Novels Now

The Dragon Book edited by Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois

Pages: 433 pgs.
Ages: 15+
First Published: Nov. 3, 2009
Rating: 4/5

Comments: This collection of 19 never previously unpublished short stories by mostly well-known authors is written for an “all ages” audience, meaning for adults but an acceptable cross-over for older teens. The book is entirely language and s*x free, though the themes keep the book form being suitable for anyone younger. There were a couple of stories I didn’t appreciate but for the most part I rated the others 4s or 5s. I really enjoyed that this book of short stories contained one longer almost novella sized story along with several lengthy 30 page stories along with the shorter short stories, making for a wide range of reading, with the longer stories letting the reader become quite involved in the story. I certainly had my appetite whetted for some of the others here I hadn’t read before, which was shamefully quite a few. Of the 19 authors, I had heard of 12 (even owning books by most of them), of those 12, alas, I had read only 8. A very engaging collection of stories with an amazing array of dragons: good, bad, those who fly and those who swim, with wings and without, those who breath fire, those who breathe ice. Plus the stories are told from all sorts of points of view including that of the dragon itself. A very enjoyable collection of stories. Recommended!

1. Dragon’s Deep by Cecelia Holland - I really enjoyed this story of a fishing village that the Duke visits one day and tells them their taxes are now doubled. Not knowing what else to do they venture into the dangerous waters called “Dragon’s Deep” to fish where they are attacked by a dragon and one girl, Perla, is accidentally taken away by the dragon. The story shows that a beast can learn to love through human tenderness and that humans can turn to beasts when they forget human tenderness. 4/5

2. Vici by Naomi Novik - An enjoyable and funny story with a quirky ending set in Ancient Rome of a man presumably sentenced to death when his punishment is to single handedly kill a dragon. Pure luck makes him successful and he comes home rich with the dragon’s hoard and an egg, presumably is dead. When the egg hatches the man’s life takes a turn for adventure and will never be the same again. Quite humorous while rather violent at the same time. 4/5

3. Bob Choi’s Last Job by Jonathan Stroud - A dragon hunter goes out on a hunt has an encounter with a couple of dragons. Didn’t really get this one. Well, I “got” it but wasn’t that entertained. 2/5

4. Are You Afflicted with Dragons? by Kage Baker - This was a fun, clever romp of a man who owns a seaside hotel and has a bunch of small dragons come to roost on his roof. After trying the usual pest control measure for ridding oneself of these wyrmin pests he encounters a man who specializes in the job and promises to rid him of his troubles forever. A clever, humorous tale. 4/5

5. The Tsar’s Dragons by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple - Much longer than the other stories at 35 pages this is the story of the beginnings of the Russian Revolution and the repeated attempts to kill Rasputin. Dragon’s are in the story but don’t really come into play until the end, when the Tsar’s black and the revolutionaries red dragons are leashed upon the world. The dragons have a more metaphorical place in this story of empire vs communism. 3/5

6. The Dragon of Direfell by Liz Williams - I really enjoyed this story of a mage who has been hired by a small Dukedom to rid itself of a worm-like dragon wrapped around a mountain. The mage undertakes what should be a routine job and finds more than he expected. Deeper magic is at work and as he tries to expose the hidden dark mage things are even more complicated than they had appeared. 4/5

7. Oakland Dragon Blues by Peter S. Beagle - A Police Officer gets called to a traffic hold-up to find an old, sad-looking dragon sitting in the middle of the intersection. Not wanting to deal with all the hoopla that capturing a dragon is going to cause him he convinces the dragon to move out of the way and out of sight where the officer will see if he can fix his problems for him. Turns out the dragon is a remnant from an unfinished story and he wants to find the author, to have his revenge. Absolutely loved this one. Very humorous and we get to see a dragon’s life from his point of view. 5/5

8. Humane Killer by Diana Gabaldon and Samuel Sykes - at 55 pages this started to feel more like a novella than a short story and contained a lot of plot. I really enjoyed it though very much. Two pairs both set off to kill the fierce dragon unbeknownst to each other. One pair is the weakling son of a recently deceased valiant hero who must return with his father’s mace to prove himself and joins up with a heartless warrior woman wearing a full body leather thong. The other pair is a half heathen girl, therefore a sorceress, but a nice girl who has reanimated a dead soldier to be her protection and strength as she needs to kill the dragon to rescue a precious spell book. Obviously they meet up and the story is quite hilarious. But it was confusing when it first started with the jumping back and forth between these people without the reader knowing who they were or what was going on. 4/5

