What I'm Reading: Roundup

Some of my recent reading:

The Little Prince  My son read this book in his fourth-grade class this year for a class project, and since the book was lying around I picked it up. I probably haven't read it since I was his age! If you're not familiar with it, it's a child's fantasy book written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a Frenchman, and has a definite French flavor to it. It concerns the Little Prince, a boy who is visiting Earth on a visit from his own planet, a very small asteroid, and the man he encounters here, an airman who has crash landed in the Sahara desert. The boy is confused by the strange ideas of the man and some other adults he encounters, who busy themselves with figures, or drink, or ruling over others, when in his view the important things in life are flowers, sunsets, and friends. Quite a charming book and with a good message communicated to the reader in a subtle way. I had forgotten the ending is so sad!

Harrow County  Emmy just turned 18 and lives on a farm with her father. She has never traveled far from her homestead and has little idea about the world beyond a handful of distant neighbors, but she is intimately familiar with the woods and marshes around her farm. Now that she's of age, mysterious men start visiting the house and talking in hushed tones with her dad. She's seen people hanging out by the big scary old tree she's supposed to avoid out on the edge of their property, too. And her dreams the past months have become vivid and frightening, full of witches and dead children. Out on a walk in the woods one day, she follows a path she's never seen before and discovers a "haint"-- something like a ghost. She's scared at first but when she realizes it's only the lost spirit of a little boy, she picks it up and takes it home. Harrow County is a new comic series written by Cullen Bunn and beautifully, and so, so creepily, drawn/watercolored by Tyler Crook.

What I'm Reading: The Hand of Oberon

I recently finished The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny, the fourth in the series of Amber novels (see here and here for write-ups on previous novels in the series). Last month I also read the third book in the series, Sign of the Unicorn, but did not write it up. Alas, I've been extremely busy lately and have neglected this blog!

In SotU and THoO Corwin has finally achieved his goal of becoming ruler of Amber, though he has not had himself crowned. At the beginning of SotU he finds his brother, Caine, murdered and realizes he was set up to find the body so it would look like he committed the murder himself. And as designed, his other siblings do suspect him of the murder, despite his protestations, with only his youngest brother Random firmly on his side. This is very bad for him as he has so recently taken control of the realm, only for court intrigue to switch into a high gear. To figure out who did it, he decides to contact long missing brother Brand, who Random believes is still alive but imprisoned in some distant shadow realm. But when they do locate Brand and bring him back to Amber, his story brings up more questions than they answer.

Like the first two books, this plays out much more like a mystery than like a typical fantasy novel, as Corwin tries to figure out how committed the murder, framed him, and what their motives are. His memories now are fully recovered, yet because he was out of commission for so long he still has too little information on the histories and intentions of his siblings. His search for clues and information provide the narrative thrust.

Yet, the setting is firmly fantasy, as his search takes him to places like the the Courts of Chaos and involves artifacts like the Jewel of Judgment. This hybrid is masterfully carried out by Zelazny, resulting in suspenseful novels that are truly unpredictable and fresh writing. I would recommend this to any fantasy fan, and mystery fans may enjoy these slim, fast-paced volumes as well.

What I'm Reading: Roundup

Here are a couple things I've been reading lately:

First Book of Samuel  This was part of my Lenten reading this year. It's been a few years since I've caught up again with Samuel, Saul, Jonathan, and David, and upon rereading this remains one of my favorite Bible books. (I've discussed it before, here.)

I had forgotten that David doesn't even appear until halfway through--the book is really about the obedient prophet Samuel, who comes across as the most respected man in Israel, even to the point that the people go to him when they decide they want a king. Of course he warns them off, but they insist, and the Lord leads him to Saul. But when Saul is disobedient, the Lord ends his reign and chooses the boy who will grow to lead the nation: David. I get chills in the great scene when Samuel visits Jesse, knowing that one of his sons will be the one the Lord picks, yet surprised to find it is the youngest, a boy ruddy and beautiful.

There are plenty of other great scenes too, and lots of action, and emotion, and even humor. Never mind its religious aspects, this book truly is a prime example of world literature.

