Well, how long has it been since I admitted I liked a romance novel? Such as say....Jane Eyre?

Its been a very very very long time. If such a time ever occured.

That has not changed. I hate this book! I despise it for a: existing and taking up valuable paper and b: becoming some sort of template to work with or against!

I swear, if anyone ever reads my works and says, "You know, this reminds me of Jane Eyre" or worse, "This writer clearly has taken Bronte into his work" (I have purposely ommited the e's thingyamabob) then I will honestly buy a gun.

Ok, a second gun. One that wont be traced to me. On to the book!

Dont ever read this for fun. If you must read it of your own volition, make it for a good cause,. like learning not to do. The language is archaic, and poor at that - Swift or Coleridge or such are better with it. The actual story is part whining part romance and part wannabe-matyr. Bad mix.

And lets not even go into the poorly chosen characters. So what if she's trying to avoid the stereotypes? All shes done is create mismatched features and a lack of cohesion. Her title character's strongest identifier is this strange idea of servitude and escape. Half the time, its a selfcreated cycle!

(Yes, I have read the damn thing)

This may be recorded as one of the key works in English literature. In fact, it is, by many of the same people who refuse to admit Poe is as well. So, what are its possible good points?

Feminist literature at its early stages. But its not.

A discussion of society at the time. Who really cares.

A womans heartrending tale of growing up in a world that hates her. Hell, you can watch that in reality. Hell, some of you lived that! (I was excluded on the grounds that no one considered my pain and suffering anything other then amusing.)

If I need to explain the plot of this then youre too interested. Dont, dont, dont read it. If you already have, forget it. Wide Sargasso Sea is considerably better.

And hey, wouldnt we all rather watch Valk make hot chocolate? Much the same..... ; P

The Dreamers' Quartet - David & Leigh Eddings

The Dreamers Quartet: The Elder Gods, The Treasured One, Crystal Gorge, The Younger Gods

David & Leigh Eddings

David Eddings is undoubtedly one of the father-figures of fantasy fiction. He is commonly credited with inventing what is now known as “generic fantasy fiction.” As such his older works can seem a little stale and predictable if you have read vast quantities, but as the creator of it, he should still be applauded.

I wasn’t sure what this quartet would be like when I picked it up. Being Eddings I was well aware that it could be more of the same old same old. Yet from works such as The Redemption of Althalus I know it could be fantastically different.

I’ll get it out of the way now: I didn’t entirely like this series. It was relatively different to Eddings’ previous work, and had some interesting ideas flowing round in it, but it just didn’t sit right with me. I’ll get back to this point later.

Brief synopsis of the whole thing: On a planet somewhere out there in a universe is a continent called the Land of Dhrall. It is split into 5 parts, 4 of which are the domains of different sibling gods and goddesses. Each god watches over their land (North, South, East or West) for a few eons, and then goes to sleep. When they are sleeping, their counterparts awaken and take charge for the next few eons. Each phase the order of hierarchy among the gods changes to keep things fair.

In the centre of this continent is a wasteland. It is ruled by something called the Vlagh. It is effectively a giant insect queen that tampers with genetics. Each time the insect nation come up against a problem the Vlagh goes into a cocoon and figures out what natural tools her next brood should be born with, and then lays a clutch accordingly. Unfortunately she is not bound by natural limitations to evolution so her children can be part mammalian, part insectoid, and so on. Anyway, like all good insects, basically their aim is to find more food, and grow the family. So their eyes have turned out of the Wasteland, beyond the encircling mountains, to the other parts of Dhrall. While the insects still only live for about 6 weeks at most, the Vlagh seems to be eternal, and directs her brood through an insect overmind setup.

Human life has not been going for all that long on Dhrall (still in the stone age more or less, some being tribal-hunting lands, some being farming communities) and the Gods become concerned about their wellbeing if the Vlagh is going to start attacking them. Thus they go overseas to find other more developed civilisations (who know about bronze, and iron etc) and recruit them all to fight in Dhrall. The Gods themselves are bound not to kill any creature, or perform activities that will knowingly bring about death – to Humans, animals, or the Vlagh’s brood – which is why they needed other people to fight for them.

