Impossible
I picked up this book mainly because I thought I had read Matt Haig’s previous book, The Midnight Library. And at some point I must have actually believed I had read it, because I gave it a five-star rating on Goodreads. But there is no accompanying book review, which is unheard of for me since about 2012, so I looked through all my back posts and discovered that I had planned to read it, but somehow ended up instead with The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, by Garth Nix!l Anyway, that means The Life Impossible is the first book by this author that I have read, which means I came to it under false pretenses.
I may still read The Midnight Library, because I did enjoy parts of this one, and that one is better, according to the reviews of countless others.
I was initially drawn to this one by the description, which was about Grace Winters, a retired teacher who has been experiencing a dreary sameness to her days. (I related to this, being a retired librarian of a certain age who is mostly housebound.) Then she discovers that someone with whom she had a brief friendship decades before has left her a house on the island of Ibiza (one of the Balearic islands off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean). There is some mystery about what happened to this friend—she is presumed dead, but no one can give Grace a clear account of how—and Grace decides, impulsively, to go to Ibiza and find out.
Up to that point, the story seemed like it was going to be one of those books where somebody who is stuck hits a turning point and changes her life, and that is, indeed, Grace’s story; but the magical bit to this tale isn’t that she discovers herself by embracing a different lifestyle in a fresh locale, or that she meets someone or acquires a new and exciting avocation. The magical bit is, indeed, magic—it’s something that is described by those who introduce her to it as a natural phenomenon that is the next step along the way for the evolution of humans’ innate powers or abilities that just looks like magic. And the explanation of its source is even more bizarre. So, this is a story for which you have to be willing to suspend disbelief, which at some moments feels easy and natural and at others may cause you to say “What?!” and put down the book.
I don’t know whether to characterize this story as magical realism or as a metaphysical metaphor or what. It has some uplifting and ah-hah moments, but I had as hard a time embracing them as Grace does. I appreciated the setting and the beautiful descriptions of Ibiza, about which I have been fascinated ever since I read about the place in a Rosamunde Pilcher novel 25 years ago, and I liked the eco-consciousness the author promotes; but some of the elements of the story were just too weird for me, and the narrative becomes borderline didactic in its zealous promotion of self-actualization.
Also (and some may find this too nit-picky, but so be it), I didn’t like the vehicle that caused Grace to write down her saga: She receives an email from a former student who is having a really hard time—Maurice has lost his mother, lost his job, been dumped by his girlfriend, and is in despair—and instead of doing something concrete to assist him, such as sending him an encouraging response, or engaging in a series of helpful phone conversations during which she listens and is supportive, or referring him to a therapist and following through to make sure he is okay, she makes it all about herself. She tells him “I know what you’re going through” and then writes a 300-page manuscript about her own issues and how she resolves them, and sends it to him as if that will somehow fix things. I mean, he might find that it briefly diverts him from his own problems, but short of going to Ibiza himself and trying to replicate her experience, it certainly doesn’t address his crisis, particularly because what did happen to her could cause him to think she’s lost her mind.
Hmm. Have you ever started out writing a book review thinking that you had enjoyed the book and discovered, by the time you dissected all of its elements for your readers, that maybe you weren’t so thrilled by it after all? Yeah. Well.
Positives:
• Some truly epic descriptions of the character and beauty of the island of Ibiza
• Some engaging characters
• A protagonist with whom some may closely identify (at least initially)
• A useful portrayal of how capitalism is destroying nature
• Some lyrical writing and a few memorable moments and quotable quotes
Negatives:
• A lot of angst and some petulant indignation
• Meandering narrative that prolongs the story to no purpose
• Magical elements that start out appealing but end up being pretty weird
• A certain self-centeredness on the part of the protagonist and several of the other characters
I guess you will have to decide for yourself on this one.
