Ransom Riggs: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

From the blurb-
...a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that Miss Peregrine's children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive.
This book is illustrated with a collection of vintage photographs that were the inspiration for the children's various talents. While the said talents would be remarkable I didn't feel it was explained why that would make them dangerous and feel the author could have made more of the for-their-own-protection angle and increased the believability of the work. The story also throws up a number of logistical questions that I don't feel were adequately addressed, though it was good that the author at least acknowledged the difficulty of the situation (and I can't be less criptic without spoilers) and attempted to address it.
But perhaps I am being too picky. This is, after all, aimed at the young adult market and is the author's debut novel.
The story itself is well written and engaging. The hero is a little bland but the author captures the selfishness/thoughtlessness of his age well. The world building is a bit perfunctory but good enough as far as it goes.
After reading a lot of glowing reviews for this work in the mainstream press my expectations were quite high so maybe it was inevitable that I would come away a bit disappointed. And I am a little let down even though I did enjoy the story.-Lynn

Erin Morgenstern: The Night Circus

From the back of the book-

In 1886, a mysterious travelling circus becomes an international sensation. Open only at night, constructed entirely in black and white, Le Cirque des Reves delights all who wander its circular paths and warm themselves at its bonfire.

Although there are acrobats, fortune-tellers and contortionists, the Circus of Dreams is no conventional spectacle. Some tents contain clouds, some ice. The circus seems almost to cast a spell over its aficionados, who call themselves the reveurs-the dreamers. At the heart of the story is the tangled relationship between two young magicians, Celia, the enchanter's daughter, and Marco, the sorcerer's apprentice. At the behest of their shadowy masters, they find themselves locked in a deadly contest, forced to test the very limits of the imagination, and of their love...

This historical fantasy presents an unusual love story. For the bulk of the novel the protagonists are unaware of each others identity, knowing only that they are in competition with each other to prove their superiority. Their main means of communication is through challenging each other to greater and greater feats of magic within the arena of the circus.

The idea of practitioners of different disciplines within the same field challenging each other for superiority isn't new. Neither is the enemies to friends to lovers concept. This book stands out because both of these aspects have been done so well. The characters are all larger than life but somehow fit easily in the story. Secondary characters are as well developed as primary ones. The plot manages to unfold gently without losing pace.

There is an unmistakable literary inclination here with layers of meaning and subtlties to be seen if the reader is so inclined (the symbolism of a black and white world being the most obvious) but the story can be enjoyed without contemplating those deeper levels.

Quite unlike anything I've read in a long while. Delightful-Lynn

All Clear – Connie Willis

Post-graduate Oxford historians Michael, Merope and Polly have travelled to 1940 to complete their research. They were prepared for contingencies, and were given a lot of background prior to their journeys, but being stuck wasn’t a possibility and of them had contemplated. As window after window fails to open the likelihood of them getting home becomes ever more remote, particularly as the dates of previous trips to the past approach – nobody can be in the same time twice. And Polly has a greater concern – even though it should be impossible, their presence seems to be altering events, potentially changing the outcome of the War and history itself.
Far less a sequel than the second part of an enormous story (the novels combines total almost 1,200 pages), All Clear picks up directly where Blackout left off. This is an ambitious and complex return to the universe first encountered in The Doomsday Book, and is characterised by many of the same trademarks, most notably a breathless, pervasive sense of urgency. In The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, the previous novels set in this universe, I found myself swept up in the emotion – Willis has an amazing ability to recreate that feeling so often encountered in dreams of being in a tearing hurry but beset on all sides by people and events seemingly intent on delay and derailment.
This time, however, perhaps because of the length of time over which it has to be sustained, I found myself becoming impatient with it. And instead had a far stronger feeling of irritation. That said, Willis does this time include a reason for it, though this itself opens the door to some interesting questions about inevitability, free will, self-correction, randomness and sentience.
There are several interwoven narratives, and the setting jumps from year to year, so the opening chapter set in “London – 26 October 1940” is followed by “London – 7 May 1945” and is then interspersed between “Bethnal Green – June 1944”, “Kent – April 1944” and “Golders Green – June 1944” among others. Combining this darting timeline with a host of character, including the historians adopting different personas, meant that I eventually gave up on trying to keep track and decided to be swept along by the story. I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it did mean I ended up missing some of the nuances and detail.
While I enjoyed Willis’ homage to Jerome K Jerome’s classic Three Men in a Boat in To Say Nothing of the Dog, I found the unexplained references to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest in the 1944 scenes set in Kent irritating – as well as Earnest there’s an Algernon, a Chasuble, Gwendolyn, Moncrieff, Cess, Prism, Merriman and Lady Bracknell; though I originally enjoyed the allusion, after several encounters it was just irritating.
It may well be that this was explained in Blackout, but I read that perhaps the better part of a year ago, and though I was able to pick up enough of it for All Clear to make sense, there’s a lot of information to carry over. It would, perhaps, have been better for me to read the two parts back to back, or at least in close chronological proximity, but that didn’t happen. I appreciate that Willis wanted to include a myriad of detail about this clearly well researched era, as well as the several individual stories, and for the most part this paid off. But there were certainly times where I wanted some heavier editing.
There are several touches I very much enjoyed, primarily to do with the evacuated children – from Alf and Binnie Hodbin tearaways to a quote from a letter in 1940:

There are six evacuated children in our house. My wife and I hate them so much that we’ve decided to take away something for Christmas.

I also liked the ending, which was a little messier and organic than most fiction completions, and I look forward to the release of another novel set in this universe, which I very much enjoy. I just hope that, should Willis continue the series, she returns to the slightly more straightforward plots of the first novels. - Alex

Hell to Heaven – Kylie Chan

Australian Emma Donahoe, nanny turned wife of Xuan Wu, absent god of the Northern Heavens, would have her hands full with any of her many tasks – managing the training academy, running John’s empire while waiting his return, raising his teenage daughter Simone, and fending off the advances (personal and political) of the Demon King and his competitive progeny. She has to juggle not only all these demands but also her own demon nature – as if discovering she was part snake were not enough, contamination with demon essence presents the very really danger that Emma may become wholly demon.
Her quests to uncover the reasons for this, undo it, and discover who (or what) she really is, form the driving narrative of the second in Chan’s Journey to Wudang trilogy, Hell to Heaven. It continues the story started in the Dark Heavens novels, and like the previous four novels blends a combination of contemporary sensibilities with ancient lore – in both cases primarily Eastern but with a little Western flavour (primarily Australian) added to the mix.
Though engaging and intelligent, this is not a light or easily accessible series, and if the books are read out of order or elements forgotten the plot could easily become unintelligible. This is certainly not to say that Chan’s writing is oblique, just that the subject matter and the plot are layered and complex.
As I read I noted several passages I wanted to include in my review – the role of ‘calling’ in preventing consanguinity; the lure of Emma’s other nature; Emma’s Archivist experiences looking at indigenous Australian records; the concept of Celestial High school; the unexpected results when the uninformed but well-intentioned (and determined) act – but they all turned out to be too difficult to include without having to explain half the book, because it is so much of a piece. Instead I give you this snippet:

It sounded too much like a Druidic sacrifice ritual, which was very disturbing. Druids had been nature-loving tree-huggers, yes; but they’d also disemboweled people and used their own intestines to tie them still alive, as sacrifices to the trees they worshipped.

