Throne of Jade and Black Powder War by Naomi Novik

I promised myself that I wouldn't let this blog be a "chore" and so far it really hasn't been, but this semester has been unbelievably hectic for me and I'm falling behind on my book reviews. So about these two books I'll just say a few words.

These books were awesome. Read this series!

More detailed commentary will be coming on future books...

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

I used to be quite the fantasy reader, but it's been a long time since I've felt compelled to seek out a new series. It just seemed like every book I picked up was a rehash of the same tired old themes. However, when bookshelves of doom highlighted (ok, gushed about) Naomi Novik's new Temeraire series and mentioned that Peter Jackson liked these books so much that he bought the film rights, I knew I needed to check this series out.

If His Majesty's Dragon is anything to judge by, this is a series to get even the most jaded former fantasy reader back into the genre. Set in an alternate Napoleonic era in which British and French forces vie for supremacy of the skies as well as the sea, complete with a separate branch of the military for dragons and their riders, the books focus on navy captain Will Laurence and his dragon partner, Temeraire. It's sort of a cross between the Dragonriders of Pern series and books like Master and Commander. Novik pulls off the addition of dragons to this universe very well - Temeraire and his counterparts are believable and appealing creatures. Laurence himself, with his affection for his dragon and his strong sense of honour and duty, oozes sex appeal in a Mr. Darcy sort of way. Together, they must defend Britain from the French forces determined to conquer their island neighbour.

Watch this space for my thoughts on the sequels, Throne of Jade and Black Powder War!

Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel

In the sequel to Airborn, Oppel returns to the lives of Matt Cruse and Kate DeVries a few months after the end of their first adventure. This time they're on the hunt for the Hyperion, a mysterious airship that disappeared twenty years earlier, rumoured to be carrying a fortune. Kate and Matt are accompanied on their quest by Hal, the cocky young owner of a skybreaker (a special airship designed to be taken to higher elevations) and the beautiful, mysterious Roma girl, Nadira, who holds the key to the Hyperion's treasures.

Although this book is a sequel, it doesn't tread over the same ground as Airborn - the adventure feels fresh and new, with the same interesting blend of science fiction and adventure that made the first book in this series so thrilling to read. I had trouble putting it down.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

This book came into our home because it's one of this year's Red Cedar Award contenders - and so far, it's my daughter's top pick among the selections she's read for the award. Since I was already in the mood for YA fiction I decided to pick this one up soon after she recommended it to me.

Airborn is set in an "alternate earth" where flying ships powered by a gas called hydrium are used to transport people and cargo around the world. Matt Cruse is the cabin boy of a luxury airliner, Aurora. Born aboard an airship, he is literally in his element when he's up in the sky. His ambition to rise from the ranks of cabin boy are set aside for a while when he befriends a wealthy young passenger, Kate de Vries, who drags Matt along on a crazy adventure involving pirates, uncharted Pacific islands, and incredible flying mammals.

This was one of those novels that sucked me in to the point where I didn't really care that I was reading a "kids' book" - it is well written, fast paced and convincing. Watch this space for my thoughts on the sequel, Skybreaker!

Inkspell by Cornelia Funke

I've been on a YA fantasy kick lately, to help counteract the stress of midterms and too many places to be in one day. This book was at the top of my list, thanks to relentless pestering from my daughter. I am glad she pestered me because I really enjoyed Inkspell.

I found a few faults with the first book in this series, Inkheart, but none in this novel. Inkspell picks up a few months after the events in Inkheart, and continues exploring Funke's ingenious answer to the question of what might happen if characters from a book could come to life. In this case, she has given certain people the gift of reading literary characters into existence; some can even "read" people and animals - both "real" and fictional - into a book. So in Inkspell we get to find out what would happen if someone were to suddenly become part of a fictional world. This is a great twist on a traditional fairy tale - it's got magic, bad guys, fairies and brave heroes, all wrapped up in a package that appeals to avid readers.

Highly recommended!

The Wall and the Wing by Laura Ruby

This young adult fantasy novel takes place in an alternate version of New York City where some pretty strange things are going on. Most people can fly, for instance - so birds are revered, cats are considered vermin and those born without flying abilities are mockingly called "leadfeet". There are also some very odd creatures living in the city's subway system - rat people, punks, albino alligators and terrible musicians. (OK, maybe that last one is not TOO different from some modern day subway systems.) Then there's the odd, reclusive professor with a garden growing on his head...

The Wall and the Wing centers on the adventures of two children, nicknamed Gurl and Bug, who meet up in an orphanage where none of the children can remember their past and the matron, Mrs Terwiliger, is Miss Hannigan's evil twin. The discovery that Gurl has the very rare ability to make herself completely invisible leads to all kinds of interesting problems for both children. Eventually, they manage to find happy endings in spite of the nefarious adults in their lives who don't have their best interests at heart.

This was a cute book - it managed to put a fun and creative spin on some rather tired storytelling devices. If there's a 9-13 year old fantasy fan in your life, you might want to suggest this book next time you visit the library. I'm going to see if I can convince my own picky 11 year old bookworm to give it a try.

