Tag: fantasy

Truckers

To clear the bad taste out of my brain, for book #50 I chose one I knew I’d like: Truckers by Terry Pratchett.

It’s a problem solving book. The Nomes have a problem: their home sucks. So they get on a lorry and see where they end up next, which turns out to be a place full of more nomes. These nomes live in a giant department store and don’t believe in the outside and it’s rather idyllic.

Except it’s going to be demolished.

There’s also a small box from space telling them what to do, and the joy of this book is the solutions the nomes come up to for their problems, in-between their arguing (nomes love to argue).

Masklin, the main character, suffers a bit from the sort of ‘good, but just kinda there’ lead problem that Pratchett’s books sometimes have, but I liked him a lot anyway. But my favourite part of the book was that unlike A Spell for Chameleon, women were suddenly people again.

And just for that, this book makes me so happy. I blew right through it, I was enjoying myself so much. It’s part of a series, the Bromeliad Trilogy, and the next book is Diggers, followed by Wingers.

A Spell For Chameleon


Image smaller than usual because I don’t think it deserves that much bandwith

A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony, first in the Xanth series, was to be my quickie 49th book on my list. It proceeded to keep me delayed for days.

This book is toxic.

From a scene where it’s explained how horrible it is for men to be convicted of rape and how women make up accusations, to two scenes where the main character is sexually attracted to fourteen year olds, and the fact that the main character could not think or look at a woman without thinking about their fuckability factor, the creepshow going on in this book was unending.

The worst, however, is near the end, where he’s with a woman who for reasons I won’t explain currently had the intellect of a very stupid child where he thinks ‘no, I won’t tell her what sex is, her mind is too young’ and then proceeds to have sex with her in the next paragraph. Seriously. This is what’s going on.

Looking up Piers Anthony, I found his preoccupation with teenage or younger and the intellectually challenged being molested was a big thing with him. From ages five and up, with the child being the ‘instigator’.

I do not recommend this book. It’s the first one to get an F on my list.

Why did I read it? When I was a preteen, I was majorly into the Xanth books after reading Dragon On a Pedestal in the school library. I stopped reading as a teenager when he wrote the ridiculously stupid The Color Of Her Panties, so I thought I’d revisit my childhood. Instead I spent most of it sick and disgusted.

On a side note, if Piers Anthony could have turned off the badtouch for at least a few chapters, there was actually an interesting story going on in the book. Unfortunately he ruined it by writing with his dick, not his hands.

EDIT: A blog post that further covers Piers Anthony’s themes of rape and molestation he writes as good times for all that I will give a major trigger warning to if you click.

When You Reach Me and The Miraculous Journey Of Edward Tulane

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It’s like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to. It was like that.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Decided to read something by a new author, and went with a kid’s sci-fi book. It’s not terribly sci-fi except for one big part, and takes place in 1978 New York. It follows a young girl named Miranda who has three problems: Her best friend Sal has decided to stop being friends, there’s strange laughing homeless man by her apartment, and she’s getting notes from the future.

It’s a clever book, but what I really liked about it was all the relationships that go on throughout it. Her world really opens up in the few months in the story.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo was a book I had to take a near-month break from. It was the one that made me start crying on a plane, and I’ve been waiting for a nice private moment to see how Edward the porcelain toy rabbit’s journey ends. I cried more. I think Kate DiCamillo has it out for me.

It’s a beautiful book, with great imagery, sweet characters, and a fair bit of injustice but it’s about love. And a toy rabbit that didn’t love or care about anyone at the start. Then shit goes down.

This is the second book by DiCamillo I’ve read and they were both excellent. Looking forward to reading the other books by her I’ve bought.

The Carpet People and Pokemon: Diamond and Pearl vol 1


The Carpet People written by Terry Pratchett age 17 and Terry Pratchett age 43.

This book was originally published when Terry Pratchett was 17 and then once the Discworld series started picking up in popularity, they went to him and said ‘hey, we’re going to publish that book you wrote when you were a teenager’ and Pratchett wisely did what I’ve wanted to do with my old stuff: He rewrote the fuck out of it.

I’m pretty curious what the original one was like. In the author’s note he says that it was written back when he thought fantasy was all about kings and battles, and the book I read was a lot of musing on civilization and the difference in people. Also, everyone living in a carpet. The biggest city in it is the size of a period.

