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| 0345252594
| 9780345252593
| 0345252594
| 0.00
| 0
| 1979
| Jan 01, 1979
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None
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Notes are private!
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0
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not set
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not set
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Jun 11, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0671811312
| 9780671811310
| 0671811312
| 3.79
| 14
| Nov 01, 1978
| Nov 01, 1978
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it was amazing
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[I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] Ngl, I picked up Double Mobius S [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] Ngl, I picked up Double Mobius Sphere because it was on the shorter side; I was looking for an easy win. I'm not sure why I thought a book titled Double Mobius Sphere would be easy. Mobius spheres are inherently Hard Math™. Double that and things get brain-melty. But before we get there, the premise: Aliens as we know them, little greenish beings transported by flying saucers, are real, and everything you've seen on Ancient Aliens is true. Thus, aliens—known as Capacians throughout Double Mobius Sphere—must be an elder species of untold wisdom and knowledge. The setting is several centuries from now, in a federation of most of the lesser sentient species, such as humans. Several years prior, they received direct communication from the Capacians in the form of a coded message. It's proven uncrackable, but it must mean, or signify, or catalyze, something. So this federation sends one of their finest starships, captained by Daniel Oberon and staffed by their very best and brightest, on a multi-year mission to reach the outer rim of the known universe. Here they hope to find the Capacians, and with them, answers to humanity's biggest questions like "why" and "what" and "who." Finding the Capacians and documenting all he can is not Captain Oberon's most significant task, however. First and foremost, he must keep Elijah Brandon safe. Elijah is seven years old. He cries when he misses his parents. He slacks off at his school work. He doodles and goes swimming, and loves to play pranks on his caretaker. He's also a genius on a scale impossible to register. The federation has big plans for him; what exactly they are is unknown. Not in a nefarious way, but more in a "he's seven, let's see how things go and find a place for him to shine" sort of way. And "seeing how things go" includes tagging along on this momentous occasion to soak up the knowledge of the unrivaled crew as well as the unique experience of charging into the unknown. Maybe his genius will even make sense of the Capacians. This voyage to the outer rim takes years. Oberon doesn't seek to uncover that Elijah is far more than what he appears to be. It just comes out, piece by piece, as the doctor performs routine checkups, and crew members make passing comments, and Elijah prattles off stuff that, to him, feels innocuous. But as Oberon begins to understand all that he doesn't understand about Elijah, he has to wonder, is this extraordinary child to humanity's benefit or detriment? First up, I liked Double Mobius Sphere, but it's a little bit difficult to talk about. This is because, in addition to its mathiness, there's very little ... fluff. Fluff sounds bad, and sometimes it can be. It can also be those small moments and asides that give the reader time to feel connected to the story-telling or characters but technically don't need to exist for the plot. They are little pockets of fresh air that give you time to breathe. They simply aren't done here, and that's fine. Double Mobius Sphere is dense, and I doubt P.S. Nim felt particularly strongly about immersion in the world. Ideas are the primary driving force, and these ideas are astronomical, mathematical, philosophical, and, to a lesser extent, anthropological and psychological. Authentic 1970s questions like "how do we know anything?" are trotted out and debated with sincerity alongside quick-ish summaries of how Einstein's work laid a path for subsequent scientists to discover lightspeed travel. While ideas are the novel's primary goal, paired with Oberon's questions about Elijah, they roll up into a pretty decent mystery. It hit the right beats of questions being answered only to open up more questions, and small reveals stopping you dead in your tracks. Adding a small human element to the philosophical and psychological is Oberon. His primary task is to keep Elijah safe and find the Capacians, in that order. But as new information comes to light, too far from command for contact, Oberon must make his own decisions, with consequences he can't begin to understand. All of this works for me, and the characters are perfectly within reason. Elijah could be obnoxious; he's not. The captain feels well-rounded and his less-captain-y insides are drawn out by the ship’s doctor, a good friend of his and a respectable character in his own right. Elijah’s primary caretaker is incredibly sympathetic. There's even a mysterious, intelligent, badass woman that, for some reason, reminds me of The Melaklos from The Panorama Egg fame. The story-telling feels tidy and efficient. If you walk into this expecting an idea book—and a math/science/philosophy heavy one at that—there is so much to like here. It's the sort of book where I wanted to discuss it with someone as soon as I finished it. As it has ten ratings and no reviews here on Goodreads, that might not be easy to accomplish. Regardless, it's that good, even if it's far from what I was expecting. I'm slightly torn about the ending but unsure if I'm being fair or not. I will not give away any significant spoilers, as I feel this book is worth reading, but I have some high-level comments to make after the jump that hint at the ending's theme / tone / etc. My rating wavers between a 4 and a five depending on how generous I feel about the ending at the moment, but I'm going to round up. (view spoiler)[ Okay, so the ending is a little vague and several (many) questions are pointedly not answered. On the one hand, I kinda get it. It plays into humanity's lesser role in the universe and the general theme of "how much can we know?" On the other hand, as mentioned, much of this book reads like a mystery, and psychologically I'm primed to expect something concrete before I reach the back cover of a mystery. I don't need to know everything, but at least one big reveal helps a lot. We get small reveals along the way, leading to more questions, but there's nothing too big waiting for us when they run out of questions. There's a, imho, surprisingly touching denouement, and the scene cuts. I want more. But at the same time, the fact that this hardcore scientific/philosophical book ends on such a human note seems deliberate. Like maybe the answer isn't in the knowing; it's in our relationships with each other. (hide spoiler)] Cover art by unknown, but P.S. Nim is a cover artist, so maybe she worked on her own book? ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 09, 2021
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Mar 14, 2021
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Feb 07, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0441068804
| 9780441068807
| 0441068804
| 4.21
| 61,648
| Oct 01, 1982
| Mar 1987
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really liked it
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Harry is a young woman sent to live on the desert frontier with her only living relative. She’s low-key discontent, insecure, and strangely drawn both
Harry is a young woman sent to live on the desert frontier with her only living relative. She’s low-key discontent, insecure, and strangely drawn both to the inhospitable landscape and its secretive, magical Hillfolk. The king of the Hillfolk, Corlath, is simultaneously drawn to Harry—there’s something about her that is not what it seems. Something important … even if she is an Outlander. The Blue Sword, for all its trains and guns and desert frontier entirely devoid of dragons, is a classic fantasy novel, and thus it comes with all the classical fantasy baggage. It stands out from the pack, however, in the nuance with which Harry is painted and her unusual—for a fantasy heroine, anyway—demeanor. An enjoyment of languid storytelling is important, as is a willingness to excuse a weak plot. That’s not what matters here. Harry does. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See a full length review at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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May 15, 2020