9. Stop! by Garth Nix - A short, interesting story that doesn’t seem to have anything to do about dragons until the strange ending. 3.5/5

10. Ungentle Fire by Sean Williams - The author has written ten books set in the same world and this short story is also set in that world. A young man is bound to apprentice a warrior until he is deemed fit to go on a quest for his master. After five years his master sends him off to find and slay a dragon plus to bring back proof of the dragon’s death, then he will set the man free to return to his homeland and marry his intended. The story starts on the 23rd day of that quest. I really, really enjoyed this story! I’ve never heard of this author before and this is the first story in this book that makes me want to read more by a new-to-me author. 5/5

11. A Stark and Wormy Knight by Tad Williams - A funny story in which a mother dragon tells her children a bedtime story of the days of old when there were big bad knights who slayed dragons and relates a time when their great great great grandpap pulled one over on such a knight. Humorous story, told with lots of word play in the vein of “Jabberwocky” with Williams creating his own fun words but also adding a “snicker”, “beamish” and “uffish” here and there. 4/5

12. None So Blind by Harry Turtledove - Set in some time and world of an explorer’s age with magic, a group of explorer’s and sorcerers set out to explore a part of the map that has always been labeled “Here Be Dragons”. The go to find if these dragons are real and also to find any other unusual flora and fauna. An ok story but I figured out the surprise ending and just didn’t enjoy this more than ok. 2.5/5

13. JoBoy by Diana Wynne Jones - DWJ is one of my fav. authors and I loved this one! Can’t really tell much without giving anything away but it’s about a boy who experiences adolescence with both joyful and painful revelations. 5/5

14. Puz_le by Gregory Maguire - One rainy afternoon, a boy works on an old jigsaw puzzle picked up at a garage sale with strange results. Can’t say much as this is short and has a twisty ending. Really enjoyed it! 4/5

15. After the Third Kiss by Bruce Coville - May Margaret is cursed and turned into a dragon by her wicked stepmother and only three kisses from her sea adventuring brother will return her to her rightful form. He unexpectedly does arrive home after hearing his homeland is threatened by a dragon. May Margaret gets her three kisses and the stepmother is punished and you would thing all would be well. But this is just the first few pages! No, this fairy tale-like story has much more to it and May Margaret finds that though she no longer breathes fire, there is a yearning fire burning in her blood. I loved this one! 5/5

16. The War that Winter Is by Tanith Lee - In a land where winter lasts 9 months of the year, and may well last longer as time goes by, the tribes have learnt to cope in this harsh land but one thing they have no control over is the dragon, Ulkioket, who can blast a village with it’s breath of of ice and freeze everything and everyone glass-like ice that will shatter. Until one day, a small group of scavengers find a frozen city with a pregnant women near the edge, when they touch her she shatters and a live baby is born, one with pale skin and white hair. This, they believe is the hero who has come to rid them of the dragon. At 29 pages, this short story has a lot of space for a well developed story that I just loved. I’ve only read a few books and stories by Lee but I’ve never been disappointed yet. 5/5

17. The Dragon’s Tale by Tamora Pierce -This story is set in Pierce’s fictional universe of Tortall, which I haven’t read before. At 39 pages, this one felt like a novella and really had plenty of time to be a well-developed tale. Told through the point of view of a young dragon who is on a trip with an entourage visiting the Emperor’s villages, he gets bored and watches a group of boys through stones at a lady scrounging in the garbage who then runs away. Feeling magic in the air, the dragon follows her and discovers magic and a whole lot more. He keeps his secret and comes up with a plan to keep him occupied with big results. I loved, loved, loved this story!! 5/5

18. Dragon Storm by Mary Rosenblum - Tahlia’s eyes are different from every one else in the grove and the other children call her “bad-luck eyes”. But she does have a special closeness to the surf dragons and one day when she finds a dragon egg a bit different than usual and it hatches, the dragon does not appear to be a surf dragon. In fact it starts to grow at an alarming rate, protects her against any harm, talks to her and reveals the truth that has been kept secret from her for so long. Another fabulous story that I just loved, just shy of 30 pages making it long enough to really develop some character along with the plot. 5/5

