YA Fantasy: Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst

Vessel
Sarah Beth Durst
ISBN: 9781442423763
Follows the adventures of a girl fated to die and allow her clan's goddess to claim her body, when the goddess never shows up.


Nicely plotted, and the romantic entanglements didn't make me want to stab anyone in the eyes, so that's always a benefit.  Lots of really good world-building, and an interesting take on how bad things happen in a world with active gods all over the place. Not so thrilled that the eventual villain is revealed as a mad depressed person.

Very enjoyable.

Graphic Novel Book Club: Princeless, Volume 1. Jeremy Whitley and M. Goodwin

Princeless, Volume 1 (originally: The Arduous Business of Getting Rescued, later subtitled Save Yourself)
writer: Jeremy Whitley
art and colors: M. Goodwin
letters: Jung Ha Kim
ISBN: 9781939352545
Spunky Princess of Color discovers a sword under her bed in her tower, and rides her dragon guardian (who is of course her friend) off to rescue her other sisters from durance vile in their own towers.

Princess Adrienne is introduced as a child, repulsed and analytically rejecting her mother's recitation of a traditional fairy tale of a "fair princess" getting rescued from a tower by a prince who slays the evil dragon.  Fast forward a few years, and dad (King, and really imposing and grumpy) has drugged her and stuck her in exactly that same situation.  Adrienne's not having it, so she co-opts her dragon and sets merrily off on adventure, stopping first to rescue her  youngest sister from her room in the palace home.  Of course, things never go according to plan, and there are some interesting digressions along the way (including an extended running gag about "women warrior" armor as fashion clothing rather than as practical armor, visually-checking several iconic designs along the way.)

This softcover volume includes issues 1-4 of the comic, along with a few short excerpt comic pages about various secondary (and maybe to-be-important-later?) characters and their own unfortunate experiences.

Suitable for kids, but maybe not for reallly little ones, or for sensitive ones.  Safe bet would be 2nd grade and up.

New Arrival: Juvenile Graphic Novel: Help Us! Great Warrior, by Madeleine Flores & Trillian Gunn

Help Us! Great Warrior
Madeleine Flores with Trillian Gunn
ISBN: 9781608868025
Um.. The great warrior is a green kirby thing who fights evil (even though she'd rather just chill), I guess?


I came at this cold, so I may not be the best audience for it, but the cover was cute and strange and had multiple women of color on it, so I thought - eh?  Why not!?  I'm now intrigued and very confused.

The Great Warrior is a green kirby blob that lives in a village of other (blueish/greyish) blobs.  Their village keeps getting destroyed by demons from the monster realm, and Hadiyah (an unexplained human (actually not a human, more of a djinni/guardian angel/earth spirit thing), along with "Samson the magnificent" who is the Great Warrior's best friend...? ) basically drops in and says, Great Warrior, you have to go fight the demons because they keep destroying things.

Then in a great plot twist (it wasn't very twisty) it turns out that Great Warrior has a deep dark secret of her own, and she has to make a hard choice to keep her village and her friends safe.

I enjoyed it.  I don't want this review to seem negative - I really did have fun reading it, but I was sooooo confused the whole time.  Are there other ones before this?  I can't figure it out from a search (and not to brag, but librarians are pretty good at searching) and I don't know.  Technically over the course of the story we learn everything we need to know for the story to work, but it seems so offhanded and by-the-bye that I really feel like there's other stories or background info that I'm not privy to.

It was interesting, and peculiar, and odd.  But lots of powerful female characters (good and evil) although Hadiyah got fridged and Samson got stuck in nursemaid territory in order for the plot to progress (grrr argh).  Interesting and lively, but weird.  

Juv Fantasy: Magic at Wychwood, Sally Watson, illustrated by Frank Bozzo

Magic at Wychwood
Sally Watson, illustrated by Frank Bozzo
ISBN: 0394914686 (library binding)
Read May 27, 2016
Juv Classic Fantasy.  Very similar in feel and spunk to the more recent Tuesdays at the Castle.


