Book Review: Taliesin by Stephen R. Lawhead

Taliesin by Stephen R. Lawhead
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Lawhead's Pendragon cycle gets off to a rocky start with Taliesin. Perhaps it's that I set the bar too high, expecting great things from such a renowned author, or perhaps it's that I'm reading the cycle for my dissertation and hence got overly critical, but either way, the book suffers from poor writing, poor plotting, and a few major historical inaccuracies that ruined it for me.

The writing: passive voice abounds. The dialogue is stilted. The characters are two-dimensional and hardly have any development at all. And when the romance gets started, the pathos is stifling.

The plotting: this whole book could have been done in half the space. Not much actually happens, and there is a ton of padding. Even with two concurrent storylines running for the first half of the book, nothing much actually happens. I spend most of the book wondering why any of the stuff Lawhead was telling us about was in any way important.

And the historical inaccuracies: unless some sort of time-travel occurs that I missed, Lawhead has Atlantis sink in the 400s AD, right around the time the Romans are withdrawing from Britain. Considering that the legendary Atlantis sank closer to 9600 BC, this completely ruined a huge chunk of the book for me. The British people believe that the Atlanteans are faery folk, and if that had turned out to somehow be the case--if they'd hung out for a few thousand years before the British ran across them--that would have been different. But they're mortal, and the legendary sinking is stuck right in the middle of recorded history. Also, Taliesin takes to Christianity entirely too quickly and with too much verve. Yes, the British people were Christian before the Anglo-Saxons came in, but in the space of a conversation with God (!!) during a spirit-walk (which, tellingly, Taliesin swears never to do again after converting), Taliesin is a full-blown Christian who refers to the pagans around him as heretics, blasphemers, and unlearned people--as if he wasn't a pagan twelve minutes before.

Overall, this book was a huge disappointment. Considering all the hype around Lawhead (I've heard he's right up there with Marion Zimmer Bradley for authoritativeness in modern Arthurian fantasy), I expected much more.

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Book Review: The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On Elise's name-day, a shaft of light embedded a gem in her navel, marking her as the chosen one for her generation, picked by God to do great things. Elise is sure that God has picked the wrong person, until she begins to understand what her service will require of her. When war breaks out, Elise finds her purpose and realizes her potential.

What I found most interesting about The Girl of Fire and Thorns was that the protagonist is heavyset. The realism surrounding her weight--the discomfort of carrying that much extra flesh, people's reactions to her, her reaction to herself--is matched only by the realism of what it's like to suffer from a compulsive eating disorder. Elise begins the story with no sense of self, no self-esteem, and a real problem with food. She eats to comfort herself or because she's bored, completely ignoring the signs from her body that she's eaten too much. As the story progresses, she's forced by circumstances to lose the weight, and as her sense of purpose grows, her dependence on food lessens. Eventually, she's even able to joke about her former weight issue. I appreciated, also, that the circumstances did not involve her husband, Alejandro, locking her up and refusing to feed her or some other cruelty.

The mythology of the story is also very well-developed; it's based on medieval Mediterranean Catholicism with some interesting twists. A real sense of history permeates the culture, and Carson has included different denominations, tales of Godstone bearers who went before Elise, and several manuscripts based on the idea of the Godstone.

I also appreciated Carson's portrayal of Elise's relationship with men. Her husband, King Alejandro, is a weak and selfish, if charming, man, and Elise's reactions to him stay true to her character development. Once she realizes that he is not treating her well, she stops thinking of him as an object of desire and more as an obstacle to get around. Likewise, her relationship with another young man blooms naturally and with a minimum of mooncalfing. Generally, however, Elise does not need either of them, and becomes a fully realized human being on her own terms and through her own strength.

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Book Review: A Dance with Dragons by George RR Martin

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Dance with Dragons is the fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, and continues the epic saga Martin has constructed. Intrigue abounds, characters die, and of course there are dragons.

