Dragon and the Unicorn by A. A. Attanasio

I was fated to read this book. We were at Barnes and Noble and I had forgotten my book list. And I'm kinda in a dry spell right now anyway. I need to find some good books. I decided to just wander up and down the isles in the fiction arena. As I was just starting down the fantasy isle a book with a stark black and white cover caught my eye.

When I got cloer the book, perched face outward on the shelf, fell into the isle at my feet. Fate? or over stocked shelves? And aren't the two really the same thing anyway?

Raisins are graps, pickles are cucumbers and fate is jsut an over stocked shelf....

So I bought the book.

Here's the publishers blurb.
"Beneath every beloved legend there is a deeper legend still, etched in

ancient stone. The Dragon and the Unicorn begins before the beginning

of Time, as light first cools to matter, bearing within it the electron

glow of lost Heaven. Attanasio's epic tale of a quest for immortality

spans all history, human and demihuman, from the dung fires on the

steppes to the snows of the Himalayas, from the mudhut cities on

the Euphrates to the glass and steel towers of tomorrow, from the

hunt for the Unicorn's horn to the ceaseless wars of elf and dragon,

Celt and Roman. It is a quest that ends - and begins - in a

legend-heavy place at the edge of the Western Sea, with the first

cry of a King new born. A place called Tintagel. A King, the heir

Pendragon, called Eagle of Thor, or...Arthur."

Beyond Coincidence, by Martin Plimmer and Brian King

The premise of this book intrigued me. Along the lines of that everyday magic sort of thing. The notion that there is something bigger going on beneath the surface appeals to me.


Here's the publishers blurb.

"Coincidence? Or something beyond coincidence? Is someone playing with us? Could it be God? Or are we, as some scientists have suggested, hyperaware of our hyperconnected universe whose weblike workings we can only dimly discern?" From magic and religion to subatomic particles and the laws of probability, Beyond Coincidence deeply explores the roots of luck, odds, and circumstance, while telling amazing stories that will have you shaking your head.

The Dream Master by Roger Zelazny

I'm a sucker for vampire books and dream books. If they look even vaguely interesting, or if they look like they might have a new approach to either topic, I buy them. As a result, I've got more than a couple that i picked up on a whim and haven't read yet.

This one for instance was half pushed under the bad and had gathered an admirable layer of dust. Something about the premise seems familiar, but I don't remember anything about the characters or story line. So I'm reading it again.... or for the first time.... I'm really not sure.


Here's the publishers blurb

"His name is Charles Render, and he is a psychoanalyst, and a mechanic of dreams. A Shaper. In a warm womb of metal, his patients dream their neuroses, while Render, intricately connected to their brains, dreams with them, makes delicate adjustments, and ultimately explains and heals.
Her name is Eileen Shallot, a resident in psychiatry. She wants desperately to become a Shaper, though she has been blind from birth.

Together, they will explore the depths of the human mind — and the terrors that lurk therein. "

The Dream Book by Gillian Kemp

The Dream Book, Dream Spells, Nighttime potions and rituals and other magical sleep formulas by Gillian Kemp


I picked this book up on a bargain bin again. 30% off 14.95, and I'm a sucker for these little dream encyclopedias. I admit it, most of them turn out to be crap. But I keep buying them anyways. I think I've gotten a little pickier, but I suspect my wife would disagree. When I picked this one up she said "you'll never read that anyway, it will just sit on the shelf."
"nah-uh" I said, summoning all my intellectual powers of retort, "I'll start it tonight in fact".
So I bought the book, and I'm starting it tonight.
Here's the publishers blurb;

"Discover why you dream and the magical meanings behind your sleeping symbols. Learn how to keep a dream notebook, create dream spells and magical sleep formulas, and how to tell the future and make wishes come true. The extensive A-Z dictionary includes updated definitions for the new millennium.

Author Biography: Gillian Kemp has been telling fortunes since the age of twelve and is the author of The Good Spell Book, The Fortune-Telling Book, and The Love Spell Box. Using her experiences as a clairvoyant medium, she is a frequent magazine and cable television contributor in her native country of England.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

I've just started The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.

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I'm excited, she's always been one of my favourite authors and I've had this book sitting on the shelf for a while. I just got through the preface last night when I fell alseep (hey, it was late, and I'm not young anymore).

