#MarchMagics: The Shepherd's Crown, by Terry Pratchett

Every March, Kristen at We Be Reading hosts a celebration of the works of beloved fantasy authors Diana Wynne Jones and Terry Pratchett.

I didn't have a particular plan for what to read or re-read this month, but when I went to my library I saw The Shepherd's Crown, and discovered that it is both a fifth and final Tiffany Aching book, and Terry Pratchett's last novel. So it was with both delight and sadness that I began to read it, and both delight and sadness that I finished it.

I adore Tiffany Aching. She's one of my all-time favourite heroines, up there with Sophie Hatter, Jane Eyre, Elisabeth Bennett, Irene from the Invisible Library, Cassandra from Stray, Tess (of the Road), Slate from Clockwork Boys ...* The Shepherd's Crown stays true to her stubborn strength and exasperated compassion. She gets some career advancement, as it were, —which, for a witch, just means more things that have to be done—and rises to the challenge with typical blunt style. "I want to do it my way. Not how the other witches think it should be done." She finds help in surprising places, and there are always the Nac Mac Feegle ready to take on all comers.

The afterword explains that "The Shepherd's Crown has a beginning, a middle and an end, and all the bits in between. Terry wrote all of those. But even so, it was, still, not quite as finished as he would have liked when he died. If Terry had lived longer, he would almost certainly have written more of this book." I read this first, and so was prepared to be disappointed in the book. But it turns out that a not-quite-finished Terry Pratchett book is still far better than the best of most other authors. It's true that this novel felt a little thin, compared to his other books. Less layered. But it is a complete and satisfying story, and it has all of Pratchett's wit and wisdom and gentle understanding of human foibles.

It also has a number of cameos from many of the Discworld novels. I haven't read all of them, so I didn't recognize them all, but it was lovely to see familiar characters show up. It felt very much as though Pratchett was saying goodbye to Discworld. There were some scenes that brought me to tears, because they were well-written and touching but also because I could hear the farewell in them. 

I can confidently recommend this book to anyone who loves Pratchett, but you were going to read it anyway, weren't you?! It's also an excellent conclusion to the Tiffany Aching series, and just another excellent book about human nature and goodness and the true source of magic. I am happy to think of the conversations Pratchett and Death are having now, over a game of chess, perhaps, and a glass of something mellow. May we all be able to say, as I'm sure Death said to Terry Pratchett: "YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT."

*This is turning into an interesting list, possibly worth writing a post about!

2017 Year in Review

Happy (Gregorian Calendar) New Year everyone! (Am I right? Is it the Gregorian calendar? Sounds vaguely familiar, anyway!)

I stayed up until 4am last night re-reading Andrea Höst's Touchstone Trilogy for the umpteenth time while I waited for my son to get home from his party, and in between favourite bits from the books I checked out everyone's Best Of 2017 lists: some great books were read this year! Thanks for sharing (and for adding a ton to my TBR!)

My Year in Review is random, off-the-top-of-my-head, and of necessity includes some Korean drama, because I watched a lot of that instead of reading this year!

Most Anticipated and Didn't Disappoint:
Thick as Thieves, by Megan Whalen Turner. We've been waiting for years, and we were rewarded with a fascinating new character and an awesome bromance, plus a couple of new gods.

Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor. This. Woman's. Brain. Shimmery, deep, delicious, wrenching, utterly original fantasy with the most rootable-for character ever. Serious Cliffhanger Warning.

Fave New-to-me Author:
Katherine Arden. The Bear and the Nightingale was wonderful, and then The Girl in the Tower surpassed it in every way. Loved the wintry world, the Russian-inspired mythology, the stubbornly independent characters (including the magic horse) and a firebird! Review of Girl coming soon.

Fave re-read:
Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. Oh, Maia, I love you so much!

Fave random discovery at the library:
Noteworthy, by Riley Redgate

Authors that keep doing things I love:
E. K. Johnston: She keeps doing different things and they all keep being wonderful. Spindle was another thought-provoking fairy-tale retelling, and That Inevitable Victorian Thing was thought-provoking alternate history social sci-fi (one has to invent new genres for Johnston all the time!).

T. Kingfisher, AKA Ursula Vernon when she's writing for adults. Summer in Orcus was a lovely folk-tale inspired portal fantasy, and Clockwork Boys was fantastic motley-crew-on-a-quest steampunk, first in a series and I can't wait for the sequel! Review coming soon.

