YA Lit: Just what is it?

Still musing over this review of Brent Weeks' The Way of Shadows over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist. Although when I first read it, there were other elements that annoyed me more, after reading a rebuttal posted on Fantasy Book News and Reviews yesterday, Pat's use of the label "YA" (Young Adult Literature) puzzles me more and more:

I reckon it's meant to be another dark and gritty fantasy epic, but it clearly doesn't fall into GRRM's "school of hard knocks" category. Although The Way of Shadows explores some very mature themes such as child and sexual abuse, the overall tone of the narrative is definitely YA. The resulting work makes for an uneven read, as the author tackles themes you'll never see in a YA work, yet the narrative appears to be aimed at a more adolescent readership. I have a feeling that Weeks might have been too ambitious to a certain extent, and thus he failed to deliver the emotional impact that would have made some scenes truly powerful.

Raise of hands for any others here reading this who might be confused by what Pat says there? Further raise of hands of any who immediately thought of Margo Lanagan's work, namely "The Goosle" and the upcoming Tender Morsels (fortutious timing on the latter). I'm going to guess that he is thinking that YA lit isn't supposed to deal thoughtfully and with a high quality of prose with certain troubling issues, but let's quote one more passage from what might be one of the more discombobulated reviews I have read in months:

Azoth and Durzo Blint will no doubt remind you of Salvatore's Artemis Entreri, Jarlaxe, and Drizzt. Entertaining characters, no doubt, but relatively clichéd. Some of the supporting cast seemed to possess more depth at first, yet as the story progresses you realize that it wasn't meant to be. And, though there are plenty of mature themes and graphic violence throughout this novel, the dialogues are a bit juvenile at times and not up to par in terms of grittiness. Again, the more YA tone of it all I mentioned -- not unlike R. A. Salvatore's works.

While all I know about Salvatore's work is that a large percentage of his readership was made up of those in his late teens, I don't think I've ever really heard of anyone else trying to make the case (regardless of how shallow and unsupported this case might be) for D&D-type novels of the sort Salvatore writes as being "YA." I'm just baffled at how Pat comes to such a conclusion with nothing cited as evidence, outside of an apparent lack of grace in the prose, a failing of a great many authors writing in a plethora of styles for a diverse range of intended audiences.

As I thought about this before going to bed last night, I couldn't help but wonder at the apparent vagueness of this "Young Adult Literature" label. I receive dozens of books each year that are labeled as "YA" somewhere in the press kit, from Cory Doctorow's Little Brother to teen writer Isamu Fukui's debut novel Truancy to D.M. Cornish's Lamplighter, not to exclude the aforementioned new Lanagan novel. I enjoyed each of these novels for very different reasons; each has their own style and storytelling mode. However, if pressed to define a common trait among these and other novels (from the Harry Potter novels to the ones just now hitting the market), it would be that there is a centering of the principal character focus around the needs and desires of an adolescent who is trying to comprehend a world that shifts much, much faster for the 12-20 year-olds with each passing year than it does for those older than that cohort group.

The language can be chaste or peppered with all sorts of choice profanities. Such a story could deal with vaguely sexualized "crushes" without there being graphic portrayals of sex; another such story could deal with the confusion that revolves around the unfolding of one's sexuality. There is nothing inherently "fluffy" or "light" in such stories, even if the emotions expressed might seem puerile to those of us who are older and more cynical about matters of the heart and loins. I have found that the best-written YA lit (defined here as being stories that focus on common adolescent themes and worries, often with a teen protagonist) is very frank and honest with its audience, even if the said audience is as disparate and divided as the stereotypical school lunchroom seating arrangement.

Perhaps others have a better, more concise definition than my own. I'm curious to hear some feedback on this issue, even if I'm supposed to be working on my presentation tomorrow. Thoughts, comments?

How not to help out an author with his/her research

For the most part, I've refrained in recent months in bashing what I see posted at the site linked here.  But sometimes I am made aware of a gem of a post that deserves to be skewered.  Such is the case here, where an author (some on Twitter speculated that it might be Joe Abercrombie, but I'm uncertain.  Edit:  On Twitter, Abercrombie says it's not him and I believe him) apparently asks the blogger in question for a few suggestions regarding YA sites, lit, etc. that could be used as research/contact info for a planned YA novel.  What the blogger writes, however, is something that is a marvel to behold:

One of my favorite SFF authors is writing a YA novel in order to be more "accessible." Since that writer has been known for darker material for many years, along with the book's editor they are wondering what would be the most popular YA-related websites, blogs, message boards, and publications out there? Pitching this work to the right people will be quite important, and in this instance the adult SFF Blogosphere may not necessarily be the way to go.
As you know, I'm not too keen on YA stuff, so I can't really help them out. So I thought to ask you guys! =)
What say you!?!

 First we learn that the intent of the author is to write YA "in order to be more 'accessible.'  There is nothing about trying new ways of telling a story or anything approaching art for art's sake.  Nope, straight up cash grab seems to be the implication behind "accessible."  There is nothing wrong, I suppose, in writers taking on writing in a perceived more lucrative market, but generally these efforts do not pan out well if the writer in question is not at least familiar with the expectations of said genre (or genres, since "YA" is a catch-all term that encompasses many, many more strands than what most literary genres contain).  So I could see a writer wanting to do his/her research first before trying to write within a certain literary field/tradition.  After all, many SF/F readers excoriate writers from other lit genres who write SF/F without displaying any real awareness of the trends, arguments, or preferences of those particular genres.

But it is puzzling to see that a writer openly asks one particular blogger to talk about this.  It's been my experience in the past that generally such queries into what lit in the field should be read/consulted are generally private in nature.  Perhaps that was the case here and the blogger in question just chose to broadcast it because he has little knowledge and even less interest in YA?  Maybe so, but the wording is rather off-putting, to say the least.

"Pitching this work to the right people" sounds very commercial-oriented and again is something that I wouldn't typically expect to be presented in an open forum such as a blog post.  It changes the tenor of the request from a simple seeking of information that would aid the writer in gaining a better perspective of the readers for whom s/he is writing the work to a more cynical one in which the intended audience matters little outside of what those readers might be willing to purchase.  It's the difference between trying to understand the likes of an audience and attempting to sell a product to them.  One takes into consideration more than just elements will get readers to buy the work at hand while the other simply is a product pitch being prepared.

And of course, it wouldn't be an amusing post without the "as you know, I'm not too keen on YA stuff" to make this appeal for resource information to be a potential trainwreck.  Who in their right minds would want to suggest anything of value on a blog whose editor expresses his dislike for the form?  Poor form, to say the least.

But to quote the final sentence, which seems to beg for multiple interrobangs, "What say you!?!"

Best of 2012: YA/Children's Literature

2012 was an interesting year for me when it came to reading Young Adult/Juvenile/Children's Lit.  Due to a conversation I had this summer with Dunja, I re-read several childhood favorites (and reviewed some of them here) and read several that were favorites of her when she was growing up.  Most of those I enjoyed quite a bit.  Yet when it comes to 2012 releases, I only read 9 works that could readily be accepted as either children's lit or YA (I almost added Samuel Delany's Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, as the two main protagonists were teens when the story began, then I thought better of it, as there would be some irate readers ready to smack me for that ;)).  Yet I enjoyed 8 out of the 9 to some degree or another, so I thought perhaps this might make for a good list for those such as myself who would like to read something new in the field that isn't the X volume in series Y (only one is a continuation of a prior story).  So here's what I read, the five National Book Award finalists for Young People's Literature (one of which is a fantasy) and four others that would likely be classified by some as YA SF/F.


9.  Leah Bobet, Above.  Despite liking her short fiction enough to list her story "Six" for consideration for BAF 4, her debut novel, Above, was an underwhelming YA urban fantasy about a humanity divided into groups based on whether or not they lived above or below the surface.  Although there were some promising moments, the dialogue felt stilted and the story lacked the necessary cohesion to achieve its ambitious goals.

