Magic Below Stairs by Caroline Stevermer

This book is a fast read--two and a bit hours for me, and that was with me checking Twitter compulsively every couple of minutes. I think this may be the first time I've posted two book reviews in one day.

I've been a fan of Caroline Stevermer for years (her postapocalyptic YA River Rats is a truly brilliant book), and I love the books she's written with Patricia Wrede. I had no idea she'd written another book set in the same world as Sorcery & Cecilia until I noticed it on someone else's blog (I can't remember whose, but probably Book Aunt).

Magic Below Stairs tells the story of Frederick Lincoln, an orphan who's hired as a footboy in Thomas Schofield's household. If you've read Sorcery & Cecilia you don't need to be told that Lord Schofield is a wizard. Frederick has a bit of magic too, though, something he's not even aware of: the brownie Billy Bly has taken a liking to him. Where Frederick goes, Billy Bly goes--even if Frederick's new employer doesn't want him around. Brownies are trouble, and Thomas Schofield's wife is pregnant and mustn't be disturbed. But Billy Bly discovers an old curse lingering on the house, and no one but Frederick believes him.

The story is simple and lively, and Frederick's a likable guy. His loneliness when Billy Bly is sent away is moving; the way he helps track down the curse is a lot of fun. Frederick is eleven, so the book is meant for younger kids, but it certainly held my attention.

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Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

The cover of Redemption in Indigo is absolutely beautiful, and I love the title. While I was reading it, I felt terribly intelligent--it's the sort of cover and title that tell everyone, "I am reading a weighty work of literature." But the joke was on all those hypothetical people, because while Redemption in Indigo is a work of literature, it's not weighty at all. It's a charming, deceptively simple, fun work of literature.

It's based on a Senegalese folk tale, and it's meant to imitate the spoken word--which works so well that even the author asides became part of the full story. The writing is beautifully clear, the characters fully realized and sympathetic.

The story revolves around Paama, who leaves her buffoonish glutton of a husband to return to her family in the village where she grew up. Her husband follows her and she wearily extricates him from several fixes his greed gets him into. At the same time, the djombi--immortal spirits who interact with humans in different ways--have taken notice of Paama. They decide she's the right person to wield the Chaos Stick, which they've taken away from a djombi who had neglected and abused his power. But the Chaos Stick's former owner is determined to get the stick back.

There is no way to do justice to the story with a simple plot summary. The book's strength is its warmth. Even the bad guys have understandable motivations--and in the end, no one's really bad. Paama learns some bitter lessons during her adventures, but throughout everything she remains a strong, kind, dutiful woman.

When I finished the book, I set it down smiling. Then I burst into tears. I don't think I've ever reacted to a book quite like that before. I'm now passing my copy around to everyone I know, saying, "Read this. You'll be a better person afterwards."

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Snake Agent by Liz Williams

Snake Agent is a marvelous blend of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, a very different book with an intricate, solid plot. I don't know why someone didn't tell me about Liz Williams before now.

Actually, I've had this book for over a year, languishing in my To Be Read pile because of its thickness (I'm not fond of very long books) and the unattractive cover. I picked it up mostly because I'd been looking for a meaty urban fantasy but couldn't find one. This was far better than anything I had expected.

Detective Inspector Chen is an investigator of the supernatural as part of his job in the Singapore Three police department. When a woman asks for help finding the soul of her murdered daughter, who should have arrived in heaven but instead ended up in hell, Chen starts an investigation that uncovers a conspiracy between corrupt humans and one of hell's most powerful ministries. At the same time, Seneschal Zhu Irzh, a demon in hell's Ministry of Vice, is sent to investigate the appearance in hell of innocent souls--young women who were supposed to go to heaven but ended up in the brothels of hell without the proper paperwork.

This would be only slightly interesting to me if the heaven and hell were those from the Judeo-Christian mythos. Instead, the setting is a mixture of Chinese legend and science fiction/fantasy invention. It's fresh and exciting, endlessly fascinating. There's much more to the book than the main plot, too. Chen's wife has an important role--so much so that I'm afraid to say anything about it for fear of spoiling something.

Liz Williams handles viewpoint shifts with a masterful touch--ordinarily I really hate books with multiple points of view (which is such a bugbear with me that I actually try not to let it influence my reviews), but it worked so well in this book that I barely noticed.

The writing is descriptive and lovely, the characterization deft. Williams is able to define a fully realized character with one perfect line of dialogue. And the worldbuilding is astounding. In fact, in terms of characterization and worldbuilding, I'd rank Williams right up with Sarah Monette and Scott Lynch. Like both those authors, her writing is layered and nuanced without becoming unwieldy. I have no idea why she isn't more popular--or maybe she is and I'm just the last person on earth to read her.

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100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson

In 100 Cupboards, twelve-year-old Henry visits his aunt and uncle for the summer--and maybe for longer, since his parents have been abducted in South America and may or may not return. But don't worry your head about the parents. Their fate or lack thereof is only incidental and doesn't have anything to do with the plot.

So anyway, Henry goes to live with his aunt and uncle, as well as his three girl cousins, the oldest of which has no personality and almost the same amount of role in the plot as Henry's parents. Henry is given the little attic room and soon discovers 99 little cupboard doors hidden under crumbling plaster on the wall. One of the cupboards opens onto a green, windy world that Henry can smell and hear but can't see; one of the cupboards is a mailbox--and Henry has mail.