Over the 4 books, 4 pivotal battles are fought against the Vlagh, with lots of extra stuff happening around them. The plot in general is rather cool, with clever conventions and twists to keep it interesting. There is a little too much dues ex machina but that’s only to be expected when you have 4+ gods involved in the world.

The characters are very Eddings typical characters. They are painted with very broad strokes. One race all seem pretty much the same except for a few characters with extra colour running through their personality. The next race can be completely different to the first, but all the same within their community. All these conflicting personalities are thrown together to overcome the big issues. It’s something that works well for Eddings.

It makes for a fair quartet. Not bad reading, and once you start you will want to know the end. But I’m just hazarding that you may want to spare yourself some pain and not bother entirely. It’s up to you.

I will say this before I start moaning. The first book was really good. Truly it was fantastic. It hooked me enough to want to read the rest of the series no matter how bad as I wanted to know the conclusion. Books 2-4 were sloppy, and not as tight or well prepared.

Now on to my gripes: My biggest one is that the storyline repeats itself. I’m not just meaning that the same things happen in each situation, I am literally meaning that you keep getting the same plot happening in exactly the same time.

Why? Somewhere between writing the first and second books the Eddings’ decided that character development could be furthered much better if we got to see the past (and present!) that moulded them. As such the reader is subjected to frequent detours and repetitious material for both main characters and minors. They’re not simply: Hold up! When this dude was young his life was like this…

They go further than that and you end up reading about the same battles, the same meetings, and the same journeys multiple times.

Now I accept this was an attempt to show that different people see situations differently depending on their upbringing and process of evolution, but it’s BORING. It could have been done well, but in my opinion it wasn’t. Hearing the same guy describe the plot of the previous books from 3-4 different points of view is not cool! It’s not needed. Hell I just read the previous books! Please don’t treat me like a moron with a 5 second attention span and the short term memory of a goldfish! Reading about the deep past is useful, reading internal responses to the current situations is also interesting, but having them simply relate the same narrative of events with only a couple of personal thoughts about it is not good.

Frankly it ruined what could have been a really good series. Sorry.

The transitions between 3^rd and 1^st person narrative is also choppy and unpleasant at times. There was no 1^st person in book 1. It came in in book 2, and that was about when I started to think “uh-oh.”

Maybe it’s just me. Perhaps I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for the books, or not the targeted audience. Maybe you should read them to see what they’re like first-hand, as my response is evidently shrouded in distaste and bias. They are good writers, but this effort failed in structure, in plot and conventions it was right up there.

I will say this: The ending was not what I expected. I personally felt cheated, angry and let down to some degree, but also satisfied that it wasn't predictable to the end. A spectrum of feelings has been awoken in me while reading this book and perhaps that makes it epic. I love and hate it, find it interesting and boring, innovative and generic, bland and full of twists, fulfilling and emptying.

The final thing I would like to say is this: may the spirit of Leigh Eddings rest in peace in whichever world she escaped to. She provided countless contributions to almost all of David’s works, whether her name is on the front or not. It will be interesting indeed to see what David comes up with in the future, without the direct influence of his equally talented wife. Although being 76 himself he may just be ready to hang up the pen.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressel

(I wrote this review last year, so my opinions might have changed, but thought this might be relevant to the one I just did of Mary Barton).

It's a book by a guy writing under the name of Robert Tressel, and an excellent insight into socialism in early 1900s Britain. It seemed a bit simplified to me at first but after reading the introduction I must admit I missed some points. Perhaps it's not as relevant to present day New Zealand but the reasoning is still the same, and the situation is very similar in a lot of countries which still seem trapped in the industrial revolution.

