The Ruby Key by Holly Lisle

- First an aside - I haven't reviewed in a great while. I may post on some reasons why but I haven't decided yet. We'll see how this goes. I'll try to be more conscious of editing now and in the future (mostly because I'm embarrassed at all the typos already in the blog)-

I came across this book in a rather strange fashion. I was looking at a Collectible Card Game specifically for the art. I ran across an artist I really liked, went to his website, saw that he had done a cover for a juvenile fiction book that had just come out and decided to read it. Yes, I picked up a book purely based on cover art. I had no expectations.

It was good. It was quite good. It's the first of a series (DAMMIT). It's high fantasy. If I had to super simplify it I would say it's a book about Fairies and humans, but not exactly, and it's the not exactly that makes it stand out and makes it original and worth reading. So let me quote:

Mankind is Sunkind
And rules by the Light;
Nightlings are Moonkind,
And rule in the Night;
Or there will be War.

That was enough to hook me. Thirty pages in and the author had the world built, the main characters (brother and sister) established, and the Dilemma well moving (Mother is ill, and Uncle wants us dead, HOLY MOLEY the reason). It was fast paced without feeling rushed. You were pulled along with the characters who were forced to be More Than Children, but struggled with it in believable ways.

I could say it was a familair fantasy formula, and to certain degrees it was, but that did not detract from it at all. The construction of it was orginal and there were enough twists and uncertainties that it was never truly predictable. I was prepared for the resolution to come along certain lines, but there were enough variables that I never really knew how it was going to end.

It's definately worth reading for fantasy fans. I'm seeing it shelved as Young Adult, though I am referring to it as Juvenile, so it's probably an inbetweener - for reference I would say younger than Sabriel, older than The Dark Is Rising, just as dark as both.

Memorable quote:

"...and somewhere in the Great Book of Common Sense, which I clearly have never read..."

Other things:
The book is printed in purple type. I have no idea why.
There is a talking cat. It's forgivable.
This books has hands down the best "negotiate with a fairy(-like immortal)" I have ever read. This is usually a big pet peeve of mine that interferes with my enjoyment of a story, but this author handled it beautifully and how I would expect characters to act knowing how untrustworthy these creatures are.

I'm Not Sure Why Leila Hasn't Posted About This

But, OH MY GOD she got mentioned in School Library Journal! That's so cool! Congratulations! Is this a congratulatory thing? I have no idea, but it's really cool!

A few other folks that are familair also got mentioned so congrats to them as well, but I'm really excited for Leila, because I know her and she got mentioned in a magazine so I'm not only excited for her that she got mentioned, I'm excited that I know someone who got mentioned in a magazine. Hmmm, yeah, I'll stop babbling now.

Now I can send her the cool book I found as a "congrats gift" rather than a kind of weird "I saw this and you HAD to have it gift".

I promise I'll get to the post office soon.

Now, I'm Pissed

OK, I haven't been reviewing lately. I haven't really read much that has made me stand up and go "WOW" (well, maybe one or two things) or anything that has pissed me off enough to throw it across the room...

Until now.

I've been slogging through a lot, and I mean A LOT of the paranormal chic books. You know the ones I'm talking about. The vamp bounty hunter books, the shifter books, the basically "Well Laurell K and Buffy are so popular, let's publish all these others and see if we can get rich" books. I got to the point where some one would mention on of these series and I couldn't remember if I read them or not, so I'm basically in the process of making a road map of them.

So, here I am, recovering from a migraine, reading my newest random pick, Mona Lisa Awakening by Sunny (yeah, yeah, the singular author name really should have been a clue). It got decent reviews in Romatic Times and is PLASTERED with "if you like Laurell K and Anne Bishop you'll love this". Not that this is huge praise these days. Just about every paranormal book with a female main character now is marketed as "if you like Laurell you love" but I like Anne Bishop and most folks don't pay much attention to her.

So, what do I find? A book that is based up on the concept of another race/species separate from human (I won't even get into that they're from the moon) that centers on males serving Queens. Gosh, that sounds so much like my favorite series The Black Jewels, but I'll read a bit more, and reserve judgement. Turns out, the main character is a Queen and gee, also a healer. Wow, that sounds just like the main character from Black Jewels. And we meet another Queen named Janelle, who is the chief healer of these "mooninites". Alright, Janelle is sort of a popular fantasy name, I won't call foul just yet despite the fact THAT'S THE NAME OF THE MAIN CHARACTER IN THE BLACK JEWELS. And then we meet and very random side character named Tersa. Tersa? Not a common name at all. As a matter of fact I've only seen that name one other place. AS A VERY IMPORTANT CHARACTER IN BLACK JEWELS.

OH MY FUCKING GOD I'M READING FAN FICTION.

From Mona Lisa:

"We are drawn to Queens," Amber replied. "It is our nature to desire to serve you, protect you. We require your warmth, you presence, as much as you require our strength. She is the Queen I have dreamt all my life of serving."

From various passages in The Black Jewels Trilogy:

"Just once, I'd like to serve a Queen I could respect, someone I could truly believe in. A strong Queen who wouldn't fear my strength. A Queen I could also call a friend."