Quantifying my feelings about this book is difficult. On the one hand, I waited years (YEARS!) for this book and suffered through A Feast for Crows because all of my favorite characters were in Dragons instead. Finally getting to see what Dany and Jon and Bran were up to was great. On the other hand--they're not up to much. The plot doesn't seem to really advance in this book, and on fronts where the plot is advancing (Bran, for example), their stories stop mid-novel and never pick back up. I spent the last half of the book yelling at it that I wanted to see what Bran was doing and whether he'd ever learn to "fly." The book ends just as things are getting interesting again.

I think this book suffers from middle-of-the-series syndrome, something we usually see in the second book of a trilogy; things are progressing, but nothing's starting and nothing's ending, so getting a single plot arc going is difficult. I expect that The Winds of Winter and, ultimately, A Dream of Spring will be much better as the stories come to their close.

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The Semester is Over

The last few weeks have been insane, what with grading final projects, writing final projects, and taking final exams.  But the semester is over and all I have to do for break is re-prepare for the medieval prelim and read lots of fantasy novels for my dissertation (oh, the humanity).  So the blog should pick up with reviews, especially after I finish A Dance with Dragons (which, by the way, continues to be brilliant).

Book Review: Farsighted by Emlyn Chand

Farsighted by Emlyn Chand
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I won a free copy of this book through the GoodReads First-Reads program.

Alex Kosmitoras was born blind. While he manages to get along in a sighted world, he sometimes resents his lack of independence. But when he begins hearing things that have not yet happened or are not happening in his immediate vicinity, he worries that he might be going insane--until he learns that he is not the only one in his circle of friends with gifts.

Alex is a well-written teenage boy, which I could tell by the number of times I wanted to smack him upside the head for some stupid, impulsive thing he'd done. Chand also does a remarkable job at describing the world around Alex with incredibly few visual cues, though there are places where things are described without any indication of how Alex knows what's happening (I am more than willing to excuse these considering the difficult task that Chand has taken on in writing a first-person blind character). I also think it's great that Chand chose to make Alex's "visions" just as sensory and auditory as everything else in his life rather than giving him some magical sense of sight.

There were points at which I felt things were coming together a bit too easily for Alex's development--unless he himself was causing major problems in his interpersonal relationships--and there were a few choices on the parts of other characters I found inexplicable, but overall this was a good book and I enjoyed reading it.

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Book(s) Review: The Hunger Games (Spoilers)

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the post-apocalyptic, dystopian remnants of North America is Panem, housing the remains of the population after a massive war which left much of America uninhabitable. Ruled over by the Capitol, each of the 12 remaining districts must send two children--one male, one female--to the Hunger Games each year, where they are forced to fight to the death on live TV as a reminder to the districts that rebellion is futile. When Katniss Everdeen's sister, Prim, is chosen as a tribute, Katniss volunteers in her place to save her life, never expecting to survive the Hunger Games. When Katniss wins, however, it sparks a new rebellion which could cost everything Katniss holds dear.

I wish there were a way to give this trilogy 6 stars. It is by far the best series I have read in awhile. The Hunger Games blew me away and kept me up reading until 2 AM. Catching Fire, while not quite as good as The Hunger Games still stood as a strong novel. And Mockingjay once again took up far more time than I really had to devote to it.

Carefully crafted, lovingly detailed, and brilliantly paced, The Hunger Games trilogy is one of those series that made me sad I hadn't read it earlier. It clearly contributes to, possibly even drives, the rise in quality of YA literature over the last few years. Collins does not shrink from reality or spare her characters any of the consequences of their actions. And like most good dystopias, it is all too clear that our own society holds the seeds which could lead to the horrors found in Panem.

Read this series. Seriously. You won't be disappointed.

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Jill Scribbles: HALLOWED and SLIDE Giveaway!!! (or My Early Christ...

So, this author is giving away a copy of her book and another book, both of which look awesome. Want one?

Jill Scribbles: HALLOWED and SLIDE Giveaway!!! (or My Early Christ...: Good morning awesome peeps! Guess what today is? That's right! It's December!!! This means several things... 1. In twelve days, I won't ...