The story follows a group of workmen and their families for over a year, showing the problems they're facing; and also the scheming of the bourgeoisie to exploit their employees as much as possible (names like Adam Sweater and Mrs Starvem help to overstate the point a little). Like Gaskell in Mary Barton, Tressel emphasies the suffering of the workers One of the workers, Frank Owen, turns out to be a socialist, and gives several 'lectures' to the others - telling them that they are being exploited, explaining how they're being exploited - and is generally ridiculed for it. Clearly the author was (naturally) furious with the entire system. The amount of repetition regarding this seems unnecessary, but does make the book an excellent 'beginner's guide to socialism' (from my limited knowledge of the subject).

There is also an emphasis on the frustration felt by Owen at the lack of understanding shown by the workers (the novel is based on his own experiences) - and while I can't find any specific article to back me up on this (and could be completely wrong), I think this is related to Gramsci's idea of hegemony (relying on what I recall from proofreading my sister's essay), so it appears to have been observed and documented before Gramsci (but only recognised as social control - nothing so elaborate as his theories about hegemony).

It's interesting to note that while reading the book, I somehow got the impression that the author had never actually been one of the workers he was writing about, but I was completely wrong. The person who wrote the introduction also got this impression on first reading. It's possibly to do with the somewhat derogatory tone taken towards most of the characters - including the workers - for perpetuating and believing in the system.

The life of the author is also interesting, and relevant, but something you'll find out about if you do read the book (or an introduction). In my opinion the prose wasn't particularly good, and the ideas were repeated too often - at times too sarcastic for a modern reader? but it's definitely worth the time all the same.

Before I forget: the 'ragged trousered philanthropists' are the workmen - philanthropists, because they're willing to sacrifice their - and their families' - necessities, working in unhealthy conditions for a pittance, and content to be exploited for the comfort of their 'masters'. (Ragged Trousered is pretty self explanatory).

Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell

Mary Barton is another of those mid-19th century novels about the working class in industrial Britain. It is apparently one of the earliest novels of this sort, and may be worth reading for that reason alone. I'm not sure that all of you will have the patience for the melodrama, and this style of writing, but if you do it's an interesting book. The story follows Mary, her father John, their family friends and her suitors, through a simple enough plot involving a murder and subsequent trial (and some remarkable coincidences, of course). Compared to authors such as Thomas Hardy, Gaskell avoids the idealisation of working class life - in fact, she emphasises the hardships - but a strong religious element rather blunts the effect, and I expect that people with more Marxist views will disagree with her beliefs.

My political science lecturer pointed out in one of our classes that people who lead revolutions (at least the 'People's Revolutions' kind) tend to be well off - not the people that the revolutions are meant to help. This could be extended to say that authors of books protesting the 'condition of the working class' are also generally middle class and comparatively wealthy, which is interesting - hypocritical, perhaps? (Maybe this isn't the right place for that particular discussion...) Anyway, when I first started reading Mary Barton I was expecting something similar, but found that Gaskell isn't protesting inequality as much as lamenting the consequences. Her view seems to be that, while class divisions are perfectly acceptable, the wealthy should, out of the kindness of their hearts, do as much as they can for the poor. When wages are cut, it is so that the factory owners can continue cheap production and therefore stay in business, which would be beneficial to the workers. Apparently the problem is that the working class doesn't understand this, and the industrialists don't know how much their workers are suffering. This bothered me throughout the novel, enough to make me want to throw things at Gaskell, but is one of the reasons that I'd recommend reading it (it's good to know what other people think, after all).

The original title was 'John Barton', because the story was meant to focus on Mary's father and his struggle (as a trades' unionist) against the industrialists of Manchester. However, the publisher required a name change - it's easy enough to see that Mary does end up playing the main role, whatever Gaskell's intentions were. The story of Mary's two love interests (the son of a factory owner, and her childhood friend, who is a factory worker) is meant to link back to the theme of 'the suffering of the poor', and the activities of the more radical trades unionists, but in many aspects manages to detract from it. Nevertheless it's important to keep this in mind while reading the book, because John Barton makes some interesting decisions in his frustration with the industrialists, which are significant in the themes, not just as a plot device.