Books that made me grin from ear to ear:
The Invisible Library and its sequels, by Genevieve Cogman
When Dimple Met Rishi, by Sandhya Menon

Books that walloped me over the head (in a good way):
Wolf by Wolf and Blood for Blood, by Ryan Graudin

Sequels even better than the first book:
Traitor to the Throne, by Alwyn Hamilton
The Girl in the Tower, by Katherine Arden
Blood for Blood, by Ryan Graudin

Fave characters:
Vasya from The Girl in the Tower
Irene from The Invisible Library
Murderbot from All Systems Red, by Martha Wells. "As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure." A novella introducing a new series: so excited about it!
(I also really love Lazlo from Strange the Dreamer, Rishi from When Dimple met him. Kamut, of course. All the characters, really, since I don't love a book if I don't love the characters!)

A few of my favourite K-Dramas, for the sake of being completist (also my ulterior motive is to addict you all):

Suspicious Partner/Love in Trouble: romantic comedy/murder mystery/courtroom drama with Ji Chang Wook being vulnerable and funny, Nam Ji Hyun playing another relatably-striving-against-all-odds heroine, and a great supporting cast of goofy-yet-heartwarming friends. (Nam Ji Hyun was also wonderful in the cute-as-a-puppy Shopping King Louis, with an utterly adorable Seo In Guk.)

Because This Is My First Life: romantic comedy/slice-of-life with fantastic writing and acting that had me gasping with laughter and wiping tears in every episode. Best kiss ever.

Strong Woman Do Bong Soon: fantasy/romantic comedy with easy-on-the-eyes Park Hyung Sik appreciating Park Bo Young's super strength as she beats up gangsters while trying to be a normal girl. (On Netflix as Strong Girl Bong Soon.) I also really enjoyed Park Bo Young's acting in Oh My Ghostess (on Netflix as Oh My Ghost), as she plays both a painfully shy girl who sees ghosts and the bold, brash ghost who possesses her.

1% of Something: romantic comedy (yes, I like these) with a really great dynamic between the couple. It's a let's-pretend-we're-dating-to-get-our-parents-off-our-backs type plot, which Marriage Not Dating does even goofier.

Queen In-Hyun's Man: time-travel historical fantasy/romance. I enjoyed Yoo In Na in Goblin and she's lovely in this one as well, and Ji Hyun Woo is a treat to watch as the Joseon scholar who has to adapt to the 21st century.

Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor

Aiiiiieeeeeeee! How can you do this to me Laini Taylor!

Why didn't I notice that this isn't a standalone? At least then I could have been the teensiest bit prepared. I mean, I've read all her other works. I know the cruelty of her cliffhangers.

Allow me to go tremble a while in silence before I continue with my review.

Ahem.

This woman's brain. Laini Taylor's, I mean. She's written yet another beautiful, terrible, ecstatically wrenching book, and I've figured out how she does it: she's a monster herself. And I mean that in the nicest possible way! (Sort of like the monsters in Kristin Cashore's Fire: beautiful but deadly.)

Only Laini Taylor could come up with the rapturous, lovely ideas in Strange the Dreamer, and yet somehow understand malice and hatred to such a depth. Oh, the goodness and evil in men's hearts, laid so bare!

I'm not being very coherent, am I? It's one of those books.

Lazlo's mind was afire with marvel, the lit match touching off fuse after fuse.

I don't want to tell you anything about the plot. You really want to discover the mysteries of the Unseen City as Lazlo Strange discovers them: slowly, painstakingly, piecing together the forgotten language from old trade documents and explorers' diaries (it's okay, you don't actually have to do this), with passion and faith in the stories no one else believes, so that each big reveal lands in your open mind like a gift, a dream come true.

(You may notice that reviewers of Laini Taylor books have a tendency to wax eloquent. Or, at least to try. It's our feeble attempts to do justice to her writing.)

If you've read her other books, you'll find familiar motifs and themes in this one—wings, for example, and monsters, and questions like, how do you overcome inherited hatred? what happens when you love your enemy?—but in an entirely different setting and a really, really unique plot. I mean, how does she come up with this stuff? Blows my mind.

. . . their edges fading like the evanescent white bird, Wraith, as it phased through the skin of the sky.

If you love her previous work, you won't be disappointed. If you're already a fan, that's all you need me to tell you.

If you liked the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, but weren't a huge fan of the, admittedly, very insta-love . . . weeeelllllll . . .  Okay, there's a pretty impetuous love (not quite instant), but I have to say I thought it was handled better. Given these characters and the circumstances in which they meet, yeah, I'll buy that they fell in love pretty quickly. And, wow, what a unique love story!

If you haven't tried the intoxicating fantastical brew that is a Laini Taylor story, I promise you that you will fall in love with her characters even as you are mesmerized by her imaginary world. Lazlo Strange, orphan, librarian, dreamer—humble, passionate, kind, persistent—I dare you not to love him. He's just the nicest guy! "A dreamer in whose mind the best version of the world grew like seed stock. If only it could be transplanted into reality." And to watch his rare, gradual triumphs was a genuine delight.

