Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones

A re-read. I love DWJ books so much. They are always a fun, weird time. This is installment five, I think, of the Chrestomanci books, but chronologically second. Twelve-year-old Conrad Tesdinic has an evil fate, according to his uncle. In order to put it right, he must kill whoever it is at Stallery Castle that keeps manipulating the possibilities. When Conrad goes undercover as a footman, he meets an intriguing young magician named Christopher.

So, I probably shouldn't have been surprised by the neglectful and abusive family situation Conrad comes from  (this is DWJ, after all), but I hadn't remembered how bad it was or how much Conrad blames himself. Ugh, Uncle Albert is the worst. And I'm a little uncomfortable with the presentation of his mom as a stereotypical man-hating feminist, who can't be bothered to care for her children because that's giving in to the tyranny of gender roles. I'm not saying that someone like that can't exist, but that's not what the vast majority of feminists think in any way, and people who neglect their families for their careers or hobbies apply to both genders and every subject.

The Downton Abbey feel of Stallery Castle made me think of a much earlier time period, and then I would get tripped up by mentions of televisions and computers. Of course,  this is a different world,  so who knows how that works. Maybe being a servant is a highly prestigious and well paid job there.

Reading this time, I noticed the description of Mr. Amos has having a wide nose, large lips, and purplish tinge to his complexion,  and decided that in my headcanon he is black, with Hugo being mixed race, since he has "fairish" hair. This would mean

(SPOILERS)

that Conrad and Anthea are black or mixed race too, since they are his nephew and niece. Hmmm...and since he and Robert's father switched places because they resembled each other, then Robert and Felice are black or mixed race too. That would make a YA fantasy novel where almost all the major characters are characters of color. (Milly definitely is.) Unfortunately this isn't exactly spelled out in the text.

(END OF SPOILERS )

Overall this was a fun reread for me and made me wish we had more time with Conrad and teenage Christopher and Milly. 4 out of 5 stars.

Circle of Magic: Book One by Tamora Pierce

My blog post title won't accept apostrophes, but this is actually called Sandry's Book.

This was a really fast read. I'm trying to find books for my nieces and nephew for Christmas. Tamora Pierce's books were highly recommended, so I decided I'd start with this series.

The books cover four children with magical powers who are brought to live and train at the Winding Circle Temple. For various reasons, the four have problems fitting in with others, and end up living together and becoming friends. I liked the different types of magic here, which included some you don't normally see, like weaving magic, plant magic, and metal magic. I also liked the diversity of our main characters: class, gender, size, race/ethnicity, and (apparently eventually) sexuality.

This was the first book so the majority of time was spent in introducing our characters and having them overcome their various prejudices to work together. The main word to describe the novel is nice. People all learn to work together, prejudices are fairly easily overcome, everyone we know and care about survives without permanent harm. Of course this IS a children's book, and apparently the series continues through their adult years, so I will expect the problems facing them to get more complex as time goes on.

Overall, I thought it was a cute book, and I'm interested in reading more about this world and these people. But I think I'll see if I can find the series at my library, at least for the next few books.

Gullstruck Island by Frances Hardinge

Look, I realize that this all-Frances Hardinge-all-the-time blogging may be a bit much for some people, but when I find a new author I like, I can go kind of overboard. Anyway, she's only written four books, so you'll soon be safe.

Gullstruck Island is magnificent. No, really it is. And painful. You know how in the last review I said I kept pausing at a certain spot because I was afraid something bad would happen? Well, I was also reading this novel at the same time, and so many bad things had happened and kept happening to our protagonist, Hathin, that I had to pause for over a week. And I just wasn't as sure that I'd get a happy ending. It was...hard to read parts of this. Really hard.

But it was so worth it. I love the worldbuilding here, the volcano stories, the Ashwalker, the flickerbird, the Lost, the Lace. It's a story with... Well, I don't want to say a moral... let's say a point. Several of them. But the points of the story are not the point of the story, if you get my meaning?

Anyway, it's awesome. And painful. Brutal. Lyrical. Quiet. Brave. And hopeful. Thanks for coming through again for me, dear author.

Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge

Frances Hardinge is a children's author in the same way Lloyd Alexander, Diana Wynne Jones, or Sir Terry Pratchett is. Which is to say that while her protagonists may be children and her language is all family friendly, what she really writes are Stories That Everyone Should Read.

