Year of the Series

Book-wise this year was the year of the series for me.  Here’s my recap of series I started, continued, or read in entirety this year.

5 - Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon: I started reading the Outlander series at the beginning of the year after enjoying the sumptuous TV show last year.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, but found books 2 and 3 contained too many coincidences (to the point they became ridiculous and obvious).  Haven’t decided if I’ll continue with this, but the characters are appealing and I do want to know what happens to the daughter.  Maybe after a long break…

4 - Icebreaker series by Lian Tanner: I’ve read the first book in this series and have had the second book on my ‘to-read’ list ever since.  A girl who doesn’t belong to any of the tribes on the ship is cared for by mysterious mechanical rats.  Steam-punk without the steam.  Intriguing.

3 - Colours of Madeline trilogy by Jaclyn Moriarty: I read the first book a year or so ago and the second book this year.  Can’t wait for the third to come out.  A crack in a broken parking meter allows Madeline to communicate with a boy in the Kingdom of Cello.  A familiar trope leading to a unique land.  Brilliant.

2 - Obernewtyn chronicles by Isobel Carmody: I read the first book several years ago, but the release of The Red Queen this year prompted me to catch up on this brilliant series.  Knocked off books two and three in the past month.  There’s a map, there’s beast-speaking and far-seeking and other super-powers.  What more could you want?

1 - Chaos walking trilogy by Patrick Ness:  So good, I read the entire series in a month.  Check out my Chaos Walking blog post here.

Best wishes to all for a great year in 2016!

Addendum:  Totally forgot to include Ellie Marney's fabulous Every series.  Being crime (not my favourite genre), I'd have to slot it in behind Colours of Madeline, but well worth reading for the romance.

Negative to Positive

Someone at work taped up a sign above their desk that read: You only work here.  I pulled it down and taped up a sign that read: You are a valued part of a team.

More than ever, we are inundated with negativity: from TV, news, the inescapable internet, and increasingly often from other people who should know better.  At times, it's hard to rise above it, but I think we owe it to ourselves not to reinforce other people's negativity.  We all have bad days, we all make mistakes, we all get hurt.  This festive season, let's practice a little more kindness, a little more forgiveness, and do something to make someone else's outlook on life a little more positive.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

Helen Keller

Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire

It’s been a busy couple of months since I last posted, but with bathroom renovations almost complete, colleagues over their ailments at work, and various other interruptions out of the way, it’s time to knuckle down to writing, blogging and occasionally tweeting again.

I have been reading Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire for our “Witches” themed book club discussion next month.  I’ve never read anything by Maguire before and I found this book both enjoyable and frustrating. 

The book is strongly steeped in Russian folklore interspersed with a spattering of pre-revolution Russian history.  I really enjoyed the folklore elements: the elusive fire-bird, the irritable ice dragon, and the wise-cracking witch Baba Yaga in her capricious house.  I also initially liked the two main characters, Elena and Katerina, whose lives, in one fateful moment, get swapped about. 

There’s so much to like in this story, and perhaps that’s the problem.  There’s just too much happening: Matryoshka dolls marrying dragon-tooth soldiers, a subversive/subservient feline, Tsar Nicholas, Rasputin and an unnamed monk locked in a tower, train travel, tornado travel, and the Tsar’s adventure loving godson, the list goes on.  These are all very entertaining, but by the end of the book, I found I didn’t care as much about the main characters as I did in the earlier chapters when their lives and the complications were simple.

I also have a problem with books, particularly children/YA books that make too many obscure references.  How many children, or even adults, will know anything about Caligula, Robespierre, Benedict Arnold, or Tallulah Bankhead?  And those were mentioned in just one paragraph!  There were at least a dozen more seemingly irrelevant references like that.  When I read, I don’t want to take myself out of the story to go search Google to find out who the author is talking about.  The same goes for words that don’t even appear in a dictionary.  I read to be transported out of the ordinary world into an extraordinary one.  I can tolerate looking up one or two things if they are relevant to the story; any more than that gets annoying.

All that said, some of the writing was lovely – particularly descriptions of the Russian countryside and St Petersburg – and the banter between Baba Yaga and her cat was rather witty.  As I said, there is much to enjoy in the book, but I think simplifying the story would have made it more powerful.  The message to Live your life seemed tacked on at the end when carrying on the theme of need and greed would have been more appropriate.

“Oh, the peskiness of brute childhood!  I always detested it!” remarked the witch.

“Nonesense,” replied the kitten.  “You ate children for a living and loved it.”

‘Yes, but by invitation only.  A mob is an ugly thing, and the younger, the uglier.”