It wasn't just metals and magnets anymore, but ghosts and gods and magic and vengeance, and while he wouldn't call himself an expert in any of those things, he had more to recommend him than the others did, starting with an open mind.

You've been warned about the cliffhanger.

I will also say, Laini Taylor's husband is one lucky guy. Or maybe it's Laini who's the lucky one. From what I can gather (after reading this novel), *ahem* she really, really knows how to kiss.

Thomas Haas bittersweet chocolate filled with passionfruit ganache. (Sorry, has to be Thomas Haas, and I don't know if they sell online but if they do and you like chocolate you owe it to yourself to order some. Or come to Vancouver, because you can't really order hot chocolate online.)

The Quick Guide to Some of My Favourite Books

My daughter just got on a plane for a five week trip to South America (am I worried? nah, of course not! what could possibly go wrong!), and so I lent her my Kindle for the ridiculously long plane ride (and all the bus rides etc.). To help her decide what to read, here are quick descriptions of the books on my Kindle I think she might like (in no particular order):

Touchstone series, by Andrea K. Höst

Girl accidentally walks through a portal to another planet. Wilderness survival story until the patrollers from an advanced society rescue her and she discovers—oh, but I don't want to spoil it! Very fun adventure with a bit of intense romance. (I will say nothing about the hot psychic ninja warriors in form-fitting nanotech suits. Ahem.) Easy reading YA.

Queen's Thief series, by Megan Whalen Turner

Eugenides is a thief and a trickster, and if you think you know what he's up to, you're most certainly wrong. The first book is fairly simple (except that you don't even know you don't know what Eugenides is up to), written for a younger audience; then the next books get much more intense and complicated with plots and schemes and politics and the odd intervention of the gods. Vaguely ancient Greece-type setting. Eugenides is one of the best characters ever written. YA-adult.

A Matter of Magic, by Patricia Wrede

She tries to steal from a magician: not a good idea. But he thinks she should become his apprentice. Light-hearted magical adventure in an 18thC England setting: drawing rooms and highwaymen and whatnot. Cute and fun, young YA.

The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold

A weary soldier returns to the estate he grew up on, hoping to find a place as a servant. Instead he gets involved in royal plots and has to lift the curse on the royal family before the kingdom is ruined. Very well-written, wonderful characters. Gets fairly intense. Adult fantasy.

The Curse Workers series, by Holly Black

What if magic ran in the Mafia family? Twisty plot about a family of con artists, each with different ways of magically affecting people, like persuasion or memory alteration. Cassel's talent is death. His sarcastic narration lightens this dark YA story of manipulation and deceit.

Black Dog series, by Rachel Neumeier

Werewolves, but not like any werewolves you've seen before. Natividad and her two brothers flee to Vermont seeking the help of the formidable Dimilioc clan, knowing they will want Natividad for her Pure magic, but not sure they'll let her brothers live. Great family interactions, interesting pack dynamics: there's lots of fighting and stuff but it's really all about the relationships. Great writing and lots of humour to offset the throats getting ripped out. YA.

 

#AMonthofFaves: Fave new-to-me authors I discovered in 2014

Kirsten at We Be Reading has been following this meme hosted by Estella's Revenge all month, with daily prompts to make various lists of favourite books from the past year. It's generated some awesome lists on people's blogs, so it's worth checking out (if you want to add a ton of things to your TBR!)

I'm not nearly organized enough to a) do that much blogging and b) look back and analyze my reading all year. (People count the books they read? In categories?? People have reading goals and measure their progress toward them???? My reading does NOT work like that!)

But this prompt (from Dec 9, so I'm only 10 days late) really works for me because it's been a great year for finding new authors. And it doubles as a chance to quickly review a lot of my travel reading.

I'll even divide it into categories for you:

YA Fantasy:

Rachel Neumeier  —  After really enjoying The Floating Islands and The City in the Lake (the only two books available at my library), I decided to buy The Griffin Mage trilogy to read on the plane. Was not disappointed. Yet another original magic system; awesome griffins; heart-breakingly complex characters whose stories interweave with each other over the trilogy; beautiful descriptions; Neumeier's trademark ability to create intense conflict without anyone being an actual villain, because everyone has such good reasons for what they're doing (even if they're griffins who want to wipe out all the humans). Excited to read her more recent stuff: no more waiting for the library to get them, Neumeier is now on my "I fork out hard-earned cash for anything she writes" list.

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel  —  So far I've read the first two of her Night Calls series—spooky witch stories set in an alternate frontier America—and I love the characters and the setting. Kindred Rites has seriously scary evil sorcerers that Allie gets kidnapped by and runs away from, with some nice realistic surviving-in-the-winter scenes. As with Night Calls, the details of every day life are immersively vivid, and the magic just seems like one more realistic detail. I've got the third book to read yet, and I also picked up the first book of an interesting-looking sci-fi series, Fires of Nuala.