Revisiting Mount Polbearne
I just finished reading Sunrise by the Sea, the fourth book by Jenny Colgan set on the fictional island of Mount Polbearne, modeled on St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall with its tide-bound causeway from the mainland. The first book, Beach Street Bakery, tells the story of Polly Waterford, who moves to the island to get over a bad relationship and ends up turning her avocation for bread-baking into a job, then meets Huckle, a local bee keeper with hidden depths. The two subsequent volumes (Summer at the… and Christmas at the…) continue their story. This fourth chapter definitely includes Polly and Huckle and their quirky twins, Avery and Daisy, but it is primarily the story of a newcomer to Mount Polbearne, and could probably be read as a stand-alone, although you would miss some of the nuance contained in Polly and Huckle’s back story.
Marisa Rosso’s grandfather has died and, although he lived in Italy and she saw him rarely (she lives in England), her cherished childhood memories from their time together have sidelined her with grief. The two of them were similar in demeanor and had a quiet but close relationship in the midst of their loud Italian family, and soon the grief has metamorphosed into something bigger; Marisa feels that along with her grandfather she has also lost an essential piece of herself. Grief turns into anxiety and then agoraphobia, and soon Marisa is working her job remotely from the confines of her sublet bedroom and curtailing every other activity. Her rather self-centered landlord thinks he’d prefer a less fraught home existence, and decides that Marisa has to go, to make room for more fun-loving roommates, but he speaks to a wealthy friend of his and manages to get her a place to live in a holiday rental on Mount Polbearne. Once the overwhelming anxiety of getting to Cornwall and out onto the island is past, Marisa thinks she could enjoy the solitude of the tidy little apartment, until her next-door neighbor moves in. He’s large, loud, Russian, and teaches piano lessons from morning to evening, then plays melancholy discordant compositions late into the night, and the constant clamor keeps Marisa in a state. Something has got to give…
This is the usual charming signature Colgan mixture of beguiling location, delightful characters, some life challenges, and lots of cooking and baking. I enjoyed catching up with the protagonists from the other books, and Marisa’s passage through grief is both revelatory and cathartic. It’s not “great literature,” but what can I say—I’m a fan.
Prescience
I have always been confused by how this word is pronounced; the syllables divide up as pre•science, but according to the dictionary, you pronounce it PRESH•ens. Before I looked it up the first time, I was pronouncing it “pre-science,” because the definition is “the fact of knowing something before it takes place,” so it made sense to me that it would be pre-, or before, science, because that would mean it was something known “before the fact.” In other words, a prediction, which is another weird word (previous to speaking it?). The English language is wild and wonderful.
Anyway, I thought it was an appropriate title for a review of Liane Moriarty’s most recent book, Here One Moment. A bunch of people get on a plane—parents, children, young people, middle-aged, elderly, all caught up in their own plans—and among them is an unremarkable older lady who rises to her feet during the long delay before takeoff and, pointing her finger at each passenger, methodically predicts their deaths (age and cause). Some laugh as if it’s a good joke (mostly those whose prediction is for 96 or 103, of old age), while others panic as she details disease, accident, or violence at a young age or in the immediate future. When the short flight is over and they all disembark, the incident is put out of the minds of most, whether it’s skeptically, uneasily, or forcefully, but when the first passenger dies exactly as the “Death Lady” predicted, the rest are no longer so dismissive.
After the events of the flight, the story jumps between multiple story-lines detailing the lives and reactions of half a dozen passengers, interspersed with chapters from the lady’s life, and we wait to see whether she is a delusional fraud or a true clairvoyant, worrying right along with those passengers with imminent and uncertain ends as they pretend normalcy, choose avoidance, or change their lives to avoid their fate.
The question for the reader is, of course, if you knew your death date, would you do anything differently? Would you try to defy fate, manipulate the statistical likelihoods, shift your timeline? The germane quote Moriarty used in the book was from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:
“It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on Earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up that we begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had.”
I enjoyed the exploration of the Butterfly Effect idea and, of course, drew parallels with that movie and also with Final Destination. It’s also been compared with The Measure, by Nikki Erlick, which I have not read (except for the Goodreads summary). This book dragged a bit during the detailing of Cherry Lockwood’s life (the lady with the pointing finger), but suspense was maintained in the sections about each person who was dealing with the prospect of an imminent demise, of causes mostly not under their control. So although the book seemed to take me an inordinate amount of time to get through, I would recommend it for those who find this question philosophically intriguing. Not my favorite book of Moriarty’s, but also not my least favorite!
