strange and random happenstance

Death's Excellent Vacation by Charlaine Harris and Tony L.P. Kelner
Published by: Ace Hardcover
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"New York Times bestselling authors Charlaine Harris, Katie MacAlister, Jeaniene Frost-plus Lilith Saintcrow, Jeff Abbott, and more-send postcards from the edge of the paranormal world to fans who devoured Wolfsbane and Mistletoe and Many Bloody Returns.

With an all-new Sookie Stackhouse story and twelve other original tales, editors Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner bring together a stellar collection of tour guides who offer vacations that are frightening, funny, and touching for the fanged, the furry, the demonic, and the grotesque. Learn why it really can be an endless summer-for immortals. "

A new Sookie short story... I don't know whether to be happy or afraid, cause there's a fifty-fifty chance it's a piece of crap. Short stories are not Charlaine's forte.

The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory
Published by: Touchstone
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Heiress to the red rose of Lancaster, Margaret Beaufort never surrenders her belief that her house is the true ruler of England and that she has a great destiny before her. Her ambitions are disappointed when her sainted cousin Henry VI fails to recognize her as a kindred spirit, and she is even more dismayed when he sinks into madness. Her mother mocks her plans, revealing that Margaret will always be burdened with the reputation of her father, one of the most famously incompetent English commanders in France. But worst of all for Margaret is when she discovers that her mother is sending her to a loveless marriage in remote Wales.

Married to a man twice her age, quickly widowed, and a mother at only fourteen, Margaret is determined to turn her lonely life into a triumph. She sets her heart on putting her son on the throne of England regardless of the cost to herself, to England, and even to the little boy. Disregarding rival heirs and the overwhelming power of the York dynasty, she names him Henry, like the king; sends him into exile; and pledges him in marriage to her enemy Elizabeth of York’s daughter. As the political tides constantly move and shift, Margaret charts her own way through another loveless marriage, treacherous alliances, and secret plots. She feigns loyalty to the usurper Richard III and even carries his wife’s train at her coronation.

Widowed a second time, Margaret marries the ruthless, deceitful Thomas, Lord Stanley, and her fate stands on the knife edge of his will. Gambling her life that he will support her, she then masterminds one of the greatest rebellions of the time—all the while knowing that her son has grown to manhood, recruited an army, and now waits for his opportunity to win the greatest prize.

In a novel of conspiracy, passion, and coldhearted ambition, number one bestselling author Philippa Gregory has brought to life the story of a proud and determined woman who believes that she alone is destined, by her piety and lineage, to shape the course of history."

Ever since I saw Philippa Gregory speak last year promoting the first book in the Cousins' War Series I have been waiting to get my hands on the second book, The Red Queen. Well, finally the wait is over!

Labyrinth: A Greywalker Novel by Kat Richardson
Published by: ROC
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Harper Blaine was your average small-time P. I. until she died-for two minutes. Now she's a Greywalker, walking the line between the living world and the paranormal realm. There are others who know about her new powers-others with powerful tools and evil intentions, and now that the man who "killed" her has been murdered, the police are also paying close attention. That means Harper has to watch her step while searching for the ghost of her "killer"-who could be a valuable clue in the puzzle of Harper's past and her father's death, as well as a key to figuring out who's trying to manipulate her new powers and why. But with her growing powers pulling her into the Grey, Harper might not be able to come back out... "

Yet another series I have just picked up. There are just too many books that I want to read!

Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer
Published by: Hyperion
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 432 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Artemis has committed his entire fortune to a project he believes will save the planet and its inhabitants, both human and fairy. Can it be true? Has goodness taken hold of the world’s greatest teenage criminal mastermind?

Captain Holly Short is unconvinced, and discovers that Artemis is suffering from Atlantis Complex, a psychosis common among guilt-ridden fairies - not humans - and most likely triggered by Artemis’s dabbling with fairy magic. Symptoms include obsessive-compulsive behavior, paranoia, multiple personality disorder and, in extreme cases, embarrassing professions of love to a certain feisty LEPrecon fairy.

Unfortunately, Atlantis Complex has struck at the worst possible time. A deadly foe from Holly’s past is intent on destroying the actual city of Atlantis. Can Artemis escape the confines of his mind – and the grips of a giant squid – in time to save the underwater metropolis and its fairy inhabitants?

New York Times best-selling author Eoin Colfer delivers a knockout, fast-paced, and hilarious adventure in Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex, the seventh book in the blockbuster series. "

I really need to pick up the Artemis Fowl series again, if just for the awesome re-design. I love that "AF."

