"Sword at Sunset", by Rosemary Sutcliff

I'll save the full review for my October Book Reviews post, which is due shortly anyway. But this book filled me with so much joy, I need to post some of my favorite quotes right now. It's a retelling of the story of King Arthur, but an attempt at making his story one of plausible historical fiction--no Round Table, etc. But still retaining elements of the legend. Instead of Lancelot and the Knights of the Round Table serving King Arthur and Queen Guinevere at Camelot, we get Bedwyr and the Brotherhood of the Romano-British war chieftain Artos, who is married to a woman named Guenhumara and spends his life fighting against the Saxons. And I really, really enjoyed it. The soul of the stories are still here, bright and beautiful and written with both realism and poetry. I enjoyed it so much, I put it aside yesterday when I had about fifty pages left so I could savor the reading of it a day more. This is a novel highly recommended.

This is one of the moments that stood out most for me. The book is told from the perspective of Arthur himself, and this scene is where he goes hunting with the High King Ambrosius, shortly before gaining the Kingship himself. Ambrosius is dying of disease, and on this particular day is determined to go hunting, which is treated as a metaphor in the story that he is going knowingly to his death, hunting his death. Anyway, this part really stood out to me, both in terms of beauty and due to its fascinating and poignant musings on how one prepares for death:

'The sun came up, and the frost melted around us as we rode, giving place to a thin white mist lying close to the ground in the hollows. The horses waded through it as through shallow seas of gossamer as we dropped into the valley, and small bright drops trembled in the light, hanging from every dried hemlock head and half-silken, half-sodden feather of last year's willow herb. And I remember that over the open fallow the larks were singing. In a sheltered hollow of the woodshore, the first hazel catkins were hanging out, and as we brushed through, shaking the whippy sprays, the air was suddenly stained with a sun-mist of yellow pollen for yards around. And I wondered how it all seemed to Ambrosius: whether he had yet freed himself utterly from the dearness and strangeness and piercing beauty of the world, from the lark song and the smell of melting frost on the cold moss under the trees, and the thrust of a horse's flanks beneath him, and the faces of his friends. His own face betrayed nothing, but I thought that he looked about him from time to time, as though he wished to see very clearly the winter woods dappled like a curlew's breast, the prick of a hound's ears, the crimson thread tips of a woman-bud on a hazel spray, the flying shadow of a bird across the turf, to draw them in and make them part of himself, part of his own soul, so that he might carry them with him where he was going.'

And here's one more quote as a bonus, this time from the lips of Mordred--for there is a Mordred in even this version of the Arthurian story, though called Merdraut. Again, his link with his mother is stressed. This seems to be a sign by which one can tell when Mordred is really being written well: That the relationship between Mordred and Morgause is not merely that of a son whose mother has taught him to hate, but that of a man who was warped and ruined somehow by his mother's very love. It's a terrifying concept, but also one that can, in the right hands, invoke immense pity. I'm thinking the part in 'The Once and Future King', here, where Mordred is described as having been somehow drained of himself by his mother, as though she sucked him dry like a brooding spider, so that he lives as not only an embodiment of his own hate, whether he will or no, but also as a projection of hers. Check out the similarities with that idea here:

'[Merdraut] came toward me, and before I knew what he was about, knelt beside me and bowed his head onto my knee. It was a horrible womanish gesture. "No escape . . . It is in what you are and in what I am." His voice muffled against my knee. "No, don't draw away from me. Whatever else I am, I am your son--your most wretched son. If you do not hate me, try to love me a little, Father; it is lonely never to have been loved, only devoured.'

The same images of devouring and helpless hate are here. And the characterization is similarly brilliant. It's an interesting parallel to ponder. And masterfully written in its own right.

Here, There Be Dragons

Here, There Be Dragons

Please read this. 

Please do. It's utterly inane, poorly written, and sheer illogical lunacy, but read it anyway. I laughed until I cried. I mean, a story about a young Tolkien and Lewis going on an adventure in the realms of fiction with the help of an atlas called Imaginarium Geographica, where such inexplicable happenings like Charles Darnay being Gawain's Green Knight happen . . . just soak the craziness in and have yourself a bewildering but hilarious good hour or so, bookworms. Wow.

It's available as a free pdf. at the above linked location until November 9, apparently, so read it while you can!

NaNoWriMo 2009

So, as some of you already know, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared, but at the same time I'm very excited. A story idea came to me pretty much out of the blue a few weeks ago, and I'm eager to write the novel; it'll be therapeutic to take a break from agonizing over my Novel, and anyway, I've fallen in love with this story. I mean to make its writing a fun experience.