The New Policeman by Kate Thompson

Here's a charming children's/young adult fantasy novel that I found out about from bookshelves of doom, one of the many book blogs I read (and haven't had time to add to the sidebar on this site).

The people in an Irish village called Kinvara have a problem. Everyone seems to be running out of time. No matter how frantically they rush around trying to get everything done, there's never enough time to do it all. And although this sounds like a typical problem for people all over the western world today, in this case it's a little bit more than that. JJ Liddy, a fifteen-year-old boy, finds himself in a whole new world (literally) when he asks his mother's friend Anne to help him find more time as a birthday gift to his mum. Suddenly he realizes that maybe all those crazy stories that Irish people have been telling each other for centuries - about fairies, magic, and music - might have a bit of truth to them.

JJ's adventure was a fun, light read that I think a lot of younger fantasy readers (and some of the older ones like me!) might enjoy. The author has added an interesting element to the story by inserting a relevent piece of Irish music in between each chapter. While this is a neat idea, in practice it turned out to mean lots of extra page turning - especially since the chapters tend to be really short, some only a page long. I think I'd rather have had the book come with a CD that I could listen to while I read the book, and the sheet music in an appendix. Regardless, the story was interesting enough to keep me turning those pages long past the point where the music stopped being a novelty and started being an obstacle I had to get past in between each small chunk of the book.

Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer

I hoped that reading some light young adult fantasy would help to get me reading again, so I picked up this sequel to Artemis Fowl. In this story, Artemis learns that his father, long missing and presumed dead, has been kidnapped by the Russian Mafiya and sets out to rescue him. He is helped by his bodyguard Butler, and Julius Root and Holly Short, the two "LEPRecon" agents he met in the first book. Along the way they help to foil an attempt to take over the entire underground fairy kingdom.

I think Colfer could have done a lot more with this story; on the whole, though it was a cute book, it didn't grab me. The premise isn't quite clever enough to match its predecessor, the characters feel recycled, and poor Artemis himself - the curiously likeable, highly intelligent and immoral teenager we know and love - becomes a wimpy, boring background character while various elves, goblins and nefarious humans in the book vie for "page time". I'm disappointed, but I know that sequels and second novels are not always an easy thing to pull off so I might give this series another chance.

Grass for his Pillow by Lian Hearn

I've been very neglectful of my book blog, and it has now been a week since I finished this book. My excuse for not writing immediately is that I was on a bus on my way to Seattle when I finished it, and after spending three days there I had a lot of other things to do and this post got lost in the shuffle. My bad!

Grass for his Pillow continues the Tales of the Otori trilogy begun in Across the Nightingale Floor. The story picks right up where it left off in the first book and is written in the same style, with alternating chapters told from the point of view of Takeo and Kaede. I don't want to give away any details of what happens here, but it was a very satisfying read.

Sometimes the middle book in a trilogy can get boggled down in bridging the beginning and the climax of the overall story, but that isn't the case with Grass for his Pillow - there's plenty of action, suspense, character development, and a very satisfying conclusion that still leaves you wanting to go and pick up the next book immediately to find out what happens next. And in fact, that is more or less what I did. Stay tuned for my thoughts on the concluding book in this series!

Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn

I picked up this book based on a recommendation at Bookseller Chick's blog. It sounded like something Megan would enjoy, but since some of the reviews I found online made reference to "sexual" content, I decided I'd better read it first to make sure it was appropriate for her. I had no idea I was about to get sucked into such a spellbinding book!

Across the Nightingale Floor is a fascinating novel set in a sort of alternate feudal-era Japan. The main characters are Takeo, a 15-year-old orphan from a remote mountain village who is taken in by a wealthy lord and becomes embroiled in the political warfare of the local feuding clans, and Kaede, also 15, a young woman who, due to her noble birth, is a pawn in the increasingly dangerous sparring between several warlords who don't seem to have her best interests at heart. All the elements of the best young adult fiction are here: events in this book move forward swiftly, the two main characters are appealing and heroic, and the novel is a satisfying read. This was one of those books that left me feeling bereft after I finished it. I can't figure out what to do with myself now, and I feel strongly convinced that nothing else other than the next book in this series would satisfy my reading needs. I'm almost tempted to skip the meeting I had planned to attend tonight and go to the library to pick up book two in this trilogy, Grass for his Pillow.

As far as the sexual content goes, it was nothing that Megan couldn't handle, particularly given the "older youth audience" anime that she likes to watch. I was relieved to find this, because it would have been such a shame to miss out on the indescribable pleasure of sharing a book you loved with your child and being able to discuss it at great length later. As it happens, she finished her current novel while I was working on the final chapter of this one (she's working her way through Brian Jacques's Redwall series at the moment) and happened to be sitting around trying to figure out what to do with her reading time. I was very happy to be able to march over to where she was sitting, hand this book to her and instruct her to read it.