YA Sci-Fi:

Andrea K. Höst  —  The Touchstone Trilogy was so much fun. And All the Stars is just as much fun: it's a sort of Invasion of the Body Snatchers /Host/ Animorphs story (did you ever read the Animorphs? I thought they were awesome!). An implausible premise but she makes it feel so real. I doubt a huge spire is going to appear in every large city in the world, dispersing dust that kills lots of people but (slight spoiler if you want to be surprised by what happens) gives some people superpowers and then allows unbodied aliens to take them over and use them in dominance challenges—but if that ever did happen, we would all react exactly the way Höst describes it. Great use of the Sydney, Australia setting, great cast of diverse characters. So far I've liked Höst's sci-fi better than the one fantasy I tried—Medair had an intriguing premise and was compelling enough to draw me along, but I felt as though the most interesting things were happening in the flashbacks, and I really wished she had told the story in the order it happened; I'd be more invested in it that way. So I haven't read the sequel yet (also because the blurb makes it sound like it's going to be sad, and I don't want a sad ending! So maybe I'm more invested than I'm willing to admit!). But she's such a good writer that I'm willing to try another of her fantasies, especially since her books are on sale on Kindle for .99 right now! (Quick, go snap up the Touchstone Trilogy!)

Fantasy: (I was going to say Adult Fantasy, but that would give entirely the wrong impression!)

Patrick Rothfuss  —  Finally decided to see what all the buzz was about, and I'm with the majority on this one: he's an amazing writer and I wish he'd hurry up and finish the third Kingkiller book! (But I'm willing to wait if it means it's going to be as good as the other ones.) Traditional magic kingdom fantasy with a great protagonist and just really good writing. Here are links to my Goodreads reviews of The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man's Fear, and The Slow Regard of Silent Things (which would be on a Top Ten Books that Blew My Mind list (the Dec 16 prompt), were I to make one).

Jo Walton  — I first encountered her name in a review for her non-fiction work, What Makes This Book So Great, a collection of her Tor reviews of science fiction (which I still haven't laid my hands on). I went over to Tor.com to see what sort of things she was writing, and have been following her ever since. She's incredibly widely read, and smart, and snarky in a compassionate way, and she just has this angle of view on things. So when I saw that she had recently come out with a novel (Among Others), I figured I'd like it. I did (link to my review). Then I tried her alternate history Small Change trilogy, and was wildly impressed. I've got Tooth and Claw on my iPod now (Victorian novel plot and setting, but with dragons. What's not to like?!), and I'm waiting until I have the time to devote to it to get My Real Children, which sounds amazing. If you want a quick taste, she has a number of short stories online in various places, including a couple of Christmas ones on her blog.

Uncatagorizable in a sort of steampunky way (but for sure not steampunk):

Max Gladstone  —  Maybe it's too soon to put him on a favourites list, since I've only read one book, but Three Parts Dead would also go on that hypothetical Books that Blew My Mind list, so I'm fairly confident that I'm going to keep liking the Craft Sequence books. Also, look at those covers. So gorgeous; so colorful, and by that I mean notice the different colors of people on them. It's like he's writing books about humans or something. Quite radical. And I love the titles even more after reading this post explaining his chronology. (Also I'm liking Max Gladstone more after reading it. Smart, funny guy.) (Of course, now I can't decide which book to read next, since apparently it doesn't matter.)

Touchstone Trilogy, by Andrea K. Höst

Did you know it's Science Fiction Month? At least, it is according to the bookish folk over at Oh, The Books and Rinn Reads. They're hosting a month full of blogs and events that sounds like a sci-fastic idea, and I would definitely sign myself up to participate if I wasn't going to Morocco for three weeks.

But in the spirit of celebrating Science Fiction in all its mutations, I offer you this awesome alternate world science fantasy trilogy which you should definitely read this month, if not sooner.

Stray, Lab Rat One, and Caszandra are the diary of Cassandra Devlin, Australian girl who accidentally ends up on another planet and has to deal with what she finds there. There's lots of cool plot and setting details, but the strength of these novels is Cassandra's voice and character. Normal, practical, stoic but not immune to panic and despair, with a great self-deprecating sense of humour—it's the way she deals with everything the plot and setting throws at her that riveted me to the page.

I debated whether to say anything about the plot in this review. I read it without really knowing what I was in store for, so I got the fun of discovering all the surprising things that happen right along with Cassandra, and I really enjoyed that experience. So if you don't want any spoilers at all, then stop reading this blog, take my word for it that you'll like these books (and if you don't believe me, believe Sherwood Smith and Rachel Neumeier), and go start reading Stray.




Okay, you still need a little more convincing?