Anyway, as Anna on posted a few tidbits of information on her intriguing WriMo novel on her blog, I've decided to return the favor and post a few tidbits on mine here. And then, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend the rest of the day pretending that November isn't coming up quite as quickly as it is. Sure I'm excited to write the thing, but it's also going to be quite a challenge . . .

Title: Quinn: Being Memoirs of that Most Eminent Scholar of Science, and a Record of His Labors and Adventures in Time: Written by his Own Hand, and now set forth by an Editor, in the hopes that Other Minds might be Enlightened thereby.

Main Characters: Julian Quinn, Gabriel Quinn, Edith Fairfax(?)

Summary: This is the story of an orphaned child in Victorian England, abandoned at birth, rescued from misery by an elderly gentleman named Gabriel Quinn, and raised by that benefactor to become one of the greatest minds and most brilliant scientists the world would ever know. This is the story of the long scientific labor that both shaped, saved, and ruined his life, and the singular machine which was his finest invention. This is the story of his kindly benefactor, the man who first believed in him and never ceased believing in him. This is the story of  the woman he loved, for whom he would sacrifice fifteen years of his life after forcing her, all unknowing, to sacrifice ten of hers. This is the story of his adventures and struggles, of the many strange peoples he would encounter and the many wondrous sights he would see. This is the story of the Victorian time-traveller Julian Quinn.

I realize this is a very rough summary, without giving too much away, but it's the best I can offer you right now. For regular updates on the story, and perhaps even chapters to read, check the blog right here and the 'Radish Room' all November, 2009. Let's go NaNoWriMo!

Book Reviews for September

The book reviews for September are finally here! Nearly a month late, due in large part to midterm exams, but they're here! I will post the reviews for October in a few days. Due to me doing NaNoWriMo, there probably won't be much to post in November, but who knows? Maybe I will surprise me.

I actually read a good few more books than I had anticipated, which was a pleasant surprise. Some were good, most were okay, and one was downright awful. And here they are, all six of them, in order from worst to best.

6. 

The White Mists of Power, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Completely dreadful. I mean it. The reason why I decided to try it out is because a bard is a main character, and because the first chapter or so was excellent. I still stand by that evaluation: The beginning was good. Too bad the entire rest of the novel was horrible. Insipid characters, dull plot, ridiculous names, sexual content that doesn't even pretend to have anything to do with the story itself, and . . . I could go on and on. I thought at first that one of the characters was quite good, and found myself liking him--until I suddenly realized: He is a green-eyed, inept wizard, with self-doubt issues and a tendency to accidentally burn himself, and he looks younger than he is. Sound familiar? (If not, please go read 'The Last Unicorn' pronto.) Bottom line: Not even a pretty good plot twist could save this mess. Don't read it. 

Notable Quote: 

'"Pain is the price we pay for knowledge, Highness," she said softly.'

5.

The Last Siege, by Jonathan Stroud.

Stroud is one of my favorite authors, and I'm a devout fan of his Bartimaeus Trilogy, so I was pretty excited when I found this at the library. I'd never heard it advertised before, and so didn't previously know it existed. Now I know why: it's not really as good as his other works. Not that it's horribly bad; it just didn't stand out to me as anything special. Perhaps I just had too-high expectations. The plot seemed a bit too thin to sustain a full novel; I think it would have been better as a short story. What enjoyment I got out of it was mostly on a personal level: the story involves children (teens, I suppose) secretly spending nights in a castle, and when I was in year three I went on a fieldtrip in which my class stayed at a castle for about a week, sleeping there and everything. So I know what it's like to be in a castle with your friends at night, imagining history alive around you, and Stroud captures the feeling well. Still, if you want to sample his writing, I recommend the Trilogy--Amulet of Samarkand, Golem's Eye, and Ptolemy's Gate--or Buried Fire instead.

Notable Quote:

'"What I'm saying," Emily said, "is that after a fight like this there's nothing dishonorable about surrendering when you're down to your last two men. What is dishonorable is running away from the enemy."

4.

Dragon's Bait, by Vivian Vande Velde.