Readalike
Usually when someone asks for a “readalike,” they mean that they like a particular author and would like to find another author or two who write in the same way, whether because that author publishes infrequently, or has died and won’t be producing any more books, or whatever. But I’m afraid I mean this in a less flattering way, in that the entire time I was reading A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci, I was thinking about all the ways in which it echoed a favorite Grisham book (and movie), A Time to Kill. The setting is a similar one (the South in the 1960s), the issue is a similar one (a black defendant with a white lawyer trying to get him a fair trial), and there is even the civil rights “savior” who arrives from the North to help the southern lawyer navigate this tricky case in front of a judge and jury who are blatantly racist. (One could also draw parallels with To Kill A Mockingbird, specifically in what ends up happening to one of the main characters.)
Although the cases are different (in ATTK, the defendant has killed his daughter’s rapist, while in this one the black man has been accused of murdering and then robbing his white employers), and although in one the legal genius from the North is a Jewish law student from New York while in the other she’s a black civil rights lawyer and hails from Chicago, the dynamic is very much the same. The difference is, I found Grisham’s story completely gripping, while Baldacci’s has some interesting moments as the two lawyers set about discovering who could have done the crime and then put their client in the hot seat to take the blame, but other than that element of mystery, a lot of the book reads like a Civics lesson.
The author takes pains to mention significant cases (Loving v. Virginia), racially charged props (the Green book, which the author has to find a roundabout way to include because it had ceased publication by 1968), sundown cities, and the like, and much of it seemed both heavy-handed and beside the point. This book presumes that the reader has no first-hand knowledge of the history of racism in the South and its manifestations in the 1960s when laws had been passed to end it but southern whites were dragging their feet to implement them. The characters are mostly one-dimensional, presenting as either a hero(ine), conflicted and confused, or irredeemably evil, with little nuance. One reviewer on Goodreads said they were uncomfortable with the portrayal of the black characters and actually felt that the author perpetuated some stereotypes while trying to do the opposite; I would have to agree.
It’s not an irredeemably bad book, but it’s not very good. It’s my first experience reading Baldacci, as far as I remember (I might have read one back in my 20s?), and to be fair I might try another of his without the obvious agenda and see if I enjoy it more, since so many people rave over his books. But…I’m certainly not on the library website looking for my next one right this minute!
Alien encounters
John Scalzi is a funny guy. It took me awhile to reach this conclusion, because when I began reading his books, I didn’t approach them in chronological order; my first experience was with his robot/murder-mystery book Lock-In, and after that I read the whole “Old Man’s War” series, which (apart from a few bad puns and tongue-in-cheek moments) is relatively serious in nature. But then I found Fuzzy Nation, Redshirts, and The Android’s Dream, and realized he has a well developed sense of humor. And this past week I perused his backlist and found his very first novel, called Agent to the Stars, which both solidified that opinion and also reminded me of a whole vein of science fiction (alien encounters) that I have consistently enjoyed. Some of them take the subject seriously, while others (like this one) treat it with a fun and refreshing lack of gravitas.
Agent to the Stars follows a premise that I first encountered in Sheri S. Tepper’s book The Fresco—
the question of what would happen should extraterrestrials make contact with one ordinary human, rather than going the more accepted route of approaching the government of some country or the Secretary-General of the United Nations, i.e., an official body or representative. In this case, said extraterrestrials arrive at the conclusion, after long-term absorption of radio and television and movie broadcasts, that Hollywood is the all-powerful entity in our world, and the best way, therefore, to spring themselves upon mankind is to get the entertainment industry to pay attention; they therefore hire themselves an agent to represent them (as one would).
