Kam

I enjoy a good ghost story, but while there are plenty of good haunted house stories out there, it's not often that I encounter a good haunted spaceship stories. Fortunately, The Ghost Line is a good read - not because it has great jump scares or a truly horrific ghost (or monster, or whatever), but because it shows us that sometimes, the most terrifying ghosts of all are the ghosts of our past.

One caveat: I thought the characters were a little bland. I think that, given enough time and room to grow (as in: if they were given an entire novel's worth of development), I think they would've all been awesome, but as it stands it feels like they didn't stand out as much as I would like them to. This is especially true with Wei: I like her a lot as a character (though not as a person), and I would have loved to really see where she could have gone, if she'd been given enough story-room to grow.

... there???s truly something wonderful in this novel. The world, the characters, the plot, the themes ??? all have immense promise. But sadly, they are all smothered by the writing style, which muffles and dims the parts that ought to be memorable and striking. There are stories, of course, that suit such dry and deadpan delivery, but that style does not serve this novel well at all. Where the reader ought to be drawn in close to the characters, ought to inhabit the setting, ought to be moved by the plot or ponder upon the themes, they are instead set back at a distance, observing everything with dispassion. This is not exactly something I want to feel from a fantasy novel, and I???m sure there are plenty of other readers who would agree. 

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-KE

I'm one of those readers who enjoys a good twist in any story I'm reading. I like it when authors surprise me with something completely out of left field, when they catch me off-guard with something. I like it that way because I have a tendency to guess what will happen next - the result of reading far too many mysteries at a rather young age, I suppose. I'm willing to make room for certain genre conventions (such as the happily-ever-after for a couple in a romance novel), but any time the author does something I don't expect, it makes me a very, very happy girl.

Of course, those twists and turns have to actually make sense, or else they come off as silly. Twists just for the sake of them aren't any fun at all, and I hate pointless twists almost as much as I love a good, appropriate one. It really just depends on how the technique is used: used badly, a plot twist can make me groan in annoyance, but used well, and it can have me resisting the urge to scream at my book in a complex mix of emotions that can be very hard to describe except in the elegant language of keysmash.

Here's the interesting thing, though: some books can have a bit of both. Some of the twists can be good, and some of the twists, while not bad, are poorly-placed. When that happens, it becomes a question of which there were more of in a book, along with the usual questions about characterization, plot quality, and so on. And though I can say that though Dan Abnett's Pariah has both, the good mostly outweighs the bad - and that's quite fortunate.

Pariah is the first book in the Bequin trilogy, Abnett's conclusion to his Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies, and like those two trilogies is set in the Warhammer 40000K universe. The main character and narrator is Beta Bequin, a pariah, or Blank, who has the power to nullify psychic energies. At the school called the Maze Undue, she is trained in the arts of infiltration and deception, and she awaits the day that she can leave the school and become a productive servant of the Imperium. However, all is not as it seems, and Beta slowly comes to realize that something far darker, and far more dangerous, is afoot - and that everything she always believed to be truth, might in fact not be quite what she thought it to be.

One of the things I liked about the Eisenhorn trilogy - and what I missed in the Ravenor trilogy - was a compelling, distinctive narrative voice. As I've mentioned in previous reviews, this is something I look for anytime a novel is narrated from first-person perspective: if I can't stand to listen to the person telling the story, why should I even bother reading the rest of the book? Abnett's already proven he can write a compelling first-person narrative voice in Eisenhorn, and since I didn't get that in Ravenor I kept my fingers crossed that I'd find it in Pariah.

Fortunately, I did. Beta's narrative voice is a good, solid one, and distinct (thankfully enough) from Eisenhorn's, and very distinct from Ravenor's (not that Ravenor got to do much narrating in his books). The reader gets a sense of who she is from the way she speaks, which I think is crucial in any first-person narrative because it's so easy to assume that the narrator isn't telling the truth. In my review for Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind I mentioned that it was quite clear from Kvothe's narration that he wasn't telling the whole truth, and Rothfuss certainly implies the reader must not take everything he says at face value via Kvothe's own narrative voice. Beta's voice, on the other hand, presents her as a strong young woman who is willing to do what is necessary, and willing to face headlong whatever challenges lie ahead of her, and with very little reason to conceal anything about herself, what she's done, and what she's about to do. This bodes well for the next book, considering that things will start building to a head by then.

As for the story itself, it's rather slow to start, unlike the two trilogies that precede it. This is hardly a problem for me, as I'm very much used to that kind of thing happening in the books I read, but if the reader is coming to Pariah straight from the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books, the might still be too used to the more fast-paced development in those two series and may find that Pariah is not to their taste. But abandoning it for that reason alone would be a mistake, because things really start to get going by the latter third of the novel, with everything happening almost at once - which may or may not be a good thing, or rather both, in my opinion.

Now, on to the plot twists that are scattered throughout this book. For the most part, they're good, but I do think that some of them could have used some work. For instance, I think that the reveal regarding Beta's true identity could have been done much further into the book: if not towards the end, then at least midway through, as opposed to the first third of the novel. Learning that she's not the Alizebeth Bequin from the Eisenhorn trilogy would have been far more interesting had that information been revealed when Eisenhorn himself was around, or at least at some point further in the novel than the point at which it appears. In any case, a lot of other reviewers appear to be disappointed by the fact that she isn't the original Bequin. I, for one, don't care, since Beta isn't half-bad as a character in her own right (pending further developments in the two remaining novels, of course), plus I appreciate that Abnett makes sure that when a character is dead (barring any interference from external forces), they stay dead. It's so ridiculously easy for authors to pass characters through the metaphorical revolving door of life and death, especially when the setting is like that of the Warhammer 40K universe, in order to play to readers' sympathies, but I'm glad Abnett doesn't go that way. Alizebeth Bequin is dead, and she's not coming back; Beta's her clone, and she's the one who's around now, so deal with it. Another thing about Beta that some readers don't like much is how she's "taken the stage" from Eisenhorn and Ravenor. Again, I don't care, partly because Beta is a decent character, and partly because it's high time a woman took the stage in this series, especially after what Abnett did to Patience and Kara in the last Ravenor book. Of course, how long Abnett can keep writing Beta as a decent character remains to be seen; in fact, some aspects of her characterization are already rather flawed in Pariah itself, but I'm willing to let those slide for now. Hopefully he doesn't completely ruin her characterization further down the line.

One twist I did find rather questionable was the presence of Chaos Space Marines as primary antagonists towards the latter end of the novel. Talk around the Warhammer 40K fandom is that Abnett is one of those writers who doesn't use Space Marines gratuitously (or completely mangle their characterization), so I was rather surprised to see not one, but two factions of Chaos Space Marines make their appearance in the latter end of Pariah. I suppose Abnett is looking to up the ante after the events of the previous two trilogies, but I do wonder if he's making the right decision. Putting Eisenhorn and Ravenor on a collision course with each other, in which only one or neither of them may survive, is exciting enough as it is, so why add Chaos Space Marines to the mix? I suppose only the next two books will tell if Abnett was right to include them after all.

Overall, Pariah is not a bad start to a new series, but that's all it is: a start. So far, Abnett's characterization of Bequin is pretty decent and not totally objectionable, and his plot pace, while slow, is quite interesting and promises much in the books to come. Hopefully he doesn't fall into any of the other issues I've had with his characterization of female characters, and hopefully whatever grand plot he has in store doesn't get away from him too much. Of course, all of this remains to be seen, and I hope that next book comes out because I desperately want to know what will happen next - for good or for ill.

Anyone who has ever made a promise to someone else knows how difficult it can sometimes be to keep those promises. Some promises can be fulfilled in the span of a few months; others, however, can take years. I try my best to keep all the promises I make, but I will not deny I've broken some of them.

Fortunately, the promise to read a book can be fulfilled at any time, especially when I make the promise to one of my friends. They'll insist I read it, and most of the time I do get around to it eventually. This was the case with Hope when she first asked me to read the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold a year or two ago. At the time I managed to make it through the first two books, but hadn't quite managed to make it to the third. I think this was mostly because I didn't have much interest in space opera at the time, being incredibly focused on fantasy and urban fantasy - not to mention my reading habits weren't quite as orderly as they are now.

This time, however, I've managed to get around to reading the third book, The Warrior's Apprentice, after Hope reminded me that I really ought to get back round to the series, especially since I'd been on a space opera kick for some time now. In fact, she was surprised that I'd already managed to read the first two books, since I hadn't exactly told her that I'd done so some time back. And after I'd wrapped up Whispers Under Ground, it was as good a time as any to get back on track to keeping that promise - especially since the Vorkosigan Saga has a lot of other books that need to be read before Hope can say I'm anywhere near being able to talk to her about it.

In the first novel Shards of Honor, Aral Vorkosigan meets Cordelia Naismith, who is stranded on the same planet as he is, and they have to rely on each other for survival. Aral is an officer from the space fleet of Barrayar, an empire named after its home planet, and with a culture and political system very similar to Europe in the seventeenth century with some elements from medieval and ancient Spartan culture. Cordelia is a scientist from Beta Colony, which has a culture very similar to that of the twenty-first century except idealized: no gender issues, minimal economic troubles, and the very best in technology. It's easy to see that these two would clash, but they manage to work well together - well enough that they put an end to a war, and Aral takes Cordelia back to Barrayar with him, where he overcomes cultural and parental barriers to marry Cordelia and make her Lady Vorkosigan.

The second novel, Barrayar, continues the story a few months after where Shards of Honor left off. Cordelia is now pregnant, and is attempting to deal with that while at the same time trying to negotiate the maze that is Barrayaran politics - something she must now participate in, whether she wants to or not. given her husband's position. She refuses, however, to fit into the traditional role of society wife played by the other Barrayaran ladies, and goes about living her life her own way. When a poison gas attack on her and her husband fails to eliminate them but endangers the life of her unborn child, she refuses to have the baby aborted, and instead turns to heretofore unused Betan technology (retrieved from events in the previous novel) in a desperate attempt to save her chid. This attempt succeeds - to a degree. The gas, which destroys calcium, has caused permanent damage to the fetus' bone development. The child will live, and will be able to think and reason like any normal person, but will be physically deformed. In Barrayaran society this is a death sentence, but Cordelia doesn't care one whit for this particular aspect of her husband's culture, and defies it outright - and all this while helping protect the future Barrayaran emperor. In the end there is peace, for a while, anyway, and Cordelia's deformed child, little Miles, comes into the world with his parents' love - and their fear.

The Warrior's Apprentice jumps ahead several years, to when Miles attempts to enter the Imperial Service Academy in hopes of becoming am officer in the Barrayaran army. Miles knows he's done everything he possibly can to pass the written exams, but the physical exams are another matter entirely, given his super-fragile bones and less-than-optimal physique. As expected, he does not pass the physical exams, which puts the army - his one goal all this time - forever out of his reach. In order to get away from the crushing disappointment of his failure(a failure which he believes finally did his grandfather in) Miles heads off to see his grandmother Naismith at Beta Colony, taking with him his mother's - now his - bodyguard, Konstantine Bothari, and Bothari's daughter Elena. They plan to make a side-trip to Escobar, the planet where Miles' parents first met, in hopes of finding some answers regarding Elena's own mother, whom Bothari does not speak about. It's supposed to be simple, really.

