The Readventurer
  • Home
  • YA Reviews
  • Adult Reviews
  • Contests and Giveaways
  • Policies
  • About Us
    • Flannery's Challenges
    • Catie's Challenges
  • Contact Us

Adult Review: The Scar by China Miéville

4/24/2012

0 Comments

 
The Scar cover
The Scar (New Crobuzon #2) 
Author: China Miéville 

Publication Date: 1/1/02
Publisher: Del Rey

Blurb(GR):
 Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage—and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.

For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.

Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada’s agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters—terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission. . . .


Review: 
Scars are funny things. They are traumas long past. They are reminders of people we’ve known and places we’ve been. They are healing; they are memory; they are history. Scars can change us into something brand new; scars can show the world that we’ve been irreparably broken. Scars are full of Possibility.

And so, The Armada: a place where new scars are made and old ones fall away. A massive floating city, cobbled together with stolen and salvaged boats, stolen and salvaged people. Slaves, servants, the remade, the ab-dead, all the oppressed lower castes of Bas-Lag: in The Armada they are reborn as citizens or even leaders. The Armada is a blurred place, a place of change. It’s a place where a man like Tanner Sack, medically altered into something inhuman and imprisoned aboard a slave ship bound for a new world, can breathe free. It’s a place where a young sailor with too much experience and too many prejudices can let them all go and find love. It’s a place where a young maid and a boy from a misogynistic village can join and become the most charismatic leader The Armada has ever known.

And then there’s Bellis Coldwine, standing out in sharp definition against all the blur. She’s a woman who decided long ago who she was going to be and she doesn’t want to change. She’s tightly contained within her fully-realized self. Reluctantly fleeing from the scrutiny of the ruthless New Crobuzon authorities, she wants nothing more than to return home someday – a goal which becomes impossible when she’s captured and claimed by The Armada. Bellis can see the opportunities that some of her less fortunate shipmates have been given, but still she is stubborn. She holds onto her need to return home like it’s armor.

“No, she thought fiercely, uncompromisingly. Whatever the truth, whatever the case, however hopeless the cause – I do not give up on escape. It had taken her quite some effort to reach this coldly burning pitch of anger, of desire for escape, and to relinquish it now would be unbearable.”

What happens next is a thrilling, mind-blowingly imaginative high seas journey through nightmares and mysteries – each more jaw-dropping and unique than the last. This author just knocks my socks off with the sheer power of his imagination. There are enough ideas, worlds, and species in this book alone to kindle a hundred others. And yet, he just tosses them out there like peanuts. 

This story could have so easily become garish b-movie material, with its panoply of grotesqueries: flesh-melting neon green spit, anus-mouths, insectoid people, cactus people (seriously), and giant underwater behemoths. But it NEVER does! Everything he writes is so…emotional and profound; it never feels cheap. How he managed to break my heart with slavering, murderous mosquito women I’ll never know!

The writing here really shouldn’t work and yet somehow it feels absolutely right and perfect. The story shifts from past to present tense, from first person to third person, from one narrator to another. It seems almost cobbled together. And yet it never feels stilted or odd. It flows. Like The Armada itself, this motley assortment of prose somehow bridges together and reforms into a sweeping, effortless picture.

And here’s the thing I love the most about this book: that picture, that story, with all of its suspense and catharsis and death, was just a beginning. 

“And I feel, for all that has happened, as if it is now, only now in these days, that my journey is beginning. I feel as if this – even all this – has been a prologue.”

I have been a fan of China Mieville for a while, but this book is by far my favorite.

Perfect Musical Pairing

Bon Iver - Perth

I originally picked a song from this album for Perdido Street Station because I’d been listening to it non-stop for weeks and I was physically incapable of choosing anything else. But now I’m happy I did. This artist, with his weird falsetto voice and combination of 80’s-style synthesizers and brass instruments, really does sound different and sometimes odd. But his music is also undeniably beautiful and affecting. He wrote this song for a friend who had recently lost someone (Heath Ledger), and I think it’s about the marks that people leave on us: “I’m tearing up, across your face.”

5/5 Stars 
Readventurer C Signature
0 Comments

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

4/9/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Lies of Locke Lamora
Author: Scott Lynch
Publication Date: 6/27/06
Publisher: Bantam

Blurb(GR):
In this stunning debut, author Scott Lynch delivers the wonderfully thrilling tale of an audacious criminal and his band of confidence tricksters. Set in a fantastic city pulsing with the lives of decadent nobles and daring thieves, here is a story of adventure, loyalty, and survival that is one part Robin Hood, one part Ocean’s Eleven, and entirely enthralling.…

An orphan’s life is harsh–and often short–in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains–a man who is neither blind nor a priest. A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected “family” of orphans–a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Under his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting.

Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld’s most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful–and more ambitious–than Locke has yet imagined.

Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi’s most trusted men–and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr’s underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game–or die trying.…

Review:
I’ve seen a few readers refer to this book as “fast-paced” and my honest opinion is that this book is anything but.  This story wanders; it spends time on the small details; it reveals itself slowly.  Reading this book is like standing nose to tile with a mosaic and backing away one tiny step at a time.  We’re given a tile here, a tile there…one from the past, one from the present, a piece of random history, a side-note about one of the characters.   The completed picture isn’t visible until you’re a good distance away – until you’ve reached the end.

Finishing this book is like waking up to the realization that you’re actually surrounded by several floor to ceiling mosaic frescoes.  This writer quite obviously has a lot more planned for this cast of characters.  And unlike the authors of some series, I have absolute confidence that he has a firm grasp of where everything is going.  He probably knows the intimate history of every single character he’s ever written (even the minor ones): what they were like as children, who they’ve been with, what they had for dinner last night.  His imagination is clearly a force to be reckoned with, but the challenge for him (in my humble opinion) is one of editing.  It takes a very precise, steady hand to leave in enough detail to achieve that brilliant panoramic atmosphere, without going overboard into slow-as-molasses territory.

And actually, I think that he’s largely successful.  There were only a few times where I felt like…really? Did that detail really need to be in there?”  Even then, I was by and large so charmed by his hilarious/sarcastic dialogue that I didn’t much care.  And I love the entire cast!  I love that the “hero” Locke Lamora is short, non-descript, and scrappy.  He’s a brilliant con-artist (perhaps too brilliant) but his cons sometimes fail - spectacularly.  And his merry band of grifters stole their way into my heart one by one.  

Still, I would only recommend this one to those who don’t mind a bit of meandering – to those who are willing to trade off break-neck speed for a lot of interesting depth.  His writing reminds me quite a bit of Guy Gavriel Kay, with added heists, disguises, sleight of hand, gore, and plus about a million percent more f-bombs.  This book is hilarious and sometimes silly, but it’s never light.  He’s not afraid to hit you with real tragedy.

My only other comment is: Sabetha needs to make an appearance pronto!

4/5 Stars

Readventurer C Signature
0 Comments

Taming the Forest King by Claudia J. Edwards

3/19/2012

3 Comments

 
Taming the Forest King cover
Taming the Forest King
Author: Claudia J. Edwards
Publication Date: 12/1/86
Publisher: Warner Books

Blurb(GR):
The distant Forest Province had been torn apart by corruption and rebellion. On the direct orders of her king, Tevra, Colonel of the Light Cavalry, arrives in this strange land with instructions to restore order - at swordpoint, if need be.

Yet no steel blade can hold sway in a realm where shapes of death can be fashioned from the still of the air. And even the most ungodly works of the sorcerers pale before the mysterious powers of the Forest King himself - but is he Tevra's ally, or her deadliest foe?


Review:

Imagine the scene: a kick-ass heroine begrudgingly sets aside her military uniform to pour herself into an elaborate red ball gown (which of course she looks fabulous in) and attend a ball in her honor.  Upon entering the room, she’s approached by a gorgeous, powerful man.  She immediately notes that he “smells of almonds and sunshine,” and then feels a “storm of lust” as they dance the first dance together.  Their eyes connect, and she feels an instant tug of connection.

If you’re like me, then your eyes were probably rolling out of their sockets around line two of that description.  BUT NOW, just imagine that the heroine says this to that man:

“…forgive me, but I wasn’t in love with you.  I wanted you.  That’s a very different thing.”

And then she suggests that they have a one-night stand to get it out of their systems – right after she fights a duel on her own behalf and negotiates peace with a forest full of bandits, of course.

YES!  I feel like I’ve been waiting and waiting for this day – the day when a romance novel could surprise me this much.  Here’s my not-so-secret secret:  I love romance novels.  But I also hate romance novels.  I get so tired of feeling disappointed again and again and again: by heroines who are spineless, by heroines who are unrealistically tough, by heroes who are alpha male stalkers, by love stories that are little more than embellished lust, and by endings that are neat little happily-ever-after packages.  I’ve read those stories, and they weren’t very interesting the first time around.  And yet, they just keep getting written.

And so to this book I say: where have you been all my life?! Well, it turns out that this book has in fact been around for almost my entire life.  It was published when I was five years old!  I’m only sad that it’s taken me twenty five years to read it.  And I’m very sad that this author is no longer with us, but I intend to read everything she ever wrote now.

I love that Tevra both fits and breaks the mold for romance novel heroines.  She’s a powerful, brave, heroic woman who can also wear a dress.  But she also feels like a very realistic soldier: she’s cool, experienced, and logical – although sometimes a bit too logical.  She’s of medium height, in her thirties, has short practical hair, and is scarred from battle.  She’s definitely not one of those heroines who is supposed to be an experienced soldier and yet also has ankle length hair that brings all the boys to the yard, if you know what I’m saying.  She’s a genuine badass!  But Tevra is vulnerable too – even in a world where women are able to enter the military and hold rank, she faces challenges and she faces them with more intelligence than brawn.

