The Mirage by Matt Ruff

I have always been a big fan of alternate fiction so I was very excited when I came across a review for The Mirage by Matt Ruff.   The Mirage presents a world that is a mirror image of the world we live in now.  On November 11, 2001, twin towers on the Tigress and Euphrates are destroyed by planes flown by Christian fundamentalists.  The United Arab States (UAS) is a world superpower and America is a bunch of disjointed city states, including an independent Texas.  Much of the back story is revealed in excerpts from the Library of Alexandria, this world’s version of Wikipedia invented by Muammar Gaddafi.

Nine years later, Homeland Security agent Mustafa al Baghdadi and his team — Samir, and Amal, capture and interrogate a suicide bomber. The prisoner claims that the world in which they are living is a mirage. In the real world, America is a superpower, and the Arab states are just a collection of backward third-world countries.  A search of the bomber’s apartment turns up a copy of The New York Times, dated September 12, 2001, which recounts the destruction of the twin towers in New York City.   As Mustafa and his team continue to investigate this bizarre claim, they come in contact with the gangster Saddam Hussein and Senator Osama Bin Laden, both of whom know about the mirage claim and provide both help and hindrance as the investigation proceeds. Mustafa and his team also make a visit to America and the independent republic of Texas where they come across a “who’s who” of well known and sometimes notorious American political and religious leaders, including David Koresh, Dick Cheney and Lyndon B. Johnson.

A typical problem with books that start with a great premise is that sometimes the author doesn’t know how to end it without becoming too farfetched or unsatisfying to the reader.  Fortunately, I felt that Matt Ruff did a good job with the ending.  I came away feeling that sometimes no matter how much things have changed, in many ways they still stay the same, and yet there is hope for the future and maybe this time we will get it right.

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The Taken by Vicki Pettersson

Griffin “Grif” Shaw is a Centurion, an angel who helps souls cross into the Everlast, especially those who died violently – just as he did fifty years ago. Grif still wants to find out who killed his wife, Evie, the love of his life. One day he comes to collect the soul of a prostitute, and against his better judgment he grants her a few brief minutes of life again before taking her away. That was enough time for the woman (who was actually an undercover news photographer) to leave a message pointing to her killer and endanger her best friend’s life.

Katherine “Kit” Craig is a newspaper reporter for her family-owned paper who dresses and lives the rockabilly lifestyle. She is full of life and always in search of the truth. She’s waiting outside the motel where her best friend has gone undercover when she sees a man dressed as if he was one of the Rat Pack staring out the window. Within mere hours she would be brutally attacked – with the intent to rape and kill – in her own her home.

Grif is supposed to collect Kit’s soul before leaving earth. Fortunately for Kit, he acts on impulse and saves her by beating up her attackers. Now Grif’s in some real trouble with the heavenly host, and has been banished to earth to once again don weak and sinful flesh until he is able to let Kit Craig die and bring her soul home. Only he decides to protect her and help her figure out who murdered her best friend and why in exchange for the ace reporter’s help in solving his wife’s fifty year old murder case.

I really liked this book because the characters are fully drawn and believable and provide some great dialogue, Vicki Pettersson’s world building of Sin City and the rockabilly culture, the whole angel / urban fantasy premise and the story itself was gripping and kept me turning pages. One warning though, there are some slightly disturbing scenes involving forced prostitution of underage girls and there’s a fair helping of violence toward women (by the bad guys). Still, it was very enjoyable and highly recommended for fans of Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, or Tad Williams‘ newest book The Dirty Streets of Heaven. The next in the Celestial Blues series, The Lost, came out this spring.

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Mythology by Edith Hamilton

We love stories.  We always have.  Expressing our thoughts and desires could be said to be one of the things that makes us uniquely human.  From pre-historic cave paintings to YouTube, human beings cannot help but to tell stories.

Many of the stories which we love today are taken from older civilizations, adaptations of the tales told ‘round the campfires of our ancestors.  The tale of Pygmalion has gone through numerous adaptations, including the immensely popular My Fair Lady, not to mention modern versions, done in Hollywood blockbuster style, of the entire Greek Pantheon.  Where do we go for the source, though?  We are unable to quiz the ancient Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Egyptians and countless other civilizations to whom we owe so much of our entertainment.  So we go…where?  To Edith Hamilton.