"For Blood males, the First Law is to honor, cherish and protect. The second is to serve. The third is to obey."

Jaenelle is referred to often as "Dreams Made Flesh" in The Black Jewels Trilogy.

So basically, we have the same social concept (not the same world or story because Mona Lisa takes place in our modern day world and the Black Jewels takes place in its own original fantasy world) , but Bishop writes far better.

And the dedications page finally got me:

"And special thanks to Laurell K. Hamilton and Anne Bishop, whose wonderful stories inspired my Monere Children of the Moon series."

Just because you thank someone, doesn't make it OK to steal their work. Fans of Laurell and Anne will not like this because they don't want the same story they've come to love stolen and poorly rewritten (That's why so many fans of LKH have already stopped buying her work.).

I can't believe this got published. It's nothing more than concepts, names, ideas and almost full phrases cobbled together from various LKH and Bishop work to make a very poorly written attempt at semi-erotica paranormal fiction. I say semi because it's chock full of queasy sex scenes, that can't decide if they want to be graphic/raunchy or romantic-euphemized and numerous near rapes. Just what I love in my erotica.

Edited to address severe flaws:

1. The Monere (mooninites) have been living on earth for 4 millenia, yet they have neither integrated themselves with humans, nor seem to know anything about them. One of the 150 year olds didn't know what cheese was.
2. They derive no joy or pleasure from mating with humans yet there are enough Mixed Bloods running around to require Queens to keep midwives on hand to dump unwanted mixed offspring off at local orphanges. And if therey're working in the damn sex industry, birth control anyone?
3. The Queens are TERRIFIED at the idea of one of their males going rogue and raping them, yet they seem to encourage that behavior in their society. There is no law against raping a Mixed Blood (they keep them around as servants) and folks just stand around and watch. Also atleast two of the Queens encouraged their males to rape other woman.
4. Halcyon, the demon dead High Prince of Hell. HE MAKES NO DAMN SENSE IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS BOOK. He only makes sense in the context of concepts swiped from the Black Jewels books, where the demon dead were explained and made sense and the High Lord of Hell, Saetan, played a main roll. Oh, and by the way, the physcal descriptions almost match.

EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW

I could be blogging about books I've been reading, like I should be. I could be blogging about our upcoming move. I could even be going on and on about my level 60 troll rogue.

But no.

Instead I am writing about a sequel to THIS.

Yes! It's finding gross horrible bugs in my food Part Two!

Pizza. Three pieces in. Cockroach.

The Classics Rant

This is in response to something over at Leila's blog. I just wanted a copy of it here in case I needed to find it again later.

I appreciate that you folks had good experiences and good teachers while learning the classics but I however did not, and I suspect that the article's author is speaking from an experience similiar to mine, or has a child with a similiar experience. I still have a knee-jerk reaction whenever someone tells me a book is a classic.

Tenth Grade: We had a book report due every two weeks. We had a list of classics to choose from expressly for these book reports. I remember maybe four books. That's 9 months of school, 2 books a month (vacation was not an excuse) and I remember maybe 4? We never talked about any of those selections. Also we read, as a class, 1984 and Juius Caesar. When we weren't handing in rough drafts of book reports, getting quizzed on vocab, or diagraming sentences, we were MEMORIZING passages from the classics being read as a class. That's two weeks at a time dedicated to 30 14-15 year olds getting up in front of the class and reciting Mark Antony's speech, which after the second stuttering rendition loses all meaning.

Eleventh Grade: American literature year in Shrewsbury. I remember reading Grapes of Wrath and Moby Dick. We never discussed the Great Depression or how it occured or the ramifications of it. We were quizzed. We were spoon fed that Moby Dick was a story about revenge, and were not allowed to come to any conclusions about it ourselves.

Twelfth Grade: Oh, this one was my favorite. I had one of the best teachers, by reputation, in the school. I was taking AP english. I thought we'd be reading and discussing, finally, because wouldn't that be what a college course did? I was disappointed. We had quizzes 3-4 times a week, on what we should have read the night before. Mind you this does NOT include the constant that was the Friday vocab quiz. When we were't being qizzed, we were writing timed practice AP test essays about the diction or the syntax of our classics. So when did we have time to discuss these rather thickly written books (eg. Crime and Punishment)? We didn't. It seemed to be enough that we could name the characters on the quizzes.

In summary, I went to Art School not so much becasue I wanted to be an artist, but because I was sick of "reading" classics and being forced to regurgitate names and places and essays on the successful diction. Despite my love of reading I never wanted to have to read classics ever again. My high school experience almost killed my desire to read. I can't imagine what it did to those folks who already didn't like reading. So while, yes, there are ways to teach them well, for many it is not the norm. I share the author's opinion. If you can't teach classics well, don't teach them. Teach kids to love reading. Don't teach them that some books are more worth reading than others because of a label. Just let them read.

Heavy Metal and You - Christopher Krovatin

I didn't think this book was going where it went and then it did, so I was kind of disappointed.