19. The Dragaman’s Bride by Andy Duncan - It’s the 1930s, in the Virginia mountains and every so often when the sheriff’s men are around a few of the adolescents will go missing. At first this caused great concern but they all eventually came back after 6 weeks with tales of a hospital, being treated well, and fed well. The girls all had small scars as they’d had to have their appendix out. The boys, well, they had tiny scars a bit lower down, but after finding out everything worked fine they had no complaints. That is until Allie Harrell goes missing for 3 months causing the mountain folks to rile up against the sheriff and his men. Then one day Pearl Sunday follows an old Fire Dragaman down a hole and discovers a lot of answers. Another longer story just shy of 30 pages that combines some historical fiction with a shapeshifting giant/dragon that reads a lot like a folk tale. Really enjoyed this as well 5/5

Graphic Classics: Louisa May Alcott edited by Tom Pomplun
Graphic Classics, Vol. 18

Pages: 144
Ages: 13+
First Published: Nov. 2009
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

It’s so dreadful to be poor.

Reason for Reading: I love this series and will eventually read them all.

Comments: I’ll start with my immediate response to finishing this volume, “Fantastic!”. This is the second full colour offering in the Graphic Classics series and it is a beautiful book. The artwork is absolutely stunning and each artist has worked in a style and palette perfectly suited for each individual story. Usually, in these collection there will be at least one illustrator’s rendition I’m not too fond of but I loved them all. The book includes 2 poems, an adaptation of the novel Little Women and 5 short stories. It’s been ages since I’ve read Little Women and, of course, this is a quick run through of the story but the essence of the story is there; the individual personalities of the girls shine through and this graphic adaption pays homage to the novel well, especially with the wonderful artwork by Anne Timmons.

The highlight of this volume, though, is the short stories. I have not read any of Louisa May Alcott’s stories before and was wondrously surprised at this ghastly Gothic collection. Four of them are fabulous 19th century sensationalist stories full of corpses, murder and madness while the other is a strange, yet delightful, morality tale for children. My favourite story out of the whole book was the last one, A Whisper in the Dark, which at a full 41 pages is a perfect example of the era’s Gothic story with romance, long dark corridors, strange noises in the night and madness, all wonderfully illustrated by Arnold Arre using a palette mostly of browns, going to greys and black to suit the mood.

Yet another fine volume in the series and a must read for fans of the series or Louisa May Alcott. And further research tells me we don’t have long to wait for Vol. 19 which is shooting for a May release date entitled “Western Classics”. I can hardly wait!

Paul McCartney: A Life by Peter Ames Carlin

Pages: 340 pgs. + notes, index
First Published: Nov. 3, 2009
Rating: 4/5

First sentence:

Paul McCartney is almost home.

Reason for Reading: I like the Beatles but I love Paul.

Comments: Normally, I steer away from biographies, trying to read memoirs instead unless the person in question is dead and never wrote their own auto-biography. Well, Paul is neither, but given his extremely private nature I find it doubtful he’ll ever write a memoir and if he did it would not be in-depth but more like musings of good memories. So I jumped on this book when it came out.

Again, I find when reading these types of biographies one has to be wary as the authors are often out to dig up every piece of dirt they can on the celebrity or they don’t particularly like said person and simply enjoy writing a book that trashes them. This is not what I want. I want to read a respectful, true account of the celebrity’s life and author Peter Ames Carlin delivers on all accounts.

Right from the start one can tell that the author respects his subject and throughout the book when the controversies arise he shows the reader a ‘pro-Paul’ position. But this does not mean that he paints a fake rosy picture. Paul McCartney is exposed here warts and all. He was egocentric during the Beatles days, always being the leader, creating rifts among the other members and yet not realizing it until years much later. The intensely close relationship between him and John Lennon is examined from all sides even during the years they publicly shunned each other and Yoko Ono’s influence over John. George and Ringo are given very little space in the book. The book is about Paul and his relationships with these two do not stand out much more than ‘mates’. Though we do get at inside look at Paul’s brotherly affection to George, which was not always appreciated.

Past the Beatles, the rocky years with Wings are covered in detail, Paul’s true love, once in a lifetime relationship with his beloved Linda, his semi-success in the 80s as a solo singer, his disaster of a marriage with the vengeful Heather Mills and his eventual settlement into simply being Paul McCartney, the last of the Fab Four (as nobody really counts Ringo). We also see Paul’s reactions to nthe deaths of both John and George. A very interesting, funny, informative look inside the life of a brilliant, sensitive, egocentric, perfectionist, caring, simple-life loving man who is one of the 20th century’s most recognizable and influential musicians.