But here's the publisher's blurb.
When The Left Hand of Darkness first appeared in 1969, the original jacket copy read, "Once in a long while a whole new world is created for us. Such worlds are Middle Earth, Dune - and such a world is Winter." Twenty-five years and a Hugo and Nebula Award later, these words remain true. In Winter, or Gethen, Ursula K. Le Guin has created a fully realized planet and people. But Gethen society is more than merely a fascinating creation. The concept of a society existing totally without sexual prejudices is even more relevant today than it was in 1969. This special 25th anniversary edition of The Left Hand of Darkness contains not only the complete, unaltered text of the landmark original but also a thought-provoking new afterword and four new appendixes by Ms. Le Guin. When the human ambassador Genly Ai is sent to Gethen, the planet known as Winter by those outsiders who have experienced its arctic climate, he thinks that his mission will be a standard one of making peace between warring factions. Instead the ambassador finds himself wildly unprepared. For Gethen is inhabited by a society with a rich, ancient culture full of strange beauty and deadly intrigue - a society of people who are both male and female in one, and neither. This lack of fixed gender, and the resulting lack of gender-based discrimination, is the very cornerstone of Gethen life. But Genly is all too human. Unless he can overcome his ingrained prejudices about the significance of "male" and "female," he may destroy both his mission and himself.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susana Clarke

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susana Clarke

Finally! I've finished the book. This has to be the longest I've spent on that number of pages. 1 Month, 4 days. That's almost unheard of for me. Not that I'm a speed reader. But I keep a fairly steady pace.

The last 100 to 150 pages almost redeemed the rest of the book. Then ending was good. But it's where evverything interesting took places. The previous 700 and some pages were all set up. Now I know that you need set up to build up the characters, to get the reader engaged in the story, to build the tension and get ready for any plot twists. But this was a bit too much. This could have been a fun 500 page novel.

So many of the asides or little tales that were insterted were neither interesting, nor neccessary. The reviews for this book were great. The critics loved it. And I'm left feeling like maybe I didn't get something. Maybe there was some joke, or angle that I missed out on.

I know that the humor is dry, and I'm not so thick headed as to not catch sarcasm. But dry without witty just isn't funny, and ironic without purpose just doesn't get to me. Almost every critical review that i read acknowledges that it takes her a while to get up to speed. Some say it took 100 pages to find her pace, others admit that they were half-way through the book before they realyl started to enjoy it. I put it at closer to 4/5th myself. And remember, those are people paid to read and review. So they were going to finish it, no matter what. Most people find that if a book hasn't grabbed them by the first 100 pages, or heaven forbid, the first half of the book, they are either going to put it down and pick up something else, or plow through it with a sense of duty rather than enjoyment.

And I still feel like I was misled. It's nothing different. An intersting story, drawn out too long, but nothing different. The elves are elves, the faeries are faeries, and magicians recite spells like you've always imagined they would. There's nothing new there.

I've read worse fantasy. Much much worse. And if I was coming form one of those books into this one, I might have held a higher opinion. But int he last 2-3 years I've stumbled upon some really great authors and some fantastic books. And this just doesn't measure up.

Over all, I'm glad that I finished it, and the interesting ending raises my opinion of it. But it only managed to raise it to just a smidge below an average book.

I wouldn't recommend it, and had I known what it would be like from the beginning I wouldn't have started it myself.

4.5 out of 10

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susana Clarke

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susana Clarke

I started this book while waiting for my surgery to begin. I didn't get very far into it, so I haven't really formed an opinion of it yet.

Here's the publishers blurb

"Centuries ago, when magic still existed in England, the greatest magician of them all was the Raven King. A human child brought up by fairies, the Raven King blended fairy wisdom and human reason to create English magic. Now, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he is barely more than a legend, and England, with its mad King and its dashing poets, no longer believes in practical magic." "Then the reclusive Mr Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey appears and causes the statues of York Cathedral to speak and move. News spreads of the return of magic to England and, persuaded that he must help the government in the war against Napoleon, Mr Norrell goes to London. There he meets a brilliant young magician and takes him as a pupil. Jonathan Strange is charming, rich and arrogant. Together, they dazzle the country with their feats." But the partnership soon turns to rivalry. Mr Norrell has never conquered his lifelong habits of secrecy, while Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous magic. He becomes fascinated by the shadowy figure of the Raven King, and his heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens, not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear. "

A feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

I finished A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin at about 1:30 last night (this morning?) .

