strange and random happenstance

The Last Tudor by Philippa Gregory
Published by: Touchstone
Publication Date: August 8th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 528 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The latest novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory features one of the most famous girls in history, Lady Jane Grey, and her two sisters, each of whom dared to defy her queen.

Seventeen-year-old Jane Grey was queen of England for nine days. Her father and his allies crowned her instead of the dead king’s half-sister Mary Tudor, who quickly mustered an army, claimed her throne, and locked Jane in the Tower of London. When Jane refused to betray her Protestant faith, Mary sent her to the executioner’s block, where Jane transformed her father’s greedy power-grab into tragic martyrdom.

“Learn you to die,” was the advice Jane wrote to her younger sister Katherine, who has no intention of dying. She intends to enjoy her beauty and her youth and fall in love. But she is heir to the insecure and infertile Queen Mary and then to her sister Queen Elizabeth, who will never allow Katherine to marry and produce a Tudor son. When Katherine’s pregnancy betrays her secret marriage she faces imprisonment in the Tower, only yards from her sister’s scaffold.

“Farewell, my sister,” writes Katherine to the youngest Grey sister, Mary. A beautiful dwarf, disregarded by the court, Mary keeps family secrets, especially her own, while avoiding Elizabeth’s suspicious glare. After seeing her sisters defy the queen, Mary is acutely aware of her own danger, but determined to command her own life. What will happen when the last Tudor defies her ruthless and unforgiving cousin Queen Elizabeth?"

For anyone else suffering from The White Princess withdrawal... even if it was nowhere near as good as The White Queen. 

The Paris Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: August 8th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"American-born spy and code-breaker extraordinaire Maggie Hope secretly navigates Nazi-occupied France to find two brave women during the darkest days of World War II in the latest novel in this New York Times bestselling series—“a treat for WWII buffs and mystery lovers alike” (Booklist, on The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent).

Maggie Hope has come a long way since serving as a typist for Winston Churchill. Now she’s working undercover for the Special Operations Executive in the elegant but eerily silent city of Paris, where SS officers prowl the streets in their Mercedes and the Ritz is draped with swastika banners. Walking among the enemy is tense and terrifying, and even though she’s disguised in chic Chanel, Maggie can’t help longing for home.

But her missions come first. Maggie’s half sister, Elise, has disappeared after being saved from a concentration camp, and Maggie is desperate to find her—that is, if Elise even wants to be found. Equally urgent, Churchill is planning the Allied invasion of France, and SOE agent Erica Calvert has been captured, the whereabouts of her vital research regarding Normandy unknown. Maggie must risk her life to penetrate powerful circles and employ all her talents for deception and spycraft to root out a traitor, find her sister, and locate the reports crucial to planning D-Day in a deadly game of wits with the Nazi intelligence elite."

Is this the first in the series to be released as hardcover? I think it is, so bravo to Susan Elia MacNeal for reaching the "making it" category. 

Emma in the Nights by Wendy Walker
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: August 8th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"One night three years ago, the Tanner sisters disappeared: fifteen-year-old Cass and seventeen-year-old Emma. Three years later, Cass returns, without her sister Emma. Her story is one of kidnapping and betrayal, of a mysterious island where the two were held. But to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Abby Winter, something doesn't add up. Looking deep within this dysfunctional family Dr. Winter uncovers a life where boundaries were violated and a narcissistic parent held sway. And where one sister's return might just be the beginning of the crime."

I mean, seriously, does anyone reading that description say no to picking up this book?

Serenity: No Power in the 'Verse by Chris Roberson and Georges Jeanty
Published by: Dark Horse Books
Publication Date: August 8th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 152 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Tough times haven't ended for Mal Reynolds and his crew aboard the Serenity. When a call for help to find a missing friend takes them to an Alliance post on the Outer Rim, they encounter a new force building strength to fight the battle of the Browncoats--soon leading the crewmembers to question their individual values . . . Discovering that their friend is in Alliance custody and that an Alliance Operative is on the way, Mal concentrates his energy on the problem at hand and strikes an uneasy partnership for a daring rescue. But this is only the beginning of the story. Success will be when the Serenity's crew makes it off this planet alive and all accounted for..."

This is THE FIRST Firefly comic that I actually felt captured, for the most part, the feeling of the show. Though a whole run it only is really the length of an episode... 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Chris Roberson, Emma in the Night, Firefly, Georges Jeanty, Philippa Gregory, Serenity, Susan Elia MacNeal, The Last Tudor, The Paris Spy, THe White Princess, The White Queen, Tuesday Tomorrow, Wendy Walker

Of course I'd heard of The Sandman. Anyone with a passing interest in comics or who had visited a comic book shop knew what he looked like from comic covers to posters to statues. So I was obviously familiar with the iconography if not the story. Because, strange as it seems, at the time my story takes place I wasn't really into graphic novels. Nowadays I read a lot of them but am very particular as to what makes it into my permanent collection. But thanks to a well stocked public library I'm able to have a wide range of options, The Sandman included. At the time being fairly recently introduced to Neil's writing I hadn't yet made the leap from his prose when this story takes place. The year was 2005 and I had beyond all logic secured four tickets to a special sneak peek of Serenity in Chicago. The movie wasn't even done! Just a temporary score lifted straight off The Fifth Element. But that didn't matter, because Firefly lived again! The question was, which of my friends to take? Matt was my best friend and fellow Joss Whedon aficionado, so one ticket went to him. Another went to my friend Ann who tried to get one for her husband Bill but the show was already sold out.