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Dec 12, 2019
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0586204822
| 9780586204825
| 0586204822
| 3.80
| 972
| Nov 01, 1982
| 1989
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it was ok
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While technically well written, constant (contrived) tension-mounting, poor pacing, and poorly developed characters make Sorcerer’s Legacy a tedious r
While technically well written, constant (contrived) tension-mounting, poor pacing, and poorly developed characters make Sorcerer’s Legacy a tedious read. The rushed and infuriating climax—paired with a ‘happily ever after tone’—only makes it worse. While it pains me to say it, there’s nothing I can recommend in this novel. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See a full length review at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 23, 2020
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Jun 02, 2020
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May 08, 2019
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Paperback
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| 0812554116
| 9780812554113
| 0812554116
| 3.33
| 33
| 1988
| Jan 01, 1990
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did not like it
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Alas, another book I’m shelving without finishing. I was excited about Silk Roads and Shadows, too. I have a particular soft-spot in my heart for quest Alas, another book I’m shelving without finishing. I was excited about Silk Roads and Shadows, too. I have a particular soft-spot in my heart for quest / travel novels of the fantastical persuasion, and the low-key premise of Silk Roads and Shadows leaves so much room for characterization and world exploration: Alexandra, princess of the Byzantine Empire, opts to take the long, dangerous hike to China to try to steal some silkworms to replenish Byzantine’s dying stock rather than be married off to some random royal. I knew I was in trouble almost immediately. The prologue starts off in a close third-person POV, where a royal cousin is trying to talk to the king but rebuffed by an upstart underling. Then the story races forward in what almost feels like a montage. He helps the princess Alexandra escape from a royal convent turned to black magic. More surprisingly, she has reason to suspect this black magic has been to the detriment of the king and his son. They rush back and uncover that indeed the head of the convent was trying to usurp power via witchcraft, and break the spell. The prologue ends with the royal cousin and Alexandra standing with the emperor after the traitors are publicly executed, and they talk about the future. That 13-page prologue could have been a novel on its own. Knowing that prologues are often the weakest part of a book, I pushed on ahead—into more of the same. Everything moves quicker than is reasonable. Danger appears out of nowhere, mounts, collapses, and is dealt with before you have much of a chance to fear for a character’s safety. Characters die before you have an opportunity to get to know them. A character’s long-held beliefs are put on display the exact moment they’re discarded, meaning that you feel none of the agony of questioning long-held convictions. This is compounded by the way time and movement is handled. You know how in a dream, often-times one second you’re someplace common and banal like a grocery store and the next you’re someplace like a tree-house? The transition somehow exists in the dream, but it’s not really clear how you got there or how long it took? Well, that’s how Silk Roads and Shadows rolls. I made it 50 pages in and I’m not sure if a few days or a few months have passed. At one point a character is having an out-of-body experience and I thought she was literally floating around looking at shit until the writing explicitly stated it was a dream. Unfortunately, those aren’t the only problems I struggled with. Silk Roads and Shadows takes place in a heavily fictionalized historical setting and we’re watching through Alexandra’s point of view. The problem here is that Alexandra knows a lot more about geography, religion, geopolitical posturing, and social expectations than we do. Most books would get around this by having someone on hand for Alexandra to talk to who is closer to our understanding of this world so there’s a logical reason for these gaps to be filled in. Alexandra even has an outsider she could talk to—but she doesn’t. I’m not sure if the author thinks we all learned more in our collective history classes than we did or if the author doesn’t realize that there are important pieces of information seemingly completely absent. It doesn’t really matter either way. All of the places where Alexandra jumps to a conclusion that I didn’t understand put a little more distance between me and the story. So, I’ve bagged on plotting, pacing, and relaying information to the reader. I have another complaint: just plain bad writing. Take, for example, a character swept off a mountain pass by an avalanche. He somehow survives and hikes into a valley to seek help. An unknown amount of time later (so frustrating) he stumbles across a horn on the ground and bends over to pick it up. When he puts it to his mouth to blow on it, though, his chest twinges with pain and he realizes that he broke some ribs in the avalanche. I’ll give him the first few minutes of clawing out of the snow—adrenaline and endorphins and whatnot would dull the senses—but he hikes for a good (if unknown) amount of time then bends over to pick something up. If his ribs were broken he should have noticed before he blew on a trumpet. Another example is strictly technical: “My horses!” Alexandra cried, and ran forward to take the bridle of the first one. Not all of them. That would have been too much to expect. It helps to know that she lost her horses an unknown amount of time ago. Even with that in mind, though, I read this and for a second thought “she grabbed the bridle of one of the horses but not the others. Is that important?” before the next sentence made me realize that “Not all of them” was meant to apply to “My horses!” not her grabbing of bridles. Am I picky? Undeniably so. I don’t think I’m unfair, though. Take, for example, The Wizard’s Shadow . It was a book with plenty of flaws, including poor technical writing (on occasion) and un-ideal plotting. The difference is that The Wizard’s Shadow worked hard to make me give a shit about the characters and the world. Silk Roads and Shadows didn’t. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 23, 2019
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Aug 22, 2019
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Feb 02, 2019
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Paperback
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| 0553568582
| 9780553568585
| 0553568582
| 3.71
| 159
| 1995
| Jun 01, 1995
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liked it
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[I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] Lethe was recommended to me in t [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] Lethe was recommended to me in the book channel of a "Women in Tech" group. Alas, Slack's scrollback consumed the specifics of the recommendation. I remember it mentioning that Lethe is a fascinating book that you flash back to regularly even though it suffers from several not-insignificant flaws. I would agree with that, though it appears there is a lot of discussion about what, exactly, those flaws are. Some argue that there's just so much going on, and as Sullivan doesn't take the time to spell it out for you, it's hard to find your footing. I didn't struggle with this since we have two protagonists with straightforward problems. Janae is seventeen. She feels disconnected from her twin sister and is growing increasingly concerned about her sister's mental state. She struggles to find meaning outside of work and cope with a world that doesn't feel like it has a place for her. Her coworkers worry about her as she digs deeper—too deep really—into her work. Sure, these problems tie directly in with aquatic-human hybrids, psychic dolphins, monstrous cyclops tribes, disembodied brains interfaced with computers, and a war-ravaged earth both irradiated from nuclear bombs and toxic due to genetic, viral warfare. It's a lot, but it doesn't matter if you don't "get" the cyclopses at first so long as you understand Janae's trepidation surrounding them. It doesn't matter if you "get" the disembodied brains so long as you can feel their power. The rest can trickle out throughout the narrative. Opposite Janae is Daire. Because we need all the sci-fi elements possible in one book, he's fallen through a wormhole/portal of sorts into an