This was a cute little short read, again found while helping a patron find an old childhood read.  This one is about a royal family, in particular the youngest daughter: spunky, redheaded, un-ladylike Princess Elaine, and their various adventures concerning magical happenings in and around the castle.  Extremely laid back, no real peril (people do get changed into animals and inanimate things, but everything always comes right in the end).  Elaine is a delightful hero, and her big brother Arthur takes the stage a few times also, and he is determinedly chivalrous and delightful in his adherence to the Code, especially when everyone else in the family is being much more sensible.

Very cute, and a great choice for bedtime serial readings - each "chapter" is a self-contained story that only slightly builds on the ones before it, up til the very end when everything gets tied off delightfully.

New Arrival: Picture Book Biography: Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea, Robert Burleigh & Raúl Colón

Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor
Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Raúl Colón
ISBN: 9781481416009
Read April 28, 2016

This is another lovely biography of an early scientist who happens to be a woman.  Marie Tharp gets very little recognition now, but her passion to map out the ocean floor using sonar soundings and depth markers played a key part in forcing scientists to accept the theory of continental drift, by using the ridges and valleys on the ocean floors to prove that there really are continental plates bumping up against each other.Not bad for someone who got told there weren't any openings for file clerks (she was applying for the position as staff scientist) and got left behind on ocean voyages because women were bad luck on ships.Colón's illustrations are consistently gorgeous, and his depictions of Marie at different times throughout her life are lovely to see progress.

Graphic Novel: Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling, by Tony Cliff

Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling
Tony Cliff
ISBN: 9781626721555
Sequel to Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant (reviewed here and here)
Delilah and Selim's adventures on the continent are cut short by a megalomaniacal officer, landing them in England's high society.

So in the first book, poor Selim was the one who didn't fit in.  This time around, Delilah is back home, and she's fundamentally unsuited for English country squire life.  I read this with the first season of Downton Abbey fresh in my mind (even though the time-periods are different, the society is very much the same) and I cringed at her continual flouting of social norms, and the diffident but pointed tactful comments by all the other members of society trying to nudge her gently back into an accustomed set of behaviors.

The duo has been performing good deeds on the continent, but they're interrupted by the escalating war between England and France, and when they're forcibly picked up (and then framed for spying) by an over-ambitious redcoat, they find it expeditious to return to England for some damage control.  Delilah tries, she really does, but her direct methods don't fit in at all in England, and while Selim's natural diffidence and propriety make him a better fit socially, his utter unfamiliarity with his surroundings (and Delilah's continued inability to explain what is even going on) make him nearly as ineffectual as she is, although slightly less socially problematic.

The whole thing ends with a wild chase and an explosive finale, and ends up with Delilah having made peace with her mother, but also leaving her with her first real long-term enemy.

It JUUUUST came out, and already I want the next one so badly.  Uggghhh.  Patience is not my virtue.

Juvenile Fantasy: The Girl, The Dragon, and the Wild Magic, Dave Luckett

The Girl, The Dragon, and the Wild Magic (Rhianna trilogy)
Dave Luckett
ISBN: 0439411874
Scholastic paperback (originally published in Australia)
Read April 12, 2016


This is a cute little standalone juvenile fantasy, perfect for a reluctant reading young lady, or perhaps as a stepping stone to the Alanna books (Song of the Lioness series, Tamora Pierce) or The Hero and the Crown/The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley).

Rhianna is really bad at magic.  The rules are inconsistent and the logic is fuzzy, and all of her attempts at spellcasting end in catastrophic failure.  Makes sense, because for most people, too little magic is the problem, and for Rhianna, a rare Wild Magic talent means that her problems stem from too much magic - and therefore not enough control.  Her talent is pulling the raw power from the entire countryside, and until she can learn control herself, the court wizard works out a catch-and-release mechanism - which unfortunately a covetous local wizard and his nasty son turn against both Rhianna and the locals.  Comeuppance is swift and karmic, when his foolhardy and greedy nature calls a dragon to town, giving Rhianna a chance to show off how well she can do in a situation where more magic is a help rather than a hindrance.