With his cousin Henrietta's "help," Henry reluctantly explores the mysteries of the cupboards and discovers long-hidden secrets about himself and his family. I say "help" because Henrietta is as forceful as Henry is wimpy, and she keeps doing stupid things in order to forward the plot. Her younger sister Anastasia is even worse. Anastasia is nine, but she acts much younger. Both the girls are brats that screw stuff up in order to move the plot along. Henry has to react, react, react to their actions.

The book is beautifully written and sets up the magic and the mystery skillfully. I really enjoyed the first third of the book. It reminds me a lot of The Magician's Nephew; it's wonderfully atmospheric. I also loved the relationship between Henry and his Uncle Frank, which was so much better than the rest of the story that I wished it had been the only part of the story.

Unfortunately, as you can guess from what I've written already, I was not happy with the latter part of the book. Solving the mystery of the cupboards requires a lot of exposition from adults, either in the form of Henry reading a journal written by the cousins' grandfather or from lectures by various of Henry's other relations. The climax got confusing and a little disjointed; we see the same scenes from different characters' points of view, get more exposition, and four new characters are introduced in the last few chapters.

The ending left me furious. Turns out this isn't a book, it's a 150-page prologue for the sequel. Every single thing that happens in this book is just set-up for the sequel--seriously, everything. I can't explain why without dropping spoilers, but I can say that nothing is resolved. That's a good way to lose me as a reader for life.

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Triumff by Dan Abnett

I expected Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero to be a swashbuckling adventure, which it is. I had no idea it was also hysterically funny.

I got a strong Pratchett-esque vibe off the book, although it's more clockpunk historical fantasy than anything else. It's set in a rich and brilliant version of our world where the Renaissance ushered in a new understanding of magic, which brought practical and scientific discoveries to a halt. --Except in Australia, which has just been discovered by Sir Rupert Triumff.

Triumff is back in London, trying to avoid telling Queen Elizabeth XXX and her court about his discoveries. He's also being used as a scapegoat for a band of conspirators who want to destroy the queen and the Union, the Church, and basically everything else.

The story is well-written, fun, and engaging. It's also very funny. The humor does not depend on people having misunderstandings or screaming at each other, thank goodness, and I liked the main characters. If the plot is a little bit predictable, I didn't mind. I was laughing too hard.

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Stone Spring by Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter, imho, is the science fiction master of big-and-little, and a master of vivid world-building. His characters are mostly interesting, sometimes fascinating, and his plots are wonderful--'Riding...superstrings to the edge of the Universe!' Cities less than a centimeter tall, in the heart of burned-out suns! Life on Titan!

I'm used to grabbing everything he writes (and he writes quickly, good juicy long books that often turn into a series), so when he came out with Stone Spring, Book 1 of 3 about England's Mesolithic Period (~10,000 B.C.), I immediately ordered it from England, since it's not yet available in the U.S.

I should have saved myself the trouble.

The premise of Stone Spring is simple: global warming is melting the northern ice, which results in tsunamis inundating England's old coastlines. A former slave from Jericho (where, according to the Bible, there was a battle that brought Jericho's walls down), who knows how to build bricks, builds a big wall to keep out floodwaters.

End of story. Big deal

I got to page 200 and quit. The plot was snoringly easy to figure out, and I had 300 pages to go. I didn't like any of the characters, who mostly grunted, stank of fish, and raped or got raped. Let them all drown, I thought. Who cares?

I'm not going to buy Books two and three unless the reviews say that Baxter drops aliens out of the sky or sends a giant comet full of viruses down onto his little group of boring savages. Maybe I'll just find another Killer B in the science fiction section...(so far, I include Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Baxter and David Brin...)

Or I'll leap to the C's.

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Reviewed by Sin - "Piercing"

"Piercing"
by Ryu Murakami (English translation)






Gore: Done with visceral finesse

Sex: Dirty in all the right places

Angst: Like an ice pick to the gut


I read this book in one night, and the next night I went out and bought "Almost Transparent Blue" (also by Ryu Murakami). I read that one last night, went online and bought "In the Miso Soup." As soon as I get another coupon from BORDERS, I'll go buy "69." Though I am pounding these novels like fast food cheeseburgers, rest assured this is not literary fast food. "Piercing" is a fantastic, complex tale about the steps some people take to keep their lives together.

The story centers around a young man named Kawashima, and a very simple premise: he is afraid that he is going to stab his newborn daughter with an ice pick. For ten nights in a row he looms over the crib, ice pick in hand, and tells himself it would never happen. Except he knows that it might, and that would be bad. He had a good job, a wonderful wife, and a bright future. Why throw that away, when he can be proactive about finding a solution?

The story starts out quiet and contemplative, during which we get to know Kawashima extremely well. He is a complicated person, who I found easy to sympathize with. Others may disagree. As his story progresses, Kawashima's well laid plans unwind slowly then unravel, as present events intertwine with old memories and deep psychological wounds. The second half of the novel is as brutal, and has a rare treat: a ending I truly didn't see coming.

Of course, one always worries with novels translated from other languages. I didn't see any red flags while I was reading, and my gut tells me "Piercing" was translated with extreme care. I recommend this to anyone who is into psychological horror, and anyone who thinks Japan can be summed up by anime and Hello Kitty. Every country bleeds. All you need is someone to show you where.