The Lousypoet

Mortal Instruments Book One: City of Bones
by Cassandra Clare

This particular book is apparently written by an author who rose to fame writing fan fiction. I’d say some of that influence shows through, as The City of Bones feels like a mash up of various genre hits like Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even the Russian series Night Watch. Now is it pure derivative trash? No. Actually, the book is quite enjoyable, and I did appreciate that for the most part, the author stays true to the most common held tenets of the “other worldly” characters. Unlike other YA fare (Twilight, I’m looking at you….) vampires are actually vampires, werewolves are like actual werewolves. All in all, there is nothing overly jarring when it comes to the use of demons and other beasties from myth.

City of Bones introduces us to the character of Clary Fray. She seems an ordinary young girl with talent for drawing. Then, while at an all ages club, she witnesses a group of teens kill a vampire. With this, she is drawn into the world of the Shadow Slayers. They are a long line of warriors who fight against the demons that flood into our world and the Downworlders (vampires, warlocks, etc.) that get out of hand.

There’s a number of twists and such, mostly revolving around Clary’s lineage. As enjoyable as the book was to read, virtually all of these were predictable. There was only the odd, incredibly rare, moment that I found myself having not seen an event happening chapters ahead. Probably the biggest shocking reveal I had pegged with the first two or three chapters. While this didn’t destroy my enjoyment of the book, it made me feel the book was less original because most of the twists have been done to better effect in other stories. I don’t know about anyone else, but knowing something like that creates an antsy feeling in me, that I just want the author to get that particular reveal out of the way so I can move forward.

One thing I will give credit to, is that the fight sequences are well written. Just enough information to make it thrilling, but not so much as to make it cumbersome. Also, Clare does put all these elements into a story that, while the influences are easy to spot, the story feels cohesive, and the elements feel like they belong, as opposed to some stories that just end up feeling like Frankenstein’s monster.

All in all, I found this book pretty satisfying. It’s probably the fastest I’ve burned through a book in sometime, because it succeeds it moving along nicely instead of bogging down like some books I’ve read have. There is almost always some form of action, conflict, or revelations occurring, so the novel moves at a nice pace.

I do recommend this one, and I’ll be picking up the sequel next pay cheque.

So after hearing considerable hype for this little book, I finally succumbed and read it. I confess, I walked in with some preconceived notions that probably injured the experience. First, I thought the prose would be wondrous and full of fable like one of my all time faves, The Alchemist. I also believed that this book would contain revolutionary ideas that would change some of my notions of God, or at the very least, fill me with new questions and longing to know the creator. And as much as it saddens me, I have to say I was disappointed.

The Shack follows the tale of Mack, who takes three of his kids for a camping trip. During the trip, his youngest daughter is kidnapped by an apparent serial killer, and is most obviously killed. Several years later, Mack continues to struggle with The Great Sadness that hampers him in all his relationships and daily activites. One day, he receives a letter, seemingly from God, inviting him back to the very scene where Mack’s daughter was killed. What follows is Mack’s rediscovering of joy and comfort in the love of God.

I must say that I found The Shack to be slow, at times pedantic, and overall one man’s assertion of what God is to him. While the personalities of the trinity are both warm, interesting and inviting, there are always the questions as to God’s true intention. While time and again the message is that all God wants is to be loved and free to love in return, the book fails to truly explain the conflicting visions of God as presented throughout the Bible. And I’m sorry, but I felt like the explanation as to why God allows bad things to happen to good people was just a big cop out.

In many ways this book reminded me of Anne Rice’s diatribe on religion, Memnoch the Devil. Like Rice, Young has clear ideas of what religion is and where God fits in with it and with us his creations. I suppose it just all falls flat. The ending seemed rushed, and where I expected a big payoff, instead I received a cliche ending that I had seen coming from long before it happened.

