Take, for instance, The Lady, the central force of the evil empire in the north. For the 1980s, however this was revolutionary. And it allows for the author to explore a more complicated morality that has become commonplace in modern-day dark fantasy. This focus on power subverts a major trope among fantasy authors, many of whom remained wedded to overarching battles between light and darkness. There is only power: those who have it versus those who do not. And it is this violence that convinces Croaker, the Black Company's physician and Annalist, that there is no good or evil in the world. Instead, it is the violence of Homer or the Eddas, where the deaths, the struggles, the burnings, beheadings, and overwhelming brutality are lenses through which the author explores the issues of morality, virtue, and duty in human nature. But this violence is no mere splatterporn. The world, granted, is extraordinarily violent, with much of the northern continent embroiled in a violent uprising pitting the forces of "good" (epitomized by the League of the White Rose) against the forces of "evil." But the reader soon learns that most who support the League of the White Rose are no less prone to violence, murder, and sacrifice in the name of their broader cause. But there is no hint of grimdark for shock value it is grimdark done right in every respect. The Black Company is gritty fantasy at its grittiest.
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New rules and customs must be adhered to in order to stay. Their situation seems less than promising as they reach the town of Haven. Together they set out to find the promised rebel town in search of a new home and new life together. With Joshua’s help, Olivia breaks free of prison and is forced on the run. Olivia is unlike the rest of the world born not from “The Day of the Chosen.” The truth haunts the government and puts her life in grave danger as one simple fact would destroy the perfect system. Following her eighteenth birthday, Olivia Parker accepts her requirement to marry her childhood best friend, Joshua Warren, and is eager to start her work assignment and new life when it all comes abruptly to an end as she’s arrested and thrown in prison. The one requirement is to follow the rules without question, including the government’s match in marriage and “The Day of the Chosen”, a lottery that randomly selects families to conceive children as natural means hasn’t existed in generations. There is food, shelter and jobs for everyone. In the future Dystopian society of Cabal, the government instills equality for all and offers its citizens the perfect system. (Not literally this time, but it does involve a brutal attack on the streets and a retreat to familiar ground.) This is where things take an amazing turn for the better for both Alex and Seb. After all, Seb is mentally challenged, isn't he?Įnter the hooker sister, her daughter and life on the lam for Alex and Seb. Why not tell the mute ' retard' your problems? Who's he going to tell, right?Įxcept their relationship becomes much more than a place for Alex to unload his burdens and he can't imagine living without Seb, even if it's ever just as a friend. The fire separates Alex from Seb, his confidant when his relocated existence becomes too much to bear. Quite literally.Īs the story begins, Alex is ripped from his abusive home when a teacher reports a suspicious burn on his arm to the authorities, which lands him in a group foster home, where he actually begins to slowly fit in and feel more safe. The main difference in the characters in the two books was while the Social Skills MC's dealt with awkwardness and good grades in college, Silent's boys' focus wasn't on thriving in the world, but about surviving it. They held one another up when it seemed like there was very little reason to hold onto any hope that things might ever get better. The characters truly brought out the best in one another. The main characters in this story reminded me a lot of those in Sara Alva's other AMAZING read, ' Social Skills'. * ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ. And while what she finds isn’t what she anticipated, it liberates her in a way she could not have imagined. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will change their lives forever.įor Cora, New York holds the promise of discovery that might prove an answer to the question at the center of her being, and even as she does her best to watch over Louise in a strange and bustling city, she embarks on her own mission. She has no idea what she’s in for: Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous blunt bangs and black bob, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Cora Carlisle is a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone who is neither mother nor friend. Only a few years before becoming a famous actress and an icon for her generation, a 15-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita to make it big in New York. The Chaperone is a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922, and the summer that would change them both. Winnie photographs Milgrim and intimidates him into working as an informant.īigend asks Henry and Milgrim to investigate a secret brand, named Gabriel Hounds after the English legend. Milgrim is sent to South Carolina to take photographs of a pair of Army BDUs where he gains the notice of a federal agent named Winnie Tung Whittaker employed by DCIS. One of Bigend's current interests is fashion, particularly the intersection between streetwear, workwear and military clothing. Hollis Henry and Milgrim find themselves in London working for Hubertus Bigend, unaware that their lives previously crossed in Spook Country. It concludes the informal trilogy begun by Pattern Recognition (2003) and continued by Spook Country (2007), and features the characters Hollis Henry and Milgrim from the latter novel as its protagonists. Zero History is a novel by William Gibson published in 2010. There are also some thematic chapters on human geography, the Irish economy, coinage, literature in Irish, English and Latin, and the Irish abroad (it was slightly spooky to read those last chapters on my commute by bus through the streets of Leuven, which of course is where a lot of the Irish scholarly and cultural action took place). However, it was interesting to pull back the focus a bit and look at the transformation of the country from medieval backwater in the early 16th century to geopolitical distraction by the end of the 17th, and I came away with an improved understanding of the exceptionally complex politics of the 1640s. Given my ancestral researches, I was most interested in Chapter IV by Gerard Hayes-McCoy, on the 1571-1603 period, but realised that I have read a good half-dozen more detailed and more recent studies of Elizabethan Ireland. Byrne, first published in 1976 and updated in 1989. This is the third volume of the authoritative New History of Ireland series, edited by T.W. (And through 2022 once Emma Donoghue’s latest comes out soon.)Īnyway, the latest was John McGahern’s Amongst Women, which focuses on the rural household of Moran, a former Irish guerrilla fighter in the Irish War of Independence, who laments the way the social forces who now control the country he fought to free, and who takes out his disappointments on his five children, alternating between beloved and loving patriarch to merciless, forever angry abuser. And while I’ve been bad about writing reviews, I’ve been tearing through Irish novels from 1929-2019. Behold! My summer of Irish fiction commenced. So I decided that this summer, once I was done teaching, I’d work on fixing that. I’ve studied (and taught) a good bit of Irish poetry and drama, but I’ve come to feel that Irish fiction represented a nagging gap in my knowledge. What was it all for? The whole thing was a cod.” More than half of my own family working in England. Some of our johnnies in the top jobs instead of a few Englishmen. “What did we get for it? A country, if you’d believe them. (Novel reviewed for the “Shadow” square of CBR Bingo.) Lansdale The Skull-Faced Boy by David Barr Kirtley The Age of Sorrow by Nancy Kilpatrick Bitter Grounds by Neil Gaiman She's Taking Her Tits to the Grave by Catherine Cheek Dead Like Me by Adam-Troy Castro Zora and the Zombie by Andy Duncan Calcutta, Lord of Nerves by Poppy Z. Hamilton In Beauty, Like the Night by Norman Partridge Prairie by Brian Evenson Everything is Better With Zombies by Hannah Wolf Bowen Home Delivery by Stephen King Sparks Fly Upward by Lisa Morton Meathouse Man by George R. Schow The Third Dead Body by Nina Kiriki Hoffman The Dead by Michael Swanwick The Dead Kid by Darrell Schweitzer Malthusian's Zombie by Jeffrey Ford Beautiful Stuff by Susan Palwick Sex, Death and Starshine by Clive Barker Stockholm Syndrome by David Tallerman. Schow The Third Dead Body by Nina Kiriki Hoffman The Dead by Michael Swanwick The Dead Kid by Darrell Schweitzer Malthusian's Zombie by Jeffrey Ford Beautiful Stuff by Susan Palwick Sex, Death and Starshine by Clive Barker Stockholm Syndrome by David Tallerman Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead by Joe Hill Those Who Seek Forgiveness by Laurell K. Introduction by John Joseph Adams Some Zombie Contingency Plans by Kelly Link Death and Suffrage By Dale Bailey Blossom by David J. Introduction by John Joseph Adams Some Zombie Contingency Plans by Kelly Link Death and Suffrage By Dale Bailey Blossom by David J. These conflicts lead to Gaveston’s exile and murder, new and shifting romantic loyalties on all sides, and revenge and retribution that ultimately seal Edward’s fate. His radical ideas around affairs of state, lack of military acumen, and loyalty to his ambitious lover Piers Gaveston pit him against powerful nobles and his calculating queen. In the wake of Edward I’s death, his son Edward has taken the throne as Edward II. Marlowe uses the tumultuous history of 14th century England to share one man’s struggle between self identityĪnd the demands of his court and kingdom, presented in a taut new version that pares the work to eightĬharacters to suit the intimate space of the CWT and the intensity of his script. “Can kingly lions fawn on creeping ants?” “My father is deceased come, Gaveston, and share the kingdom with thy dearest friend.” The great-grandfather of Richard II, Edward II showered favor on his treasured friend, Gaveston, leading to bitter resentment from the nobles with fatal consequences. My Name Is Mina is a prequel novel (written after its more well-known counterpart Skellig, as they often are) laid out in epistolary format via Mina's notebook. As she writes, Mina makes discoveries both trivial and profound about herself and her world, her thoughts and her dreams. Mina has proclaimed in the past that she will use it as a journal, and one night, at last, she begins to do just that. It has been there for what seems like forever. This is when Mina feels that anything is possible and her imagination is set free. A blank notebook lies on the table. In the stillness, she can even hear her own heart beating. While everyone else is in a deep slumber, she gazes out the window, witness to the moon's silvery light. My Name is Mina is not only a pleasure to read, it is an intimate and enlightening look at a character whose open mind and heart have much to teach us about life, love, and the mysteries that surround us. Mina loves the night. Award-winning author David Almond reintroduces readers to the perceptive, sensitive Mina before the events of Skellig in this lyrical and fantastical work. |