Mythology reads like a cross between a collection of fascinating short stories and a cliff notes version of some of the greatest epics ever told.  The book isn’t a classic page turner, there is no over-arching plot, but on any given day you can pick it up and read about ferocious battles, torrid romances, treacherous deceits…and that may all be in one story.  Outlining the greatest hits of Greece and Rome, even touching on the Norse Pantheon of gods and heroes, Hamilton manages to condense a great deal of historic storytelling into one book.  Anyone with an interest in mythology or storytelling, or that has a research paper to do, should find this one a fascinating read.

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Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Not only does Grace Lin write Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, she also provides stunning illustrations to accompany the story. It was part folktale, part fantasy, and an all-around great adventure as Minli set off to meet the Old Man of the Moon.

Minli’s family is poor and the only form of entertainment was the stories she had grown up listening to; her father told her about Magistrate Tiger, the Jade Dragon, and the Fruitless Mountain. Stories about fortune and people changing their luck inspire her to use one of her only copper coins in order to buy a goldfish. Instead of bringing her family good fortune, she feels the weight of her family having another mouth to feed.

When she released the fish into the river, the goldfish tells her the story of the Never-Ending Mountain. She learns of Old Man of the Moon, living at the top of the Never-Ending Mountain, whose red thread weaves together everyone’s fate. Growing up in the shadow of the Fruitless Mountain, Minli finally decides that it is up to her to change the fate of her village and the fortune of her family, and she takes it upon herself to meet the Old Man.

Minli meets many different people and creatures along her journey; a flightless dragon, a Buffalo Boy, and a village in which all of its inhabitants know the true meaning of happiness. While many folktales can appear preachy, Lin employs them with ease to provide background information about the story. She ties everything up neatly with a red thread; the missing line that Minli must use to request an audience with the Old Man of the Moon.

It was an enjoyable and sweet tale about a girl’s discovery of what happiness is and the meaning of friendship. Although it was a juvenile fiction novel, I found myself amazed at the depth of the subject matter and, when I finished, I wanted to read it all over again.

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Pegasus by Robin McKinley

You might pick up this book thinking it will be a nice story about winged horses, but you’ll be wrong. Robin McKinley takes the traditional mythological creature, the Pegasus, and turns it on its’ head. This is one of my current favorite fantasy books. Being a horse lover I did pick it up because of the title but, I am glad I did. The pegasi we meet are intelligent, beautiful, and powerful even if they cannot communicate fully with their human allies.

Our story begins when in a tradition which has existed for over a thousand years, the human princess Sylvi is bound with Ebon, a royal Pegasus, on her twelfth birthday. But this time something is very different. They are shocked to be able to speak telepathically to each other. As they explore their new relationship and the impact it will have on both their societies, they meet obstacles and threats which could tear them, and their people, apart.

McKinley is masterful at weaving a world of beauty and magic and her description of the pegasi language, art, and family is amazing. At times I felt I could soar with Sylvi and Ebon, and when I finally put the book down I almost felt a sense of loss of that freedom and grace. Reading Pegasus is like travelling to another world and I cannot wait to visit it again.

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Peter and Max: a Fables Novel by Bill Willingham

Do you enjoy fairy tales? How about when classic tales are given a new twist? Are you a fan of the ABC TV show Once Upon a Time? If you said yes, then you’ll want to check out Peter & Max. This novel is based on Bill Willingham’s award-winning Fables series of graphic novels (featured on our blog twice before). But, you don’t have to have read any of the graphic novels to enjoy the story of Peter & Max. Much like in Once Upon a Time there are fairy tale characters now living in our mundane world. They have fled to our world as the invading goblin army of the Adversary has slowly swallowed up their homelands, and they now live in hiding in New York City and on a farm upstate. Also like the TV show Once, the story of Peter & Max alternates between the current day in our world and what happened long ago in their homelands.

The story begins in modern times on a farm, where Peter Piper and his wife Bo live on an isolated parcel.  Rose Red comes to see them and deliver some bad news to Peter. It seems that his brother Max is in our world. Why is this bad news? Well, those old sibling rivalries can turn very ugly when allowed to fester for a few centuries, especially when one brother travels the path of dark magic and destruction. Peter soon sets out to confront his brother and knows that one way or another it will be their final encounter and that one of them will die.