But that's not quite what happens - and really, most of it is Miles' fault. First he “saves” Arde Mayhew, a jump pilot who's not quite right in the head, by buying his ship in hopes of using it and Mayhew to get out of Beta Colony to get more answers about Elena's mother. He then meets a deserter from Barrayar, Baz Jesek, whom he promises he'll help get home to Barrayar. Things get even more complicated when he gets entangled with Carle Daum, a smuggler trying to get weapons in to Tau Verde IV, which is currently in the midst of a war, with the only warp hole in and out blockaded by mercenaries. Thinking this will provide cover for his original mission of finding answers for Elena, he agrees to help Daum. Things get far, far more complicated from there, until by the end Miles has gathered together an entire mercenary fleet, and he's not quite sure how that happened, except that it did.

In my review of Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, I've mentioned that I like clever characters, characters who are capable of figuring things out and solving problems without having to use excessive amounts of force - and who are more than capable of finding themselves in a lot of trouble precisely because they're too clever. Locke Lamora is just that: a thief and conman who gets into a lot of trouble because he's too damn smart. He always manages to find his way out of trouble, eventually, but so far every time he's done so a lot of people - important people, people the reader cares about - have the nasty tendency of dying.

Miles is, in many ways, a lot like Locke, though very much unlike Locke, too. Miles isn't physically strong, and so has to rely on others to do the heavy lifting, as it were - in fact, in this department he's worse off than Locke, because Miles' physical condition is worse off than Locke's and that leaves him unable to do anything similar to Locke's “I just have to wait for Jean” stunt. Their morals, too, are very different: Locke serves only himself and the people he cares for, with no loyalty to any government or leader whatsoever save his god. Miles, on the other hand, is generally concerned about the greater good, and has very complex (Barrayaran) notions of honor and service. They are, however, capable of inspiring great loyalty in the people around them, and they themselves are very loyal to the people they care about - enough that they're not above putting themselves in the line of fire for those people, if it meant sparing them greater pain.

Simply put, I adore Miles as a character, mostly because he falls right in line with the kind of character I really enjoy at the moment. To be sure, he's not entirely perfect: he has a tendency to enter crippling bouts of depression and self-doubt, moments when his ability to think clearly is clouded by his emotions, and it usually takes someone else lifting him out of that funk in order to get him functioning again. He's also not exactly the most circumspect of characters: constantly making half-baked plans and hoping they work, and it's only by sheer luck that he has the people he does to make those plans actually work in the first place. He's also somewhat hobbled, so to speak, by his own self-loathing: he wishes he could be more than what he is, less of a monster and more a proper son, if only for his father. At the beginning of the novel, during a conversation he has with Aral, he wishes that he could make his father eat his guilt, to make Aral realize that if he would only let go of the fact that Miles is what he is, then everything would well and truly be all right.

As much as I like Miles, though, the other characters around him are just as important, and fortunately, are just as interesting. His bodyguard Bothari is interesting just the way he's portrayed in the novel, but it takes having read Shards of Honor and Barrayar to truly understand what's so special - and frightening - about him. Elena, however, is new, and therefore interesting. Though her father is very old-fashioned, determined to fulfill every single aspect of Barrayaran tradition to see her settled down, Elena was also partially raised by Cordelia, who is the very farthest thing from “traditional Barrayaran” as anyone can get. Like Miles, therefore, she exists in a sort of cultural limbo: wanting to do, and capable of doing, to a degree, things that Barrayaran culture prevents her from doing simply by virtue of her gender. Miles has a very high opinion of her, viewing her as everything he could have been had he not been deformed, and this admiration fuels the enormous crush he has on her.

Another character who plays a rather small but important role is Miles' cousin, Ivan Vorpatril, who manages to enter the Academy but is nowhere near Miles' equal in terms of intelligence. Miles knows this, and inasmuch as he loves his cousin, he also finds it a very bitter pill to swallow that Ivan should make it into the Academy simply because he's everything a Vor (the aristocratic class of Barrayar) should be, and Miles is not.

And then there are the “strays” that Miles starts picking up (sometimes even in his sleep) the moment he arrives at Beta Colony. Arde Mayhew reminds me somewhat of Miller from James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes: rough around the edges, and old, but unwilling to accept that fact. He's been chewed up by life and spat out again, and all he wants to do is just keep on doing what he loves, but the world won't let him do that. There are some very good reasons for that - it's pretty clear that he's not quite right in the head - but he tries his best to keep himself together, he stays loyal to Miles, and he pulls off some pretty spectacular piloting in the middle portion of the book that gives Miles a very big boost. There's also Baz Jesek, the Barrayaran deserter, who manages to finally overcome his fear of battle and becomes one of Miles' most trusted commanders. The mercenaries are also very interesting, though Bel Thorne, a Betan hermaphrodite from the first group, is particularly intriguing, if only because there are currents of intelligence there that might be almost as good as Miles'. He's not fully developed in this novel, however, but I do hope he gets a bit more development in later novels.

As for the storytelling, it's every bit as good as the storytelling in any of the books I've come to love and enjoy - and believe me, I really love a good story. The twists and turns seem almost improbable - for instance, how Miles manages to pick up an entire mercenary fleet by building up a lie is almost too good to be true - and there are times when even Miles himself doesn't seem to quite understand how that happened, but I suspect it's because he's surrounded himself with people who are not only skilled but very, very loyal - the Botharis, in particular, but later on Jesek and Mayhew help a great deal too. When Miles briefly flakes out after Bothari is killed, it's Elena, Jesek and Mayhew who hold Miles' impromptu mercenary fleet together. It's only towards the latter end of the novel that the reader really gets to see Miles' true strategic brilliance, but hopefully the later novels will put this brilliance on display earlier on in their story lines. After all, I'd like to think that much of what makes Miles great isn't just deus ex machina, no matter how funny the idea of him constantly picking up strays is.

As for the world, it's incredibly interesting. Much has already been described and laid out in the first two novels, and they are only expanded upon here. That expansion, though, is big enough to show a solid, well-developed universe, but at the same time with enough room for expansion - just the way the wording of a space opera-type novel should be. And now that Miles has put together an entire mercenary fleet, and put it at the disposal of his childhood friend and the Emperor of Barrayar, Gregor Vorbarra, there are certainly more adventures that lie ahead - and Miles will most certainly be at the head of them all.

Overall, The Warrior's Apprentice is a fun continuation of the stories begun in Shards of Honor and Barrayar, and a wonderful introduction to Miles Vorkosigan and his Dendarii Mercenaries. This is, however, only the beginning: now that he's got the fleet, he's got to do something with them, and those stories will, I am quite sure, be very enjoyable, interesting ones, headlined by equally enjoyable, interesting characters.

...reading about Mahit???s conflicting feelings about Teixcalaanli culture and language is, to me, like looking into a mirror of my own thoughts and feelings about my relationship with Empire. It is a relationship that is complex and complicated, and more often than not it can feel as though I belong nowhere: ???Not, in the end, quite home???, to quote the novel. This might seem terribly bleak, these are very important questions, not least because they touch me so deeply. I do not want to shy away from such questions just because they do not make me smile ??? indeed, I think that makes them even more important.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-Jq

Review based on an #arc given to me for free by Tor.Com Publishing. It is scheduled for release on March 13, 2018.

Man, but this was a fun read. The characters are wonderful to read about (I love Kiki and Minh), and though it takes a while to really get into the worldbuilding, once you grasp it it's a really well-built, well thought-out world that projects a future that might not be too long in coming if we keep on going down the road we're on right now. See, Robson's novella overtly tackles climate change, but it does more than that: it suggests that we need to alter our thinking totally, in the sense that we should do the right thing, no matter how difficult or impossible, and that we should plan for the long-term. Doing the right thing and planning for the long-term might be hard, but they're important - maybe not for us living in the here and now, but for those who will come after us. The present is a trust we hold for the future, after all, and it would be remiss of us to waste it.

Food is, hands-down, one of my favorite topics. I love eating food, and I also love cooking it - as long as I don't have to stand over spattering oil, of course. As a child I was a very picky eater, but over the years I've gotten rid of that habit, and when I go out with my friends and family nowadays I'm more open to trying things out than I was before. I'm also a firm believer in the idea that one of the fastest ways to understand a culture is to understand - and eat - their food.

Filipino food is a great example of this idea. Not a lot of people (besides Filipinos themselves) know just how regional the food in this country is: certain dishes, like adobo and sinigang are national, present in every part of country, but fewer people understand that even these “national” dishes are altered by the region in which they are eaten. Take sinigang, for example: at its most basic, it's meat and vegetables cooked in a sour soup. But the choice of souring agent may vary from region to region: tamarinds are more commonly used as a souring agent in the Tagalog region, for instance, whereas in Cebu they're more likely to use a fruit called iba (kamias in Tagalog). Also, the degree of sourness varies: in the Tagalog region (as in my own family), sinigang is generally prepared very sour, whereas in Cebu sinigang it isn't as sour.

The above does not, of course, even really get into the regional dishes, which are the ones that really speak in the voice of the area from which they came. The Ilocos region to the north of the country is very mountainous, so the cuisine is a mix of fresh vegetables (which grow better in the cooler climate of the north than in the warmer climate of the plains) and preserved, salted foods (which keep longer than untreated fresh food). Bicol cuisine is notable for its tendency to cook everything, but especially seafood, in coconut milk and chili peppers - mostly because all three are particularly abundant and accessible in the region. And in Mindanao, the food is much more similar to the cuisines of neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia, again due to the proximity and long history of contact between those areas.

It's also safe to say that this regional variation has a lot to do with not just location, but history, too. Much of the food in Manila and its surrounding regions, for example, is heavily influenced by Spanish, or rather Mexican, cuisine - a legacy of a time when Manila was at one end of the Acapulco-Manila galleon trade route. Other influences come from Southeast Asian, Chinese, and Indian food traditions - cultures which have had contact with the Philippines via trade and diplomacy. By studying these kinds of connections, it becomes possible to understand the national and international history of a country simply by looking at what kinds of foods are eaten, which dishes are most popular where, and how similar those dishes are to the dishes eaten by other cultures, both nearby and somewhat distant.

This was the kind of thing I was expecting when I picked up Tom Standage's An Edible History of Humanity. I was eager to look at the history of Mesopotamia as seen through bread, for instance, or the history of Greece through wine and olive oil, or maybe Tudor England in light of peasant food versus the lavish banquets consumed by Henry VIII. Would there be an analysis of Japanese history through sushi? Or Chinese history via pork? I certainly hoped so - and crossed my fingers I'd wind up with cravings in the process.