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Artemis Fowl, Charlaine Harris, Death's Excellent Vacation, Eoin Colfer, Kat Richardson, Labyrinth, Philippa Gregory, Sookie Stackhouse, The Atlanta Complex, The Red Queen, The White Queen

I was in Wonderland, probably like most book geeks out there. I tried to go in expectationless. When I saw the preview a few months back, I was not trilled, but somehow over the intervening months I had forgotten my initial bad reaction and got excited. But I have to say it was not worth the whopping $15 price tag, especially if you then tack on the $2 service charge, and they didn't have Skittles! What movie theater doesn't have Skittles? Sometimes things don't work, the stars don't align, and the apparently perfect person isn't quite what was actually needed. Despite a star studded cast, it was lackluster, it was blah, it was boring. I will say, I didn't hate it, but it just wasn't all that. Tim Burton was hoping that by adding a definable plot that you'd have more of an emotional connection to the characters. Personally, I'm all good with my connection to the characters, it's his tinkering with creating an unsuccessful Red Queen overload with dissatisfied masses that rally around Alice that doesn't quite work. By having Alice escape her world and a looming arraigned marriage to come to Underland (yes, not a typo) and be forced to become a hero by killing the Jabberwocky seemed kind of dumb. Instead of a magical world of delightful nonsense, we have a world of oppression, death, war and post apocalyptic wastelands, that are never fully explained to my satisfaction. If they had fleshed out the resistance movement, if they had made the plot even more of a plot, then perhaps... but that's just a maybe. Having everything magically hing on Alice killing the Jabberwocky seemed dumb. Why would the Red Queen loose her power if the Jabberwock died? Really, if someone knows, please tell me. I personally found the real world far weirder and more interesting, peopled with some of my favorite British actors, many of which were in The Jewel in the Crown... but then again, yet another failed adaptation of Alice in Wonderland isn't that big a shock. There is no way this will please die hard fans and I don't see it bringing in any new ones... I think Public Enemies proved Johnny Depp does not always equal box office gold. Personally I think I'm going to go pick up the book and read what no one has ever successfully imitated, translated or adapted. There's only one Alice, and she'll always be there waiting for me in the pages of my favorite book. But just to entertain those who like to feast on the carcass, here's a few of my biggest concerns with the movie:

• What's with all these new stupid made up words? Bizarre calenders and stupid times that are to come. Underland not Wonderland? And that's not explained till the end, and really, it's stupid?
• The Red Queen and The Queen of Hearts are NOT the same person! Don't care if you're combining them, you're pissing me off.
• Why is Helena Bonham Carter using her funny accent from the Merlin TV movie?
• Aren't they trying to be a bit too like Return to Oz, and didn't Return to Oz do it better and darker, cause I thought Tim Burton liked dark? Let's add some true horrors... what was the Victorian equivalent of electro shock therapy? Anyone?
• Trade routes to China were already established. Also, does this mean that Alice is going to be a drug czar?
• The foot soldiers... too Steam Punk/Looking Glass Wars, didn't feel original. When did Burton become a hack?
• Dan Scott (John Hopkins) from Midsomer Murders. Hate that prick. I know, offensive word, but it really fits his character in both appearances and totally covers my feelings for him.
• Why is Crisin Glover stretched out? Why? There doesn't seem to be a purpose.
• Guess who did the theme song? Avril Lavigne! Aren't I the happiest person in the world at this news? NOT! Apparently she's even going to do a line of clothes after Alice, oh joy unbounded!
• Ok, I get funny accents, but WTF Johnny? The random Scottish brogue? You trying to outdo Brad Pitt in Snatch?
• But, without parallel! The bizarre breakdancing interlude, oh, I mean fudderwhacking (see what I'm saying about made up words). It's not so much that it's a weird dance, it's that the music is early 90s electro pop randomly placed in a film firmly set in the 1800s!!! COuld you have tried insane bagpipes? Bagpipes are good, bagpipes are more... what's the word... not an anachronism!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:48 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Alice in Wonderland, Avril Lavigne, Bagpipes, Brad Pitt, Fudderwhacking, Johnny Depp, Midsomer Murders, Return to Oz, The Looking Glass Wars, The Queen of Hearts, The Red Queen, Tim Burton, Underland

Lost in a Good Book: Thursday Next Novel the 2nd by Jasper Fforde
Published by: Viking
Publication Date: March 31st, 2003 US, 2002 UK
Format: Hardcover, 399 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