Cute, sweet, innocent, and easily readable.  There are two sequels:
The Girl, the Apprentice, and the Dogs of Iron
The Girl, the Queen, and the Castle

Magical Western: Wake of Vultures, Lila Bowen (Delilah Dawson)

Wake of Vultures
Lila Bowen
ISBN: 9780316264310
Read January 31, 2016
Nettie is half-black and half "injun" and she's been treated like a slave all her life, but that all changes when she stakes a lecherous vampire one night.

First off, Lila Bowen is actually Delilah Dawson, who I've had the pleasure of meeting a few times, and also have read her YA books HIT and Servants of the Storm.  With this pseudonym, she heads out into slightly (only slightly) grimmer territory with the magical western story of Nettie Lonesome, who discovers that the black and white "facts" she learned from her disreputable and abusive "adoptive parents" don't match reality all that well.

The night Nettie dispatches a fearsome predator in the back yard, her eyes are opened to the wild and demanding magical world.  She'll have to stretch and grow and learn a whole lot to make it through to the classic western showdown.

I sadly can't say a whole lot about this book without giving bits of it away, but I have to say that having Nettie so backwards and isolated and fundamentalist in her thinking gives Bowen a great way to "tell" about the weird west that she's created without it being an "as you know, Bob" situation.  Nettie truly doesn't know a damn thing, but she's been tasked with a terrifying mission, and if she doesn't figure out what's going down pretty quick, she's sunk.

The supporting characters are believable and most are carefully drawn to be at least somewhat three-dimensional, given limitations of space.  No one (with the positive exception of a mentor, and perhaps unsurprisingly the negative portrayal of the "adoptive parents" and big bad at the end) is presented in an unremittingly good or bad light - people have their positive and negative traits without those traits becoming shorthands for identifying white or black hats.  Nettie herself finds her prejudices and stereotypes challenged and countermanded constantly through the book, and other characters have their own assumptions shattered as well.  Sometimes they react positively, occasionally not.  Despite the grim nature of the quest narrative, the overall sense of the character base is supportive and caring, which I figure is probably the most magical aspect of the whole story, but I'm not going to complain too hard, because it really becomes necessary to balance out the grim and gruesome evil that Nettie is forced to confront.

Also, can I say how forever grateful and happy I am that this is the first book in a series, but the storyline is totally and completely resolved.  There IS a cliffhanger, but it's one that I don't actually mind.  You'll have to read it to get the joke.  :)  

2015 Review Round-Up: Graphic Novel: Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant, Tony Cliff

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant
Tony Cliff
ISBN: 9781596438132
Read December 2015 for Graphic Novel Book Club

Previously reviewed here.

All of that remains true, and to add that the sequel is offically named and release-dated:
Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling
out March 8 2016
(yay we're finally in the same year as the release Oh MY God I've waited FOREVER!!!)

2015 Review Round-Up: Juvenile Graphic Novel: Baba Yaga's Assistant, Marika McCoola & Emily Carroll

Baba Yaga's Assistant
Marika McCoola, illustrated by Emily Carroll
ISBN: 9780763669614
Read December 2015
Gruesome but light-hearted romp through a magical forest outside the modern world.

Her grandmother was her only comfort after her mother died - her botanist father was distant and didn't understand her.  Grandmother would tell her stories of her own childhood, when she braved the terrors of Baba Yaga with her own mother's doll to help her.  When grandmother passes on, and her father starts eating dinner with a new date - one with a bratty child at that, Masha knows just what to do.  She snatches up her matryoshka dolls, snips out the classified ad; "Assistant Needed ASAP... Enter Baba Yaga's house to apply." and heads into the forest.  From there on, we're into a madcap magical adventure where Masha (with a little help from Grandmother, and perhaps some from Baba Yaga herself, not that she'd ever tell) Masha learns that she really does have a place in the world, and even finds it in her heart to rescue the bratty maybe-eventually-little-stepsister.