The Guns of Avalon The second novel in the Amber series by Roger Zelazny. (I discussed the first book, Nine Princes in Amber, here.) This book continues the tale of Prince Corwin, one of the heirs of the fractious ruling family of the kingdom of Amber. I made a mistake of reading a review of this book--now that other review dominates my thinking, making it harder to form my own view. So, I may as well recycle one of that review's opinions--the critic pointed out that Amber is high fantasy, but that Zelazny totally discarded the previous rulebook about how to approach fantasy, giving the Amber books a freshness rarely found in fantasy novels. I think that opinion is about right.

As a writer, I'm also struck by how loose the plotting is, and I'm sure Zelazny just started writing with only a vague idea where the story was going. I'm not a writer who likes to plan things out ahead of time, so I can recognize when others are doing it. At its best, this approach leads to surprise and unpredictability, as the writer goes where his characters want to, letting the story develop as it will. At its worst, the approach leads to a lot of loose ends and meandering plot threads. Well, Zelazny is a master and The Guns of Avalon is completely unpredictable, yet comes together perfectly in the final pages. (It's been long enough since I've read these--twenty years of more--that I can't remember the twists anymore.) I'm definitely looking forward to the third book in the series.

What I'm Reading: The Wrenchies

My friend who's into really weird comics loaned me the graphic novel The Wrenchies, by Farel Dalrymple. This one is pretty bizarre, but pretty great as well, and is probably one of the best loans I've gotten from my buddy. It's tough to describe succinctly what's going on in this one, but I'll give it a shot.

The Wrenchies are a youth gang (they seem to be between eight and twelve years old) on a future Earth where some combination of demons and radiation has turned cities to uninhabitable wreckage and depraved monsters roam the landscape. The five members of the Wrenchies are close-knit, and have a friendly rivalry with other gangs as well, with whom they sometimes team up for drug-fueled parties or to fight monster invasions. At some point when a kid enters his teenage years, unstoppable demons known as Shadowsmen turn up to carry him off, no one knows where to, so there's no reason for the gangs not to live it up all the time and treat life cheaply.

But the Wrenchies are also a comic book read by Hollis, a nine-year old boy in the real world who dresses up like superheroes and is ostracized by his schoolmates. He dreams of being tough and resourceful like the characters in his favorite comic.

The comic book is the creation of Sherwood, an alcoholic comic artist whose friends and co-workers all seem awfully like adult versions of the characters in the comic. His psychiatrist is convinced that the story he tells of entering a cave with his brother when he was a kid and encountering a demon that attacked them and released demonic spores into the air is perhaps a metaphor his subconscious has produced for something else terrible that happened when he was young. As for his tales of fighting demons after work and working undercover as a spy, these must surely be delusions that can be treated with medication, right?

There are a lot of cool characters and fun plot elements here, and Dalrymple layers them together thickly, with frequent cuts among the places and time-periods, as well as shifts in tone. The overall effect is of a world where the decaying present-day and the dystopian future bleed together, where time boundaries dissolve and people can encounter their future selves or re-arrange their pasts. One character, a robotic giant known as the Scientist, spews philosophical nuggets as he travels with the Wrenchies, lending a sort of profound atmosphere to parts of the book and providing possible explanations for some of the stranger goings-on.

I would recommend this to people who like dark and weird and don't mind a fair amount of ambiguity in plot structure. I guess that narrows the list of potential readers down quite a bit. Well, it won't be everybody's style, but for those who dare it, The Wrenchies will prove a fascinating read with meaning on several levels.

What I'm Reading: The Screwtape Letters

The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, is an epistolary novel containing the letters of a demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood. Wormwood is a tempter, assigned to lead a human being astray so Satan can take his soul, and he's having some trouble with his charge. Screwtape offers his nephew advice, mostly in the form of explanations of the human mindset and human behavior, and which strategies for leading a human astray might prove effective.

It's quite a clever book, and although we never learn the human's name we come to feel for him and his family. We learn a lot about the demons too, and the whole Infernal bureaucracy set up for capturing human souls. Although Screwtape's letters are exceedingly courteous, and he always signs them "Your affectionate uncle," we do get hints that there is not really love among demons and the relationship between Screwtape and Wormwood is really based on nothing more than self-interest. I also found it striking that the demons don't really understand God and his love for humans, and consider his offering them salvation as a pretext or elaborate deception, though to what purpose they can't comprehend.