I look forward to the final part of the Journey to Wudang trilogy but hope it will conclude the story, rather than being a springboard for a third trilogy. Thus far Chan has managed to keep the central plot, of Xuan Wu’s return and Emma’s growth, at the heart of the narrative. I would hate to see that diluted. – Alex

The Dark Heavens Trilogy:
1. White Tiger
2. Red Phoenix
3. Blue Dragon
The Journey to Wudang trilogy:
1. Earth to Hell
2. Hell to Heaven
3. Heaven to Earth

Dead Reckoning – Charlaine Harris

We last left mind-reading waitress/vampire sheriff’s wife Sookie Stackhouse recovering from the fae war that saw most of her fairy relatives either dead or separated from the mortal realm, with trouble brewing on two fronts - an internal vampire power struggle, and the consequences of the two-natured 'coming out' to humanity.
This may have been problematic enough, but Sookie has other issues to juggle – two of her fairy kin are staying with her, and though she delights in their presence she can also feel herself becoming more fae, which concerns her. Former housemate and witch Amelia may have a way to dissolve the bond between Sookie and Eric, which would allow her to decide how she real feels about her husband, but it’s not a decision without cost. She’s also concerned about whatever t is Eric’s hiding from her – something she can tell his 2IC Pam knows about. Her first lover, Bill, has relationship issues, and Sookie’s not at all sure that her shifter boss (and dearest friend) Sam’s girlriend Jannalynn’s good for him. But first up is a Molotov cocktail attack on Merlott’s, the bar Sam owns and at which Sookie works – is it aimed at Sam and the two-natured, or is it something closer to home?
As I've mentioned several times before, each instalment in this series is more convoluted than the last, and though Harris does a good job of keeping the various strands coherent and intelligible I find myself increasingly weary of the plot devices, massive cast and ever-tenser drama.
I did very much enjoy the reappearance of Hunter, the mind-reading son of Sookie’s deceased cousin, and though he had only a brief guest spot I was also glad to see werewolf Alcide again, and Bubba’s one of Harris’s most tender characters, who was used with care. In fact, for the most part I do enjoy spending time in Harris’s world, but I find myself paying less attention with each book to tracking the character arcs and the numerous persons who threaten Sookie and her entourage. Otherwise spending time here diminishes in escapist quality and becomes more like work. This is definitely a series to read in order, and with a little time between adventures. - Alex

Unwind - Neal Shusterman

Although he knew it was possible, Connor never believed his parents would make him an Unwind, until he found the paperwork. He plans to run - if he can survive until his eighteenth birthday he'll be safe.
Pianist Risa knew she'd blown her latest assessment; as a ward of the state she's only required to be supported as long as she's exceptional - now she's not, she's an Unwind.
Lev grew up knowing he was a Tithe, the tenth child of religious family who've chosen to give back to the community. All his life he's been prepared for the day after his thirteenth birthday when, after a tithing party to celebrate his joyous sacrifice, his body parts would be reallocated to worthy recipients, allowing him - in a way - to live forever.
A bloody Civil War between the Life Army and the Choice Brigade was resolved when a compromise was suggested - life is sacred from conception to age thirteen, but for the five years until children reaches adulthood their parents may retrospectively abort them, provided the child doesn't technically die. Known as Unwinding, the unwanted teen's organs are redistributed according to need and merit. Three youths of different backgrounds are thrown together by chance, and have the potential to make a difference.
Unwind has a fascinating premise (though the idea that either side would see this compromise as acceptable, this is acknowledged in the text), and a new twist on this months' inadvertent theme of teens in dystopia. There are some lovely moments, chief among which was the letter writing scene in the Unwind underground railway sequence.
There's also some imagining of the consequences of this policy: without termination an option for unwanted pregnancies, society has created 'storking' - leaving a baby on the doorstep of a stranger, who is then obliged to take it in, a practice that has its own consequences. There's a mythology around Humphrey Dunfee, whose distraught and repentant parents tried to reconstitute him post-Unwinding. And there's social commentary, including an observation that, were it not for Unwinds, science would be working on improving health instead of relying on quick patch-ups (with the assumption that immunosuppressent medications have been improved between now and then). Finally, opening each chapter is a news extract or factual nugget supporting the direction the narrative takes from that point. This last reminded me a little of Tepper's Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
It's a little distressing, then, that I found the whole delivered less than the promise of its parts. I think this may be because more attention was paid to the world-building than the characters - I just didn't warm to the central trio, and found reading the novel more an exercise of intellectual interest than engagement. - Alex

Matched - Ally Condle

Cassia has looked forward to being Matched for as long as she can remember - and that it's scheduled for her seventeenth birthday makes it even more special! She's picked the perfect dress for her Match's first vision of her, and though it will be returned after the Match Banquet she'll get to keep a sliver of the fabric.
Cassia's Match is even more special than she anticipated - in an amazingly rare happenstance, Cassia is Matched with someone she already knows, rather than a boy anywhere in the country. Xander's not only someone she knows, he's her best friend, and Cassia knows she truly fortunate. That is until she puts her microcard into the home port the next day, to look at Xander's picture in private. Instead of his face she sees another, and it's also a boy she knows - Ky, who lives down the street. And just like that, everything in Cassia's life begins to change.
Condle has created a well-crafted world that is reminiscent of a number of dystopian novels set in a totalitarian future (like This Perfect Day, Collin's Mockingjay trilogy and Westerfeld's Uglies triology, with elements of Logan's Run) while still being unique, engaging and entertaining. We learn about a way of life wholly unlike ours, as Cassia passes through what is utterly familiar to her, in a seamless example of show don't tell.
The flicker of Ky on her port viewer is a mistake, an Official tells Cassia, but Society does not make mistakes. She's not to talk of this error to anyone, and that alone triggers a shift in Cassia's outlook. And her increased awareness of Ky goes hand in hand with an increased awareness of problems in a Society that she's been trained to believe is perfect. As Cassie sees her world with new eyes, the reader uncovers layers of reduction, repression, manipulation, secrecy, injustice and cover-up.
Matched is a brilliant example of how perception and society shape reality, how restricting art (to the One Hundred Poems, for example) limits thought, how language frames ideology and the capacity for innovation, and how removing the ability to write has multiple repercussions. This is the kind of book I was hoping The Maze Runner would be - rich, textured, layered, grounded, unique, with a completed narrative arc that holds promise of a sequel. Just perfect. - Alex