Stray begins with Cassandra walking home from school in Australia and accidentally walking out of the world.* I think we all (all of us who read Narnia, anyway) secretly wish that would happen to us, but  Höst takes that trope and gives it the realistic treatment it deserves: how would an average Australian girl figure out how not to die on a strange, unpopulated planet with only the supplies in her school knapsack? I was completely sucked into the story and probably would have kept reading even if the whole story was just Cassandra alone vs planet.

(If it's sounding good to you then stop reading now!)

But then she gets picked up by some patrollers and taken to the safe planet where people actually live, and injected with a nanotech interface in her brain so she can learn the language and figure out how to live in this completely alien (but human) society. And that was pretty cool, and I would have kept reading even if it was all just adapt-to-new-technology-and-social-norms-and-make-friends-and-come-to-terms-with-never-going-home-again.

(Last chance. Don't make me tell you what happens next. Just go get the book now!)

But it turns out that a lot of people here have various crazy psychic powers, and Cassandra discovers that she enhances people's powers when they touch her. So off she gets whisked to the psychic ninja warrior training facility, because this planet is constantly fighting off monsters from non-real planes of existence, and someone who enhances psychic powers would come in really handy.

That is definitely all I'm going to tell you. No mention of really hot warrior guys in way cool form-fitting nanotech suits will cross my lips.

These books were a lot of fun, and they made more than five hours of travel time fly by. They also had so much substance, all kinds of interesting ideas, such fascinating world-building—that I know I'll be rereading them.

Something chocolate and chewy . . . oh! the dessert we shared when I took my daughter out for dinner in Ottawa: chocolate brownie tart with peanut butter mousse. Mmmmm. Yes.



*That sentence suddenly reminded me of a book I remember loving when I was young: A Walk Out of the World by Ruth Nichols. I don't remember anything about the plot, but just seeing the cover again when I googled it brought back intense happy feelings. This book obviously impacted me greatly; I should try to get my hands on a copy and reread it.

Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge

Holy sainted cows out standing in their field—this woman can write! She can write like a house on fire, like your brain is the house and she sets it on fire.

I didn't know she had a new book out—why am I not following her ravenously like a puppy??—and when I saw this book mentioned on a blog I forgave Amazon for all their faults and bought it on Kindle right away. Then I pretty much put my life on hold for a day and finished it in as close to one sitting as I could manage without my children starving and my house burning down around my ears.

Take a deep breath. Okay. Here's my rational, coherent review of Cuckoo Song: 

Go read this book!! No one can prepare you for it; it isn't like anything else you've ever read, except maybe another Frances Hardinge book, and it isn't like any of them either. It's a little like Neil Gaiman, maybe. Yes, she's up there with him. 

Cuckoo Song starts out a little ordinary, and for a while you think it's just a very well-written, slightly creepy story about an ordinary, completely dysfunctional family. And then it goes sideways, and you think, okay, it's about some really weird magic stuff happening to this extraordinarily dysfunctional but otherwise ordinary family. And then it goes even sidewaysier and you realize that you have no idea what ordinary even means anymore.

I love Triss, love her with heart-gasping terror like she is my first born child. All the characters, they're all so real and deeply complex and full of needs and hopes, how can you not love them. Pen is so perfectly a nine-year-old girl and her relationship with Triss was absolutely real. And marvelous.

I love the setting. The city is fantastic, with its hills and bridges and zig-zag streets. It takes place in the 1920s, and everything about the time is subtly and inextricably woven in with the plot and the themes: jazz; independent women; cars; belief in progress; the lingering impact of the First World War.

I love the Besiders. I don't want to say anything about them, except that Hardinge draws from familiar superstition and myth but her creation far surpasses the source material. Very cool, and completely believable.

Scary villains, but, as with all Hardinge books, there aren't good guys and bad guys. Even the scariest have reasons for what they do; even the kindest do things they shouldn't. It's wonderful to be rooting for different people with entirely conflicting desires and wonder how on earth Hardinge is going to solve it so that everyone gets what they need.

Gorgeous language, as always. (I'd quote, endlessly, but Kindle books are annoying to flip through looking for quotations.)

Cuckoo Song will probably be shelved in the middle-grade section of a library or bookstore, but I wouldn't call it middle-grade at all. Not that a precocious young reader couldn't enjoy it (it's creepily scary like Coraline, but has nothing in it a nine-year-old couldn't handle), but it has so much more going on in it. No adult should pass this by thinking it will be simplistic or insubstantial. Hardinge doesn't do insubstantial!