Another point of interest is the way the lives of the characters are described. The first few chapters, in particular, are quite readable, showing the friendships between the characters - I felt that this was later sacrificed to the plot, but at least there was something to think back fondly on while mentally throwing things at the author. The religious element surfaces most strongly at the end of the novel, with deathbed confessions and redemptions and whatnot (Gaskell was married to a minister, after all) and was another annoying feature. However, the views expressed in the novel are might be quite liberal for Victorian England (alright, so she 'redeems' the prostitute, but never condemns her in the first place).

It doesn't look like I have that many good things to say about Mary Barton but it's worth reading for a different opinion, however frustrating it may be, and I don't think any of you will have trouble with the actual writing style, and it's less than 400 pages which isn't much compared to some of the massive tomes I see you lot with. I can't say that you'll enjoy it, but hopefully it'll make you think.

Dragon's Fire - Anne and Todd McCaffrey

I actually did a review for the Todd-only Pern novel a while back (Dragon’s Blood). I can’t figure out whether this one is before or after – I think before, as in this one they haven’t started their exploration of the Southern Continent.

Anyway, the brilliant thing about the Dragons of Pern series is that you can pick up any one of the books and pretty much throw yourself straight into the story. I mean there’s not much to remember for the books’ premise: Sci-fi/ Fantasy world with dragons that was colonised by our descendants escaping Earth. Sister planet orbits too close every once in a while and drops the evil life-form called thread. Dragons burn thread, everybody happy…

Dragon’s Fire involves the search for firestone – the fuel dragons need to create flames with is running out and with the next pass about 30 years away something needs to be done. Thus some heroes are discovered and the disaster accordingly dealt with in a way that keeps the reader involved, interested, and excited right to the last page. In fact the stories stay so fresh up to the end that you almost don’t see it coming, and in some ways feel a bit short-changed in not having the usual wind down.

It’s nothing special when compared to other Pern novels, but in the greater scheme of things the McCaffrey’s write brilliant fiction: The scenery is always colourful, and the culture continues around and through the plot. The characters are crafted very deftly in such a way that their character is quickly identifiable and memorable yet they still appear to have depth – it’s just that we don’t really see it (or need to).

I enjoyed it; however, there were a few things that irked me somewhat. The main characters seem a bit dumb when it comes to communication (horrid pun given that one of the guys is a mute…). There were a number of points when I was left thinking “but but why didn’t you say something??” or “how can anyone be that stupid?!” etc. Some of these reasons I may have just missed, and a few are explained later, but it seemed to me the main characters were behaving a bit too irrationally to achieve verisimilitude. This might have been at least partially due to having two writers involved and while they know intimately the world that has been created, they do have slightly different writing styles and merging each of their own bits with the other didn’t quite mesh nicely in places.

All in all it’s a good book with good twists and changes in plot, but just a tad frustrating. Read it if you like Pern and the McCaffrey’s, don’t if you don’t :P

The Angel with One Hundred Wings - A Tale from the Arabian Nights; by Daniel Horch

Oh yeah – ancient script fonts all the way for this one!

Daniel Horch has created a gem of a historical novel in this tale. Inspired by “L’histoire des amours d’Aboulhassan” from Arabian Nights (as translated by Antoine Galland), this book is set in Baghdad (then called the City of Peace) nearing the end of the reign of Sultan Harun al-Rashid.

The tale centres around an elderly pharmacist called Aboulhassan, who has made his fortunes in his time selling potions, and has effectively retired to perfect his art of alchemy and try, with dwindling time, to find the elixir of life. His skill with potions and wisdom through a life of trials sees him somewhat reluctantly hosting afternoon talks with youths who are mostly there out of moral obligation, and also playing chess with his only close friend the Sultan (our pharmacist being one of the few men to ever win – although he tried not to…).