8.  William Alexander, Goblin Secrets.  See my earlier review.

7.  Steve Sheinkin, Bomb:  The Race to Build – and Steal – the World's Most Dangerous Weapon.  See my earlier review.

6.  Eliot Schrefer, Endangered.  See my earlier review.

5.  Nalo Hopkinson, The Chaos.  This is a story about self-identity and ethnicity, as the mysterious black spot that appears on the protagonist's arm can be viewed as a concrete metaphor for her troubles trying to sort out her multiracial heritage.  Well-written, with a very believable character whose conflicts will resonate with many of multiracial/ethnic heritages. 

4.  Carrie Arcos, Out of Reach.  See my earlier review.

3.  Kelly Barnhill, Iron Hearted Violet.  This second novel by Barnhill that I've read this year (The Mostly True Story of Jack being her debut novel) was a delight to read.  When my niece Adyson turns that "magical" age, say around 8 or 9, I think I'd like to lend my copy to her.  Yes, I'm going to that sort of uncle, it seems (I gave her a 50th anniversary edition of Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth for her first Christmas this week).  It is a story of a brave young princess in a world where an unspoken ancient evil is threatening to re-enslave the world and her fight to prevent that.  Traditional tropes, perhaps, but Barnhill writes very well and I think it's good to see girls/women being more than plucky sidekicks or damsels in distress.

2.  Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There.  Speaking of books for my niece, this second volume in her Fairyland series might be a good one to read aloud to her when she's in elementary school.  Valente is a very talented writer and her story, which I would judge to be good for the 9-12 year-old set and older, takes the portal fantasy and twists the "rules" a bit.  Well-done.

1.  Patricia McCormick, Never Fall Down.  See my earlier review.


Feel free to suggest other worthy 2012 releases in YA/Children's Lit that I've overlooked, as I certainly will give them consideration for the future, even if it'd be too late for me to post them in this article.  After all, since my brother and his wife aren't as avid of readers as I am, I'd like to screen new books for my niece to read in the future.  It's the least I could do as being the "creepy" uncle of the family ;)

July 2012 Reads

Read 33 books in July, 13 of them being re-reads.  Twelve were either non-English editions or bilingual, with another four being English translations.  More books written by men than women this month, due in part to the re-reads/foreign editions.  Only three books are likely to be shelved in SF/F/H categories, but several others share a close literary kinship with speculative fictions.  Five books, three of them re-reads, are YA/children's lit.  Another three are of a religious/metaphysical bent, and two books made me rethink matters of life, love, and laughter.  But enough talking, here are the titles:

228  Steven Erikson, The Devil Delivered and Other Tales (non-Malazan stories; better written than most of his fantasies)

229  Nnedi Okorafor, Long Juju Man (re-read; YA; enjoyable)

230  Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit (re-read; an old favorite; children's lit)

231  Goran Petrović, Atlas descrito por el cielo (re-read; Spanish; very good)

232  Goran Petrović, Diferencias (re-read; Spanish; short story collection; excellent)

233  Goran Petrović, Opsada Crkve Sv. Spasa (Serbian; outstanding)

234  Goran Petrović, Le Siège de L'église Saint-Sauveur (French translation of the above)

235  Goran Petrović, Sitničarnica "kod srećne ruke" (re-read; Serbian; excellent)

236  Goran Petrović, La Mano de la Buena Fortuna (re-read; Spanish translation of the above)

237  Ernesto Cardenal, Poesía Completa:  Tomo 1 (re-read; Spanish; poetry; outstanding)

238  Branko Miljković, Vatra i Ništa/Fire and Nothing (bilingual Serbian and English; poetry; excellent)

239  Antonio Machado, Compos de Castilla (Spanish; poetry; very good)

240  Augusto Monterroso, La oveja negra y demás fábulas (Spanish; story collection; very good)

241  John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan:  An American Life (non-fiction; well-deserved winner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award and Pulitzer Prize for Biography)

242  William Faulkner, Knight's Gambit (good, but not his best work; story collection)

243  Jamaica Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River (very good)

244  Karen Thompson Walker, The Age of Miracles (better than what some SF critics have made it out to be; very good debut novel)

245  Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear (perhaps I'll elaborate more later about my meh reaction to this second volume)

246  Carlos Fuentes, Inquieta Compañía (re-read; Spanish; story collection; very good)

247  Moacyr Scliar, Kafka's Leopards (re-read; excellent)

248  Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Visit (play; good but uneven for me; need to see it performed to judge better)

249  Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing (excellent)

250  Thomas Ligotti, Noctuary (short story collection; excellent)

251  Joseph Brodsky, Watermark (I will write an essay about this in the near future)

252  Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams (same as above)

253  Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (re-read; children's lit; already reviewed)

254  Kenneth R. Overberg, Into the Abyss of Suffering:  A Catholic View (non-fiction; not rating it)

255  Leonardo Sciascia, Il mare colore del vino:  Tre racconti (Italian; excerpt from a longer story collection; outstanding)

256  Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking (children's lit; already reviewed)

257  Fulton J. Sheen, Way to Inner Peace (non-fiction; not rating it)

258  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (non-fiction; some food for thought for later)

259  Ogdred Weary, The Curious Sofa (re-read; illustrated; diverting)

260  Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins (YA; review forthcoming)

Rabid Squirrel Interro-view: Aisha of Practically Marzipan

For the second online reviewer/blogger interro-view, I turned to one of my favorite people to chat with online, Aisha.  Aisha runs the blog Practically Marzipan and is also a columnist/reviewer for a leading Indian paper, The Sunday Guardian.   Time to see if the rabid squirrels who co-conducted this interview felt even a smidgen of pity or gave mercy to this intrepid interview subject:

You have a regular column, "Left of Cool," in India's The Sunday Guardian as well as maintaining a review(ish) blog, Practically Marzipan.  What are some of the differences you've noticed between writing for a newspaper compared to writing for a blog?

With my blog I can assume readers who read the same sorts of things as I do, or can take for granted that they already have certain sorts of information. And there's also the option of linking to lots of things as context and constructing whatever I'm trying to say on top of things other people have said--which changes the whole tone of the writing from (I suppose) statement to dialogue. Writing for newspapers or magazines has been great for discipline--most of the time I need deadlines and wordcounts to get anything done, and it's probably good for me not to be able to depend on other people's writing. But I feel like I sound more like myself when I'm writing for the blog. (But also I sound more myself when I'm writing for the regular column than I am when I'm writing a review).

All this seems to indicate that there's a definite separation between my writing for the blog and my writing for the column, and that would probably be true if I was less lazy. As things are, most things that get put up on the blog are versions of columns or reviews I've already written, so there are no clear lines and you can probably ignore most of that previous paragraph.

Seems like you have a hard time deciding which has helped you develop more as a reviewer/critic.  If you were pressed by a gang of rabid palm squirrels threatening to nibble your toes if you didn't respond definitively, which one, the newspaper columnist or the blogger, has given you the most satisfaction?

Nooo, not the squirrels! The blog certainly gives me more satisfaction.

What's wrong with having rabid squirrels giving you their undivided attention?

That you have to ask this is itself a matter of concern. Though, do I get a free pass if one of the only pieces of fiction I've ever had published has a squirrel in it? Also one of my favourite Indian short stories is about a squirrel. (I guess what I'm trying to say is please don't hurt me, squirrels)

[Furious, frustrated chittering is heard in the distance.  Aisha is spared…for the moment, with the understanding that she’ll consider reviewing the upcoming Squirrels movie.]

If I recall, you also used to work as an editor for a children's lit publisher.  What are some of the wonderful discoveries you've made in children's/YA literature, both professionally and during your personal life?

Professionally, not that much--because a lot of the editing I did involved textbooks and while it's possible to make brilliant textbooks (I'd like to think mine were pretty good) you can't really have very strong feelings about them.

But my job meant being in a place where children's books were accessible at all times, and I discovered I could really love books for much younger readers. I've written more about things like picture books and books for early readers in the last few years than I ever did before. Obviously I can't read them as a child would (or even as a parent would) but the best of them get down to the bare bones of language and story (and colour and line) in ways that are fascinating to me.

Well, I've been an uncle for nearly a year now and my niece already has shown a great interest in picture books or anything in the shape of a book (OK, she tries to munch on a few of them, but that is beside the point).  What books, picture books and on up through early readers would you suggest that I (or any reader that has an infant/toddler relative) consider buying for her?  I (we?) need names!

