tribe killed Takeo's real father, Kenji had to be the star player in the death of Takeo's adopted father as well. I cannot remember the last time I was this pissed off at a character, and it's kind of sad that I can get so angry at someone who doesn't exist. It's not that he's an evil character, that's the problem. If he was a traditionally evil character, with no knowledge or care of right and wrong, then his betrayal would be more understandable. But Kenji has a fair amount of good in him--we can see it in his affection for Shigeru, Takeo and various members of his family. The problem is that he's so dedicated to his #$%@#! Tribe that he's willing to throw away every last one of them for its benefit. Not a noble sacrifice, bravely endured for the greater good, but the betrayal of trust and friendship simply because the Tribe wanted to keep a monster in power (more money for them). And then he has the gall, the gall to ask Shigeru for forgiveness. Shigeru, who had been stripped of his rank, labeled a traitor and crucified on the castle walls. And the thing is, Shigeru might have given it to him, if not for the fact that Kenji's betrayal had also resulted in the death of Lady Maruyama and her unborn child. It doesn't really matter that it was Sadamu's hand behind all the killings, at that point Sadamu had become a force of nature—doing the most harm, the most evil, wherever he could. And Kenji knowingly unleashed that force onto the only man he had ever considered a friend. I can think of no fate horrible enough for such a man.

The Princess and Curdie by George Macdonald

When I first discovered that the sequel to The Princess and the Goblin was called The Princess and Curdie, I half-hoped that it would take place at least 5 years after the first book and involve a romance between the title characters. I was disappointed, however, when the first chapter of P&C placed it only a year after P&G. Oh well, I should have known better :-p In retrospect, it's hard to imagine MacDonald switching genres on this set of characters, especially since the theme of childhood is so important to both stories.

Overview
The title of this story is slightly ambiguous, because there are actually two princesses involved--the young princess Irene who left for her father's court at the end of the last book, and her great-great grandmother, also named Irene, who is fondly referred to as "the old Princess" by Curdie and his family. For at least the first half of the book, it seems that the old princess is actually the title character, for Irene the younger does not make her appearance for quite awhile. The first half of the story focuses on Curdie, who has settled down to life as a miner after turning down the King's offer to join him at court in the first book. The old Princess, however, has other plans. She sends Curdie off on a mysterious quest, with one of the goblins' monster-animals for company. This strange beast, named Lina, at first disgusts Curdie, but eventually manages to earn his love and loyalty.

Upon reaching the capital of the kingdom, Curdie discovers that the inhabitants of the city are not only unwelcoming, but dishonest and outright hostile. After a little more digging, he finds that the King is suffering from a mysterious illness, and the country is completely under the control of his cabinet, all of whom are less than savory characters. Curdie joins forces with the young Princess Irene, and with a little help from Lina and the old Princess, they save the day.

Recommended for: Anyone who liked the first book.

Parental Worries: Still a children's book, but P&C is a little darker than the first one. Some of the judgements handed out to evildoers are a bit harsh, and the sheer number of bad characters is a somewhat depressing.

Audiobook Comments: Read by Ian Whitcomb, who also read P&G. Its nice to have all the old voices back, it's really weird when they switch between books.

Ramblings
Overall, I'd say this book isn't as good as its predecessor, but still very good. The darkness that sets it apart from the first book is not quite the same as the darkness that slowly grows with, say, each Harry Potter book. There's almost two different conflicts--one between Curdie and the King's evil ministers, and one between the King and his people. The first half of the story belongs to Curdie, and it is excellent, possibly even better than the first book, both in terms of adventure and in its allegorical messages.