I'm currently harvesting endless tomatoes from my garden and they are mind-bogglingly delicious. You don't know what tomatoes taste like until you grow some yourself; when you first try a real tomato it's like discovering an entirely new color you have never seen before, and going back to the store-bought ones is like willingly blinding yourself. Cuckoo Song is a bowl full of red, gold, orange, yellow tomatoes of all different sizes, that you can eat with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil, or quickly saute with some garlic and basil and serve over fresh pasta, or simmer until they reduce down into the most intensely flavoured tomato soup you've ever had, or . . . (if you have more suggestions, I'm open to them. I have a lot of fresh tomatoes to eat!)

A Face Like Glass, by Frances Hardinge

A new Frances Hardinge novel! I had to drop everything and go find it as soon as I heard. This woman just keeps getting better and better. I'm going to go out on a limb here and call her the next Diana Wynne Jones, and I do not do that lightly. A Hardinge novel makes me turn every page with a frisson of excitement to find out what wonders await me in the next paragraph.

I don't know where to begin.  I can't really tell you what this book is like, because it isn't like anything else. Hardinge is one of the most original and imaginative authors out there. Her awesome website calls A Face Like Glass "a stand-alone tale of deception, cheese-making, betrayal and strategic amnesia." That pretty much sums it up!

You want to know more? A Face Like Glass is set in the underground city of Caverna, where master Craftsmen create magical luxuries (the Cheeses were my hands-down favourites). In this world of corridors and caves, the only light comes from luminescent carnivorous plants. (Coolest light fixtures ever!) The ruler is so paranoid only half his brain sleeps at a time. And children born in Caverna have to be taught how to make expressions on their faces; servants might only be taught a few, like "keen alertness" or "respectful attentiveness," while rich courtiers might have a range from "World Weary, with a Hint of Sadness and a Core of Basic Integrity" to "Amused Shrewdness, with a Well of Deeper Wisdom." So interesting! Original in an entirely different way than Catherine Fisher's Incarceron is original. (Even though they're both cave worlds, they're nothing alike. Except for the twisted, dangerous politics, maybe.)

Hardinge doesn't just have a bunch of clever ideas that she sprinkles through the story like pictures on the wall: everything is thought out; she knows how the cheeses and the wines are made and what happens if they aren't watched carefully; she knows what goes on behind the scenes to make everything work, so I completely believed in Caverna. Plus, everything ends up being crucial to the plot, from the biology of trap-lanterns to the psychology of Cartographers. It all fits together in ways you never would have guessed.

Yes, the plot.

"The problem with Caverna is that it isn't flat. It goes up and down and slants and narrows and spirals round itself and bursts into huge caverns and meets itself going the other way. So—you know the crinkly edible bit inside a walnut? Well, suppose you had to draw a flat picture of the surface of that." . . .

"And now . . . imagine that you are trying to map the biggest, crinkliest, most complicated walnut in the world—that's Caverna. Cartographers have to twist their brains a certain way to understand even part of it, and afterwards their brains don't untwist.

That's what the plot is like. Five-dimensional. Intensely satisfying.

Then there's her language: inventive, textured, surprising, precise, evocative. "She felt the Facesmith's smile tickle over her as gently and irridescently as the headdress feathers had touched the ceiling." When I reviewed The Lost Conspiracy, I compared Hardinge to Laini Taylor in her poetic richness, but Hardinge is less flowery and more colorful and bumpy. Reading her sentences I feel like a kid in a toy shop where the words are the toys. Several times I laughed out loud in delight at her choice of words.

But other books have inventive settings and crazy plots and great language, and I don't love, love, love them the way I love this book. For me it always comes down to the characters, and I adore Neverfell. (She's named after a cheese.) "Despite her best efforts she was a skinny, long-boned tangle of fidget and frisk, with feet that would not stay still, and elbows made to knock things off shelves." Neverfell has such a good heart, and she lives in a terribly dangerous world, and it's heartbreaking and thrilling to watch the world be transformed by her naive, stubborn goodness. And ... but I don't want to give anything more away. I'll just say that Hardinge really understands people and their motivations. Loved Master Grandible the Cheesemaker. And the Kleptomancer. And ... Oh just go read it now!

Because I just spent all day making it, and it turned out delicious, I'm going to compare A Face Like Glass to chicken corn chowder, made with cream and fresh herbs from the garden (thyme, basil, tarragon, green onion, cilantro), and baked in the oven with herb biscuits on top. Rich, complex, textured, layers of flavours, sweet and savoury. (Might just go have another bowl right now.)

A very long post about Lois McMaster Bujold

The short version: go read her books.

I spent a week skiing at Sun Peaks for Spring Break: a lot of enforced down-time, and I didn't bring enough books to read. (Oh, horror!) So I ended up rereading a lot of what was on my iPod. That includes the majority of the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. I have to say, I love this woman! And I really love her character, Miles Vorkosigan. So, even though it's not YA*, I'm going to devote a post to convincing you to try some Bujold.

