B: The Black Prism & Bitterblue

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
Genre fantasy

I’ve blogged about this book before, but you can't recommend a great book too many times. If you’re looking for what the Fantasy genre does best (Adventure! Politics! Magic!) without the things Fantasy has depressed us with too many times (Predictable quest! Misogyny! Racism!), this is the book for you.

General premise Kip’s village is attacked, and just before his mother dies, she gives Kip an exquisite dagger and tells him to avenge her. On the other side of the world, Gavin Guile, the most powerful drafter (or color magician) in the world, learns he has a son, and swoops in to save Kip from certain death. Now Gavin has to protect his new-found son from political enemies, placate his irate fiancé, keep his other secret from coming out, and stop the lands from falling back into a world war. Kip has his own decision to make: obey his mother’s wishes and kill the father who abandoned them, or help his father save the lands from destruction.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Genre fantasy

When I read Graceling (Kristin Cashore’s first book – Bitterblue is her third, set in the same world), I loved it so much I flew across the country to attend a conference where Kristin Cashore was speaking. I’m the kind of introvert who prefers to stay home with the curtains drawn, pretending I didn't hear the phone ring, so this was quite an undertaking.

Incidentally, I’ve been to the Sirens Conference three times now, and they've done a brilliant job with each year's theme: Warriors, Faeries, Monsters (2012 will be Storytellers). If you want to meet authors, editors, readers and writers of fantasy by and/or about women, at a conference that’s not so large that you’re constantly lost, yet not so small that it feels like you’re the only one who doesn’t know everyone else, this is the one for you.

Since I haven’t read Bitterblue yet (available May 1^st, for those of us not lucky enough to have ARCs), I’m borrowing the publisher’s description from Amazon:

"Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck's reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle--disguised and alone--to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn't yet identified, holds a key to her heart."

February reading

First television, since all the shows I'm currently watching (except Top Shot) are at or near their season finales, and these shows have a connection to the books I'll discuss:

Downton Abbey

Brought to us here in the USA by PBS/Masterpiece Theater. I was getting a little worried about Downton Abbey, Season Two. I may even have fast-forwarded through the episode where a guy showed up claiming to be the Titanic-lost heir.

I don't mind when people act out of character in any story, as long as it leads to them being more interesting as characters, rather than less. For instance, O'Brien, the lady's maid to Lady Grantham, is an unbelievable schemer. She's much nicer this season, and you can trace it directly back to when she erroneously thought Lady Grantham was planning to get rid of her, and did something horrible she's now plagued with guilt over. This also leads to conflict with Thomas the footman, who used to be her ally in all their plots for advancement, because he has no idea why she's suddenly found a conscience.

I understand why O'Brien and Lord Grantham have changed, but not why Mary or Isobel have. I was worried that several characters were dangerously close to becoming cliches I'd prefer not to see in such a...well, masterpiece. :) Fortunately the show is still fascinating, and I'm looking forward to Season Three.

I'll admit that the acerbic dowager countess is now my favorite character (I didn't have a favorite in Season One, because so many of the characters were so delightfully entertaining and flawed), and I'm finding Bates only slightly less irritating than I did last season. There's nothing more annoying than people who choose to be altruistic by hurting everyone who cares about them. There's nothing selfless about that.

Which is not to say I want him to be different. I've said it before - I don't need to like characters to find their situations fascinating. Playing Bates the valet against Thomas the footman (who is just one big steaming pile of self-interest) makes for good storytelling.

And Parenthood. People who know me may find my loving this show to be rather out of character, but I don't think it is. I don't have or want children, I tend to avoid traditional family get-togethers, and crowds involving 5 to 50 people make me nervous (smaller or larger is mostly okay). But I love Parenthood, for some of the same reasons I love Downton Abbey and Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series. Large families are the biological equivalent of boarding schools and medieval castles as far as storytelling goes. Lots of people with different goals are around each other all the time = great setting for conflict = a good story (which is obviously not the same thing as "story I want to live in real life").

My favorite character in Parenthood is Adam Braverman, the eldest, most responsible sibling who -pretty much - always does the right thing. Which is interesting, because the eldest, most responsible sibling was my least favorite of the Bridgerton siblings (not that big a deal, I liked them all, I just liked Francesca and Colin the most).

Books! After re-reading a crazy number of books, I finally picked up something new (to me).