What that all means:

Heavy Metal Kid, Sam, starts dating preppy girl, Melissa. Personality wise, these two have no business dating, but they really seem to like each other and get along. Actually Sam is truly jazzed and excited in such an adorable way (this is how I know I'm old, I think teen boy in love is adorable - in a kitten eep kind of way) that this is what made me think the plot wasn't going to be reminiscent of a John Hughes movie, two incompatable people get together and are pushed apart by their different philosphies/life circumstances/asshole friends and then find some how to be togther anyway. This isn't really where the story went, but I was still just a little dissapointed.

Now that that's out of the way, umm, I thought the book was adorable, and I'm sure the author would be thrilled to hear me describe it that way. I finally understand what ya'll are talking about when you say 'literary crush'. I loved Sam. I'm willing to forgive the Holden thing, because his mix CDs were right on target, and his story pauses and rants were great. I was so pissed at Melissa for here reaction to the club incident. I thought what he did was awesome. I was happy where the book went in the end, and how in went there, though I will admit I was worried for a while.

It was good. Read it.

Leila's review.

Which Brings Me to You - Steve Almond and Julianna Baggot

I'm not sure what to do with this one. This falls into the category of something I never would have picked up on my own but since Leila suggested it, I'd give it a try. The premise sounded interesting, two sort of fringe people meet up at a wedding and in lieu of a sexual encounter in the coat closet they decide to step back, and write each other letters (real writing on paper) of personal truths. It was not going to be a courtship through correspondences, it was going to be an exercise in confessions. Ok, still with it.

So what I expected was truths: silly beliefs, philosophies, what shapes a person, and how they came to them. Instead, what I got was a catologue of failed relationships. The first teen age relationships are cute and touching and those always fail and you feel for the characters. But when these same characters are in there late 20's and the relationships are still failing because of personal sabotages, poor descisions, and general ennui with life, it goes from funny to tedious, and just a little pathetic. Was I suppose to feel this? I'm really not sure.

Now saying all that, the writing was fantastic. The authors fall away and you do believe in the reality of Jane and John. Enmeshed into the, what I felt, sad storyline were these fantastic bits of imagery or descriptions that make me want to go read more of both these authors books, as long as they have nothing to do with relationships.

On the Violent Femmes:

I became an insufferable fan. I must have listened to the first album a thousand times, those dark, catchy anthems of the yodeling unlaid, the gospel music of the anguished suburban white boy.

On self knowledge:

Sometimes I would hold onto a simple object-a salt shaker, and aspirin bottle-and I'd envy how it knew its place, its role, its function. It's unbearable now to think how impressed I could be by the pleasurable self-knowledge of a light switch.

I loved the crafting of the language and the descriptions. I just could not take the failed relationship after failed realtionship and the self-absorbed psychoanalysis of the characters throughout each one. So I don't know what to do with this one. I couldn't stand the story, but I post-noted up huge amounts of the books because I loved the language.

Dearly Devoted Dexter - Jeff Lindsay

OK this is the second time I've tried to sit down and review this book. I've figured out that I can't talk about this one without talking a bit about the first one, Darkly Dreaming Dexter. and maybe I can't even do that, because what I want to discuss will contain spoilers. So, damn it I'm back where I started.

I guess then I'll try to speak in generalities. First book: Loved it. I almost never go for mysteries or mystery thrillers. I don't know why, I just have never had the patience. I do not like based-on-reality gore/violence. Reading about serial killers and how they torture a victim, so far down on my list of what is OK to read as to be invisible. But Dexter is a different kind of serial killer. He's been "squared away" and sorted out by his foster father, who understood Dexter's brokenness and pointed it in a direction. Dexter goes after other serial killers, mostly those who prey on children. He is a force of vengence, and I'm strangely comfortable with that. What Dexter does is still just as horrific, and he is just as inhuman. Much of the book revolves around Dexter's mask of humanity, his attempt to blend in, which provides for quite the humorous observations and made Dexter a very likable character. I also found it rather hilarious that much of Darkly revolved around Dexter trying to figure out if he was crazy or not (well of course he is as he concedes, but is he 'that' kind of crazy).

Second book: Like it, but did not love it. It was very 'sitcom". We see less of Dexter the predator, who I had come to love, and we see more of Dexter the trying to play at human, albeit through very legitimate plot devices. The "girlfriend finding the ring and assuming it's a proposal" scene was a little much for me. I also still take issue with how the first book ended and there being not the fall out from it that I would have expected (this is where I have to be vague to avoid major spoilers). The ending to this one was also just a little too neat wrapped up in a nice little package. Perhaps I'm being too picky. I still enjoyed the book and really hope we will see more Dexter books in the near future.

Some quotes that were just plain priceless and why these books are so fun to read. I like Dexter's voice, and I enjoy that while on the surface he tries to blend in, but in his own head he just doesn't get it and has no capacity to care that he doesn't get it.

From Darkly:

"What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconscious pit and came out on the other side ready to eat cereal instead of the neighbor's children?"

From Dearly:

"I found that if I limited myself to one or two beers, I could relax just enough to blend in with the slipcover on the couch."

"I knew nothing at all about love and I never would. It didn't seem like such a terrible lack to me, although it does make it difficult to understand popular music."

And for more info, Leila's reviews of Darkly and Dearly.