It’s a thinky book mixed around trying to survive an incoming group of people/animals called the Moul (which means ‘one true human’) who eat animals. Look at their name. In-between this, there’s a roving natural disaster called The Fray that is followed by Moul attacks. The Munrungs, a hunter tribe, must survive and generally find a nice place to live after Fray hits their home.

It’s a decent book, but I wish there’d been more women in general. There’s a good effort near the end, but more speaking parts/doing parts is always appreciated in a book.

In other news, on the recommendation of Ann Larimer and the fact that Pokemon Adventures won’t have another volume out until September, I ordered the 8-volume set of Pokemon Diamond Pearl Adventures, which is a different continuity (Pokemon Adventures follows the trainers of the game in order with their own adventures) and is a lot looser in writing and style than the main series.

But so far I’ve learned that Professor Rowan, who is not actually the main character Hareta’s grandfather and I have no idea how he has custody, is the worst person to have custody of a child ever. Please look at the pictures below to see what I mean.


Just gonna leave a toddler in the woods and walk away. It’s all good.

PS: Read Castle Waiting vol 2 by Linda Medley and it was glorious. Excellent comic.

Earwig and the Witch and The Vile Visitors


Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones and illustrated by Marion Lindsay

On a rainy day (streets flooding and trapping me at someone’s house rainy) I read three Diana Wynne Jones stories, Earwig and the Witch and The Vile Visitors all illustrated by Marion Lindsay.

First off, Marion Lindsay’s art is adorable and charming, so that’s what I chose to post instead of quotes.

Earwig and the Witch was a major disappointment, and I don’t know how much of that is because it’s a posthumous book. It feels like two thirds of the book is missing, and that it was setting up for a series. Little is explained, characters are introduced significantly, only to never appear again, and the conflict vanishes suddenly. I was disappointed, because the start was very clever.

Almost forgot: The plot is Earwig lives in an orphanage and enjoys it very much. One day a witch takes her out to make her the witch’s slave. Hijinks start to ensue, then don’t.

The second book, Vile Visitors is a combination of two stories (see? I didn’t forget one when I said I read three above) which are Who Got Rid of Angus Flint? and Chair Person which have an unexpectedly large furniture presence. As the title suggests, it’s about vile visitors. The first is Angus Flint, a friend of the children’s father who shows up and decides to stay, making life hell. The second is about a horrible old sitting chair that a family decides to take out to put on a bonfire that… turns into a human and things go very wrong from there.

Vile Visitors was lots of fun, plus Marion Lindsay’s artwork really brought the characters and situations to life. Skip Earwig and the Witch.


Chair Person from the short story Chair Person by Diana Wynne Jones and illustrated by Marion Lindsay

Johnny and the Bomb


Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett

The last of the Johnny Maxwell trilogy! Johnny and the Bomb takes Johnny from helping videogame aliens (Only You Can Save Mankind), helping out ghosts (Johnny and the Dead) to straight up time travel. It all starts because Johnny was determined to help the local homeless woman after finding her in a bad case in an alley (first chapter spoiler: She had set off an unexploded bomb back in the ’40s).

It was definitely the best one of the series, which makes the fact it ends there kind of worse. The characters were getting all nice and developed and Johnny was finally developing a personality (but one scene especially proves it would have been better with him being a girl instead of a white guy looking on.)

There’s an emotionally painful scene in the book, involving Yo-less (who is black) and the racism back then, except it’s not the people who did it that hurt him so much as one of his friend’s reaction to it and it was rather on the nose.

Anyway, it was fun YA, but I still haven’t recovered enough to read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane yet.

I read three Diana Wynne Jones stories last night when the streets flooded and I was trapped at my dad’s, but I’ll talk about that later when I’ve composed my thoughts vis a vis ‘how much is Earwig and the Witch to be blamed on the fact it’s a posthumous book?’

Johnny and the Dead


Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett

Second book in the Johnny Maxwell trilogy changes nothing about my requests for some changes to the protagonist, but it’s significantly smoother than the first, Only You Can Save Mankind. In this one Johnny goes from leading an alien race to safety to helping out the local dead in the town graveyard.

It has some good philosophical bits, a lack of Kirsty (that’s not a good thing), and the usual cute interactions between Johnny and his friends, who are still twelve. It isn’t until the next book coming up, Johnny and the Bomb, where they finally get to upgrade to thirteen and get seriously involved in the adventures besides thinking Johnny’s a bit strange.