Long, long ago, back in his home world, Peter and his family of traveling musicians went to the annual fair and stopped to visit their friends the Peeps. During their stay with the Peeps, Peter’s father bestows a magical flute called Frost on him. Max is instantly jealous because he is the oldest son and accuses Peter of stealing it. Meanwhile, the Adversary’s army has just invaded and conquered, causing the Pipers and Peeps to flee into the Black Forest. While in the woods the group is savagely attacked and they must split up in hopes of making it to safety. While Peter escapes to Hamelin Town, Max spends years in the vast forest, slowly growing more evil-minded until he is found by a powerful witch who gives Max his own magic flute, which responds to his powers of dark magic.

The alternating chapters move the separate stories forward filling us in on what else happened to Peter, Max, and Bo that led them to where they are today. The conclusion is a powerful showdown that fully lived up to my expectations and even surprised me! This is a very fast-paced book with plenty of action to keep the reader turning pages. The novel is also illustrated throughout by the talented Steve Leialoha (who worked on the Fables comics). I highly recommend Peter & Max – an original prose novel by a guy who’s won awards for writing comic books.

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Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet is one of my favorite science fiction novels, because it deals not so much with the science as with the moral and philosophical questions about life on other planets. 

Dr. Edwin Ransom, a Cambridge literature professor on a walking tour in the rural English countryside, is kidnapped by the evil scientist Weston and his companion Devine and taken to Malacandra or, as we would call it, Mars.  On a previous visit, Weston and Devine had been summoned by the guardian spirit, Oyarsa, of Malacandra and had mistakenly assumed that what Oyarsa wanted was a human for sacrifice. Believing that any further trade with the planet will be impossible until they provide a sacrifice (Devine wants precious metals and Weston wants to make Mars a habitation for humans),  they go back to Earth in search of a hapless human to fulfill this role.

Once on Malacandra, Ransom escapes from his captors and is taken in by a race of beings who are far kinder to him than his fellow humans.  In fact, Ransom is struck by their intelligence and goodness to the point of feeling ashamed of his own species.  He now feels the need to explain the “bent” (their only word denoting what we would call “evil”) tendencies of human kind, and he also wants to protect his new friends from the two bent men who have brought him here.

In the end, all three men are brought before Oyarsa, who tells them that he knows very little about their planet.  He is able to communicate with the guardian spirit of every planet except theirs, which he calls Thulcandra, meaning the Silent Planet.  The reason for this is made clear to Ransom; indeed, the education he receives both from the beings who befriended him and from Oyarsa completely changes his ideas about the nature of life and of death as well.

When by a miracle the three men make it back to Earth, Ransom tries to put his newfound knowledge into practice.  The conclusion of the book consists of an afterword and several letters Ransom has written to the few colleagues he has entrusted with his amazing story.  We discover that the work of “fiction” we have been reading is actually his attempt to share with open-minded readers the fruits of his experiences.

C.S. Lewis often used a fantastic setting to strip away the trappings of everyday life and expose the truths hidden within.  Out of the Silent Planet leaves the reader with a sense of awe and with the idea that deep space and even our own damaged planet are filled with wonders that we are normally too jaded to see.
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

When Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first novel of the famous Harry Potter series, became wildly popular, I wondered what all the fuss was about.  Not usually one to hop on the popular bandwagon, I was skeptical at first, but J. K. Rowling grabbed me from the first paragraph.  I avidly followed the fortunes of “The Boy Who Lived” as the series stretched into seven novels.  My daughter and I were so thrilled when each new book came out that we had to get two copies, one for each of us; otherwise, we would sneak into the other’s room in the middle of the night and steal it off the bedside table!

Fortunately for us, as the series came to its breathtaking conclusion, we discovered the audio version narrated by Jim Dale.  Now we could not only enjoy rereading the Harry Potter books, but also hear them read aloud to us on audio.  These fast-paced novels—full of brilliantly envisioned characters, and packed with suspense, pathos, and humor—are a treat to listen to, especially as narrated by Jim Dale.  He has a perfect voice and delivery for this story.  His smooth British accent is clear and easy to understand, with just enough of a clipped, wry expressiveness to it so that you appreciate Rowling’s humor.  These days, whenever I reread a Harry Potter book I hear Jim Dale in my head, because he has done such a good job portraying the characters exactly the way they are described in the books.

