REVIEW: "the Book of Life" by Deborah Harkness

"Wild Card," you say, "Why didn't you post at all last week? Why have we been waiting for content since your last book review?"
THIS BOOK IS WHY. Like the last two books in the trilogy, I've been surreptitiously (and not) been reading this book since I did my last review. The only things that have kept me from this book are work, church, and sleep (and the last one may have been compromised by it). Though it doesn't go quite as quickly as the other two in the trilogy, I was still reading 125 pages a day at least (that's a record for me.)

So, real thoughts on The Book of Life?
First, SPOILER WARNING. (this is the third book in a trilogy. If you want to read it unspoiled, proceed with caution and maybe don't proceed at all).

Plot summary: Basically, this is the part where the pieces of Ashmole 782 finally get put back together and the Congregation and the Covenant are faced.
There are questions posed for Act 3: Are any of Matthew's children a threat? (Yes. Matthew's vampire-son, Benjamin, is, lightly speaking, a psychotic asshole of the rape-and-murder variety.) What will the Congregation do about Diana and Matthew's relationship? Are Peter Knox and Gerbert the Vampire going to continue being assholes until the end? (Yes, but someone has to).
There are prior questions answered as well: what is blood rage? What determines which vampire manifests the traits and which vampire is a carrier? How are weavers made, and why is Diana a weaver and not a normal witch? (an interesting answer awaits these two). What does the Book of Life actually say?

There are a lot of answers to a lot of questions. The Book of Life is a fast-paced conclusion to the series, and I loved almost every page, especially because Diana does a lot of saving people by the end of it.

I say "almost" because there are a few issues. SPOILER WARNING REMINDER.



Firstly, Gallowglass. I love this vampire to death, and I wish his plot arc could have ended better. It appears that he fell in love with Diana in 1590, but it wasn't clear whether he was in love or he had actually hoped to mate with her later on. Part of me was wondering whether this would be a situation similar to Twilight, where an ancillary love interest (Jacob) spends a lot of time with the heroine while she's pregnant; it turns out that the heroine's daughter is Jacob's One True Life Partner. Though the process of vampires choosing thier One True Life Partner is not fully explored in the All Souls Trilogy (when the main couple are fully consenting adults, mating only needs to be explained as Somewhat More Than Marriage), I'm a little bit curious as to why Gallowglass's feelings are brought up at all. Is it possible for a vampire to mate when the other being is still a zygote? If so, has Gallowglass actually developed feelings for one of Diana and Matthew's twin children when they're still fetuses? Are his feelings just a reason for Gallowglass to agree to be Diana's bodyguard when Matthew is out?
Given that Gallowglass does have feelings for Diana, it makes sense that he isn't present in the epilogue. I do wish that he could have been there, though.

Secondly, the climax. I can handle a moderate amount of bodily harm in fiction, but there were moments when I felt gross. That, like nothing else, showed how much of a psychotic asshole Benjamin could be. The climax was good for a few reasons: two of Diana's struggles were overcome (lack of magic and hesitating before killing), the fact that she saves Matthew and not the other way around, that Benjamin got a truly fitting death, and that Diana was able to face and run the Congregation.

Thirdly, the ending. Some of it seemed too perfectly wrapped-together. The revocation of the Covenant, which really needed to be revoked, was very good and fitting, but there didn't seem to be enough of a price. Yes, Diana was exhausted and absorbed the Book of Life and all that, but what are the ill effects of that? All it really seems is that now Matthew can truly say to their children, "Pay attention to your mother, because she really does know everything." Though the scientific exploration of creatures is interesting, it just feels too well-wrapped.


The duration of the story into the third act, though, is great. The biggest drawback I can think of is that these books are really heavy and I can't always take them everywhere.
Definitely check them out if you have the chance.

BOOK REVIEW: "Shadow of Night," by Deborah Harkness

BE WARNED: SPOILERS TO COME. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Shadow of Night, the second book in the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness, is a fairly good follow-up to the first book. The book functions well as the second act in a three-act narrative, which is fairly important for a trilogy.