First off, you have to know the range of offerings in the Bujold canon. You could start with her most recent fantasy, a 4-book series set in an alternate world that feels American-frontier-ish: The Sharing Knife. It has unique bad guys, (malices that suck the life force from everything around them and gain power and intelligence depending on what life happens to be nearby), fascinating magic (malices can only be destroyed with knives made from the bones of Patrollers who willingly donate them), and a love story (a really good, realistic one).

Or, try her earlier fantasy--three independent books set in a land inspired by Spain in the 15th C. The Curse of Chalion is an amazing book; just reading the plot summary won't tell you nearly enough about it. The character of Cazaril is one of the most complex and most noble fictional people I've ever met. Then Paladin of Souls gives us another character who also seems nothing at first and then rises to unimaginable heights of love and self-sacrifice to save her world. (I think I'll reread those two next.)

The rest of her books are science fiction, perhaps best described as space opera. Character is where Bujold shines, and with Miles Vorkosigan, she has created a brilliantly unique character she can spin endless tales about, along with a wonderful universe in which he can get himself into all kinds of trouble. (The Bujold canon link lists all the Vorkosigan books in helpful chronological order.)

The first books in the Vorkosigan series, Shards of Honor and Barrayar (sometimes published together as Cordelia's Honor), tell the story of Miles' parents--they meet as enemies in the middle of an interplanetary war. (I recommended the books to my father and he emailed me back later: "You never told me it was a love story!")(I don't think he read far enough to get to the scene with the head in a shopping bag--I think that might have redeemed it for him.)

Miles Vorkosigan suffers from the results of the civil war that is the plot of Barrayar: *** very minor spoiler to Barrayar in yellow here***Crippled because his mother was exposed to a toxin during pregnancy, ***okay you're safe now*** he has physical and psychological burdens that would crush anyone else. But Miles is a genius, and he's manic, and he is bound and determined to prove that he is more capable than anyone else (and to live up to his father's towering reputation). So he gets himself into ridiculous situations that only genius and manic determination can get him out of, and in the process he saves the planet, or the wormhole nexus, or the emperor, or his father's honour, or all of the above. He drags/manipulates/coerces/
shanghai's a whole cast of characters--each with their own motivations and burdens--along on his schemes, and one and all they are transformed by the Miles effect into better, greater versions of themselves.

Miles: I may be completely off-base and panicking prematurely.

Ivan: I don't think so. I think you're panicking post-maturely. In fact, if you were panicking any later it would be practically posthumously. I've been panicking for days. 

Miles is staunchly loyal but has a problem with insubordination; overweeningly self-confident but convinced he will never live up to his grandfather's expectations; tactically ruthless but always painfully aware of the cost of his victories. Bujold apparently patterned the Vorkosigan series after C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series (is that why she gave him such a ridiculous last name?), and Miles "Admiral Naismith" Lord Vorkosigan is a worthy successor to Hornblower. (I highly recommend the Hornblower books, by the way.)(And the movies: Ioan Gruffudd being noble. Yum.)

Some of the Vorkosigan books are written as straight-up comedy (In A Civil Campaign, Regency romance meets the Three Stooges, with butter bugs); others are considerably more serious (Memory brought me to tears), but they all have moments of both great humour and dramatic depth. Bujold doesn't do throwaway characters or plot for the sake of plot, nor are her settings ever stock sci-fi backgrounds: her stories are always the intersections of well-rounded people with well-developed societies/circumstances.  Her universe is huge and varied, with all kinds of intriguing societal variations. I would not call her work hard-core sci-fi, because technology is not the main character, (her science may not be rigorous, but it is plausible: no faster-than-light travel or transporters); but she definitely explores the effects of technology on societies and individuals, and, in the best sci-fi tradition, her future empires are extrapolated commentary on our current world.

Okay, now I sound like I'm writing a thesis on Bujold. Just ignore my babblings and go see what your library has. You could start the Vorkosigan series at a few different places, depending on how important it is for you to read things in the order they happened. Each book has a self-contained plot, and she's very good at giving you whatever info you need to understand the current book. Starting with Shards of Honour gives you everything in order; starting with Warrior's Apprentice introduces you to Miles. Komarr is another place to jump into things, particularly if you like romance; it's told from a new character's point of view, so it works as an intro to Miles.** Note that her plots are all like a roller coaster ride: she starts slow, as she introduces the characters and situation, and then when everything gets set in motion you just have to hang on for the ride!

*As far as appropriateness for a YA audience goes, I don't have a problem recommending most of her books. There is a fair bit of violence and some sex, none of it graphic, though some of the sexual options she mentions might be a tad eye-opening for a younger audience (there are genetically engineered hermaphrodites in her future, for example). The books I would hesitate before recommending are Shards of Honour and Mirror Dance: both have disturbing scenes of sexual torture--again, not graphic, but just the idea of it is disturbing.

