Category: Fantasy
Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
[This guest post was done by Margaret, over at Steam Trains and Ghosts. –CS.]
I remember when I discovered Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy. A friend of my cousin was cleaning out his basement and brought over to our house a big cardboard box of old books. I mean, old books, who could resist? I dug through them and found this set of mass-market paperbacks with these weird limited-color-palette paintings on the front. Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone. I set them on my shelf and forgot about them for a couple of years, until I started reading them during my high school track meets…
The books are … weird. First of all, anybody getting into these books needs to know that it’s not really a trilogy. Titus Groan and Gormenghast form something more like a duology, and then Titus Alone is about Titus going off and having a solo adventure.
The first two books tell the story of a crumbling old castle ruled over by the seventy-sixth Earl of Gormenghast. Titus Groan is heir to become the seventy-seventh Earl. And he hates it. Hates it. Castle life is so steeped in tradition that it’s drowning in it; people perform rituals without even knowing why they do it anymore. Titus is very nearly the only sane person in the book. His mother, the Duchess, spends all her time in seclusion with an army of Persian cats. His big sister, Lady Fuschia, lives like she’s the heroine of a Brontë novel. His father thinks he’s an owl. His aunts, Cora and Clarice, are each paralyzed down an opposite side of their body so they act like two halves of a single individual. And did I mention that they’re plotting murder?
Into Titus’s messed-up family enters Steerpike, kitchen boy, and the one other sane person in this castle. He wants power and he knows how to manipulate people to get it. Soon Titus must decide how far he’s willing to go to defend the home he’s so desperate to escape.
Finally, I must give special note to Peake’s use of language in these books. It’s not quite like any other book you’re likely to encounter. Here’s a sample:
“From its heaving expanses arose, as through the chimera of a daydream, a phantasmic gathering of ancient oaks. Like dappled gods they stood, each in his own preserve, the wide glades of moss flowing between them in swathes of gold and green and away into the clear, dwindling distances.
When his breath came more easily, Titus realized the silence of the picture that hung there before him. Like a canvas of gold with its hundreds of majestic oaks, their winding branches dividing and subdividing into gilded fingertips – the solid acorns and the deep clusters of the legendary leaves.”
I give it 4/5 stars.
The Accidental Hero by Matt Myklusch
(Cover picture courtesy of Munro’s Books.)
All Jack Blank knows is his bleak, dreary life at St. Barnaby’s Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten, and Lost, an orphanage that sinks more and more into the swampland of New Jersey with each passing year. His aptitude tests project him as spending a long, unhappy career as a toilet brush cleaner. His only chance at escape comes through the comic books donated years ago to the orphanage that he secretly reads in the dark corners of the library.
Everything changes one icy gray morning when Jack receives two visitors that alter his life forever. The first is a deadly robot straight out of one of his comic books that tries its best to blow him up. The second is an emissary from a secret country called the Imagine Nation, an astonishing place where all the fantastic and unbelievable things in our world originate – including Jack. Jack soon discovers that he has an amazing ability–one that could make him the savior of the Imagine Nation and the world beyond, or the biggest threat they’ve ever faced.
I had my doubts about this book when my friend lent it to me. The way she described it…well it made me less than enthusiastic, I have to admit. Yet I decided to give The Accidental Hero (first published under the title Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation) a chance. After all, I had been skeptical when the same friend lent me Cinder and it turned out to be amazing.
Matt Myklusch’s novel pokes tongue-in-cheek fun at old superhero tropes while at the same time putting a new spin on them so that young boys (and girls too!) will love it. I’ve only read one comic book in my entire life, but as with most people, I’m familiar with superheroes. I’m a closet fan of the new Batman movies, used to watch the Spiderman cartoons and actually didn’t mind Thor. The Accidental Hero focuses on the adventures of an orphan, Jack Blank, who accidentally discovers his superpowers and is taken away to the Imagine Nation, a constantly moving island of superheroes. Yet from the moment he arrives, things start to go wrong.
I considered Jack a cardboard cutout for the first third of the book, but then I realized the author was poking a bit of fun at old superhero clichés while slowly building a three dimensional character with a great character arc. Jack is a character readers of all ages will love, especially boys, who seem to be woefully neglected in the YA genre.
With a fast-paced plot and amazing world-building, this is the kind of new spin on old clichés I love. Personally, I’m glad I read it and look forward to reading about Jack’s future adventures.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Image Courtesy Of Goodreads
Synopsis: Beyond the Village of Wall lies the enchanting and mystical land of Faerie, where all beings live and breathe magic. Tristran Thorn, a young boy from the village is hopelessly in love with the beautiful Victoria Forester and would do anything for her; including crossing the wall to fetch the fallen star she so desires. As Tristran ventures into the land of Faerie, he will encounter strange and beautiful creatures. Will he find the fallen star and bring it back to the village? Will he be able to make it out of Faerie in one piece?