― Gregory Maguire, Egg & Spoon

Chaos Walking Triology - Patrick Ness

Due to the AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!-factor of the cliffhanger ending, it's almost impossible to read The Knife of Never Letting Go without reading the next book in the Chaos Walking series.  So the moment I finished Knife, I borrowed The Ask and The Answer from the library.  The second book also has a cliffhanger ending, but unlike the first, it's not scream inducing.  It was the un-put-downable quality of the writing that had me diving straight from Ask into Monsters of Men. 

It's difficult to give an overview of Chaos Walking without spoilers, so I won't say too much about the story, just that on New World men can hear each other's thoughts and there are no women (or are there?).  One day Todd discovers a hole in the noise and is forced to run for his life from the men of the town he grew up in.  If you like dystopian novels, this is dystopia at its best.  It's an ugly and violent world that Todd lives in, and the body-count is high.  If you don't like that sort of thing, these are not the books for you.

What I love the most about Chaos Walking is the characters’ voices.  Each character, indeed each animal, has its own distinct way of speaking and thinking.  I also love the ambiguity of many of the characters, particularly in the second book where Todd and Viola just don't know who they can trust outside of each other.  It creates non-stop tension and conflict: the essence of a great story.

Patrick Ness is fast become one of my all time favourite writers. 

Her accent’s funny, different from mine, different from anyone in Prentisstown’s.  Her lips make different kinds of outlines for the letters, like they’re swooping down on them from above, pushing them into shape, telling them what to say.  In Prentisstown, everyone talks like they’re sneaking up on their words, ready to club them from behind. – Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

Announcements

Announcement 1

I have joined the twittersphere, therefore I no longer have time to read, write, sleep or eat.  Because, you know, PRIORITIES!  If you have your priorities straight, you can follow me: @ELambWrites

Announcement 2

Freshly Squeezed Reads has written an article about me, which I must say was a most interesting and enlightening experience.  (I'll never look at magazines the same way again.)  You can read the article here: http://www.freshlysqueezedreads.com/2015/07/c1blitz-winner-ghost-curse-by-ella-lamb/

Ash Road by Ivan Southall

Ash Road was published in 1965.  The first few pages show its age with dated language and an old fashioned style of writing, but don’t let that put you off reading this classic book.  Except for the lack of technology and kids being left largely to their own devices, the rest of the story could have been written this decade.

From the moment a trio of school boys accidentally start a bush fire, you know the unstoppable monster is heading straight for Ash Road.  The folk living on Ash Road have various levels of knowledge of the impending disaster and how to survive it, but don’t realise the enormity of the danger they’re in.  After all there’s a whole mountain and huge reservoir between them and the fire.

For anyone familiar with the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, the fictitious terrain around Ash Road is recognisable, but even for those of you who aren’t, Ash Road will have you on the edge of your seat.  Nature itself is both villain and hero in this book but the human characters’ efforts to save themselves and each other are precious, and the trial by fire changes each character indelibly.  The ending is a relief and the last line incredibly moving. 

Ivan Southall’s descriptions of the fire are outstanding – classic Aussie children’s literature at its best:

It came upon his vision as something living and evil, shapeless and formless, constantly changing, huge beyond comprehension: an insane creature of immense greed consuming everything around it whether the taste pleased or revolted it, rejecting what it did not care for only after it had mauled and savaged it, then pitching it aside or spitting it into the heavens. – Ivan Southall, Ash Road

What the Raven Saw by Samantha-Ellen Bound

I couldn’t resist this little gem I came across at the library, particularly when the blurb on the back said: ‘The raven doesn’t want you to read this story.’

This is a quirky, well-told tale of a raven that lives in the bell tower of an old church with his horde of treasure.  The raven naturally has a bird’s-eye-view of the comings and goings in the church, the graveyard and surrounding area.  The characters he meets run the gamut of ghosts, lovelorn scarecrows, annoying pigeons and a flirty weathervane.

When the raven spies someone stealing from the collection plate, he must come up with a plan to expose the criminal.  Even though he has lost everything he thought was important to him, he enlists the help of his new found friends to lead Father Cadman to the stolen money.  What makes the raven "almost happy" though is being able to sing the hymns and gospels songs that are his refuge from an unwelcoming world.

What the Raven Saw is a great book for all ages.  I gave it to my eight-year-old son and he couldn’t put it down.  Without being the tiniest bit preachy, it explores themes of loneliness, friendship, helping others and living a meaningful life.

The Best Bit of What the Raven Saw:  The trip down memory lane with chapter headings such as: People Get Ready, This Little Light of Mine, Go Tell It On A Mountain, Morning Has Broken, Oh Happy Day and more.  I found myself humming throughout the days remembering songs I hadn’t heard in years and, just like the raven, "having horrible sentimental thoughts."

It was exactly the same feeling as the first time the raven had caught his first rogue gust of wind and thought he could soar and soar and there would never be an end to it. - Samantha-Ellen Bound