strange and random happenstance

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Published by: Viking Adult
Publication Date: February 8th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 592 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Creatures are dying out. The power of the witches is waning and they are having less children. The vampires are unable to sire successfully. As for the daemons, they are becoming more and more erratic, that which once made them brilliant is now driving them mad. They have one hope. Rumors of a book that holds all the answers to their origins and their decline. Each species has a different theory as to what is contained within its pages. Witches believe it is the first grimoire. And it is a witch who finds the book after all hope had been lost of ever finding the missing manuscript. Diana Bishop is a witch. The last descendant of Bridget Bishop who was hanged at Salem. When magic killed Diana's parents when she was seven she decided then and there that magic would have no place in her life. She has created a great academic career for herself, she is the foremost authority on alchemy and its symbology. Which is what she is studying at the Bodleian. She has taken a year-long sabbatical from Yale to conduct research in Oxford. One day she calls a book from the stacks, Ashmole 782. This book isn't what it seems, it reeks of magic and is a palimpsest. She refuses to interact with the magical so treats it as any other book. She takes her notes and as soon as she's done with it she sends it back to the stacks. But the wheels have been put in motion. The creatures know the book has been found. They start to gather at the library. Watching her intently. Hoping she will recall what was thought lost. And they are willing to do anything to get it back. Witches, vampires, and daemons aren't supposed to interact. They have a Congregation that enforces these laws. Too many of them in one place draws the attentions of the humans. And what's happening at the Bodleian is drawing their attention. Enter Matthew Clairmont. Matthew is tall, dark, and brooding, everything you'd expect a vampire to be. He takes a keen interest in Diana, not just because of the book, but because something draws her to him. Soon the two of them are inseparable. Falling for each other but denying that it is happening. But Diana, not the book, might be the answer to everything he has ever searched for. He is a scientist and has been studying creature DNA in an attempt to solve their decline. He doesn't hold with the Congregation and their segregation of the creatures. Diana proves to be an outlier. Her power isn't waning, it's unlimited. Her DNA shows traits long since forgotten. She must be protected at all costs. When Oxford becomes too dangerous for Diana Matthew spirits her away to his family estate in France, where Diana will have to face Matthew's mother and her disapproval. But Diana's problems are more than the average woman facing a potential in-law, the Congregation has heard they are consorting. Matthew and Diana are breaking their laws and the Congregation won't take this lying down. Soon nowhere is safe. Not even Diana's family home in upstate New York. They need time. Time to find out the true reason that Diana and Matthew prove such a danger, and time for Diana to embrace her heritage.

When I first read this book I couldn't help but be bemused that this is nothing more than literary Twilight. And, just like Twilight, the fanbase is fanatical. So I have rarely in the past called out the book for its absurd family dynamics, its angst, and its heroine, who is almost too dumb to live. Diana does next to nothing to protect herself while Matthew is carrying her around like a spider monkey. I mean, if you can't see the humor in that, or the parallels, I don't know what to say. To fans of the book, I get it. To detractors of the book, I also get it. But sometimes you just need an absurd book full of love and angst and a large found family that while not quite filling the Buffy sized hole that will always exist in my heart is an acceptable simulacrum with its cozy vibes on the edge of the apocalypse. Because I love my messy vampires. If The Vampire Lestat has taught me anything this year its that I need more of that level of chaos in my life and A Discovery of Witches brings a cozy version of that with ghost-filled houses and the golden spires of Oxford. While there are wonderful discussions on science and evolution and literature and language this isn't what the book is about. It's about complete and utter escapism and you have to take the book on its own terms in order to enjoy it. So knowing what it was, not the touted book in the front of Barnes and Noble for the entirety of February in 2011, but adult Twilight, I gave myself over to it. And I loved it. I unabashedly loved it. I can finally face my friends who adore this series without a guilty conscious. I was always holding back my opinions because there were scenes that I just couldn't deal with. Congregation defiant yoga classes with vampires, witches, and daemons? Seriously!?! I just couldn't get around how absurd this is. And yet this was something they in particular just adored. Maybe it's just my hatred of yoga and not this yoga in particular that is the crux of the problem. So yes, while I would have probably loved this book more had it proceeded as it had began, minus the yoga, with Diana living the dream; researching at Oxford, spending all her spare time in the Bodleian, having anxiety attacks, OK, that's not cool, but I can relate. But this book started almost with a different Diana coupled with Oxford. So what was lost was a lot. What was gained, well, I've come to love that in it's own special way. And now I do rate it higher than Twilight. Though I should note that only the first book in that series had anything slightly going for it and I have never been a Twihard. An All Souls Fan? Now that I can get behind.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Discovery of Witches, All Souls Trilogy, Ashmole 782, Buffy, Creatures, Daemons, Deborah Harkness, Diana Bishop, Matthew Clairmont, Oxford, Science, Season of the Witch, Spider Monkey, The Vampire Lestat, Twilight, Vampires, Yoga