The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks
Genre: fantasy

Azoth wants to escape his hellish life in the slums, stealing to pay dues in a street guild where he and his closest friends are terrorized and abused. After mistaking the wetboy Durzo Blint (P4: A wetboy was like an assassin – in the way a tiger is like a kitten) for a kind-looking man, Azoth begs to become Durzo’s apprentice, and enters a world of politics and magic where the dangers are bigger and further-reaching than anything he ever imagined in the slums.

I expected it to be good, and it was. It had many things I love - political intrigue, magic, people who are really good at what they do, impossible choices.

It also had the longest final battle sequence I think I've ever read. After wading through 200 pages or so of blood and gore before reaching "The End", I curled up into a small ball under the covers and whimpered through a minor breakdown over why people are so mean to each other and why we can't just get along.

I know this stunning amount of violence is the direction fantasy is heading (along with many if not most other genres). Brent Weeks is a brilliant writer, one of my favorite authors, repped by my favorite literary agency (because they rep several of my favorite authors), which means I plan to read everything he writes. But because I was expecting violence on the level of The Black Prism (which he wrote after the Night Angel books, and which you should read IMMEDIATELY, if you haven't already) I was a bit stunned by this. I read fantasy despite the violence, not because of it. And I get grumpy when my favorite character is killed.

So I figured I'd take some recovery time, and look for a book I'd been meaning to read for a while, a regency romance with magic in it, and more importantly, no killing.

I went looking for that book, and instead stumbled on

To Love a Thief by Julie Anne Long
Genre: Regency Romance

I think what drew my attention was that the blurb seemed so similar to another book I read and liked recently: Law-enforcing aristocrat falls in love with hot criminal. But in this case, Gideon's plan isn't to reform Lily into a non-criminal so much as to use her talent for making herself whatever she wants to be. He wants her to become a lady, and make the woman he really wants jealous.


Folks, I think I may have just found a new favorite Regency Romance author (along with Courtney Milan, Julia Quinn, and Tessa Dare). I love, love, love Julie Anne Long's voice. Lots of wit, humor, setting, adventure. Not to mention similes and metaphors that do exactly what they should do: emphasize their point rather than distract you from it.

 I'd intended to read To Love a Thief and then read Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks, but somehow I found myself reading

The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long
Genre: Regency Romance

Madeleine Greenway is a mercenary who can retrieve anything someone's lost (e.g., if you gave your wife's necklace to your mistress by mistake, and need it back asap). She's been paid to retrieve Colin Eversea from the gallows, and does so at the very last moment, using explosions and a riot. But when she takes him to the drop-off point, someone tries to kill her.

I'm not crazy about the cover, but I love the writing:

P84 quote:

“He had one of those chins what…” One of the innkeeper’s hands went up to squeeze his chin into two little folds. “…a chin what looks like an arse.”
“A chin dimple? A cleft?”
“Not cleft so much as dented, Mr. Eversea. And blue eyes. Went nicely with his costume.”
Dumbstruck silence followed this observation.
The innkeeper sighed. “It’s me wife. If ye gets yerself a wife one day, Mr. Eversea, ye’ll come ou’ wi’ things like that, too, mark my words, mark my words. ‘This matches wi’ that or with this,’ and so on. They talk like that, women do. She makes me look a’ things and give opinions. She’ll turn me into a girl yet.”
This seemed unlikely, but all Colin said was, “Blue eyes and an arse chin. Thank you, that’s very helpful, Mr. Croker.”

P323 Quote (after a group of soldiers have just been ambushed and disarmed by the criminal they were chasing)

Their three muskets lay in a row on the ground like fallen comrades.

And then I stayed up until 5:30 this morning reading the third book and trying not to giggle (or sniffle) too loudly, while my long-suffering husband pretended to sleep through it:

Like No Other Lover by Julie Anne Long
Genre: Regency Romance


I really, really like the heroine of this book.

Cynthia Brightly has committed the unforgivable sin for the belle of the London season. Her rich, titled fiancé breaks off the engagement, and no one in society will receive her, except her friend Violet. She retreats to Violet’s country home, with only five pounds to her name and nowhere to go, determined to use this last house party to find a husband before the scandal catches up with her.

Miles, Violet’s brother, was utterly dismissed by Cynthia while she was still the most desirable debutante. Now that his older brother has disappeared and Miles is the heir to the Redmond fortune, he delights in putting Cynthia in her place. Except things don’t go quite as planned, and he finds himself offering to help her find the husband she needs – in exchange for a kiss.