In short, it was the best book that I've ever been dissapointed in. It was well written, and it's got all the tings that Fans love about George R.R. Martin. It's gritty, ground in what to an ignoramous at least, feels like historical research, the magic is subtle and dark, the characters extremely well developed.

One of my pet peeves in books has become when characters do things that no normal person would ever do, make decisions that no one in their right mind would make. And then the book proceeds liek this is normal.

In G.R.R.M. even when characters make decisions that you don' tlike, or don't agree with, you find yourself grudgingly saying "ya, I guess I would have done that too." And the true beauty, the true art, is that this includes the villians. There are a few true "monsters" but most of the villians are human. And the more they are explored the more you see that they are just flawed troubled people. The line between good and bad becomes very blurred. The character called "the Hound" is the best example of this. A viscious brutal killer. He starts as the stereotypical "evil knight". But as we ride along with im in the books, as his story is explored (through the eyes of other characters) you find out where all his hate comes from. And without turning him into some softy (in the TV series Lost, they ruined Sawyers character this way. And I'm afraid that Jordan's Lan is headed this way) you at least understand where all his anger is coming from. You'll never condone the Hounds actions, but you'll kind of understand them. And you won't be able to put him in a good guy/bad guy category anymore.

The books are engaging. With every book so far I've had a hard time with the first chapter, but after that I get swept up in the books (this one included) and end up devouring them.

So I loved the book. I have a hard time recommending this series. I think I'll discuss that in a different post though (See Robert Jordan Vs George R. R. Martin).

I had a few issues with it, not that these take away from the expereince, but here they are none-the-less.

Issue #1 The technology. I know this shouldn't be an issue in a fantasy book, and maybe I'm the only one that would ever be bothered by it. But.... They talk abotu some of te histories going back 10,000 yras, yet in all that time the technology in this world has been stagnant. There is mention of gunpowder, but for as long as it has been around it hasn't been used as a weapon. There is an entire order dedicated to studying the various sciences, but somehow the technology has not progressed at all. I think the idea of a stagnant technology could be interesting, it there was a reason. But in this world it seems like everything has been set up to explode into the next technological phase for the past 10,000 years.

Issue #2 Cycles. In this book especially it feels like nothing has changed. Maybe I've been scarred by the middle books in the Eye of the World series, but these is starting to feel like the same stall. Please please please Mr. Martin do not follow that course.

Issue #3 Investments. One of the series greatest strength thus far has been that you can't get let your gaurd down. Any character is fair game for the removal. Your favorite hero is just as likely to fall prey to gangrene or a political ploy as the hated villian. So I hesitate to call this a weakness. Still, when in this book the character that you spend about a quarter of your time reading aobut dies a seemingly pointless death, it's a little irksome. It's fair, and maybe it's just a fresh wound for me, but it's irksome.

Issue #4 Omissions. At the end of the Book G.R.R.M. speaks frankly with a note from the author that begins "this book was a bitch." I can't tell you how much I admire this. There aren't many authros willing to speak to frankly to their audience. And Mr. Martin, I solute you for that. He admits that half the characters are not touched upon in this book. He tells you the honest reason that he made that choice in this book. And I believe him. But still, over half the characters that you love are missing completely from this novel. At least two of my story lines are completely absent from this book. But promised to appear in the 2006 book. The problem is that the 2006 book will be missing by favorites from this book. And is this a precedent? Will future books be the same? It seems to me to be a conscious decision to do what Robert jordan didn't (where his huge books advance only a month in time, but touch upon nearly every chracter, major or minr, ever introduced). But will this route be any better?

8.5 of 10

A Feast for Crows

9:07 AM 11/17/2005



I picked my autographed copy of A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin last night.
It is the 4th book in the "Song of Ice and Fire" series. It is a fantasy series that follows the lives and deaths of the major houses in the world that Martin has created. Martin's approach is gritty, political, harsh, and sparsely supernatural. His characters are well developed yet expendable at the same time. If you pick up this series, try not to get attached to anyone.

It took me a while to warm up to the series, though by the second book I was hooked. I've been eagerly anticipating this book. I head rumor on the net (I haven't been able to find a sourse) that says this book is actually only the first half of what G.R.R.M. originally wrote as one very very large book. This one alone is 684 pages.