Well there's an Indian publishing company called Tara Books who do gorgeous things with traditional folk art, so I'd recommend pretty much anything by them (look how pretty! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP60hTjmZxI ). And I've fallen in love with Chris Haughton's books-- A Bit Lost has a baby owl in it so it's clearly superior, but Oh No George! looks great too. One of my favourite books from this past year was one called Virginia Wolf which is *sort* of about Virginia Woolf (there's an artist sister called Vanessa, for example) but is mostly about depression. Another I liked was something called The Bravest Goat in the World, about a goat that sticks to her sense of self and ... dies. It's more inspiring than depressing, I promise.

 I'll take your word on it for now.  So perhaps Indian children's/YA lit isn't as depressing as say Charlotte's Web?

Well quite a few of those titles aren't Indian. But I think most of the children's lit I like isn't entirely happy and uplifting--even when there's a happily ever after at the end there's often this sense of a huge and unknowable world. Think of something like Tove Jansson's Moomin books, for example.

What is the lit scene, whether it's literary fiction, speculative, or works not otherwise constrained by those two labels, in India today? 

It's (I'm restricting this to English language only because that is what I do almost all my reading in) growing faster than I would have believed it could a few years ago; it's changed out of all recognition since I started working here and that was only a few years ago. I think the most important development has been the beginnings of a genuinely "popular" literature--affordable books in English that the authors often claim is accessible to everyone. I think most of it is dreadful (but then there are writers like Anuja Chauhan, whose first book was very good and whose second and third I'm told are wonderful), but it has opened up a space for genre fiction and there's already quite a bit of it. It's mostly mythological fiction so far, but that's partly because the breakout success in the genre (Amish Tripathi's Immortals of Meluha) was in that genre.

But there's also a visible divide between the literary and the popular, with very few authors who seem to belong to both groups. I'm hoping that as Indian sff develops it'll straddle that divide so that we can have speculative writing that is also formally experimental; since we don't have a firmly entrenched English language genre tradition to fall back on (*all sorts of disclaimers here) we have a better chance at it than most places.

How "accessible" (a word that I do dread using here but am failing at recalling a more suitable synonym) would these English-language "popular" lit books be for a non-Indian population?  Are there elements that differ significantly from literary tropes that populate Anglo-American literary genres? 

It depends on the book, but I think most of them are pretty accessible, or not less so than the more literary (a word I dread using here!) sort of Indian fiction. There are a couple that even I found incomprehensible, but that's a problem with individual writers (and, I suspect, no editing) rather than an alien setting.

A lot of it is along the same lines as the Anglo-American scene: there are romances, crime fiction, military novels, a bit of fantasy. One significant difference is that we've got an entire genre composed of semi-autobiographical stories about young men in college finding love (by young male authors, mostly). I read something about the college novel being dead recently, and I'm not sure what the people who wrote that would make of these.

Have you ever thought about reviewing any of these "college novels" for your global audience?

I've occasionally done some rather mean spoof reviews of them (tagged "(sic)" on my blog; see what I said about the editing above), but I'm not sure if a global audience would find them hilariously bad, as I often do, or incomprehensibly so.

It's complicated though-- English, and the ability to speak it fluently, can be intensely political issues in India, and it's easy to fall into a sort of classism when mocking a badly written book. And these books clearly do have an audience (a far bigger one than most mainstream literary writers), and class and language politics play a big role there too. So I'm trying to find a balance between righteous rage at books that are very bad and classist snobbery. Or something.

You are very active on Twitter.  How has Twitter shaped your reading and reviewing?

I suspect it has actively hindered them.

Twitter ought to be good for writers in that the 140 character limit should make us pare down out tweets for the minimum number of words and maximum clarity. I haven't managed to get it to train me out of using too many adverbs yet, so I don't know if that's true.

I follow a bunch of brilliant, incisive critics on twitter, so I am mostly really intimidated by them but also pushed to be better because you don't want to look silly in front of people you respect. But I think I'm also learning to think I might have something worth saying because there seem to be people who continue to be willing to read me and talk to me.

What's wrong with adverbs? 

Nothing, if they're used in moderation. But there's an adverb in my blog name and one in my twitter username, so I suspect I will never escape them.

Apparently not, considering you used one in your response!  Does this dismay you or make you more accepting of verb modifiers in fiction?

Absolutely not. (Um.)

As a reviewer, what do you consider to be your strengths and weaknesses? 

Lots and lots of weaknesses! A lack of intellectual rigour, a fear of making sweeping pronouncements that leads to my often not saying anything new for fear that I'll have to back it up. I'm not sure what my strengths are, other than that I usually sound like myself (which is only a good thing if you like what I sound like); I'm not sure why people are willing to read what I write, and I'm pathetically grateful when they are.

Hrmm….so a relative lack of confidence in your work, despite having accomplished more professionally than most of us will likely ever achieve, is your biggest weakness as a reviewer?  It sounds like you're a conscientious critic swimming in a sea of inflated self-opinions.  Would this be a fairer assessment of your strengths?

It would be a very flattering assessment of my strengths, if it was true. I've been able to read and write for a living for a few years, which is something most people don't get to do. But luck and circumstances have been a huge part of that, and I read people who are far better critics than I am every day. If I'm particularly conscientious it's natural timidity plus a tendency towards academia (plus, I suppose, the social effects of being a brown woman on an internet where the majority of voices are still white men-- there's an added sense of needing to protect oneself from attack by never saying anything that can't be incontrovertibly backed up).

I wish I could argue your last point, but I understand a small part of the reality there.  But have you ever been tempted to kick down those sexist/racist doors and fight vociferously?  Are there other bloggers that do this?

Are you trying to get me to talk about Requires Only That You Hate? I don't think I could do what she does even if I was also blogging anonymously, but I'm glad she exists. Or someone like Deepa D, whose style is very different but equally welcome-- she had a great post recently where she and some other bloggers picked apart and mocked a collection of short stories that were (judging by the extensive quotes they posted) pretty terrible on the race front in particular.

You keep getting people clutching their pearls over how horrible and mean this sort of thing is; no one seems to talk about how cathartic it can be. Things like casual sexism and racism in literature (in the books themselves, in how they are received, in how fans react to them) make the world worse in ways that affect me directly, casual classism, transphobia, casteism, all affect people I care about. My safe spaces are not places where everyone is required to be teeth-grittingly nice in the face of bigotry, they're places where we can mock and rage at things that can hurt us and know that the other people in that space have our backs.

(I'm still too "nice" to create that sort of space, though.)

Word association time:  When you see/hear the word "fandom," what thoughts/images immediately come to mind?

SQUEE

OR far too many things to name, many of them wonderful and many incredibly frustrating and/or upsetting.

C'mon!  There has to be something specific that really appeals to you and/or makes you want to unleash your fury upon the miscreant(s), right?

When I say fandom I mean about ten things, all of them connected but not necessarily the same. I love that literature and movies and music and tv can make communities, I love that fanfic can be art and politics and porn at the same time, I love enthusiasm, I love love. I'm less enthused by the sort of fandom that is not only uncritical itself (do that, if you want, I'm not going to judge how you read/watch) but that denies other fans the right to be. I hate the cult of nice. I hate that things like sexism and racism play out in fannish communities, and that fandom is still assumed to be the preserve of certain types of people in certain sorts of countries (queer women of colour who don't live in North America are not among them). I hate being pressured to feel grateful when a writer with a big fan following occasionally remembers that people like me exist.

So -- no, I don't have much to say about fandom. ;)

Do you see these reactionary elements of various fandoms changing anytime soon?

I don't know. It's a continuous process; it gets better in some areas, worse in others, people push back against change. I think things are improving, but there's so much left to do.

And finally, if you could have a totemic animal represent you and/or your blog, what animal would it be and would they be voracious readers and/or fierce attack creatures?

Owls! (everyone who reads my twitter groans on cue) They're appropriately literary, very good at killing things, they're wise in English and foolish in Hindi.