Perhaps if The Shack had been written by a more capable writer, or given some more substance, I would have found it more engaging. I also found the dialogue, especially that of Mack, to be stilted and cumbersome.

In the end, The Shack was a compelly idea, and it did have its shining moments, like when Mack is granted true vision. I think overall, this book is meant to be entertaining and to represent one man’s ideals in relation to God and the Holy Trinity. I do not think this should be read as a way to understand the true nature of God or the Trinity, especially as I think no human could ever truly know the mind of the creator.

So give The Shack a read, if only to say you have. Don’t get hung up on the details, and I wish I could say that when the plot bogs down that there is an amazing payoff, but well, there isn’t. Sorry

So this is the fourth and, as far as I know, final book in the Night Watch series. Once again, Anton is our main character and narrator. Some time has passed since the events of Twilight Watch and Anton has continued getting accustomed to his new powers as a Great One. The book starts with a murder in Scotland that will see Anton traveling, meeting a number of other Watches, and coming face to face with the dead.

Simply put, if you liked the other Night Watch novels, you’ll probably dig this one too. There’s a fair amount of mystery in this, just like the others. Being told in the first person is a really great move for these books because the revelations dawn on us along with Anton. What I also enjoy about these books is that characters don’t have to be conveniently stupid for the plot to work. Also, as with all the Watch books, the ambiguity of good and evil comes into heavy play here. One character in particular, who I don’t want to spoil, is an interesting study in the fine line between the Light and the Dark. However, this book isn’t about the light or dark getting an upper hand, or trying to outwit the plans of the other. The motivations behind these antagonists is far more personal, and in that way, human, than possibly in the other books.

I also enjoyed seeing the cultural differences with the Watches. Seeing two Day and Night Watches other than the Moscow ones was kind of a nice change of pace. After the manipulating and power struggles we’ve seen in Moscow, it was fun to actually see a place where the Night Watch and the Day Watch share a building because it is “cost effective.”

While the end felt a bit rushed, and maybe not played to the full extent it could have been, The Last Watch was another solid entry into this series. I actually hope there will be more!

Book Review – Thin Moon Psalm

Thin Moon Psalm was my first foray into the works of Sheri Benning. It’s an intensely contemplative and personal work. I admit, there were times where I felt like a voyeur, catching intimate moments in Benning’s life. There were the shocking scenes from a rally in Russia, the moments with her mother, that spoke in words lilting and lyrical. Thin Moon Psalm isn’t something loud, it’s words are mostly gentle, it’s language dancing lightly on the page. Reading this just really brought home how powerful poetry can be. At times there was this squeamish discomfort, like overhearing conversations too intimate for public broadcast, at others, I felt compelled forward, wondering at where the words were taking me.

I guess what it really boils down to is, Sheri Benning really reminded me about the power of poetry. Sometimes you consume so much written fiction, you forget that there isn’t just power in sentences, but in the words themselves; in poetry, it is so clear, as a single word can convey paragraphs of meanings.

You can check out more about Thin Moon Psalm at its publisher’s site, Brick Books.

Sheri Benning grew up on a small farm in central Saskatchewan. She has traveled extensively, including spending time in St Petersburg, Russia. She currently resides in Canada. She has been published in numerous publications including several anthologies. She has two published books of her works; Earth After Rain & Thin Moon Psalm.

Links for Sheri Benning,

Brick Books Bio
Bio on the League of Canadian Poet’s site

Fragile Things
by Neil Gaiman

Fragile things is yet another compilation of Neil Gaiman’s short stories and poetry. Most of these stories have seen life in other publications, but I suppose if you don’t subscribe to every short story magazine, nor buy every short story anthology, chances are you haven’t seen many, if any, of these stories before.

Once again, reading these, it just comes back that Gaiman is our own modern myth maker. When Gaiman does a full length novel, you can feel the myth and magic simmering along, but it is so clear in these short fables that I had to digest them over far more time than it usually takes me to devour a full length novel. There’s just so many cool ideas, nuanced themes, and sometimes, maddening twists, that I found I could only manage a story or two per sitting. This is in contrast to finishing one of his 500 page novels within a night or two.

