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Yuletide assignments are out (yay!) and it occurs to me that I better get current on my review backlog so I can start writing my gift.
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Manningtree Witches – A.K. Blakemore
This novel is the fictionalized account of the first seven women to be accused as witches during the witch hunts of the English Civil War. Blakemore's prose is beautiful, spare and poetic, and an absolute joy to read. It was, at some points, the sole thing that helped me make it through the novel's unsparing depictions of the horrors visited on innocent women by sadistic men who claimed to be carrying out god's work. Blakemore knows her history and period language inside out; there are no anachronisms here, and her genius is in conveying to modern readers the injustice visited on the victims without straying from the modes of thought and speech those victims–or those who victimized them–would have used.
There are a few missteps. The biggest is Blakemore's decision to allow her protagonist to suffocate Matthew Hopkins, the self-proclaimed "Witchfinder General" at whose feet the responsibility for the deaths of some 100 accused "witches" rest. Hopkins actually died of natural causes; having the protagonist kill him undercuts much of Blakemore's larger message. The second misstep was the protagonist's chance reunion and reconciliation with one of women indirectly responsible for her and the other Manningtree women's persecution. It's an overly improbable contrivance that rings false in the context of the larger story and which said story could have done just fine without. But these are small quibbles with an overall excellent novel, one I very much recommend.
The King of Attolia – Megan Whalen Turner
I read this one once more before starting The Return of the Thief and finishing the series forever. (Forever!!) It is as good during every subsequent read as it was during the first one: Turner is unparalleled at writing books you enjoy for the page-turning drama and suspense the first time, and for all the subtle detail and narrative complexity every read thereafter.
And The King of Attolia is a different book every time I read it. I loved it at first for the outsider view it gave me into Gen-as-King and Gen and Attolia’s relationship while side-eying Costis the entire time. Who asked for your perspective, narrative interloper! And it’s still great for that, but now it’s also great for seeing Costis’s transformation from the straightforward, man-of-simple-pleasures soldier we meet at the start of this volume to the steady, dependable, Zen-nerves-of-steel-behind-enemy-lines operative he is at the beginning of Thick as Thieves.
The Return of the Thief
I loved it. I sat on this one for a year, because once I finished it the series would be over and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that. It wasn't even a series when I first read The Thief! It was just The Thief! Alongside Saiyuki and Silver Diamond, this is literally the longest ongoing read of my life. And now it's over. And just, guh.
It’s more of a 10,000 foot view of events than any of the previous novels, which makes sense given that Turner has to tie up plotlines for all the characters whose lives received more individual treatment in earlier volumes.
Pheris was a great way to accomplish that. A less skillful author would have made him a two-dimensional, mawkish plot device, but he was such a complex character, especially given how little time readers spend in his company compared to other characters in the series.
We’ve come a long way from the just-The-Thief era, when I loved that book’s big reveal despite my strong personal preference for a different ending, which would have been for the Magus and Gen to wander the peninsula having further adventures together. And boy, did I ship them hard...until That Scene at the start of The Queen of Attolia made me an instant, diehard Gen/Attolia Adherent. (Actually, I still ship Gen/theMagus hard, but now just as an AU diversion.) And poor Gen. What a different character he became from the carefree, “lowborn” thief of the first novel.
More broadly, I love how each character is still recognizably themselves throughout the course of the series, but also changeable depending on whose eyes you’re seeing them with, and how the same events take on different significance as well. I'm just in awe of what Turner's done over the course of these books. Only Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy rivals them for complexity, internal consistency and kaleidoscopic reinterpretation, and my satisfaction at its conclusion.
I love how Turner rewards careful reading. You can't afford to miss a word. Because I am a careful reader, I spent the majority of The Return of the Thief biting my nails, wondering if this was the scene where the wagon Pheris so casually mentioned was finally going to explode, and if Gen would survive or not. Oh my god, you guys, tenterhooks. Absolute tenterhooks.
I'd long suspected Eddis’ Minister of War wasn’t going to survive the end of the series, but when his death did come it was no less painful for my having foreseen it. And poor Sejanus. And also, who would have thought that anyone would be saying “Poor Sejanus” following The King of Attolia? Turner can make me hate or love anyone, and I love her for it.