One youth, however, is much more interested in Abulhassan’s wisdom than most – he too is called Abulhassan, but also the Prince of Persia, the last living descendant of the royal family ousted from power by the religious clout of the Sultan, allowed to live by virtue of his parents’ loyalty to the Sultan. One fateful day, the Sultan’s mistress comes to visit the pharmacist for some perfume and meets the Prince and it is from there a story of intrigue, love and scandal develops. Poor Abul must choose which of his close friends to betray – the Sultan a long time friend, companion, and the authority of the land; or the Prince, his protégé who has grown into a man at Abul’s side.

The book is amazing – it really brings this ancient city to life, and fills it with elaborate characters in a richly decorated environment. Daniel Horch has done his research where needed, and used his imagination to fill in the rest – the story and events contained within are almost all fictional but utterly believable.

It was a pleasure to read this beautiful work of story-telling in its engaging surroundings featuring a combination of alchemy, the Koran, Islamic mystics and a touch of history.

Earth, Air, Fire, and Custard - Tom Holt

Tom Holt is to literature what Monty Python were to television. Hilarious, odd, and at times so completely random that you don’t have a clue what’s going on.

This is the 3^rd book of the “Paul Carpenter” novels – based in a world featuring the magic company “J. W. Wells” out of Gilbert & Sullivan’s work The Sorcerer.

You don’t need to have read the earlier books – I don’t think I have; however, doing so may help general storyline cohesion. But you’re all smart people and able to put threads together fairly quickly. Well, as fast as you can with a writer who not only keeps you in the dark for most of the book, but makes sure that the light-bulb has blown, that there’s just enough draft to blow out any candles that you try to light along the way, and puts a blindfold on you for good measure too…

Anyway, Paul had his soul sold to this magic firm (who are mostly goblins) when he was a child and since has worked for as a lowly clerk doing paper shuffling tasks, while learning the odd bit of magic. In previous adventures he saved the world from the evil humanoid creatures, and had a perfect relationship ruined when all traces of love for him were removed from his fiancée Sophie’s mind. He has died a few times, visited the Bank of Death and withdrawn himself out of there in different ways.

It’s hard to say what the true plot of this story is… Holt has the book filled with so many red herrings moving so quickly it’s like it’s not only raining fish, but also firing them at you out of a cannon, and if the protagonist doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, you can rest assured you won’t either. Suffice to say it comes down to a power struggle between God and a mad magical scientist, and believe you me – I didn’t know that until almost the end… What goes on around it all can be charming, alarming, confusing and falsely enlightening, and you grasp at straws as much as Paul does to make sense of it all.

The characters are well written – from the confused, self-degredating hero, and the sulky romantic interest, to the imposing partners of the firms, and also the bit characters, they all fit tightly into the picture.

The plot is… I think I may have already mentioned this, but it’s complicated. If you like a book to make sense the whole way through this is NOT your type of book. “Like Robert Jordan times three” to quote Paul as he tries to explain it to someone. Chapters can fly past in a whirl of words and colours and not really make sense. If you like Pratchett or Robert Rankin I’d say that you will love Tom Holt – but if random is not your thing stay away.

I laughed and laughed and laughed while reading this book – I hope you do too.

Chart Throb - Ben Elton

Having read and loved his crime/war novel “The First Casualty” I picked up this book with the knowledge that it was going to be well written. I was right. Chart Throb is a masterful blend of intrigue, story, satire and cynicism. It details the running of a new season of the hit TV show “Chart Throb” a pop idol show like all the others – but done better. Go behind the façade that is put on screen for the public and see how contestants are picked, filmed, used and dropped on the whims of the main judge Calvin (very much like Simon Cowell, but meaner). Along with this we have ethical conflicts for the research team behind the scenes, romantic interests, and power struggles as the 2 other judges vie for more screen time and a better representation of the “real” them to help their own careers. Yes, for the other judges that perfect mix is used with a mumsy mum (who just happens to also be a transsexual still undergoing further cosmetic surgery), and a once famous musician trying to get back into the spotlight by being supportive, harsh, friendly, critical, and goofy all at once…

As stated, a very cynical look at the reality TV industry and especially the pop idol arena. All in all, a good laugh with twists and turns that will keep you guessing the whole way through.