The Maze Runner - James Dashner

The first thing Thomas is aware of is the noise - a boom, then a horrible crushing, grinding, scraping sound that reverberated through his body. That was frightening enough, but when Thomas realised that the sounds were not only the first thing he was aware of but also the only things he remembered, he became terrified. He knew facts, but all he knew of himself was his name and his gender - not where he came from, who his family were, or where he was. When the shuddering, shaking container he awoke in finally opened, Thomas was confronted with a confusing world where nobody would explain the arcane and clearly important rules. Run by boys apparently aged around twelve to eighteen, each has a defined role, all of which support the Runners - they race around the maze that surrounds the Glade, frantically mapping the stone walls' twists and turns, avoiding the deathly Grievers and racing back to the safety of the Glade before the massive stone Doors slide closed. Though he knows nothing of this, Thomas senses that he's meant to be a Runner, too. The Maze Runner has a Hunger Games-like potential. Certainly the elements are there, but somehow they just didn't come together for me. A significant part of that is because Thomas was too much of a cipher, but far more was because not nearly enough the world-building was revealed, even in an oblique way that would allow the reader but not the protagonist to guess at a reason for the maze. All the boys come to the Glade like Thomas did - with no memory of anything personal, but a broad general knowledge. Some of them have been there for two years, and all have learned the value of routine and discipline, But Thomas' arrival triggers something new, including the arrival of the only girl ever sent. She carries a note saying she's the last, and something about her is familiar to Thomas; odd in a world where nothing is familiar. But although Thomas and Theresa can communicate psychically, we're never given an indication of why they're so different, or what that means. I was disappointed but not surprised to find that The Maze Runner is the first in a series, most likely a trilogy. I have no problem with trilogies, provided at least part of a story arc's completed at the end of each section. I had the same reaction to that discovery as I did last year when Skin Hunger abruptly concluded with "end of book one" - the pay off wasn't worth the effort,. Though it means I'll never know what happened to Thomas, nor why he means anything, I'll not lie awake at night wondering. - Alex

Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon

Lou Arrendale is a bioinfomatics expert. Though high functioning, he and his colleagues in Section A are also among the last people in Section A to have autism, a condition now corrected in infancy. The autists have tools that help them to manage the effects of their disability, like music rooms and a giant trampoline - when Lou returns from his quarterly psychiatry interview, for example, he spends some time bouncing:

No one interrupts me while I bounce, the strong thrust of the trampoline followed by a weightless suspension makes me feel vast and light. I can feel my mind stretching out, relaxing, even as I keep perfect time with the music. When I feel the concentration returning, and curiosity drives me once more toward my assignment, I slow the bouncing to tiny little baby bounces and swing off the trampoline.

Their new supervisor, Mr Crenshaw, resents what he sees as frivolous and indulgent extras; though Section A boast the highest level of productivity in the unnamed corporation which, through their employment, is able to claim significant charitable tax deductions, he believes the company would be better off with normal employees.
Lou works with abstract symbols, finding patterns and connections invisible to most people. The patterns of human interactions, though, are predominantly mysterious, despite a lifetime of being told how he ought to act and what he ought to do. He knows that Dr Fornum thinks he ought to exchange pleasantries with his co-workers as they wait for dinner, for example, but

we are all, in our own way, settling into the situation. Because of the visit to Dr Fornum, I'm more aware than usual of the details of this process: that Linda is bouncing her fingers on the bowl of her spoon in a complex pattern that would delight a mathematicians as much as it does her...

Unbeknown to Dr Fornum, Lou has also taken up fencing in his recreational time - though not great at interpreting the interpersonal aspects of the sport, he's very good at recognising the patterns of players, and disciplined about his approach. He's also attracted to one of the fencers, Marjory. He doesn't know if she likes him in any special way, but he's interested in finding out.
He's not able to concentrate on this, though, because he's under siege at home (where he's the target of an escalating series of vandalism attacks) and work - Mr Crenshaw has discovered an experimental 'cure' for autism (well, it works on chimps) and is pressuring the autists to enroll.
The title comes from a conversation between Lou and his co-workers over dinner, early in the novel:

"I was wondering about the speed of dark," I say, looking down. They will look at me, if only briefly, when I speak, and I don't want to feel all those gazes.
"It doesn't have a speed," Eric says. "It's just the space where light isn't."
"What would it feel like to eat pizza on a world with more than one gravity?" Linda asks.
"I don't know," Dale says, sounding worried.
"The speed of not knowing," Linda says. I puzzle a moment and figure it out.
"Not knowing expands faster than knowing," I say. Linda grins and ducks her head. "So the speed of dark could be greater than the speed of light. If there always has to be dark around the light, then it has to go out ahead of it."
"I want to go home now," Eric says. Dr Fornum would want me to ask if he's upset. I know he is not upset; if her goes home now he will see his favorite TV program. We say goodbye because we are in public and we all know you are supposed to say goodbye in public.

Lou is the purest form of light in the novel - despite his differences in cognitive processing, his motivations are easier to understand and relate to though most of the apparently normal characters in the book. Moon asks us to consider deeply philosophical questions about worth, contribution, difference, normalcy, disability and about the richness of infinite variety. I was reminded, for two reasons, of Sack's Seeing Voices, a non-fiction account of American Deaf culture that had part of me longing to be born Deaf of Deaf parents and that considers the merits of reversing a 'disability' that, to the affected, is no restriction and that has value.
It is perhaps inevitable that I compare Speed of Dark to that other famous autist-perspective novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night; they are both well crafted narratives written predominantly in first person by an author who has clearly spent a lot of time talking with people at the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, and contemplating their thought processes, and common to both books is a mystery that contributes to the drive of the narrative.
Speed of Dark, though, is deep and textured well beyond that. In the Curious Incident Christopher's father has difficulty understanding how his words are literally interpreted; in Speed of Dark Lou and his cohort are surrounded by people driven to normalise them, not for their benefit but to ease societal discomfort, including the discomfort of those supposed to be helping and supporting them - Dr Fornum is, of course, the greatest culprit here, but Lou and his fellow autists have since childhood had experts telling them how they ought to behave, interact and think. Though Lou for the most part accepts this, I found myself becoming angry on his behalf.
Even his safest refuge, fencing class (where the trainer, Tom, not only accepts Lou for himself but supports, nurtures and appreciates him) is tainted by the knowledge that Dr Fornum would disapprove:
I met Marjory at fencing class, not at any of the social events for disabled people that Dr Fornum thinks I should go to. I don't tell Dr Fornum about fencing because she would worry about my violent tendencies, If laser-tag was enough to bother her, long pointed swords would send her into a panic.
There are so many striking, interesting, note-worthy elements in this book that, were I to discuss each time I inserted a flag this review would be almost as long as the novel itself. One of the aspects I flagged most often, apart from the multiple incidences where Lou has been remolded to better fit inside the parameters of 'normal,' is the presence of the neuroscience of autism.
Lou studies neurology and related fields to better understand the trial methodology and technique, discovering in the process not only a lot more about the way his perceptions operation and their similarities to other neurological conditions (like PTSD) but also how expectations of his abilities have directed and restricted his potential.
This is my second reading of Speed of Dark and, if anything, I enjoyed it more than on its 2003 release. I know that Lou is a rare exception, and that for the majority of people with autism this kind of independence of living, thought and employment are never going to be possible. Were an intervention that helped them process sensory cues better available I would be more conflicted about its use. This, though grounded in reality, is fiction, and it is the best kind - it enhances understanding of ourselves and others, prompts thought and introspection, offers a different perspective, and presents these aspects in a palatable, entertaining, engrossing form. I just wish I could read it again. - Alex