Fans of American Gods will be particularly happy to find a new novella based on Shadow’s life two years after the events of American Gods. I really enjoyed it, and being hooked along made me realise just how thirsty I had been for more of Shadow’s adventures. I was almost sad to see it come to an end. It was also interesting to read this having seen Gaiman’s theatrical take on the whole Grendel affair.

There’s also some other things here that are a bit more avante garde, but truly build an appreciation for Gaiman. His writings for Scarlet’s Walk, the Tori Amos album, are really cool. While individually there are snippets of travel and obsession, they add up to something far greater, almost reminding me of the movie Momento when it was all said and done.

All in all, this one was very satisfying. Each story was unique, proving just how seemingly boundless Neil Gaiman’s imagination can be.

Brisingr
by Christopher Paolini

This is the third book in the Inheritance series that started with Eragon and then continued with Eldest. This third instalment finds Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, bound by numerous promises that they have given throughout the series.

This book’s purpose is to set the stage for the final battle with Galbatorix. The Varden are shoring up support and the dwarves are looking to elect a new leader. In the midst of this, Eragon must deal with the loss of his Rider’s sword, and wonders at how he will ever find a weapon that is its equal.

While the first two books in Paolini’s series felt dirivitive, Brisingr finally starts to find much more of its own voice. The dwarves in particular have their rituals fleshed out enough that they feel more like a distinct people rather than just another knock off of numerous fantasy novels that have gone before. In many ways, this book does for the dwarves and the Urgles what Eldest did for Paolini’s Elves. By the end of Brisingr, the races of Alegasia feel far more like a cohesive population instead of just being recycled fantasy cliches. In this, Paolini raises the bar and allows his tale to find its own voice.

While cynics will still find plot points that feel like so much that has gone before, I think it’s more of a genre issue than it is Paolini’s lack of creativity. Quite the contrary, Brisingr demonstrates Paolini’s growth as a writer in both his technique and his creativity. While Eragon often felt like an over-bloated fantasy road trip, and Eldest in many cases continued this trend, Brisingr shifts its focus to numerous characters and plot points that adds far more dimension and life to Eragon’s tale.

Though my only argument is that I found I ejoyed that tales of the supporting characters more than that of Eragon himself. Perhaps it’s because at this point, a character like Roran has far more to lose in terms of human life. Roran has a wife, a family to start. In him we see ourselves and our own reasons that we might take up arms. I only disagree with Paolini’s need to over exagerate Roran’s prowess in battle. When he states that Roran single-handedly kills almost 200 soldiers and stood at the end on a pile twenty feet high of bodies, I just found that hard to swallow. And perhaps that is what the problem is. Paolini spent a good portion of Brisingr showing the heroics of Roran. And because Roran is just a man, because he has a wife and very real attachments that readers can associate with, he is in a sense more heroic and more interesting than his powerful cousin. In contrast, Paulini seems intent on reminding us how vulnerable Eragon is. I guess it’s his way of making Eragon more relatable, or to try and heighten the drama, but I found while I absorbed the tales of Roran, I glazed over parts of Eragon. To me, it will be interesting to see where Paolini takes Eragon in the next, and supposedly final, instalment.

All in all, Brisingr was my favourite of the series so far. It definately raised my expectations for the final instalment.

The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman

It’s always a pleasure to sit down with a new Neil Gaiman book. The man has yet to disappoint me, and that’s saying something. I had been eagerly anticipating the Graveyard Book’s release for sometime now, and I burned through it.

The Graveyard Book is the tale of Nobody, or Bod for short, who on the night his family is murdered wanders, no more than a toddler, into a local graveyard where he is adopted by the spirits within. The book follows Bod as he grows, matures, ventures into the world beyond the safety of the graveyard, and eventually confronts the truth of his origins.