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness
ARC Provided by the Publisher
Published by: Viking Adult
Publication Date: July 15th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 576 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Matthew and Diana return from the past to find much changed and much the same as it ever was. There has been loses while they were gone, and they must morn them. But life goes on, as Diana's ever increasing belly shows. The time has come to find answers as the lives growing in Diana's belly depend on them. Matthew delves into the science side at Yale while Diana goes to England to find out the answers of Ashmole 782. New and old technologies are used to find out secrets of their supernatural kind. Secrets that will hopefully bring the Congregation to a new understanding of how the world works. Witches and vampires and demons are more alike then they are different and these similarities should be embraced not segregated. But in the end there will be a battle, but will it be political or will Matthew's dangerous past come back to haunt him?

The "All Souls Trilogy" baffles me. It has so much wasted potential but, like some other series that I have found middling, it has a fierce fanbase that I don't want to rile, as well as a few close friends. This is the same fanbase that can see no wrong in Outlander, the forty year old women who will beat you to death if you say anything against Jamie Fraser. I just don't get it. Maybe I'm just not at the point in my life where this reaches out and touches something deep in my soul, instead I'm sticking by my opinion that this is Twilight for middle aged women. Before I actually read this installment I was excited for the conclusion of this series. Shadow of Night really captured my interest with it's historical bent, but sadly this volume decided to focus on science versus history. The mess this resulted in felt like Michael Crichton writing YA. The writing was clumsy with the shift from Diana's first person narration to Matthew's third person narration. The ending was a trite cliche with an extremely unrealistic HEA. In fact, was there actually enough to merit the moniker "book" when anything of interest was unresolved and everything seemed like it could be summed up in an afterword?

Now for the fun part. The part where I take apart The Book of Life and point at everything that drove me crazy. Shall we start with Stevie Nicks? I think we shall. What the hell is it with Stevie Nicks and witches? Yes she's rumored to be one, but she denies it so often and then does an about turn that you could get whiplash. But the fact of witches identifying with her music has gotten to a point in our culture where it's so cliched that to use it you seriously are going to incur my wrath. It just shows a laziness that you can't think of something more interesting and will just rely on the stereotype. Wasn't this whole series trying to say that things are more complicated and confusing then what you'd expect? Well, that means I'd expect something better then Stevie Nicks. At least she didn't show up and do an extended music video in the middle of the book for absolutely no reason, thank you American Horror Story: Coven and Ryan Murphy for bringing me that cringe worthy moment in television history. That moment is also the first thing that popped in my mind while reading this book. Ug. Stop.

As Gallowglass says "This family was more fun when we had fewer medical degrees." Thank you Gallowglass, aka the one character I like, for pointing out the obvious. The characters zeal for scientifically researching the world of creatures and their problems, from studying blood rage to genomes to The Book of Life itself made me want to scream in frustration. I like the history, I don't like the science. Yes, in books that tackle supernatural beings we have to look at the world they now inhabit, the fact that DNA and genetics can uncover centuries old secrets, but do we need to do it in such detail? Let's all go to Yale and get a research grant and blah blah blah, blood rage, blah blah blah, babies, blah blah blah, what was I even talking about? Now I'm not saying science can't be interesting, but it's more interesting when it's real. When it's made up mumbo jumbo by an author that isn't that accomplished and has tons of plot holes and inconsistencies? No thanks.