My ten-year-old son has become as big a fan as the rest of us, so he and I listen to Harry Potter books while we do chores around the house.  Our family loves to listen to the series while we are stuck in the car on long trips.  How many times have we listened to the whole series?  I’ve lost count.  The satisfying complexity of the story means that we are always figuring out new connections and discussing new insights.

You can get all seven of the Harry Potter books, narrated by Jim Dale, as audio books and also as downloadable audio, so you can listen to it on your home computer or portable device.  When you check out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, be sure you put the rest of the series on hold.  You’ll definitely want to hear them all!

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The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

“Princesses should be beautiful and smart and clever, but Princess Elisa feels like none of those things. Elisa would rather be off reading a book than among the court, unlike her older sister Alodia who enjoys the court scene.

As princesses of the kingdom of Orovalle both girls are destined to have certain obligations they must fulfill. Elisa, however, has a second obligation as the Chosen One; she has a gem embedded in her stomach called a Godstone. The bearer of a Godstone shows up once every 100 years to perform a great act of sacrifice for God.

As The Girl of Fire and Thorns opens up Elisa is turning sixteen as well as getting married to King Alejandro from the neighing kingdom Joya d’Arena. When she arrives at her new home she finds a court not much different from her own, but with more political intrigue. They are not sure what to make of this newcomer. When tragedy strikes, can Elisa summon up the internal strength to do what needs to be done?

Once she makes it to Joya d’Arena she finds a Court not much different than her own, but with more political intrigue. They are not sure what to make of this newcomer.

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson is a book that is hard to put into a nice neat little box. However, I could see it appealing to those who like Games of Thrones by George RR Martin (albeit a lot less bloody) and The Thief by Megan Whelan Turner.

Greatest Hits: The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams

Join us the next five days and kick off the new year with The Book-A-Day Blog’s most popular posts of 2012!

Tad Williams is a well known Fantasy & Science Fiction writer (see The Dragonbone Chair & City of Golden Shadow), but this novel is set in a modern, real world setting (a fictional city in Northern California). Our narrator and main character is Bobby Dollar, a wise-cracking angel who lives on Earth and is an advocate for souls of the recently departed. In Williams’ world, when a person dies there is a trial and an angel and a demon each advocate for the soul to go to Heaven or Hell based on that person’s actions during life. The judge is one of the much higher levels of angels, and all of this naturally occurs outside of our perceived reality. It’s a pretty straight forward system – until one day when a soul goes missing before it can be assigned to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory for all eternity.

Bobby is not like any other angel I’ve ever read about – he drinks, curses and indulges his carnal desires when on Earth, and while he’s good at his job, his behavior means that he’s not exactly held in high esteem by his superiors up in Heaven. Then there’s the opposition: in addition to the demon advocates, Bobby is soon also mixed up with the likes of a higher level demoness known as the Countess of Cold Hands. She and her hellish companions make life – or is it afterlife? – very difficult for Bobby, who just wants to find out where the missing souls (yes, there have been more since that first one) have disappeared to. To make matters worse, a very powerful demon lord believes that Bobby has stolen something from him and has sent an ancient and practically unstoppable monster after him.

This novel is filled with action as Bobby races to find out what’s happened to the missing souls, evades the ancient monstrosity that’s hunting him, falls in lust with the Countess, and tries to avoid getting his friends – fellow angels on Earth – hurt. He’s also periodically “called upstairs” to be questioned by angels much higher than him on the celestial ladder. Even though Bobby is assured by everyone in Heaven that “God loves you,” he gets the distinct feeling that his superiors aren’t telling him everything they know.

Williams’ world building is first rate and he really made me feel like I was right there with Bobby, both in the Bay area and up in Heaven. Tad has also created some wonderfully relatable and highly entertaining characters for Bobby Dollar to interact with and play off of, with tons of memorable dialogue. I’d recommend this book for those who like paranormal detectives, especially the Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher, as well as anyone who liked Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series, starting with On a Pale Horse.

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