Genre: Fantasy

My latest review at BSCreivew is of  Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord. This book is unique, enjoyable, and quick to read. It’s also my first experience with “magical realism,” and I have to say–I think I’m hooked.

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Genre: Manga/Shoujo

There’s somewhere that Kobato Hanato wants to go. Ioryogi-san, an aggressive and demanding dog that looks, conveniently, like a stuffed animal is willing to help her get her wish, but Kobato must follow his directions in order to earn it. She must fill a bottle to the brim with wounded hearts by helping those who have been emotionally hurt. However, Kobato finds this task more difficult than expected, particularly since her straightforwardness and frequent lack of sense sometimes scares people away. Still, she has a good heart and the best of intentions, so it’s inevitable that some things will go her way, even if she isn’t on the quickest path to success.

I stumbled upon Kobato by accident, to be honest. I’ve been so out of the manga loop–far too focused on trying to get one or two series finally finished–that I didn’t know there was a new CLAMP title out. Shame on me–despite it all, CLAMP is still one of my favorite manga groups, and I’d at least like to keep up with what they’re doing.

Style-wise, this manga is reminiscent of Cardcaptor Sakura. But don’t mistake Kobato for Sakura at all. Kobato, while sweet, has very little common sense and, at this juncture, is naive beyond measure. Much of Ioryogi-san’s grumbling and yelling is in direct response Kobato’s air headedness, yet he doesn’t abandon her, and he tries to steer her in the right direction. If anything, I’d like to know how the two of them came upon each other.

Reading the first volume, I wasn’t very clear on where the plot was going. As Kobato became involved with the kindergarten in volume two, however, it became more obvious. Whether or not she’ll remain with these same characters throughout the entirety of the story, I don’t know. If she wants to fill her bottle to the top, I can’t imagine that Sakaya and Fujimoto would provide sufficient wounded hearts. But how do I know? CLAMP always surprises me.

This manga is meant to be fun and silly–obviously a comedy. Parts of it become more serious–particularly as the story with Sakaya develops–but I’d say that, at this juncture, it’s certainly more lighthearted than, say, Wish—and Wish was pretty lighthearted at times. Still, there’s some intrigue going on. It seems that Ioryogi-san has a long time rival, Sakaya is in trouble with a loan shark who seems weirdly familiar with her, and Fujimoto has some deep-seated mistrust of other people. All of these things have yet to be explained, and seeing how Kobato’s influence will affect them should be interesting.

As with most CLAMP titles, part of the fun is seeing whether or not there will be any appearances by known characters. So far, it looks like Kobato will be living next door to Chitose Mihara, mother of Chiise and Chiho, characters which I’m sure most CLAMP fans will recognize. Will there be more? I suppose we’ll see.

Overall, Kobato was quick to read, pretty fun, and I’m curious about how it will play out. Since the specific place that Kobato wants to go remains a mystery, I’m interested in finding out exactly what a girl like her would wish for.

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Genre: Fantasy/Comedy

Why so many mini-views, you ask? Because I’ve read a number of books in the last few months, but I haven’t had anything resembling enough time to write proper reviews about them. Not being able to write full reviews should not, however, mean that I don’t talk about them at all. And so…here we are.

As far as this particular book goes, well, I can finally, FINALLY (and happily!) say that I’ve read Good Omens. The only question you should be asking (because I’m certainly asking myself) is — what took you so long?

I purchased Good Omens back when it was first released in the States. It’s been sitting on my shelf for what…fourteen years? Yeah, that’s right–I’ve got the old school cover, too.

My god. I was a sophomore in high school back then. Er. . .let’s not talk about that.

Of course, since I’m a chronic book buyer, I ended up purchasing far more books after Good Omens, which caused it to get lost in the shuffle. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to dust off a few of my older, unread titles in order to give them some much-awaited attention.

Since this is a mini-view, I’m not going to go crazy with plot summaries and the like. Basically, I’m working off the assumption that everyone but me has already read this book (not true, but it ought to be).