Pretty much standard Velde. A slightly quirky, affectionate, playful fantasy with a serious edge. It's a quick read (I read most of it on a bus trip from school back to my apartment), but an enjoyable one. Basically: Girl is falsely accused of being a witch and tied to a stake as dragon fodder as punishment. Dragon turns out to be capable of shape-shifting into a very attractive male teenager, and ends up becoming Girl's friend. Girl decides to use her new ally in taking vengeance on all the people who wronged her by naming her a witch. Fantasy fluff. Except that Velde very cleverly seduces the reader's conscience as the story goes along: When the protagonist first revealed her desire to take really harsh vengeance on people, I felt a bit uneasy about it, but Velde lulled me into accepting and then actually wanting the girl's plans to work out, so when Alys finally realizes that what she's doing is wrong, I was shocked back to my senses, too. Some deceptively perceptive musings on the nature of vengeance and good and bad are woven into the story, which in the end made it worthwhile for me. Oh, and I always love reading about magical beings in distress, though the sexual humor resulting from the dragon transforming into a naked man was tiresome.

Notable Quote:

'The only way Alys could work it out was that people couldn't really give up their souls. They only acted as though they didn't have one until, eventually, they forgot what it was like not to be soulless.'

3.

Sabriel, by Garth Nix.

A relatively original fantasy set in a relatively original fantasy world, which already gives it bonus points. Some elements, like the Paperwing with its painted eyes, were excellent. The soldiers preparing to use guns and tanks against an invasion from the magical world reminded me pleasantly of UNIT. But the story was still just ho-hum and nothing special to me until the character of Touchstone showed up. The moment Nix mentions that Touchstone wears a KILT . . . I decided I rather liked the book after all. I love kilts and anything Scottish, and since I already had UNIT in mind, now I also had a 'Sabriel-universe' representation of Jamie to read about, heh heh. (UNIT and Jamie McCrimmon are both from "Doctor Who", in case you were bemused.) The spirit-cat named Mogget is an excellent character, except for being a cat (I'm not really a cat person) and for being named Mogget. But on the whole, it was a good read. My only warning would be that necromancy and stuff like raising the dead and entering the underworld are integral parts of the story, which might be off-putting for some readers.

Notable Quote: N/A (Sorry, I forgot to select one before I returned the book to the library . . .)

2.

Dune, by Frank Herbert.

This story was more impressive to me as an imaginative work, not as a story. I loved most of the concepts, invented customs, and cultures in the story (water being so precious that spitting at someone is a sign of respect, for example, and the story's exploration of the idea of fate),  but the story itself wasn't that impressive to me, I'm not sure why. My favorite characters actually were pretty minor: Thufir Hawat, Duncan Idaho, Yueh, Keynes. Especially Yueh, Idaho, and Keynes; I liked them so much, I felt short-changed when they weren't really in the book that much. Paul Atreides himself didn't really hold my interest. I heartily enjoyed anything and everything in the story about the Fremen culture; I wish the book had gone a bit more in-depth in its exploration of that culture, but what was there, I liked. I also really enjoyed the political intrigue in the first section of the book. I know Dune has been commonly named the best Science Fiction Story Ever. Do I agree? Well . . . it's definitely worth reading, definitely special, but I honestly didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoy, say, Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. Something's just missing. But anyway, it's a worthy read, and Dune itself is a fascinating world. Again a warning: there's a bit of sexual content (not graphic) and a hint of homosexuality in the character of the Baron. 

Notable Quote: 'This is the climax, Paul thought. From here, the future will open, the clouds part onto a kind of glory. And if I die here, they'll say I sacrificed myself that my spirit might lead them. And if I live, they'll say nothing can oppose Muad'Dib.' (Many more notable quotes, but this one was special for its interesting twist to how prophesies are fulfilled.).

1.

The Winter Prince, by Elizabeth Wein.

Now that I've managed to offend all the science fiction fans out there by not giving Dune my number one spot, I reveal my pick for best read of the month, which in itself is already controversial, even to me. I also feel, however, that it is definitely the best of the bunch this month, and liked it enough to check it out from the library again just a week after I returned it.

The Winter Prince tells the story of Merdraut, the illegitimate son of an incestuous relationship between King Artos (who was ignorant of the fact that the woman was his sister until it was too late) and Morgause, the terrifying and manipulative queen. Sound slightly familiar? Well, it should, as this is by-and-large exactly how the story goes in traditional Arthurian myths: King Arthur is duped into sleeping with his malicious sister, who bears a child, calls him Mordred, and raises him to be his father's destruction. But read on further, and we have a twist: Artos' wife is not childless, but instead has twin children about eight years younger than Merdraut: Lleu, a sickly, legitimate prince, and Goewin, the strong-willed princess. Merdraut both loves and hates his father's legitimate children, most especially Lleu, who although sickly, young, and often childishly proud is named the king's heir due to the fact that he is legitimate, despite Merdraut being much more capable. Still, he manages to control his growing jealousy and even love his half-siblings, determined to make a better man of himself than what Morgause tried to twist him into. The only problem is, about half-way through the novel Morgause herself shows up at King Artos' court, intent on shattering the royal family--and, in the process, Artos' very kingdom--once and for all. The man she plans to use as her tool is Merdraut. And here is where the story really gets interesting.

