A quick reading update

Yes, this is just a really quick update on what's on my desk at the moment.  I am currently rereading Archangel's Heart by Nalini Singh for the umpteenth time (I adore this series, but the author is running out of characters to centre her books on!) and after I finish AH I'll be picking up Archangel's Viper, again.  This is one of those series that I can reread over and over again without becoming bored.

Also, I did walk up to the Post Office after filming this only to be told that they hadn't even opened the bag containing parcels, let alone got them sorted *le sigh*  I hate it when this happens.  Looks like I'll be making an extra trip.  Good thing my PO is quite close so it's only a few minutes walk, but still... I don't want to do it.

So, my video is edited and posted, I've put my laundry on the line and now I need to get my butt in gear and start some general cleaning so the bedrooms don't look like a bomb has gone off in them.

Cheerio for now, and until I see you next time

 

GWTW Update

Oh, where do I start with this book?  In the beginning I found the language used by the slaves, talking about other slaves as well as the poor white folks, to be offputting to say the least.  And Scarlett?  She is such a manipulative, conniving, schemer that I really did have to pull myself up at times when I would go off on a tangent about her behaviour.  Little Miss Hot-pants is only 16 years old.  Marriage fodder during those times, but still... not sure what to think of her as a person.  Scarlett's almost pathological need to be the centre of attention - the prettiest girl in the county, having the tiniest waist, having all the men attend to her - just got annoying.  By the third chapter I was ready to consider that perhaps GWTW was not the novel for me and DNF it and move on.

But then I realised that Rhett still hadn't blessed us with his presence, and I was itching to find out what would happen when Scarlett finally did get her face-to-face meeting with Ashley Wilkes.  Oh, it was glorious!  Not only did she burn her bridges there (she slapped him but good!), but she found out what the other girls thought of her, and the old saying that eavesdroppers never hear any good was definitely true in Scarlett's case.  Mortified and humiliated, she nearly did a runner, but instead made a far worse choice when she happened to come across Charles Hamilton (a suitor of her sisters, or friend?) and he asks her to marry him, and she says yes on a whim.

Now, two chapters was all I was going to read last night, but on discovering this little nugget I couldn't help but continue.  What happens next made me feel sorry for Charles, and Wade - trying not to spoil stuff here - and Scarlett's attitude towards Wade didn't endear her to me at all.  I might have felt sympathy for her after she get's that letter regarding the death of Charles, but her uncaring attitude and emotional detachment is just hard to understand.

So I ended up finishing Part One of GWTW in my quest to find out what happened.  Hopefully Part Two will be a little more compelling and less involved in backstories (such as the 21 pages on Gerald and Ellen's lives, and then how Gerald and Ellen met and married was just waaaay too long.  Three pages would have sufficed!).

Thinking about how much I disliked the book to start with, I will give Margaret Mitchell credit for creating a character that you know is bad news, and will create havoc in peoples lives, and yet you still want to continue reading - even if it is only to see it all blow up in their face, which my motivation for reading.

Progress as of this morning.  I'm nearly out of tabs, people! ;-D

UPDATE

It's now Saturday, 5th November, and before I upload this post I wanted to let you know what's been going on in my reading battle with GWTW.

Yesterday I read about 50 or so pages, and I was feeling okay about the story.  The war was still ongoing, more men that Scarlett had known from childhood were being called up to fight - even as the General was retreating more land to the Union - and Scarlett had suffered the loss of the Tarleton boys.  Rhett was being a pain, and had ostracized nearly all of polite society in Atlanta.

Then I woke up early this morning, and by the time it was light enough to read I thought I'd only finish the next chapter and be done.  But noooo, I read until 9:38am (about 4 and a bit hours), and am now on p.522.  Scarlett has returned to Tara only to find her world turned upside down.  Her beloved mother is gone, and she is now in charge of Tara, fighting to keep mouths fed, and prepare for the future.  Rhett has been MIA for over a year (I think), and Melly has had her baby, Ashley finally returned, and once again Scarlett has tried to get him to admit that he loves her - only for him to admit it and rebuff her advances.

This, of course, threw Scarlett into another tissy of sorts.  It couldn't have come at a worse time since exorbitant taxes have been levied against Tara, and the 'white trash' daughter of the family that gave Typhoid to the O'Hara's has come calling with her husband (Tara's former overseer who was fired) and they make trouble.  Scarlett, in a real mood now, decides in a moment of madness that she just needs a man with money to fix the problem.  So with a new goal in site, Scarlett is determined to marry Rhett (once she finds him) in order to save Tara.

I had to stop here because I could see another doomed marriage on the horizon - and not to Rhett I'd wager! - as Scarlett soldier's forth in her battle to save her beloved home.  In the meantime, Ashley is having pangs of guilt at the thought that he's driven her to this - like he drove her into Charles arms - and I don't know if he and Melly, and the still nameless son, will even stay at this point, or move on?

I'm curious to know what happens - and how she can screw up her life so royally at times, and I think that this book is growing on me as I am starting to want to read ahead, follow Scarlett on her disasterous journey into the post-civil war years - and yet I still don't like her!  But I can understand why this was adapted for film as it is promising to be an epic story.

So those are my thoughts on GWTW.  I'd like to know what you thought of Scarlett?  Let me know in the comments ;-D

Until next time,

Modern Classic with a beautiful cover

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
 

When my postman brought this to my door this morning I was so happy! This book is even better in person than it was online.  First off, it has a gorgeous movie tie-in cover, plus it has that lovely suede-like feel to it (always a bonus), and finally it is nice and floppy.  I won't have to worry about cracking the spine on this baby.