They first contact the head of a powerful agency, but his visibility may attract too much attention while decisions are being made about how to make palatable a group of aliens who are essentially shaped like big piles of Jello with extrudable tendrils and smell really bad, so he passes the responsibility down to his most successful brash young agent, Tom Stein. One of the Yherajk thus becomes Tom’s constant companion in the quest to exchange knowledge between the two races, and this association becomes a comedy of errors that encompasses an aging golden retriever, a vapid young starlet, a persistent tabloid journalist, and a completely implausible but thoroughly entertaining series of events, as Tom and the alien representative try to figure out how to introduce the Yherajik to the world at large.
If this topic appeals to you, here is a small sampling of alien encounter fiction in several categories, both serious and humorous, that you might also like to explore:
TYPICAL EVIL ALIEN SCENARIOS:
The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells—In this classic, an army of invading Martians seeks to end human civilization. Extensively treated on radio and film as well.
Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein—A space opera drama pitting the Terran Mobile Infantry against “the Bugs.”
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card—A much more nuanced version of Heinlein’s story, with young children playing computer-simulated war games that refer to the 100-year-long war with the “Buggers.” The difference here is, there are sequels in which Ender speaks and acts against xenophobia…
Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor—portrays an encounter with the Meduse, “an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares.” (two sequels)
The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin—A secret military project seeks to contact aliens, but the ones they find are on the brink of destruction and decide to invade Earth and take it over. (two sequels)
EQUIVOCAL ENCOUNTERS
(the aliens are “good,” or at least well-intentioned, but seek to alter the humans somehow):
Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke—the classic “aliens as interventionists” story that arguably begat all the others…
Dawn, by Octavia E. Butler—The Oankali save humanity from atomic destruction, but want to genetically merge with their “primitive civilization” to create a new species. (two sequels)
Human 0.4, by Mike A. Lancaster (YA)—a twist on an “invasion of the body-snatchers” scenario. Smart, fast-paced, thought-provoking. (one sequel)
The Host, by Stephenie Meyer—She’s not the greatest writer, but she is a good storyteller. The Earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. A treatise on cooperation vs. autonomy.
The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell—One could argue about the category for this one, but it’s a mesmerizing tale, regardless. A scientific expedition of Jesuits make first contact with extraterrestrial life. (one sequel)
BENIGN/POSITIVE AND/OR HUMOROUS ENCOUNTERS:
The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin—LeGuin wrote a group of books called “the Hainish Cycle,” which depict humans’ absorption into a growing intergalactic civilization (the Ekumen). One of the most famous—and arguably the best in terms of intellectual science fiction (it won both the Hugo and the Nebula)—is this book about a human envoy sent to conduct a first encounter with the inhabitants of the planet Gethen, a race of genderless, intersex beings. It’s fascinating, thought-provoking, but also deeply emotional.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams—extremely silly and inventive. (five-book series)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers—my review of the first book is here. (five-book series)
The Fresco, by Sheri S. Tepper—This is the one I immediately remembered when I started reading the Scalzi book I just reviewed. Latina single mom Benita Alvarez-Shipton is approached by a pair of aliens who ask her to be the sole liaison between their race and humans. First up, she has to contact the Powers That Be in Washington and convince them she’s not crazy.
I hope you find something here that will cause you to enjoy this aspect of the science fiction galaxy!
Old-fashioned feel
I have always enjoyed the books of Rosamunde Pilcher, although she wrote so few that I have had to resort to re-reading each of them multiple times (which is no hardship). I was therefore delighted when someone in the Friends and Fiction Facebook group mentioned that British author Marcia Willett wrote in a similar vein but that she liked Willett’s even better than Pilcher’s. I went to the Los Angeles Public Library website to see if they carried any of hers as e-books, given that I don’t get out much but can order books through Overdrive straight to my Kindle. I was happy to find a few, and checked out Indian Summer, which was almost immediately available.
After having read about 25 percent of the book, I logged onto Goodreads to enter it as my “currently reading” title and was shocked to discover that it had just been published in 2014, a mere 10 years ago. The book’s setting and characters and particularly the writing style are old-fashioned to the point that they remind me of some of my favorite authors of the 1940s-1960s—Rumer Godden, Elizabeth Goudge, Daphne du Maurier, James Hilton and Dodie Smith. In fact, this book reminds me particularly of Smith’s lesser known It Ends with Revelations, probably because of the theatrical connections of the books’ protagonists.