Cover Gushing Worthiness: The cover of Stardust is beautiful with a doubt. The colours used in the cover of the edition I read (pictured in this review), along with the ivy like designs gives it a magical and whimsical feel.
May Contain Minor Spoilers
Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
(Cover picture courtesy of Mundie Source.)
In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street—and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa’s powers for his own dark ends.
With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the friendly devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister’s war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister knows their every move—and that one of their own has betrayed them.
Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will—the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?
As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.
After reading Clockwork Prince, I’m starting to like The Infernal Devices even more. Finally characters like Will and Jessamine acquire depth and I can actually sympathize with them. Whereas Clockwork Angel focused mainly on Tessa’s entrance into the world of the supernatural, Clockwork Prince focuses more on the characters and setting up the final book, Clockwork Princess. We also get a lot more information about the world of the Shadowhunters, which builds on both the first book and the parallel series, The Mortal Instruments.
Tessa is still a strong character in this book and readers will feel her love for Jem, but also her growing attraction to will, despite his horrible behavior toward her at the end of the first book. She hates her brother Nathan for betraying her and the Shadowhunters, yet she still has a bit of sisterly affection for him, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. Her choices in this novel have direct consequences for the people she loves, so Tessa is even more conflicted about her decisions than before. Will also acquires a lot more depth and I actually feel sorry for him as he uncovers an ironic tragedy worthy of Sophocles himself.
The plot of Clockwork Prince is moderately fast and almost every scene advances the action. What I admire most about Cassandra Clare is that she perfectly intertwines her two series together so that if you read them in order of release, you will have a much richer experience. From a marketing perspective, the way she releases these books is brilliant because fans of the first three books will want to keep reading The Mortal Instruments to see what happens to Clary and the others. They’re also more likely to read The Infernal Devices because it gives them some backstory on some of their favourite characters. It’s hard to read one series without reading the other. Brilliant.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Painted Blind by Michelle A. Hansen
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Seventeen years old and agoraphobic, Psyche Middleton vows her dad will never see the risqué photos she took during a summer modeling stint abroad, but one of them ends up on a billboard in her Montana hometown. Now everyone—especially her dad—can see it. And yet, somehow, those are the mundane things in her life because she is about to fall unexpectedly, head-over-heels in love with Erik, a mysterious young man who rescues her from a crowd of admirers, and who she’s never actually seen because…he can make himself invisible.
As strange as this may seem, it’s about to get even stranger. Erik takes her to his palace in an idyllic kingdom, and she is swept into the beauty and culture of his world, but his affection has one condition: she may not see him. Overtaken, intrigued, and still not wholeheartedly believing he’s real, Psyche is going to have to decide if she can love him blindly; because if she can’t, she may lose him forever.
A wild, romantic adventure that travels at breakneck speed, Michelle A. Hansen’s debut is a fantastical journey filled with laughter, danger, and the indomitable power of love. Painted Blind reminds us that one can overcome seemingly insurmountable odds with fortitude and a little luck and confirms that real love is worth fighting for.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
Okay, Painted Blind was nothing like I expected and that’s a good thing because I really didn’t expect much from the blurb. But I still requested it from NetGalley for something new to read. And wow, was I ever surprised.
If I had to describe it one way, I’d call it The Goddess Test on steroids because it has a more realistic romance, better characters and a plot that glued me to my computer chair for over three hours straight. Michelle Hansen knows just how much information to reveal to her readers to hint at things, yet doesn’t give so much away as to make all the plot twists completely predictable. While I was reading, there were a lot of times I thought “Whoa. Didn’t see that coming.” Even the most cynical of readers like myself won’t be able to predict half of the plot points, which means that this is most definitely a unique novel.
I love the characters. Erik and Psyche may seem like your stereotypical romance characters, but they’re not. They actually have depth and I could sympathize with both of them. The way they fell in love was a bit quick, but actually quite natural when you think about it. First it started off as a sort of unexplainable attraction, then they got to know each other and fell in true love, not the kind of lust that passes for love in most YA fiction.
To be completely honest, I can’t believe this is Michelle Hansen’s debut novel. The writing quality is much better than most established authors, in my opinion. Her world-building is excellent; you can tell she really thought it through and made sure things made sense to readers. I honestly can’t wait to see her what she writes next!
I give this book 5/5 stars.