P10 Quote (after Miles overhears Cynthia (who he's been drooling over) say something really cruel about him to someone else):

The shock, when it arrived, was unnatural and nasty: as though a butterfly had landed on his wrist only to sink fangs into it.

P41 Quote:

The room exhaled Redmond wealth and history and comfort; the way a church always seems to exhale peace and prayers.

With these books I realized I may have just stumbled onto another series based on a family (see, there is a tie-in to all those tv shows). Not just one family, but two feuding ones, the Everseas and the Redmonds. I really, really hope that's the case. Nothing bores me more than cookie-cutter villains, and if the Pennyroyal Green series actually follows two large families, making them heroes of their own books, which makes the other family the villain, then I'm hooked.

So now I'm reading Shadow's Edge, and trying to decide whether to also go on to the third Pennyroyal Green book. I probably will. Along with the book I originally went looking for,

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal....
Genre: umm...Regency fantasy?

Secrets in our world

I recently watched a Decoded episode about the Culper Ring, the spy network George Washington used to help the USA defeat the British during the Revolutionary War. The Culper Ring was made up of regular people like tavern keepers, farmers, tailors...and women. Their spymaster apparently realized women had the perfect cover, because no one ever suspected them of being anything other than the socially-agreed-upon obvious.

One of the female members of the ring, Anna Strong, used combinations of wet laundry hanging in the breeze to signal whether a contact had arrived, and which of six coves he was waiting in. Another woman, possibly from an aristocratic family, may have been crucial in discovering Benedict Arnold's plan to hand over West Point to the British.

Secret groups fascinate me. More than the excitement involved, it's the idea that what we're aware of is only the surface; that our world is so much more intricate and messed up than we think. The people involved do view the world differently than the rest of us, because they know things we don't. Talk about a unique viewpoint. In urban fantasy, that alternate world view often involves knowledge of magic. In Holly Black's book, it's tightly meshed with the history of organized crime.

White Cat by Holly Black

Genre urban fantasy

How it starts The last thing Cassel wants is attention, but he's doing a terrible job at keeping a low profile. He wakes up teetering on the edge of his prep school dorm roof, wearing only boxers. Calling for help draws a crowd. The camera phones come out. So do the jerks urging him to jump.

General Premise Cassel's the only regular person in a family of curse workers - people who can hurt you by touching you with a bare hand. Curse working is illegal, pushing those with the talent into being con artists or working for the mob. Unlike his family, Cassel's determined to be normal, but he's already haunted by the hazy memory of killing his best friend. When his brothers get drawn into a murky plot, Cassel realizes that in order to learn the truth about himself and his friend's death, he'll need to become the con artist he's never wanted to be.

Page 5 Quote

The last time I was in the headmistress's office, my grandfather was there with me to enroll me at the school. I remember watching him empty a crystal dish of peppermints into the pocket of his coat while Dean Wharton talked about what a fine young man I would be turned into. The crystal dish went into the opposite pocket.

Magic in our world

Holly Black does a masterful job at weaving curse magic into our history and politics. She did a ton of fascinating research into con men and the crime underworld, adding even more depth. This is one of a handful of books where I read to the end, turned right around and read the whole thing again.

There's also the brilliant ads for these books, showing awesome public service announcements against curse-working. I've read the second Curse Workers book, Red Glove, and am anxiously waiting for Black Heart, coming out next year.

A few other books that weave secret magic into our world:

Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan
Genre: historical fantasy

Queen Elizabeth I made a pact with the faerie queen, allowing her to gain the throne and lead a flourishing England. But every conflict in England's royal and political courts affects the Fae court underneath the streets of London, and thirty years after the pact, Elizabeth no longer seems to be toeing the line. When the faerie queen sends disgraced courtier Lune to redeem herself by secretly influencing Elizabeth's spymaster, Lune's task is complicated by Michael, a member of Elizabeth's court and protege of the spymaster, even as the secrets behind the two thrones pushes the world towards war.

This book led not only to my fascination with Tudor monarchs in general, Elizabeth I in particular, and the spymasters who foiled (or instigated) all sorts of plots around her, but was also my gateway to many more books about the Fae.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Genre: urban fantasy

Aislinn's grandmother has always warned her to keep it secret that she can see faeries - especially from the faeries. But the one now stalking Aislinn can't be ignored. He's the Summer King, and he's convinced Aislinn is the queen he's been searching nine centuries for. Unfortunately, his attention is endangering Aislinn's brand new relationship - and her life.