On a personal level, I badly wanted The Return of the Thief to be the Costis & Kamet Show (I’ve wanted everything to be the Costis & Kamet Show since Thick as Thieves) even though I knew all along that it couldn’t be. Props to Turner for being disciplined enough to stick to her narrative device, because there’s no way Pheris could have been present for anything Costis and Kamet were up to, so we don’t really get to see anything about what they were up to, and I think that's awesome as far as the book itself is concerned. But still.
But still. I really wish we could have seen more of what they were up to. I would eagerly have read a Costis & Kamet Show companion volume. (And yes, I know Thick as Thieves technically is the “what they were up to” companion volume for at least some of The Return of the King. But still. That was only Act One, and Not Enough. I want Act Two: Costis & Kamet: Committed Spy-Spouses – Behind Enemy Lines.)
Speaking of Costis & Kamet's too-short appearance, I don’t understand this exchange: ”Your Majesty, it’s been awful,” Kamet responded. “I had to sleep on the floor. It’s not the sheep I smell of.” / “Costis,” the king said reprovingly. Can someone explain what's being implied here? Askingbecause I think it will be very important to my continuing Costis & Show headcanon for no particular reason.
I also really wish we’d had more Eddis/Sophos, because I really love those two characters. And while The Thief and A Conspiracy of Kings help to scratch the Sophos itch, we just don’t see enough of them together for my taste. I wish (she says, wistfully) that we could have had a more in-depth look at their relationship, including through tertiary perspectives, similar to what the books give us for Gen/Attolia.
I'm glad we got to see so much of Gen and Attolia's relationship, even though there was so much more going on in the overarching story than just that aspect of it. loved Gen and Attolia having real fights. And having them because they’re frightened for one another and afraid to say as much. And still being in real, worthy love despite this flawed coping mechanism. Such a breathe of fresh air from the usual YA romance dynamic where everything is either Light Emotional Abuse (with a side order of "But It's Okay Because He Loves Her Deep Down") or Fighting And Disagreements Are Bad And Wrong And If They Happen It Isn't Real Love.
Speaking of relationships, Relius the heartbreaker, omg. My original headcanon had him as the austere, nigh-celibate Master of Archives who yearned after his queen but was too busy with his work as spymaster to spare energy for “frivolous” physical pleasures. But in hindsight, it makes total sense that “honeypot” is part of his espionage toolkit. And Teleus! Oh my gosh, I had not really considered Relius/Teleus outside of my private Gen/Attolia/Costis/Relius/Teleus + bonus Magus harem ending headcanon, but they make so much sense! And I am so, so delighted they have a hopeful ending that still allows for my Gen/Attolia/Costis/Relius/Teleus + bonus Magus harem ending headcanon, now fortified with Kamet.
I did not think Turner could ever exceed the Gen whump of The Queen of Attolia, but boy, that capture/torture scene sure did. And again, how much do I love Turner for realizing that the most effective way to convey true horrors is to not describe them at all, and leave it up to readers’ minds to fill in the details.
And speaking of filling in the details: if you let him. The most important words in the prophesy. In the book. Possibly the entire series. And Turner never once has a character point that out, despite all the discussion of everything else in Lader's prophesy. Guys, I love Megan Whalen Turner so much. Oh my gosh, what a great ending to this series. I’m so sad it’s over but also so happy and satisfied.
What I Finished Reading At Some Point In The Past Four Months
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 – P. Djeli Clark
I needed some light commute reading a few weeks ago and this fit the bill. Clark’s alternate 19th century steampunk Cairo—in an Egypt that has outstripped Europe in technologies both mechanical and supernatural, and that is moving fitfully toward political enfranchisement and gender equality—is a fantastic setting, one I would have explored for days. The characters, unfortunately, are uninspired: the obsequiously oily corrupt bureaucrat, the brusque, world-weary veteran detective with a soft underside and his naive, eager beaver rookie assistant. There’s nothing wrong with utilizing genre conventions, but a good author at least fills in the outlines; Clark, alas, is content to keep his characters as cardboard cutouts. Coupled with the typical Tor lack of copy editing, the book served well enough as a diversion but didn’t offer enough to convince me to pick up Clark’s subsequent offerings any time soon.