We're not meant to take this literally, of course, but Lewis is making a larger point: how easily humans fall into sinful ways, and that evil forces have a part in doing this. But by depending on God, we are able to minimize our sin and receive forgiveness for when we do inevitably err. It's a great book for Christians during Lent, but really it's so well-written that I think even non-Christians would find it interesting, and there's no reason it wouldn't be suitable any time of year.

What I'm Reading: The Walking Dead: Safety Behind Bars

The Walking Dead: Safety Behind Bars is the third collection of the Walking Dead, collecting issues #13-18. Of course, now the Walking Dead is a huge phenomenon with the TV show and action figures and lunch boxes (?), but it started off back in 2003 as an independent comic series by unknown author Robert Kirkman.

I started reading with issue #69 in early 2010, although other comics nerds had been telling me for a long time it was a series I had to get into. I resisted because zombies were so trendy at the time and I was pretty much burned out on zombie stories. But when I did give TWD a chance, picking up an issue on a whim, I was hooked right away. The characters are so well-written, so flawed and recognizably people you could actually meet, that it becomes harrowing to see them put into the impossible and scary situations they encounter. At some point, I went back and got a couple of the early collections to see how they ended up where they were later.

At the beginning of this volume, Rick, the leader of a small band of survivors after the zombie apocalypse, has come across a prison. This appears to be perfect, because once the zombies inside are cleared out, there'll be a double row of fences to keep others out, plus the prison must be well-stocked with canned goods and blankets and things. A complicating factor turns out to be that not all the prisoners have turned, and so there are four hardened criminals who have been living there for months, shut away in a part of a cell block that the zombies couldn't make it into. At first they're relieved to make contact with people from the outside world--but after awhile, they decide they don't want to share the premises with Rick and his friends. At one point, one of the criminals, a convicted murderer, tells the others that their visitors are too damaged by the horrible things they've seen to live in a civilized way.

I have one friend who says his girlfriend has been known to scream out loud when reading Walking Dead comics. I've never done that, but I can see how it happens. Kirkman's pacing is perfect, and he's not afraid to kill off major characters at any time. Sometimes the dread at turning the page wrests with a desire to see how an issue turns out, and I find myself wondering if I really dare see what terrible thing happens next. And yet, I can't stop myself and have to find out how it ends up. If you can handle that kind of tension, Walking Dead might be a series you want to follow. Start with Volume 1: Days Gone By. I bet you'll be hooked.

What I'm Reading: The Race Underground

The Race Underground by Doug Most is an account of the race at the end of the 19th century between Boston and New York to build America's first subway. Actually, the title is somewhat of an exaggeration--it wasn't much of a race, as Boston won it by 7 years (1897 vs. 1904). The real rivalry was between two brothers from Massachusetts who ended becoming the "transit kings" of Boston and New York in the 1870s and 80s and both had visions of building an underground railway. The Boston brother was named Henry Whitney and the New York brother was William Whitney. The NY Whitney is a little better-remembered today, as he gave the money to found New York's Whitney Museum and served as secretary of the navy under President Cleveland.

I am something of a city buff and especially enjoy learning about their histories and their mass transit, so this book really hit a sweet spot with me. (See here for the last city book I reviewed, City of Scoundrels, about Chicago in the 1919.) However, I think most other readers might not get the same enjoyment out of it, unless they have a special interest in the topic area. The main flaw of the book is that there are simply too many people, and they are too hard to tell apart. Both cities had numerous subway boosters, engineers, and financiers who played a critical role in getting their cities' first subway lines built, and Most doesn't want to leave anyone out. He is admirably thorough, but by halfway through the book the sheer number of people to keep track of is quite large. It might have benefited by cutting out a couple of the less important figures.

A second flaw is a lack of maps. I felt this lack again and again, as various figures in the book discussed routing options for subways, or where the surface streets were most crowded, or where the soil was conducive for underground tunneling. Now I have a pretty good mental map of New York, much less so for Boston, and more than once during reading this I took to the internet to figure out just where these people were talking about. The simple addition of a historical map for each city would have made reading far easier--something for Most to consider if there is ever a second edition!

Having said that, I must repeat that I personally really liked the book, and for those who like to learn about subways or urban history this book will likely be up your alley as well. In fact, Most points out that there is a paucity of good sources concerning the early days of the Boston subway, so if you are interested in that, this book is pretty much your only option for a popular history on the subject.