That's not quite what I ended up with, though. An Edible History of Humanity turned out to be more “history” than “edible,” Instead of going into specifics, Standage instead takes a broad look at history, taking into account how food - or rather, agriculture and food production - have impacted various crucial moments in history, and speculates how they will continue to influence the future.

The book begins logically, with the origins of agriculture and how it has become the backbone of everything else to come after. Part II explains how civilization - with all its glories and pitfalls - came about thanks to agriculture. Part III focuses on food and trade, with special focus given to spices. Part IV is about the Industrial Revolution, and about how innovations in agriculture allowed for that to happen. Part V explains how food has been used as a weapon, as well as the power of famines to create ideological shifts that lead to revolution and war. Finally, Part VI is about the future, and how issues connected to population and development affect what and how much the world eats.

Now, this isn't exactly what the title had led me to expect. I was rather hoping, as I mentioned, for a greater focus on food, which would be used as a way of explaining certain aspect's of a country's history and its relationship with other countries. I think was rather thinking it would be like A History of the World in 100 Objects, except with food taking the place of the artifacts Neil MacGregor used for his book. An Edible History of Humanity, however, isn't so much about food as a lens for history as it is how food has been used at various points throughout history to create various important shifts to shape what we now call the present.

Let me clarify: there's absolutely nothing wrong with this approach. In fact, I feel that Standage is trying to say something very important with this book: about how food, more than oil or gold, will shape the direction humanity takes in the future, by showing how food has shaped the past. His opinion on GMOs and biofuels are all very interesting, and certainly put a new spin on how these ideas can be addressed. His historical perspective is also useful in understanding how agriculture, population, and industrialization all played a role in creating the current state of the world in the twenty-first century, and while his predictions regarding climate and food production are nothing new (the book was first published in 2009), his predictions about what might happen in the years to come echo similar predictions being made today.

Regardless, I found myself slightly disappointed by this book. I suppose it's simply because it's not the book I was looking for (pun unintended). And while there's nothing wrong that I can see with what Standage has put down in his book, it's just not what I was expecting - or hoping, rather - it would be. There really wasn't much that was new in it to me; most of it I'd already found out from other books (in particular, A History of the World in 100 Objects), or via a host of podcasts I'd been listening to over the past few months. I was hoping for food with a side of history, and I got history with a side of food.

Overall, An Edible History of Humanity isn't that bad a read, despite that rather misleading title. There's nothing difficult about the language, and while its tone isn't as lighthearted as some people might like, it's not too heavy, either. It's a great read for someone who's looking for a light non-fiction read, or for someone who's interested in figuring out in the easiest way possible how agriculture is connected with everything else in society. For the serious history buff, or even for the serious food buff, this might not exactly be the best read, delving as it does in all the wrong places, or delving into things that might already be known to the reader.

This is a review for the entire series.

It???s been years since I read the first three volumes of this series, but then I found out that the first season of the animated version was on Ntflx so I decided to give that a shot, as well as find the rest of the series. Took me a while to get all the volumes, but once I had them all it was easy to do a speedrun, so to speak, and finish it.

One of the first things I need to say about this series is that it is bittersweet. Tragedy abounds in this series, as does heartbreak, and all manner of desires and goals remain unrequited and unfulfilled. That being said, I still thought this was a great read. I can understand why some people would choose not to pick it up because of the potential triggering content, or just because they don???t want to read something that???ll put them through the emotional wringer (as it were), but I found that I liked how tragic this whole story was - not for tragedy???s sake, but because of the characters. They???re a complex lot, and not all of them are good people, but I enjoyed reading about how the choices and decisions they made affected not just themselves and those around them, but the characters who came after them - a plot that???s allowed by the long scope of the manga???s story (from the reign of the third Tokugawa shogun, all the way to the dawn of the Meiji period some two hundred years later).

if there is any other media I could compare this to, at least on the surface, I???d say it comes pretty close to Game of Thrones - up until Season 5, since the show infamously loses the plot after that point. Fortunately this manga has a much more coherent storyline, even as it features many of the same beats such as forbidden romance and court intrigue. The alternate history aspect, wherein Japan is ruled by women instead of men, is interesting not because it drastically changes the way the world works, but because it showcases how so many things actually remain the same. Women are still people, after all, and power is still power, and people in power do things in similar ways regardless of their sex or gender, with similar outcomes both for good and for ill.

Overall, this was a pretty good read, even if it was heartbreaking in a lot of places, and even if there???s plenty of content that made me flinch, and which will very likely trigger other readers. If there???s one thing that I found a bit off-putting about this, and which other readers might find off-putting if the trigger warnings don???t, was the use of Shakespearean-style English, especially in the first half of the series. I suspect it was an attempt by the translator to mimic the more old-fashioned Japanese in use during the 1600s-1700s, but it can be rather jarring in certain scenes. One gets used to it after a while, but it can take one out of the moment sometimes. 

I???m sad I have to say this, but: this was disappointing. I picked this one up out of curiosity: it was billed as Smaller and Smaller Circles meets Himala, with the summary on the publisher???s website implying that it was more along the lines of a thriller than F.H. Batacan???s novel, which was very much a mystery novel.
But whatever this was, it definitely wasn???t a thriller. It???s not that I was expecting pulse-pounding, balls-to-the-wall action, since not all thrillers are built like that and frankly, I need to be in a very specific mood for that sort of thing to be any kind of fun. But I was at least expecting an intriguing plot: something with a cool mystery to untangle at the heart of it. The fact that this book centers around the Black Nazarene and Quiapo implied that the author would be mining the extremely rich vein of Philippine folk Catholicism, with the angle of tackling the many fringe practices and cults that are the byproduct of syncretization between Spanish Catholicism and precolonial beliefs. Sadly, none of that comes to fruition in this book. First off, the pacing in this book is completely out of whack.  While there???s nothing wrong with going off on occasional tangents to show what???s happening with other characters, there was just way too much of that happening here to make for a tightly-told story.
This pacing is a reflection of the plot, which was just as out of whack as the pacing. I can see what the author was trying to do, but they just didn???t pull it together tightly enough for it to be any kind of fun read. There was a moment, about two-thirds of the way into the book, where there is a big explosion in a cave, and then the next scene cuts to the characters back in their safe spaces, celebrating Christmas. I know these quieter moments are vital and they contribute greatly to character development and plot movement because you can???t always have the action going full speed, but that was VERY badly placed.
The way flashbacks were handled was also poorly done. I think the author was shooting to make each chapter a complete entity unto itself, so he writes each chapter as if telling a short story about the character who???s the current focus of that chapter, but it just doesn???t work when you???re trying to do tension and intrigue in a scene. There were so many of these moments where something tense was happening, only for it to be broken because of a flashback. Of course, this meant the pacing and plot were further hobbled, unable to get any kind of real momentum.
Not that I???m talking of flashbacks, I think I need to talk about characters. For one, I think there were way too many POV characters in this novel - and this is coming from someone who reads fantasy on the reg, where sometimes you need a list of characters at the start of the novel just to keep track of who???s who. The problem is that it felt like the author was trying to make EVERYONE a main character, but none of them had ???main character energy???, so to speak, save fr one or two, but they tended to get lost in the crowd of other characters who, quite frankly, just weren???t interesting enough to hold my attention. Additionally, the characterization also felt weirdly flat in places. I understand that in most cases, thrillers are about plot and not so much character development, but these characters felt like cardboard cutouts trying to sound more profound than they actually are. I think this might be because they???re all trying to be the main character and it???s just not working out. The way dialogue was formatted also didn???t help, because there was something about the way it was handled that meant I sometimes didn???t know who was talking in any given scene. On top of the fact that most of the characters aren???t really THAT fleshed out, it???s easy to get lost and wonder ???Who the hell is saying this now????
What I suspect the main problem here is, is that this book was written with the themes in mind first, and everything else built around those themes. Which, when you look at the themes presented in this book, is kind of admirable: the intersections between the wealthy, the powerful, the Church, and corruption in the Philippines; how Catholicism in the Philippines has valorized poverty and suffering instead of trying to uplift those who are poor and suffering; justice as commodity to be bought and sold by the corrupt and powerful, instead of a right guaranteed to all; the deep-seated wounds of colonialism and where that intersects with white privilege and cultural appropriation. These are all amazing ideas. But the book doesn???t let these emerge organically from the story through the characters and the plot; instead, it feels like the characters and the plot were made in service to the themes. Which then explains all the other problems this book has, in my opinion: the characters are reduced to puppets, and the plot reduced to a series of mere lines to be put into their mouths, with things happening TO them instead of BECAUSE OF them.
And again, this is all very disappointing, because I can SEE how this could have been an awesome read, but the execution just wasn???t up to snuff. Maybe in the future someone will try this sort of thing again - honestly Philippine folk Catholicism is a VERY rich vein for story material and really should be mined more - and I hope it does the job better than this book. Which, frankly, isn???t going to be that hard. 

This review is based on an ARC given to me for free by the publisher via Edelweiss. This does not in any way affect my review.This novel is slated for release on November 13, 2018.

Despite those Lovecraftian trappings, this novel goes in the complete opposite direction from Lovecraft???s politics. Instead, it tackles the notion of privilege, and the many, varied ways it can harm others ??? sometimes in ways that a person can be aware of, but oftentimes, in ways a person is not aware of. This is a thematic thread that runs through the novel, played out in the way characters talk to and interact with one another, but also in the historical context and the worldbuilding. Someone always has some ideas about the way the world should be ??? usually in a manner that privileges them, even at the expense of others. That is why the rich can afford to throw boozy parties while the less affluent need to scrimp and save for a few tubs of ice cream; why a man can operate a fishing trawler whereas his own daughter, no matter how strong and competent, can???t do the same without ???damaging her reputation???; and why a black woman, no matter how intelligent, can???t escape the cycle of systemic poverty and racism that keep her and others like her from living a better life. This novel, then, shows that it is important to check one???s privilege before making assumptions, because what one sees as right or normal might not be right or normal when viewed within a wider context.

In line with that, there is a second, parallel theme: that of taking action. Knowing something is wrong is one thing, but just knowing and not doing anything about it is just as bad as actually doing that wrong thing. If the world is to change for the better, there needs to be more than just pretty platitudes and positive statements: there needs to be concrete action. Of course, that kind of action is not easy nor comfortable ??? but then again, so is choosing to throw off one???s comfortable worldview in favour of the truth.

When I was around sixteen or seventeen, my parents asked me what I wanted for my eighteenth birthday. In the Philippines, girls typically have a coming-out party called a “debut,” similar in concept to the debuts held in American high society, but in execution much closer to a very elaborate Sweet Sixteen. I had, however, vetoed this choice after finding out that the cost for one such party could amount in the millions - money which I thought could be better spent on something that would last me more than one night of my life. My parents then offered to get me a car, but this was something I knew I could purchase on my own, eventually. So I asked them for the one thing I knew only they (and the rest of my family) could give me at the time: a trip to Europe. My parents found this decision acceptable, though they did warn me they'd only let me go on the trip once I had graduated from university, making it a combination eighteenth birthday/graduation gift. I didn't complain, and a few weeks after I'd graduated I went on the three most amazing weeks I've ever had in my life so far.