Willett’s earliest novel appears to have been published in 1995 (which may seem aeons ago to some of my younger blog-followers, but is just yesterday to someone born 40 years before that), and she didn’t begin writing until she was 50 years old; but that makes her about 80, not nearly elderly enough to channel this particular sensibility in her novels. It’s not just the setting, in rural Devon, that makes it feel this way; it’s the characters, who are generational landowners and tenants on the one hand and theater people and writers on the other, and in the way they relate to one another and to their environment. There is still that unspoken, unacknowledged consciousness of class that hasn’t existed to this degree in England for a while now (or at least I don’t think it has!) but is definitely still alive in this story. Additionally, there is a certain focus with which some of the writers from the era I mentioned approached their story-telling that includes a specific attention to nature and a leisurely and appreciative approach to the organic cycles of life that you simply don’t come across much in modern works.
The book revolves around a central character, Mungo, a retired theater actor and director whose primary residence is London but who also has a place in Devon, a part of the larger property owned by his brother. I say “revolves around” because while all the characters have at least a tenuous connection with Mungo, he mostly facilitates, rather than stars in, the little stories portrayed here. Mungo’s brother, Archie, inherited from their father, a conservative man who didn’t appreciate either Mungo’s profession or his sexual identity. Archie and his wife, Camilla, are struggling to make ends meet on the estate by renting out their two cottages. Philip and Billy are brothers who inherited the running of the “Home Farm” (a portion of Archie’s estate) from their father and will pass it to Philip’s son, unless Archie decides to sell up. Staying in the two cottages—one updated and the other dilapidated and awaiting repairs—are Emma, an army wife with two children, Joe and Dora, and a six-month lease; and James, a writer, who is wandering around Dorset for part of the summer, researching locations for his second book. Completing the cast are Kit, a friend of Mungo’s who has come down to consult with him on what to do about the reappearance of a figure from her past; and Marcus, a military friend of Emma’s husband who is trying to make time with her while her husband is away in Afghanistan.
Each of these characters or groups of characters stars in their own vignette within the larger picture of this Indian summer in Devon. Although there is one secret from the past that turns out to be rather shocking, for the most part the events are only exciting to those directly involved, being ponderings about what will or may happen in the future based on choices made now. There is a gentle humor revealed in the obliviousness of the author, who has met all the other locals but has not only completely misconstrued their personalities and concerns but has arrived at the assumption that life here in Devon is constant, unchanging, and bucolic, when in fact there are many tempestuous passions hiding behind the façades of everyone in the story.
While I could not agree with the woman who considered Willett superior to Rosamunde Pilcher in her authorial abilities, I did enjoy this gentle, rather charming tale of friendships and secrets in the English countryside.
Spooky reads for October
There are a lot of requests on Facebook reading pages for haunted tomes to make their month more enjoyable (and more chilling). So I decided to comb through my “horror” and “paranormal” categories on Goodreads to see if I could find some good reads to recommend. I am not much of a horror aficionado, so those are in short supply, but I do like a good ghost story. Here’s a list of a few I have enjoyed, both new and classic, with some young adult stuff thrown in because it is also entertaining for we grownups.
The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. Very different vibes in these two, but I can say that they are both truly creepy. Don’t judge the first by its movie(s), it’s so much more nuanced and weird than anything Hollywood managed to put onscreen.
Starling House, by Alix E. Harrow. Southern gothic horror. Here is my review.
Vampire books by Anne Rice (the first two are the best). Classic paranormal. I also liked Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, a completely different take. And if you like sex and diners with your vamps, there is, of course, the “Sookie Stackhouse” series by Charlaine Harris.
The Harper Connelly books, also by Charlaine Harris, recently reread and commented on by me here. You could also try the “Midnight, Texas” series, though they are not my faves apart from my love for their protagonist.
The Graveminder, by Melissa Marr. “Sleep well, and stay where I put you!”