Trying to grasp a poor review, part deaux

A little over eight months ago, I wrote a commentary on certain reviews that baffled me with their focus, style, or (in one case) with its lacking of evidence to support the reviewer's argument. I think I was a bit premature in some of my presumptions about one of the reviewers quoted there, as it seems Pat of Pat's Fantasy Hotlist has managed to write a review that manages to offend more unwritten review "rules" than I would have scare imagined him to be able to accomplish.

His "review" (if I dare call this piece that would make Dave Itzkoff blush a review) of Kristen Cashore's Graceling frankly is a travesty. Beginning with what appears to be a staple of Pat's reviews, a comparison to contemporary internet darling SF/F authors, it devolves quite a bit. Let's look at the opening paragraph:

I made a strange discovery when I was generating the Amazon links for this book. Throughout the novel, I kept saying that everything I was reading was definitely YA, yet my Gollancz ARC claimed that Kristin Cashore's Graceling would be perfect for fans of Patrick Rothfuss. Plodding on, I kept looking for a reason why they would make that claim. Interestingly enough, once I was done with the book I realized that it was marketed as a YA title in North America. Which, I believe, makes a lot of sense. I'm aware that there are a lot of differences between the British and the North American markets, yet it feels a bit weird that Gollancz is marketing Graceling as a work akin to those of authors such as Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch. Because it lacks the depth, the realism, and the grittiness to make it so.

First off, Pat begins not with setting up a discussion of the book itself, but rather with a comparison between his perception of "Young Adult" literature and that of Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind. While there is a time and a place for comparing authors, this certainly is not the one, especially when he is using publicity blurbs as the basis for such comparisons. Not everyone is going to have access to those, so I am left wondering why he bothers focusing on that. From there, he seizes upon the marketing of the book as YA to claim how it is different from yet more publicist-driven comparisons to newer fantasy authors such as Abercrombie and Lynch. So...what the fuck is this review about? The book, or marketing comparisons? A reader might be pardoned for his or her eyes glazing over and wondering if the book might be worth considering.

The following paragraphs do not improve upon the opener's poor start. If anything, the rhetoric becomes rather overblown and at times, I could not help but wonder if Pat was writing a review of his preconceptions of what constitutes YA literature rather than discussing Cashore's book, as this is the only "discussion" of the book itself:

Katsa was born with an exceptional skill which makes her feared throughout the land -- the Grace of killing. Well nigh invincible, at a young age she becomes the king's enforcer. But Katsa is also a secret agent of the Council, a shadowy group of men and women who are the forces of good in the land. During a mission to rescue a kidnapped foreign monarch, Katsa stumbles upon a mysterious chain of events which seem to make no sense. Investigating further, she will uncover intrigues that will set her against her own king and send her on a quest to unearth the mystery of a one-eyed figure.

Stylistically, Kristin Cashore's tale bears resemblance to Joe Abercrombie's The First Law. Character-driven plot with minimalist worldbuilding pretty much describe Graceling in a nutshell. Unlike Abercrombie, however, Cashore's debut is indubitably YA in style and tone.

The concept of Graces appeared interesting at the beginning, and the author makes a good job of describing the whole process. Alas, the whole thing loses some of its luster when we discover that one can be born with the Grace of sewing, jumping high, or similar talents. As I mentioned, the worldbuilding doesn't intrude on the story and more or less remains in the background. Which is too bad, because at times Cashore's prose can be evocative, and it would have been interesting to discover more about the world she created, as well as the various societies populating it.

Take away the near-obligatory comparison to Abercrombie's debut trilogy and what remains is little more than a Harriet Klausner Amazon quickie with unsupported assertions tossed in for taste. Considering that quite a few readers lament authors that "tell" rather than "show," perhaps that overused maxim might be applied with some justifications to reviews such as Pat's that make general assertions without anything to support it. How is it stylistic similar to Abercrombie's work? What if I hadn't read that book? How the hell would I know what "similar to Abercrombie" would mean? Go to Abercrombie and Fitch, walk around for 5 minutes, then go over to American Eagle and then compare the two without anything in the way of insight into how each has developed their wares?

But the real "beauty" of this review begins with the "Cashore's debut is indubitably YA in style and tone" line. Leaving aside the incredibly strong claim to authority (amusing, considering Pat's refusal to provide any sort of tangible evidence to support his claims), it is Pat's insinuation that YA literature is intrinsically inferior to "gritty" novels such as his favorite duo of Lynch and Abercrombie (as if he hadn't beaten that comparison horse to death in previous reviews of his). But before discussing this at length, more precious quotes from that review:

Endemic to YA books, the politicking makes little sense. Too simplistic to be realistic, it lacks depth and sometimes you just shake your head in wonder. Then again, when I was a young teenager, politics in a fantasy novel were probably the last thing I paid attention to.

Typical to YA novels, the characterization are a bit clichéd. Everything is too black and white, with no room for shades of gray. What Kristin Cashore does well is create endearing characters, even though they are quite predictible. Still, she came up with an engaging bunch that makes for easy reading. Katsa, the main protagonist, is a cross between Drizzt Do'Urden, the Terminator, and Nynaeve al'Meara. There's a definite sense of "girl power" in this one, and the story is told in a very contemporary voice. Hence, though it seems to be aimed at a female teenage readership, it is a world away from similar works from the 80s by Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, or Marion Zimmer Bradley. This being a novel written by a female author for a young adult audience, you know that there will be a love story. Enter the extraordinary and secretive and handsome Prince Po, and there you have it. Though you see it coming from a mile away, this cheesy love story nearly killed the book for me.

À la Salvatore, Cashore can write some thrilling battle scenes, and there are plenty of those in Graceling. Though evocative, the narrative can be juvenile at times, and the same can be said of the dialogues. Still, the author keeps the tale moving at a brisk pace, and other than the love story between Katsa and Po, Graceling is a quick read, especially if you prefer action over depth.

Well, endemic to several of Pat's reviews, we find overly confident descriptors used to cover up fairly weak and unsupported claims. I have read dozens of YA-marketed books over the past couple of years and Pat's claims that the politicking makes little sense is baffling? Is not Cory Doctorow's Little Brother marketed as YA and does it not contain a plausible, cogent view of a post-9/11 society that could (have gone) go bad? What about Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea novels? This claim makes very little sense and could in fact be seen as being rather dismissive of the socio-political messages buried within several YA-marketed novels over the years.

But it is typical of Pat, it seems, to aspire to an expertise that I doubt he has. Leaving aside my observation in the past that Pat rarely attempts to write insightful reviews that delve into the books at hand, nothing he has shown has demonstrated any real awareness of the field. He quotes publicity blurbs in place of developing an informed opinion regarding the field. His claims of "typical to YA novels" (as if this is almost solely the province of Young Adult literature and not something that a great many books spanning several genres have done) there being "clichéd" characterization is almost priceless. I guess someone will have to tell Margo Lanagan that her characters are somehow "clichéd," or perhaps D.M. Cornish might appreciate knowing that about Rossamünd's character.

Then comes the "black and white" commentary. Telling, rather than showing, leaving one to wonder if this is in fact true. How characters can be "endearing" but "predictable" without anything cited as evidence makes me wonder even more. But when Pat makes his whopper of a comparison (between an R.A. Salvatore character, the Terminator, and a Wheel of Time female character), I began then to wonder if he had gone batshit crazy with the unsupported comparisons and lazy substitution of unsubstantiated opinion for revealing citations. At this point, I still barely know anything about this book that might not be gleaned from reading either the back cover or from a publicity copy (if I had a publicity copy of said book). What the fuck is this book about, again?

Pat's "girl power" quip and the standard-issue female comparison point for him (after all, it really isn't a Pat review until he keeps comparing the work, unsupported with commentary of course, to other authors who may or may not be related at all in style, tone, plot, or characterization to the novel at hand) alone will likely draw the ire of many. It is rather telling that already some of the commenters at his site have lauded Pat for not being "politically correct" or "telling it like it is." However, I believe if one were to "tell it like it is," one might be tempted to note the general boorish cluelessness of such a comment. True, it is not surprising, considering Pat's past history with "chick lit" remarks. Still, with that and the snarky comment about the "you know there will be romance in it" made me wonder if there might be a touch of misogyny in Pat, considering how regular those types of comments are made when certain books are reviewed. Then again, I perhaps should withdraw that comment, since it would have as little evidence supporting it (OK, only a tad bit more) as Pat has for making said comments in several of his reviews of books written by female authors.