However, once the kingdom is reached and the king is returned to his rightful position, things get strange. I can appreciate on one level that the people without their king symbolize the people who have turned away from God, but on another level it's not only depressing but downright insulting to the people to suggest that one year without a good, strong human ruler is enough to turn every one of them into little better than beasts. Of course, we have no idea what they were like when the king was in control, but the assumption is that the good king would not have allowed such bad behavior in his subjects. This conflict between the king and his people reaches the point where they welcome an invading power into the land, and when the king marches to battle with a ridiculously small force, the people actually fight on the side of the invader! Well, obviously the good guys win, and the traitors are either wounded or killed. Again, we get the two levels of meaning here: there's the allegory of a people turning against their God and the necessity of a harsh rebuke to save them from an even worse fate, but in a political, worldly view, the thought of a good king taking arms against his evil subjects and vice versa is just . . . wrong. And then to top it all off, the story only has a temporarily happy ending. The ultimate ending, in an attempt to explain why the kingdom does not appear in history, is completely bleak, with no last note of hope. Definetly a case of allegory gone wrong.

Heaven's Net is Wide by Lian Hearn

Most fantasy novels are deeply entrenched in western culture; if they have oriental elements it's usually a transplant to introduce something new, exciting and/or mysterious. These transplants are more than likely half-assed and never manage to do real justice to eastern traditions or history. In much the same way, most anime and manga that take place in a western setting are similarly inauthentic. Its like putting my blonde and blue-eyed self in a kimono, or a Japanese lady in an Elizabethan gown--the juxtaposition is interesting and a refreshing change, but nobody's fooled.

With these thoughts in mind, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across a fantasy series called "Tales of the Otori" which takes place in feudal Japan. (well, not really Japan in the same way that most fantasy novels aren't technically in England or Europe, but you get the idea) The author is a westerner (Hearn was born in Britain and currently lives in Australia) but she's studied Japanese history and culture extensively, and it shows in her writing. Heaven's Net is Wide is a wonderful read, not just because of its story and characters, but also because of the beauty of their world, which Hearn describes in loving and convincing detail.

Overview (Spoiler Threat: Low)
Heaven's Net is Wide is the prequel to the series, (the first book, Across the Nightingale Floor, was published five years earlier in 2002) so I might be missing a few important points in reading it first, but I've always preferred to read books by their own chronological order when possible, not necessarily by their date of publication.

The book opens with a murder: Kikuta Isamu, who had abandoned his old life as an assassin to start anew, is found by his cousin, Kikuta Kotaro, and knows that his life is at an end. However, he has taken a vow to never kill again, and can only lead his assassin as far as possible from his village, young wife and unborn son before calmly accepting death. This opening chapter introduces us to two of the three driving forces of the series. The first is the mysterious Tribe, the group of assassins and spies that Isamu had tried to leave behind. No Japanese adventure tale is complete without ninjas, and although the term is never used, that's the Tribe in a nutshell. The second group, only hinted at here but expanded upon later in the book, is the Tribe's antithesis--the Hidden, a Christian cult whose members practice their religion in secret. This was a big hook for me, not only because I have a fondness for my own creed but also because of the historical basis behind this apparently artificial insertion. The first Westerners to reach Japan brought along Catholic missionaries, and the new faith first flourished then survived, even in the face of heavy persecution after Japan secluded itself from the West.

After this enigmatic (although extremely important) opening chapter, the book follows the life of Otori Shigeru, heir to the ancient and powerful Otori clan (driving force #3). Shigeru starts out as a 12 year old boy and we watch as he is fostered and forged into a tragic hero of epic proportions (although significantly more likable than most other tragic heroes I can think of). The title 'tragic hero' may be a bit of a spoiler, but this is the prequel, after all--it's obvious that Shigeru will be a powerful driving force in the later series, but he is not the main character. Quite a bit of the book is also spent filling out the political and cultural background of the land, setting the stage (or rather, filling in the background) for later developments. The book ends with Shigeru finding and adopting Isamu's son, now a boy of 16. The boy, originally named Tomasu and renamed Takeo, is obviously the true star of the series--tied to all three groups: Hidden, Otori and Tribe. Poor kid. And here's the danger of reading the books in the wrong order ^_^ Now I'm more emotionally invested in a secondary character, and we'll have to see if Takeo can earn his rightful place.

