octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

The best of the Heritage of Shannara series so far, and it is entirely to do with the main character. Wren is not as crushingly dull as Par, and she is far less whiny than Walker. Without the endless pages of repetitive angst (there is some, but nowhere near the same amount) the pace of Elf Queen is a lot zippier than its predecessors. There's more action and less complaining, and the book seems shorter and tighter because of it.

I read and reviewed The Scions of Shannara and The Druid of Shannara separately, so this is just for my own records, essentially. I rated both books at two stars, so that's what they've averaged out at here when collected together. While there were interesting bits in both of them, in general I found them too long and too repetitive to really become attached to.

The micro-histories of chemicals and men. This is a somewhat disjointed little book - if deliberately so - the memoir of a scientist that comes in little pieces, in beakers and test tubes and under fume hoods. That comes, sometimes, in fiction - in the little stories that Levi told himself when there were gaps in the bigger ones.

These histories illuminate each other. The chemicals are metaphors and catalysts and touchstones, they are memories and a structure to build an identity upon. Levi is as much (more?) of a chemist as a writer, and these fragments of his life, warped around the spectre of his time at Auschwitz (although not described in detail in this book, it is the absence around which the book revolves) are ordered into elements. This comes to culmination towards the end: the "Vanadium" chapter is particularly affecting, although as with much of the rest of the book one cannot really call it triumphant - the moral failures of Auschwitz and fascism and the continued desire to look away (and look darkly) are themes that resonate throughout the text.

A marked improvement on the last volume, with hardly any emphasis on the various ways in which the female characters explore their (apparently universal) condition of whoredom. Here they were functioning people independent of their vaginas, and the story benefited from that. The imagery again was the strongest part, and while there wasn't any one image that rose to the level of the previous book's bison, overall it left a very visual impression, and one that I appreciated. I also continued to enjoy having an artist at the centre of the story - epic fantasy is often fairly limited in its character roles, so its nice to have a new perspective.

While it was highly enjoyable I still found it somewhat overlong, but the mosaic's end made up for that. Nice poignant touch I thought, one which resisted the urge to give an entirely happy ending.

I read and reviewed the two volumes contained here separately, so this is essentially just for my own records. The star rating is really 3.5, rounded up to 4 - it's the average of the 3 stars I gave Sailing to Sarantium and the 4 I gave to Lord of Emperors. In a nutshell, I enjoyed the imagery and the placing of an artist at the centre of an epic fantasy narrative, and was less impressed with the dodgy way the first book perceived its women characters - though this improved markedly in the second volume (hence its higher rating).

I thought this was absolutely charming. It put me in mind of A Gathering of Gargoyles by Meredith Ann Pierce, largely because of the really vivid imagery, though AGOG is darker in tone I think, as well as meant for older readers. Don't get me wrong, all is not sweetness and light here, but the consequences are not as severe as they could be if this weren't a book for children. The Persephone angle, for one - the myth is so powerful because the mother does lose her child; she does grieve for six months out of every twelve, and that is the cost of Persephone's journey to adulthood. Here September's mother never even knew she was missing so the metaphor is somewhat diluted... but it is a children's book and one must not steep them so dreadfully in misery so soon.

I figured out the Marquess' identity fairly early on, but it's not the plot that is the great strength of this book (though the plot is perfectly adequate). Rather it's the language which, as in Valente's short stories, is bright and rich and something to wallow happily in. Everyone has one element that they prefer above all others in a story, whether that's characterisation or action or what have you. For me it's language, so this hit all the right buttons. Recommended!

Fun fact: my parents planned to call me September. I am very glad they did not - I like to think I hung on to be born until October, just to make sure the name would be completely inappropriate. But I like September here, and the near miss between us makes me extra fond of her.

3.5, rounding up to 4. The real strength here lies in the emotional impact - The Book of Unknown Americans is simultaneously sad and enraging and hopeful, which is a difficult balancing act to pull off! But it does it well, and I was genuinely affected by the fate of the characters.

It's told from a variety of perspectives - the first person viewpoints of most of the major characters. While this is an effective tactic for giving breadth to the story, I'm not sure that Henriquez really differentiated the prose of each character enough for me. It can be really difficult to make characters sound unique, and to me here it was more like (as is actually the case, of course) a narrator speaking for a number of different people rather than a collection of individual voices.

Short but fascinating account of civilian life at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. Collectively written by a number of women at the time (each does a chapter on her own experiences) this book was never published in the 1940s as it was meant to be - the publisher pulled out - and the manuscript subsequently languished in the historical archives until it was finally pulled out some decades later. All I can say is what a pity that earlier publisher was so short-sighted! This is an excellent little book, prioritising different stories than are usually told about the MP, and thereby giving a sense of community and social context to one of the great science achievements of the 20th century. If only it had been longer.

Once more philosophy defeats me. I can't think of much I wouldn't do to keep from reading this giant heap of dullness again. The only spark of interest I had in the whole thing was the continual wondering of which was worse: the text, or the accompanying analysis by Kenneth A. Telford. They seemed equally long and incomprehensible, but I'm opting to give the prize to Telford. Why?

When I picked this up, in a second hand bookshop (damned if I'm paying full price for philosophy, I may be stubborn enough to keep trying it but I'm not entirely stupid) I picked out this particular edition from the mound of copies people were trying to get shot of because, at the bottom of the cover, it said "Gateway Edition". I took that to mean it was supposed to be a gateway to Aristotle, something to actually encourage you to read and understand him. Well, my fellow reviewers, let me give you a random paragraph opener from the accompanying analysis and explanation:

"The three antecedent causes of the imitating process, in conjunction but not separately, serve as differentiae of this process by which an a priori classification of works of art into species can be effected." (p. 74)

If you know what the hell this means, you are a more attentive and intelligent reader than I, and more power to you. For my part, both portions of this book read as if they were more interested in sounding intelligent than communicating intelligence. Very occasionally there was a spark of clarity from either party, but it was rare and far between, buried under pompousness, pedantry, and the prosiest prose that ever prosed.

Never again.

This is just wonderful - sad and touching and hopeful all at once. The part where Arthur spends time with the geese, and also his quiet wait through the night staring down at his kingdom are both excellently done, but credit here also has to go to the illustrator. Trevor Stubley's drawings are fantastic, and are frequently as effective as the text - the double page of an ancient Arthur trying to hold back a rain of spears is just painfully good.

It's an odd mixture, this little book - a fitting end to the series I think, though it's been a long while since I read the first four books. It's quirky and funny and horrifying, it's tragic and sad and extremely referential both for historical and current events ("current" being at the time of writing, i.e. during WW2). And it manages to be all these things without coming over-strained, though I admit that Merlyn walks a very fine line here and I'm on the cusp of thinking that White has tried a little too hard with him. Still, overall it's well worth reading, and is certainly compulsively readable.