The Beacon by Susan Hill

Pages: 154
First Published: May 11, ‘09 (UK/Can) Nov. 24,’09 (US)
Genre: novella, literary fiction
Rating: 3.5/5 (If I gave 1/4 points, which I don’t, I’d give it 3.75/5)

First sentence:

May Prime had been with her mother all afternoon, sitting in the cane chair a few feet away from the bed, but suddenly at seven o’clock she had jumped up and run out of the house and into the yard and stood staring at the gathering sky because she could not bear the dying a second longer.

Reason for Reading: I have tried (and enjoy) the author’s mystery series and wanted to try some of her fiction.
Comments: With a novella one can’t say much about the plot without telling the whole story. So briefly. Set in the “North Country” of England a family of four children grew up in the fifties on a farm far from any neighbors but with a little village close enough by. After they’ve all grown, one of the boys leaves the area for good never to return. This book examines how that effects those left behind, while it examines their past and their present especially through the eyes of May, the eldest daughter.

Beautifully written in stark language. This is a desolate story full of atmosphere to match. It actually has a Gothic feel with the lonely farmhouse, named The Beacon, and the silence inside as it contains May and her dying mother, then May and her mother’s body and finally May on her own. I enjoyed the process of reading this but as often happens with books so short I wanted more. I really wanted to know more about May, but I think that was the whole point of the story. Right from the beginning we are aware that their is a secret and then in my mind I felt as if their were two secrets and only one of them is revealed. The final ending has me stumped. I’m not sure I understand it all. Oh, I have some ideas and one that pervades is it tells the answer to the second secret but it’s not what I suspected. I’ll be thinking about this for a while.

Susan Hill fans will definitely want to read this, but if you haven’t read the author before it’s best not to start with this ambiguous story.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
The Buckshaw Chronicles, Book 1

Pages: 292
First Published: April 2009
Genre: mystery, cozy, Gothic
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

It was as black in the closet as old blood.

Reason for Reading: At first, the title grabbed me. Then I read the publisher’s summary and was very excited to read this mystery.
Comments: Flavia is an 11-year-old girl who lives in a run-down ancestral home in a tiny village in England with her Father, two sisters and a few servants. Flavia isn’t your ordinary 11yo, she has taken over an ancient chemistry studio in the house from a former ancestor and her whole world revolves around chemistry. Her speciality? Poisons. Early one morning Flavia stumbles upon a dead man lying in the cucumber patch and that is just the beginning of a series of events that Flvaia becomes involved in as she finds herself matching wits with the local Inspector who has her father under suspicion of the murder.

What an incredibly, deliciously, devilish mystery. This is like nothing I’ve read before. A pure joy to read. The characters were all entirely eccentric from the main protagonist down to the secondary and minor characters. The mystery is both what I would call a cozy and a Gothic mystery. It is a cozy in the sense that it is very Agatha Christie in presentation, lots of mental deduction going on and no gory details, plenty of suspects to choose from and each a nuisance in their own way. On the otherhand Bradley presents a very Gothic feel to his mystery with the old run down buildings and other old English settings, such as a school bell tower, Flavia’s macabre interest in poison and the equally devilishly (though not life-threatening) pranks that she and her sisters play on each other. Characters appear suddenly at windows and loom out of the fog. It really is just splendidly atmospheric writing but completely cozy for those who like their mysteries clean and intelligent rather than soaked in blood.

I only had one small problem and I can’t really say for sure whether it was the author or just myself. The novel’s narrator is an 11-year-old girl and I don’t think it was completely maintained throughout. I’m sure it is difficult to write an adult novel in a child’s voice and it is not something that one reads everyday. At times I often forgot it was a child telling the story until a word or phrase would bring it back to my mind; I also often forgot the narrator was a girl until she mentioned wearing a dress or such. This was something that irked me a little bit, but otherwise I am full of recommendations for this book. I think a wide variety of mystery fans are going to enjoy this book and there are already two further volumes in the series planned for future release! I think Flavia de Luce may just become a future British TV series as she is just that compelling; I’d love to see her come to life on the screen and can’t wait to read her next mystery!