‘Mean Streets’, an Urban Fantasy Anthology

Don’t worry, this group of very entertaining people does include one British Author, New York Times Bestselling Author Simon R.  Green, whose ‘Tales from the Nightside’ were my first introduction into the captivating world of Urban Fantasy, which truth be told, has made up the majority of my ‘light’ reading ever since.  Also contributing to this anthology is a personal favorite author of mine, Jim Butcher, New York Times Bestselling Author of ‘The Dresden Files’, and two authors whose personal worlds I was not previously familiar with, National Bestselling Authors Kat Richardson and Thomas E. Sniegoski.

‘Mean Streets’ is a collection of four novellas – stories longer than a typical short story, but far shorter than a novel, for those of you unfamiliar with the concept.  Think like 70 pages in a mass-market paperback.  Normally I’m not one to pick up and pay for a Novella anthology, but sometimes you just need a Harry Dresden fix.  You’ll understand soon, I promise.

The first in this collection is Jim Butcher’s contribution, entitled ‘The Warrior,’ and starring the incomparable Harry Dresden.  Someone sent him surveillance pictures of his friend Michael, a former Knight of the Cross (a mythical trio of Holy Warriors wielding swords forged in part from the three nails which held Jesus to the cross) who was wounded while helping Harry rescue the collection of all Human knowledge from a set of Fallen Angels.  Given the crowd who know Michael is more than the contractor he is in the normal eye and that they’re mailed to Harry, Harry takes these as a threat – what he learns is that this threat comes from the last group of people Harry would ever expect to threaten Michael…

Next up is Green with ‘The Difference a Day Makes,’ starring his Hero from ‘Tales of the Nightside’, John Taylor, from whom nothing can hide or be hidden.  He sits enjoying a drink in the Oldest Bar in the World, Strangefellows, with his friend, the incomparable Dead Boy.  In stumbles the one thing that always and only means trouble in the Nightside – a weeping woman.  Her name is Liza, and she’s lost an entire day of her memories, and wants to hire John to help her find them, and her missing husband, who is entangled deeply in the darkest section of the Nightside, Rotten Row…

Third is Kat Richardson’s Greywalker, Harper Blaine, who sees Dead People – oh, and has limited ability to manipulate them, as well.  In this novella, entitled ‘The Third Death of the Little Clay Dog’ she’s pulled out of her Seattle home by a Mexican woman’s will, demanding she bring a figurine to a grave somewhere in the mountains of Mexico, on the Night of the Dead.  Little does she expect such a seemingly simple mission will uncover a tale of black magic, hidden lineage, and secret identities.

Last, and certainly not least, brings Thomas E. Sniegoski’s ‘Noah’s Orphans’ and fallen angel turned private detective Remy (Remiel) Chandler as he mourns the death of his human wife from cancer at their summer home.  There he is visited by Sariel, leader of the fallen Grigori – God’s former heralds to humanity.  Sariel introduces Remy to the scene of Noah’s murder, and Remy becomes entangled in a mystery older than humanity itself.

‘Mean Streets’ is an excellent contribution to the worlds of Butcher and Green, and Sniegoski’s contribution pulls me towards his with a fascinating new look at Christian mythology and a very deep character with the type of issues that make me sympathetic towards his cause.  Richardson’s addition, however, lacks the asskicking showdown of Butcher or Sniegoski’s, and the dry sarcasm and overall awesomeness of Green’s.  For fans of any of these series, avoid the usual elitist view towards Novellas, and partake of this anthology – you’ll get a fix, and an introduction to a few new characters at the least.

“Why are you here, Sariel?”  Remy asked, not even trying to hide his exasperation.

“The old man is dead,” he replied.

“The old man…who…what old man?”  Remy was confused, but then it dawned on him, the connection with the Grigori.

“Noah?” Remy asked, “Noah is dead?  How?”

Alex’s Amazing Antiquities presents: Treasure Island

Avast, ye scurvy lads and genteel ladies…  Here be Pyrates!

Treasure Island is a masterpiece – when it comes to pirate fiction, it is still THE masterpiece, though it was first published in 1883.  Treasure Island is the heart of nearly all awesome pirate lore – Hidden Treasure?  Peg Legs?  Mutiny? X marks the spot?  Check.  Check.  Check plus.  Oh yeah, baby, just like that!