A brief summary:

Diana and Matthew go back to 1590 England (and Prague, and France) to learn more about the mysterious Ashmole book and to teach Diana more about her magic. While there, Matthew's backstory unfolds and they get clues to the future of their relationship.

As a standalone narrative, Shadow of Night is a pretty good book. As a sequel to Discovery of Witches, it's even better. Matthew and Diana develop more character, independently and together, and they handle threats to their relationship in ways that reflect their character development. This includes one part where Matthew will not sit down and have a much-needed Big Boy Relationship Talk, so Diana finds a way to make him have the much-needed talk without resorting to anything too dangerous.

Now I'm going to do something that I've never done in a book review: Making a List of Favorites/ Least Favorites.

spoilers ahead

new character

Favorite: Gallowglass or Jack Blackfriars. Though Henry Percy, Walter Raleigh, Rudolf II, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and a number of other historical figures make appearances, these two fictional ones are my favorites. Gallowglass is Matthew's nephew (in vampire lineage), and, once he gets used to the idea that Matthew is married to a witch, is a very fun character. Though I always imagined him at around the same age as Diana, he always calls her "auntie," which is funny in contrast to his description (tall, Scottish, and burly). If this were a movie, I would probably ask Chris Hemsworth to style his hair like he does when playing Thor and learn a Scottish accent.

STOP LOOKING SO SERIOUS, GALLOWGLASS.

Source: screenrant.com

Jack is a street rat. I wasn't sure about his function at times, but he allowed Matthew to show his paternal side occasionally. For the record, "Matthew" and "Paternal Side" are things that I didn't think would go together, but it happened and it was adorable.

Least Favorite: Diana's father. Though Diana and her father meeting by chance in 1590 was an interesting chapter, it felt thrown in at the end. He did make a few important points to help his daughter's marriage and magic, they all seemed like things that could have been said by someone else. William Shakespeare could have sent them on their first real date, and the coven that Diana learns from could have pushed her a little bit farther without the help of her father. It was interesting to read Diana's encounters with the father she lost at age 7, but it felt unnecessary somehow.

scene in the book

Favorite: okay, I've narrowed it down to two.

First, there was when Philippe, Matthew's vampire father, finally accepted Diana into the family. The entire chapter was intense for a number of reasons, but when he finally accepts her into the family, every interaction he has with her makes much more sense. There is one final test, which results in perhaps my favorite line in the book: "I just killed a man! Now is not the time to discuss our marriage." (Philippe throws Matthew and Diana a Real and Proper Wedding after that, which is a pretty good scene in itself.)

Second is when Diana and Matthew somehow get on the topic of vampire romance novels. It's only a brief exchange and I'm not sure I should include it, but whatever. It's very funny because, in the context of a vampire romance thread, it calls out basically every vampire romance novel ever. It concludes with my second-favorite line in the novel: "Help! I think I married a vampire!"

Least Favorite: It's hard to say. As a whole, the novel stands out as a fairly cohesive work. The final scene is good for showing how each artifact from Matthew's modern-day life winds back up at his home 420 years later, but I would rather the work end on more of a cliffhanger to race through to the third book.

Some of the flash-forward scenes are somewhat weak as well, but help to introduce at least a few new people. It does make more sense to show these connections rather than have someone say "hi, this is _________ we met when we were searching for you" or something.

overall impressions

this is one rollicking ride. If you like vampire romances where vampire romance is only half the point, definitely pick up this series.

BOOK REVIEW: "The Professor and the Madman" by Scott Westerfield

Right, I know this is really late, but it's not as late as the Hitchhiker's Guide review. I should probably not judge as harshly until something is promised for a full month until it is delivered upon.