Jasper Fforde - The Fourth Bear

Ok, I'll admit it.
I'm an infamously picky reader, and anything that smacks of rewriting nursery tales better have serial killers and gratuitous sex or violence for me to even read the blurb.
Thankfully, good ol' JF is aware of this.
I found this book witty, interesting, and possessed of a Terry Pratchet style of humour, with boring aliens, talking bears with porridge addictions, and a psychopathic baked good. All in all - I'd read it 4 times, or possibly five.
It will appeal to most of you, probably hotstuff more then most, but all of you, find, read, and then chortle with me.

Robin Hobb: The Soldier Son Trilogy

Shaman's Crossing
Forest Mage
Renegade's Magic

The Soldier Son trilogy is not linked to any of Robin Hobb's previous books.

Essyllt: I was really impressed by the uniqueness and poignancy of the setting, which was post-colonial fantasy, and appears to be loosely based on early America, but with three cultures. The main character, Nevare, is from Gernia, a 'civilised' nation similar to British America. The plainsfolk, who have been conquered by Gernia, have a similar culture to the Native Americans. The third people, the Specks, are an isolated forest-dwelling people, who feature more in the second and third books.

I was able to read the books for the plot alone, because it is definitely not bad, but when I stopped to think about it, I fell in love with the theme. There is something beautiful about Hobb's ideas, and the way in which they can be applied to so many interactions between cultures or even individual people.

The Iconoclast: The politics of the Kingdom of Gernia and the way in which it deals with non-Gernian cultures were one of the important aspects of this series, and is relevant to New Zealand and other ex-colonies. In Shaman's Crossing, we see the book through Nevare's eyes as a Germian citizen, complete with his ethnocentric views. It isn't until the third book that, still through Nevare, develop a better understanding of the 'Speck' culture. One impressive feature of Hobb's writing is that we, originally, are as horribly racist as Nevare, without even realising it, and change as radically as he does (thanks to a plot device which I won't detail). The trilogy gives an excellent understanding of the dicotomous nature of ethnic - indeed, any - conflict, leaving the reader divided.

Although the trilogy is named 'The Soldier Son', after Nevare's role as the second son of the family, this was more of a plot device - this theme was mostly overwhelmed by the conflict between the Gernians and 'Specks'. The Plainsfolk are sidelined to some degree, with the occasional plot based role - I'm not sure whether this was intentional or unavoidable, but it leaves us to wonder what will happen to the intercultural relations of Gernia after the end of the trilogy.

The characterisation was rather flat, with none of the characters aside from Nevare developing much further than necessary to power the events. Even Nevare isn't a deep character, but in some ways this emphasises his development. We agree that the characters, and to an extent the setting and plot, are too familiar; however, this shows the true brilliance of Hobb's writing, as the cliches simply don't matter, and aren't particularly noticeable without closer inspection. Tamora Pierce could never pull this off, but Hobb does so with flair. The first person narration is so strong that we truly develop an empathy for Nevare and are unavoidably caught up in his feelings.

I (Tehnuka) found the magic difficult to deal with, managing to get too tangled up in trying to understand what was happening and not being able to do so until the last book. My advice is to not worry too much about this and keep reading - it becomes clear later. Compared to Hobb's previous trilogies, this one has definite strengths in the themes, and in how incredibly well the writing style conveys the main character's emotions. While I'm not sure that I got out of it what Robin Hobb intended for her readers, I was impressed by the level of consideration given to the themes, particularly those of ethnic relations (which don't tend to feature in fantasy) - of novels in this genre, dealing with such themes, these are probably the best I've ever read.

In conclusion:
Essyllt: These books are good. Read them.
The Iconoclast: These books are bloody awesome! I can't eat properly anymore.