The Library of the Dead, by T. L. Huchu. Ghosts with a Zimbabwean twist. I reviewed this one too.
A Certain Slant of Light, by Laura Whitcomb. A dreamy, unusual ghost story. There is a sequel I haven’t read, called Under the Light.
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, by Lish McBride, a somewhat comedic take on a modern necromancer and his paranormal pals. Big fun. There is a sequel called Necromancing the Stone.
The “Visions” series by Lisa McMann.
Also, please enjoy the following excellent ghostly tales, which I reviewed here for a previous Hallowe’en post:
Meet Me at the River, by Nina de Gramont
The “Lockwood & Co.” series, by Jonathan Stroud.
The “Shades of London” series, by Maureen Johnson.
…and a few more.
American classic
I don’t have much to say about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, that hasn’t already been said. This is probably my third or fourth time reading it, but I haven’t done so for a couple of decades so I decided to revisit it. I remembered the brilliant, colorful depiction of life in Brooklyn in the early 20th Century, but had forgotten the simple yet elegant and nuanced language with which it is described. I remembered most of the details of Francie Nolan’s life, but some of the wonderful details of the outlying characters—her sexy Aunt Sissy, the interactions of Willie with his horse, Drummer, the English teacher who praised Francie’s artificial flights of fantasy but denigrated her realistic portrayals of Broolyn life—I happily rediscovered.
The story is funny and tragic, lighthearted and heartfelt, emotional, a little sentimental, inspiring. It kept my attention throughout, and I loved sitting down each day to another chapter. I would hand it to almost anyone over the age of 12—most girls, some boys—who wanted to be both entertained by and enlightened about the human condition.
One warning: If you have never read it and happen to pick up the edition with the forward by Anna Quindlen, save that to read later, because it delivers a few spoilers.
The long way
I just finished reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers, author of the Wayfarers and the Monk & Robot books. This one is the first of four in the Wayfarers series, but it’s not obvious at all while reading it that it’s the start to a longer story. The only reason I might have surmised that is the overwhelmingly character-driven nature of this book, in which many things happen and lots of people/races are introduced but there is not a truly cohesive story line. That’s not to say that there isn’t a kind of evolution from the beginning to the end, but…is it a story? It feels more like a bunch of separate people’s narratives coming together simply because they are co-located in the enclosed space of a ship and a voyage, but while they do have an impact on one another, there isn’t the same kind of resolution that there is to a typical beginning-middle-end kind of tale with a sole protagonist.
The event for which the book is named takes up not very much space in the overall timeline, which is kind of odd. Can you tell that I’m finding it a bit hard to review this book? I think it’s because, while I liked many of its diverse elements (including its diversity!), they didn’t gel for me in a way that would have made me love it. And although I liked and had empathy for its characters, I’m not sure any of them made the kind of impression that will make me want to read more about them in subsequent volumes. I finished the book with a certain degree of satisfaction, but it was more the feeling of “I’m good” than a compelling desire to keep going.
That is both the strength and the weakness of this book; because the story is about half a dozen (okay, maybe eight or nine) individuals who alternate in carrying the narrative, you learn a surprisingly extensive amount about the various kinds of “people” populating the universe without thoroughly investing in any of them. There are a few characters that have more page time and are therefore more engaging and involving than the others, but it’s a bit didactic in the way it goes about portraying everyone, and some of them end up being more cliché than person.
On the other hand, the number of issues and the depth and breadth with which they are explored is impressive, and not too heavy-handed. The involvement between species readily lends itself to discussions about topical and complicated subjects, from identity, sexuality, and violence to safety and defense, the implications of sentient artificial intelligence, and what constitutes “community.” I enjoyed the many variations of people (both their inner natures and outer appearances) that Chambers created, and the fact that none of them was stereotypical or relied excessively on science fiction that has gone before.