But á la...someone, I guess, Pat's review wimpers down with absolutely no explanation behind his comments, no support for his assertations, nothing to balance what appears at first (second, third?) glance to be bantam-cock posturing with nothing of substance behind it. All I know about the book at this point is that apparently it is set in a secondary-world, that there is some romance and battles to it, and that the main character seems to be an amalgam of disparate fictional characters. Perhaps the final paragraph to the review will provide some sort of closure:

In the end, Kristin Cashore's Graceling is a fast-paced and accessible read. The book should appeal to fans of writers such as Maggie Furey, Trudi Canavan, and Elaine Cunningham.

The final verdict: 6.75/10

Nope. Just more of the same.

So...anyone have links to other reviews of this book so I can gain a better insight into the book itself, rather than into the reviewer's biases?

A Children's Lit/YA Lit Reading Challenge

Over the past couple of days, I have been discussing the shortcomings of my childhood and early adolescent fiction reading with Dunja, the talented and lovely squirrel mistress who devised the Squirrelpunk cover art for my April Fool's Day.  She has decided that even in my advanced (albeit not yet decrepit) age that I need to rectify this gap in my reading with the following books that I must make an effort to read and possibly review, preferably over the next two weeks (I guess she, like others, want me to resume reviewing again after a few months' hiatus).  Not all of these are in English, but most are:

Emilio Salgari, Sandokan alla Riscossa; Il Corsaro Nero


Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

Henryk Sienkiewicz, In Desert and Wilderness

Astrid Lindgren, The Brothers Lionheart (which I did read at her urging a few years before, but didn't review); Pippi Longstocking

Rudyard Kipling, Kim; Captains Courageous

Karl May, Winnetou

Branko Ćopić, Ježeva Kućica


Cesare Pavese, Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi


Not certain if the last two are juvenile/YA, but they shall be read...just as I must follow She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.


In return, I sent her this list:

Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Ferns Grow; The Summer of the Monkeys

Beverly Cleary, The Mouse and the Motorcycle (or just anything by Beverly Cleary; she was/is awesome)

Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (although it was duller when I re-read it a few years ago)

E.B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan/Charlotte's Web (the cartoon made me cry when I was 5)

Anything by Dr. Seuss

Jack London, The Call of the Wild

Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Robert Lewis Stevenson, Treasure Island

Johann Wyss, Swiss Family Robinson

A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Thomas Rockwell, How to Eat Fried Worms


This should be an interesting project.  And yes, I have no qualms about reading/reviewing juvenile/YA literature, or at least the ones that do not suck.

Author Spotlight: D.M. Cornish

Whimsy is a very underrated quantity in storytelling, especially for children's/YA literature. A story can have sparkling prose or a vividly-detailed landscape, but without a hint of whimsy, it can be as dry as dust and as interesting as paint drying. Whimsy, when employed correctly, can give a story that extra Oomph! that attracts the reader's attention, acting as a sort of portal for that reader to enter into a dialogue with the text.

Australian writer D.M. Cornish displays this whimsical quality in spades in his debut novel, 2006's Foundling. Shortlisted for such prestigious honors as the American Library Association's Best Books for Young Adults in 2007, Foundling contained an excellent mixture of deft characterizations (accentuated by Cornish's own drawings, which adds much to the atmosphere pervading the novel), sparkling prose, and above all else, an atmosphere of "Hey! Ya know, this is fascinating!"

I read Foundling back in February (although I had received a review copy back in the Autumn of 2007, I had a huge backlog and didn't try reading it until then). I meant to write a full-scale review then, but I was swamped with job applications and other review commitments and I just kept pushing it off. However, for those wanting a bit more on this debut effort, here is a review I just read which fits well with my own reaction to the novel.

Now Cornish has released the second volume in his Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy, Lamplighter. Clocking in at over 700 pages (and filled with copious appendices and illustrations drawn again by Cornish), it promises to continue the action-packed and intriguing storylines begun in Foundling. I'll be reading Lamplighter sometime in the next few weeks and hopefully I'll have a review written before the end of June. Right now, this little trilogy has the potential to build upon the children's/YA lit renaissance that began 10 years ago with J.K. Rowling and Lemony Snicket's fine serials. I highly recommend that readers who found much to enjoy in those tales to check out D.M. Cornish's work.

Things I'd love to see being posted online

• A review or commentary on William Blake's work.

• A SF/F reviewer posting about a non-genre work.

• Reviews of lit journals in addition to coverage of genre publications, as there are some great lit journals.  I can't do this now, however, due to my series editorship of BAF and the demands it puts on me.

• A group of people, over the next year or so, to combine to review all of the Gollancz SF and Fantasy Masterworks books.  I would imagine that 10 reviewers, covering 5-10 books each over the course of a year, could achieve this without emptying their savings.

• More reviews of non-Anglophone literature, whether it be genre or mimetic fiction or both.  I do know that I plan on writing a review of Portuguese writer's David Soares' latest work, O Evangelho do Enforcado within the next month or two.

• More YA fiction coverage and not just Pat calling a derivative work he didn't like "YA" without having a full understanding of what constitutes YA fiction.

• More reviews of Peter Beagle's stories and novels.

• Someone who might be willing to (re)read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and write a review of it, as I plan on reading it for the first time either this month or next.

• People talking about cover art developed by small presses or for midlist authors rather than focusing on a few covers that are designed for commercial bestsellers.  Previous coverage has given, I believe, a distorted view of cover art for genre work in the US and elsewhere.

• Someone who is willing to (re)read either Edward Whittemore and/or Angela Carter's works, or at least one book of theirs.  Blogging by several people of virtually the same types of books can lead to rather weary reading after a while.

• More cowbell in reviews, or at least more squirrel.  

There, that ought to cover my wish list for the remainder of the year.

A self-pitying book porn splurge

First, an update on this morning's post: I not only managed to have the consultation, but I also had an MRI exam done 5 hours later. The doctor thinks that a meniscus tear is the most likely culprit, but although his test of the knee indicated no ligament damage, the MRI was ordered just to make sure on the extent of the cartilage damage. I will know the results by Friday afternoon.

Since I had about 5 hours to waste, I spent the time shopping in a few stores in Nashville, including visits to a B&N and the local Davis-Kidd. 11 out of the 16 books pictured here are from that splurge. In addition, I received another 5 books in the mail either after yesterday's post or today. However, all but two these are purchases and one of those that isn't ought to be quite obvious by its spine.


Top: Roberto Bolaño, The Romantic Dogs (Bilingual poetry collection of the late, great Chilean/Spanish writer. While not as immediately eye-grabbing as his novels, these poems are viscerally raw and to the point. Recommended highly, as I read this while waiting for the MRI.); Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El principe de la niebla; Las luces de septiembre, El palacio de la medianoche (Before The Shadow of the Wind, Zafón made his mark as a YA author. Sometimes, some of those who look askance at YA lit and yet who praise Zafón's work might want to consider the origins of his writing career ;)); Alexandre Dumas, Georges (It's a Dumas story that I've yet to read. Enough said, right?); Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Martian Tales Trilogy (so I was in the mood for something a bit "campy" - sue me?).



Top: W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (This will be quite helpful in some of my lesson planning for early next week, plus I've wanted to read more about DuBois for years now); F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (Just buying a hardcover to replace the MMPB of one of my favorite Fitzgerald tales); Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.,The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction (Just so I can keep up to date with the SF criticism models...); Dean Koontz, Frankenstein: Prodigal Son (Graphic novel story from the Dabel Brothers and Del Rey. Don't know anything else about it yet, to be honest, as it is a review copy sent to me).