This book was a little different from Gaiman’s other novels. While most of his books contain driving narratives that propel you forward in the singular story, the Graveyard Book is actually a series of vignettes showing us key moments in Bod’s life. We literally follow the child from barely a year old to the age of 15. It is only the continuing threat of the murderer Jack that provides cohesion throughout the book. There are eight chapters, and really it is only chapters one and seven that serve the overall narrative.

But this way of telling the story had an immense charm to it. Bod is an extremely likable character. Unlike too many other child characters, he is neither precocious, nor do you feel stupidity or ignorance land him in the hot water situations he finds himself in. There is an incredible innocence to Bod that is so refreshing. I was a particular fan of the chapter where Bod goes to school. His observations and the ultimate revelation of where he went wrong struck a very deep chord in me.

Because, in the end, the Graveyard Book is a tale of growing up. While it may be steeped in fantasy, filled with vampires, werewolves, ghouls, ghosts and magic, it really comes down to a tale about a boy becoming a man, and learning that eventually, he has to stand on his own two feet.

I loved this book. The only real complaint I have is that I want more. I want to know more about what happens to Bod. I want more of Silas, his obviously vampiric gaurdian. I can only hope that someday Mr. Gaiman decides to let us in on more of their stories.

Until then, go a find a copy of the Graveyard book. I highly recommend it!

by Scott Baker

So where do I start with this? It’s taken me weeks to get through Ancestral Hungers, and in the end I only finished it off so that I could move on to The Graveyard Book (I just can’t read more than one book at a time!).

This was one of those books that has been sitting on our shelf at home for possibly a decade, and faced with nothing to read, I picked it up. The back cover sounded interesting enough, it essentially detailed how the main character David Bathory had been avoiding his heritage as a descendant of Dracula. When David’s father dies, David finds himself at the centre of a power struggle to control the family and its vampire minions. In order to survive, David will have to make the choice between embracing his lineage or his destruction. Sounds cool, right? OMFG, it goes so wrong.

Taken as individual parts, Ancestral Hungers might have been a good vampire novel, novel about families steeped in Satanic rituals, a story about black magic practitioners, or a tale of erotica about a man who finds he is madly in love with his long lost sister who he makes love to numerous times in order to replenish his “power.” The only problem is, when you throw all these parts together, it makes the story feel bloated, convoluted, and in some places. wrong! This doesn’t even touch on the whole involvement of Indian snake gods, Shiva. demons, and a whole plot to kill Satan. There’s so much here, that it just doesn’t feel cohesive. A vampire novel should have vampires, but the fact that David’s family are vampires seems almost unnecessary. His family could have been magicians, or they could have been made up entirely of the aforementioned snake gods. It feels uneven and the ending that takes place in a metaphysical realm that suddenly tells us David and his sister exist to destroy the devil just comes out of left field.

I’ve often heard a theory that Stoker’s novel, Dracula, was written as a sort of erotic piece, but that in order to reach a wider audience, Stoker made his character a monster. Having monsters crawling in the windows of beautiful young women and drinking the body fluids was far more acceptable than if it had been a man. Baker’s story seems oddly the same; that his book is really an erotica tale about incest, both consensual and loving, and rape. There’s just a hugely bloated story that seems meant to confound and distract you enough that you accept what is happening. “Oh, he’s got to have sex with his sister so they can be more powerful and defext the evil uncle who is a sorcerer…. ok.” “Oh, now the uncle is raping David in the ass to take that power away…. Uhhhh, ok?”

In short, this one was a major let down. The story was clunky and I haven’t even gotten into the dialogue that at most times felt stilted, at others felt juvenile. I would highly NOT reccommend this book.