Cork Folk Tales – Kate Corkery
This was a delightful read from start to finish. The volume collects several dozen folktales, spanning Ireland’s pre-Christian past to recent decades, along with historical notes on their context, geography, and sources. The language is lively and engaging and the subject matter humorous, dramatic, eerie, and whimsical by turns. The decidedly amateur illustrations are the book’s only weak point, but easy enough to ignore. It looks like Cork Folk Tales is one volume of a series that collects folklore from various locations in the British Isles, and I’ll definitely seek out the other books on the strength of this one.
The Book of Spells – Jaime Della
From the Little Free Library it came, and to the Little Free Library it returned. Originally published in 2001, the attractively presented edition I read was revised in 2019 and it’s pretty easy to suss out where: I’m guessing the 2019 edition’s “Spirit” was once the far less gender-neutral “the Goddess”, for instance, and that the asterisks warning readers not to invoke certain deities without deep familiarity with their cultures are recent editions too. (Although it’s never specified, said deities exclusively belong to African and Western Hemisphere indigenous cultures, and the caveat makes sense given increased awareness in 2019 that cultural appropriation is a Bad Thing. But given that, for instance, the book thus caveats Hawaiian deities, while “Polynesian” deities are apparently fair game for all, one wonders whether this newfound awareness is genuine or more an example of publishing CYA. But I digress...)
That aside, not much has changed in the 20 years since I stopped reading these things regularly. The introduction stresses that the book is For EveryoneTM, but it was clearly written with adolescent women in mind (and I have my theories as to why there wasn’t a similar glut of New Age books targeting teenage boys) and followed by the usual syncretic laundry lists of deities, seasonal festivals, divination methods, and directional/herbal/mineral/color correspondences from a grab bag of time periods, cultures, and belief systems. There are a typical number of inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and typos. So it's a fine book for what it is. But then came the spells themselves:
Some middle schooler spent an entire day's wages at their part-time to buy this book. Why is Della trolling them for it?
So, yeah. Hopefully The Book of Spells makes its readers feel like they have more agency and/or inspires them to look into the actual historical sources for the content, but gets pretty ridiculous once Della thinks her readers aren't paying attention any more.
Eat the Buddha – Barbara Demick
I very much liked Demick’s Nothing To Envy, about residents of the most impoverished region in North Korea. Demick brings the same perception and narrative skill to this book, about the history and contemporary conditions that drove hundreds of Tibetan residents of Sichuan to burn themselves to death starting in 2008. It’s an extremely well-written book that’s equally difficult to read due to its subject matter.
Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett
It’s wild to go back and reread these novels after so many decades. One, it doesn’t feel like decades have passed, and two, oh my gosh these characters were such different people when they debuted. Here’s Granny Weatherwax, as clever and crotchety as ever, but close-minded in comparison to later books. And how different would those books have been, if she'd started dating Achchancellor Cutangle, as the novel teased she might? Or if Esk, and the new form of magic she and Simon were set to pioneer at Unseen University had played a role in any of the subsequent novels? Still, Equal Rites is the first Discworld novel where I felt the plot stood on its own, and it's fascinating in hindsight to see glimmers of Pratchett's incipient world view starting to peek through.
The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin
The Westing Game was one of those books from my childhood that I somehow never read, even though virtually everyone I knew had. And I wish I had read it as a kid, because I really liked it as an adult, and as a kid I would have loved it. There's a clever mystery with clues that attentive readers can puzzle out alongside–or ahead of–the characters. There's a racially, culturally, and developmentally diverse ensemble cast. There's a clever female protagonist who outwits everyone and carries the day. There are gimlet-eyed takedowns of sexism, racism, ableism, classism, and consumerism/capitalism from an author who assumes readers are smart enough to figure these messages out without having their noses rubbed in the mess. Written before the advent of smartphones, or the Internet, or computers, or even cable television, The Westing Game is probably on the edge of becoming too antiquated for the target age group to relate to, which is a shame because this is a really good book. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.
