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.

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

I think you can see the trend of my reading lately. I don't normally read much horror, but Halloween makes for a good opportunity to shake my reading habits up a bit.

Fledgling is a title I've been meaning to read for quite a while. I'd read the opening chapter or two and found myself creeped out by the descriptions of her horrible injuries, of the process by which she healed, and of the obviously sexual connection of feeding considering our protagonist appears to be a ten year old child. Once I made the decision to read it all in one go, it did get... easier to read.

This is still some seriously creepy mind control/suggestibility/addiction going on here. And even though she is actually fifty-three, showing people sexually attracted to/having sex with someone with the body of a child squicks me out.

There's a lot of politics to this book: Ina (vampire) politics, gender politics, racial politics, species politics. You can really see how some of the discourse of human racial politics is used to inform the anti-human (and in some cases, also anti-POC) prejudices of the Ina. She's weak and volatile if she shows emotion, unnaturally cold and brutal if she doesn't. She needs to be turned over to someone else's care "for her own good" as she obviously can't take care of herself (this from someone who took away all of her support). She is told that she must out-Ina the Ina: not speak out, not attack, not circumvent the law that her attackers chose to ignore. For all that the Ina creep me out, I still want to hug Shori and tell her I support her.

So. Creepy book. Well-written book. Book I'm glad I've read. I think I'll hunt up some more Butler now. And maybe re-read Sunshine.