Angela Knight: Jane's Warlord

A time travelling serial killer is on the loose in a small town with a genetically engineered warrior hot on his trail. Knowing he has only days before the next murder, he decides to set a trap for his quarry, using the historically recorded next victim as bait.
But he doesn't expect to have such strong feelings for the victim, let alone that those feelings would be returned. He must convince her of his identity and mission and enlist her help if they both are to have nay chance of stopping a madman and surviving. But history says she died. Should he change that even if he can? What would be the consequences?
Naturally all is resolved successfully and they get a happy ever after, way after, three hundred years into the future.
Generally I like time travel as a plot device and I enjoy romance so this should have been a winner, sadly it didn't live up to its potential.
I got a strong "Terminator" vibe all the way through that had me feeling like I'd seen it all done bigger and better before. The characters, plot, the whole story really, felt thin and second hand which is a shame because occasional glimpses made me think the author has the talent to deliver better. This story needed to be bigger than a romance and the hero more than a knight in shining armour. Fleshing out the moral dilemmas of time travel would have been a good start.
Overall a bit disappointing because I could see so clearly what might have been.-Lynn

Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the first ever duo to survive the Hunger Games, have returned home. As promised, their District now has more food, along with more prosperity, and her family has been rehoused. Her troubles are, however, far from over; she foresaw relationship problems, both with Peeta (on whose pronouncements of love their survival hinged) and with Gale (whom she has long loved).
But Katniss and Peeta’s duties are far from over, and their transgressions have not been forgiven. As they are fêted through all the provinces, Katniss and Peeta see increasing signs of civil unrest; when confronted with the stark contrast between starvation in their own District and profligate waste in the Capital they are sickened. And when the 75^th annual Hunger Games are announced, things get even worse – the third Quarter Quell has a twist that is intended to punish Katniss and Peeta for their offence against the state.
It’s difficult to get too far in to the plot without giving away essential and surprising elements of this compelling and really well written centrepiece in a stunning trilogy. Cleverness abounds – the game design concept is startling this time around, and the science of psychology is exquisite. There are influences everywhere, from Ancient Rome to reality television, crafted into a wholly original and spell binding whole. As I mentioned in my review of the first in the series, The Hunger Games, the world building is reminiscent of Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy, which similarly contrasted youth and rebellion with governmental totalitarianism; The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, though, are darker. There’s also a degree of complexity that’s interesting – not in the twisting plot, for Westerfeld is adept at that, but in the layers of control and suppression, compliance and impotence, that are the shared experience of the general population and depicted in the chief protagonists.
One of the most striking moments, among many, comes at a ball in the Capital – fresh from literal starvation at home, the scenes of wilful gluttony for the sake of conspicuous consumption, are nauseating. That scene manages to encapsulate a lot of what is at the heart of the narrative – a total disconnect between the rulers and the ruled, heartless spectacle mindless of cost, humanised by the presence of the powerless.
This moment is not alone – there are numerous descriptions, opaque and direct, demonstrating the untempered power and disfavour of President Snow and his cohort, and the growing anger of the populace. Katniss is brave and fearless for herself, but not particularly devious, which allows the reader to spot some of the coming action before she does and, fittingly, the importance of a symbol. Her growing sense of targeted anger, her awareness of injustice, is a sped up microcosm of the populace at large, perfectly portrayed.
Collins’ writing is invisible and nuanced, her characters vivid and compelling, and the premise is intriguing. I strongly suspect I’ll be returning to this series in a year or so, and have the third (and sadly final) installment on reserve, a disappointingly long way down a lengthy list. – Alex

Cryoburn – Lois McMaster Bujold

Kibou-daini is a planet ruled by one preoccupation – to stave off death. Its’ citizens are placed in cryostasis as soon as possible, to improve their chances of a successful return once the condition threatening their life has been overcome by technology. The giant corporations running the cryofacilities are interested in negotiating with the Barrayan Empire, so Emperor Gregor sends his most wily Imperial Auditor, Miles Vorkosigan, in to investigate.
Having survived one cryo-revival, and after a lifetime of cheating death from before his birth, Miles is uniquely qualified for the task. And within hours of landing on the planet, Miles discovers a less well publicised side of Kibou-Daini culture – enormous wealth discrepancies, an invisible underclass, and a real-life Snow White, asleep but waiting to for a prince (or scaled down facsimile) to rescue her and, in turn, her planet.
Cryoburn is the thirteenth Barrayan novel, and though the publication dates and chronology do not always cohere, it takes place after Diplomatic Immunity (after a seven year gap, hopefully for new stories). I wish I were able to write a more useful, insightful review than the one which follows, but I cannot do justice to the complex but navigable plot, nor the meticulous yet invisible world building. As has been the case with the series as a whole, the writing is lucid and engaging, the dialogue rings true, the characters are multidimensional, and the different cultures are truly unique (rather than cosmetically different but substantively similar). Miles’ bride, Ekaterin, sadly makes no substantive appearance, but we are reacquainted with many favourite characters, from Armsman Roic to clone-brother Mark. There are moments of humour (though not nearly to the degree of the butterbug scenes in A Civil Campaign), though the overall tone is a little more somber. And the series-altering shock of the final line of the novel proper is surpassed only by the wave of sadness conveyed by the penultimate line of the last of five ‘Aftermaths’ drabbles. I finished Cryoburn (which refers to the cryonic version of freezer burn) simultaneously replete and craving more.
And writing this review I realised, as I tried to link to the other titles mentioned, that I somehow didn't review them in 2008, which means I get to re-read them to review early next year, thus assuaging my craving. What a lovely pre-Christmas present! - Alex

Skin Hunger - Kathleen Duey

When Micah's mother's labour became dangerous her only hope was the aid of a magician - he ran miles to the village, beseeched the filthy-nailed woman selling remedies in the market place, and promised her the scant savings they had. She left their hut with honeyed words of a safe delivery, a mother and babe needing rest and peace, but left behind her an abattoir, a dead woman, an infant frozen almost to death, and none of the few family treasures that once furnished the sole bedroom. Though Sadima survived, the event broke her father. It was thanks only to Micah that she survived childhood - a childhood enlivened by her ability to communicate in pictures with animals. A chance encounter with Franklin, a magician singularly unlike the one who destroyed their family, inspired her. And when, a few years later, Papa died and Micah wanted to wed, Sadima had a plan - she would travel to Limòri and hone her silent-speaking with Franklin. Hahp has been a lifelong disappointment to his father - thrown out of multiple schools, unable to concentrate or obey, he has finally been sent to the magicians who run the Academy of Magic. Little is known of the Academy, but what it known is so terrifying Hahp commits to suicide instead. Or would, if he could be sufficiently decisive. The reality is even worse than he feared - no comfort, no food, and the promise that all but one of the eight-boy intake will die. Hahp's roommate is a lowly fishboy, disciplined far more than he but no more able to create food from air than Hahp, who fights to navigate between survival and the right thing to do. Skin Hunger alternates between Sadima's and Hahp's stories, which take place in the same universe but years apart - for Sadima magic is virtually outlawed but recovering, and she lives with two young men. Franklin is tender but curiously enthralled by Somiss, the son of a wealthy noble who has never been denied a want or whim. Prone to dizzying displays of autocratic fury, Somiss is driven to uncover the spells he's convinced lie half-hidden in the nursery songs of the Gypsies. Though she knows it's forbidden, and that Somiss would literally have her hide if he found out, Sadima teaches herself to read not only the local language but also the Gypsy tongue, increasingly concerned about Somiss's steady decline into madness. Years later, Hahp's teachers are terrifying wielders of magic, most fearsome of whom is Somiss. Franklin is the least frightening, but he's far from warm. But Hahp cares less for this than for what terrifying new rule will affect his life - days without food, for example. This is the first in what is billed as a trilogy, which I half knew going in - the final sentence of the back blurb reads:

Sadima's and Hahp's worlds are separated by generations, but their lives are connected in surprising and powerful ways in this brilliant first book of Kathleen Duey's dark, complex and completely compelling trilogy.