But this book isn’t just about Tevra going around kicking butt and ruling the day.  This is a true romance novel, of the rarest type: one that features a deep, substantial, wonderful love story that’s based on so much more than just stupid lust (although a little bit of lust, of course).  I also need to mention here that this book includes a love triangle, and here's the amazing part: it didn't make me want to vomit.  AND, she didn't turn one of the suitors into a complete douche bag just to make the decision easier.  There's nothing simple or easy about this romance.  

And never fear!  This book has a wonderful, happy ending that was so satisfying I actually got a bit teary eyed about it.  It’s like everything that I’ve ever wanted to read in a romance novel was distilled and placed into this one book.  I can’t recommend it enough!

Many thanks to my blogging partner Flannery for sending me this book without telling me anything about it and ordering me to read it.

P.S. – that cover?  With the chain mail mini dress and weird monster?  And that title?  Have almost nothing to do with this book.

Perfect Musical Pairing
Radiohead – House of Cards

Dear Book,
I don’t want to be your friend; I just want to be your lover.

4/5 Stars
Readventurer C Signature
3 Comments

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

2/11/2012

0 Comments

 
Tigana Cover
Tigana
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Publication Date: 1/1/1990
Publisher: Roc

Blurb (GR):
  Eight of the nine provinces of the Peninsula of the Palm, on a world with two moons, have fallen to the warrior sorcerers Brandin of Ygrath and Alberico of Barbadior. Brandin's younger son is slain in a battle with the principality of Tigana, which the grief-stricken sorcerer then destroys. Years later, a small band of survivors, led by Alessan, last prince of Tigana's royal house wages psychological warfare, planting seeds for the overthrow of the two tyrants. At the center of these activities are Devin, a gifted young singer; Catriana, a young woman pursued by suspicions of
her family's guilt; and Duke Sandre d'Astibar, a wily resistance leader thought dead. Meanwhile, at Brandin's court, Dianora, his favorite concubine and--unknown to anyone, another survivor of Tigana--struggles between her growing love for the often gentle tyrant and her desire for vengeance. Gradually
the scene is set for both conquerors to destroy each other and free a land.

Review:
While reading this book over the past month, I thought a lot about the differences between youth and adulthood, between young beliefs and mature ones.  And I think that maybe our youth is the only time that we can hold simple, firm convictions.  Maybe it’s the only time that it’s possible to believe completely that love will conquer all, or that there are good guys and bad guys, or that if we try hard enough, we can achieve anything we dream about.  In our youth, we can say things like, “I would never…” and feel completely certain that it’s true.  I think that a lot of maturing into an adult involves being proven painfully wrong, again and again.

I feel like I lost a bit of my youth while reading this book.  Don’t get me wrong; I loved it.  It’s going on my favorites shelf and I’ll probably re-read it dozens of times.  But I hate it a little bit too, because it has now rendered so many of my favorite fantasy novels (some that I used to even consider grey and nuanced) flat and simplistic by comparison. 

This is the most adult fantasy novel I’ve ever read.  And I don’t just mean that in the sense that it contains sex, violence, and heads exploding like rotten fruit.  I mean that in the sense that nothing in this book is black and white, nothing is simple, nothing is held sacred.  Fantasy used to be a genre where I could sometimes comfortably escape into a few simple ideals, but this book has proven to me that even a fantasy novel can be gritty and realistic.  And now I feel like nothing less will do.

If this were a typical fantasy, it would be about a rag-tag band of comrades coming together to make a long journey and reclaim their home from the curse of some distant, evil goliath.  The foes battled along the way would be disposable creatures – orcs, giants, spiders, dragons – beings that are murdered with little compunction.  The final battle would end in a massive celebration and all would be right with the world.

But this is not a typical fantasy.  This book is about an entire generation robbed of its very identity.  It’s about the
children born to the losing side of a great war, and the terrible legacy that they must bear.  It’s about collateral damage – not just faceless creatures, but people with homes and families, friends, the one you love, yourself.  It's about how a fight for peace can necessitate horrible violence.  It’s about the never-ending nature of war. 

It’s about this:

“The lesson of her days, Dianora thought, was simply this: that love was not enough.  Whateverthe songs of the troubadours might say.  Whatever hope it might seem to offer, love was simply not enough to bridge the chasm in her world.”

And this:

“’The land is never truly dead.  It can always come back.  Or what is the meaning of the cycle of seasons and years?’  She wiped her tears away and looked at him.