Good Omens was fabulous in the way that only a couple of snarky British writers could make it fabulous. If you like this brand of humor (and why wouldn’t you?), you won’t be able to get through a chapter of this book without laughing so hard you cry. Honestly, I begin to wonder if the reason why I took so long to get through this novel was that I never wanted it to end. It always guaranteed hilarity, no matter what time of day.

Easily, my favorite bits of the book included Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley is fantastically awful but not quite evil, if you know what I mean. Meanwhile, Aziraphale is an angel in a bookshop. I think from here on out I should start taking notes about angels in bookshops. Maybe set up a convention. So far the only two in attendance are Aziraphale and Lyda Morehouse’s Morningstar (who no doubt got his ticket through sheer force of personality—and probably for free).

There’s a lot about this book that you’ll enjoy, especially if you like clever humor. And ducks. Oh, I loved the ducks.

I tend to recommend it to people who’ve read and enjoyed The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The humor strikes me as similar, though the subject is different.

I think my only remaining question, after reading this book is, what happened with Hastur? I was sure he was going to come after Crowley again in the end. Either I missed it, or that wasn’t quite wrapped up.

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Genre: Manga/Science Fiction/Mystery

I doubt whether this can seriously be called a “review,” and as such I’ll be titling this sort of thing “Mini-View” in order to emphasize that it’s short, to the point, and doesn’t go particularly in depth about the story itself. But I’ll be happy to discuss anything further in the comments should anyone be curious about my take on things.

Today I finished reading 20th Century Boys and 21st Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa. I’m afraid I got tired of waiting around for the volume by volume releases, so I borrowed someone else’s translations. Frankly, I wanted to get to the point already. This is a wonderful series, but after a while, the complete lack of clues as to the identify of Friend gets absolutely maddening.

Of course, having already read the series isn’t going to stop me from buying all the volumes as they come out. But it was all I could do short of reading spoilers which, you know, I wouldn’t.

So, having gotten to the end of 20th Century Boys, all I really know is…Urasawa has a twisty turny mind. I have serious doubts as to whether I could create such a complex story. In fact I doubt that most people could and still have it come out coherently.

So, the two obvious questions:

Was it good?

Yes, it was quite good. Of course it was good. We are talking about Urasawa. His stories are epic. This one spans almost 20 years in 22 volumes (plus however many volumes are in 21st Century Boys, which functions as the conclusion of the series).

Did I like it better than Monster?

Actually, no. I still like Monster best. This has nothing to do with the quality of one story over the other. It’s just a personal preference.

You’re still my favorite, Johan!

So, here are a few things I’ve noticed about Urasawa stories based solely on Monster and 20th Century Boys (sadly, Pluto doesn’t really fall into this same pattern, but then Pluto isn’t solely an Urasawa work):

1 – Everything is about your childhood. If you turn out to be the most evil person on the planet, it’s because someone did something to you in your childhood that probably made you feel unwanted or unloved. And oh…you remember. You remember for a loooonnggg time. And you get your world takeover plans started early. If you don’t have it worked out by 6th grade, you’re slacking. In fact, you’re not even a proper Urasawa villain. Get out.

2 – Even if we start out with a male protagonist, there’s going to be a formidable female protagonist coming along anytime….

3 – Regular old bad guys can be turned into good guys. They’re not really bad if they don’t have Questionable Childhood Memories.

4 – Ordinary dark-haired protagonists get a power-up halfway through the story and become UBER.

And that’s about the gist of it.

Well, no, not really. That would be giving 20th Century Boys WAY too little credit. So much happens in this story that it’s near impossible to summarize in a reasonable length. It, along with Monster, would make great fodder for some kind of analysis paper. If only I felt like writing one….

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Genre: Urban Fantasy

My new contribution at BSCreview is Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane. This first book in her Downside Ghosts trilogy is lots of fun and very exciting. Definitely pick it up when it releases on May 25th.

Of course, to make it even better, if you do become a Chess Putnam fan (as I did), then you’ll be interested to know that the next two books are coming out this year as well. The second book, Unholy Magic, is slated for July 6th, so you won’t have to wait long to follow up.

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Needless to say, trying to read the books that I want to review is problematic when it’s coming up against the requirement to read whole books on the history of rhetoric and visual rhetoric and every other kind of rhetoric you can think of. And then there was that issues in publishing course which, while incredibly fun, assigned rather detailed projects like creating a magazine prospectus and putting together a publisher’s seasonal catalog.

Yet the prospect of having even more troublesome classes next semester does nothing to diminish my delight over the announcement of Pyr’s Fall/Winter releases for 2010-2011. I’m going to be a very, very busy reader during the fall, and not just because I’ll be taking Japanese I.

Not only are two books that I’d previously heard about finally getting released—Vampire Empire: The Greyfriar, Book 1 and The Buntline Special—but so are a slew of other books that sound absolutely fantastic. I’ll admit, I had to stop myself from printing out the entire post and organizing what I want to read using multi-colored highlighters.

I’m sure by now that most of my friends know that I intend to read through the majority of the Pyr catalog despite what my university classes may require of me. But Pyr makes it so very easy to want to. As it is, I’ve only been delaying my purchase of Ghosts of Manhattan because I needed to wait until payday. But payday is today. . . so I expect you’ll know where to find me later.

On the listing for the upcoming season, I’m especially looking forward to The Cardinal’s Blades and The Scar-Crow Men (I’m a sucker for period settings and historical characters, what can I say?), The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, The Horns of Ruin, Tome of the Undergates, Legends of the Raven, Cowboy Angels, and the Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov books. And, of course, The Greyfriar and The Buntline Special.

And if you think that I’ve just named everything on the list, you’d almost be right. As for the rest, I simply haven’t read the first ones in the series yet . . . but I’ll get there.

With intriguing new titles from our friends at Pyr, it’s going to be a great season.

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Genre: Alternate History/Historical Fiction/Manga

I have yet to mention this here on TRE, but I was recently asked to join the review team over at BSCreview. I’m quite excited about this, as you can well imagine, and I’ll be dedicating some of my reading and review time to my contributions there.

For my first submission, I have reviewed volumes one and two of Ōoku by Fumi Yoshinaga (manga-ka of Antique Bakery). It’s a great manga so far, and I’m marking my calendar for the next two volumes that will be coming out this year.

Keep your eye out for my next BSCreview contribution, which should be coming along very soon. In the meantime, go visit the site if you never have before. It’s full of great material on books, comics, television, and movies, among other things.

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Genre: Fantasy

Since finishing The Spirit Lens well over a week ago, I’ve been surprised to see next to no reviews about it on the book blogs and forums that I typically frequent. So far I’ve only encountered one, and I admit to finding the lack of attention baffling. I’ve been anticipating The Spirit Lens since I first heard about it late last year, and it was the first thing I bought in January. I went to the bookstore the day it was released and snatched it from a stocking cart while no one was looking. Admittedly, I had trouble starting it after that, which I blame entirely on the fact that I was terribly sick for the first week that I had it. I muddled through the prelude with a cloudy head, and only after I was feeling better did I allow myself to move on to chapter one.

Truly, there are no words to describe how I really feel about this book. I suppose the closest I could come would be to recreate the near unintelligible e-mail that I wrote to my friend the very second that I stopped gaping and put the book down—but not only would that be uninformative for you, it would be highly embarrassing for me. All I can tell you is that Carol Berg has successfully upended my world yet again, and as soon as I stop pouting over the need to wait another year to see what happens next in her Collegia Magica trilogy, I’ll start looking for ways to build her a shrine in my computer room.

But, in all seriousness, and despite my rather copious praise-raining (after all, we wouldn’t want to build it up too much, would we?), The Spirit Lens is an incredibly enjoyable fantasy adventure for those who love unexpected heroes, web-worked plots, magic versus technology, and librarians with a skill for investigative spying.

In lieu of my own summary, this time, I offer the back-cover synopsis:

“For Portier de Savin-Duplais, failed student of magic, sorcery’s decline into ambiguity and cheap illusion is but a culmination of life’s bitter disappointments. Reduced to tending the library at Sabria’s last collegia magica, he fights off despair with scholarship. But when the king of Sabria charges him to investigate an attempted murder that has disturbing magical resonances, Portier believes his dreams of a greater destiny might at last be fulfilled.

As the king’s new agente confide, Portier—much to his dismay—is partnered with the popinjay Ilario de Sylvae, the laughingstock of Sabria’s court. Then the need to infiltrate a magical cabal leads Portier to Dante, a brooding, brilliant young sorcerer whose heretical ideas and penchant for violence threaten to expose the investigation before it’s begun. But in an ever-shifting landscape of murders, betrayals, old secrets, and unholy sorcery, the three agentes will be forced to test the boundaries of magic, nature, and the divine.”

I’ll say it again, as I’ve said it several times before and will likely keep saying it—Carol Berg’s characters make her stories real. Yes, there are many, many reasons to love her novels: the plots, the mysteries, the settings, and the beautiful language. However, it’s the characters who offer the personal connections to all of those things and, without them, it just wouldn’t be the same. Not even a little bit.

What I enjoy, in particular, is the type of character she often chooses to tell the story. Now, I’m not necessarily a proponent of the “everyman” school of thought—I really rather enjoy stories about people who aren’t just your average joe—but in a way, I feel like Berg’s characters are just that…except that they’re not, exactly.

Let’s look at Portier, for example. Here’s a man who, theoretically, could have been an important individual with prestigious, if distant, family ties and yet…he’s not incredible at all. He’s a failed mage turned librarian, and while I might find that interesting, it’s not something to be excited about in his world. Portier had dreams of becoming someone important (as we all do)—someone whose destiny allows him to make a difference in the world. But at the beginning of The Spirit Lens, he has all but given up thoughts of such things. He begins the story believing himself to be quite ordinary—even shamed by his failure—but he then finds himself offered an unexpected opportunity to change that. Over the course of the novel Portier deals with many types of people—royalty, mages, and villagers—yet he himself never loses his own identity or the aspects that make him easy to relate to—his down to earth outlook and his determination.

Something about a character who had great potential, lost it, and must now struggle to regain it (but not at all in the way he expected) is very attractive me. I certainly can’t say why, but I can say that Portier joins the ranks of other similar characters, only with a lot less arm twisting which, I’ll be honest, is a nice change. I do get a bit tired of the reluctant, and occasionally whiny, narrators in fantasy (though they do have their place).

And again. Curator of Archives. What’s not to love about that?

The other characters have surprises of their own, though you may initially think of them as strangely stereotypical—the foppish courtier and the brooding mage. I wouldn’t be too quick to judge, however, as Ilario de Sylvae and Dante have secrets of their own that even Portier, despite being placed in the role of investigator and spy, fails to realize. By the middle of the book, I was thoroughly in love with Ilario, and Dante is nothing if not a surprise by the end (but, shhh, no spoiling it). I suspect the second book in the series will be replete with further revelations about them (which is to say, I hope so).

By way of less prominent characters, I will say that King Philippe surprised me. A sovereign who listens to reason? One who isn’t completely rash, even though he can become quite angry, and actually stops to consider things he doesn’t want to hear? This is the sort of monarch I can respect, and it isn’t the portrayal of kings and royalty that I’ve become accustomed to.

Of course, if it turns out, down the line, that he’s the mastermind behind all of the unfortunate nastiness going on in Sabria, I’m going to have to eat that paragraph.

Of his queen, Eugenie, the reader sees relatively little until closer to the end of the novel (though she’s much discussed by others). Even so, the descriptions provided as Portier comes into limited contact with her give a definite impression of etherealness, elegance, and fragility. She isn’t weak of personality, however. When we’re finally allowed to fully experience Eugenie in a few scenes, she demonstrates considerable strength of character, and I definitely hope that her presence will be expanded in future books. I expect she’ll be quite fascinating. Carol Berg has a knack for good female characters.

The world of The Spirit Lens is well rendered in Berg’s always-lovely prose, though in some ways it takes a back seat to the narrative. Some may not like this, but I find it natural given the narrator’s familiarity with his surroundings. The back cover of the book describes it as “a kingdom on the verge of a grand Renaissance, where natural science has supplanted failing sorcery” and, honestly, that’s as apt a summary as any. The separation between those who favor science and those who favor magic is an interesting aspect of the world, as is the obvious difference among magic users—those who excel at it are easily distinguished by those who do not. And, of course, the doctrines of the Camarilla (the group that regulates magical learning and advancement in Sabria) are sometimes at odds with other forms of magic, which becomes apparent. By the end, those other forms are bleeding ever more quickly into the world, and there’s no way to tell whether it can be stopped or whether it’s going to change the nature of magic (and the kingdom) altogether.

Speaking of the ending, I’m not going to do anything that would spoil potential readers, but I will tell you that Berg’s modus operandi hasn’t changed in all the time I’ve been reading her books. Inevitably, you’ll reach the last one-hundred pages of a Carol Berg novel thinking that you’ve got a grip on what’s happening, and the next thing you know you’ve been sucker punched. Then, just as you’re getting up off the floor, she hits you another couple of times and, frankly, you don’t know what just happened or where it came from, but you’re well aware of the fact that it was pretty darn awesome and you’ll need a few days to recover.

This is exactly what happened during the end of The Spirit Lens. And, as Berg tends to do (with a skill that rather frightens me, to be honest), she made these revelations occur just when I was beginning to ask myself “Whatever happened to ____?” and “What’s going on with ____?” That’s when I stopped to realize that she’d been diverting my attention with the obvious story thread in order to prevent me noticing what was happening in the background. She’s a sly one. Keep an eye on her. Somehow I always forget how good she is at surprise and misdirection, but I’m going to remember it next time. Really.

All things considered, I suppose it’s good that I have access to a Carol Berg novel only once a year or so. Otherwise, I’d never…never, ever…get any work done.

On that note, I will leave you with an enthusiastic recommendation and get to work on my next review which will, as a matter of fact, be a contribution to BSC Review.

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That’s not a joke. The college gave me a T-shirt.

No, really–I can’t even choose between two sealed Netflix packages to guess which one is the DVD I want to watch first. You would think that, eventually, the odds would fall in my favor, but no. Even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern didn’t have this kind of trouble.

All of this is leading up to my announcement: I’m one of the winners in the 365 Days of Manga giveaway offered via Suvudu.(!!!)

For this contest, the odds are actually really good. There’s a new name chosen every day, and that person receives five free manga from the writer of the 365 Days of Manga reviews, Jason Thompson (author of Manga: The Complete Guide).

I said I’d post a photo of myself with the manga I received, so here it is:

This is probably the only time you’ll ever see my photo (unless I end up at a convention somewhere, and I simply have to post about it). Call me camera shy if you like, but we all know it’s really just paranoia. ;D

The titles that I received include the following:

Speed Grapher
Category: Freaks, vols. 1 & 2
Flesh-Colored Horror: The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection
Tomie 2: The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection

Having seen half of the anime earlier this year, I’m somewhat familiar with Speed Grapher, and now I’ll be able to see how closely it follows the manga. Category: Freaks is a title I’ve never seen, and I’m definitely looking forward to trying it out. As for Tomie 2 and Flesh-Colored Horror, I think I was just surprised to see a ComicsOne manga show up at my door. I haven’t had one of those in years. I’m pretty sure the last ComicsOne title that I owned was Maico 2010 (wow, why don’t I just keep dating myself?).

Thanks, Jason! I’m really looking forward to reading them.

Additionally, I picked up 20th Century Boys, vol. 5 over the weekend. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet (deadlines will prevail over my pleasure reading) but I’m absolutely itching for the chance to get started.