My younger sister was of the same mind for a while, but she was not very interested in Europe - she wanted to go on a safari trip in Africa. This is completely in keeping with her personality, as she's always been more adventurous and independent than I've ever been, and while we're both equally fascinated by wildlife and nature, if I were given a choice between the Louvre and the Kalahari, I would pick the Louvre. My sister, who isn't as interested in churches and museums as I am, would go jump into a safari jeep in a heartbeat.

Due to the exigencies of life (and parental concerns), my sister never did get to go on that safari trip, but that doesn't mean she's uninterested in doing so someday - and just because I prefer the Louvre to the Kalahari does not mean I am utterly uninterested in the same idea, either. It was with this hope to one day go on safari - whether in my sister's company or not - that I picked up Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide by Peter Allison. The book is essentially a memoir, a collection of Allison's favorite anecdotes from his time working first in South Africa and then in Botswana as a safari guide. Each chapter is an individual story, arranged in a loose chronological order, starting with a handful of stories from Allison's time in South Africa, before moving on to stories of his time in Botswana, where he spent most of his years as a safari guide.

One of the greatest pleasures in reading memoirs like this book is to get a peek into how someone else's life works - and, more importantly, how they deal with it. I very rarely read memoirs because, more often than not, they bore me to tears because the author takes himself or herself too seriously. In some cases I have to put the book down because it becomes all too clear that the memoir is nothing more than the author stroking his or her own ego, and expects everyone else to appreciate him or her while doing it. To date, the only memoirs I've read and found fun are those written by Anthony Bourdain, and that's not only because he focuses on food. Bourdain has one vitally important thing: the entertaining voice of a born storyteller, capable of turning what would otherwise be boring stories into fun, insightful anecdotes. Not all memoirists have this gift, but fortunately, Allison does, which means Whatever You Do, Don't Run is a very, very fun read indeed.

Let me be clear, though: Allison's voice is nothing like Bourdain's. It might be easy to argue that they wouldn't be the same, because Bourdain writes about food while Allison writes about safaris and wildlife, but voice has very little to do with subject matter. It does, however, have everything to do with personality. While I won't deny that a great deal of editing that went into Allison's writing before it was published, I do believe that he has a unique storytelling voice, one that I find just as entertaining and easy to read as Bourdain's. I like Allison's sense of humor, and found myself constantly chuckling and snickering to myself while reading. Take, for example, this gem, wherein Allison describes the first time he realized just why the Cape buffalo is considered one of the most dangerous animals in Africa:

Bleary-eyed one morning, with caffeine still missing from my system, I fumbled my way along the dusty paths to the guest tents, calling out “Good morning!” in as cheery a voice as the hour would allow (it was barely after five o'clock and the sun had only just cracked the horizon). I heard a rhythmic thumping, getting rapidly louder, and I turned to find 1,600 pounds of pissed-off cow bearing down on me. Clearly it disagreed with my assessment of the morning.

There is setup before this portion, of course, describing how Allison didn't really think much of the Cape buffalo because he had so little experience of them in South Africa, and how he has thought of them as nothing more than cows, which just makes the above very funny - and it gets even funnier when Allison describes how he escaped the “cow's” ire. The above is typical of Allison's writing, and though it's not always as clean as the passage I've just quoted, it's still just as entertaining, and tinged with the same wry humor that really makes reading the book a joy.

Another great thing about this book is how loosely connected the anecdotes are. They are organized chronologically, but beyond that, there is very little, narrative-wise, to connect them. This means that the reader has the pleasure of jumping back and forth throughout the book, without the usual constraints of a stricter, more traditional narrative format. If the reader does not enjoy a particular anecdote, the reader is free to skip on to the next one, and their understanding and enjoyment of Allison's narrative isn't affected in the least. It also makes it easy to put the book aside for a while, and then revisit it without having to reread the previous anecdotes. Books that permit this relaxed reading approach are few and far between, and are rarely as entertaining as Allison's book.

Finally, what makes this an enjoyable read is what makes all memoirs, when well-written, enjoyable: the author's insight into the characters around him - and in Allison's case, those characters include his co-workers, his bosses, his clients, and, naturally, the animals he encounters, willingly or not, in the African bush. Allison has a self-deprecating sense of humor, and that is something I enjoy in all my narrators, but his is a gentle humor, in no way mean-spirited or demeaning. He pokes fun wherever he thinks it's warranted (especially when it comes to certain irritating clients), but he never singles anyone out for reasons of race or gender - something I greatly appreciate. And inasmuch as he pokes fun on occasion at certain aspects of African culture, he's just as ready to show appreciation for other aspects, as well. Moreover, his love for the animals shines right through, whether he's relating the actions of the camp's resident honey badger (and the staff's equally hilarious reactions), or expressing the wonder he feels while witnessing the matriarch of his favorite elephant herd giving birth.

Overall, Whatever You Do, Don't Run is a perfect light read to sink into, one which does not tax the reader overmuch but provides large doses of humor and education, along with touches of bittersweet emotion every now and then. Allison's voice is enjoyable to read, and he has the chops of a more-than-decent storyteller, making his anecdotes a pleasure and a joy. If one is about to embark on a safari; is thinking about doing so; or likes the idea but would much rather not deal with the bugs and the stink and the dust, then this book is sure to please.

Awareness of what Yoshiki is trying to do with this series also helps the reader understand why so much science is hand-waved away in favour of describing political and military manoeuvres, with much emphasis placed on the latter. The book has ten chapters, and two of those chapters are dedicated entirely to describing every single little tactical decision made, and their subsequent consequences, in meticulous detail. I suppose Yoshiki does that so the reader may better admire the cleverness of the story???s chief protagonists, but those chapters can feel like an enormous drag, if the reader is looking for more character development or plot movement.

Full review here: link

In an ideal world, one does not go to a hospital for whatever reason outside of accident, childbirth, annual checkups, or work. They provide a great and necessary service, of course, no one will doubt this, but nor will anyone disagree with the fact that one must keep one's visits to the hospital and the doctor to as bare a minimum as possible - preferably once a year for an annual check-up. I however, am not among those lucky few. I have been confined to a hospital thrice: twice for dengue, and once for typhoid. I have also been an outpatient twice in recent years (the most recent incident being February of this year), both times for severe gastroenteritis. In all those cases I've watched as doctors take tests, analyze the results, and come to a diagnosis and from there come up with a treatment program that has, in my case, allowed me to survive to this day without anything truly serious happening to me (beyond a deep-seated fear of hypodermic and IV needles).

But I have always wondered: what is going on in the doctor's head? How is he or she able to conclude, based on the tests and my symptoms, just exactly what's wrong with me? I also asked: do they ever get it wrong? I know now, of course, that doctors get it wrong a lot of the time; I've just been lucky that all the doctors who've treated me haven't done so in my case, and, thankfully, in the cases of the people I know and love. But there are a lot of people who haven't been so lucky, and have either suffered more for it, or died for it.

When I came across the book Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis by Lisa Sanders, I was drawn to it for two reasons, and they can be found in the title: “medical mysteries” and “the art of diagnosis.” I am fascinated by biology and medicine, so the idea of reading about medical mysteries was one that appealed to me greatly. On the other hand, I thought this would give me an opportunity to understand how doctors figure out what is wrong with their patients - something I'm invested in knowing, as a potential future patient or caretaker of someone who may be a future patient. Either way, I believed this was a book that was worth reading, so I gave it a shot.

The book is divided into four parts, each divided into chapters. Part One is titled “Every Patient Tells a Story,” and deals with the concept of diagnosis, and why it's so vital in medicine. Part Two is titled “High Touch,” and is about the medical exam: a vital skill that's slowly dying out in medicine as its practiced in the United States. Part Three is titled “High Tech,” and deals with the tests that doctors often have filled out in order to come to a diagnosis for their patients. Part Four is titled “Limits of the Medical Mind,” and deals precisely with what it talks about: the limits of the human brain, and what technology and the medical exam can do to help with those limitations.

As is made obvious from the breakdown above, the book is really a lot more about diagnosis than about medical mysteries, which disappointed me somewhat as I was rather looking forward to a Sherlock Holmes-esque book, like a collection of stories of strange cases and extraordinary diagnoses made by doctors and subsequently collected by Sanders - in short, I was expecting a book that read like a compilation of House, M.D. episodes (especially since Sanders is a consultant on the show), except more realistic. But though Every Patient Tells a Story is not quite what I was expecting it to be, I was still glad to have read it for the insight it provides into the diagnostic process - at least as it is done in the United States.

What Every Patient Tells a Story proves, first and foremost, is that diagnosis is far, far more complicated than it appears on television and movies - and far more prone to error than might be comfortable for some. One would think that, in the twenty-first century, with all the high-tech tests and the enormous database that is the Internet to help doctors along, diagnosis would be a snap - the only thing better would be to have a small, handheld device like Star Trek's tricorder (a similar device is already in development). However, Sanders makes it clear that, while a tricorder would be a lifesaver for many doctors and patients, the act of diagnosis - an oftentimes Sherlockian feat of pulling together disparate clues to form one coherent whole - is something only the human mind can accomplish. Technology can aid this process, but it can only go so far.

And yet, while the human brain is the most powerful analytical tool doctors have when it comes to coming up with diagnoses, it is also potentially the weakest. It does not help that medicine as it's taught and practiced in the United States does not leave much room for improving diagnostic skills: top of the list being the declining use of the physical exam, or the improper use of it. Sanders shows how the declining practice of the physical exam, as well as problems in teaching it, have left American doctors lacking a vital skill that could have allowed them to diagnose an illness properly, or sooner While Sanders is quick to clarify that the physical exam is not infallible, she does emphasize the fact that it teaches necessary skills every good doctor should have - not least that of careful observation, which is crucial in figuring out just what is wrong with the patient. She also includes history-taking as part of this exam, and points out that a lot of doctors really don't know how to take a patient's history down properly.

The first thing I felt about this book was: very perturbed. It's not difficult to understand if a doctor misdiagnoses someone because of machine error on a test, or a lab error, but the fact that the doctor himself or herself can be at fault is rather disturbing. Doctors are human, of course, and one can hardly blame them for making mistakes precisely because they are human, but what this book shows is that sometimes, those mistakes are made due to sheer carelessness. One would think that several years of medical school would whip the carelessness out of future doctors before they're allowed to practice on patients, but apparently that's not always the case.

However, the nature of the book to raise questions in the reader's mind is, I think, also its best quality. Every patient should care whether or not her or his doctor is doing a good job in diagnosing him or her, and every doctor should keep in mind all the ways that she or he can make a mistake, and while some of those ways are unavoidable or cannot be helped, there are many other ways where one can avoid a mistake by taking corrective measures. Also, by pulling back the curtain on the diagnostic process, the reader is given a better understanding of just how that process works, and thus are in a better position to help supply information for an accurate diagnosis (especially since putting together a solid patient history is crucial in coming up with a good diagnosis). It also helps create some sympathy for the doctor, since once the reader understands how difficult it can be to come up with a diagnosis, he or she will be more inclined to not blame the doctor for taking a long time in figuring out what is wrong with oneself or with someone one is caring for.