I wouldn't have picked this up if not for Midnight Never Come, but I'm so glad I did. I love the Wicked Lovely books and short stories. Not that the two are anything alike, other than the Fae elements. Midnight Never Come is very much political/historical suspense with strong fantasy aspects, while the Wicked Lovely books are dark love stories set against a backdrop of Fae courts.

Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht
Genre: urban fantasy, historical

This book is a fascinating blend of recent Irish history and ancient folklore. Until I read Of Blood and Honey, I was far more familiar with the official English version of The Troubles than I was with the Irish account. Words can't express how impressed I was with this book. And Leicht is definitely not afraid to put her characters through hell. I'm not sure when the second book comes out, but you can see its gorgeous cover on Leicht's livejournal.

Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

Genre: urban fantasy

No faeries in this one, but the demons and magicians supply plenty of modern-day action, when we aren't being entertained by the two sets of siblings who are the main characters. I'd be embarrassed to tell you how many times I've reread this series.

Heartbreak

How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford

I had a different book picked out for the "Most Heartbreaking" title, but I'll give it a shout-out at the end instead. This book snuck up on me - I read about a quarter of it and set it aside for almost a month. Not sure what made me pick it back up. I can't say I liked this book. "Like" is such a trite word to use for the wrenching experience I had. Especially since I might not have the strength to read it again. It was too hard on me. Maybe the same reason I haven't reread most of the books I'll mention here.

The basics...

Genre YA

How it starts Beatrice is holding a funeral for the new pet gerbil, Goebbels. Her mother, who had wanted to name him Peaches, calls Bea a robot because she's not crying.

Quote Location 132 - my Kindle version doesn't have page numbers; maybe they've updated since I bought it.

In Ithaca I'd listened to the radio to fall asleep - the Bob Decker Show out of Albany, full of late-night conspiracy talk about the pyramids, alien invasions, shadow people, 9/11, clairvoyant spies, the Kennedy assassination, and on and on. Somehow the paranoia in the callers' voices soothed me. I guess I found it reassuring to know I wasn't the only one who felt a vague, hard-to-define anxiety and was looking for something to pin it on.

General premise Bea's family moves all the time. Now they're in a small town for her senior year, where everyone has known everyone else since kindergarten. Bea tells herself she doesn't care, until she meets Jonathan, who everyone else calls Ghost Boy. He's pale and quiet and very white. The class held a funeral for him once, complete with eulogy about how much they would have missed him if he'd ever said or done anything memorable, and after that they'd jump like they'd seen a ghost every time he walked into the room. Turns out Jonathan actually had a twin brother who had been in a car crash with their mother. Shortly after Beatrice meets him, he finds out his father has been lying to him for years, and his brother is alive and in a home for the mentally disabled. Jonathan decides he's going to rescue his brother, and things spiral from there.

Heartbreak

This book has a desperate beauty to the friendship between Bea and Jonathan. The focus is definitely friendship, with dysfunctional families a close second. I don't think the friendship was a healthy one for Bea, but having a healthy friendship with someone as emotionally scarred as Jonathan would probably be impossible.

The characters were so real and so peculiar, in ways that didn't feel designed for their audience (whether that's the readers or the other people in the book). I don't think I'd particularly like Bea and Jonathan, or the things they did together. But I can understand wholehearted glee at something you connect with that just sounds weird when you try to describe it to other people (like the late night radio show they listened to), or dreading what everyone else is convinced will thrill you, and proving yourself right (like dating the most popular boy). A lot of stories about "weird" teens make them sound like they're rebelling for rebelling's sake. And lots of kids do. But in this case, it genuinely felt like Bea and Jonathan were being true to themselves, and were okay with being different because what everyone else liked would make them miserable.

This book made me cry. It was heart-wrenching.

Other sad books:

Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb
Genre: fantasy

Fool's Fate was my original choice for this post. It's been so long since I read it, I don't even remember the plot, just the gut-punch of how it made me feel. The idea of reading it again to remind myself freaked me out a little. It's part of a much larger story starting with The Farseer Trilogy, where Fitz, an illegitimate son of the royal family, is raised almost from birth to be an assassin for the king.