idyllic world dominated by one mystical tree. Children populate the land; something strange and terrible happens when they reach adulthood. Daire must come to terms with his new location and try to tease apart its mysteries while he waits for rescue. Perhaps, with his knowledge, he can help these children. Understanding this world is less complicated—Daire is a newcomer, so as he comes to understand things, we do too. That's not to say that everything in Daire's sections are on display; there's still plenty of mystery, it's just the sort you expect. I thought this made for a good balance. Janae's sections felt grander, if more confusing. Daire's sections felt like a break where we got to dig into one thing with more depth. It was good to bounce between them, Janae's vast yet blurry world slowly coming into focus as Daire’s careful focus removes the fog of war on his new world. I also love stories with two strong yet thoroughly separate storylines. They're inevitably going to affect each other, somehow, and I relish watching the author set up that eventual crossover. So I don't mind a vast and somewhat bizarre world teeming with complicated sci-fi magic, and, clearly, the protagonists aren't a problem for me. They aren't larger-than-life and imminently likable or anything, but they are well characterized and easy to follow. They even get a boost from the supporting characters. Janae makes an unlikely friend that elevates much of her section, and Daire connects with the inhabitants of his new world in a way that allows his low-key personality to shine. A+, no real complaints. So where's the problem? Janae has an emotional plot and an intellectual one. The emotional one, involving her sister, is easy to follow, and it's easy to understand Janae's motivations and goals. At least for a while. Then it takes a turn and, as one would expect, Janae's character grows and changes. These changes are significant. Like, trophy-hunter-turns-vegan or person-with-phobia-of-dogs-volunteers-for-dog-rescue level of change, which is fine. The biggest changes are the most fascinating to watch. But there's the rub: we have to watch them change. In Lethe, Janae's change happens over several highly influential months delegated to a few paragraphs of reflection. And when we meet the new Janae, the change is complete. Worse, she's somewhat jaded judgy of people who exhibit behaviors. So this isn't a case of "Janae's volunteering for a dog shelter despite her deep-seated fear of dogs," it's "Janae is so over dogs, they're boring, but she also doesn't think they deserve to be treated poorly, so she's mopping kennels and taking them for walks while sighing and rolling her eyes, especially at people she passes who are clearly afraid of dogs." That huge shift in the emotional plot when months pass between chapters brings with it other problems.Her intellectual plot started straightforward—she wanted to uncover some hidden information—but things get a little loose after the jump. She wants to take this information and do something with it. What? It's kinda unclear. Why? That's definitely unclear. To what end? I'm pretty sure Janae hasn't thought that far ahead. Worse than that, she's putting all of this energy into something dangerous, but she's also pretty passive about the outcome. To continue the weird and imperfect dog-rescue analogy, it's like, "I will get this dog to the shelter ... but I don't care if the shelter is full or if it's been taken over by There's a significant disconnect there that cheapens the stakes. So the plot becomes inscrutable; I lose the specifics of why they're doing what they're doing and am just following along, one brow permanently cocked going "Uhuh. I guess that's something they could do?" while new characters are lobbed into the mix with such frequency that I cannot be bothered to keep them straight or care about them in the slightest. The final problem is there are tons of hints that don't pan out. A character says something enigmatic that hints at a bigger picture ... and we never hear about it again. Janae suspects someone of doing something unusual, then never brings it up, and the moment is forgotten forever. I kept thinking things were building towards a reveal that never came. And that seriously weakened the already kinda-weak ending. It's never good to close a book and go "What? I expected more," even if you did really like the first 250 pages of the novel. And I did really like the first 250 pages of the novel. So I can see what the original recommender meant. The ending doesn't ruin what's good about the novel at all; it simply feels like it doesn't do justice to wrapping things up. And since nothing is specifically ruined for me, my brain lingers on the parts that I did like, the parts where Janae struggled with her troubled world or where Daire came a little bit closer to understanding something mysterious. Apparently, this is Sullivan's first novel, and I've seen it said by others that they're glad they read her other works first. I find this exciting; Lethe might have been overly ambitious, but Sullivan's talent is apparent. I'm looking forward to revisiting her writing. All-in-all, a good recommendation, and one I’m glad to have read despite its flaws. *Please indulge me this, my one conspiracy theory: I’m pretty sure PETA is an organization created and run by the meat industry that just hires the most out-there vegans they can find to be the face of the organization and run horrible campaigns that’ll piss everyone off just to make vegans and people down with animals’ rights look like idiots and psychopaths. Seriously. What organization supposedly dedicated to improving the lives of animals would actively campaign against a measure to improve living conditions for factory cows? Because PETA did the meat industry a real solid by doing just that. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 02, 2021
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May 09, 2021
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Feb 02, 2019
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Paperback
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| 0380710153
| 9780380710157
| 0380710153
| 3.31
| 187
| Jan 01, 1990
| Jan 01, 1991
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None
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Notes are private!
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0
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not set
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not set
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Feb 02, 2019
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Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0812544730
| 9780812544732
| 0812544730
| 3.57
| 152
| Jan 15, 1996
| Jan 01, 1997
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Feb 02, 2019
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Paperback
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| 0441117112
| 9780441117116
| 0441117112
| 3.69
| 68
| Apr 01, 1989
| Apr 01, 1989
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it was ok
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An enjoyable if confusing yet somehow still ordinary tale somehow loses all of its charm and introduces some seriously messed up plot points in a sudd
An enjoyable if confusing yet somehow still ordinary tale somehow loses all of its charm and introduces some seriously messed up plot points in a sudden and mad-dash attempt to avert a similarly sudden end-of-the-world plot line. Also, I’m still very, very confused about almost everything that happened. Can’t recommend even though I did very much like the first third of it. Trigger warnings for rape and other sordid topics. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See a full-length review at Forgotten Female Fantasy] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 06, 2019
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Jul 14, 2020
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Dec 27, 2018
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0812558529
| 9780812558524
| 0812558529
| 3.17
| 78
| Apr 1980
| Jan 15, 1988
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None
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Notes are private!
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0
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not set
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not set
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Dec 27, 2018
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Mass Market Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0345380975
| 9780345380975
| 0345380975
| 3.87
| 1,373
| Mar 02, 1994
| Mar 02, 1994
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None
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Notes are private!