Fly by Night features the orphan Mosca Mye, black-eyed, by turns surly and naive, with a deep and desperate longing for reading. She's sort of like a Dickensian character, if Dickens had ever thought girls could have adventures too. She runs away from her village with a down-on-his-luck silver tongued conman (and occasional spy), Eponymous Clent, and a homicidal goose named Saracen.

I adore Mosca. I would hug her if I thought I could get away with it. She's prickly and suspicious and a loner. She can be very grudging about letting people know exactly what she's thinking. She is just starting to find out who she is and what she believes, but that doesn't make her dumb or credulous. She is not always brave or wise or gentle or nice, because she is thoroughly human. And Eponymous too. He can be cowardly just as often as daring and cynical just as often as romantic.

And Saracen is just pure awesomeness in goose form.

Just so you know, people die in this book. People change. People are betrayed in large and small matters, accidentally and purposefully, by "Good" characters and "Bad" ones. Not everyone has the same agenda. Things may not get wonderfully better in the future (although there is some hope). But there will be (the sequel is already out) further adventures, and that's all Mosca and I need.

The Stepsister Scheme by Jim Hines

So, to be honest, I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy this going in. The cartoony cover made think this was for a very young audience and kind of turned me off. But the author seemed like such an awesome person that I HAD to buy this just to support him. Now I want to buy the rest of the books in this series to support more of these books (and because I really want to read them!)

The Stepsister Scheme centers on Danielle Whitestone, or, as you may know her Cinderella. Life sure does seem to be progressing Happily Ever After enough for her. She just can't believe she's not still a servant to her spoiled stepsisters and cruel stepmother and instead married to the gorgeous and loving prince, with servants to wait on her for a change. Of course Danielle's happiness soon hits a stumbling block when her stepsister shows up to try to assassinate her. Seems the gruesome twosome have gotten their hands on some powerful magic and used it to kidnap Prince Armand. Luckily the queen has a crack squad of secret agents to send to rescue him: Princesses Erminilla and Talia, or as they're also known as, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. The three princesses set out to Fairytown to rescue the Prince or die trying.

The first interesting thing Hines does here is to go back to some of the older, darker versions of the tales. Sleeping Beauty was raped by her prince and only woke when she gave birth to twins. It is Snow's own mother who tried to kill her, not a "wicked stepmother". These are definitely not kiddy tales.

Secondly, although Danielle can at times be almost exasperatingly meek and goody-two-shoes nice, she does grow into a more assertive person who's willing to defend herself and even kill if it is absolutely necessary. She also isn't completely helpless, as she has both a magical sword and the ability to talk to animals. Danielle is also nicely contrasted with Talia who is harsh, dour, and violent. Talia will do and has done whatever it takes to survive, and she doesn't like leaving enemies behind to come after them later. Then there's Snow. She's pragmatic, a cheerfully enthusiastic flirt and sensation seeker. She's also a highly accomplished sorceress, and much less willing to forgive and forget than Danielle. These are not cookie cutter "Strong Female Characters" like you often see. And there's more: Danielle is happily married to her One True Love (when was the last time you saw the married protagonist of an adventure or fantasy book?), Snow flirts with any guy that moves and lived with the huntsman who spared her life, and Talia is either bisexual or homosexual. How often do you see that?

Thirdly, Hines gave us a fun world to play in. All the fairy tale creatures can live here. All the legends can find a version of themselves. Little Red Riding Hood is an assassin. There are goblins and gnomes, trolls and flying horses, magic mirrors and pixie pubs.

So. Definitely not for the wee ones, but if you like fairy tale retellings (such as McKinley's work) or adventure or girls learning to work together to save the day, I think you'll like this series.

Verdigris Deep by Frances Hardinge

Just finished reading Verdigris Deep, a YA book about a trio of kids who steal some coins from a wishing well and find things going wrong for them. It was a nice book to read in the run up to Halloween, full of suitably creepy things like the Spirit of the Well who has water gushing from her eyes and mouth, extra eyes sprouting on our protagonist, Ryan's hands (so apparently I share an eye squick with the author), and some very nasty wishes. It reminds me of Coraline, both in the tone and in the way that it reflects upon the ultimate futility of wishing rather than finding out what you really need and doing it. People in this book feel like real people. Some are nasty; some are broken and may never be fixed; some don't want to be fixed; some work desperately hard to get better. I really desperately wanted for our heroes to save the day, and they mostly did, and the ways in which they didn't were mainly other people saving themselves and each other. Good book; I'll definitely look for more by Hardinge. Don't feel put off by the YA label, as it's eminently suitable for a creepy Halloween read by adults. And there are absolutely, positively no lovelorn teenage vampires.