So fun, and so subversive.  Loved it.  Reminded of Nimona, and of Ms Marvel, and of the Hildafolk stories, where the normal mundane and the utterly magical are just a stones throw apart, but no one in either world seems to notice or care.

2015 Review Round-Up: Fantasy Novella: Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente

Six-Gun Snow White
Catherynne M. Valente
ISBN: 9781481444729
Sets Snow White in the American West, with a side-plot giving the Wicked Queen actual motivation.
Read December 2015

This was an interesting and powerful retelling, and I finished it off quickly.  I loved the addition of the sub-plot that gave the stepmother/wicked queen an actual motive for Snow's heart, and the interesting twisty development that ensued.  I thought that the "six-gun" motif was undertilised and somewhat forgotten as the story progressed, and especially the detail of the gemstones seemed to fall by the wayside.  Likewise the ending of the story felt a bit rushed, and the epilogue was peculiar.  I had the oddest feeling that the story beforehand, all wild west and openly magical and folkloric, was the reality, and that the glimpse of modern life with professors and physics and apartments was the fantasy, all hazy and unreal.  It was the strangest sensation of disjointed impressions I've ever gotten from a story that I liked.

Despite all that, it was a glorious magical (grim, depressing, hellish) world to visit for a short while, and Snow was a captivating protagonist to follow.

2015 Review Round-Up: Juv Fiction: The Scavengers, Michael Perry

The Scavengers
Michael Perry
ISBN: 9780062026163
Juv dystopia, spunky girl heroine, a bit overexplained at the end.
Read Summer 2015

This was a fun "beginner level" dystopia.  It had elements of zombies a la Walking Dead, it has the scrappy heroine and a grizzled old mentor and his kitchen-witchery wife.  Family in peril, younger sibling needing protection.  Bonus points for random wordplay (sometimes genuinely funny, sometimes seemed a bit effortful) and a demented chicken.

Our girl has named herself Ford Falcon because it sounds really cool.  Please don't look at the actual car, she knows it's a beater.  But it does provide a nice cozy place to sleep, all half-buried in the abandoned rural scrapyard her family now calls home.  There aren't many people out in the country now, what with the government offering everyone free food and protection inside the new domed cities.  But a few holdouts linger, and her family is one - or they were, until someone trashes the family home and they all vanish.  Now Ford is on her own (but not really, there are wily neighbors to help out) and it's up to her to find her family, and try to build a home again.  A pretty good yarn, and a good gentle allegory for the push-pull of adolescent yearning to be safe at home, but also pretty sick of being stuck at home.  Recommended for kids who are ok with pretty intense scenes of abandonment and lots of pages spent with creepy corn zombies.

YA SF, The Cage, Megan Shepherd

The Cage
Megan Shepherd
ISBN: 9780062243058
First in a trilogy:  Cora, along with five other teens, wakes in a crazed warped-spacetime funhouse designed to superficially resemble various cultures and biospheres on Earth.

This was an interesting read, and a really good example of how to have a solid, tight, COMPLETE storyline and climax, while still leaving lots of good space for the remainder of the trilogy.

Cora is a solid character, and she attempts to befriend the others in the menagerie, but their own complacency and the capricious nature of their captors (zookeepers?) keeps her apart from them.  I really liked how Shepherd made Cora fight, mentally and physically, against their captivity, even when her actions weren't helpful or were actively hampered by the rest of the group.  Nice to see a really powerful girl kick back against the "victim" mentality.  