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0
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not set
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not set
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Dec 27, 2018
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Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0345911709
| 9780345911704
| 0345911709
| 4.06
| 3,311
| Jan 01, 1983
| Jan 01, 1997
|
liked it
|
Frankly, I was on the lower-end of lukewarm about the predecessor to The Walls of Air—
The Time of the Dark
—for several reasons: The Dark are too on Frankly, I was on the lower-end of lukewarm about the predecessor to The Walls of Air— The Time of the Dark —for several reasons: The Dark are too one-dimensionally evil/powerful. There’s little intrigue to be had in watching humanity hopeless run for their lives. Rudy’s sudden need to love and calling to magic felt hollow. Gil’s stolid selflessness and willingness to sign away free-will to join the guard felt unrealistic and disingenuous to her character. Still, I kept reading, mostly because I knew that Barbara Hambly was better than The Time of the Dark. There was potential for things to pick up. And in some ways, the story did pick up. In others, though, it got so much worse. Rudy and Ingold set off on a nigh-impossible quest to reach the wizards at Quo who have—for unknown reasons—completely isolated themselves. To accomplish this specious task, Ingold and Rudy must walk 1500 miles through the churning apocalypse which, I feel the need to remind you, includes the Dark, a much higher likelihood of bandits due to the ruin of civilization, climate change, and enemy tribes being displaced directly into their path because of all of the above. Also, at the end of their journey is a magical maze of illusion that could be deadly. As much as Ingold carried The Time of the Dark, I largely disliked this quest for one reason: Rudy. I still don’t buy him. He’s still too perfectly the aloof almost-bad-boy with a sensitive heart of gold just looking for meaning and love. And his lack of set-up continues to undermine my ability to take him seriously. You know what it is? He took on both magic and Alde so effortlessly and thoughtlessly that it feels like a fad. Any day now he’ll grow bored and wander off. Also, he’s a coward. Him constantly hanging back and letting Ingold take on every single bad thing that came their way may be realistic, but it isn’t a good look. It also, imho, leads to subpar pacing. Fight sequences need to be quick. With Rudy standing off watching but not particularly getting involved, he has plenty of time to narrate blow-by-blow action. Sometimes a scuffle lasts pages. Especially when it’s mostly sword-play, it gets boring real quick. Throughout the quest there are pops of excitement that had me eagerly turning pages. I liked everything about the White Raiders, for example, but most of it was them walking, getting lost, or Rudy watching Ingold fight something. Back at the keep, Gil and Alde are exploring both the structure itself and countless old tomes on loan from the church. They seek some bit of knowledge to give them any hope against the Dark. This is slightly more interesting, but also contains some of the most irksome incongruities The Walls of Air has to offer. For example: More refugees arrive. They’re initially turned away because there’s no room, but then Alde throws her weight around to gain them admittance. To make room, they move all the food into hastily-constructed structures built outside the keep. Outside, where no guard will patrol after twilight or before dawn because of fear of the Dark. Outside, where a freak ice-storm, a falling tree, a mammoth, or any number of other accidents might jeopardize the structure and expose their meager food supplies to scavengers and the elements. Outside, where starving people driven to desperation would absolutely take a crack at stealing some food despite the threat of the Dark. Outside, where the Dark, who are said to have their own alien intelligence, gather at night and try to destroy the denizens of the keep. As it’s been said that they learn and grow more sophisticated in their behavior, is it that much of a stretch for them to realize the easiest way to destroy the people is to destroy the grain? Seriously. The keep is running desperately low on food and Alwir and Alde fear they’ll face starvation come spring. Why are they gambling on where they store their food? Surely there’s some way to keep it inside. I struggled on this for days. I eventually had to force myself to either move on or quit reading. I moved on, and GIl and Alde pick up their exploration of the keep. Mapping the floors is slow and tedious because the rooms are built all slapdash and often empty or simply piled high with old, rotting furniture, making it hard to gauge—wait. Huge areas are empty? Then why the fuck was the food moved outside? I wanted to quit almost as badly as I wanted to understand why or how this obvious incongruity made it into the book. I kept reading and eventually figured out the answer: two subplots that fill in for the lack of an engaging overarching plot involve folks sneaking outside before the gates are closed to get a whack at the food while it’s unguarded. Which proves my point: banking on fear of the Dark to keep people away from the food stores at night is unbelievably naive and foolish. Considering how shrewd Alwir is about maintaining power, and how suspicious Gil is, and how intuitive Alde is … realistically someone would have realized this would be a problem. While that is the least-spoilery and simultaneously most egregious example, The Walls of Air is filled with these contrived story-telling conveniences. It is frustrating. So, if I barely finished The Time of the Dark, and only did so because of Ingold, and Ingold’s ability to shine is now hampered by Rudy’s blandness, then why did I finish The Walls of Air? About the time that I was railing against their storing food outside, Rudy and Ingold start to explore the concept of the Dark a little more. Likewise, Gil and Minalde are unearthing some of the keep’s secrets. While the villain of the piece is still several times too powerful, at least now my curiosity might get some satisfaction. Because I am curious. Why do the Dark slumber for millennia between terrorizing the earth? How was the keep built? Does any of this connect back to our earth? I want to know. It also helps that Gil and Minalde come into better focus. Gil is still strangely dedicated to risking life and limb in the guard, but she’s also not doing outlandish things like volunteering to carry heavy loads of food out of a Dark-infested basement the day after she gets sucked through the portal, so that helps. Her past life as a scholar comes back to her, as well, and this clearly central part of her character affecting how she behaves feels right. Minalde also shines in her own way as a selfless queen whose biggest flaw is an inability to stand up for herself. It’s a personality pairing that makes a lot of sense and, honestly, it feels too real. Unlike bullshit like Wizenbeak where the evil queen keeps the throne at the expense of the kingdom, I feel like Minalde’s circumstance is much, much more common: a woman who could have all the power she wanted reduced due to her inability to stand up to those close to her. And Ingold, though I wouldn’t say he shines on his quest, well, at least nothing ruins him for me. So I have four characters I’m invested in and a handful of questions I’d like answers to. I’m actually in a better spot than I was at the end of The Time of the Dark. So long as I can forget about the stupid food storage. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 12, 2019
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Feb 19, 2019
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Dec 27, 2018
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0345409957
| 9780345409959
| 0345409957
| 3.98
| 5,504
| Apr 12, 1982
| Dec 01, 2000
|
liked it
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I am a self-proclaimed Barbara Hambly fan-girl. Despite this fact, I have not even come close to reading all there is of Barbara Hambly. This is in pa