On the one hand, the skeptical hand, that brings to mind Robert Jordans middle books that seemed to barely move in 1000 pages. On the other, optimistic hand, maybe it means that the wait until the fifth book will be very short.

The Narrows

The Narrows by Alexander C. Irvine

For a book that I picked up on a vague recommendation, and saved as filler when I didn't have anything else to read, this turned out to be one of the better reads I've had in quite a while. It did not let me down. I would recommend this book to anyone, it was well written and the character of Jared was developed and complex.

I'm not a genius by any means, but I think I have this nack for predicting the endings of movies and books. Not through and sort of attention to detail, or close observance of the details, because in fiction, the details are just the authors whims and completely malleable. Instead, I think that this useless super power comes from a realization of how the author wants his work to end. You can get a feel for how the author feels about his characters, and more importantly how he feels about his story, and more often than not this can lead you to a pretty good guess at how he wants it to end.

Which is partially why I'm getting tired of the god versus evil clash with the inevitable outcome. I swar, one more book with an evil brother and a good brother.... ug...

But The Narrows has a real characters in a very real world (and there's the part that amazes me, how does an author create such a real world with golems, frost giants and fire imps?) where real things happen to them.

Married couples have problems, but still love each other. People work long days and cherish their weekends. Men stand around talking about sports scores. The boss at work is a jerk. I think that even the racial tensions in the book, set in the 1940s, are portrayed well. Given, I wasn't alive in the 40s so I can't say for sure.

So finally, instead of just being a book that will get you by between Meiville or Gaiman works, this book should be recommend along with them. It's going on my favorite books shelf. 9.0/10

The Narrows

The Narrows by Alexander C. Irvine

Since I'm taking the vampire stories at a dosage of one a night, I grabbed this book off the shelf.

It was recommended to me by fellow China Mieville fans. I've just begun, but I've must say, the first two lines have me hooked already.

"Midnight in the golem factory. Sweat and clay and blisters."

Here's a longer review.

"From Publishers Weekly
Mixing the fantastic with the historical, Irvine (A Scattering of Jade) shows that heroism is as likely in the factory as on the battlefield in this novel set in WWII-era Detroit. Jared Cleaves, unable to serve in the armed forces due to a childhood hand injury, becomes entangled with factory politics and military espionage. Selected by the Office of Esoteric Investigation to work on the Ford golem production line (the "Frankenline"), Jared remains unsatisfied with his contribution to the war. Looking to do more, he falls into a complicated series of plots to unearth a supernatural power trapped below Detroit. Drawing his supernatural elements from folklore, Irvine convincingly imagines a world in which sabotage is as likely to be caused by imps as by German agents—and makes the 1943 Detroit race riot a scarier monster than any of the fantasy creatures stalking the city's streets.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved."

God's Politics

I should add to the list of books that I'm currently working though God's Politics, why the right gets it wrong and the left just doesn't get it by Jim Wallis .

I've been working on it for a while, almost a month now. I had been excited to read this book, I'd heard so many good reviews about it, and it ad been reccommended to me by a handful of people. People talked about it "flipping a light on" for them. They spoke of a broiling inner conflict and how this book was like a cool salve on painful wound.

Without going too far into my own personal turmoil.... I've been bothered recently by what would seem to be a disconnect between my spiritual self and political beleifs. How can the half of the nation that raises the banner of "christian morals" at every rally consistnently behave in such an un-Christ like manner. Why to thy get to keep the title of the "Christian Right" when anyone who has given Christs teaching even a cursurary reading would see that they are the very establishement Jesus preached against? And how had the political stream that i had come to affiliate myself with become the godless pagans? Why would I feel ashamed to pronounce myself christian at a democratic gathering? I really would.

I'm about three quarters of the way through the book. And so far I have agreed with nearly every word that the author has said he speaks about how poverty, social justice, honesty in politics, healthcare, debt, and foreign relations are all moral issues. That the "Right" has boiled moral issues down to gays, abortion and prayerin school. He's right, and I couldn't agree more, but I already knew that. And that's the reaction I'm having to the vast majority or the book, "you're right, I agree, I know this already, so what next?" If you've closely followed politics in the past 6 years this will probably be your reaction as well.

If you've kept half an ear open to politics, and you've started to feel that maybe something isn't right with our political climate as a whole (not neccessarily just ont he right or left, but a bit on both sides) then this book will probably be that wake up call that you need.