The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker
I’d forgotten, in the 8 years since it came out, how much of a Rubin's vase reading this book is: the story is either meditative or plodding, depending on my headspace when I pick it up. After having plodded through the first 100 pages over the course of half a year, I was finally in the appropriately meditative headspace to finish the remaining 400 in a couple of days. I enjoy this novel for its vivid scene setting, its protagonists and the sweet friendship that develops between them, the philosophical questions the story raises, and the way Wecker refuses to opt for pat “and they all lived 100 percent happily ever after” resolutions for any of the characters. It's by no means a perfect book, but when I'm in the right space to enjoy reading it, I enjoy it indeed.
What I Am Currently Reading
Dharma Punx - Noah Levine
I started reading this back in March but stalled out. I needed something hopeful after The Manningtree Witches, so this week seemed like a good time to pick it back up again.
The Master of Blacktower – Barbara Michaels
The first of my Yuletide request rereads.
Isolde – Rosalind Miles
I never got around to reading Miles' Guinevere Trilogy during the height of my Arthuriana phase, largely because I don't care about Guinevere or Lancelot as characters. The same can be said for Iseult and Tristan, but as this was in a Little Free Library, I thought, Why not? Forty-five pages in, I have determined that Miles writes stunning, Tolkienesque high fantasy descriptive language, and horrifically purple bodice ripper dialogue.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I picked up a copy of The Everyday Tarot.
What I Still Have Left To Review
The Crone ・ Girl, Wash Your Face ・ The Kingdoms ・ The Last Graduate ・ A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet ・ M, King’s Bodyguard ・ The Northern Fiddler ・ Senlin Ascends ・ The Silver Bough vol. 2 ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (1) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (2) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (3)
これで以上です。
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Manningtree Witches – A.K. Blakemore
This novel is the fictionalized account of the first seven women to be accused as witches during the witch hunts of the English Civil War. Blakemore's prose is beautiful, spare and poetic, and an absolute joy to read. It was, at some points, the sole thing that helped me make it through the novel's unsparing depictions of the horrors visited on innocent women by sadistic men who claimed to be carrying out god's work. Blakemore knows her history and period language inside out; there are no anachronisms here, and her genius is in conveying to modern readers the injustice visited on the victims without straying from the modes of thought and speech those victims–or those who victimized them–would have used.
There are a few missteps. The biggest is Blakemore's decision to allow her protagonist to suffocate Matthew Hopkins, the self-proclaimed "Witchfinder General" at whose feet the responsibility for the deaths of some 100 accused "witches" rest. Hopkins actually died of natural causes; having the protagonist kill him undercuts much of Blakemore's larger message. The second misstep was the protagonist's chance reunion and reconciliation with one of women indirectly responsible for her and the other Manningtree women's persecution. It's an overly improbable contrivance that rings false in the context of the larger story and which said story could have done just fine without. But these are small quibbles with an overall excellent novel, one I very much recommend.
The King of Attolia – Megan Whalen Turner
I read this one once more before starting The Return of the Thief and finishing the series forever. (Forever!!) It is as good during every subsequent read as it was during the first one: Turner is unparalleled at writing books you enjoy for the page-turning drama and suspense the first time, and for all the subtle detail and narrative complexity every read thereafter.
And The King of Attolia is a different book every time I read it. I loved it at first for the outsider view it gave me into Gen-as-King and Gen and Attolia’s relationship while side-eying Costis the entire time. Who asked for your perspective, narrative interloper! And it’s still great for that, but now it’s also great for seeing Costis’s transformation from the straightforward, man-of-simple-pleasures soldier we meet at the start of this volume to the steady, dependable, Zen-nerves-of-steel-behind-enemy-lines operative he is at the beginning of Thick as Thieves.
The Return of the Thief
I loved it. I sat on this one for a year, because once I finished it the series would be over and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that. It wasn't even a series when I first read The Thief! It was just The Thief! Alongside Saiyuki and Silver Diamond, this is literally the longest ongoing read of my life. And now it's over. And just, guh.
It’s more of a 10,000 foot view of events than any of the previous novels, which makes sense given that Turner has to tie up plotlines for all the characters whose lives received more individual treatment in earlier volumes.