Well, yes. Despite my perception that I lacked connection with the book, I found myself reading 'just one more' chapter to find out what happened next to Sadima and Hahp. I'd no doubt have made my way through all three books in a similar mix of unwilling eagerness, had it not been for the sharply abrupt ending. The novel does not end at a natural narrative point, but felt wholly arbitrary, very much as though a full-length novel had been severed at the end of a random chapter. I felt so pissed off by it, and further distanced from the universe Duey's created, that I've decided not to continue. - Alex

Naked in Death - JD Robb

Lieutenant Eve Dallas is dedicated to solving crime - as a lieutenant in the NYPD she's renown for her single-minded devotion to the task at hand. When a licenced companion, granddaughter of a Republican senator, is found not just murdered in her apartment but shot - a genuine rarity now that guns are primarily collector's items - Dallas is intrigued. When another licenced companion, this time with a very different clientele, is found the same way, Dallas knows she has a serial killer on the loose. At least as alarming is the increasing presence in the case of the planet's most eligible bachelor, Roarke.
Although she has every reason to be suspicious of him, both regarding the case and out of a sense of self preservation, Dallas is curiously drawn to the multi-billionaire, and the feeling appears to be mutual. But what interest could a refined, wealthy, suave and handsome entrepreneur have in a plain, thirty-something with no family, a background in foster care, and virtually no memory of her first eight years on the planet, or even her name?
JD Robb is better known as well loved romance writer Nora Roberts, with whom both Lynn and I have previously had mixed success. A recent thread on SmartBitches, discussing readers' most loved romance couples, revealed a strong affinity for the Dallas/Roarke relationship, which clearly starts with Naked in Death and continues through what Wikipedia indicates is well over thirty books and short stories. Ever a sucker for a good, strong romantic couple, and having discovered some of my favourite authors through SmartBitch recs, I tried the first Dallas/Roarke novel.
The "In Death" universe is set in the near future, after the Urban Revolt on 2016, the Urban wars that destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, and significant legislative change, from the outlawing of guns to the legalising of prostitution. Naked in Death takes place in the late 2050's, when America has significantly recovered from these tumultuous events - the average life expectancy is somewhere between 120 and 160, and there's a vaccine to prevent cancer. Roarke conducts some of his business off world, and there are many innovative technologies.
Perhaps the import of setting the novel in the mid-future (Naked in Death was first published in 1995) is greater in subsequent novels, but I could seen the point in this first of the series. There isn't anything massively different in forensic technology, at least from an amateur's viewpoint, and I found the idea of that much change in such a short period of time - an increase in life expectancy of 50% in under a century, significant non-terrestrial commerce and colonisation - unconvincing, particularly in the aftermath of devastating upheaval and infrastructure compromise. Okay, having legalised prostitution (or 'licenced companions') and a scarcity of guns contributed to the plot, but as someone living in a country where the former is currently legal and the latter rare, needing to move ahead several decades seemed unnecessary, but I could have overlooked it.
I had greater difficulty overcoming the writing, which I found clunky and intrusive - on checking the crime scene, Dallas notes that the apartment was "Neat as a virgin... and cold as a whore." On learning that the first victim "bought it in bed" she:

only lifted a brow. "Seems poetic, since she' been bought there.".

There are big chunks of exposition, so we learn about her abusive past not through an integrated flashback, or a confidence to her new lover, but by Dallas's therapist telling her what she already knows:

"Lieutenant, we both know I'm fully aware of your background. You were abused, physically, sexually and emotionally. You were abandoned when you were eight... For two years between the ages of eight and ten, you lived in a communal home while your parents were searched for. You have no memory of the first eight years of your life, your name, your circumstances, your birthplace..."

I appreciate that Dallas needs to start out somewhat cold and distant, in order to increase the warmth and openness a relationship with Roarke apparently brings. But I found her extraordinarily difficult to warm to. More importantly, nothing about the Dallas/Roarke relationship resonated with me - I wasn't interested in either of them, I didn't feel convinced of their attraction (on either side, let alone mutual), and I got an unpleasantly stalkerish vibe about him as well.
I appreciate that Roberts is well loved by a vast number of readers, both under her own name and under pseudonym. I accept that for a number of fans this pairing is one of the most romantic is Romancelandia (a term I met through SmartBitch creators Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan). but neither of these things is true for me. - Alex

Heart of Gold - Sharon Shinn

Nolan Adelpho is an Indigo immunologist at Biolab in Central City though, like all wellborn Inriho men, his is less a career than employment until he and his betrothed, Analeese, marry. His specialty is viruses that affect gulden, a golden-hued race with whom his live in uneasy harmony. Until he moved to Central City, Nolan had never met a gulden, but now he works with them, and has been surprised by their similarities, and the enormous cultural differences between them – Indigos are matriarchal, Gulden are even more patriarchal, and there is almost no overlap between the two. Gulden/Indigo tensions heighten when a series of terrorist attacks targeting Indigo structures kill dozens and cripple the city. As panic and fear take hold, Nolan becomes increasingly suspicious about the selectivity of the virus, and about the cause of the violence. A chance meeting with Kitrini Candachi, controversial granddaughter of one of Indigo’s selective Higher Hundred matriarchs, starts Nolan on a journey he could never have imagined. Kit’s grandfather, Casen Solvano, was an anthropologist who lived among the gulden, and her lover, Jex, is the imprisoned rebel-leading son of gulden leader Chay Zanlan. Heart of Gold is a well-crafted mystery novel in its own right, but set against this fascinating, unique and beautifully detailed world it shines. Previously seen in the novella "Blood" in the Quatrain collection, this three-race land has the depth, breadth and contrast of Shinn’s five-part (to date) Samaria series, without in any way drawing on it. While some of the same themes emerge in the societal contrasts – primarily revolving around cultural embedding and gender roles – the mechanisms are quite different; there they’re illuminated by the presence of a male-dominated/female-subjugating culture that invites favourable contrast with our relative equality, here the female-dominant/male-subordinate Inrhio norms that Nolan accepts unquestioningly are contrasted both with the patriarchal Gelricht traditions and, more obliquely, with our still gender-biased patterns. It is a testament to Shinn’s skill that this sociological study is subtle, covert, and in no way dominates the text. As with all her novels I closed Heart of Gold with a mixed sense of satiety and desire for more. I’m also eager to learn more about the albino race that skirts the perimeter of the novel but do not figure in the narrative. I have thoroughly enjoyed Shinn’s Thirteen Houses series and her Samaria quintet, but though I’d be delighted to read her shopping list I really want to see another novel set here. - Alex