Treasure Island covers the adventures of one Jim Hawkins and his adventures aboard the schooner Hispaniola, and their journey to the fabled ‘Skull Island’, where lies the buried treasure of the notorious pirate Captain Flint.  On the way, the ship’s cook, Long John Silver, a peg-legged seaman leads a mutiny against the ship’s owners, inhabitants of the sea town Jim Hawkins is from.  Over the course of the novel, Jim Hawkins meets a marooned pirate, steals and pilots the Hispaniola, and races the anti-hero Silver for Flint’s treasure.

One of the best novels ever written in the English language – and then it has pirates, to boot.

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest–
…Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest–
…Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Neil Gaiman’s ‘Stardust’

Oooh!  More British!

Most of you are probably at least familiar with this story from the Major Motion Picture made based on it, but be aware that the movie has a LOT more action in it, whereas Stardust has a lot more whimsy.  Honestly, I prefer the whimsy, though they’re both VERY enjoyable.

Stardust chronicles the adventure of one Tristran Thorn, of the village of Wall in Victorian England, into the lands of Faerie.  He goes in pursuit of a Fallen Star, in order to obtain the love of Victoria Forrester, the grey-eyed queen of beauty in the small hamlet.  England and Faerie are separated by a long wall, the only gap in which is located beside the village named after that wall, whose inhabitants are only allowed through the gap into faerie once every nine years for a Market.

Tristran, through the aid of a dwarf/gnome/leprechaun, realizes that he knows where everything in Faerie is exactly in comparison to his current spot.  Clearly, Tristran is at least half-faerie (which the reader already knows by this point, as the first chapter deals primarily with how his parents meet and his conception.)

Tristran obtains from his new friend a little nub of a Babylon Candle, and uses it to collect the star ahead of the other people searching for her – a Witch who wants to cut her heart out and use it to live forever, and a pair of noble brothers angling for the pendant which knocked her from the sky.

What’s that?  Oh.  Right.  Yes, the star’s a her.  All the stars are, in faerie.  And this one is sarcastic, angry, and not at all happy when Tristran leashes her to take her back to Victoria.  Hijinks ensue, and it is this part of the story which differs the most from the movie.  There is no Captain Shakespeare, and Tristran isn’t morphed into a fighter of renown on the journey home.  The brothers die in entirely anticlimactic fashion.  Yet the story, itself, is stronger in Gaiman’s own words.

Read this book.

“Yes,” she said. “Which only goes to prove that you are indeed a ninny, a lackwit, and a… a clodpoll.”

“Dunderhead,” offered Tristran, “You always used to like calling me a dunderhead.  And an oaf.”

“Well,” she said, “you are all those things.  And more besides.  Why did you keep me waiting like that?  I thought something terrible had happened to you.”

Jane Eyre… Oh, my lord… Jane Eyre

School has recently started up again and, as an English minor, that means… Lit classes. Oh, literature… For one of my courses, Introduction to Literary Studies, I was forced to undergo the torture of wading through Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Jane Eyre didn’t immediately strike me as terrible. Jane herself seemed like a genuinely interesting and relatable character, something I never expected to find in a novel written by a Bronte sister after I read Wuthering Heights for my AP English class. It’s a Victorian novel, so it starts off slow and takes purple prose to heights only Victorian Englishmen and women could possibly find entertaining, but for all that, it didn’t start out too bad. It immediately sets up Jane as an orphan dependent on her bitchy aunt and bratty cousins and then shows her snapping and being punished. Sounds good so far! Things happen right away! And then she gets sent school after an ungodly amount of time waiting for her to apparently recover from the exertion of actually opening her mouth to speak up for herself. It’s apparently quite exhausting. At school, we’re treated to a largely irrelevant couple months of Jane learning crap we don’t care about and making one friend who then dies of consumption. Her school sucked. We don’t need a hundred pages describing it sucking, especially since in a few months it changes management and becomes a decent place to live and work.