The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
Genre: Science fiction

Jared Dirac is a member of a unique military unit called the Ghost Brigades, created from the DNA of dead recruits and then seriously genetically enhanced. Unlike the others, Jared was cloned from a living person, Charles Boutin, who has defected to the enemy with secrets the Colonial Defense Force is desperate to keep. At first Jared seems like a failed experiment as he has none of Boutin's memories, but slowly they start to filter into his brain, creating conflict between the viewpoint he inherited with his DNA, and the soldier he has to be.

My second choice for this post. It made me so sad I actually reread it hoping I'd missed something. I hadn't. I think it's safe to say this is the only SF I've read that made me sob like someone died.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
Genre: historical fiction

Ralph Truitt places an ad for a "simple, honest" woman to be his wife, but the mysterious beauty who shows up is anything but. Her plan is to be a wealthy widow as soon as she can make it happen.

I think what made this book sad wasn't so much how it made me feel, as that the characters seemed to be living unhappy lives of their own making. Realistic and sad aren't necessarily synonymous, but both work as labels here.




Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
Genre: fantasy

Oree Shoth, a blind artist, takes in a suicidal homeless man and finds herself engulfed in an epic struggle between gods.

Probably the most satisfying sad book I've ever read. I can confidently say I didn't feel that way about the other books I've profiled. For the others, I might have been happier (and relieved) if the characters had made different decisions. With this one, the characters would have had to make a completely different but not necessarily better journey to end up with a happier story.

I'm almost afraid to ask about other sad books that work well. I'm not sure I could take any more right now...

Best Portal Story (and I mean that)...

So how do you decide what books to buy? When browsing a bricks-and-mortar bookstore, the first thing I'm drawn to is book covers. I've gleaned over the years that this is a terrible way to choose a book, but I can't help it.

Mostly two types of covers lure me in for a closer look. Traditional fantasy in the vein of:

                             

These are by Matt Stawicki, Darrell Sweet, and Michael Whelan. I had originally (unintentionally) grabbed three books with covers by Michael Whelan. His art is gorgeous, but I hadn't realized I owned so many books he'd illustrated. In contrast, I also love Todd Lockwood's art, but apparently don't own any books with his covers.

I'm also drawn to what is often called literary fiction, which i prefer to call general fiction (or lit fic, which makes it sound more like a genre and less like a college course). covers like these:

           

Which brings me to why I picked up
The Magicians by Lev Grossman

 The cover was obviously general fiction,

but the name implied fantasy. So I read the back cover (not everyone does this, which intrigues me - how do you know whether to go further if you have no idea what the book's about?), and then I read the beginning (some people open to a random page in the middle to check out the writing. Maybe I'll try that one day, but since I usually buy books on Kindle, it's not likely).

Here's the first part of The Magicians:

Quentin did a magic trick. Nobody noticed.

They picked their way along the cold, uneven sidewalk together: James, Julia and Quentin. James and Julia held hands. That's how things were now. The sidewalk wasn't quite wide enough, so Quentin trailed after them, like a sulky child. He would rather have been alone with Julia, or just alone period, but you couldn't have everything. Or at least the available evidence pointed overwhelmingly to that conclusion.

I was hooked. I liked Quentin. And more to the point, I loved everything the infamous New York Times reviewer hated (I'm not linking to it because, really; why?). Not sure I could have been more furious about that review if I'd written The Magicians myself. A Narnia-style adventure with gritty realism and adult fears and dangers and disappointments? How could you not at least be curious?

Genre I'll go with urban fantasy, since a decent chunk of the book takes place in New York City.

How it starts Quentin and James arrive at their interview to find the Princeton alumnus dead. The paramedic who takes the body away is gorgeous but a bit odd, and insists on giving them envelopes with their names on them, supposedly found in the house. Because James refuses, Quentin accepts his own. This quickly leads to his taking the strangest exam of his life.

General premise Quentin is a math genius graduating from high school. He's also capable of performing magic, and because of that is accepted into an elite, secret college in upstate New York. But magic turns out to be far more sinister and dangerous than in the fairy tales he'd adored as a child.

Page 20 Quote

"Good afternoon," he said. "You would be Quentin Coldwater."

He spoke very correctly, as if he wished he had an English accent but wasn't quite pretentious enough to affect one. He had a mild, open face and thin blond hair.

"Yes sir." Quentin had never called an adult - or anybody else - sir in his life, but it suddenly felt appropriate.

"Welcome to Brakebills College," the man said. "I suppose you've heard of us?"

"Actually no," Quentin said.