My one major quibble is that the kids are supposedly meant to represent human diversity, yet there are no black characters at all.  There are two darker-skinned girl characters, but one is dead before the story begins (which is unfortunately stereotypical) and the other is introduced as a crazed feral creature (which is also unfortunately stereotypical), and the one male "ethnic" boy is Polynesian or Maori - Pacific Islander, instead of black.  There is one other Asian character, and the remaining three (also the most important three for the majority of the story) are white.  On the one hand, I hate to dock a book because of casting choices, but when the premise is established as specifically as this was, it's a little noticeable when fully half of your "genetically diverse" menagerie is made of lily-white people, when the actual demographics of planet Earth are fundamentally different.  I was left with the stunning realization that if Cora herself had been a black girl, the story would have been in large part the same, but with an even more powerful engine behind her drive to never be a victim.  I have to think that alternate-universe version would be even more amazing.

Still, the book ends with our character group divided and split up, with the promise of more potential characters to add to the mix.  It's scheduled for May next year, and I'm already looking forward to it.

For people who want to read an entire trilogy at once with no waiting, I would highly suggest Shepherd's earlier trilogy; The Madman's Daughter, Her Dark Curiosity, A Cold Legacy.
    

Fairy Tale / Fantasy: Uprooted, Naomi Novik

Uprooted
Naomi Novik
ISBN: 9780804179034
Beautiful and haunting fantasy-reworking of Beauty and the Beast.

This is the best book I've read all year, and I have read some truly mindblowing, amazing, masterful works of art this year.  This is it.  This is everything I ever wanted in a story forever and ever.  This is what I want to write myself when I grow up.  Nothing against any of the other wonderful authors and artists I've seen so far, or will see later in the year, this is just the pinnacle right here.

I simply and truly have no words.  If you know that this is a Beauty and the Beast re-telling, that it's set in a fantasy kingdom with an encroaching malevolent Wood, and a politically-unstable dynasty, and an enmity with the neighboring human kingdom, you have everything you need to know to read it and be thrilled and swept away.

I can't wait to read it again!

Nonfiction: Liar Temptress Soldier Spy, Karen Abbott

Liar Temptress Soldier Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War
Karen Abbott
ISBN: 9780062092892
Read September 25, 2014

This was an impressive undertaking, but I think that the author slightly shot herself in the foot narratively by limiting her quotations to actual letters or family recollections.  That meant there was a lot of text about what was going on around the characters, and a lot of text about what the women were doing, but not as much from their "voices," which, while I understand her wanting to keep her history as pure as possible, isn't really the best narrative choice when you've got four women to switch back and forth from, and despite your attempt in the title to differentiate, ALL of them at one point are spies.

Other than that difficulty, which did make it occasionally difficult to keep straight between Rose and Elizabeth, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Our "heroines" are:

Belle Boyd, a teen with more passion than sense, "spying" for the Confederacy in a contested portion of Virginia (then West Virginia).

Emma Edmondson (later Edmonds) who ran from an abusive father in Canada before joining the North as private (and courier, and mail carrier and nurse and aide-de-camp and spy) Frank Thompson.

Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a Confederate lady living in Washington, spying for the Confederacy through brazen flirtations with political officials on both sides.

Elizabeth Van Lew, staunch Abolitionist living in Richmond Virginia, in the heart of the new Confederate capital, rescuing Union prisoners and creating a massive spy ring that included a house servant who cleaned up Jeff Davis' own personal study.

We run chronologically through the war, staying with whoever was experiencing the more interesting events, or in busy times, jumping back and forth through the months to follow each of them in detail.  because Belle and Emma were so different from each other in their personalities and jobs, this didn't create much trouble, but as mentioned before, did get occasionally confusing between Rose and Elizabeth, each doing essentially the same things for the different sides.

There were also a few tonal missteps, the most jarring during a scene where Rose O'Neal Greenhow, the Confederate spy, was taken to court on suspicion of treason.  Her words blaze all down both pages, recounted most likely from the court transcriptionist, and they are heavy and oh so genteel.  At the bottom of the page the author has her return home to her daughter who begs for a story in yet another direct quotation, and then in the author's words, Rose obliged, "making it all up as she went along, and letting the good guys win" (emphasis mine).  The "good guys" is your word choice?  Really?  After that stunning example of the English language and formal behavior, "the good guys win?"  Just really stunningly out of place.  There were a couple of moments like that.