Recommended for: Fantasy and anime fans

Parental Worries: Lots of sex. Nothing too explicit, but there's no shyness about the topic, and it's quite central to the plot.

Audiobook comments: Read by J. Paul Boehmer and Julia Fletcher, depending on whether a woman or man is narrating a particular chapter. It's a nice effect.

Ramblings (Spoiler Threat: High)
For all the high points of this book, its got definite issues as well. I started out with the assumption that Lian Hearn was a man, and only recently discovered that I was wrong. This assumption was strengthened as I read because I thought that only a man could write female characters and romance as abysmally as they were handled in this book. For example, our first major female character is a courtesan named Akane. She's not a courtesan when we first meet her, she's an anonymous girl who helps Shigeru save his brother from drowning and then haunts his adolescent dreams for years. Oooo, a mysterious beauty, very nice. What really gets me though, is how Akane falls into her line of work. She's the daughter of an eccentric but extremely talented mason, and his reputation combined with her own 'independent spirit' mean that none of the women in the village want her to marry their sons. The mothers don't like her, so she'll have to be a prostitute. That's how it's presented in the book, just a matter of fact cause and effect. I had to stop for a minute at that. Really? Is this society so restrictive and structured that there's no other way? She can't find a man who doesn't have a mother, or isn't completely under her control? She can't learn a trade of some kind, become a healer, work as a servant, anything? She's a beautiful, intelligent, resourceful woman, and the first alternative she turns to is prostitution? Please.

To be fair, the type of prostitution she comes to practice falls under the geisha tradition, and because she selects a well-run house, her virginity is guarded longer and more jealously than any other girls of the time could expect (there's a large price tag on it, after all). Even so, the setup of Akane as a 'happy prostitute' turned my stomach. And it gets worse from there. She eventually becomes exclusively Shigeru's mistress, and because both of them have for different reasons sworn to never fall in love, there is much silly going-on about how they are 'so dangerously close to the edge' (of falling in love, which is obviously a horrible fate). Bah. She becomes obsessively jealous of Shigeru's wife (from an arranged marriage) and does her best to poison the marriage and any chance Shigeru has of producing a legitimate heir. Circumstances being what they were, I can't really blame her for that, but there's this looming sense of doom that begins to emanate from Akane. I couldn't help but think that she was going to innocently and stupidly destroy everything Shigeru stood for, and by the time she dies in the throes of madness, all I could do was breathe a sigh of relief that her course of destruction had come to an end.

Shigeru's wife Moe turns out to be Akane's polar opposite, and although I never really got the sense of oncoming doom from her that I did from Akane, she's still a very poisonous character. Like Akane, she's trapped by circumstances, and like Akane, she makes them even worse, to the point where her death is a relief to the reader.

Now, to be fair I think the first two female characters are meant to be awful, but even Shigeru's main love interest isn't particularly impressive, imho. She's supposed to be this powerful ruler in her own right, strong and independent. Predictably, therefore, she goes completely goey when the hero shows up. That's all well and good, but in the meantime we never actually see her political prowess and independent spirit at work, we just have to take everyone's word for it. We do see quite a bit of her strength as a woman; she's really remarkable just for that, but since her character is sold so strongly as transcending the traditional role of a woman, it would have been nice to see more than one side of her. Oh well :-p Maybe I'm a bit too hard on Lady Maruyama.

This is not to say that all the female characters in the book are horrible. There's several minor characters that I have no objection to (mostly because, as minor characters, there's not enough for me to object to :-p ) But there's also Muto Shizuka, a woman of the Tribe who eventually realizes the depths they are willing to sink to, and transfers her loyalty to Shigeru. Shizuka is an interesting character, walking a tightrope of loyalties and deception without coming off as fake or insincere in any of them. It'll be interesting to see what happens to her.