I am a self-proclaimed Barbara Hambly fan-girl. Despite this fact, I have not even come close to reading all there is of Barbara Hambly. This is in part because she’s prolific (and has a ton of books out there) and because I like to save her work for special occasions. Recently I went on a trip to Japan and decided that it was the perfect time to pack a few books that I was saving for later. Naturally, I packed a Barbara Hambly book: The Time of the Dark. Of all the Barbara Hambly books I own (but haven’t yet read), I was most excited about this one. The cover—a somber looking mage holding a beer and eating chips in a 1980s kitchen—is the perfect balance of kitsch and earnestness. Better yet, it is reminiscent of my favorite series of hers, The Windrose Chronicles, which also involves world-hopping magicians. So it was with glee when I finally tucked into The Time of the Dark, late at night in the rooftop onsen of the impeccable Oniyama hotel in Beppu, Japan. It starts hard. A woman is dreaming a horrible dream thick with impending doom. As the moments pass, she begins to feel like it’s not a dream at all—it’s a glimpse elsewhere. By day this woman is Gil, a serious academic on the PhD track who has dedicated her entire life to her passion for scholarship and medieval history. By night, well, she keeps dreaming, though the understanding that her dreams are real grows in certainty until Ingold—a man from her dreams—appears, flesh and blood, in her living room. He confirms that her dreams were in fact quite real, and explains that in his world they’re under siege from a powerful primordial enemy: the Dark Ones. He asks her help, and I was thrilled that no one thought she was the chosen one or whatnot. Ingold merely asks where nearby he can hunker down for a few days while he bides his time. Gil points him in a direction and offers to deliver supplies. Rudy is a biker and a drifter, though he doesn’t put much stock in the hard-assed persona of his peers. Deep down he’s an artist, hoping one day to make money from something other than painting flames on the sides of trucks. After a beer-run gone wrong he ends up at the hiding spot Gil suggests for Ingold. Invariably something goes wrong, and Rudy, Gil, and Ingold all end up back in Ingold’s world. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if Ingold could merely shuttle Rudy and Gil back to Earth, but for reasons I don’t care to give away, he cannot. Our protagonists have to stick around as this surprising new world crumples under the onslaught of the Dark. This is essentially the entirety of the over-arching plot. Rudy and Gil want to go home but (at least for the time being) cannot, and so they must adapt to their new world even as it’s destroyed. Ingold, in addition to trying to send Rudy and Gil home, has his own plot: he must keep the heir to the throne safe. If I’m being honest—and I hope you realize that I’m always honest if I’m willing to say this about a book written by my favorite author—the plot is thin. The Dark Ones are an unknown evil. Though not invincible, they’re quite hard to kill, spray acid when they are killed, and exist in such high numbers that killing them doesn’t feel like a triumph. For the entirety of the story the characters are running for their lives and getting killed off every step of the way. The lack of intrigue is a bummer from a story-telling perspective and the heaviness of the lack of apparent hope made The Time of the Dark a bit of a hard read. Barbara Hambly is unbelievable with her characterization, though, so that is where I had hoped—expected, even—for things to turn around. She once made an entirely unrepentant vampire sympathetic! In The Time of the Dark we’ve got a badass yet kindly old wizard and two fishes out of water. I genuinely thought an emotional plot would fill in the gaps. Sadly, I was wrong. Gil and Rudy do adapt, and we see them adapting, but it felt empty to me. We never really see Gil in her own world, so I don’t know if her volunteering for a difficult job on, like, her second day in this crazy new world is within her character, a coping mechanism, or a sure sign that something new has been shaken loose in her. And, more than that, Gil is (dare I say it?) a little too strong. Not in the “I’m going to fight everyone all the time” way, but in the seriously, no one has a well that deep to give from way. Seriously. She’s sucked from her world, her carefully honed life that she says is all she’s ever wanted, and is put somewhere else and told “eh, we might not be able to get you back.” If that place were on the Earth as we know it, it would still be a devastating blow, but this is so much worse. One person alone can send her home, and they’re in a world where the average life expectancy doesn’t stretch far into the future. To her it would seem very likely that she’s stuck, stranded forever in this post-apocalyptic hellscape of a world she doesn’t even understand—if she survives. And again, not many people are surviving. On top of the mental burden of her accidental transportation, there’s the physical. Gil is an American woman, born and raised in California by a rich family. She’s a PhD student. She had probably never experienced true hunger, or, hell, even food insecurity. She’d probably never been cold for days on end. She’d probably never been denied even a modicum of privacy. She’d probably never been put in an ethical position where her actions would determine whether someone lives or dies. She’d probably never seen anyone killed or die. She’d almost certainly never had to walk past bloating, rotting corpses and bloody, sinuous tangles of bone. Of course, in a dying medieval world, she experiences all of these things,but they don't seem to really affect her. I’m not saying that no one would survive, but I sincerely doubt anyone would survive as well as Gil did. Because she just sort of ... rolls with the punches. She gets harder, colder, for sure, but I never get any sort of hint that she’s mentally strained. Physically, sure. She’s constantly exhausted, constantly hungry, constantly cold. But she never so much as flinches mentally. I get that simply existing without thought is a coping mechanism, but I would expect that coping mechanism to kick in after a few days when instinctively her body realizes that it’s either shut down emotionally or die. Rudy isn’t as strong as Gil. At least, he doesn’t give endlessly and selflessly past the point of reason. He is more prone to cracking under the strain of the world, but, again, only physically. When he’s too cold, too hungry, too tired, he flounders. Otherwise, he’s almost ... jovial? It’s like he’s on another road-trip rather than thrust into the death throws of a civilization incomprehensibly removed from his life. They’re not awful characters by any means. If the plot had intrigue that drew me on, they’d probably be entirely serviceable. But the plot didn’t draw me on, so I needed characters that I loved, that I felt invested in, that seemed so real I yearned for their success and feared for their failure. Largely in part to their blase reaction to world-swapping, though, Gil and Rudy didn’t scratch that itch. In the end, I think Barbara Hambly realized her mistake and tried to give Gil and Rudy each an emotional arc, but I don’t think there was nearly enough setup for their closure to feel authentic. So neither the plot not the protagonists really intrigued me, yet I finished the book. As my Globalization & Development professor used to say “Why dat?” The simple answer is that beautiful bastard on the cover: Ingold. In many ways he’s a trope—the kindhearted but hard-as-nails misunderstood outcast wizard who will throw everything he has away to save the people who disparage him—but, well, who doesn’t love that trope? And though Ingold is very trope-y, I’d argue that he’s the most developed character in the book. I won’t spoil the details, because, in my opinion, good characterization is all in the details, but there are delightful hints that Ingold is more than what we see. Oddly, some tertiary characters that don’t even get much screen time grabbed my attention, as well. The arch-bishop Govannin is one badass yet awful lady. Much like an old Disney villain (think Ursula or Maleficent), she intrigued me. I wanted to see more of her; learn her angle. That’s the funny thing—Govannin definitely has a personal plot, because all she wants is power. With civilization collapsing, it might even give her room to grab more power—so long as she doesn’t overreach and cause gross instability that’ll get her killed. We rarely saw her, but damn, I was left wanting more. So in the end, I liked, but didn’t love, The Time of the Dark. At the same time, though, it was Barbara Hambly’s first novel. A lot of these issues feel like first-book issues. It also has a decent amount of similarities to The Windrose Chronicles in terms of magic and world. Without it, would The Windrose Chronicles would be half as perfect? Probably not. Hm, maybe I do love The Time of the Dark after all. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 18, 2018
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Oct 28, 2018
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Oct 18, 2018
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0886772117
| 9780886772116
| 0886772117
| 3.29
| 21
| 1986
| Jul 07, 1987
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None
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Notes are private!
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0
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not set
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not set
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Aug 05, 2018
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Mass Market Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0879979453
| 9780879979454
| 0879979453
| 4.01
| 4,270
| 1984
| Aug 07, 1984
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None
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Notes are private!