Pheris was a great way to accomplish that. A less skillful author would have made him a two-dimensional, mawkish plot device, but he was such a complex character, especially given how little time readers spend in his company compared to other characters in the series.
We’ve come a long way from the just-The-Thief era, when I loved that book’s big reveal despite my strong personal preference for a different ending, which would have been for the Magus and Gen to wander the peninsula having further adventures together. And boy, did I ship them hard...until That Scene at the start of The Queen of Attolia made me an instant, diehard Gen/Attolia Adherent. (Actually, I still ship Gen/theMagus hard, but now just as an AU diversion.) And poor Gen. What a different character he became from the carefree, “lowborn” thief of the first novel.
More broadly, I love how each character is still recognizably themselves throughout the course of the series, but also changeable depending on whose eyes you’re seeing them with, and how the same events take on different significance as well. I'm just in awe of what Turner's done over the course of these books. Only Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy rivals them for complexity, internal consistency and kaleidoscopic reinterpretation, and my satisfaction at its conclusion.
I love how Turner rewards careful reading. You can't afford to miss a word. Because I am a careful reader, I spent the majority of The Return of the Thief biting my nails, wondering if this was the scene where the wagon Pheris so casually mentioned was finally going to explode, and if Gen would survive or not. Oh my god, you guys, tenterhooks. Absolute tenterhooks.
I'd long suspected Eddis’ Minister of War wasn’t going to survive the end of the series, but when his death did come it was no less painful for my having foreseen it. And poor Sejanus. And also, who would have thought that anyone would be saying “Poor Sejanus” following The King of Attolia? Turner can make me hate or love anyone, and I love her for it.
On a personal level, I badly wanted The Return of the Thief to be the Costis & Kamet Show (I’ve wanted everything to be the Costis & Kamet Show since Thick as Thieves) even though I knew all along that it couldn’t be. Props to Turner for being disciplined enough to stick to her narrative device, because there’s no way Pheris could have been present for anything Costis and Kamet were up to, so we don’t really get to see anything about what they were up to, and I think that's awesome as far as the book itself is concerned. But still.
But still. I really wish we could have seen more of what they were up to. I would eagerly have read a Costis & Kamet Show companion volume. (And yes, I know Thick as Thieves technically is the “what they were up to” companion volume for at least some of The Return of the King. But still. That was only Act One, and Not Enough. I want Act Two: Costis & Kamet: Committed Spy-Spouses – Behind Enemy Lines.)
Speaking of Costis & Kamet's too-short appearance, I don’t understand this exchange: ”Your Majesty, it’s been awful,” Kamet responded. “I had to sleep on the floor. It’s not the sheep I smell of.” / “Costis,” the king said reprovingly. Can someone explain what's being implied here? Asking
I also really wish we’d had more Eddis/Sophos, because I really love those two characters. And while The Thief and A Conspiracy of Kings help to scratch the Sophos itch, we just don’t see enough of them together for my taste. I wish (she says, wistfully) that we could have had a more in-depth look at their relationship, including through tertiary perspectives, similar to what the books give us for Gen/Attolia.
I'm glad we got to see so much of Gen and Attolia's relationship, even though there was so much more going on in the overarching story than just that aspect of it. loved Gen and Attolia having real fights. And having them because they’re frightened for one another and afraid to say as much. And still being in real, worthy love despite this flawed coping mechanism. Such a breathe of fresh air from the usual YA romance dynamic where everything is either Light Emotional Abuse (with a side order of "But It's Okay Because He Loves Her Deep Down") or Fighting And Disagreements Are Bad And Wrong And If They Happen It Isn't Real Love.
Speaking of relationships, Relius the heartbreaker, omg. My original headcanon had him as the austere, nigh-celibate Master of Archives who yearned after his queen but was too busy with his work as spymaster to spare energy for “frivolous” physical pleasures. But in hindsight, it makes total sense that “honeypot” is part of his espionage toolkit. And Teleus! Oh my gosh, I had not really considered Relius/Teleus outside of my private Gen/Attolia/Costis/Relius/Teleus + bonus Magus harem ending headcanon, but they make so much sense! And I am so, so delighted they have a hopeful ending that still allows for my Gen/Attolia/Costis/Relius/Teleus + bonus Magus harem ending headcanon, now fortified with Kamet.