There's probably a few more things I could ramble about, I haven't given nearly enough time or attention to Shigeru himself, for one thing, but this post is getting really long. Suffice it to say that Heaven's Net is Wide is an interesting, delightful book, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper

Overview
The Dark is Rising sequence is a fantasy children's series set in modern-day England. The forces of Light and Dark are preparing for their final battle, and the fate of the world rests in the hands of a few schoolchildren. It's not a particularly original premise, but it's well-handled and quite fun. The series evokes Britain's ancient history throughout and eventually draws heavily on Arthurian legend. I really enjoyed re-reading the series recently, and I only have two complaints to make, which I'll get to in a bit. This series is a classic though, a must-read for all kids and any adults who missed it the first time around.

The books of the sequence are:
Over Sea, Under Stone
The Dark is Rising
Greenwitch
The Grey King
Silver on the Tree

The first two books actually concern two different sets of characters that do not meet until the later books, so you can read them in any order. The others should be read in order though, they tie together in an increasingly complex plot and you don't want to miss any of it.

Recommended for: Kids and kids at heart
Audiobook Comments: Good solid reading with no frills by Alex Jennings.

Ramblings (Spoiler Status: Very Low)
My first complaint is that a very strong thread of elitism runs through the books--normal humans are not considered capable of remembering anything about the events that they stumble into without suffering irreparable damage, and their memories are wiped--this includes major characters. I can understand why the story would suffer if too many people were brought into the secret struggle, but why couldn't it be addressed that way, instead of making everyone seem like weak-minded fools? As it is, I get way too much of a 'high and lonely destiny' feel from the Forces of Good.

My second complaint is that the ending of the last book is absolutely horrible! There's nothing wrong with the actual final battle, the problem is that the denouement destroys everything there is to love about a good fantasy ending. Without giving away too much, imagine the end of Lord of the Rings, the scene where Frodo leaves with the Elves. It's slightly bittersweet, but warm and fuzzy nonetheless. Now, imagine that instead of leaving for the land of sweetness and peace, Frodo is told that he gets to stick around on Earth for another century or so. That's okay though, 'cause he's still got Sam and all his other friends, right? Wrong! Because Sam wants to stick around long enough to have a family, and therefore forfeits his right as Ringbearer to end his days in the Silver Realms. And his memory is wiped, just so that he won't eventually hate his wife and family for making that choice. Merry and Pippin aren't even consulted in the matter, their memories are destroyed without even a by-your-leave, and none of the three remember ever leaving the Shire. So now Frodo's left to mope about for another hundred years, without the companionship of his friends. Warm and fuzzy, or even slightly satisfying? I don't think so!

Perhaps the idea of ending this way is to leave kids with a feeling of 'maybe something like this happened to me, and I just don't remember!' but it seems very silly. Besides, no one reads a fantasy story to find out if the heroes succeed in saving the world--that's a given. One of the joys of reading fantasy (or any fiction, for that matter) is to learn about the characters, to watch them grow and develop. If they end the story with no memory of events, they haven't changed or grown, and they are no longer the people you've come to know and care about.

Now that I've got my gripes out of the way, on to what I do like about the sequence. For one thing, there's some really neat prophetic poems that show up every now and then to foreshadow later developments. It's the poems that stick in my head long after I've finished the books, even more than the characters or events they describe. I also love the descriptions of England and the way that the history of the land ties into the plot.

Another thing I like, call it a take-home lesson, is the idea that the Light can be just as terrible and frightening as the Dark. This isn't the idea that all outside powers and entities are eventually evil, but that the true nature of Good is so bright and perfect that it can be painful to behold. All throughout the story, the forces of the Light inspire not only awe but terror in the heroes, and their actions are sometimes harsher than we might expect. Never so harsh that compassion and pity are ignored, but these are definitely not the indulgent, complacent forces of good that you often get in children's literature.

Overall though, a wonderful story of magic and England and fighting the Dark.