When last we saw Thursday Next she was getting her happily ever after with Landen. Of course she had also saved Jane Eyre, even if she significantly altered the ending, eliminated Hades, imprisoned Jack Schitt, the Warmongering Goliath operative, within the pages of Poe's The Raven, ended the Crimean War and generally saved the day. But saving the day tends to get people looking at you as a hero, and heroes need to do the PR rounds, or so says Cordelia Flakk, Spec Ops one woman PR department, who has been desperate for a face to help Spec Ops gain a more friendly foothold with the public at large. After months of press junkets, Thursday has had enough, and after her "no holds barred interview" with Adrian Lush, which ended up being about her Dodo, Pickwick, she's had enough. It's time for her and Landen to settle down and let life get back to normal. But normal is a relative word for someone like Thursday, seeing as her day starts with hearing voices in her head, finding the lost Shakespeare play, Cardenio, getting on a Neanderthal hijacked skyrail where the first time she's shot and the second time, after her father saves her and tells her the world is to end in a few weeks, she's arrested for assaulting an unarmed Neanderthal and ends with Mycroft's retirement party where all the food is pear based and at the end Mycroft and Polly disappear. But despite all that and the SO-5 operatives that are trailing her in an ever changing rota (they keep dying) as well as the Goliath goons, she and Landen bravely try to carry on with their life together, which will soon include a baby. But a picnic leads to another bizarre occurrence of coincidences, confirmed by the Entroscope Mycroft gave her, and culminating in a Hispano-Suiza falling on their picnic, which just might have killed them.

Thursday has obviously too much to deal with, and after her hearing with SO-1 about the Neanderthal incident, things get even weirder. Laden is gone. He has been completely eradicated. Goliath has decided to prove a point. They want Jack Schitt back or Landen will stay gone, having tragically died when he was two years old. Thursday goes into a tailspin... she is still pregnant, but is the baby even Landen's? Where does she live? What has changed? As it seems, much is still the same, despite the eradication of Landen, time being very flexible. But how can she even get into The Raven to get Jack Schitt? The only person she knew of who could bookjump was the Japanese tourist, Mrs. Nakajima, whom she met at Haworth when she was young and again within the pages of Jane Eyre. To Osaka Thursday must go, on the off chance that she can find a clue.

On the short Gravitube ride to Japan she meets the man who she has been hearing in her head. Turns out he's fictional and is to represent her in her trial. Apparently there's an organization inside books, Jurisfiction, which like SO-27, monitors books, and she must answer for her crimes against Jane Eyre... mainly improving the narrative in an unauthorized manner. After another close call with negative entropy and Goliath, Thursday finds herself in the Great Library where she has been expected for some time. Thursday is destined to be a Jurisfiction PROs agent and they have been waiting for her in the Great Library, THE LIBRARY of all books. She is apprenticed to Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, who turns out to be, as expected, a bit of a man hater, but unexpectedly, a speed freak who loves to drive cars. After an unfortunate incident back in Swindon with Miss Havisham at the wheel, where luckily no one was killed, after Thursday's trial was postponed, Thursday must risk her life at a book sale to get a boxed set of romance novels for Miss Havisham before her nemesis, the Red Queen gets them. With a lot of cunning and a little trickery, Thursday passes her test and it looks like she might be a PROs agent yet! But is it a conflict of interest if she's taking the job just to get Landen back? Also is Poe really off limits to all PROs agents as Miss Havisham warns?

But between her duties at Spec Ops, the mysterious appearance of Cardenio, her new duties to Jurisfiction, her landlord, her pregnancy, her missing husband, the general election, Cordelia Flakk and her contest winners, and the fact that the world just might end in a few days, Thursday's life is more complicated then ever. Also the fact that only an evil genius could be behind the forthcoming apocalypse and her attempted murders by coincidence is unnerving to say the least. Hades is dead. Isn't he? But then who is this person of equal evil with the same initials who keeps offing the SO-5 agents and wants Thursday fitted for a coffin?

This book took a long time for me to get into, but it was totally worth the wait. So much of the beginning is tying up loose ends, to an extent. It's not that they're really loose ends even, more repercussions from what happened in the first novel that feel like loose ends while you're waiting for the novel to really start. Also the Neanderthal's are really kind of stupid, not intellectually mind you. I would say pointless, but I get the point of them, especially if you take into consideration animal testing and then genetic experiments, I see why they are valid, and I do love Granny Next's interaction with them, but overall I feel they detract from the book and the world Fforde has created. So once you get past the Neanderthals and Thursday's blissful honeymoon days of her marriage and Landen gets eradicated, the novel really starts to pick up. But it is not until she actually jumps into the Great Library and meets the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat (previously the Cheshire Cat till county boundaries were redrawn) that I fell in love with this book.