The overwhelming strengths of the story are not only the intriguing, well-executed plot, but also the beautiful style itself. Wein's descriptions are very much after my own heart--poetic, beautiful, and--when needed--absolutely haunting. It was extremely refreshing. In addition, the story is very deftly told in second person, which is a style so extremely rare in literature, mainly because it's so hard to make it work. It definitely works here. Wein tells the story from Merdraut's point of view, but Merdraut is telling the story to the birth mother he hates and fears, which adds another level of interest to the narrative that I found quite good.

Another excellent strength of The Winter Prince is the characters themselves. There are not many, but those that there are are very well written. Goewin is a strong female character of the kind that I like: strong, intelligent, and although she is dissatisfied with her limited role in medieval life she does the best with what she has and manages to impact all the characters pretty significantly. Lleu is both a sympathetic and aggravating character, and his development over the course of the story from asthmatic weakling to expert swordsman and prince is not only convincing, it's also really entertaining and his dynamics with Merdraut are wonderful--both not quite at ease with the other, with tension building throughout the book. Artos is good as the father and king who loves all his children, but he plays a relatively minor part. The real stars of the story for me were Morgause and Merdraut himself.

I hope you have read The Once and Future King. If you have, you will know how TH White portrayed Morgause of Orkney: charming, terrifying, beautiful, manipulative, enigmatic, unsettling . . . One of my favorite scenes in all literature is the whole unicorn sequence, culminating with a tearful child Gareth bringing his mother flowers to apologize for the beating she gave him, and she choosing on a whim to accept them, hugging him and kissing him so that he is delighted, but all the while not really thinking of him, but instead admiring how wonderful she looks in a mirror. Well, I am guiltily happy to report that this version of Morgause is very much the same version in The Winter Prince, and her shadow lies over the whole novel, even when she is not physically present. She's a really frightening and daunting adversary for Merdraut and Lleu both, and I congratulate Wein on her portrayal of the Queen. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Merdraut himself is a wonderful protagonist. His whole personality and character is filled with conflicts, which reflect his main conflict of being torn between his mother and his father, between love and hatred. He is the healer who is also a deadly warrior. He is a master marksman with crippled hands. He is Lleu's elder brother and lesser subject both. His narration of the story is really engrossing and excellently written, and his whole personality is like a riddle being unravelled throughout the course of the book. He's a very vivid character, and definitely not one that I will be forgetting any time soon

Now, the controversial part. This story is extremely dark, mostly due to the warped, ambiguous relationship Merdraut and Morgause have. There is no graphic objectionable content that I can bring to mind, but the author definitely implies more than once that sometime before the story begins Morgause briefly took her son--willing or no is not made clear, but the narrative seems to lean towards unwilling--as her lover, which is in keeping with her traditional character, but is also rather disturbing and downright creepy. In addition, Merdraut towards the end of the novel subtly threatens his half-brother with similar abuse, which is pretty much as dark as you can get. Again, the book is not graphic, and is even rather subtle when it comes to these darker elements of the story, but ultimately they are there, and could be problematic for some readers.

I personally recommend the story anyway. The selection out there of Arthurian fiction is as vast as it is mostly garbage, and it's really rare to find a good Arthurian story. In fact, apart from The Once and Future King, I haven't found any. Even rarer is good writing done about Mordred. I've read both The Book of Mordred and I Am Mordred, books I heard good things about, but I found them, to my great disappointment, to be pretty much fiascos. I Am Mordred has interesting ideas, but ultimately the plot never pulls itself together; The Book of Mordred destroys the character of Mordred by writing him off as a saintly and misunderstood hero. The Winter Prince, with its beautiful style, excellent characterizations, gripping plot, and 'realistic' setting of Medieval Britain, blows all other Mordred fiction out of the water. I love this Mordred, and I love this book.

Notable Quote: 'While I stood staring hopelessly you echoed my silence: your lean fingers closed firmly around mine, your blank eyes like fields of slate the perfect reflection of my own. Mother and son, flame and shadow, image and opposite--witless I stood before you and let them all see how alike we are.'