Quatrain - Sharon Shinn

This is a collection of four novellas, each set in one of Shinn’s universes.
Flight is a story of Samaria, a land where angels intercede with Jehovah when sickness, drought or flood afflict the populace, and giving birth to an angel is almost the only way for a woman to rapidly raise her status.
Salome is content with her life in a small town, a life she has devoted to raising her niece, Sheba; it’s not an exciting life, but Salome has had enough excitement to last her a lifetime. The arrival of three angels in the village is cause for great excitement, particularly among the young women – the angels’ beauty is surpassed only by their voices, and every girl hopes an angel will be smitten by her and whisked away to Windy Peak or another angle enclave.
Sheba is particularly restless, despite the affections of David, a local boy who loves he and who is a steadying influence. Salome sleeps in Sheba’s room, to prevent her sneaking to an angel in the night, and she tries to warn the girls that life as an angel seeker is not the glamorous and easy time they imagine. Yet she knows they will not listen, the same way she would not have listened before she left home to learn for herself about depravity she could never have imagined. “Flight” takes place just before the archangel Raphael is scheduled to step aside for his successor, Gabriel, and is a beautiful encapsulation of the rest of the series in miniature – the writing is coherent and believable, the characters vivid and rounded, we learn a little more about the world and its peoples, there are two romances, and there is betrayal, redemption, and a very satisfying ending.
We also learn more about the risks angel seekers take – a very high miscarriage rate, ninety percent likelihood of a human child if the pregnancy continues, and a thirty percentage chance of dying if the baby is angelic. And nobody cares about the non-angelic children, often not even their mothers; as we’ve seen in other books, the towns at the base of each enclave ran wild with unwanted, abandoned children. This is an aspect I hope will be a central focus in a future novel, but here, as in the rest of the series, it’s just an accepted and unquestioned fact. Yet the absence of discussion about this apparently inevitable aspect of Samarian life in no way detracts from the pleasure and engagement I had with “Flight.”

In Blood a young gulden, Kerk Socast, travels with his family through Geldricht from Golden Mountain to a city that houses all three races. With his father dead, his step-mother Tess remarried, and his step-mother’s husband’s eldest son Makk nearing his majority, Kerk’s position is fragile; he may legally be cast aside, a fact he has been aware of ever since his mother took his younger sister and fled Golden Mountain. It is his hope that, while away from the work he does for Brolt Barzhan, he may be able to find his mother.
I was unacquainted with the Geldricht universe, introduced in Heart of Gold, and this glimpse of it was fascinating. Kerk is bronze haired, golden skinned, and speaks goldtongue, a circumlocutory formal language that reflects the stratified, codified and rule-bound culture of the gulden. As a fatherless man Kerk has low status, though not as low as an unmarried, unattached woman. Resolutely patriarchal, gulden society grants men absolute power over their family members – females indefinitely, and males until they reach their majority at the age of twelve.
The Inrhio people are blue of skin and dark of hair, speak the more direct bluetongue, and have greater gender equality. We learn less about them than the Geldricht because, though third person, “Blood” is very much Kerk’s story. We take away almost nothing of the third race, who are albino, not even their name.
There are other elements here, including a very nice riff on the cruelty of older siblings toward younger ones that, as an eldest child, articulated a reality I wish I could share knowledge of with my youngest sibling – the only one who didn’t have that impulse. And twinned with that aspect of siblinghood is the delight and enduring love of siblings, the deep connection and wholeness of that relationship. I so liked the world that I’ve requested Heart of Gold and will be reading it shortly.

Gold is set some years after Summers at Castle Auburn. In the aftermath of the death of Prince Bryan, a peace has settled, but now a claimant for the throne has arisen in Tragonia, and he marches on the castle. As heirs to the throne, Princess Zara and her younger brother Keeson are in jeopardy and have been sent off in different directions for the duration of the battle. Orlain, a knight, is taking Zara to the aliori, a race of otherworldly creatures known to ensorcel humans. Vulnerable to gold, Zara has been draped in jewelery for her protection – earrings, bracelets, and a necklace welded closed in case, despite her protestations to the contrary, she tries to remove it herself. In addition her mother has provided Zara with potions to take each night, potions that will remind her of herself and her home.
I found “Gold” the weakest of the four stories, in no small part because of the realistic but unsympathetic self-centredness of Zara - she’s undisciplined and thinks rarely of others. The time she spends with aliori is appropriately dreamlike and bewitching, but I just didn’t really connect with the character or the story, and the ending felt unsatisfactory and, though inevitable, unlikely.

Flame is a prequel to the quartet of Gillengaria novels that tell of the uprising against King Baryn. Senneth is a mystic who has the gift of fire – she can raise and quench flames, and create a false fire that wreaths but does not harm living flesh or property. Though for the most part requiring only direction and force of will, she has learned that the combination of anger and magic wielding exerts a toll, and as the story opens she is recovering from a crippling migraine, this time caused not by emotion but by the fierce concentration needed to ensure that only the contaminated cottages burned, while the neighbouring homes lit up, a task complicated by a driving rain and sodden timber.
Senneth travels relentlessly, both unwilling and unable to call any place home. Since being banished from her marlord father’s home, she takes care not to stay too long with anyone, nor to put too heavy a strain on any friendship. Despite this, and despite the gratitude of the villagers that she burned cottages where quarantined people died – cottages too close to other building to be safely burned in any other way, and too contagious for villagers to pull down – it takes very little for the mob sentiment to turn. When spontaneous fires begin igniting, Senneth is draped in moonstones, which burn mystics, and locked in a bedroom, awaiting judgment.
“Flame” not only captures the distrust and fear of ordinary people encountering mystics but, more importantly, introduces Senneth to the people who will become her family, including her future husband. She already knows shapeshifter Kirra Dannalustrous, a fellow marlady but one accepted by her unconventional father, and she knows Kirra’s companion, who also transforms his physique, Donnal. The novella also acquaints Seenth with the valuable knowledge that she, alone of mystics, does not feel a burn when touched with moonstone, a fact that becomes important later in the series. But it is her introduction to King’s Rider Tayse that is the most rewarding for readers of the series, particularly the penultimate line:

She could already tell she was fated to have his escort for the rest of her trip.