More confusingly, there were places where the meaning was unclear: both Belle and Emma recount, and Abbott carefully transcribes, events that could not possibly have taken place, but in each case, the recounting (both in quotations and in authorial writing) is extensive and vividly recounted, just as all the other events.  Either before or after, the demurral exists, but is always faint or opaque, leaving me confused about the actual events.  This really bugged me.  Again, the dedication to "truth" in historical record makes the resulting narrative confusing.  That isn't good.  If your sources are making shit up, make it crystal clear in the narrative in the moment that they are fabricating, rather than mentioning it in passing in the note before the text.

Other than those few minor niggles, I enjoyed the stories of these brave women greatly.  We need more history like this, including everyone from the past who experienced the events, not just the privileged members.

As a final note, I must say that General McClellan is about the most worthless field general (and the most personally egotistic) I have ever heard of.  Useless man.  I hope he never realized how much death and suffering resulted from his lack of ability.

The Mirk and Midnight Hour, Jane Nickerson

The Mirk and Midnight Hour

Jane Nickerson

ISBN: 9780385752862

YA: Civil-War gently creepy fantastical novel of manners.

This is a companion-book of sorts to the author's first book, Strands of Bronze and Gold, and where that one gently tweaked the Bluebeard tale, this one has Tam Lin at heart.  

The story begins with our focus character Violet reeling from the loss of her twin brother, dead in a Civil War battlefield.  Her father is preparing to head to war himself, leaving her behind with the family slaves, Laney and Michael, and baby Cubby.  Violet's household is soon filled to the brim with a stepmother (more pathetic than wicked), a stepsister (excellent character development there, shattering expectations), and a set of cousins - one, the fae and sensitive child heir to a luxe plantation, and the other, a swaggering blockade-running showboat of a young man, from the cadet branch of the family, raised on the plantation, and expected to be the heir himself until the unexpected birth of his young cousin.  The variety of relationships (and neighbors) made the story really flow like a novel of manners, gently showing relationships building and changing over time.  The discovery of an injured Union soldier in an abandoned lodge nearby, cared for by the enigmatic and creepy VanZeldt "family" of a white doctor and a set of haughty Africans changes everything, and the ripples of her discovery will impact every corner of Violet's life.

As in the other story, I was very happy to see that abusive characters are shown clearly, with no excuses made for their behaviors, even when other characters don't see (or remain willfully blind) to those faults.

I also liked the way that the author presented the question of slavery - slowly showing Violet becoming aware of how her way of life was impacting people that she loved or respected.  It could have been corny or harsh, but it was almost natural.

I especially enjoyed the tension set up by the VanZeldts.  They exist somewhere on a range from casually evil to amoral to totally alien, which is an interesting path to take with your main "villains" and I think only works as well as it does for me because of the association with the unknowable fae of the traditional Tam Lin tale.  Relatedly, I thought that the integration of houdoun and voodoo and grisgris and rootworking was done nicely (even the shoutout to traditional zombies!)  I especially enjoyed reading all the various interpretations and justifications that the different characters used to make their non-Christian practices fit into the dominant culture and belief system.

The storyline didn't grip me quite as hard as the first one did - I think partly because of familiarity.  I've encountered lots of variants on Tam Lin, some good (as this one was) and most really wretched, where I don't recall ever reading a novelization of Bluebeard other than Fitcher's Brides (which I liked, but felt like the fairy-tale association was a bit forced into the cult setting).

I'm happy to see Nickerson writing another novel so soon, and I hope that she continues - her take on the Civil War south is a nice change of pace and setting from usual fantasy works.

 

Sorrow's Knot, Erin Bow

Sorrow's Knot
Erin Bow
ISBN: 9780545166669
Read January 12, 2014

YA/Fantasy, indigenous cultures in a world of dead shadows and the power to 'bind' with knots or words.