Why did I buy this book?  Well, this is the book that I have had in mind for a personal challenge for quite a few years now, but I've never found an edition that I liked.  I finally managed to snag this edition from Book Depository - with a hefty discount!  So, this will be my 2016 modern classic challenge.  I have a year in which to read the book - all 984 pages! - from cover to cover.

Still wondering why I set myself this goal, but... I can't remember why.   If you have read this, let me know what whether you liked it, or not, and would you recommend reading this book to anyone?

Wish me luck.

Until next time,

 

Book Review || Heraclix & Pomp

Heraclix & Pomp
A Novel of the Fabricated and the Fey
Forrest Aguirre

Published: October 2014

Underland Press, hardcover, 285p.
ISBN: 978-1-63023-001-2

Heraclix and Pomp, Aguirre's first full-length novel, explores the ideas of identity and immortality through the eyes of a man-like golem and a time-bending fairy who can barely grasp the idea of now, much less the dangers of what's to come.

Before being sewn-together, Heraclix was dead—merely a pile of mismatched pieces, collected from the corpses of many troubled men. And Pomp was immortal—at least, so she thought. That was before her impossible near-murder at the hands of the necromancer, Heraclix's creator. But when playing God, even the smallest error is a gargantuan weakness. When the necromancer makes his, Heraclix and Pomp begin their epic flight.

As they travel from Vienna to Prague to Istanbul and, even, to Hell itself, they struggle to understand who and what they are: who was Heraclix before his death and rebirth? What is mortality, and why does it suddenly concern Pomp? As they journey through an unruly eighteenth century, they discover that the necromancer they thought dead might not be quite so after all. In fact, he may have sealed his immortality at the expense of everyone alive . . .

Heraclix and Pomp is a richly textured and decadent read, filled with Baroque ideology and Byzantine political intrigue. Fans of fantasy and historical fiction alike will revel in Aguirre's layered prose and vivid characterizations. Heraclix and Pomp brings the surreal and the macabre to one of history's most violent eras, and it does so in a voice sure to resonate among this season's best new releases.

NOTE: Minor spoilers mentioned in the review.

I bought this book for myself as a birthday present.  The cover is gorgeous, and once I'd read the synopsis on Book Depository I had to have it.   However, once it arrived I found myself putting it on my TBR shelves.  I kept picking it up, admiring the beautiful and detailed artwork on the cover, yet for some strange reason I just didn't want to read it.

Then yesterday I decided 'enough is enough!', and I pulled it out of my TBR stockpile.  Even then, it took me a little while to start reading it.  I don't know why I had such a hesitance about reading this book.  It's not long, it's in a genre I love, and since I hadn't spoiled myself by readin any reviews, what was I worried about?  

Famous last words.

I started reading.  The first dozen or so pages were great.  Then it went downhill from there.

The altercation between the sorcerer, the golem, and the fairy, the one that's hinted at on the front flap - and the one that I thought was going to be the climax of the book - was actually the beginning.  Really... REALLY!  There is also one HUGE mistake that I'd just like to mention right off the bat.  Heralix, one of the main protagonists, is not actually a golem.  He is NOT made from clay but is rather a Frankenstein monster who has been assembled from pieces of numerous corpses and reanimated.  

Having said that, he was however the one character who's story I found interesting.  As a by-product of the reanimation process, his memory is wiped, and instead of just getting on with his 'life', he is obsessed with his past and nothing can deter him from seeking out the truth about his former life (lives?).  If we could have stuck with Heraclix as our narrator, the one POV, I might have found this book more interesting, instead we have numerous perspectives which jump around and just add to the confusion.

Our other protagonist is Pomp.  She is an interesting stereotypical fey character.  She seems to have all the tropes.  She is very small, with major powers, has wings, and is very skittish and literal.  Pomp, as well as her fellow fairies, have no concept of the most basic of things.  In one scene two of her friends are playing with a small bat.  They do not realise - or care for that matter - that they end up killing it.  When it won't play anymore, they move on to something else amusing and forget about it.  But this is also the scene where you see the change in Pomp as a character.  She feels for the creature.  She feels bad.  It is her character's growth that was the most surprising in this story.

But, even though Pomp is maturing as a character I found her endless questioning of things so annoying.  What is slept?  What is dream?  What is remember?  All through the book she is questioning everything.  Yet while very annoying, in all fairness this did differentiate her voice from Heraclix's.  So it evens things out.

So while the characters of the book had almost equal points on the pros and con list, it is the world building that I find of nearly equal importance to having great characters.  This world was gritty, a very real and oft times violent world.  However we didn't see much of it at all.  Just the sorcerers house, parts of the forest they escape through, an urban area or two, and other vignettes during interactions with characters along the way.  Perhaps if this had been a 500+ page book we might have seen more of this world, but as it was we only received a very limited overview.  Instead of a rich world to put these character into some context, I found myself with a very sepia toned palette instead of rich Technicolor hues.  This was another tick on the con side of my checklist.

Would I really like to continue this as a series?  No.  I think since I'm not enamored with this book I'll leave well enough alone.  I should have waited for the paperback as this book was definitely not worth the nearly $24 I paid for it on Book Depository (and that is with it already discounted and then using my 10% off voucher!).   So while this is by no means a rave review, I can see hints of why a lot of people liked this book.  I wouldn't say don't buy it or read it, it's just not my cup of tea.

I gave Heraclix & Pomp

Let me know in the comments if you've read Heraclix & Pomp.  Did you love it?  Why, and if so, should I give it another chance?

Until next time,