Top: Ferenc Karinthy, Metropole (Purchased this recently after reading E.L. Fay praising it. Read it last night. It is worthy of such praise.); Junot Díaz, Drown (Been meaning to buy this for a while, ever since I read and loved his The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in late 2007); Roland Topor, The Tenant (I've had my eye on this horror book for a while now, so when I saw it in the bookstore today, I just had to get it); G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (I wanted to read his apologia for Christianity and why he became a Catholic. Will read this one in the very near future, likely before Ash Wednesday begins on 2/25); Juan José Millás, El Mundo (This won the 2007 Premio Planeta and is a mixture of imaginative storytelling and a relation of the author's inspirations to write); Aaron Allston, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi (This is the first of a trilogy dealing with events after yet another series, the Legacy one, I think).

Not bad for a self-pitying buying splurge, huh? I'll forego photographing the clothes and other things I bought as well.

National Book Awards longlist for Young People's Literature announced

The four day rollout for the 2014 National Book Awards began today with the announcement of the longlist for the Young People's Literature category.  Here are the ten finalists:

Laurie Halse Anderson, The Impossible Knife of Memory 

Gail Giles, Girls Like Us

Carl Hiaasen, Skink—No Surrender

Kate Milford, Greenglass House

Eliot Schrefer, Threatened

Steve Sheinkin, The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights 

Andrew Smith, 100 Sideways Miles

John Corey Whaley, Noggin

Deborah Wiles, Revolution: The Sixties Trilogy, Book Two

Jacqueline Woodson,  Brown Girl Dreaming


While I am uncertain if I will cover the entire 10 book longlist due to a money crunch this month, I do plan on reading and reviewing the five books from this list which will make the shortlist in mid-October.  Lot of familiar names on this list (Schrefer and Sheinkin I reviewed a couple of years ago when their previous works also made the YPL shortlist).  Curious to see what others more familiar with middle grades and YA lit think of this longlist.

Final 2009 Reading List: December 2-31

Planning on posting the first 2010 Reading List update either later today or Monday, but here's a list of the final 50+ books I read over the final 30 days of 2009.

507  Pat McGreal, David Rawson, Chaz Truog, Rafael Kayanan, Chiaroscuro:  The Private Lives of Leonardo da Vinci (graphic novel; decent-to-good)

508  Neil Gaiman, Odd and the Frost Giants (YA; merely OK)

509  Čarls M. Šhulc, Sreća je...toplo kučence (Serbian translation of one of my favorite children's books)

510  Neil Gaiman, The Books of Magic (graphic novel; not bad, but not all that great either)

511  Ken Grimwood, Replay (this is one of the better SF novels that I read in 2009)

512  Philip K. Dick, VALIS and Later Novels (Library of America omnibus; spotty)

513  Dan Simmons, Song of Kali (took awhile before I got into it; very good toward the end)

514  Milorad Pavić, The Tale That Killed Emily Knorr/Priča koja je ubila Emiliju Knor (very good story)

515  Javier Cercas, Soldados de Salamina (re-read from 2008; good)

516  Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James, A Short History of Fantasy (uneven, but interesting)

517  Gene Wolfe, Sword and Citadel (re-read; it's GENE WOLFE!)

518  George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream (better than his ASOIAF novels)

519  Fernando Pessoa, Quadras (Portuguese; poetry; very good)

520  Andrzej Sapkowski, La dama del lago:  volumen 1 (Spanish; penultimate volume in the Saga de Geralt; good-to-very good)

521  Erich Maria Remarque, The Night in Lisbon (perhaps the best of his post-WWII novels)

522  Javier Cercas, La velocidad de la luz (re-read from 2008; good)

523  Paul McAuley, The Quiet War (decent premise, but some of the particulars irritated me, throwing me out of being engaged with the novel.  Decent at best.  Will read and perhaps review the sequel at length in the next month)

524  Hal Duncan, Escape from Hell! (re-read from 2008; not bad, but I didn't like it as much as his earlier novels)

525  Greer Gilman, Cloud & Ashes:  Three Winter's Tales (poetic, with evocative passages.  Recommended.)

526  Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis:  The Story of a Childhood (graphic novel; autobiography; engaging story)

527  James Blish, Cities in Flight (good)

528  Rudyard Kipling, The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales (several excellent stories, along with several that were much weaker and perhaps could have been left out)

529  Daniel Wallace, Big Fish (moving tale that reminded me of my own complex relationship with my father)

530  J.G. Ballard, The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard (must-read omnibus of Ballard's short fiction)

531  Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Modern Arabic Fiction (too many short excerpts, but there were several great shorts to balance it out)

532  Apuleius, The Golden Ass (clever tale; very good)

533  Nnedi Okorafor, Long Juju Man (YA, engaging, among the best in YA that I read in 2009)

534  Stephen T. Asma, On Monsters:  An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (already reviewed)

535  Milorad Pavić, Last Love in Constantinople (very good)

536  Erich Maria Remarque, Spark of Life (one of the earliest tales of concentration camp horrors; very good)

537  Robert E. Howard, The Conan Chronicles Volume 2:  The Hour of the Dragon (meh)

538  Leigh Brackett, Sea Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories(dated; meh)

539  Erich Maria Remarque, Arch of Triumph (OK, but far from his best work)

540  George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (eds.), Songs of the Dying Earth (several very good stories, with a sound editorial arrangement)

541  Washington Irving, Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, The Alhambra (Library of America edition; good)

542  Gary Larson, Wiener Dog Art:  A Far Side Collection (re-read; classic)

543  A.S. Byatt, The Children's Book (already reviewed)

544  Gary Larson, The Far Side Gallery 5 (re-read; classic)

545  Gary Larson, The Chickens are Restless (re-read; classic)

546  Gary Larson, Cows of Our Planet (re-read; I think you can guess my thoughts by now)

547  Horacio Quiroga, Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte (Spanish; re-read; excellent)

548  Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (excellent)

549  Catherynne M. Valente, The Labyrinth (re-read; very good)

550  Jonathan Lethem, Chronic City (very good)

551  Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (see above comment about Wolfe)

552  Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan (eds.), The New Space Opera 2 (not bad, but space operas rarely appeal to me and most of the stories here did not overcome my natural antipathy)

553  Ellen Datlow (ed.), Lovecraft Unbound (very fine original anthology)

554  Mike Allen (ed.), Clockwork Phoenix 2 (best original anthology I read in 2009)

555  Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics (excellent)

556  G. Willow WIlson and M.K. Perker, Air:  Letters from Lost Countries (graphic novel; excellent; want to write more about their series shortly)

557  Milorad Pavić, The Inner Side of the Wind or The Novel of Hero and Leander (creative way to tell a story of two kindred souls separated by time and space)

558  Lope de Vega, Obrad Completas:  Poesía I (challenging, but worth the read to see how his epic poems stacked up)

559  Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois (eds.), The Dragon Book (OK anthology, but few stories that grabbed my attention)

560  John Layman and Rob Guillory, Chew Volume One:  Taster's Choice (graphic novel; very odd crime/procedural story with some strange twists.  Oddly enjoyable)

561  Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness (story collection; would have made my year-end roundup of story collections if I had read it earlier; excellent)

562  Bradford Morrow (ed.), Conjunctions 47:  25th Anniversary Issue (another fine issue from one of the better lit journals I've read in some time)


Well, that concludes the 2009 reading list.  Almost 200 more than 2008.  Something like a quarter of the books were read in languages other than English and a little over one-sixth were novels, graphic novels, collections, or anthologies (co)written or (co)edited by women, a slight improvement over the previous few years.  Will be keeping more detailed notes of the backgrounds of the authors I read in 2010, just to see if there are changes due to an increased awareness on my part.

January 1-10 Reads

Here is the first reading update for this year.  Unlike previous years, I will also be listing fiction magazines and lit journals that I will be reading as part of my duties as series editor for Best American Fantasy 4.  Perhaps this will spark greater curiosity in this anthology and (hopefully) more readers of this fine anthology series.  As is usually the case for me, the titles will be in order they were read, plus a tiny bit of commentary.


Books


1  N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (debut novel due out Feb. 25.  Will be writing a full review of this work in the next couple of weeks.  Very strong debut to a trilogy that has the misfortune of having the same name as Christopher Paolini's series)

2  G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker, Air Volume Two:  Flying Machine (graphic novel collection of an ongoing comics series.  Plan on saying more about this collaborative effort when the third volume is released in a couple of months.  Highly recommended.)