Aside from the level of the individual doctor-patient relationship, Sanders points out how, on the grander scale of the practice and teaching of medicine itself, there are problems which prevent doctors from coming up with proper diagnoses when they are most needed. In this regard, at least, Sanders points out how some people are trying their best to change the system, trying to regain skills that were or are being lost because they are not longer being taught, or by attempting to introduce new techniques that will make the diagnostic process easier and more reliable. Most importantly, these techniques and improvements are being directed at the doctors themselves - new gadgets are good, of course, but any technology is only as useful as the person using it, which means it's brains that need tweaking and changing.

Overall, Every Patient Tells a Story is a disturbing, but vital, read: disturbing in that it raises some troubling questions that will leave the reader looking askance at her or his doctor, and is likely a book that no hypochondriac should even take a quick skim through. On the other hand, the very thing that disturbs the reader about this book is also the part that makes it very powerful: it shows the reader what goes on when a doctor figures out what is wrong with the patient, and therefore demystifies the process. This can arm the reader with vital information that may help him or her become a better patient - always important when one is trying to get well again, or when one has to care for someone who is ill. This is not for all readers - hypochondriacs have already been mentioned, but anyone with a weak stomach should be forewarned that there are parts that may leave them feeling ill - but it is a good read nonetheless, doctor or (potential) patient.

It's always a pleasure when a book series one favors might start out weak, but then proceeds to go from strength to strength. Of course, it could be that the reader simply gets used to the characters, and perhaps grows fond enough of them that weaknesses in other aspects of the series seem less obvious in the face of comforting familiarity, but I've always been more attached to plots than to characters themselves. It's why I can say Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is superior (in my eyes anyway) to all the other books before and after it. While I had already loved the characters (the first three books saw to that quite handily), the storyline of Goblet of Fire was simply far, far more enjoyable to read than the first three, and even the latter three (especially Order of the Phoenix - I found that one far too tedious for its length).

It is the same, more or less, with the Mary Russell series. I loved the first book, hated the second, marginally enjoyed the third, was quite pleased with the fourth, and was very happy with the fifth. In Justice Hall, the sixth book of the series, I once more found myself caught up in a storyline that pleased me on quite a few levels - and with characters I had already come to love.

I have mentioned in my review of O Jerusalem that I love plots with exotic locales, thrilling chase scenes, and grave danger to the protagonist/s. The fifth novel of the Mary Russell series provided all that, and more: it gave me characters I could get deeply attached to. This was the case with Mahmoud and Ali Hazr, the strange Bedouins-who-are-not-really-Bedouins who accompany Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell in their adventure through Palestine.

Chronologically speaking, O Jerusalem occurs within the same timeline as the first book, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, since the trip to Palestine was actually a means of escaping the mastermind of the main plot of the first book. However, Mahmoud and Ali Hazr, who are co-protagonists with Russell and Holmes, are among the crucial characters of Justice Hall, the events of which happen, chronologically speaking, almost immediately after the events of the fourth book, The Moor. As a matter of fact, it happens so soon immediately after The Moor that it seems as if there is barely enough time for Holmes and Russell to settle in before trouble comes knocking on their door - literally.

As it turns out, “trouble” is their old friend Ali Hazr, concussed and plenty angry - except it isn't quite Ali Hazr the Bedouin. It turns out that what Holmes mentioned about the Hazrs actually being Englishmen living as Bedouins is accurate enough - except there was one factor he hadn't quite factored in correctly: rank and status in society. As it turns out, Mahmoud and Ali Hazr aren't just any ordinary Englishmen: they are scions of the Hughenforts, a prestigious and very old (as old as the Norman Conquest, as a matter of fact) noble family. Ali is, in fact, Alistair Hughenfort, cousin to Maurice Hughenfort, heir to the Hughenfort properties and titles - and who also used to go by the name Mahmoud Hazr. When Ali asks for their help, Russell and Holmes can hardly say no, and so accompany him to Justice Hall, seat of the Hughenfort family, whereupon they get tangled up in an attempt to find another rightful heir to the Hughenfort titles and properties, as well as solve the mystery behind the exceedingly hasty execution of a young man during the last war.

While the search for a rightful heir is interesting enough, it is really a plotline I didn't find all that interesting because I had seen it enough times in soap operas and dramas, as well as read it in enough romance novels to make my eyes roll slightly at it. No, it was the other half of the plot, about the young soldier who was executed, that I find of greater interest. It is historical fact that young men were executed for a variety of reasons during the First World War, but what is disturbing is that quite a few of them were sentenced to death without the benefit of a proper trial. Many, many young men died this way, and while their numbers were far, far fewer than those who died in the trenches, their deaths are no less tragic, and no less an outrage of justice, than the massacre of thousands on the frontlines.

Another interesting subplot in the novel involves Iris Sutherland. She is the estranged wife of Maurice/Mahmoud (something which rather shocks Russell and Holmes, and for good reason, as Mahmoud never gave any indication of being married during their adventures in Palestine), and is a lesbian, living in Paris with her partner. Her position in Maurice/Mahmoud's life, as well as in Ali/Alistair's, is interesting, and the dynamic between the three of them is positively electric. Too, her friendship with Russell might imply something else to some readers, especially when Russell is present for one of Iris's more vulnerable moments, but I hardly think there are any romantic undercurrents to be read between them. Russell is distinctly faithful to Holmes, and Iris to her own lover in Paris. Other readers might like to see something else in their interactions, but I for one do not see it at all.

Overall, I think that Justice Hall isn't as strong as its predecessor, O Jerusalem. Despite the familiar characters and the interesting new ones (Iris Sutherland, in particular), the plot about tracking down the rightful heir just wasn't as pleasant to read about - not boring, but simply not one I enjoyed. And while the plot about the executed soldier was interesting, it just didn't seem quite as fun as the last one. Or it could simply be that the setting of the story itself, and some of the main characters - grand country estate, the amusements of the wealthy and affluent - remind me a little too much of similarly-set and similarly-plotted romance novels. This isn't to say that Justice Hall is made worse by this association (as I love reading romance novels too), but it's an association I wish I didn't have to make.

As always, Russell's voice and narrative keep the plot moving along just fine, and she and her husband are entertaining, as always. If the reader also happens to be a fan of Downton Abbey, this book will make one feel right at home.

What I find most interesting about this particular pattern of themes and the way they emerge in the novel is that the author presents a potential solution to a very real problem. We all want the world to be a better place. We want to vanquish oppression and fear, and be really, truly free. But in order to do that, we first need to be open and honest with the people around us about who we are and what we are, while at the same time being accepting of those differences. However, to get to that point, we need to work at it, because that???s just how the world works: nothing of true value can be had for free. We cannot simply wish a better world into being, nor can we start from scratch. We have to work with what we have ??? and since this imperfect, uncaring world is all we???ve got, we might as well start here, with what we can change: ourselves.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-FB

Well, this feels complicated!

So I want to say off the bat that I was a little worried going into this - more worried than I was when I first read it, mostly because of the setting: India. And during this time, India was being colonized by European powers, with the British winning out in the long run. Given how colonization absolutely fucked India up on several levels, I was concerned about how the political and social situation of India would be portrayed, as well as how any Indian characters would be depicted.

And I will say: some of it I think was done okay, but some of it was not. In terms of the political situation, I think those were handled fairly okay, in the sense that the struggle of the Indian city-states against the machinations of both the British and the French to bring more of the subcontinent under their control was touched upon, but it wasn???t something that the novel went into with a lot of depth, sticking only to tightly-controlled specifics that were pertinent to the plot and the specific moment in history that the story was taking place in. That was fair, in my opinion: the author had a specific plot in mind, and used aspects of the history that would work for that plot, without getting bogged down in too many details - details that, I think, they might not be best placed to talk about, given that they are a white American and some things are just better told by Indian writers and historians. 

This whole situation therefore brought a certain depth the overall plot, which I appreciated because it also upped the stakes significantly. Prior to this book the plots had been rather simplistic; things had been ramping up starting in the fourth book, but this is the first one in the series that REALLY feels like a proper spy thriller. The complex, tangled loyalties of the characters and the equally complex and tangled relations between the Hindu Maratha leaders (Mahratta in the book), the Muslim Nizam of Hyderabad, and the colonizer British and French forces, all make for some fantastic moments of tension and intrigue throughout the book. 

I was, however, disappointed in the way certain Indian characters were used. One character felt like all he was meant to do was function as the ???native guide/friend??? to Alex, the white male protagonist, and I wish said character had gotten a bit more depth to them than they got. I also wish that some of the more prominent Indian female historical figures had gotten some airtime - in particular, Khair-un-Nissa, wife of James Kirkpatrick. I guess her not appearing was the author???s way of making sure they didn???t muck up their portrayal of her, but given that the famous poet and courtesan Mah Laqa Bai puts in an appearance (and one that is pretty well-done in my opinion), I think it wouldn???t have been too terrible to have Khair-un-Nissa make an appearance, however, brief. After all, there are chunks of the story that takes place in the Residency, and the whole point of sending Frederick and Penelope to Hyderabad in the first place was because Wellesley strongly disapproved of Kirkpatrick???s marriage to her.

As for the romance between Penelope and Alex, I REALLY enjoyed that as well, because they are both fascinating characters. In Alex???s case, his complicated relationship to his father and brother Jack, as well as his own principles and ideologies, make navigating the political landscape of the novel???s setting rather difficult for him, but interesting for the reader. It???s also through his past that we get a glimpse of the racism that was prevalent during the period, given that some of his half-siblings were themselves half-Indian and therefore suffered discrimination.  

And then there is Penelope. She???s loud, she???s brazen, she???s rebellious, she doesn???t think too much about consequences before getting into something. She is, in short, the ultimate Bad Girl, in the way that Regency women and even 21st century woman would recognize. But it also becomes very clear, fairly early on in this novel, that Penelope???s rebellious and frankly self-destructive and self-sabotaging tendencies spring from a deep well of trauma that goes all the way back to her family. I felt deeply for her while I was reading, even as I felt a deep urge to shake her too. But that just made her even more fun to read about I think.

Anyway, this was definitely an uptick in terms of quality of the books overall, sliding into some genuinely dangerous territory for once, and while the Indian colonization aspect was handled fairly well for the most part, I still think that it could have been rounded out a bit more. 