"Well, you've been offered a Preliminary Examination here. Do you accept?"

Quentin didn't know what to say. This wasn't one of the questions he'd prepped for when he got up this morning.

"I don't know," he said, blinking. "I mean, I guess I'm not sure."

"Perfectly understandable response, but not an acceptable one, I'm afraid. I need a yes or a no. It's just for the Exam," he added helpfully.

Portal fiction

I've always loved portal stories. Alice in Wonderland. The Narnia books. The Mirror of Her Dreams. But usually they're aimed at children, or they're a thin excuse for the author to more easily describe a new world from the perspective of someone with our background, rather than through the eyes of a native who doesn't find it strange at all. The Magicians is the kind of book I'd always wanted to find - an adult transferred into an alternate universe, and not on a one-way trip.

Portal books aimed at adults are almost always time travel. Time travel's great, but I want more books where someone's entering an alternate world, not just a past one.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Genre: crossgenre fantasy/historical fiction

This is definitely time travel, but chosen in honor of the book I'm anxiously waiting for. It's 1945. Clair Randall, a WWII combat nurse, is in Scotland on a second honeymoon with her husband. While exploring, she walks through a standing stone and directly into a skirmish between a Scottish clan and an English army unit in 1743.


I must say the Outlander books are not for the faint of heart. Until fairly recently, fantasy tended to dress up war and old-timey goings-on with nice clothes and jeweled relics and people who swore at each other using quaint expressions. This book has everything they left out - gruesome battles, disease, rape, alarming superstition, and people with a horrifying lack of reverence for human life.

The Mirror of Her Dreams by Stephen R. Donaldson
 Genre: fantasy

Terisa Morgan lives in New York (hey, something else in common with The Magicians) in a fabulous apartment paid for by her neglectful-yet-overbearing father. When Geraden comes crashing through her wall-sized mirror looking for a champion to save his land, he insists she's the one he came to get.

The Search for Fierra by Stephen R Lawhead
Genre: Science fiction

I read this in my early teens, so it's been a while. Orion Treet is abducted at gunpoint and offered millions to chronicle the growth of a colony on another planet. But he goes through a wormhole and, instead of a new startup, finds a civilization that has developed its own history of hatred and deadly conflict over several millennia. Based on the time-travel aspect, I would consider this fantasy, but it has...you know. Spaceships. Wormholes. Needle guns.





Any recommendations for adult portal books?

Random Day!

My currently-reading stack:

I was reading a sample of a book with a highly promising premise. Now I'm depressed, because a guy in the book just described his own grin as quirky and lop-sided, in passing, without humor or irony. No, I won't tell you what book it was. No, I'm not reading the rest.

BUT, I have a truly funny book to recommend.
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
Genre: memoir

I've never watched the American version of The Office (loved the British version), but the title and cover grabbed me, and it was worth it. Kaling talks about everything from being bullied by the popular Senagalese boy in her high school class to accidentally breaking her best friend's nose during a play, only to have the producer force them back on stage to perform the last ten minutes for the horrified audience. She describes a guy as being really cute, in a "hottest guy in AP-calculus kind of way." READ. THIS. BOOK.

I'm now reading
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Genre: memoir

(Yes, there does seem to be a theme to my Random Day - two makes a trend on the internet, right?) I can probably count all the episodes of Saturday Night Live I've seen on my fingers, and I've never watched 30 Rock (though I keep meaning to). But something about Tina Fey really appeals to me, so here we are.





Also reading
Witch by Marie Brennan
Genre: fantasy

 I loved Warrior, so I have high hopes for this.



The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon
Genre: crossgenre fantasy/historical fiction

I've checked Amazon every day for a month now to see if someone heard my prayers and moved up the release date (yes, I'm silly like that. Sometimes dreams do come true). It took me two years to buy Outlander after first hearing of it, and another year to actually finish the first chapter. And then I devoured it and the next six books over the following month or so (I believe the shortest one is around 800 pages, so this was no mean feat), barely pausing for showers, friends, or sleep. After that I read all the Lord John books, of which this is the fourth. Lord John Grey is my favorite character of all time, of any age or gender, in any medium. I'll be featuring the Outlander series in its own post at some point. Let me just say these books have everything I love in fiction - science, history, magic, great characters, messed-up relationships, humor and brilliance. Mmm, yes please.

So there they are: past, present, and much-anticipated future. What are you reading?

And the prize for Best Magic System goes to...