In Johnny and the Dead, Johnny starts seeing dead people, and then the dead people start realizing they can do a lot more than lay around waiting for judgement day. Wackiness ensues.

I’m actually halfway into the third and final book of the trilogy, which I thought I’d be done by now but grandparents came over and one must entertain ones grandparents or they start biting.

Castle Waiting

In my last post I briefly mentioned Castle Waiting by Linda Medley and I think it deserves more than a quick shout.

A few weeks ago, I was visiting my friend Ann and what is now customary we went to the bookstore and I aske her for comic recommendations, and this is one of the things she handed to me.

The plot is, essentially, what happened to the castle after Sleeping Beauty left with her prince. In Castle Waiting, it’s become a sanctuary and in volume 1 (volume 2 is shipping its way to me right now. I’m sort of dreading it because 1 was a paperback, weighed two pounds, and made my hands shake when I read it. Volume 2 is a hardcover) we follow the adventures of a new resident, Jain who has come to have her baby, and in the latter part the adventures of Sister Peaceful, who is part of a sect of bearded nuns.

Lots of jokes and character humour, and except for the Sleeping Beauty opening, not especially fairytale oriented, besides everyone living in a world where those sorts of stories do take place, just not to these characters.

There’s some strong Christian elements (because nuns) which seem to be less about Christians and more about bearded women, which I did not object to. Skeeter, the little novice with the huge mustache is adorable.

There’s a rough, racist bit about Roma in the first third, which is mostly redeemed in the last third, but be on alert for that.

Castle Waiting is sweet, easy fantasy with a lot of charm and the art is fabulous. My biggest regret is that I could not get a good picture of Nessie (Sister Peace’s good friend) that was on one of the covers for this post.

Gnomes

I’ve been reading a lot lately! Just haven’t been talking about it.

First off, I read Dinotopia and Dinotopia: The World Beneath by James Gurney. Both have art that just makes me feel happy all the way through. I preferred the first one as it was more of a journal exploration of the world and the switch to prose in the second was a bit awkward, but in the end I enjoyed them both very much. There’s two more, First Flight and Journey to Chandara, and while I have Chandara, I’m missing the one in-between, but I SUSPECT my dad is getting me it for Christmas! So I’ll resume them. As a result of wanting to read more picture exploration books, I’ve picked up Faeries by Brian Froud (and some other guy?) and Gnomes by I forgot already I suck. I did, however, make gnome icons:

I’m still in-progress with Gnomes, but it’s loads of fun. Great art and cute worldbuilding, my only complaint being a reliance on gender roles so far. And a bit about ‘bad blood’ as a reason for bad gnomes.

Now onto Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I made an off-hand comment to someone on Twitter about the original canon, realized I wasn’t sure myself and downloaded a copy off Gutenberg to confirm what I thought. And then I thought, it’s only three hundred pages and I’ve got a few hours free. Why don’t I read it all?

And I’m glad I did! First off, and I realize this is probably totally obvious to everyone, it turns out pop culture totally lied to me about the contents of the book. Victor was nothing like how he’s portrayed in the movies, the monster was a freakin’ genius (and a hypocritical whiner), and there was a whole other narrator that was surprisingly gay where I wasn’t expecting it. And given Mary Shelley knew that chap Lord Byron, that may have been a ‘this exists!’ conscious thing.

Our conversations are not always confined to his own history and misfortunes. On every point of general literature he displays unbounded knowledge and a quick and piercing apprehension. His eloquence is forcible and touching; nor can I hear him, when he relates a pathetic incident or endeavours to move the passions of pity or love, without tears. What a glorious creature must he have been in the days of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin! He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall.

–Walton, the first narrator, on Victor. There’s other close male friendships in this book and Walton’s… well, I’m pretty sure only the fact Victor was pretty much about to die (and presumably straight) prevented the makeouts.

And! Another quote I liked and the reason I was reading the book in the first place, to know exactly what the monster looked like. This part isn’t in the quote, it’s mentioned elsewhere, but the monster? Eight feet tall. Victor dreamed BIG.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

–Victor on his creation. Apparently the monster’s main problem was he was eight feet tall of corpsey uncanny valley.

Anyway, LOVED it. I’m so glad I read it! I’ve got people encouraging me to try Les Mis next, but I’m working on Little Women again because I finally got another copy after losing my last one. Oh Beth, your time is so short…