3  G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker, Cairo (graphic novel set in Egypt with a mixture of current socio-political commentary and Arabic myths involving the djinn.  These two authors/illustrators do outstanding work)

4  Caitlín R. Kiernan, Silk (her 1998 debut novel.  Could tell the genesis of certain narrative traits that she manages to use to greater effect in her latter stories.  Strong debut, though.  Will read other earlier works by her in the near future)

5  Clare Dudman, One Day the Ice will Reveal all its Dead (historical novel based on German geologist Alfred Wegener's latter life and his death in Greenland in 1931.  Very good story.)

6  Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval (what the future Pope Benedict XVI had to say about corrupt modern-day societies before he became Pope in 2005.  He has a way with words and I certainly had things to consider afterwards, even if I'm far from a conservative of any stripe)

7  Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (had never read his most famous YA trilogy, so I thought I'd finally take the plunge. Not bad, but a bit boring in spots, or so my Inner 10 year-old is telling me)

8  Kevin Brockmeier (ed.), Real Unreal:  Best American Fantasy Volume 3 (I will be mailing my review copy to a friend to review here, since I feel any opinions I might have on this - positive, in case you're curious - would be unduly biased due to the fact that I'm helping with the development of the fourth volume.  But do read this volume when it comes out next month, lest the rabid squirrels find you and devour your hearts and souls)

9  Mary Robinette Kowal, Scenting the Dark and Other Stories (just-released limited-edition of her first story collection. Very strong stories. Don't believe any are eligible for BAF4, though, although there weren't any bad stories in this slim collection)

10  Oliverio Girondo, Scarecrow & Other Anomalies (re-read; bilingual edition.  This gives a whole new meaning to "weird fiction."  Very good, though)

11  Alexandre Dumas, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo I (French; first volume of Dumas' secondmost famous work.  Uneven, digressive work so far.)

12  Geoff Dyer, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (if I had read this 2009 novel before now, it would have appeared among the best mimetic fictions of that year.  Outstanding execution.  Highly recommended.)

13  Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes (eds.), A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters (another in a long line of monthly themed anthologies from DAW.  Read this to see if any stories merited consideration.  Not bad, but not all that good as a whole.  Some good individual stories, though.)

14  Diana Schutz (ed.), Noir:  A Collection of Crime Comics (graphic novel anthology showcasing the talents of several of the best artists working in the noir narrative mode.  Very, very good.)



Fiction Magazines and Lit Journals


No comments on these, for various reasons:


1  Alaska Quarterly Review, Spring-Summer 2009

2  Weird Tales, Fall 2009

3  Weird Tales, Spring 2009


In Progress

Alexandre Dumas,Le Comte de Monte-Cristo 2


David Soares, A Conspiração dos Antepassados

 

Best of 2013: Children's/Middle Grades/Young Adult Books

2013 Children's/Middle Grades/Young Adult Books Read: 

Kate DiCamillo, Flora & Ulysses

Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince

Gene Yuen Yang, Boxers/Saints

Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck

Kathi Appelt, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp

Tom McNeal, Far Far Away

I have not read much in the way of children's, middle grades, or young adult literature this year (I do, however, believe it is better to divide the "YA" category into more specific categories, as a book intended for a 9 year-old will differ significantly in some aspects from one oriented more to teen readers).  In fact, all of my reading comes from the National Book Award longlist for Young People's Literature (or 7/10 of the books on that longlist), but that does not mean that I shouldn't at least acknowledge some of the excellent works released in the past year.  Almost all of these seven works I would recommend readily to young readers (the only exception is The Summer Prince, toward which I had slightly mixed reactions) and if I had the time, I would use many of them in my classroom.  While it was difficult to pare it down to three favorites that I thought were among the year's best in the field (or at least the tiny sliver of 2013 YA/MG/Ju. lit that I've read; feel free to suggest alternatives in the comments), here are the ones that moved me the most:

3.  Kate DiCamillo, Flora & Ulysses

OK, it does star a superheroic squirrel, but I could see me enjoying this work immensely if I were about 9 or 10 today.  See linked review for more on the book and why I loved it.

2.  Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck

This book about a Japanese-American farming family and their trials and tribulations was a deserving winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.  The characters and setting are fully realized and the story contains a subtle yet powerful twist toward the end that made it a joy to read.

1.  Gene Luen Yang, Boxers/Saints

Yes, Yang's graphic novel duology makes its second appearance on one of my year-end lists (and it will appear again before the 31st).  It is that good.  See linked review for more details.

A few odds and ends seen on Twitter recently

I've been swamped with working two new jobs, buying a new car, and Holy Week observations, so some of these items may already be known by several.  But just in case, here's a few odds and ends over the past few weeks that have caught my attention.

Lost in the uproar over yet another underwhelming Hugo Award shortlist for Best Novel was the announcement that at the general meeting at the upcoming WorldCon there would be a motion to add Best Genre Poetry to the upcoming 2014 London WorldCon as a trial category.  UK-based critics such as Cheryl Morgan and Jonathan McCalmont had different reactions to this possible development, with McCalmont saying on Twitter that it was nigh hopeless to complain about the inevitability of this motion passing:

I guess complaining about Hugo poetry category is a bit like standing in the Amazon rainforest and complaining about the shitty begonias.
— Jonathan McCalmont (@RuthlessCult) March 31, 2013

Elsewhere, the ever-provocative blogger at Requires Only That You Hate announced Sunday that she would be changing the focus of her reviewing ire from self-published YA fantasies to the more sophisticated reviewing of My Little Pony episode and their deleterious effect on the so-called "bronies."  On Twitter, she gleefully said this after her announcement:

@esedia oh this will be fun
— Misandry Shrugs (@requireshate) March 31, 2013

As many of you know, Paul Smith and I have been posting substantive reviews over at Gogol's Overcoat.  Recently, Paul has decided that he cannot take my word for it and that he is going to sample the works of one of the greatest comedians/Continental philosophers of our generation.  On Twitter, he seems pretty sanguine about this potentially revolutionary writer:

I don't think the world is ready for a comedian with a routine consisting entirely of terrible Continental Philosophy jokes.
— Paul Smith (@Paul_C_Smith) March 25, 2013

And finally, Indian lit critic Aishwarya Subramanian announced on her blog this weekend that she was disappointed with Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou's recently-translated Black Bazaar (a shame, since I think it is one of the best translated books to come out in the past year or so) for its lack of development of the main character's "Buttologist" proclamation.  As she said sadly on Twitter:

"nothing to do with buttocks"
— Aisha(@ActuallyAisha) March 31, 2013

Hopefully Aisha will give Mabanckou another chance in the future despite the seeming misnomer.

Finally, a bit of non-Twitter-related news:  After three years of delays, Serbian illustrator Dunja Branovački (she designed the present blog header) and I will begin work this summer on a Kickstarter project for the previously-announced Squirrelpunk anthology of Squirrelist fictions.  We are uncertain what the goals or prizes will be, but we are thinking that perhaps the entry-level prize might be an autographed picture of a rabid squirrel leaping toward the camera as its picture was taken (sadly, the photographer succumbed to rabies a few days later) and perhaps there would be a rabid squirrel rave party for those who donate over $1000.  Feel free to suggest category prizes in the comments.

September 2010 Reads

Better late than never, I suppose.  Forty-one books read this month.  Mostly a list and not a commentary, alas.