I can't really improve on the jacket copy without spoiling the story, and I find myself strangely averse to spoilers for any part of this story.  All I feel I can safely say is that Otter, Kestrel, and Cricket are caring friends, that family relationships can be both loving and twisted, and that this beautiful and unsettling story made me cry.

I find myself this next morning wanting to hug my mother and my grandmother.

Sally Slick & The Steel Syndicate, Carrie Harris

Sally Slick & the Steel Syndicate: A Tale of the Young Centurions
Carrie Harris
ISBN: 9781613170632
Read January 2, 2014

YA: FATE role-playing system tie-in novel, first of a planned series (sequel: Sally Slick and the Miniature Menace).

Sally is the only girl in a family of 7 boys, and she's an inventor to boot.  She's proud of her inventions, especially her racing tractor.  She's less proud that the town bully and his gang continue to beat up her best (only) friend Jet while she stays out of their way.  When her eldest brother returns from Chicago and tries to secretly bury a broken mechanical man in the family graveyard, Sally gets mixed up in more danger and excitement than she'd ever imagined.  The mechanical man is the focus of a turf-war between Chicago gangsters.  The Steel Don and a strange inventor, her brother's employer Doktor Proktor, both want the power this invention will grant them.  As Sally tries to keep her family, especially her brother James, safe, she realizes that her own skills are in demand as well, and that her opponents will stop at nothing to secure her talent. 

This was created as a "stretch goal" for a Kickstarter campaign for the FATE system, and it shows a little.  The book is softbound, with those glare-white pages and really narrow margins that scream "self-published" but the content is thankfully not subject to the usual low self-publishing standards.  I didn't notice any typographical or grammar mistakes, no great jumps in narrative, or strange railroading or mystical decisionmaking.  The plot was funny and quick, the characters quirky and individualized (except for the 7 brothers, of whom I know of the sick baby, the twins (one of whom is a prankster, and the other a tactical genius) and the eldest brother.  4 out of 7 isn't bad, right? 

The only real complaint I have with this one is that more times than not, the dialogue is stilted and somewhat off.  People don't really talk to each other the way that the author has them do here, and it's a little bit of a detriment to the story, especially when the characters themselves are pretty nifty, and well-drawn.

Cute, fun, clean, and in the same excellent early-century inventor breed as Tom Swift, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and The Rocketeer, but specifically geared towards younger readers.  Not quite Jules Verne, but amusing and inventive.  I only hope that Calamity the tractor will play a slightly larger role in the next book.

Short Reviews: April 2013. The Vine Basket, Josanne La Valley

The Vine Basket, Josanne La Valley.  ISBN: 978-0547848013
April 2013
Interesting but emotionally flat tale of an ethnic-minority Chinese girl in northwestern China attempting to balance loyalty to the Party, the traditions of her own people, and the limitations on what daughters are good for.  Plot and characters alike could have been MUCH better with a stronger author.

Short Reviews: January 2013. Ironskin, Tina Connolly

Ironskin, Tina Connolly.  ISBN: 9780765330598

January 2013

YA: This book reminded me very strongly of Jenna Starborn, in that it really does quite simply take Jane Eyre, mess around with the setting, and let it fly again.  I enjoyed Jenna Starborn, and I did enjoy Ironskin also, but I do think that the world-building in the former was a little more realized.  There were some implications in this endeavor that weren't fully dealt with, and several others which were just left to hang unresolved.  

However!  While the setting in Jenna Starborn is pretty ho-hum Victoriana in space, THIS setting is really very interesting.  I would have LOVED to see an original story set in this world, rather than a re-hash of a classic.  I got the impression that a lot of thought had gone into creating an interesting concept for a world, and then when it came time to write a story - they choked up.  I totally understand that; I'm a worldbuilder, and a character writer myself, not a plotter.  But I do feel somewhat cheated that this really very interesting scenery and background was wasted on a watered down YA edition of Jane Eyre.  

A world in the twilight of an Empire powered by the stolen life-energy of the fae really deserves something a bit more original.

ETA: apparently there is now a sequel: Copperhead.