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0
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not set
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not set
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Aug 05, 2018
|
Mass Market Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0671877356
| 9780671877354
| 0671877356
| 3.62
| 68
| 1996
| Jul 01, 1996
|
really liked it
|
As I try to do these days, I went into Far Edge of Darkness more-or-less blind. The front cover of a woman in an old car holding a pistol while what l
As I try to do these days, I went into Far Edge of Darkness more-or-less blind. The front cover of a woman in an old car holding a pistol while what looks like Roman centurions gawk gave me the impression of a slightly goofy time-travel novel. Far Edge of Darkness is a time-travel novel. It is not goofy. Also, the scene depicted by the cover art never happens in the book itself. Sadness. The book opens well—you get to meet some characters and spend time in their very credible worlds before shit hits the fan. There’s a low, creeping sense of dread surrounding the time travel itself—who is pulling the strings, and why? What exactly is the motive? How on earth can the wronged characters fight back when they’re trapped in ancient Rome with slave collars around their throats? So long as this creeping sense of dread stood, I was hooked. Though never particularly beautiful or clever, the writing is technically good, and in an action story like this, that’s all you want. The characters, though never particularly charming, were fleshed out and acted in line with their personal ideals. And while the world was brutal, it was displayed with such realism that it didn’t feel gratuitous. (This is a good time to say that Far Edge of Darkness comes with serious trigger warnings for sexualized violence against men, women, and children. There are also depictions of domestic abuse. These moments are, of course, brutal, but they’re not written like torture porn. If you are like me and just squeamish and sensitive, they might not bother you too much. If you find depictions of these sorts of things to be legit triggers, I’d suggest staying away.) Eventually, though, the villain must be made known. And while I continued to enjoy Far Edge of Darkness, I must admit that once the baddie stepped out of the shadows, my interest waned slightly. This is in part because I didn’t find the villain particularly interesting and in part, because the question of “Oh my cod, what’s the nefarious cause of all of this?”, at least in my mind, wasn’t replaced with a new, deeper question. It was just like ‘Oh, okay. Now we know who’s behind all this, and that’s that.’ After that, the focus of the book fell solely on survival, revenge, and getting back to the proper time/place. It was all well written with a solid pace and characters that made sense. I dunno. I find Far Edge of Darkness to be especially hard to review because to me it’s good, but not amazing. There’s nothing specific for me to gush or gripe about. It’s just a solid action novel. I’m not an action novel expert, but this one reads much, much better than the others I’ve read, so if you are really into action novels, it might make you squeal with delight. Fair warning, this is the first book in a series that never ended up happening. I was really worried the book would end without any sort of resolution, but thankfully Linda Evans did us a solid. Though the overarching plot continues, the emotional plots of this story feel pretty well wrapped up. Even if it literally ends with characters hanging off a cliff. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 16, 2019
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Jun 15, 2019
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Aug 05, 2018
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 9995585227
| 9789995585228
| 9995585227
| 3.88
| 312
| 1973
| 1973
|
it was ok
|
While I quit reading only a few pages into Joshua Son of None, it’s not going onto the shelf of books I've given up on. I can’t bring myself to write
While I quit reading only a few pages into Joshua Son of None, it’s not going onto the shelf of books I've given up on. I can’t bring myself to write it off, but neither, at least right now, can I bring myself to read it. It’s going back onto the to-read pile. It started off compelling enough, and Nancy Freedman has a strong voice and a deft command of the English language. But things got confusing in a way where I couldn’t tell if I was simply being dense or if the writing had spiraled out of control.The premise is somewhat simple. An unnamed president, who is definitely John F Kennedy, is assassinated. Thor Bitterbaum is a doctor. He steals a bit of the president’s DNA and stores it so that he might clone the president. Despite being a Jewish atheist, Thor also has some sort of weird affinity for the Norse god of the same name. I couldn’t entirely tell if he merely likens himself to the god or if he’s somehow the modern embodiment of Thor. And That’s all the set up I had walking into these next paragraphs. The strength and daring of Thor stood off and kept at bay the talmudic scholar grandfather, Jacob Bitterbaum, and the learned rabbi, Solomon Bitterbaum. They shook long unscissored beads and consulted Yekuthiel Bitterbaum, patriarch of the family. But he had never heard of anyone called Thor, who daily waded rivers to sit in judgement under Yggdrasil, the world tree, defending both Midgard and Asgasrd, men and gods, from the chaos of the giants. His belt doubled his strength. He had gloves of iron and could toss a thunderbolt. The red-bearded one swung his club, and goats and wild boar ran to his side. In the Ragnarok, in the forest of Thorsmorsk he would fight the serpent and it was recounted that both would die. There I was, reclining by the pool, utterly baffled. Just a moment before Thor had been surreptitiously slipping the recovered DNA into a test tube, then wham. I re-read it, but that’s dense and awfully metaphorical and allegorical and I kinda wanted to look up more about Norse mythology to see if maybe then I could understand what was going on but I had intentionally left my phone in the car so I’d just read and swim and nap and not get sucked into wasting time on my phone. So I pushed forward, and soon we were back in the real world, with Thor sneaking the DNA sample out of the hospital and thinking about his plans for human cloning. This last part gets technical, fast. Lots of scientists and their attempts at cloning are mentioned in rapid successful and I just wasn’t in the mood. It’s summer, it’s a billion degrees, and even if this is a short little thing I’m not sure I have the mental fortitude to be neck-deep in metaphors and scientific quotations from fictional scientists. In terms of old dating cliches, though, I realize that this is my fault, not Joshua Son of None’s. I’m just not looking to get into anything too serious right now, but maybe later once I’ve read around a little bit and the weather is cooler and all I really want to do is settle down with a book for a few hours—then Joshua Son of None might end up back in my hands. I hope we can remain friends. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 29, 2019
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Jul 03, 2019
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Aug 05, 2018
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0812566351
| 9780812566352
| B002C5PHZ4
| 3.70
| 138
| Apr 29, 1985
| Oct 15, 1987
|
really liked it
|
The Prince of Whales is a children’s book—maaaybe a middle-grade book. There are even pictures. I know that in fifth grade I would have, unfairly, dis
The Prince of Whales is a children’s book—maaaybe a middle-grade book. There are even pictures. I know that in fifth grade I would have, unfairly, discarded it as childish. Toby Whale, a young whale with a penchant for singing, must go on a quest to find his true voice and use it to help save the world from ecological destruction and, strangely, mental decay. A more simple way to put would be: it’s like if Fern Gully and Rockadoodle were mixed together and set in the ocean. I read it in one sitting, in the bath. Admittedly the water was much cooler than I’d have preferred by the time I was done, but still. My head was a little dull from celebrating my husband’s birthday the day before, and I only mention this in case my thorough enjoyment of this goofy little book is mostly due to an addled state of mind. Other reviews says The Prince of Whales is so bad it’s good, and as I was cackling along while reading, I sort of agreed with them. For goodness sakes, there is a pod of killer whales that are predatory musical managers. There’s a seal stage performer that peppers his lines with just awful nautical puns. This book is bizarre and stupid in all the right ways. But calling it bizarre and stupid isn’t quite fair. It’s a kids’ book. It’s supposed to be goofy and way too much. R.L. Fisher delivered, but unlike some other kids’ books that are way too much in a way that only children can enjoy, Fisher wrote the rare kids’ book that even adults can get a serious kick out of. I feel like it goes without saying that The Prince of Wales isn’t flawless. The one plot—of Toby Whale finding his true voice so he may sing a song that would get through to the hearts of humanity—is fine in that ridiculous-childish-way. There’s a secondary plot, though—that of the Dream Eater—that feels slapdash and confusing and sloppy. Early scenes, before Toby meets the cast of goofy characters that bump this book up a notch, are a bit dry and boring. Luckily, thanks to the length of this extremely short book, it’s not 15 minutes before you’re past it. And now, an admission: this might not be female fantasy, as I could find no information on R.L. Fisher. However, about three pages in, I feel like I got some sort of confirmation:
Okay, that’s specious at best, but it made me chuckle regardless. I enjoyed The Prince of Whales as a fun, quick and, yes, stupid read. As someone who still unabashedly loves Rockadoodle, though, my judgement might be suspect. I’m not sure I’d recommend this book so heartily that a normal adult go out of their way to track it down, but if you stumble across it and enjoy a good stupid children’s thing, I’d say snap it up. If you have younger kids, though, especially kids intrigued by the ocean, this could be a fun book that you and your kid could enjoy together—in that case, it might be worth ordering. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 24, 2019
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Apr 26, 2019
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Aug 05, 2018
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0441344275
| 9780441344277
| 0441344275
| unknown
| 2.88
| 8
| Jan 01, 1969
| 1969
|
it was ok
|
Riding high on the unexpected success of
Suffer a Witch to Die
, I decided to dive right back into mid-century-ish pulp-horror with House of Illusi
Riding high on the unexpected success of
Suffer a Witch to Die
, I decided to dive right back into mid-century-ish pulp-horror with House of Illusion. At first, it seemed like a good decision. Jackie, an intrepid young librarian desperate to get away from her mother’s meddling, decides to spend the week with her eccentric and reclusive aunt. This, naturally, only horrifies her mother more. Uncle Merlin was a stage magician and frittered away his life on strange passions and pursuits. And Aunt Elma hasn’t been right since Merlin was killed by Cameron—his own assistant!—right in their home. Worse, Cameron and his wife vanished as if into thin air. Even if that was 21 years ago, Aunt Elma has turned the estate into a guest house for indigent actors. No reputable person would ever go to The Retreat! Though The Retreat is definitely the sort of name given to an insane asylum in a horror movie, Jackie is undisturbed. When she arrives in the small town closest to The Retreat, she finds no proper taxi-service and must call on the good-natured and good-looking auto-mechanic—David Stanmore—for a ride. While he finishes up work on the engine of his truck he, strongly but without theatrics, tries to dissuade Jackie from going to The Retreat. Naturally, Jackie is still determined. With a shrug, he finishes up the engine.
At this point, I wanted Jackie to forget about The Retreat and run off with David Stanmore. She doesn’t, and he soon drops her off at the gates of The Retreat where a female servant is waiting to show her through the maze to the house.
Jackie, up until now, has seemed a kind, generous woman. This dehumanizing aside seemed so strange I had to pause and consider if I’d somehow misread her. Up until this point, though, she’d only encountered other British folk’, and I was suddenly reminded that bigotry presents itself very differently across countries and decades. With that bad taste lingering in my mouth, Jackie enters The Retreat and the whole damn book falls apart. The actors are bland and boring, and most of them don’t matter in the slightest. The attempts at horror and suspense—the parts of the book trying to make the house feel “haunted”—are so ham-fisted, so pointed, that even I found them laughable. Like, at one point something ‘scary’ happened and I literally laughed out loud. And the plot, dear cod, the plot. I desperately wish I could somehow convey its sheer stupidity, but in addition to being predictable and unnecessarily convoluted, it’s surprisingly large. Especially since most of it comes to life in the last 50 pages. It goes from “Spooky, I hear unaccounted-for music” to “Well, you see, Aunt Elma is trying to murder everyone and burn down the house because she was jilted by Merlin’s assistant Cameron and desperately wanted to have a baby—which she couldn’t—and Merlin knocked up Cameron’s wife creating an heir that Elma didn’t want to compete with and oh my god Cameron and his family live in the walls as fugitives, that’s why the house feels haunted! Btw, Cameron only killed Merlin in self-defense but he did kidnap a boy who snuck into The Retreat so his daughter could eventually carry on the family line because … sure.” That’s all stupid, sure. But my brain had a completely different issue at this point. Elma has been—for years—a horrible, obsessive, punitive, murderous old bat singularly focused on retribution. Yet she remembered to write her distant niece who she’s not seen for over a decade to wish her a happy birthday? And in that cordial gesture she went so far as to invite Jackie to visit? Sure. That checks out. Okay, but when Jackie replies and says “I’d love to!” why did Aunt Elma go along with it? She’s clearly busy planning murder—it’s not a great time for visits from largely-unknown distant relatives. She could easily put it off. The answer? Well, Aunt Elma initially does try to put off Jackie’s visit, but when Jackie mentions that she’s a librarian, Aunt Elma warms up suddenly. Within a few days of arriving, Jackie is put to work cataloging the expansive library and, the second she’s done, Elma shops the list around and sells off the books. Literally listing books requires no special training, and Elma has five indigent actors relying on her goodwill. Just being like “Hey guys, you pay no rent, can you please catalog the books?” should do the trick. To be clear: Elma didn’t invite Jackie over because she knew Jackie was a librarian and she knew she needed the library cataloged. She invited Jackie over … just because? And then it happened to work out that Jackie could do a thing that Elma knew needed doing. Just fucking awful plotting. If it weren’t for that line about wind on a mountain, a cheetah, and a symphony, this would have been a 1-star book. Anyway, my take away from House of Illusion is that when people you don’t really know or haven’t seen or talked to in ages invite you to come visit, don’t. Which, luckily for me, is my automatic response anyway. P.S. Apparently House of Illusion is FauxFemFan and actually written by a man named Rex Dolphin. Nicola Devon was a pen-name of his. Interestingly enough, Jackie is rather convincingly written. She’s not dull or over-done. If I hadn’t stumbled across the fact that Nicola Devon is a pen-name, I’d have easily believed that this were a work written by a woman. [I read old fantasy novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
|
Mar 11, 2019
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Mar 15, 2019
|
Aug 05, 2018
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Mass Market Paperback
| |||||||||||||
| 045104097X
| 9780451040978
| 045104097X
| 3.83
| 6
| Dec 01, 1969
| Dec 01, 1969
|
really liked it
|
Suffer a Witch to Die is, so far, the most obscure book I’ve read for ForFemFan. Goodreads only shows two ratings—and no reviews—and Amazon shows but
Suffer a Witch to Die is, so far, the most obscure book I’ve read for ForFemFan. Goodreads only shows two ratings—and no reviews—and Amazon shows but one particularly unhelpful review about how the reader didn’t enjoy the book as much on her second read-through as much she did on her prior reading some 30-years earlier. For this obscurity alone, I had to nerd into this. *Book Nerd Start* The most cursory investigation into Suffer a Witch to Die will tell you that it’s part of the Rædselskabinettet series. Book four, to be exact. As Suffer a Witch to Die revolves around the Salem witch trials and in no way reads like it’s part of a series, I had serious questions about this supposed Scandinavian heritage. That most of the books in this series were penned by different authors, and one of them appears to be exclusively in Danish while the rest are in English, seemed to corroborate my skepticism. A fellow book nerd with a greater knowledge of Danish helped me do more digging, and we’ve come to our best guess: A Danish publisher bought the rights to a bunch of old horror-y pulp novels and published them in a collection. According to her, Rædselskabinettet roughly translates to “Chamber of Horrors” or even plain “Horrors.” So that seems to fit. Also, the author—Elizabeth Davis—is actually a pen name for Lou Ellen Davis. Between her two (known) names, it appears only a few pieces were ever published. A cursory glance at Amazon might make you think otherwise. There’s a series title Coven of the North Star authored by an Elizabeth Davis—but as the bio picture of this woman makes her appear much younger than, say, 70, and Suffer a Witch to Die was published in 1969—I have to assume they’re different people. Unless she’s a witch? Dun dun. *Book Nerd End* Suffer a Witch to Die is a bit of pulpy-almost-horror. Jeanne Graham, a recently widowed young woman, is trying to come to terms with the loss of her liked-but-not-really-loved husband and the affections of a new fellow she’s rather smitten with. She’s also been having strange dreams, and moments of blanking out. Part of her assures her this is normal: she’s been through something traumatic. The other part of her fears it’s something more sinister. Convinced a weekend in her and her husband’s old summer cabin will help her get square with her feelings—and settle the unusual experiences around her that have to be caused by nerves—she sets off. As events ramp up, though, the unusual around her seems to grow. By the time she reaches the cabin, the narrative is deeply eerie. At this point, I