Case in point. Wallis tells the story about the run up to the Iraq invasion. He tells of how he, along with the religious heads of nearly every major denomination in America, wrote up a plan that would ensure the security of the United States, and legally remove Sadam from power without going to war. You'd be surprised to see the cooperation not only amongst christian denominations, but also non Christian affiliations as well. And equally surprised to see that your church leaders probably signed on.

I had already heard this story though. I heard of how they presented it to Tony Blair and how excited he was about the idea, how political leaders in the United states from both sides of the isle found the plan viable and preferrable to war, and I had already heard about how, just weeks before the invasion, this group of religious leaders was told by the white house that the president was not willing to see them. He had turned away leaders from his own Methodist church, refusing to listen to them when they put forth an alternative to war.

If your reaction is "ya, I heard that already" then you've probably heard most of the other things in this book. If you're reaction is "Our President? He really did that?" then by george go out and get this book and get to reading on it.

100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories

100 Vicious Little Vampinre Stories edited by Weinberg, Dziemianowicz, & Greenberg



Grabbed this one off the shelf. I picked it up some time ago off a bargain shelf for $7.00

I'm a little skeptical about 100 stories in about 600 pages. I'm hoping that it isn't one of those anthologies that takes excerpts from novels. But I didn't really look that close when I bought it. It was a vampire anthology that I didn't have yet, and for seven bucks.... how could I say no?

Dark Cities Underground

I finished Dark Cities Underground by Lisa Goldstein last night.

It was better than I expected it to be, but I hadn't been expecting much. I was expecting a quick loose read at best. And it was still a quick read, but it held together much better than I thought it would.

The story in a nutshell:
There is a boy, Jereremy Jeremy Jerome Gerontius Jones, who has grown up to be a man called Jerry. When Jerry was young he would tell his mother stories about a world underground and a secret door in a tree. His mother made these stories into best selling childrens books, claiming the stories as her own. Fast forward. Jeremy is Jerry living a quiet little life. 2 people visit him in one day asking questions about his childhood. Ruth Berry and Sattermole. Devling back into his much repressed childhood memories, Jerry starts to realize that the stories he told to his Mother might have been real. That maybe there is a door in tree an entire hidden world underground.

The book weaves legends and myths into its own story rather nicely. From Egyptian myths to childrens stories like Peter Pan and the Wind in the Willows. The story is surprisingly credible, and the author writes with authority on the subject. I'm not an expert in Egyptian legends, or childrens books, so I don't know if her authority is the result of knowledge, or the ability to bluff like a celebrity hold 'em star. Either way, it pulls you quickly through the story. The end is left a little open, but that's okay. There is only one loose end that still bugs me. I'll leave myself a comment (that way it's like someone is actually reading this) and mention it there.

All in all, even though Dark Cities Underground was hard to find - I ended up having to special order it - and the cover art was bad enough that I hid it when I was reading in public, I would reccommend it for fans of "Urban Fantasy", or "Elfless Fantasy" as I like to call it. Fans of Gaiman's Neverwhere will enjoy it. Fans of Mieville's Perdido Street Station might like it, but will probably find it a simplified version of a story that is being retold quite a bit these days.

5/10

okay... off to peruse the book shelves and pick my next book.

Dark Cities Underground

I just started Dark Cities Underground by Lisa Goldstein

"Lisa Goldstein tells the story of Ruthie, a young journalist sent to interview Jeremy, a man in his forties, who as a child was the central character of a series of classic children's books written by his mother, the Adventures of Jeremy in Neverwas. But the scary, fantastic world of Jeremy's youth is real, and sucks them into strange adventures underground, where love and death threaten."

I can't remember where I heard about the book, but it was highly recommended for fans of China Mieville. I had to special order the book, and it's sat on my shelf for quite a while now. I finally picked it up yesterday.

I've gotta admit, I judged this book by the cover. And I have been expecting a smoldering pile of crap. But it's not that bad. I'm about halfway through already, it's a quick easy read so far. It's not as complex as Mieville, and maybe not as enchanting as Gaiman, but it's still a fairly interesting story that's easy to read.

I just finished The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (a book I highly recommend for vampire genre fans) and I was in the mood for something light.

So, like a green chili and shredded beef burrito - extra cheese - on a late Friday night, this book hits the spot.