First, let me say that it has been too long since I wrapped myself up in a book. I’ve tried several in the past months, and have failed time and again to commit to anything. It felt good to finally ease into a book and find that my mind was able to involve itself instead of wandering to all the other assorted distractions of life. So here’s my thoughts and opinions, for about the penny they’re worth. I’m not going to get into specific spoilers, but be warned -THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!

Review

So breaking Dawn is the end of the Twilight “saga.” I’ve got to tell you, I fail to see how this series can be considered a saga. A drama, a romance, a series, whatever you want to call it, but really there wasn’t enough of a cohesive dramatic element to these books to make me consider it worthy of the title of “saga.”

Our book opens shortly after the end of Eclipse, with the fast approaching nuptials of Edward and Bella. I have to say, I was glad of this as I figured it would avoid the whole Jacob – Edward – Bella love triangle that has just been over bearing in the past two books. To tell you the marriage happens is hardly a spoiler, cause it takes place in the first 50 or so pages of the book. Like her previous 3 books in the series, this one didn’t really pick up for me until about half way through. It amazed me that inspite of Bella and Edward being married, and the events that leads to, there is still room for the antsy love triangle; though this time we get to see it from Jacob’s point of view.

I guess what amazes me most about this series is its predictability. I saw virtually every twist long before it happened. Even though the book is told from first perspective, meaning I the reader only know as much as the protagonist, I still was way ahead of the characters in their various realisations. This has been a problem for me several times throughout the series. When something is told from first perspective, we the readers should be just as shocked at the revelations as the characters themselves. Instead, I constantly find myself wondering why no one in the series gets it, while I’m already way ahead of where theyr’e thinking; odd seeing as how these people are super smart, have lived for decades (or centuries) and really, I’m just the average bear.

I guess the other issue I had was that I never feared for the characters once. Everything was so fluffy and wrapped up with a big bow, that I never believed anyone was in any significant danger. Compare this with another recent saga ender, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and it seems so toothless (pardon the pun). In Potter, Rowling was so relentless in killing characters that, inspite of the reassuring internet rumours, I really wondered who would survive. It also ended with a titanic battle that saw casualties on both sides. It was brutal, harsh, and seemed fitting. This tale, about vampires and their supposed passions and fierce emotions went out with a soft, ahhh. It just didn’t feel like a “saga” ender. As I said, it just seemed to emphasise to me that there really was no “saga” to begin with.

Now I know I’m being a bit harsh, and I suppose I should say that Meyer’s love for her characters is so apparent, and that I find her writing generally smooth and easy. This is an enjoyable read; if you can over look the copious amount of eye rolling the characters do It’s a fun, fantasy romance series. In many ways, it reminds me of the numerous anime romance series that always start with an odd setup for how the characters meet, how their lives seem so opposite, and eventually, they end up together in a happy ending. The vampire subtext here is mainly to provide some tension and action to the series. Really, it is about the characters and their relationships to one another. It’s telling in how the series really only provides tension and action in the final quarter of the book; the rest is usually characters coping with their feelings and the feelings of others.

In short, if you’re looking for a romance series with a dash of vampires, werewolves, and some nice breezy action to end the book, this is a great series. If you’re looking for a “saga” with a shattering conclusion that will leave you breathless with anticipation to the final “The End,” you’ll probably be disappointed.

After watching the first season of Dexter on DVD, I just had to check out the book that started it all. While I enjoyed it immensely, it was interesting to see how the tv series actually expanded on things in order to fill enough time for their 13 episodes. I think this marks one of the first times that I enjoyed a filmed version of a book slightly more than the book itself. This is probably because the tv series fleshed out more of the characters while the book is entirely Dexter. But I have to say, Dexter does carry a book on his own. It’s odd that a character that in any other work would be the villain is actually very likable as the hero here. Dexter is engaging, charismatic (as he often points out) and funny enough, seems like one of the few genuine people in the whole book. Dexter’s observation that we all seem to play games to fit in is dead on.

This one is a definate read. Only, I would do so before watching the series if I could.