We jump ahead to Jane at 18. She’s been a student for six years and a teacher for two, but her friend gets married and leaves the school, so she decides she’s bored and gets a job as a governess. This takes way more exposition than you’d think. FINALLY, at about 200 pages in, we get to the real plot of the novel. Jane and Mr. Rochester, the man she works for, fall in love in spite of him being ugly and a bit of a jackass and her being plain and cold towards him. It’s not really believably set up, but whatever. It was the Victorian Era… Not exactly known for it’s romance. She saved his life once, so clearly they’re deeply and meaningfully in love. Okay. They decide to get married. Jane gets all paranoid that Mr. Rochester wants her to put out before the wedding and keeps being all pushy and bitchy towards him, not letting him shower her with gifts and affection. He puts up with it and the day finally arrives. What’s the problem? Turns out, Mr. Rochester has a wife. He got married fifteen years ago. His wife went batshit, violently insane, so he locked her up in a room upstairs with a servant to take care of her and just decided he wasn’t married anymore. His brother-in-law calls him on it at the wedding, so Jane does not become Mrs. Rochester. Poor Jane is so distraught she runs away in the dead of night. Leaves almost everything she has of value and spends all her money on a coach ride as far as she can afford to go. And because she’s a genius, she leaves the little she did remember to bring with her on the coach. Go her; she’s a genius. But hey! We’ve got a plot now! Some action of some sort!

And so begins the biggest ass pull of an ending I have ever read in my life. Jesus Christ, talk about deus ex machina…

So she wanders around the random place the coachman kicks her out at. She almost starves to death and gets taken in by the local clergyman and his two sisters. Apparently, all of her stress has left her very strained and she just lies there in bed for almost a month and they take care of her, in spite of her refusing to tell them her real name or where she came from. I mean, random women just show up out of nowhere, lying about their name and begging to be taken care of all the time, right? Totally makes sense that’d you’d make her one of the family. Riiiight. But his name is St. John, so he’s already a bit unbelievable. Anyway, she gets a job as a schoolmistress for a girl’s school the clergyman has just started up. Everything is going pretty well for her; she’s happy, but she still misses the d-bag (see above). Then St. John randomly sees her name written out on a bit of scratch paper that Jane was using to blot her paints. Turns out, Jane has a long lost uncle who died and left her a fortune. St. John knows all about it because he and his two sisters are actually her cousins! Turns out she had another uncle that died right before she ran away from Mr. Rochester! Isn’t it convenient that she just happened to get let off the coach near them and wander to their house?! And she randomly writes her name on bits of paper that aren’t really being used for anything, even though she’s trying to conceal her identity?! Right. So Jane inherits a fortune, but insists on dividing it equally with her cousins. She redecorates their house, which is another activity that gets WAY more attention than it deserves. Then her cousin, St. John, asks her to marry him, travel the world as a missionary’s wife, doing great works and teaching the poor, underpriviledged children of India, THAT BASTARD! Yes. She hates the idea, in spite of her always wanting to travel and see the world, in spite of her loving to teach and loving children, she simply can’t stand the thought of marrying St. John. You know what, Jane, fuck you. I’ll marry St. John. He has a genuine interest in helping those who can’t help themselves, bring comfort to the poor and doing good works in those places where no one else wants to do them. And did I mention that, in Jane’s own words, he has the body and face of a Greek God? But no. Jane can’t think to marry him because he’s not beside himself in love with her and she’s still hung up on Mr. Jackass Rochester. So what does she do? She runs away again, though with slightly more preparation this time. She goes back to Mr. Rochester, finds out his house had burnt down, conveniently killing his insane wife, but maiming him for life. She declares undying love for him and they get married and supposedly live happily ever after, with her taking care of him.

I hate this book. The Brontes suck ass.

Douglas Adams’ ‘A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’

I can see you now, “What’s with this dude and British authors, anyway?”  Or perhaps you’re saying.  “Hey.  Alex.  You’re from America.  Read American.”  To which I say, “Ptttttttthhhhh.”  Just for that, I’m reading Nail Gaiman next.  Serves you right!

Anyway, this review will only encompass the first installment in this series, because if you want the other books reviewed, you’ll just have to wait for the future.  I’m not at your every whim, you know.

“A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” chronicles the worst day of Arthur Dent’s life.  He wakes up to find a construction crew set up outside his home, preparing to demolish his house.  While objecting to this development, his friend Ford Prefect drops by in order to take him to a noontime drink.  At this noontime drink, Arthur learns that the impending demolition of his house is the least of his problems.

See, Ford Prefect is an alien from the planet Betelgeuse 7, who happens to have been stranded on Earth fifteen years ago while updating the planet’s entry in “the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor” – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  To top it all off, Earth is scheduled for destruction in order to build an Interstellar bypass, which will occur in 12 standard Earth minutes.  Which leaves Ford with only one real decision – grab his friend Arthur and hitch a ride with the Vogon Construction Fleet as it swings by to wipe out our “Mostly Harmless” planet.

