Books 26, 27, 34: The Secret Country Trilogy

So, reading City of Bones got me thinking about some old drama I read about on the internets back in my younger days concerning miss Cassandra Clare/Claire. It seems that she plagiarized - and not just a line or two, but whole pages verbatim - from Pamela Dean's Secret Country trilogy. She also pulled lines from Buffy and other popular TV shows, but those were supposed to be a bit more obvious; no one picked up on the Pamela Dean rip-off for quite a while, I believe.

Anyway, I liked the Draco Trilogy so much, I figured I should probably give these a go:





They were pretty good, especially if you like fantasy in the vein of children getting magically transported to another land, like the Narnia books. The children in these books are transported to a land of their own invention, or so they thought - it was their favorite game of make-believe come to life. They are thrust into roles of princes and princesses in a game that has already begun, and they must deal with the consequences of their scripted actions. It's a pretty good series, and would probably have absolutely thrilled me when I was younger. As it is, I intend to hold onto these books for my children someday, or a rainy day when I want to escape.

One word of caution - the characters speak ridiculously old-fashioned, with lots of thees and thous. It was a little hard to follow conversations at first, and when I say at first I mean for the first two books I was lost. Worth the effort in the end, though.

Book 25: City of Bones

I have a confession to make: I read Harry Potter fanfiction. Well, I USED to read a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction. My preferred pairing? Harry and Hermione. At some point, I came across fanfic writer Cassie Claire, even though she was mostly into Harry/Draco stuff. She's one of the very few people writing fanfic that actually get "discovered" and get their own book deals. I read her infamous fanfic trilogy (The Draco trilogy, which I believe has been pulled from the internet now that she's a published author), which was absolutely wonderful, so there wasn't really any question that I would at least give this book a shot.

It started out so bad I thought I must've made a mistake. Thankfully, it started to get a bit better, and now I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment in what will eventually be a trilogy. The story centers around a girl, Clary, that realizes there is much more to the world around her than she realizes, and it's her job to hunt evil thingummies. Sorry, it's been a while, I can't remember what they're called in this book - Shadowhunters, maybe? It was pretty decent, although some of it did, in fact, read like bad fanfic, and there were cliches everywhere. Still, though, it wasn't bad, and I did quite like it by the end. Definitely not a bad way to spend a weekend. It ended with a cliffhanger of epic proportions, so I'm a bit anxious about the sequels.

Book 24: Children of Men

I read this book, and then several months later saw the movie. Honestly, I'm such a lazy bum, it's been forever since I actually read this one. I can tell you that the book was pretty slow to start, but the second half was pretty good; there were several things in the book that only got passing mentions in the movie; and Clive Own is pretty. Also, in the movie, they smushed several characters together into Julianne Moore. The book is worth reading on its own, especially if you liked the movie, which I thought was... better than mediocre, but not much.

Book 23: A Storm of Swords

This is the big book I've been working on for a few weeks now:



I affectionately call it my "big dumb fantasy novel," and while it is big (1128 pages plus appendices!), it is certainly not dumb. It is the third in a planned series of seven books by George R. R. Martin loosely based on the War of the Roses.

The books follow several characters from different families as they each try to get their own house to the throne. I'm not even going to try to recap the plot, but I will say one of the reasons I love this series is that no one is really "the bad guy," and the author apparently has no problem killing off main characters. I mean, this is the third book in this series I've read, and I was STILL surprised at which characters he chose to kill off. I'll read the rest, for sure. This is not your typical fantasy story; it's mostly political maneuvering, assassinating, backstabbing, etc, with the occasional ice zombie or dragon thrown in. Also, a great website related to the series: www.towerofthehand.com . I wasted a couple of days there, it's highly recommended for other fans of this series.

Book 22: Eats, Shoots and Leaves

See, every now and then I do read a bit of non-fiction!



I adored this book. Besides being a wonderful grammar lesson, it is funny. Some would say I should have expected that, given that the title is a joke, but I was pleasantly surprised. I have known for a long time that I apparently don't have the right sense of humor to enjoy most comic fiction. Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, William Goldman: all are lost on me. I think the problem is that I just don't really "get" situational humor; I've read so much sci-fi and fantasy that whenever I come across unusual situations, I just accept them and move on. I do much better with witty dialogue, which this book has in abundance.

I highly recommend this book, just remember that it was written for a British audience, so some terminology and even a few punctuation rules are different for us.

Book 21: Sandman, Vol. 2 - The Doll's House

Ok, I don't have a lot to say about this one - I'm still thinking on it a bit. However, I will post the cover!

Book 20: Coraline

Like I said earlier, I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan. This was on sale at the local used bookstore (shout out to McClure's!), so I picked it up.



It's a dark fairytale, rather like Alice in Wonderland. Coraline is a girl that is bored in her new house, and she feels her parents don't pay any attention to her. One day, she wanders through a locked door, into another version of her house, complete with Other Parents. The Other Mother and Other Father shower her with attention and gifts, but it starts to turn a little sinister when Coraline realizes she can't return to her real home and the Other Mother isn't as nice as she seems.

If you like dark fairy tales, give this a try. It's intended for children; I read it in about two hours in one sitting, but the illustrations (by Dave McKean, who also worked with Gaiman on Mirrormask) are pretty nice, even if they are in black and white.