The final ticket was obvious. My friend Orelia was shipping off to Africa to join the Peace Corps in a few short months and wouldn't get a chance to see the movie when it was released in the fall. After all those years spent in Rivendell co-op watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and later Angel I had my posse back for one last glorious adventure. Matt gets extremely car sick so for once I was ensconced in the back seat with Orelia, driving duties handed over to Ann. Orelia was in the process of re-reading all The Sandman comics before Africa and spent the afternoon while Ann drove us to Chicago telling me all about the series and in particular the volume she had brought along, The Sandman: The Doll's House. Even if I hadn't been familiar with Neil's work his sense of humor of having a Serial Killer Convention disguised as a "Cereal" Convention made me know that he was my kind of writer. I always look back on that day not as the day Joss callously killed off Wash, but of those quite moments in the backseat with Orelia talking about comics, or the amazing lightning storm we witnessed on the return journey. It was one of those days that I will always remember.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chicago, Comics, Firefly, Gaiman Gala, Gaiman Reminiscence, Graphic Novels, Joss Whedon, Lightning, Neil Gaiman, Peace Corps, Sandman, Serenity, The Sandman: The Doll's House, Wash

A Deadly Measure of Brimstone by Catriona McPherson
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: November 18th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In A Deadly Measure of Brimstone, Dandy and the whole Gilver clan travel to a spa town for a weekend of relaxation which is quickly interrupted by a slew of mysterious— and deadly—events.

The men of the Gilver family have come down, between them, with influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia and pleurisy. The family repairs to the town of Moffat, there to submit to the galvanic wraps and cold salt rubs of the splendid Laidlaw Hydropathic Hotel.

But all is not well at the Hydro, and the secret of the lady who arrived but never left cannot be kept for long. And what of those drifting shapes in the Turkish bath? Just steam shifting in the air? Probably. But in this town the dead can be as much trouble as the living."

I am very excited for a new Dandy Gilver book but I am heartbroken that it doesn't have a cover by Jessica Hische, aka the reason I picked the series up in the first place because of the striking covers!

The Paris Winter by Imogen Robertson
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: November 18th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"There is but one Paris. -Vincent Van Gogh

Maud Heighton came to Lafond's famous Academie to paint, and to flee the constraints of her small English town. It took all her courage to escape, but Paris, she quickly realizes, is no place for a light purse. While her fellow students enjoy the dazzling decadence of the Belle Epoque, Maud slips into poverty. Quietly starving, and dreading another cold Paris winter, she stumbles upon an opportunity when Christian Morel engages her as a live-in companion to his beautiful young sister, Sylvie.

Maud is overjoyed by her good fortune. With a clean room, hot meals, and an umbrella to keep her dry, she is able to hold her head high as she strolls the streets of Montmartre. No longer hostage to poverty and hunger, Maud can at last devote herself to her art.

But all is not as it seems. Christian and Sylvie, Maud soon discovers, are not quite the darlings they pretend to be. Sylvie has a secret addiction to opium and Christian has an ominous air of intrigue. As this dark and powerful tale progresses, Maud is drawn further into the Morels' world of elegant deception. Their secrets become hers, and soon she is caught in a scheme of betrayal and revenge that will plunge her into the darkness that waits beneath this glittering city of light."

This looks very intriguing!

Serenity: Leaves on the Wind by Zack Whedon
Published by: Dark Horse Books
Publication Date: November 18th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 152 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In the film Serenity, outlaw Malcolm Reynolds and his crew revealed to the entire 'verse the crimes against humanity undertaken by the sinister government--the Alliance. Here, in the official follow-up to the film, the crew has been in hiding since becoming everyone's most wanted, and now they are forced to come out. River uncovers more secrets, leading these former Browncoats on a dangerous mission against the Alliance that, with hope, will bring them together again..."

Ah, who am I kidding. Sure I hated the movie but I adore Firefly so much I'll probably read this too.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Deadly Measure of Brimstone, Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver, Firefly, Imogen Robertson, Jessica Hische, Joss Whedon, Leaves on the Wind, Serenity, The Paris Winter, Vincent Van Gogh

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Published by: Tor Fantasy
Publication Date: April 1st, 2014
Format: Paperback, 502 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Maia never expected to be Emperor. Forth in line for the throne, the half goblin son of the Elvish Emperor Varenechibel IV has spent his life in exile with an abusive cousin. When his father and elder brothers all die in an airship crash Maia is plunged into a world of court intrigue he was never prepared for. Maia has a good heart and has had a lonely life; he finds the transition to court almost unbearable. He doesn't know who to trust and those he does are to be viewed as servants not friends. Then there is his remaining family, people he has never met and who make it clear they are not happy with his rapid and unexpected ascension. The earnest youth has to deal with plots and plans and the startling knowledge that the airship crash that changed his life was sabotage and that his family didn't die because of an unfortunate accident, they were murdered. As Maia tries to find out the truth his own life might very well be in danger. After all, in an elvish realm who wants a goblin as emperor?