But you know what's worse then science? Politics! I hate politics. I pay attention because it's what every good citizen should do. Also, I live in the epicenter of political evil right now, so, well, it's a main topic of conversation, as in, what stupid and illegal thing happened today? But do I want to read, watch, listen, osmose politics for fun? NO! Here we have ANOTHER book with an unnatural union being thwarted by a secret governing body that just doesn't get the world is changing. Again, Twilight much? Any urban fantasy author will tell Harkness that it's best to leave the overly political BS that governs your world off stage. Seriously, all those meetings in Venice where they were droning on and on about all the different species that Harkness has created I was more interested in the architecture. The boat rides to and from the meetings were more thrilling. How did she make Venice boring? Well, she made a lot of things boring and took a lot of pages to do it, so really, I shouldn't be that surprised.

Writing this review is making me realize why it took me a month to read this book. ME, who usually devours a book in a few days no matter the length. OK, let's get this over with. So, what annoyance shall I conclude with? Oh, how about Diana! At the beginning of this series Diana was the conduit for the reader. She was fairly normal, aside from the whole being a witch thing. But over time as her relationship with Matthew deepened, she has become something other then human, something more. She now has arrows and firedrakes and weaving IN HER ARM! Yes, it's kind of cool, but there's also the fact that she is totally unrelatable now. She's a superhero, so we can look up to her, but the truth is, do people really truly ever relate to superheroes? They might want to be them, but relatability isn't part of that. Maybe my whole problem with this book and it's fans is that I can't relate at all and perhaps it's better if we just keep our distance.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: All Soul's Trilogy, American Horror Story, Ashmole 782, Deborah Harkness, Gallowglass, HEA, Outlander, Shadow of Night, Stevie Nicks, The Book of Life, Twilight, Vampires, Witches, Yale

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
Published by: Viking
ARC Provided by Viking
Publication Date: July 10th, 2012
Format: Kindle, 592 Pages
Rating: ★★★

To Buy

Diana and Matthew did it! They have successfully arrived in 1590 at Matthew's house in Woodstock. Diana thought that getting there would be the hard part, but that was easy compared to being thrown directly into the middle of the School of Night. The smartest and savviest and most renowned and infamous men of the age seem to view Matthew's house as their home... and they do not care for Diana, at first, or forever as the case may be with the lovestruck Marlowe. Soon it becomes apparent that maybe this wasn't the best idea. Matthew has drastically changed from the man he was then, not to mention the lack of a beard. And Diana... well, she obviously doesn't fit. From language to comportment to behaviour. She. Doesn't. Fit. Though as scary as being found out is, the summons from Matthew's father is even scarier. He could bring this world down around them in a flash.

Travelling to Sept Tours and living amongst Matthew's past is trying for Diana, as is the fact they have done nothing that they planned to do. She is still ignorant of her abilities and Ashmole 782 looks as if it is never to be found in the past. Matthew and Diana are buffeted around by all the people who have a claim on them, from Philippe to Queen Elizabeth to Emperor Rudolf II to the Congregation, from France to London to Prague, they try to fit there lives and their needs among the demands of these great people. As time goes on, there is more and more of a chance of effecting the past and there is more and more of a need for Diana to learn her craft and find her book and get home. Luckily, fate does seem to occasionally shine on them and sometimes their tragedies turn into greater joys.

Shadow of Night literally picks up right where A Discovery of Witches ended. While I enjoyed the first book, though didn't view it as a staggering piece of genius, but more as Twilight for the more educated adults out there, I found myself liking this book more. There were still times when I felt it was too Twilighty, what with the importance of Matthew's family, his desire for a wedding before coupling, the desire for Diana mixed in with feelings of blood lust, but at least it's obvious that Harkness knows this and she does parody it with a conversation about modern literature at Sept Tours. There where a few other mild annoyances I will mention here because they seem to fit this "Twilight" category versus any other. If Diana and Matthew had only been together for 40 days, how could her period be "off" when it barely had time to be on? Supposedly her torture changed her cycle... but only having your period different once doesn't indicate a trend of irregularity. Continuing in the vein of bodily functions, some of there sex scenes where veering towards the eww versus the aww.  "With my spine bowed, he was poised at the entrance to my womb." Icky, no thanks!