I guess I should give a brief synopsis, to be thorough, in case someone finds this blah blah intrigues them! It begins with Rosemary Harper, a human who is fleeing some personal issues and answers an ad for a position as clerk on the Wayfarer. It’s a tunneling ship, a kind of spaceship that creates wormholes to connect distant points in the universe so travel and trade can more easily take place between species. The story is set in a galaxy of aliens, with the humans being a sort of on-tolerance, minor group. There are a couple of older races with a history of expansion, cooperation, and development who have created the Galactic Confederation and brought in other member species at various points in their own maturity. There is a fair representation of these different species amongst the crew of the Wayfarer, and the philosophical bits of this “space opera” vehicle are about how they learn to cooperate and to appreciate one another. The ship is offered a contract to create a tunnel near the galaxy core that connects to a previously interdicted warlike species, and the build-up to and resolution of this contract is what drives the action, although this takes place late in the story (maybe at the 75 percent mark?).
The book isn’t for everyone; if you enjoy character-driven stories and envisioning complex alien cultures, you will like it, and the adventures of the Wayfarer gang do somewhat satisfy that yen for more stuff like Firefly. Despite its slow pacing, it was a fairly quick read, interesting and thoughtful but not taxing. Even though I’m not feeling it in this moment, I wouldn’t rule out continuing to follow the adventures of the Wayfarer crew in subsequent volumes, sometime later in my reading life.
Gunnie Rose continues!
At the end of my review of the third book in this series, I devoutly hoped there would be more, and I discovered last week that Charlaine Harris has come through with two more volumes while I wasn’t looking! Imagine my delight at getting to continue this entertaining dystopian historical fantasy mash-up for not one book but two!
You can read my entire review of the first two here, and the third one here, but just to quote myself to give a reaction to those too impatient to do so,
“This series is pure delight, from the elaborate world-building to the laconic Western flavor of Texoma, and the characters are so alive they could step off the page. Harris has written this with just the amount of detail you crave, without drowning you in either description or explanation, and the pace of this mystery/adventure story is perfect. The minute I finished the first book, I jumped without hesitation into the second one.”
You really should read at least my review of the first two, because it gives a thorough description of a rather complicated world-building exercise. But even there, Harris achieves the maximum in understanding with the minimum of detail. She is apparently no more a fan of the info-dump than am I, for which I am thankful.
The fourth book, The Serpent in Heaven, picks up pretty much where the third left off; Felicia is now a school boarder at the Grigori academy in San Diego. She was initially admitted as a sort of honorary student because of the need to keep her safely squirreled away, since she is one of the few blood donors remaining who can save young Tsar Alexei’s life should he have a mishap (he’s a hemophiliac). But in this book, due to some unexpected hazards at the school, Felicia reveals the true scope of her wizardy powers and gets promoted to the “real” classes to learn to control, direct, and expand them, mentored by the curmudgeonly Victor.
This book was told from the first person viewpoint of Felicia herself, which added an extra element to the story, since in the course of her narration you get to know her much better and understand her background, upbringing, and level of skill. Lizbeth (Gunnie) and Eli are mostly missing from this chapter, because they have married and gone off to live in Texoma after the disastrous coup that disgraced parts of Eli’s family in the last book. We get news of them only through an occasional letter or telegram or word-of-mouth message. I thought this would be upsetting to the narrative, but I was completely absorbed in Felicia’s story and didn’t miss them, for the most part, compelling characters though they are.
Harris makes up for this in book #5, All the Dead Shall Weep, when Felicia, accompanied by Eli’s brother Peter, goes to visit Lizbeth and Eli in Texoma, mostly to get away from an ongoing threat of kidnapping by various factions who have figured out her value as a wizard and want to (either voluntarily or forcibly) marry her into their bloodline to amp up their descendants’ talent pool. But bad fortune follows Felicia like a hungry stray dog, and there’s also a new military rebellion beginning to muster, with which the sisters and their men must contend. This book is told by alternating narrators Lizbeth and Felicia, which was initially jarring when I didn’t realize the voice had changed, but actually really helpful in giving all the behind-the-scenes thoughts and feelings you craved from these characters.
And this fifth book ends on a truly ominous cliffhanger, historical in nature, which bodes well for more sequels, though ill for their contents! Still a fan. Check them out!
The Book Adept 