His expression in the darkness was much too sad for a moment such as this.  She wished she knew a way to dispel that sorrow, and not only for tonight.  He said, ‘That is mostly true, I suppose.  Or true for the largest things.  Smaller things can die.  People, dreams, a home.’”


And this:

“He carried, like baggage, like a cart yoked to his shoulders, like a round stone in his heart, images of his people, their world destroyed, their name obliterated.  Truly obliterated: a sound that was drifting, year by year, further away from the shores of the world of men, like some tide withdrawing in the grey hour of a winter dawn.  Very like
such a tide, but different as well, because tides came back.”


The “heroes” are deeply flawed – capable of violence, enslavement, and the sacrifice of thousands of their own people in battle in the pursuit of their goal.  The “villain” is a very grey character and in the end, is just a man.  A man with too much power perhaps and too much grief, but still a man, capable of feeling great love and deserving of sympathy.

The relationships are intense and heartbreaking and I wept ugly tears more than once.  I love that we get to see the conflict through the eyes of the long-toiling Baerd and Alessan, but also through the eyes of the youthful and naively passionate Devin. And we get to see Devin mature in all the hardest ways
possible:

“Devin suddenly felt as if he could not bear it anymore.  Alessan’s quite acquiescence was as a final blow in his own heart.  He felt torn open, wounded by the hard truths of the world, by the passing of things.  He lowered his head to the windowsill and wept like a child in the presence of something too large for his capacity.”

Dianora broke my heart the most though, with her systematic destruction of her own self, her own happiness,
all in the name of this terrible legacy:

”She stopped and looked down at the flowers, their fragile petals shaken by the breeze; but her thoughts were back with Brandin’s fairy tale of the far away princess born under summer stars, cradled on such flowers. 

She closed her eyes then, knowing that this would not do.  And slowly, deliberately, searching out pain as a spur, a goad, she built up a mental image of her father riding away, and then of her mother, and then of Baerd among the soldiers in the square.  When she opened her eyes to go on there were no fairy tales in her heart.”


Obviously I loved the writing.  If I could find a way to include five or six more quotes in this review, I probably would.  His prose is powerful and lyrical and incredibly evocative.  This is a real, heavy duty, dense, you’re-going-to-need-to-look-at-that-map kind of fantasy and I hesitate to recommend it to those who only enjoy the “lighter” fantasies.  However, I think that if you enjoy capital F Fantasy even a little bit, this book is definitely not to be missed.

Oh, okay.  One more quote.

“His intelligence stretched her to the limits, and then
changed what those limits were."

5/5 Stars

Readventurer C Signature
0 Comments

    Archives

    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    November 2011
    August 2011
    June 2011

    Categories

    All
    Adult
    Booker
    Contemporary Romance
    Crime
    Dark
    Disturbing
    Drugs
    Erotica
    Faeries
    Fantasy
    Favorites
    Funny
    Futuristic
    Historical
    Horror
    Hot Guys
    Lesbian
    Medical
    Memoir
    Murder
    Mystery
    Nonfiction
    Paranormal
    Paranormal Romance
    Politics
    Post-Apoc/Dystopia
    Pregnancy
    Published: 1920
    Published: 1954
    Published: 1956
    Published: 1977
    Published: 1984
    Published: 1986
    Published: 1989
    Published: 1990
    Published: 1992
    Published: 1994
    Published: 1999
    Published: 2000
    Published: 2001
    Published: 2002
    Published: 2006
    Published: 2008
    Published: 2009
    Published: 2010
    Published: 2011
    Publisher: Bantam
    Publisher: Berkeley
    Publisher: Circlet Press
    Publisher: Crown Archetype
    Publisher: Delacorte
    Publisher: Del Rey
    Publisher: Dorchester
    Publisher: Golden Apple
    Publisher: HarperCollins
    Publisher: Jove
    Publisher: Leisure Books
    Publisher: NAL Trade
    Publisher: Night Shade Books
    Publisher: Orbit
    Publisher: Pocket
    Publisher: Random House
    Publisher: Riverhead Books
    Publisher: Roc
    Publisher: Shaye Areheart
    Publisher: Signet
    Publisher: Silhouette
    Publisher: Viking
    Publisher: Viking Adult
    Publisher: Vintage
    Publisher: William Morrow
    Relationships
    Reviewed: 2010
    Reviewed: 2011
    Reviewed: 2012
    Romance
    Science Fiction
    Setting: Canada
    Setting: Chicago
    Setting: Hawaii
    Setting: Ireland
    Setting: Maryland
    Setting: New York
    Setting: South Africa
    Setting: Sweden
    Setting: Texas
    Setting: Virginia
    Short Stories
    Space
    Synesthesia
    The Year Of The Classics
    Thriller
    Time Travel
    True Crime
    Urban Fantasy
    Vampires
    Witches
    World Building
    Zombies

    RSS Feed


Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.