Now, let's discuss what really annoyed me, Diana's ignorance. For someone who is supposed to be a historian written by a historian, I might add, Diana is really dumb sometimes. Diana mistook a silver shaker, aka a Pounce Pot, for a salt shaker. Even if you don't know the technical term, anyone who has watched any period drama knows that there is a silver shaker that is on all writing desks that contains sand, or a similar substance, and it is an aid for absorbing excess ink in letter writing. Not one person I know would go, "oh look, salt" and then complain about it's grittiness. Grrr Diana. Also, how does a historian not know that at the time of Queen Elizabeth St. Paul's wasn't the St. Paul's by Christopher Wren, seeing as that wasn't for almost two hundred years and a great fire needed to happen. Then there's the use of the word tisane, which is an herbal tea. I can allow that Diana would use it, because she's from modern times, but the fact that others would understand it is impossible. It's from the 1930s! Then there's the quintain. I've known what a quintain was most of my life, probably because I have a younger brother who loved medieval jousting. Again, Diane must have seen a movie or a reference to the sandbags on pivots used to train in jousting. Even if she didn't know the name, she should at least know it's NOT a gibbit. The real shocker of ignorance though was when she asked a kindly Jewish man why he had a golden ring embroidered on his clothing. Facepalm Diana, facepalm. Even the Nazis used a similar method for the demarcation of being Jewish. Girl, you need to catch up on some history.

The School of Night was also another note of contention for me. Mainly because we are thrown, with Diana, head first into this group of intellectual men and have to spend the entire first part of the book listening to them bickering and sharing barbs and witticisms while desperately trying to remember who's who. These people are nothing to me. They are historical figures that are there to add to the mystique of Matthew's past, but instead just pissed me off. I liked Kit being a bitchy little boy, but other than that, I could take them or leave them. Which is much how I felt for many of the historical sections of the book... oh, who am I kidding, almost all of the historical sections. When I had an investment with Diana or Matthew or another character, than the history mattered and fascinated me. The characters she created of the young witch Annie and the street urchin Jack where lovely and broke my heart. When they where in Prague I couldn't put this book down. Yet previously I felt that we where being led on a tour of Elizabethan England. I was reading a travel guide for the time, not historical fiction. I quite literally cheered when Diana said it was "time to stop treating our sojourn here as an advanced seminar in Shakespeare's England." Because that was what the book was! Hundreds of pages of exposition, when they came to search for the Ashmole 782 and get Diana learned in the dark arts. I didn't need them playing Elizabethan house for the whole first half of the book!

Though the negatives, which I can pinpoint, while occasionally taking me out of the book (tisane, grummble grummble), didn't take away from the fact that this is a fun book. Once everything started to come together that is. When the magic started to be incorporated and we didn't dwell on the barbs and witticisms of the men, I felt the book finally became what Diana had set out to find. The way that spells are different than magic, at least for witches other than Diana. The familiars that would reside in you. Also, the way other religions magic was touched on, like the Jewish witch's Golem. A total aside, but golems are awesome, ever since I read Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay I have been a friend of the Golems! Though not Tolkien's Golem, just so we're clear, my preciouses. This was when the book became what I was hoping it would be. We went beyond the typical challenges of a girl and a vampire love story and Harkness brought something new and interesting. Of course, seeing as this is the second book in a trilogy, we where left hanging to some extent, but at least I was satisfied enough till the next book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Discovery of Witches, Ashmole 782, Deborah Harkness, Emperor Rudolf II, Golem, History, Marlowe, Prague, Queen Elizabeth, School of Night, Sept Tours, Shadow of Night, Terry Pratchett, Twilight