294  Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker (reviewed here)

295  Walter Tevis, Mockingbird (reviewed on the SFF Masterworks blog)

296  William Morris, The Well at the World's End (seminal fantasy, but dry at times)

297  Michael Moorcock, Gloriana (reviewed on the SFF Masterworks blog)

298  Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris (nice appreciation of books read.  Thanks to Fábio Fernandes for recommending it to me)

299  Patricia McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (reviewed on the SFF Masterworks blog)

300  Brian Aldiss, Helliconia (reviewed on the SFF Masterworks blog)

301 Poul Anderson, Three Hearts and Three Lions (reviewed on the SFF Masterworks blog)


302  Alfred Bester, The Demolished Man (OK to decent read)

303  Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic (interesting premise, but the story didn't impress me that much)

304  Joe Halderman, The Forever War (someday, I will re-read and review this.  Very good work)

305 Larry Niven, Ringworld (OK, but nothing all that great about it)

306  Jack London, The Scarlet Plague (excellent story of a mass near-extinction of humans)

307  John Crowley, The Solitudes (one day I'll write an appreciation of the Ægypt Cycle books)

308  George Meredith, The Shaving of Shagpat (excellent 19th century oriental fantasy)

309  Hernán Rivera Letelier, El arte de la resurrección (Spanish; fairly good work)

310  Darin Bradley, Noise (good debut effort, but not among the best 2010 debuts I've read so far this year)

311  Gail Carriger, Blameless (good, but at times I wonder if she's beginning to repeat herself)

312  Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (very good debut effort.  Moving)

313  Lord Dunsany, At the Edge of the World (nice 1970s collection of some of his earlier short stories)

314  John Crowley, Love & Sleep (see earlier comment)

315  Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia (I really ought to do a review sometime, but a re-read is in order first.  Outstanding on the initial read)

316  John Crowley, Dæmonomania (see earlier comment)


317  John Crowley, Endless Things (see earlier comment)


318  Sam Sykes, Tome of the Undergates (oil and water here.  I think some would enjoy this debut more than I did.  Just not the sort of adventure/quest I was in the mood to read, with me never really being able to engage with the prose, characters, situations, setting, etc.  Maybe next time.  Maybe)


319  Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down (good poli-sci book on contemporary problems, revolving around energy/resource usage)


320  Grace Krilanovich, The Orange Eats Creeps (three lit creeps have already eaten this orange, I believe)

321  Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (eds.), Steampunk II:  Steampunk Reloaded (full review in early November.  I have a hot/cold relationship with steampunk fictions and that was evident in reading this anthology)

322  Miguel de Unamuno, Niebla (Spanish; good early Modernist work)

323  William Beckford, Vathek (now one of my favorite oriental fantasies)


324  John Ajvide Lindqvist, Handling the Undead (an undead/zombie story that I actually loved!  Might need to write a full review of this sometime soon)


325  Hannes Bok, The Sorcerer's Ship (some good descriptions, marred by a sometimes flat storytelling style)

326  Katherine Kurtz, Deryni Rising (her debut book, and its Welsh/Celtic storyline was executed well)


327  Lucius Shepard, Viator (Shepard writes damn good stories, ya know?)

328  Amal El-Mohtar, The Honey Month (prose, poetry, honey tasting all blended into one odd but delightful stories that deserve to be read, one a day)

329  Viscount Lascano Tegui, On Elegance While Sleeping (review in the near future)

330  Gert Jonke, The System of Vienna (review in the near future)

331  Ann Radcliffe, The Italian (one of the best Gothic novels of the late 18th century)


332  René  Belletto, Dying (review forthcoming)

333  Poul Anderson, Hrolf Kraki's Saga (retelling of a fragmentary Norse saga.  OK rendering, but nothing special to me)

334  Lin Carter (ed.), Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy I (four novellas, all good to very good)


As for October 1-12, I have since read another 16 works, with hopes to read another 15-20 by month's end.

Astrid Lindgren, The Brothers Lionheart

Then he again spoke of how swiftly they must rid the valley of all Tengilmen, and Jonathan said: 

"Rid?  You mean kill?"

"Yes, what else would I mean?" said Orvar.

"But I can't kill anyone," said Jonathan.  "You know that, Orvar."

"Not even if it's a question of your own life?" said Orvar.

"No, not even then," said Jonathan.

Orvar couldn't understand that, and neither could Mathias.

"If everyone were like you," said Orvar, "then evil would reign forever."

But then I said that if everyone were like Jonathan, there wouldn't be any evil. (p. 165)

I first read Astrid Lindgren's The Brothers Lionheart back in May 2007, after being urged to do so.  Over five years later, again urged by Dunja to read it (and this time review it), I am finally recording my thoughts on this remarkable YA novel.  It's strange to think that over five years had passed between initial reading and re-reading; it seemed like it was at most two years, as I vividly recalled the story.  The Brothers Lionheart is a poignant story, a bit darker than the juvenile fare that I read when I was 8-12 years old (with one notable exception; I do plan on discussing some of these preteen reads in later review essays).  I think the younger me would have dreamed just as much as the adult me did in both 2007 and today; he perhaps wouldn't be quite as pensive, however.  There is a lot going on under the surface that will move most who stop and consider.

The story revolves around the very close fraternal bond between the handsome, athletic Jonathan and his chronically ill younger brother Karl Lion (nicknamed Rusky by Jonathan after his favorite pastry).  Rusky is on the verge of dying (it isn't spelled out, but from the coughing spells, it is likely tuberculosis)  and Jonathan entertains him with tales of the magical land of Nangiyala, where after death Rusky can find fun and adventure and not have to endure more physical pain.  Tragically, two months before Rusky's eventual succumbing to his illness, Jonathan perishes in a house fire, dying to save his younger brother.  Yet this death (followed afterward by Rusky's, the night after he leaves a farewell note to his mother) leads to their reunion in Nangiyala, which appears to be based on medieval Swedish sagas in terms of environment and the people they meet.

Yet this saga contains an evil enemy, Tengil.  When the brothers, now rechristened Lionheart (in part a play off of their original surnames, in part a reference to their wholesome natures), travel the valleys of Nangiyala, they discover that Tengil, with the aid of the fearsome dragon Katla, is threatening to overwhelm the entire realm.  Each brother embarks on daring missions to discover the depths of Tengil's machinations and along the way, important lessons are imparted.

This later comment perhaps may sound like a weary condemnation of juvenile literature that focuses on "messages" at the expense of imaginative storytelling.  This is far from the case here.  The two brothers, Jonathan in particular, are noble not because the plot calls for them to be, but because each embodies such a perfect goodness that readers, even jaded, cynical adult readers such as myself, may find themselves relating to the characters at the level of them being the idealizations of ourselves.  They do battle evil, but not with violence.  Jonathan is an avatar, akin to a Jesus or a Gandhi, that does not enact violence against evil, but instead overcomes through pacifistic resistance.  Too often, whether it is in children's lit or in adult novels, violence is employed to combat violence; the difference being merely a matter of degree and intent.  Lindgren's use of Jonathan as the whitest of white characters could have faltered in many respects:  he could have been too distant, too sketchy, not enough childlike in his persona.  Yet he is not just a "perfect" character but one who is sympathetic to us because he inspires us to reflect back upon the times that we have loved our brethren, biological and friendship-based alike.

Lindgren's narrative is short, sharp, and rarely over-indulgent.  Nangiyala is described in some detail, but with enough fuzziness that readers across the globe can imagine the characters and setting within their own cultural milieu.  There are interesting plot twists, such as traitors and even a few cliffhangers.  It is hard to stop at the end of a single chapter; there is something looming just on the next page that drives readers to read this 180+ page novel in as few sittings as possible.  Lindgren's characters, children and adults alike, feel "alive"; we can grasp their motivations and with the exception of the main enemies, there are nuances to each character. 

The only questionable elements I noticed in The Brothers Lionheart relate to parents and death.  In the two Lindgren novels that I've read (the other being Pippi Longstocking), parents are virtually absent, either through death, disappearance, or seeming benign neglect.  Perhaps this is done to highlight the resourcefulness and resiliency of Lindgren's youthful protagonists, but it was something that bears noting.  Also, although it did not bother me per se, it was odd to see death being used as a way out of Rusky's illness and, toward the conclusion, what happened to one of the brothers.  Perhaps for some that would lead to some awkward questions regarding the preference for death (or even suicide) to continued suffering, but in light of the entire narrative, it merely is something that is subservient to the main themes of the novel, those surrounding nobility of spirit, agape love, pacifistic resistance of evil, and overcoming life's obstacles.

Next month, I will be an uncle for the first time.  I could see, eight or nine years down the road, giving my niece a copy of The Brothers Lionheart.  There is a timelessness about it that I think will continue to resonate with children born over 40 years after its initial 1973 release.