Anyway, this is the review of The Professor and the Madman: a Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Scott Westerfield. Don't be daunted by the title. It's probably the most incomprehensibly rambling part of the book. The book is, indeed, about a bit of murder, a good chunk of insanity, and pretty much entirely about how those two things contribute to the Oxford English Dictionary.
The Madman (also the murderer, but that's not important.... not really, anyway) is Dr. William Chester Minor, an American who served in the Civil War as an army surgeon. The madness led him to delusions, which led him to the unfortunate path of murder and being subsequently locked up in an insane asylum for most of the rest of his life.
The Professor is James Murray, who eventually takes on the project of defining all the words in the English language. Not some of the words. Not the super rare words that are only interesting for people who want to sound smart. Not the remotely vague words for people who need to learn new things. The goal of the project he took one was to locate and define every single word in the English language. This includes regular words, new words, old words, words that are super obscure, and words that came about in 888 AD and were never seen again after 1000 AD. Though the project's editor kept saying, "Oh yes, it'll be done in ten or eleven years," you can see why he had to say that seven times over.
How these two relate is interesting. The professor sent out a general call for assistance; after all, defining every single word ever in the English Language is not something to be taken on alone. Dr. Minor saw the summons and, since he was one of patients that got really nice treatment (he got several rooms, lots of visiting hours, and was allowed to have a whole bunch of books with him), he responded to it. That's the short story, anyway. Read the book for the full story; it's really interesting.

I really liked this book. Westerfield puts the story in a narrative sort of style; he tells this as a story instead of a series of facts. I don't know if this is standard for a history book, but my familiarity is more with textbooks that do the series-of-facts approach. As a cool addition to the narrative, Westerfield starts every chapter with one or two vocabulary words in the form of a dictionary entry; frequently these words (or some action associated with them) show up int the chapter. My new favorite word came from one of these entries - sesquipedalian (it means "polysyllabic" or "loquacious," depending on the context.) I appreciate this book mostly because it contextualizes the massive effort it would have taken to write a dictionary. People don't normally think of dictionaries as being written; they just seem to be there, and then you add words like "selfie" to them, but Shakespeare didn't have any dictionaries to look up new words. (This could be why Shakespeare made up so many new words).

In all, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who is interested in gaining a new appreciation for the English language and dictionaries as a whole.

The Long-Awaited Review

GUESS WHAT I'M FINALLY REVIEWING TODAY? The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.

I wish I could say it doesn't normally take me half the summer to read a book that's barely 200 pages long and fairly enjoyable when I do read it, but it's not exactly a rare occurance. That being said, this review is very much going to be based on what I remember of the bits and pieces of the book.

Hitchhiker's Guide is about Arthur Dent, who gets swept away from Earth by his friend Ford Prefect, just before Earth's destruction by aliens trying to build a highway. From there, the two join up with a bunch of crazy characters - Zaphod Beeblebrox the two-headed ex-hippie, his human girlfriend Trillian, Marvin the brilliant but chronically morose robot, and other crazy characters. They travel across the galaxy on the run from the law, riding on an improbable spaceship obtained by illicit means.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THIS BOOK:

1) the humor.

This book is full of wit that's very dry, quite British, and really funny. Often this can point out important things in general. On the first page, the narration notes that most people were unhappy on Earth, and "many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." There are little asides that add humor to the whole thing - page two sets the date as "one Thursday nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be for everyone to be nice to each other for a change..." Also, dolphins and mice are smarter than everyone expects, and the answer to the meaning of "life, the universe, and everything" is 42, after 7.5 million years and the realization that there was not actually a question posited in the first place.

2) Marvin the Robot.

Normally I don't laugh at sad people, but Marvin is the exception. Many of his statements begin with "Brain the size of the planet and they make me do [insert menial task]." My favorite Marvin quote comes near the end - he waited for the Participants in Main Action to come back, so "I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged into [the police ship's] external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the universe to it... And it committed suicide." (214). I know that's very morbid, but that's very much Marvin's personality. (Apparently he's voiced by Alan Rickman in the movie, which I really want to see now.)

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT THE BOOK:

1) I don't know if it was just the fact that it took me several weeks to read this book, but some of the middle bits weren't very memorable. It's hard to remember exactly which bits I can't remember, but it seemed to drag a bit in some points. 

2) I would have liked a bit more from the actual Hitchhiker's Guide (it's an actual book in the book), since it does loan the novel its title.

In all, though, pretty good book, even though it took me forever to read. Next time, I'm doing The Professor and the Madman.