**Just to confuse you further, all the Miles books are also available in various novel collections (all with "Miles" in the title). If your library doesn't seem to have the book you're looking for, make sure to check these. When in doubt, refer to the Bujold canon link.

I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett

I know I said I was going to focus on less-well-known authors, but this is one of those cases where I have to squee a bit about someone who is rightfully famous. And perhaps Terry Pratchett's YA books are less well-known than his adult ones, so maybe this counts.

In any case, GO READ THE WEE FREE MEN. And then come back and we can talk.

So. Now that you've read the first Tiffany Aching book, you'll want to go on to A Hat Full of Sky and then Wintersmith. Now. Do you see what I mean?

I love Tiffany Aching. From our first introduction to her, where she sees a monster in the creek so she goes and gets a frying pan, sets her younger brother out as bait, and whacks the monster on the head with a clang ("It was a good clang, with the oiyoiyoioioioioioinnnnngggggggg that is the mark of a clang well done"), you know this is a character whose head you want to be in. She's eleven years old, and she decides she wants to be a witch when she finds out about an old woman who was turned out of her house and died in the snow because people suspected her of being a witch.

"Tell me why you still want to be a witch, bearing in mind what happened to Mrs Snapperly?"

"So that sort of thing doesn't happen again."

She even buried the old witch's cat, thought Miss Tick. What kind of child is this?

Tiffany thinks, and she cares, and she pays attention to detail. She loves words like susurrus. And now that I'm in chapter one looking for more quotations, I think I'll just reread the whole book . . .

I love Pratchett's concept of witchcraft: the way Tiffany learns to use her First Thoughts and Second Thoughts and Third Thoughts, and "open your eyes, then open your eyes again." I love the memory of Granny Aching, who wasn't exactly a witch, but was there, and did what had to be done, and never lost a lamb. "Witches deal with things."

Then if all that wasn't enough, we get the Nac Mac Feegle. Just say that out loud. You have to read a book that has Nac Mac Feegle in them. Nothing I say about them will do them justice--but that's okay, you've already read The Wee Free Men, so you know what I mean.

And all this was supposed to be a review of I Shall Wear Midnight, the fourth Tiffany Aching book. So if I'm preaching to the converted, and you just want to know if the latest book lives up to our expectations for Tiffany: it does. Tiffany is now sixteen and living back with her family as the witch of the Chalk. There is realistic character development as she tries to fit herself into her new responsibility, and we're cheering for her. The ante is upped yet again, with an even more frightening villain: this book is the darkest of the four, because what Tiffany faces isn't just supernatural; it's the evil in men's hearts. But I was still laughing out loud on almost every page, unless I was crying. Sometimes both at once. There's a scene near the end that perfectly illustrates what I mean (it doesn't give any plot away):

There was a general murmuring from the other Feegles, on the broad theme of slaughter for whoever laid a hand on a Feegle mound, and how personally each and every one of them would regret what he would have to do.

"It's yon troosers" said Slightly-Thinner -Than-Fat-Jock-Jock. "Once a man gets a Feegle up his troosers, his time of trial and tribulation is only just beginning." . . .

Later in the conversation:

There was a glint in Wee Mad Arthur's eye that prompted Tiffany to ask, "How exactly did they commit suicide?"

The policeman Feegle shrugged his small broad shoulders. "They took a shovel to a Feegle mound, miss. I am a man who knows the law, miss. I never saw a mound until I met these fine gentlemen, but even so my blood boils, miss, it boils, so it does. My heart it does thump, my pulse it does race, and my gorge it arises like the breath of some dragon at the very thought of a bright steel shovel slicing though the clay of a Feegle mound, cutting and crushing. I would kill the man that does this, miss. I would kill him dead, and chase him through the next life to kill him another time, and I would do it again and again, because it would be the sin o' sins, to kill an entire people, and one death wouldnae be enough for recompense. However, as I am an aforesaid man of the law, I very much hope that the current misunderstanding can be resolved withoot the need for wholesale carnage and bloodletting and screaming and wailing and weeping and people having bits of themselves nailed to trees, such as has never been seen before, ye ken?"

Pratchett has such complete command of tone that it's possible to have tears of laughter streaming down your face while at the same time catching your breath with sympathetic horror, and in fact the horror is more real because the laughter has engaged your sympathy. Have I mentioned that I love the Nac Mac Feegles?

I Shall Wear Midnight is a very satisfying conclusion to the Tiffany Aching books, and now I think I'll reread all four of them, with a pen and paper to write down all the great little lines that I think I'll remember and then don't.

This series is like a really good breakfast buffet, with fresh pancakes and waffles and bacon and sausages and porridge made with cream and fruit and everything. And cheese, can't forget the cheese.