... If the reader compares this to Twilight, the roles are reversed: the vampire is a girl instead of a boy, and the human mooning after her is a boy instead of a girl. I find this interesting because Domingo???s attitude towards Atl is generally attributed to love stricken female characters; boys with crushes are generally portrayed as being more aloof, maybe even cruel towards their ???object of affection??? because internalised misogyny dictates that no boy can admit to having ???softer??? feelings. Therefore, reading about a boy who admits to having these softer feelings is refreshing, especially in a YA story.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-Fx

Okay so: technically, I got what I wanted, which is a light, sexy read. But...idk, I guess this just wasn???t my cup of tea? Didn???t like how controlling one of the male leads was, and definitely didn???t like how meek the female lead was. There were moments when I kept thinking ???That???s a red flag girl, run!???, because what one of the guy leads was doing struck me as super-predatory and manipulative. And the misunderstandings! They were being hand-waved as ???They???re just super-dense! And emotions can complicate things!??? which, yes, true, but I don???t think it was pulled off very well because I wasn???t very convinced by any of it. 

sighs Ah well. Maybe it???s just my personal preferences when it comes to romance. Someone else might like this more than I did,  but it???s definitely not for me.

Russia occupies an interesting place amongst the many other European nations, particularly from the point-of-view of travelers. It is often considered European, but at the same time it is not, either. Historically speaking, it has had a complicated relationship with the more “familiar” Western nations, both before and after the rise of Communism, and in many ways that relationship is still complex and ambivalent. As for its culture, some of it will seem familiar, but more often than not, there is something unfamiliar underlying that familiarity, something that does not fit quite right.

And therein lies the appeal, I think, of Russia as a whole: that dichotomy of familiarity and unfamiliarity, and how a country that gave the world Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky can also be the same country that produced Stalin and the gulag. There is also the deep, and deeply fascinating, well of folklore and fairytale that has, I think, not yet been completely mined by scholars and writers: a well from which a plethora of amazing genre writing can come.

In many ways, Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, the first book in the Grisha Trilogy, is an attempt at this. Set in a world Russian-esque fantasy world, Shadow and Bone is the story of Alina Starkov, an orphan girl who discovers that she might be one of the Grisha: magic-wielders who hold a great deal of power in the kingdom of Ravka. Taken in by the Darkling, Ravka's most powerful and most terrifying Grisha, Alina finds herself thrust into the Grisha's glittering world, where she must train herself in the use of her powers so that someday, she might destroy the deadly Shadow Fold and unite Ravka once again. However, an unexpected revelation reveals to her the dark truth underneath the gold and jewels of the Grisha's world, and she realizes that everything she has been told might very well be a lie - and that it is up to her to make sure that the world is not destroyed by one man's greed for power.

I was rather looking forward to reading this book, mostly because of the Russian elements in the story. It's not often, after all, that one reads a fantasy in a Russian-esque setting, which made Shadow and Bone quite appealing to me. I have since found out, however, that a lot of people - and I do mean a lot - are unhappy with the way Russian culture has been treated in this novel. I cannot say for sure how badly it has been portrayed, since my understanding of Russian history and culture is limited, but from what other reviewers have said, the book makes an utter travesty of it.

Perhaps they are right: many Russian readers have been quite outspoken about the misrepresentation of their culture - particularly with the way the Russian language was used in the story, which seems to form the crux of the complaints about this novel. Take the term “Grisha”: reviewers have claimed that the word is a diminutive of the given name Grigori, thus making it silly to use as a term for a group of magic- wielders, but given the way the Grisha are portrayed in Shadow and Bone I suspect that Bardugo thought “Grisha” could be used as another term for the angelic Watchers mentioned in Biblical and Judaic apocrypha, who are known as grigori in Slavic languages (though I wonder how other reviewers might have missed this connection, given how strikingly obvious it was to me once I found out that Grisha was a diminutive for Grigori), in which case the term “Grisha” would seem apropos for a group of magic-wielders.

Of course, I am certain I could be wrong about that interpretation, as I am not familiar with the Russian language in the least and how naming conventions operate, so perhaps my Grisha-equals-grigori-meaning-angelic-Watchers theory won't truly hold up. There are also multiple other issues related to the use of the Russian language in the story that make it quite clear that Bardugo could have stood to do a bit more research before using the words she did in the context they appear in in the novel. This is unfortunate, because it appears to indicate that Bardugo did not give enough thought to her possible audience, choosing to write what she pleased without having any real care for what she was doing and how her writing might be received.

That being said, I can appreciate whatever effort Bardugo has put into her world-building - certainly it is far more solid than some of the other young-adult novels I've seen put out in a while, and that is something I can appreciate. Describing magic as a system no different from science (as well as an attempt to work some proper physics into the whole structure of it - such as Inferni being unable to produce fire out of thin air, but having to use a flint to get that initial spark) is something I can appreciate, though it appears that some characters are an exception to that rule. There is also the attempt at a class-divided social structure for Ravka, though much of the focus (in this book, at least) is on the upper class. I raised my eyebrow somewhat at the hierarchical structure for the Ravkan court, which is very French a la Versailles in the 18th century with its emphasis on beauty and fashion, but it is entirely possible that the Russian courts operated in just such a manner for a while, despite my misgivings. In all other respects, however, this is a pretty good Russian-esque world - and I use the term “Russian-esque” for a reason, because it's obvious that Bardugo is not attempting to recreate a period, or periods, of Russian history. To think otherwise would be patently silly, rather like expecting the Middle-Eastern world of the Arabian Nights to be a true and accurate reflection of the medieval Middle East.

As for the characters, they are intriguing enough to hold my attention, though they are not capable of inspiring a great deal of fangirlish love in me. Alina, in particular, has a rather good narrative voice, which is fortunate since she is the main narrator for the novel. She is not, however, all that interesting a character - at least, not right now. Perhaps she develops into a more interesting character further down the line, though the fact that I need another book to see if she will become an interesting character or not is already rather worrisome for what she might be in subsequent books. The Darkling is also quite interesting, with an intriguing plot twist where it concerns his motivations, though as with Alina I find myself hoping that he will become more complex as the series develops - again, an equally worrisome thought, though not to the same degree as Alina. It is mostly the supporting characters who I find the most interesting: Mal, in particular, intrigues me to no end and I hope to read more about him in later books. Genya, Ivan, and Zoya, too, are all quite fascinating, and I hope to see them again further down the line.

Thematically speaking, this novel is not that different from a whole host of other YA books: growing up, the acceptance of one's destiny - and the need to rebel against it - are at the core of Shadow and Bone as they are in a lot of other YA novels. What this novel does have going for it, though, is that while romance is still present, it is not the end-all and be-all of this novel. Love is something Alina struggles with, of course, but it is not the main point of the whole plot - and this is something I am very much grateful for. There is also the potential for other, darker, and more mature themes, mostly to do with class, but it remains to be seen whether or not Bardugo does address these other (and, I feel, rather more important) themes in later books.

Overall, Shadow and Bone is not a bad start to a trilogy, nor is it that bad a book overall. There are myriad issues with it (mostly concerning the amount of research Bardugo did or did not do for this novel), but for the most part, it functions - and that is also the most worrisome aspect of it. A truly enjoyable book should not merely function, it should come alive for the reader, and while some parts of the novel do this quite admirably, there are also parts that do not. Reading the next book is the only way to find out whether or not this trilogy is as noteworthy as the hype makes it out to be - but I am not entirely eager to get to it right away, despite the cliffhanger. It can wait a while, I think.

Ehhhhh. This was okay. I picked it up because “Ooh, dragons!”, but then when I really started diving into it it lost a lot of its shine. I mean, it's not a BAD read, just...didn't have the kind of hook that tends to grab me for the paranormal romance series I'm deeply loyal to. And nope, not even the prospect of even more hot dragon shapeshifters was enough to want me to read the rest of the series. Oh well.

I first discovered the fantasy genre when I picked up Lord of the Rings in the school library. I was twelve years old, and trying my best to avoid the bullies who???d been the bane of my existence since I was ten. The library was my favourite hiding place: they could find me in there, but they wouldn???t be able to cause trouble because of the inviolate rule of silence while in the library, and there was always a librarian there who could report them to the teachers if they did anything. Of course, there were other places I could have hidden (near the convent was a good spot; the school I attended was run by nuns, and it was a well-enforced silent rule that one did not cause trouble near their convent, lest Mother Superior hear about it and make things especially difficult for the troublemaker), but the library had books, and books were always a good thing.

At any rate, reading Lord of the Rings has pretty much informed the things I look for before I can consider any work ???good???, whatever its genre might be. One of the big things is world-building: Lord of the Rings is famous and influential for its world-building, and the richness and depth of Middle-Earth is both a goal to be reached and an example to aspire to for many fantasy and sci-fi writers. I feel the same way as well, though that appreciation has been tweaked over the years: while I appreciate a writer who can create a world with the same depth and breadth as Tolkien???s, what matters more is that the world is solid enough for it to provide both foundation and backdrop for everything else in the novel. Every writer has their own way of going about that; it???s not necessary for them to go to the lengths Tolkien did (though I can appreciate that kind of dedication).

Of course, other things matter slightly more than world-building: great characters, for example, can make up for a world that???s mostly sketched-in, especially when paired with a great plot and exquisite themes. But when the characters are bland, the plot so-so and the themes nothing really new, then world-building has a greater influence on whether or not I think a book is at least readable. And when a book doesn???t even have that, then it can make for a very frustrating read indeed.

This is the case with Mark Alder???s Son of the Morning, the first book in his Banners of Blood series. Set at the beginning of the Hundred Years??? War, King Edward III of England and King Philip VI of France war against each other in an attempt to gain control of the throne of France. None of this is new to anyone who is familiar with this particular part of history, or has easy access to Wikipedia. Alder???s take on it, however, is different. In his version of history, both sides have access to supernatural forces: angels, who are housed in the glorious cathedrals built during this period, can fight for any given side???if they can be convinced to do so. And if there are angels, it stands to reason that there are also more unholy entities with which one can make alliances, if one is willing to pay the price. And it is a price Edward may be willing to pay, no matter the cost.

Now, on the surface, this book is something I should find appealing???and in fact, based on the official blurb alone, I was thoroughly excited to read it. I enjoy alternate history a great deal, especially any sort of alternate history set before the Industrial Revolution, and because Alder chose to set his novel during the Hundred Years??? War, that just made the idea of reading Son of the Morning even better. But what really sweetened the deal was the whole idea of angels going to war against each other for the sake of two different countries. I imagined that Alder would have built a fantastic scaffolding for that concept, not least because the idea itself would mean tweaking previous history before the start of the Hundred Years??? War in order to make sure it accommodates the concept of kings being able to summon the forces of heaven or hell for their own benefit.

However, that???s not what happens in Son of the Morning. Instead of a firm stage on which the characters may grow and the plot may unfold, the world-building feels like nothing more than a sheet draped over the scaffolding of history. Indeed, I???ve built sturdier blanket forts than the world-building done for this novel, and that???s saying something, as most of the blanket forts I???ve built in my childhood were very flimsy constructions indeed.

It surprises me, therefore, to see comparisons being drawn between this novel and George R.R. Martin???s A Song of Ice and Fire series. I feel the comparison is justified only insofar as Martin based the political machinations and some of his characters upon the events and certain personages who participated in some of the more pivotal events of the Hundred Years??? War???Martin himself has stated in interviews that he drew a lot of inspiration from that period of history in the writing of his series. However, unlike Son of the Morning, Martin???s vision of Westeros is rich and robust: it has a deep history, one that lies underneath the conflict depicted in the novels??? present, and which influences characters and plot movement alike. To be sure, Martin doesn???t give his readers the whole picture, and leaves much for them to infer on their own, but at the very least one gets a sense of a world that is not only alive, but has a history all its own.

The same absolutely cannot be said of Son of the Morning. The only explanation the reader gets about how this whole system of angels, devils, and demons work???and yes, the latter two are very different from each other???is the prologue, which explains the book???s cosmology, after which the reader is left on their own to understand how the world works.

Now, I am the very last person to complain about being made to sink or swim by a writer: in fact, I appreciate a writer who???s confident enough to do that to their readers, to trust in their readers??? intelligence to figure things out on their own. However, I???ve noted that most writers who excel at doing that kind of thing are also the writers who are very good at building their world around and through their characters, for instance, or using the plot effectively, or working around grand overarching themes.

Alder doesn???t manage to do any of that at all. The events leading up to the Hundred Years??? War are rich in potential scaffolding, to say nothing of the history and mythology surrounding the medieval understanding of heaven and hell and their respective hierarchies and entities, but he doesn???t appear to take advantage of any of that at all. For example, I kept wondering: what of the Jews, what of the Muslims? They too had a long history of angelic and demonic magic; where are they in all of this? If Alder was drawing upon medieval angelology and demonology to shape his world-building, why does he not draw upon Jewish and Islamic sources, which formed the core of Christian angelology and demonology in the first place? Why no Muslim sorcerers? Why no Jewish Qabalistic masters?

I understand that the Hundred Years??? War was a European conflict, but when one is playing around with religious mythology, particularly Abrahamic religious mythology, then it stands to reason that one cannot simply focus on Europe alone; one must also address Judaism and Islam and understand how they fit into the picture???not least because there were Jewish populations in every major European city at the time, and the Muslims were still a power to be reckoned with from their home base in Spain. Addressing that would be just one way of building a stronger foundation for the world-building of this novel, for getting the reader to understand and, more importantly, accept that it all really can work.

Sadly, that is not what the reader gets. The legend in the prologue is, suspiciously, presented as an exclusively Christian legend, one that bears no references to the Islamic or even Jewish traditions. Such a legend???especially since it concerns a God and a religious hierarchy shared by three major world religions???cannot have come into existence as an exclusively Christian legend in a world where Islam and Judaism both exist as well (Judaism???s existence is implied by the fact that Christianity exists; Islam???s existence is implied by a brief mention of a minor character fighting Moors in Spain). Alder had a chance to truly give the legend, and consequently his world, a certain amount of depth, but he doesn???t take that chance at all. The reader is told to accept that it is there, and that it works, instead of being shown that it works through the characters and the plot.

Perhaps because of the sheer weakness of the world-building, the characters aren???t interesting, either. Alder deals with some of the most notable personages of the period, but they don???t strike one as being very vivid. For that matter, the original characters don???t strike one as being very interesting, either. There is something of the caricature about all of them, which is deplorable at the worst (not least when it comes to writing about the female characters, like Queen Isabella and Joan of Navarre), and irritating at the least. None of them feels organic, or subtle, or really, like an actual thinking, feeling person. In many cases they feel like nothing more than vehicles for delivering aphorisms about class and faith and duty and a whole lot of other themes that I know could and should be tackled in a novel with a concept like what Son of the Morning is built around, but character should do more than just make clever observations about the state of the world around them.

As for the plot, it???s obvious that it???s meant to be epic, but the way it???s been handled is less than stellar. The world-building does nothing for it, nor do the characters, so the whole thing plods along even though I know, in the back of my head, that it has all the capacity of moving forward at a nice, comfortable clip. There are some battles that I suppose are meant to be epic, but most of them feel rather ho-hum save for the battle at the end???but since that???s essentially the Battle of Crecy, one of the most important English victories of the Hundred Years??? War (along with the Battles of Poitiers and Agincourt), I don???t think that counts. Of course, epic battles aren???t an absolute necessity for a good fantasy novel, but when one reads of battle scenes that try so very hard to be epic, and fail at it, then it can be difficult to just let them go without remarking upon them.

The plot also has a terrible tendency to jerk around and jump from one point-of-view character to another. This isn???t all that bad a thing, as many writers do this, but writers who do it well have a very tight grasp of these changes in point-of-view, managing to do so smoothly and without jarring the reader too much. That???s not the case in Son of the Morning, where the narrative shifts feel like being jolted around in the back of a hay cart on a bumpy road, before the invention of suspension springs. That???s partly the reason why it took me so long to finish this novel: I???d reach a certain threshold wherein I???d get tired of being jolted around, and would put it aside in favour of reading something with a smoother narrative.

Overall, Son of the Morning is an irritating, frustrating read, and I sometimes wonder why I spent so much time on it. However, I knew I wouldn???t be able to actually write a proper review about it unless I finished it, which is the same reason why I finished To Your Scattered Bodies Go, even if I disliked that book immensely. I wanted to be able to write intelligently about Son of the Morning, to be able to point out precisely what I so dislike about t, and I couldn???t do that without finishing it. The only thing that prevents me from completely scorning Son of the Morning is what drew me to it in the first place: its concept. It was also the concept that kept me going through the rest of the novel, despite my frustrations, and that, I suppose, is something.

However, it takes more than just an interesting concept to make a book readable, much less good, and sadly, Son of the Morning is very definitely not good.

When one gets sick, it's always assumed that it's the perfect time to thin one's personal to-read pile. In some ways it is: after all, it's not as if one can get up and go to work, or have life in general cut into one's reading time when one is supposed to be lying down and recovering. Unfortunately, not all illnesses prove conducive to reading. It may be easy to read a book when one is sick with a cold, but when one is doubled-over with gastroenteritis, then it's a bit more difficult to muster up the necessary focus for anything beyond terrible reality TV shows.

This was very much the case with myself. After picking up a stomach bug from who-knows-where (though I speculate it was either dirty ice or spoilt milk from my favorite milk-tea shop), I wound up pinned to my bed, unable to consume anything more than small sips of water and crackers, and downing medication by the handful. This also meant that my brain wasn't working in tip-top shape, either, which made any and all reading grind to a halt. It was only two or three days after I first started medication, when I was really, truly beginning to recover (and was eating a lot more than just crackers) that I decided to read Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King by Antonia Fraser.

Now, this is not to say that Love and Louis XIV is a simple book - far from it. But it did seem like a good “middling ground” sort of a book, especially when looking at my other choices: a stack of romance novels (gastroenteritis is thoroughly unromantic), or some interesting novels I'd already lined up since I was getting towards the end of my non-fiction kick. Fraser's book was no novel, based as it was solidly on fact, which meant I wouldn't have to exert my imagination much in order to recreate the glory of the Sun King's court, but it still promised a great deal of entertainment.

In that regard, it certainly delivered. Love and Louis XIV was entertaining in its account of Louis' relationships with women, but it also provided a chronicle of his relationship with the Church, which disapproved of some of those relationships he had with women. Alternating with glittering court scenes and tales of scandals and maneuverings at the court of the Sun King are stories of the Church attempting to reform the amorous monarch - something which eventually, surprisingly, actually worked, mostly thanks to Anne of Austria's early influence on her son's ideas regarding adultery and extra-marital affairs.

Fraser identifies five women who might be considered crucial to Louis' life, but his mother, Anne of Austria, was perhaps the most important. Unlike many other noblewomen of her time (and certainly unlike a great many queens), she was a very hands-on mother, taking an active part in raising her children and therefore shaping them into the people they would become later on in life. A devout Catholic, she raised Louis to not only be a king, but also to have a great deal of respect for the Church - and a great deal of concern for the state of his soul. While alive she took an active part in the saving of his soul: for instance, manipulating the fate of Marie Mancini (with help from the girl's uncle, Cardinal Mazarin) to ensure that she would not get in the way of Louis' duty to marry Marie-Therese (or Maria-Teresa, as she was known in Spain), who was Anne's niece and her ideal candidate as Louis' wife.

Of all the women in the book, Queen Anne is the one I find the most fascinating - mostly because I read about her in The Three Musketeers and loved her as a character in that book. Surprisingly, it appears Dumas managed to capture her pretty accurately, except perhaps when it comes to the issue of her affair with the Duke of Buckingham. It was interesting to read how much of that fictional depiction of her overlaps with the reality of her as researched by Fraser, and personally satisfying to realize that both Fraser and Dumas appear to agree a great deal about who she was as a person and as a queen. While the more critical part of me wonders if Fraser might not have been just a bit blinded by Dumas' own glowing prose, I rather tend to believe that Fraser, as a serious researcher, would not have allowed such a thing to happen, and whatever qualities of Dumas appears in her writing regarding Queen Anne, they must be backed up by fact.

The second woman who might be considered vital in Louis' life is Marie-Therese. As Louis' wife and Queen of France, this should be obvious, but in the long run she didn't seem to have been as important as Louis' mistresses - or at least, that was the idea I got from Fraser's book. It's clear she was important enough to Louis that he did not take another (official) wife to take her place when she died, but the space she occupied in his life was clearly more an official as opposed to a romantic and personal one. Fraser clarifies, though, that this might not entirely have been Marie-Therese's fault: her upbringing at the Spanish court had left her ill-prepared for the culture of the French court, and therefore unable to fulfill the role of Queen as Louis had imagined it (and as Anne herself had shaped it). Fraser opines in the book that, while Marie-Therese might have made a great Spanish queen (and for a while, she could have been: the royal line of Spain and Portugal at the time was a confused, tangled mess, with heirs constantly dying out, and since Spain did not have anything like the French Salic Law of inheritance, she could have ruled Spain and Portugal in her own right), as a French queen, she was a disaster waiting to happen - and she certainly was that, in the public sphere, anyway. This, therefore, left the public role of the Queen of France (as set by Queen Anne, and as idealized by Louis himself) open to someone else. This role would be filled by Louis' famous mistresses: Louise de La Valliere, Duchesse de La Valliere; Athenais, Marquise de Montespan; and Francoise, Madame de Maintenon.

It is in the discussion of these mistresses and their children that things get more than a little confusing, since the names tend to get in the way. Fraser attempts to mitigate this confusion by giving a list of all the key players in the book at the very beginning, in a section titled “Principal Characters,” but despite this, names get mixed up all the time: there were times in the middle of the book when I would get Athenais mixed up with Francoise because Athenais is actually named Francoise-Athenais, and Fraser uses that full name on occasion instead of just adhering to the more distinct Athenais. And since the mistresses tended to name their children after each other sometimes, it was difficult trying to figure out which child was whose - particularly in the case of Madame de Maintenon, who got started out as the governess for Athenais' children before becoming Louis' mistress. It might be argued that some of that confusion might be due to the fact that I was sick at the time I was reading this, but since I was already on the mend by the time I got to this part of the book and I was still throwing my hands up in confusion, I rather think it might be an organizational flaw of the book.