- Alex

Doomsday Book - Connie Willis

Kivren is a third year Medieval History student at Oxford – despite the dangers of the era, she’s well prepared for her field trip to the fourteenth century – armed with several period languages, a multitude of vaccinations, a plausible story, and a recording device implanted in her wrist for note-taking, she’s ready to gather data. Despite the concerns of her supervisor, Mr Dunworthy, Kivren is excited, secure in the knowledge that the net doesn’t allow paradoxes, that Badri is one of the university’s best techs and has calculated the date of the drop to within days, and that she’s arriving decades before the advent of the Black Death.
Dunworthy can’t shake his conviction that something will go wrong, heightened by the absence of Basingame, the Head of History – fishing and uncontactable somewhere in Scotland – and the actions of acting Head Gilchrist. Dunworthy believes Gilchrist to be reckless, a position confirmed by his removal of a ten ranking for the Middle Ages, replacing it with a far less dangerous six.
Gilchrist has rammed Kevrin’s preparation into next to no time, and has no awareness of the potential hazards Dunworthy’s student faces. When Badri comes to him after the drop, anxious and almost incoherent, his doubts are confirmed. But when Badri collapses, he not only can’t confirm that there was a problem, he’s also the index case in a pandemic that causes Oxford and its environs to be snapped into quarantine – after the dread Pandemic that killed millions, the populace is particularly sensitive to risk. Gilchrist responds to the hysterical, unfounded concerns of protestors that the virus has come from the Middle Ages, a scientific impossibility, by shutting down the net, potentially stranding Kivren in the past, a past more dangerous than she prepared for.
Doomsday Book is the first in this academic time travel universe, and it is spectacular. The hardback version clocks in at almost six hundred pages that fled faster than a novella, in no small part to Willis’s beautifully conveyed sense of urgency in both the (future) present and the past. The sections with Dunworthy, particularly, capture the feeling of urgent anxiety dreams; people and circumstances conspire to delay him, while Kivren misses several planned rendezvous thanks to illness, both hers and those of the family who take her in.
The writing is not only absorbing but intelligent – Willis allows the reader to piece clues together, without ever explicitly explaining why the foolproof net deposited Kivren in a far more dangerous time than intended. Her adjustment to the aspects of the Middle Ages that she could not have prepared for are realistically and deftly portrayed, and she has a gift for unobtrusively weaving facts in to the text. There are no lumps of exposition anywhere, so information about, for example, the previous Pandemic, is gleaned through passing reference – nobody needs to explain it, because all the characters are well aware of the details.
There are a multitude of sub-plots, from the knee-jerk superstitious reactions of British secessionists, and an overly protective mother, her strapping and swathe-cutting son, to an influx of American bell ringers, willfully unable to see higher priorities than their scheduled performances. And through it all is the awareness of the reader, which comes only slowly to Kivren, that she’s not in the comparative safety of the early thirteen hundreds but instead at the centre of a sweeping disease that will kill a third of Europe’s world population.
I first read Doomsday Book about a decade ago, and it was with delight that I re-read it. Although an outline of the plot, including the contemporary virus’s origins, stayed with me, this only added to my enjoyment of the text, heightening the suspense and deepening the sense of urgency so beautifully imbued in the novel. Willis has created a wholly unique universe, rooted in academia and able to move in a multitude of directions. I’ve previously reviewed To Say Nothing of the Dog, also set here, and will soon review the first in a two-part story partially set in London during World War II, Blackout. – Alex
For Lynn’s review of Doomsday Book, click here.

Dead in the Family – Charlaine Harris

Still reeling from the Fae War that claimed her pregnant cousin (and literal fairy godmother) Claudine, her witch roommate Amelia’s Were lover Tray, vampire Clancy, and her pregnant sister-in-law Crystal, Sookie Stackhouse is hoping for a little down time. That is, of course, not to be.
With the entrance to the fairy realm closed, Sookie’s stunningly handsome, predominantly gay, generally reserved fairy cousin Claude (twin to the now dead Claudine) has nowhere else to stay, and Amelia’s room is occupied before it has time to get dusty.
The petty irritations of living with Claude fall by the wayside, however, in contrast to the arrival of Sookie’s lover, and regional vampire Sheriff, Eric’s sire – a relic of the ancient Roman empire, Appius Livius Ocella is some two thousands years old. He’s tracked down his child in hopes that Eric can help manage another son brought over from the cusp of death – Alexei is about a century old but has retained the form of the boy he was when he was found, near death and the sole survivor of a family slaughtered by revolutionaries. Cosseted and indulged in life, Alexei has not adjusted well to the increasing constraints of modern life – the advantages of vampires being known to the world at large has not come without cost, and one of the sacrifices is conservation of humans, a price Alexei seems unwilling to pay.
In the meantime two internal power struggles are looming – the death of the Vampire Queen of New Orleans, Sophie-Anne, has made Eric’s position more precarious. Her successor, Victor, elected by region leader Felipe de Castro, is no fan of Sookie’s husband. At the same time there is dissent among the two-natured, who have followed the vampire’s lead and gone public. The move was not unanimous, and has not been met with universal acceptance – as some humans support regulation restricting the movements and other rights of American citizens who are Weres, local leader Alcide faces espionage and leadership challenges. When the body of Alcide’s new second, Basim al Saud, is found buried in Sookie’s woods, events become personal.
Now up to ten volumes, the Sookie Stackhouse universe is becoming almost unmanageably complicated. Although the various plot threads outlined were engrossing and well integrated, there is a massive amount of back-story, on a number of fronts. Harris does a better than adequate job of dropping enough reminders to bring the broad brush strokes of it all back, and finally the whole fairy thing, that felt quite tacked on initially, feels like a deliberate part of the narrative arc.
All this may make it sound as though I didn’t enjoy Dead in the Family, and that wouldn’t be accurate. But, and this seems to be common to the majority of paranormal series, I come away from each instalment feeling as though the drama de jour is another daub of hectic colour in an already confused and busy vision. I’m not sure why this plot complexity is so prevalent in the genre, but it is – Davison’s vampire queen series now has a two or three page recap of events to catch up readers, and anyone new to the Sookie Stackhouse series would be comprehensively lost a few pages in. In contrast, Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series is almost twice as long, and also has narrative twists that have affected the central protagonist – over the course of the series Phryne has acquired live-in staff, two adopted daughters, a long-term married lover, a close friend and maid whose fiancé is a police officer, multiple connections across Melbourne, and reunited with her sister. But one could pick up a novel anywhere in the series and pick up all they needed to enjoy the novel on its own.
Of course, Greenwood has also determined that her series has an end point, whereas Soockie seems determined to continue, in ever increasingly complexity, ad infinitum. Claudine left Sookie her savings, and for perhaps the first time in her life, Sookie need not worry about penury around the next corner. One senses, however, that her next round of troubles will also come not singly but in battalions. – Alex

Enchanted Glass - Diana Wynne Jones

Andrew Hope had always dimmly know his grandfather was a magician, but he'd never really thought about what would happen to his home and, more importantly, his field of care after the old man died. So it came as something of a shock when he sees his grandfather in the middle of the road, clearly no longer in this world and flags his down with a wax-sealed document. And thus Andrew left his life of academia and entered a village that, though apparently normal on the surface, is filled with eccentric characters, giant marrows, fetes, things that go bump in the night, and the unrelated Stocks who tended not unkindly to his grandfather, in their way. Most of all there's young Aidan Cain, an orphan fleeing a large, supportive but impersonal foster home. Aidan came looking for Jocelyn and was most distressed to learn that the old man had died, so Andrew took the boy under his wing. It was as they were tracing the perimeter of Andrew's field of care (the boarder between it and normal space almost fizzles when walked through), Andrew discovers a barbed wire fence running through a copse on his grounds - a fence that, to add rather insult to injuy, is also patrolled by a vicious groundsman and an equal unfriendly dog.
As is her wont, Jones has used tales and elements from folklore and fairytales to frame her thoroughly original story - in this case the fairy king Oberon, his consort Titania, and trickster Puck. But there's a lot more here, too - from feuds large and small, unusual aptitudes, and even an incipeint romance. I didn't find Enchanted Glass quite as much as some of Jones's other works, but even an average Jones is better than many writers at their best. - Alex