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks


Okay, you might quibble with the best magic system label. Hard to make that claim when I've barely made a dent in the available fantasy fiction. A quick search for fantasy on Amazon returned 62,806 results. Still. My blog, my space to use superlatives. Next time it'll be exclamation points.

First the basics…

Genre Fantasy

How it starts Fifteen year-old Kip is breaking the rules to scavenge on a battlefield when he stumbles over a dead soldier chained to a still-living prisoner. Before he dies, the prisoner warns Kip about a coming attack.

Page 6 quote

“Have you ever wondered why you were stuck in such a small life? Have you ever gotten the feeling, Kip, that you’re special?”

Kip said nothing. Yes, and yes.

“Do you know why you feel destined for something greater?”

“Why?” Kip asked, quiet, hopeful.

“Because you’re an arrogant little shit.”

General premise Kip’s village is attacked, and just before his mother dies, she gives him an exquisite dagger and tells him to avenge her. On the other side of the world, Gavin Guile, the most powerful drafter (or color magician) in the world, learns he has a son, and swoops in to save Kip from certain death. Now Gavin has to protect his new-found son from political enemies, placate his irate fiancé, keep his other secret from coming out, and stop the lands from falling back into a world war. Kip has his own decision to make: obey his mother’s wishes and kill the father who abandoned them, or help his father save the lands from destruction.

Magic System

I could spend all day listing the things this book does well. Political and familial intrigue. Multiple points of view with well-defined voices and opposing goals. Fantasy world-building not of the typical pseudo-medieval-European bent (um, not that there’s anything wrong with that). Female characters who actually read like individuals and live in a world where their biggest problem is something other than fighting a male-dominated system. Characters you can sympathize with (or at least understand), whether or not you like them personally.

But the magic system's intricacy and its seamlessness with the world Brent Weeks created is just stunning. I read somewhere that he spent months coming up with his magic system and trying it out on his blog. I can certainly believe it. Weeks explains it best:

It makes sense to us that colors also bring along with them some emotional content. You simply feel different in a sterile white hospital room than you do in a red and yellow McDonald’s or in a totally pitch-black alley. Those things – instantly appealing to senses and categories that readers understand – drew me to the color magic.

When discussing how much magic in the fantasy genre has changed, Weeks had this to say about the magic system in The Lord of the Rings:

Consider J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings was about one super powerful ring whose power was to… make one person invisible. And with this power, Sauron was going to take over all of Middle Earth! Wait, what? But opposing him, there were elves and wizards who also had rings that gave them the ability to… light up their staves in dark places. Wait, what? We were told constantly that these characters were really, really powerful. And almost never saw it. However, Gandalf did have the power of falling really far.

Of course, he followed this up with a disclaimer about how much he loved LoTR so he wouldn’t get flamed, but I digress. Brent Weeks is funny and does brilliant world-building, and now I’m off to read his other books.

Before I go, two more books with great magic systems:

Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn

Genre: fantasy

Prince Rohan wants to be a peaceful, scholarly ruler. But he has just inherited the throne from his militaristic father, and with all the princedoms around him on the brink of war, he's considered the easy target. His new bride, Sioned, will go to any lengths to protect her husband, even doing the unthinkable and using her sunrunner powers as a weapon.






How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier
Genre: magical realism? MG? no idea
Charlie (short for Charlotte) goes to a sports high school, and has a personal fairy, like most people she knows. Unlike Freedom's good-skin fairy, or Rochelle's clothes-shopping fairy (the perfect outfit's always on sale), fourteen-year-old Charlie has a parking fairy.

 I'm always being borrowed by Mom, or one of her sisters, or her best friend, or Jan, or Nana and Papa, or just about everyone in our neighborhood, whenever they're going to the doctor's, or grocery shopping, or anywhere that parking might be a problem. Every single day of my life someone asks me to get in their doxhead car. I hate cars. I hate drivers. I hate their little squeals of joy when they find a parking spot. But mostly I hate my benighted parking fairy.

Each chapter begins with stats: how many days since she's been in a car, the number of demerits she's racked up for being late now that she's trying to walk everywhere, the public service hours she's done to work off her demerits, how many times she's spoken to Steffan (the hot new guy with a get-away-with-anything fairy). But when Charlie teams up with Fiorenze (every-boy-will-like-you fairy) who is also on a quest to get rid of her fairy, she finds herself in far more trouble than before.

Other books with brilliant magic systems?