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Genre: Dark Fantasy/Horror

Short story collections aren’t my usual reading fare, but then neither is dark fantasy (or horror…or however you’d care to classify these stories). Nevertheless, I was remarkably interested in reading Zoo—I’d finish one story only to find myself impatient to start the next. For the most part, I was satisfied with the work contained in this collection, and I’d probably recommend specific stories to someone else who was interested in the genre.

There is, however, a certain lack of clarity in a few of the stories that I found somewhat frustrating (though I’m beginning to think that this is simply a hallmark of Japanese storytelling and not an issue specific to this author). Vagueness has never been something I’ve particularly cared for in my reading, unless it’s used with care. Likewise, I tend to feel a little put out when the ending of a story has a twist that comes so far out of left field that it seems like the author simply couldn’t decide on what to do and threw something together at the last minute.

But you take that chance when you pick up a collection, and I was prepared to find issue with at least one or two of the tales.

The first story, for which the book is named, isn’t my favorite, but I suppose it has its own qualities. It’s reminiscent of the movie Memento and, if you’ve ever seen it, you can take a guess as to what happens. I suppose the most curious aspect of this story (and any others like it) is in determining just how someone is capable of deluding himself so thoroughly that he forgets what he’s done despite still knowing that he did it. Personally, I can’t fathom it, which is probably why I have trouble with this type of narrative. I can think of one or two ways in which “Zoo” might have been more satisfying to me, but I imagine other people will like it just fine as it is.

The only other story that was noticeably disappointing was “Wardrobe.” Cut scenes and convenient misdirection lead up to what was, for me, something of a cheat. The narrative continuously builds up suspicion on one character only to hurl it out the window at the very last moment and foist it onto someone who was barely present for the majority of the story. I got to the end and made the face that I typically reserve for unnecessarily dense academic essays. This is never a good reaction.

My two favorites are, easily, “The White House in the Cold Forest” and “Seven Rooms.” Strangely, both of these stories were responsible for a show of squeamishness on my part. Not due to any excessively gruesome bits, mind (there’s very little of that in this collection, actually…at least, not to the point that you can’t stomach it), but rather to descriptions of smell and touch. Saying that certain elements of the story and description “grossed me out” is, perhaps, a pedestrian way of describing it, but it’s also the most accurate. In “The White House in the Cold Forest” I found the visual description to be quite provocative, and “Seven Rooms” was the most straightforward of all the stories (which, for me, is a draw).

Following those two, I definitely enjoyed “Kazari and Yoko.” This was another straightforward narrative, and one that could exist in any genre. The topic here had more to do with extremes than anything else. The noticeable differences in how Kazari and Yoko are treated on a daily basis manifest in their behavior and in how others perceive them. And while it’s not essential to the story, I suppose, I’d be curious to find out exactly why their mother behaves as irrationally as she does. Overall, this is definitely a good story that is likely to make an emotional connection for most readers.

I recall receiving a text message about “Find the Blood!” that noted how the opening was rather comical (in a good way, of course). I’d have to agree, and there are other aspects of the story that continued to amuse me throughout. The events themselves were a bit frantic, and, for some reason, I was reminded of the old Clue movie starring Tim Curry. Whether or not you like the ending will depend entirely on your own preferences—I happened to like it, but then I was probably imagining some future storyline that would feature the culprit.

As far as the rest of the stories go, I’m largely ambivalent toward them. Not that they didn’t each have their own good qualities, but they simply didn’t stand out quite as much as the others (either that, or parts of them were confusing). The exception, perhaps, is “Song of the Sunny Spot” which, though I don’t list it as a favorite, certainly left me with a positive memory. It’s one of the stories that I found most emotional, especially toward the end. And when I discovered the truth about the dying man, it became all the more interesting. It’s certainly one of the more understated science fiction stories I’ve ever read, and I think that suits it well.

Overall, this collection was decent with a few stand-out stories. Should I come across anything else from this author, I’d be likely to read it.

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