I did not think Turner could ever exceed the Gen whump of The Queen of Attolia, but boy, that capture/torture scene sure did. And again, how much do I love Turner for realizing that the most effective way to convey true horrors is to not describe them at all, and leave it up to readers’ minds to fill in the details.
And speaking of filling in the details: if you let him. The most important words in the prophesy. In the book. Possibly the entire series. And Turner never once has a character point that out, despite all the discussion of everything else in Lader's prophesy. Guys, I love Megan Whalen Turner so much. Oh my gosh, what a great ending to this series. I’m so sad it’s over but also so happy and satisfied.
What I Finished Reading At Some Point In The Past Four Months
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 – P. Djeli Clark
I needed some light commute reading a few weeks ago and this fit the bill. Clark’s alternate 19th century steampunk Cairo—in an Egypt that has outstripped Europe in technologies both mechanical and supernatural, and that is moving fitfully toward political enfranchisement and gender equality—is a fantastic setting, one I would have explored for days. The characters, unfortunately, are uninspired: the obsequiously oily corrupt bureaucrat, the brusque, world-weary veteran detective with a soft underside and his naive, eager beaver rookie assistant. There’s nothing wrong with utilizing genre conventions, but a good author at least fills in the outlines; Clark, alas, is content to keep his characters as cardboard cutouts. Coupled with the typical Tor lack of copy editing, the book served well enough as a diversion but didn’t offer enough to convince me to pick up Clark’s subsequent offerings any time soon.
Cork Folk Tales – Kate Corkery
This was a delightful read from start to finish. The volume collects several dozen folktales, spanning Ireland’s pre-Christian past to recent decades, along with historical notes on their context, geography, and sources. The language is lively and engaging and the subject matter humorous, dramatic, eerie, and whimsical by turns. The decidedly amateur illustrations are the book’s only weak point, but easy enough to ignore. It looks like Cork Folk Tales is one volume of a series that collects folklore from various locations in the British Isles, and I’ll definitely seek out the other books on the strength of this one.
The Book of Spells – Jaime Della
From the Little Free Library it came, and to the Little Free Library it returned. Originally published in 2001, the attractively presented edition I read was revised in 2019 and it’s pretty easy to suss out where: I’m guessing the 2019 edition’s “Spirit” was once the far less gender-neutral “the Goddess”, for instance, and that the asterisks warning readers not to invoke certain deities without deep familiarity with their cultures are recent editions too. (Although it’s never specified, said deities exclusively belong to African and Western Hemisphere indigenous cultures, and the caveat makes sense given increased awareness in 2019 that cultural appropriation is a Bad Thing. But given that, for instance, the book thus caveats Hawaiian deities, while “Polynesian” deities are apparently fair game for all, one wonders whether this newfound awareness is genuine or more an example of publishing CYA. But I digress...)
That aside, not much has changed in the 20 years since I stopped reading these things regularly. The introduction stresses that the book is For EveryoneTM, but it was clearly written with adolescent women in mind (and I have my theories as to why there wasn’t a similar glut of New Age books targeting teenage boys) and followed by the usual syncretic laundry lists of deities, seasonal festivals, divination methods, and directional/herbal/mineral/color correspondences from a grab bag of time periods, cultures, and belief systems. There are a typical number of inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and typos. So it's a fine book for what it is. But then came the spells themselves:
Some middle schooler spent an entire day's wages at their part-time to buy this book. Why is Della trolling them for it?
So, yeah. Hopefully The Book of Spells makes its readers feel like they have more agency and/or inspires them to look into the actual historical sources for the content, but gets pretty ridiculous once Della thinks her readers aren't paying attention any more.
Eat the Buddha – Barbara Demick
I very much liked Demick’s Nothing To Envy, about residents of the most impoverished region in North Korea. Demick brings the same perception and narrative skill to this book, about the history and contemporary conditions that drove hundreds of Tibetan residents of Sichuan to burn themselves to death starting in 2008. It’s an extremely well-written book that’s equally difficult to read due to its subject matter.
Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett
It’s wild to go back and reread these novels after so many decades. One, it doesn’t feel like decades have passed, and two, oh my gosh these characters were such different people when they debuted. Here’s Granny Weatherwax, as clever and crotchety as ever, but close-minded in comparison to later books. And how different would those books have been, if she'd started dating Achchancellor Cutangle, as the novel teased she might? Or if Esk, and the new form of magic she and Simon were set to pioneer at Unseen University had played a role in any of the subsequent novels? Still, Equal Rites is the first Discworld novel where I felt the plot stood on its own, and it's fascinating in hindsight to see glimmers of Pratchett's incipient world view starting to peek through.
The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin
The Westing Game was one of those books from my childhood that I somehow never read, even though virtually everyone I knew had. And I wish I had read it as a kid, because I really liked it as an adult, and as a kid I would have loved it. There's a clever mystery with clues that attentive readers can puzzle out alongside–or ahead of–the characters. There's a racially, culturally, and developmentally diverse ensemble cast. There's a clever female protagonist who outwits everyone and carries the day. There are gimlet-eyed takedowns of sexism, racism, ableism, classism, and consumerism/capitalism from an author who assumes readers are smart enough to figure these messages out without having their noses rubbed in the mess. Written before the advent of smartphones, or the Internet, or computers, or even cable television, The Westing Game is probably on the edge of becoming too antiquated for the target age group to relate to, which is a shame because this is a really good book. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.
The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker
I’d forgotten, in the 8 years since it came out, how much of a Rubin's vase reading this book is: the story is either meditative or plodding, depending on my headspace when I pick it up. After having plodded through the first 100 pages over the course of half a year, I was finally in the appropriately meditative headspace to finish the remaining 400 in a couple of days. I enjoy this novel for its vivid scene setting, its protagonists and the sweet friendship that develops between them, the philosophical questions the story raises, and the way Wecker refuses to opt for pat “and they all lived 100 percent happily ever after” resolutions for any of the characters. It's by no means a perfect book, but when I'm in the right space to enjoy reading it, I enjoy it indeed.
What I Am Currently Reading
Dharma Punx - Noah Levine
I started reading this back in March but stalled out. I needed something hopeful after The Manningtree Witches, so this week seemed like a good time to pick it back up again.
The Master of Blacktower – Barbara Michaels
The first of my Yuletide request rereads.
Isolde – Rosalind Miles
I never got around to reading Miles' Guinevere Trilogy during the height of my Arthuriana phase, largely because I don't care about Guinevere or Lancelot as characters. The same can be said for Iseult and Tristan, but as this was in a Little Free Library, I thought, Why not? Forty-five pages in, I have determined that Miles writes stunning, Tolkienesque high fantasy descriptive language, and horrifically purple bodice ripper dialogue.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I picked up a copy of The Everyday Tarot.
What I Still Have Left To Review
The Crone ・ Girl, Wash Your Face ・ The Kingdoms ・ The Last Graduate ・ A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet ・ M, King’s Bodyguard ・ The Northern Fiddler ・ Senlin Ascends ・ The Silver Bough vol. 2 ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (1) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (2) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (3)
これで以上です。
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Also: those early Discworld novels are really interesting in terms of what came later. I remember trying to read the Colour of Magic back in the 80s, and it never worked for me, so I gave up on Pratchett. Then, years later, a friend convinced me to start with the city watch novels, and I realised that he'd really gone on a journey as a writer.
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Costis and Kamet are such great characters, aren't they? I have so many plot bunnies for them, and really hope we get some more canon for them too. Thanks for the heads up about the snippet, BTW--I hadn't known about that!
I started reading Discworld on the recommendation of mon pere, who thought I would love the first two. (He was pretty wide of the mark on that count.) I'm not even sure why I kept reading them, but I liked each successive book more and by the time I got to Mort Pratchett had definitely won me over. The later City Watch books and the Tiffany Aching arc are some of the best fantasy-slash-social commentary out there.
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I want Act Two: Costis & Kamet: Committed Spy-Spouses – Behind Enemy Lines
GIVE IT TO ME.