“A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is a journey aboard stolen space ships, with the President of the Galaxy, as they journey to the planet Magrathea and discover the nature of their home planet and the Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything – the answer of which is “42.”  Don’t Panic.

Laughs and fun are had.  Read this book.

“I mean, here we are are on the run and everything, we must have the police of half the Galaxy after us by now, and we stop to pick up hitchhikers.  Okay, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?” — Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Galaxy to Trillian, one of the last 2 humans in the Galaxy.

Next up – ‘Stardust’ by Neil Gaiman

Three Cups of Tea

Very few books really qualify as “life-changing”. For me, the most significant book I ever read was “The Ugly American” by William Lederer. There were others I liked quite a bit: Friedman’s “The World is Flat”, “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” by John Perkins are just a couple of other must-read’s on my list. “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortensen has been added to this list.

I’m sure I’m pretty late to the game on this one. Amazon says it was published in paperback in 2007. But I was given a copy recently as a gift so I’m excused, right?

The book chronicles the author’s efforts to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. After a failed attempt to climb K2, Mortenson is separated from his party and finds himself in Korphe, a remote village in the Karakoram Mountains. He is taken in by the village chief while he recovers from exhaustion, etc. While in Korphe, Mortenson learns a fundamental concept of the Pakistani tribal culture.

“Here, we drink three cups of tea to do business; the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything – even die.” – Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief, Karakoram Mountains, Pakistan.

During his time in the village, Mortensen promised to repay his hosts’ kindness by returning to Pakistan to build them a school. This book chronicles the process to raise the funding for the first school and the groundswell of support that follows.

Reading this book made me feel good. I agree completely that education is a fundamental element of peace and must be promoted any and everywhere. I finished the book ready to pack my own backpack, go to Pakistan and help.

Five Stars for motivation!

Cheers!

“Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life. ”

The Dalai Lama

Tom Holt’s ‘You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here, but it Helps’

Usually, first posts on reborn book blogs reflect a profound, life-changing sort of book.  For example, I could review ‘Angela’s Ashes’, or even ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ both of which I’ve read, and perhaps will review for the readers at some point.  Of course, both of those belong to Oprah’s Book Club already, and she might get upset if I start straight off impinging on her territory.

Besides, it’s been a while since I read either of those books.

It has not, however, been even a full day since I finished ‘You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here, but it Helps.’  My initial impression of this book, shared with my mother, fellow BBBB (Big Bad Blogger Bookclub, obviously) contributor Lisa, was “Damn.  This book is very, very… British.”  Holt is much, much more ‘British’ in style than Neil Gaiman.  ‘Evil to Work Here’s’ humor is dry, relying on clever allusions and the reader’s knowledge of history and world culture.  “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell” this book is not (Damn.  I guess I’ll have to review that, now, too.  This might start being work!).  If you enjoy Ricky Gervais on the British verison of ‘The Office’, or even his stand-up, you’ll enjoy Holt.  He’s written 27(!) books in ‘Evil to Work Here’s’ vein, including titles like ‘Flying Dutch’ and ‘Snow White and the Seven Samurai.’

‘Evil to Work Here’ chronicles the journey of Colin Hollinghead (younger), a young man drudging through life in the family’s struggling widget-making business.  Soon after, he finds that the new consultants his dad has hired, J.W. Wells & Co., posess business cards which describe their business as ‘Practical and Effective magicians, Sorcerors and Supernatural Consultants.’  To top it all off, they’re currently brokering a deal between Colin’s father and the devil, in which the family business will receive an unlimited free workforce for the measly price of one Eternal Soul.

Of course, Colin turns out to be a time/star-crossed lover reborn, and the representative from J.W. Wells, Cassie Clay, is the woman he’s predisposed to love.  One problem – the two of them aren’t even remotely attracted to each other, and so their ‘symptoms’ are more distressing than warm and fuzzies ought to be.

Colin’s struggle to get his dad off the hook with the devil and figure out the situation with Cassie are the center of ‘Evil to Work Here,’ a delightfully understated Urban Fantasy novel by Tom Holt.

“Of course They can do it.  They can do anything.  Look it up in the dictionary, under M for Magic.”

Next Up: “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams

Book of the Week: The Time Traveler’s Wife

My New Year’s Resolution is to read / finish a book a week. The year started out crazy enough that I’m in catch up mode, but here we go. Visit your library or bookstore and join me by reading “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger.

Come back Thursday for a discussion of “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson