The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
by Orson Scott Card
ages: adult
First sentence: “Some people called it the ‘time of undoing’; some, wishing to be more positive, spoke of it as ‘the replanting’ or ‘the restoring’ or even ‘the resurrection’ of the Earth.”
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I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around this one ever since I finished. It’s so hard to sum up: as one-part dystopian, one part historical fiction, and one part time travel, it has a bit of everything.

The end of the world came, basically destroying most of the Earth. Only a few thousand people survived, and they’ve been trying to restore the Earth. As part of this, they developed a technology, and a group called Pastwatch evolved from this technology, to watch the past, to learn from it.

As part of this, one researcher, Tagiri, discovers that Christopher Columbus played an important role in the shaping of the current world. Which got her to thinking: what drove Columbus to go west in order to find India? What if he never made it back to Spain, thereby sending more conquerors to the Americas to plunder, rape and enslave the native populations? There’s a lot in the book from Columbus’s point of view: Card explores Columbus’s thoughts, motivations and the amount of conviction it took to convince Ferdinand and Isabella to fund a seemingly crazy trip.

After the Pastwatch researchers start thinking about Columbus’s decisions, and after they discover a couple bits of crucial information, they begin musing about how to — and whether or not to — influence the past. Eventually, for many reasons — sometimes this novel was a bit circuitous and confusion, but eventually, if you wade through all of Card’s exposition (and he tends to philosophize, especially in his later works), it does make sense — they do decide to send a team into the past to reshape the course of history.

The novel had an intriguing balance: more than two-thirds was set up, and the pay off was less than one-third of the novel. It makes it a much more philosophical novel than I was expecting, but it turns out to be a good thing. I think it was Card’s intention to raise questions about pre-destiny and divine right, as well as acceptance of religion and race. He presents things to think about, but he’s very heavy-handed in doing it. More than once I felt like I was being hit over the head with a hammer, and I even agreed with the sentiments he was expressing.

In the end, I was surprised at how much I ended up liking it. For all it’s flaws, it’s an interesting story.

by Alexander McCall Smith
ages: adult
First sentence: “Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the food of Kgale Hill.”
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People have been telling me for years that I ought to read this book. But as I always figured it was a mystery, I never really gave it much thought. I don’t like mysteries, after all. (Ha! Sometimes it’s true, but other times it’s not.)

The thing is: this really isn’t a mystery. Or at least not in the “traditional” sense. Sure, Mma Ramotswe (I had a hard time thinking of her as Precious, even if that was her name) is a detective, doing investigative work for people in her town in Botswana. But it’s not a mystery.

It is, however, a lovely portrait of a woman who loves her country, her people, and finds a niche for her self as an independent woman (after a very violent marriage thankfully failed) in her town. She is an observant woman, which helps in her business: she’s able to think about human nature (this book is quite down on most Botswanian men; they’re mostly no-good) in ways that
help her solve the little cases that come her way.

There is one big case that overshadows the novel; a boy is kidnapped, and they think that he’s been killed to make medicine. Mma Ramotswe doesn’t really want to take on the case, but she does because the police aren’t as reliable as they should be. Thankfully, it doesn’t end as sinister as it began.

It’s a delightful book, full of interesting, quirky characters. And Mma Ramotswe’s story is a good one to spend time with.

by Rick Riordan
ages: adult
First sentence: “Fourth of July morning, Will Stirman woke up with blood on his hands.”
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Two things before I get going: I still adore Rick Riordan. And there are things I just can’t read about. Serial murderers out for revenge are on that list.

I was 70 pages into this very gruesome book before I realized that I had to abandon it. I can handle lots of swearing (at least reading), I can handle dark and gritty. But the opening chapter involving a prison break pushed me almost to my limits. But when the main bad guy tried to kidnap Tres’s boss’s 8-year-old, Jem, I realized that was the end of the line for me. I just don’t do violence against children: it’s one of my secret terrors (secret in that I tend to bury it down deep), and I don’t like being reminded that there are bad people out there, and something could happen to my girls at any moment.

I did flip through the rest of the book, reading a bit near the end to see how it all resolved (thankfully Jem is kept safe; sorry for the spoiler, but it was something I needed to know). I know I missed some things, especially between Tres and his girlfriend Maia Lee. But, I’m not sure my life will be worse off for not finishing this one.

You can’t win them all.

by William Shakespeare
ages: adult
First sentence: “If music be the food of love, play on.”
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This is an insane play.

Girl gets shipwrecked in a town, disguises herself as a boy (probably a good thing, considering the time period), and goes to work for the head guy. Head Guy is in luuuuuv with the most beautiful girl in town (think: Gaston, starting at about 3:15 of this video) who constantly spurns his, um, affections. (At this point, C, who watched the 1980 BBC production with me as I read, said, “He’s SUCH a brat and dork!”) So, Head Guy sends Girl dressed as guy to woo Beautiful for him, and beautiful ends up falling for Girl (whom she thinks is a guy).

With me so far?

Then, Girls twin brother (whom she thought was dead at sea) arrives in town and suddenly everything become really, really confusing. People think Brother is Girl, including Beautiful, who up and marries him the first time she comes across him (thinking he’s Girl (dressed as a guy)). And Girl, who’s fallen for Head Guy, is trying to sort things out and get out of Beautiful’s obsession with her, and something else happens that involves a really, really, really bad joke gotten way out of hand, and suddenly everyone is happily ever after.

Huh?

Like many of Shakespeare’s comedies, this one balances right between insanity and tragedy. There’s so much that could go wrong, if people’s attitudes had gone a completely different way. Malvolio — the guy who the really bad joke was played on — was given a sop at the end, and sent off though his parting words are “I’ll be reveng’d on the whole pack of you.” so who knows what could happen next. Besides, all these romances are built upon love at first sight, so who knows how any of them will turn out? I mean, Orsino is all pining for Olivia, but then he realizes she’s
married and Violet is a girl and he’s all of a sudden “Oh, I love you now, how about we hook up”?

Seriously?

I do wonder if Shakespeare was poking fun at something: love at first sight? Stupid nobles with nothing else to do? It wasn’t as funny as some of his other comedies. It was confusing, but lacked the inane hilarity of Midsummer Night’s Dream. And the wit of Much Ado About Nothing. It was a lot of silly people running around falling in luuuv.

But, I suppose, that’s not a bad thing on a hot summer day.

by Mercedes Lackey
ages: adult
First sentence: “This is not the way to spend a beautiful spring morning! Elena Klovis thought, as she peered around the pile of bandboxes in her arms.”
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Elena was supposed to be stuck in a tale. You know, the one where she sleeps by the fireplace, spending her days doing all sorts of grudge work for her step-mother and step-sisters? And then she gets to go to the ball and marry a prince?

Except, she doesn’t.

She turns 21, and her step-mother and -sisters decide that this part of the Kingdom isn’t doing them any favors (not to mention that their debts are mounting), so they take off and leave Elena the house. Which the debtors then claim. Elena figures that she can’t do any worse in life, and so tries to get hired out.

And that’s when her life gets interesting. She is picked up as an Apprentice to the Fairy Godmother. See, in the 500 Kindgoms, there’s this thing called The Tradition: magic that is pushing, pulling, forcing people into tales. And it’s the Godmother’s role to direct, push, pull, prod and help people into, along in, or out of these stories. The best part of the book, I think, was working with Elena as she learned about the magic and how to manipulate the stories. The Tradition is a powerful thing, and if one doesn’t think about what one wishes, or even says, dire consequences abound. There were clever asides to several fairy tales, as well as the categorization of characters. It’s all very organized and delineated, which made me smile.

Of course, there has to be a love interest, and that shows up in the form of Alexander, the stubborn prince who ends up as a donkey for several chapters. He’s arrogant, angry and conceited, but eventually learns his lesson and takes on his own destiny, which includes breaking tradition and falling in love with a Godmother. I expected things to slow way down, but Lackey has got her books down (she should after as many as she’s written), and managed to throw a couple of steamy sex scenes in there as well as giving us a big finale to end on, both which served to, um, keep my interest.

It’s fluff, but it’s fun, enjoyable fantasy fluff. And I can’t say anything bad about that at all.

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
ages: adult
First sentence: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distand afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

The short story? Magical realism and I just don’t get along. I don’t know what it is; you’d think with all the fantasy books I read that I’d love the subtle of play between reality and magic, but it just doesn’t work for me. I find it grating and somewhat annoying and confusing and just plain irritating.

Also: I really don’t trust books that were part of the Oprah Book Club.

The long story? I’ve heard about Gabriel Garcia Marquez for years and years, and always figured, since he was so highly acclaimed, that I ought to read him. So, when I finally got the opportunity, I was quite interested. And yet, it didn’t take me long to realize that this book is completely incomprehensible (to me). It was flipping between time and memory and the plot was utterly confusing. I wasn’t getting much out of the lives of the characters.

So, halfway through when I couldn’t see a way out of this muddle that Marquez had gotten me into, I bailed. Without a backward glance.

Because magical realism and I are just not friends. At all.

by Zora Neale Hurston
ages: adult
First sentence: “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”
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I really didn’t know what to expect when I started this book. Honestly. I hadn’t heard much about it, and I only knew Zora Hurston from Zora and Me which I read last fall.

So, my impressions…

Shall I get the negative over with? The dialect dialogue drove me nuts. Random sample: “Dat’s jealousy and malice. Some uh dem very mens wants tuh do whut dey claim deys skeered Tea Cake is doin’.” Not too bad on it’s own, but pages and pages of it pulled me out of the flow of the novel. Every single time. I do have a couple prejudices when going into novels, and dialect is one of them. (Present tense in the other.) However, I am proud of myself: I kept going in spite of being pulled out of the novel.

Mostly because the writing (when it was in English and not Southern) was so gorgeous. Random sample:

“So, gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush. The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again. So she put something in there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church. The bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in. It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired.”

So simple and yet so evocative. The whole book — the narration, anyway — was like that. Simply gorgeous, poetic. And the story about a woman coming into her own, finding her own path to happiness in the face of expectations and overbearing/abusive husbands. It’s a testament to the resilience of women, the inner strength a woman has when faced with Life.

And for that, the book is more than worth reading.