I don't lightly contemplate giving up on a book. Once I pick it up I am in it for the long haul. I am there to the bitter end. Like Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory contemplating adding a new television show to his life, no matter what happens or how bad it gets, we are committed and can't back out; it's a facet of our personalities, though I'm not fictional. Therefore when I got about sixty pages into The Goblin Emperor and started seriously thinking of backing out, well, you can get an idea as to how I feel about this book. Seeing as this book was a selection for my book club I stated my feelings on our Facebook page and was strongly encouraged to carry on. I waited about a week and started the book over again. I struggled and I cursed, I occasionally chose sleep over reading, I had panic attacks that I would never finish, and then, I stumbled into the finish line abruptly. Occasionally I glimpsed the greatness that caught my friends imaginations, but overall this book failed to achieve even the most basic needs of a book, legibility.

The Goblin Emperor is full of dense almost impenetrable text. If you can get past these trappings there is a story with a very slight narrative in there, but if you don't look closely you might miss it. Katherine Addison has created the most convoluted language with unpronounceable titles and honorifics possible. At times I thought that she just literally hit keys at random on her keyboard to come up with some of the names of her characters. In her "Handbook for Travelers in the Elflands" she oh so kindly points out that "there are no silent letters in Ethuverazhin." Oh, so all those random consonants and vowels, I say them all? OK, let me just mentally rename all the fifty million characters in the book to something legible to preserve my sanity. And then Addison has some fun with masculine and feminine names and does some slight Scandinavian manipulation so that husbands and wives have different surnames! And all these woman have the same-ish title, which could for a couple hundred pages be mistaken for their forenames, of dach'osmer, or dach'osmerrem, or even dach'osmin! Rarely does a book make me feel stupid. This book made me feel stupid.

I struggled so much that at times I was brought to tears and conversely I was occasionally brought to the edge of panic with my heart racing as it felt like it was climbing into my throat. The only time of the day I found it mildly productive to read this book was when I was half awake. In this almost dream state I just didn't care enough to have my ire raised. But if I was fully conscious; well that's another matter. Here's the thing about creating a world with a different language; it might be helpful if that different language has some basis in, oh, any language on earth. The reason a fantasy writer like Tolkien is embraced is because as a historian of dead languages he was able to create languages that had the same basis as our own. The names and words made sense. Got that? You can't just make up an entire new language with no touchstone to reality. There's a reason language formed as it did over time, we can speak it! We understand it! We don't look at it and go, what they hell is this!?! That is what I spent the majority of this book doing; ripping out my hair and saying what the hell is this!

Addison spent so much time creating this made up etiquette and title system she forgot that worldbuilding is more then just made up words and it's generally a good idea to have a plot. Even if we were to take the theory that this was a character study... well, no one but Maia is more then two-dimensional, some barely make it that far, being just signifiers of emotion. All I kept thinking while reading this book and looking askance at the rave review on the front cover from author Scott Lynch guaranteeing court intrigue was that someone, ie Addison, needs to bone up on their court history or read Patrick Rothfuss's A Wise Man's Fear to see a successfully executed fantasy court. Because really, strip this book down, strip the stupid Ethuverazhin language, strip the emotive ears, strip out every time someone says "Serenity" (that alone should make the book two hundred pages shorter) and what do you have? Literally Queen Victoria's ascension to the throne, which is milquetoast to the Medici's! Seriously, all this book is is a kernel of real history tarted up with all these fantastical and nonsensical trappings and spewed back at us with no depth and no umph. Everything is surface.

I know this review might cause uproar, and it probably will make some of my friends wonder how we are friends with such different tastes in reading material, but I just couldn't like this book. I begrudgingly gave it two stars because Maia does have a good heart and it is rare to have someone kind and thoughtful and not at all malicious or vindictive as a hero, but think how much better this book would be if Addison could write? Because that is my biggest take-away from this book. Addison can't write. She can spew nonsense, she can write impressive lists of horrendously annoying made up names, she can spend hours going on and on about Maia's clothes, but she can't write. I so wanted this book to be good if just to thwart those Sad and Rapid Puppies out there who got this book a Hugo Nomination most likely because of the anti gay societal values, but alas, it isn't so. And as a parting salvo, I want to ask, who the hell thought to categorize this book as Steampunk? Pneumatic tubes and airships do not a Steampunk book make. You might be able to argue that it fits in Baroque Punk... but like my overall opinion of this book, um no.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Elves, Goblins, Katherine Addison, Maia, Medici's, Patrick Rothfuss, Queen Victoria, Sarah Monette, Serenity, Sheldon Cooper, Steampunk, The Big Bang Theory, The Goblin Emperor, The Wise Man's Fear, Worldbuilding