Passage – Connie Willis

Joanna Lander is a psychologist investigating near-death experiences, a research field mired in pseudoscience and agenda. Located at Mercy General, her aim is to get to patients who’ve survived dying as quickly as possible, partly to record their experiences as accurately as she can while they’re still fresh, and partly so her data is uncontaminated by her biggest rival at Mercy General, Maurice Mandrake. Author of such erudite tomes as The Light at the End of the Tunnel, Mr Mandrake reshapes survivor’s memories to fit his theory, ruining any subsequent interviews Joanna manages. When she hears about another NDE researcher, Joanna goes to lengths to avoid him – in her experience even the fact he’s an MD is no evidence of sanity.
But Richard Wright is as scientifically based as she is. A neurologist convinced that NDE’s occur for a reason related to survival, he’s created a drug that seems to imitate the NDE experience without endangering the participants – they continuous brain scanning and blood collection while they undergo the induced NDE. His work would allow Joanna access to uncontaminated data from people undergoing repeated, manufactured NDE’s, if only they could get enough appropriate subjects. Instead their ever-shrinking pool includes a socialite to busy to ever undergo the process, a garrulous WW2 veteran more interested in telling tales of his experiences there than post-NDE, a taciturn man who seems to experience nothing when he goes under, and an increasingly skittish college student. Which is why, desperate to discover something before the first round of funding expires, Joanna becomes a subject.
Part of the advantage of having Joanna undergo the process was that she, unlike the other participants, would be able to describe the experience more accurately:
“I’d know if dark meant dark as in Carlsbad Caverns or the hospital parking lot at nine o’clock at night. I’d know if peaceful meant ‘tranquil’ or ‘anesthetized.’ And I’d know what they’re experiencing that they’re not even mentioning because they don’t realize it’s important, and I don’t know how to ask them about it.”
As a qualitative proto-researcher I understand that frustration, of your participants unable to usefully describe or articulate the elements of their experience or practice that you want to explore, and the difficulty of neither leading them nor letting them leave without saying something. So Joanna is all the more frustrated by her inability to capture many of the elements of her own experience, which Richard takes as support for his position that the NDE is a temporal lobe event – the temporal lobe has no connection with the brain’s language centre, and thus no way of articulating. But for Joanna, whose NDE’s built to a fuller, but metaphorical, experience, this focus distracts from her attempts to identify a familiarity she’s certain she has but can’t quite recall.
Her frustration about these teasing almost connections is extremely effectively portrayed – every time she was close to consciously realising what something meant she was interrupted and the fleeting proto-thought vanished again. This aspect was combined with an element that frequently recurs is Willis’s work: as in The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, in particular, there’s a terrific state of urgency, enhanced by obstacles and people to avoid. While reading the novel I had much the same feeling as one of those dreams where I need to get somewhere in a frantic hurry but am obstructed at every turn. Though caught up in the rush, I also felt irritated by it – the research, though potentially life-saving, didn’t require that kind of immediacy, and I kept being annoyed that Joanna’s priorities were directed toward that rather than the truly time-constrained situation of Maisie, a disaster-obsessed young girl with worsening heart failure.
It is this narrowed, urgent focus that leads to the biggest twist in Passage – having finally discovered the purpose of NDE’s, Joanna frantically searches Mercy General for Richard; hearing that another doctor with whom he’s associated has gone to the ER, where her best friend Vielle works as a senior nurse, she rushes down there. Joanna doesn’t see Richard, but she does see an anxious-looking Vielle talking with a young man – anxious to find Richard and tell him of her discovery, she interrupts the pair, only to find that the young man is armed with a knife, with which he stabs her. As the ER staff swings into action to try to save her, Joanna tries just as desperately to convey the information to Vielle, an effort that she takes with her into her final NDE.
And though I enjoyed Passage as a whole, this is where I detached from the text, because really – apart from the needs of the narrative, what was the rush? There aren’t going to be real world applications of any scientific advance, let alone one as esoteric as this, in anything under a couple of years, so waiting less than an hour for her next scheduled meeting with Richard wouldn’t have delayed anything.
The remaining couple of chapters alternate between Joanna’s new perspective, frantically trying to communicate her findings to Richard before it’s too late, and Richard’s attempts (assisted by Maisie, Vielle, another character whose plot thread I’ve not had space to explore and, unwittingly, Mandrake) to piece together what Joanna did for a missing hour and what relevance it had. This was interesting, and complemented the sense of haste woven through the novel, but I alternated my reading with thinking about what the book would have been like without this twist.
Each chapter opens with a death-related quote, from the last words of historical figures to the last letters of the famous, last messages from lost planes and sunk ships to live reports from broadcasters seeing a tragedy unfold before them. The characters are rounded and well drawn, and I found the research topic fascinating, particularly as it’s related to my own area of academic interest. I’ve yet to have any direct contact with a death survivor who talked about having an NDE, but was prepared to let that aspect go.
Despite its somewhat grim subject matter, there are touches of comedy in Passage. Joanna distresses Richard when, weeding through his participant list looking for Mandrakian ringers, she finds half a dozen who seemed find on Richard’s initial screening but who are True Believers associated with the near-death community, spies for Mandrake, or believe they’ve been abducted by aliens, or otherwise tainted. When Richard, outraged by her revelations, is surprised they weren’t all picked up by the preliminary psych profile, Joanna replies “Believing in the afterlife isn’t a mental illness; a number of major religions have been doing it for centuries.” There is also a romantic undertone, so that although nothing completely develops the reader is left with a strong sense of potential.
I also really enjoyed a thread I alluded to above and haven’t been able to explore here, which involved Mr Briarly, Joanna’s favourite high school teacher, now struggling with Alzheimer’s, and his niece Kit. Both the characters and the situation were beautifully portrayed, and I particularly liked the depiction of Alzheimer’s as a progressive death of personhood. There is also a recurring motif throughout the novel, clear in retrospect, that hints at the purpose of NDE’s; the characters in the book, like this reader, were equally blind to them, and in the last section they were also deaf to Mr Briarly’s remarks that, in a metaphysical communication with Joanna and with the part of him already gone, desperately tried to pass on a message.
I feel as though I’ve failed to capture all the elements of Passage that I’d like to – I haven’t, for example, given Maisie a fraction of the time she deserves, nor her fascination with disasters, the apparently tangential recurring Titanic/disaster motif, or even mentioned the confabulating Mrs Davenport. On the other hand perhaps, by having difficulty directly communicating what I intend, I’m doing Passage greater justice than I think. – Alex

To read Lynn’s review of Passage click here.