I found myself wishing that Fraser had thought to break up her list of “Principal Characters,” spreading it out across the four major sections of the book (each named after the four seasons of the year), instead of putting them all down in one massive lump at the start of the book, where they could easily have been forgotten by the reader by the time he or she was in the thick of the book itself. In the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Shikibu Murasaki's The Tale of Genji, translator Royall Tyler does precisely that, prefacing every chapter with a gradually-updated list of crucial characters who are central in that particular chapter of the book. While it's true that such a mechanism is necessary in that particular instance, given that The Tale of Genji has a truly massive cast of characters, I think something similar would have worked very, very well in Fraser's book, to help keep all the names straight.

As a matter of fact, it would appear that organization is a major concern in this book. Stories interweave and collide on a frequent basis, and while this is unsurprising given the number of players, it certainly made things rather confusing in the middle third of the book. Fraser jumps from personage to personage, often making leaps from past to present and occasionally to the future, in a manner that can leave the reader scratching his or her head and wondering just where he or she is in the context of the story. While I have absolutely no issue with multiple or colliding storylines, or even ones that jump back and forth across the timeline, I do take issue with the way such techniques are handled. Not all writers are capable of keeping the reins of narrative tight enough to have the story not seem like a mess, and unfortunately Fraser is not one of those writers. She does so much better when she only has one subject to focus on (her biography of Marie Antoinette is my favorite example), but when she has more than one primary character, and therefore more than one competing storyline, she doesn't do so well.

Overall, Love and Louis XIV is not only entertaining, but in its own way enlightening, particularly when it highlights Louis' conflict between his role as king (and all the expectations that come with it); his own emotional needs as a person; and his sense of his own faith and his standing with the Church. Many women, from his mother Queen Anne to Marie-Therese to his mistresses played crucial roles in his life, and Fraser takes time and care to depict their struggles equally: not even the great Marquise de Montespan, in many ways the most glorious of Louis' mistresses, was without her own troubles. The heartbreaking story of Louise de La Valliere, who loved Louis for who he was, and not because of his title, stands out, as does the story of Madame de Maintenon (who was quite the bluestocking in her own way), whom Louis married in secret years after Marie-Therese had died.

However, while the stories themselves are fascinating, it is the way they're presented that may create some trouble for the reader. Fraser attempts to tell these many stories side-by-side as they happen in the timeline, but is not above jumping to the past and to the future on occasion if she feels it necessary. This creates a certain lack of organization and tight narrative that constantly pulls the reader out of the story, instead of allowing him or her to completely immerse himself or herself in the narrative. If the reader can overcome that particular problem with this book (keeping notes ought to help), then this is as entertaining and as insightful a book as anyone interested in the Sun King, his life, and his loves could ever hope for.

This wasn???t entirely what I was expecting, but it was a pleasant surprise, especially since I blasted right through it. I honestly wasn???t expecting to be so compelled by the prose given the way the book appears to be formatted, but hey: it was very readable despite occasional moments of confusion regarding who was talking at any given point in time. 
Just to get this out of the way: no, one doesn???t need to be deeply familiar with Lovecraft???s life, or even Robert Barlow???s, to understand and enjoy this book. As long as one knows that Lovecraft was a deeply racist, classist, misogynistic, and antisemitic person, and that these tendencies appear across all his writing, then one should be fine. And even if one DOESN???T know (though I find that hard to imagine, given that it is 2023 and the most recent brouhaha over Lovecraft???s politics happened way back in the late 2010s - which is around the time this book came out, incidentally), one will find out soon enough in this book. It???s probably one of the main ???true??? things that this book presents. Because what this book is about (among many other things), is truth and lies, and how the latter can sometimes be hard to differentiate from the former if it???s compelling enough. 
In line with that, this novel also tries to tackle what happens when we figure out the truth - and the truth turns out to be undesirable or painful (or both). Lovecraft played around with the idea that there are some truths out there that are so destructive, they can literally drive a person mad; this is the most common fate met by the protagonists of his stories. This book does something similar, but the destruction is more on the level of the self, and one???s relationship with other people and the rest of the world. This was, in my opinion, the most interesting part of the novel, and where most of conflict springs from. Does one WANT to believe the story being told? What if it???s not true? How IMPORTANT is it to one that the story being told is true? What lengths will one go to, to determine if it is? And what happens when what one feels doesn???t align with external evidence? Is truth something one FEELS, or is it something one PROVES? Unfortunately, the difference between the two is not always clear - both in this novel and in the real world. 
This book also plays around a lot with intertextuality: the way texts reference other texts in various ways both obvious and subtle. This book contains both, with references not just to Lovecraft???s work (though obviously the story references his work the most), but to the immense network of twentieth-century SFF fandom. If one is the kind of reader who???s deeply familiar with the names and faces of that period of SFF, then one will be able to tease out a LOT more references than I managed to, since I???m just not as familiar with all the people mentioned and referenced in this novel. Fortunately there are footnotes provided, so any vague references were at least explained, but I???m sure googling names will prove just as helpful. 
Another idea this novel plays with is the idea of people AS stories: that is to say, what makes us who we are, as individuals and perhaps as cultures, is the stories we tell about ourselves, and maybe the stories we tell TO ourselves, too. Is it possible to entirely change who one is just by changing the story around oneself? An interesting question, not least in the age of the internet where it???s easy to change how one is perceived - and therefore, who one IS - just by telling a different story in a sufficiently compelling way. 
Overall, this was a really compelling read in ways that I hadn???t expected, but was pleasantly surprised by. It asks a lot of interesting questions about truth and our relationship with the truth, framed around two bittersweet romances, one of which might, or might not, have happened. 

Fairytales, too, are about transformations: Cinderella transforms from maid to princess, the Little Mermaid from mermaid to human (per Disney???s version) or from mermaid to human to sea foam (per the original Hans Christian Andersen version). In dark fairytales, that transformation is generally portrayed as painful and difficult. Das is following in the latter tradition, albeit in a more graphic, visceral manner. While I find the amount of graphic violence to be somewhat questionable, there is no denying the punch-to-the-gut power that Das??? story has. Stories have the power to create change, to force transformations. Just as fairytales have the power to shape us as children, and therefore shape who we become, Das??? story has a similar power to shape the reader, no matter how briefly.

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-Ab

I like to think of myself as “pragmatic,” and those friends of mine who have known me longest tend to agree. When I say I'm pragmatic, I tend to mean that I like to see the silver lining in every cloud, but I'm not blind to the fact that there is still a cloud, and so I prepare for rain. I prefer walking this middle line between out-and-out optimism and out-and-out negativity, because I know the benefits of seeing both sides of the same coin. In the general living of my life, I walk that middle road.

My attitude tends to change when it comes to the books I read. In that regard, I'm definitely an optimist. When I read the first book in a series and really, really like it, I tend to bring that positive, upbeat energy with me when I read the next book in the sequence. Occasionally, the payoff is big, such as when I first read the Harry Potter series, which only seemed to get better and better until I hit the rut otherwise known as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I have experienced a similar issue with a lot of series, especially long-running ones with more than three or four books. More often than not, however, the second book in a series is rarely ever as good as the first. This issue is known as “sequelitis.”

When I read Bridge of Birds, the first book in the Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox trilogy, I was floored. So many fantasies are grounded in European myth and legend, but here was a novel that was more firmly grounded in the Chinese side of things than anything else, with the title itself being a reference to a notable and much-loved Asian festival. Managing to cleverly blend mythology and historical fact, together with lovable, memorable characters and a narrator with a voice that was an absolute joy to read, the experience I had with Bridge of Birds is one that I cherish - and one that I hoped to find once again in the next book, The Story of the Stone.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. When I picked up The Story of the Stone I was looking forward to another romp through this “China that Never Was” alongside Master Li and Number Ten Ox, the two central characters of Bridge of Birds, and whose company I thoroughly enjoyed while reading that novel. I was looking forward to Number Ten Ox's wonderful, funny, and humbly wise narrative, as well as Master Li's incredible (and incredulous) schemes. Having just come off reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, I was looking forward to reading what sort of hijinks these two merry rogues would get themselves into.

Sadly, The Story of the Stone was, simply put, boring. The plot is really not much different from Bridge of Birds, and - worse - it has none of the beautiful, soaring quality I got while I was reading the first novel. There was something truly magical about Bridge of Birds, and I was simply not getting that in The Story of the Stone. It was as if whatever magic Hughart's storytelling had in the first book simply evaporated in the second.

To be sure, the story is not as much of a slog as I make it sound. The mystery at the heart of the storyline is still interesting, and Master Li and Number Ten Ox are as clever and as fun as they ever were in the first book, but for some odd reason they do not shine in The Story of the Stone as much as they did in Bridge of Birds. Master Li's schemes did not seem as inspired as they were in the first book, and Number Ten Ox's observations did not seem as enlightening. Like I said, it's like whatever magic there was in the first book is just gone in this second book.

One of the hallmarks of the first book was the wild and colorful cast of side characters that kept cropping up in the strangest of circumstances. In The Story of the Stone, two characters - Grief of Dawn and Moon Boy - are rather interesting at first, but as the story progresses they, too, lose their shine. They are hardly like some of the other side characters in the first novel, who sustain the reader's interest all the way through the book. And as for the villain, I am sad to say that I was quite sure who was behind the wickedness of the central mystery by the time I had reached the midpoint of the novel. This is not a good sign, especially when, in the first novel, I wasn't quite sure what was going on (in a good way) until the very last moment.

Another notable hallmark of the first book is that it blends historical references with fairy tales, legends, and myths, with the result being that Bridge of Birds feels like the very best kind of Hayao Miyazaki film. The Story of the Stone does that as well, but it seems oddly clunky this time around, with none of that magic I got in the first book. The heavy emphasis on Neo-Confucianism, while interesting at first, got rather tiring, especially when it got brought up during a trip to Hell that Master Li, Number Ten Ox, and Moon Boy take during a crucial part of the novel. That trip to Hell had, I think, the potential to return the entire novel to a pitch and feel similar to that in Bridge of Birds, but it never gets there.

Overall, The Story of the Stone is a disappointment. Though Master Li and Number Ten Ox are, in truth, the same as they were in the first book, the general plot and storyline of the second novel seem to just drag them down, and they are unable to pull the book up with them. The supporting characters are not nearly as fascinating as the ones in Bridge of Birds, which is rather sad because the cast is somewhat smaller this time around and so there is great potential for some really good character development there. And as for the mystery, well, as I said I managed to figure out the culprit by the book's midway point, so it isn't quite as strong as the mystery presented in Bridge of Birds. As a continuation of the adventures of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, it does well enough, but I do hope that the third and last book is better than this one. It would truly be sad if it were otherwise.