The world of Jurisfiction is beyond anyone's wildest biblomanical dreams. It's a place where you can go from book to book, from back-stories to footnotes and partake in the book character exchange program. Where bowdlerizers are very dangerous and gammersites, especially adjunctavores that stripe an object of adjectives are a very real threat. The place is like a grown up version of Alice in Wonderland, very fitting seeing as who the librarian is. Then there is Thursday's teacher, Miss Havisham... she is outrageous, a wonderful contradiction! Fforde has taken a very sad, lonely woman and made her almost more alive and over the top than Dickens could have ever done... well he couldn't have really made her love of automotives known given the time period he wrote in. The fact that she wears trainers and carries a gun, to deal with her nemesis and the throngs of book buyers, is beyond hysterical. The scene at the book sale is one of the best in the book. With the injured Miss Havisham spurring Thursday on by telling her if she doesn't succeed against the Red Queen to get the trashy romance novels box set then she doesn't have a hope of becoming a Jurisfiction agent is pitch perfect.

The world within the world of books Fforde has created is what makes this series so wonderful. He has expanded on literature's beloved characters and given them truly paradoxical behaviors, but ones that we've long suspected they might hold. He has shown us something that we've believed in and held true for years but have never been told outright before. The world within books is far greater than we could ever imagine! It is best not to over-think this though... sometimes I'd find myself questioning the logic of his world, and in books it's best not too. Because between the pages and lines anything could conceivably happen so it's best just to enjoy the ride, just not with Miss Havisham driving. Also, I know Mary Anne Dashwood was driving a plane, but could you please get her out of the Victorian dress, thank you very much.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 5 comments  

Labels: Cardenio, Cordelia Flakk, Entropy, Jane Eyre, Jasper Fforde, Jurisfiction, Landen, Lost in a Good Book, Miss Havisham, Neanderthal, Pickwick, Spec Ops, The Raven, The Red Queen, Thursday Next

Red is easily one of my favorite colors. So powerful and consuming, like fire, but there's also a warmth and peacefulness to it... so lets read how it ties into Random Magic! But don't forget to enter to win a signed copy of the book!

Everyone who’s read the book says that the world of Random Magic is so colorful and vivid that they can actually almost see the world right in front of them, as if it were a movie.

It was definitely written that way, since that world actually is a lot more magical and overwhelming than our own world. Everything would be more powerful and startling, including something as basic as the colors surrounding Henry and Winnie as they search for Alice.

But a lot of the colors in Random Magic aren’t just there for decoration, but actually have some particular significance.


Here are some quick reader notes about the more symbolic uses of color in Random Magic. This post is about the use of the color red:

Red is the color of fire and blood, and it’s associated with passion, vitality, strength, courage and love. But it’s also the color of rage, violence, power and war.

Red is an intense color that’s generally detected very quickly by the human eye, which is why stop signs, stoplights, and other warning signs or signals feature red. All three characters are associated with the color red, but in very different ways.

Winnie:
The color red is associated very strongly with Winnie. She even wears a red tunic. In her case, it symbolizes bravery, feistiness, a strong will and a passionate and undauntable nature, because she possesses all of these traits.

Winnie’s inner fire is the fire of a strong character, of someone who thinks and moves with decision, and shows defiant courage in the face of overwhelming odds.

Callie:
Callie, the First Muse, has startling, bright red hair. It’s not just a vibrant and attractive shade of hair, but symbolizes the power of creative vision and the dark side of being blessed – or cursed – with the ability to see things that no one else can see.

Callie’s hair isn’t just a reflection of her sunny spirit, it’s also a warning that incurring the wrath of a Muse could be dangerous.

Callie’s inner fire is the fire of creativity, fueling artists, musicians and writers with feverish inspiration. Her promise is that, though they might be consumed by the inner fire that drives them, they’ll also rise from the ashes again and again.


The Red Queen:
In the case of the Red Queen, we see, not a bonfire or an invigorating hearth fire on a cold day, but a forest fire raging out of control, insensible to anything it destroys.

The Red Queen’s fire is the reflection of hell, and the apotheosis of war and chaos.

Spoiler ahead... these waters be teeming with revelations about a character you might wish to discover on your own! Well... don't say I didn't warn you!

On a more obscure note, a flash of red is also seen in connection with Lady Witherspoon, who wears a deep red choker. Lady Witherspoon is French by birth. Red ribbons were worn by the relatives of French aristocrats who’d been guillotined during the Reign of Terror.

In morbidly romantic fashion, ‘Bals des victims,’ or victims’ balls were allegedly held, where red ribbons were worn around the neck, signifying the wearer’s connection to a victim of the Reign of Terror.

The implication, in the book, is that Lady Witherspoon is undeniably of aristocratic or even royal extraction. The further implication, though, is that she might very possibly not be altogether human. Because, of course, if the Bals des victims occurred in 1795, she’d be several centuries old in our time.

Of course, she might just be paying a very extended tribute to her lost relations on her scandalous family tree. Perhaps.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 1:50 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Callie, Lady Witherspoon. French, Random Magic, Red, Sasha Soren, The Red Queen, Winnie