feel the need to disclose that I am not a horror aficionado. Anything legitimately labeled as ‘horror’ is so far out of my purview I can’t even comment on it. Even lighter things—riffs on horror, you might say—freak me out. Sean of the Dead was way too much for me, The Chilling tale of Sabrina occasionally freaked me out, and one episode of Russian Doll had me staring slack-jawed, my fingers frantically clutching my comforter. I’m not made of strong stock. So if you chase horror, you might consider this kiddy-town frolics. Even if it’s no Silent Hill (do hard-core horror people think that’s scary? The trailer alone nearly did me in), I will assert that the eerie uncertainty of these moments has both weight and value. The flickering uncertainty of Jeanne’s life comes to a head when, in what seems almost like a fever-dream, she walks through time and ends up back in 1692 where she stumbles across a young woman who could be her twin. When they touch hands, she collapses. And when she gets up again, she no longer resides in her own body, but that of her doppelganger, Elizabeth. I would argue that anything eerie or horror falls by the wayside when she comes-to as Elizabeth. After that point things shift intellectual: how did she go back in time, and why? What’s the connection between her and her doppelganger? Can and should she affect the events around her? You get the picture. There are still eerie moments, but they’re much less intense. The idea of the scary thing happening is the scariest thing about scary things. Once it’s happened, figuring out how to undo it is significantly less frightening. At this point, the storytelling almost by necessity becomes rather heady. Jeanne and Elizabeth now share a body. We only ever get Jeanne’s point of view, and she cannot communicate with Elizabeth. Elizabeth seems mostly or completely unaware of Jeanne. Jeanne cannot reliably or even predictably control the body she and Elizabeth now share, so much of her time is spent, essentially, being an observer. She’s a narrator who is tremendously invested in the outcome of the story she’s telling and who can, sometimes and only with a great deal of effort, nudge the plot. I found it an interesting storytelling device though it does, of course, have its pitfalls. There were a few pages here or there where I wanted more than Jeanne’s thoughts—but what else could she do but think and plot? It wasn’t enough to put me off, though. I think I read this book in four sittings—and one of those was quick bus ride. As is often the case with pulp novels, I found the wrap up far too quick and just a little bit loose for my taste. It makes sense. The set-up for the plot takes some work—and some pages—and is done, in my opinion, well. Suffer a Witch to Die is only 205 pages long, and that’s with what the front-cover claims is “EASY TO SEE LARGE TYPE.” Something’s gotta give, and it was inevitably going to be the conclusion. I liked the substance of the book enough, though, that I found myself fantasizing about ways to tease apart the plot and make room for a full-length, modern, fantasy novel. It could easily be done. There are some theological points tucked away that I’m dying to explore, and in many ways Suffer a Witch to Die felt liked it touched on themes/style/tone of The Chilling Tales of Sabrina—only, you know, without a modern cast, with a lot less humor, and with a 30-something protagonist. The next time I get writer's block, I just might use this as a writing exercise. Don’t worry, if I crush a best-selling-worthy manuscript I’ll look real hard for Elizabeth or Lou Ellen Davis before I start shopping it around. If you enjoy tales of witches and demons and folks selling their soul to the devil, this could be a fun, quick read. [I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 07, 2019
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Mar 11, 2019
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Aug 05, 2018
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Mass Market Paperback
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 0.00
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not set
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Jun 11, 2020
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| 3.79
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it was amazing
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Mar 14, 2021
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Feb 07, 2020
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| 4.21
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really liked it
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May 15, 2020
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Dec 12, 2019
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|||||
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| 3.80
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it was ok
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Jun 02, 2020
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May 08, 2019
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|||||
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| 3.33
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did not like it
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Aug 22, 2019
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Feb 02, 2019
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|||||
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| 3.71
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liked it
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May 09, 2021
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Feb 02, 2019
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|||||
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| 3.31
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not set
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Feb 02, 2019
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||||||
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| 3.57
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not set
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Feb 02, 2019
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||||||
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| 3.69
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it was ok
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Jul 14, 2020
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Dec 27, 2018
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|||||
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| 3.17
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not set
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Dec 27, 2018
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||||||
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| 3.87
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not set
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Dec 27, 2018
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||||||
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| 4.06
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liked it
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Feb 19, 2019
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Dec 27, 2018
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|||||
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| 3.98
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liked it
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Oct 28, 2018
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Oct 18, 2018
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|||||
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| 3.29
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not set
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Aug 05, 2018
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||||||
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| 4.01
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not set
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Aug 05, 2018
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||||||
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| 3.62
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really liked it
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Jun 15, 2019
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Aug 05, 2018
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|||||
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| 3.88
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it was ok
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Jul 03, 2019
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Aug 05, 2018
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|||||
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| 3.70
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really liked it
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Apr 26, 2019
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Aug 05, 2018
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|||||
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| 2.88
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it was ok
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Mar 15, 2019
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Aug 05, 2018
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|||||
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| 3.83
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really liked it
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Mar 11, 2019
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Aug 05, 2018
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