September 2011

Stuff I’ve Been Reading: September 2011

Look!  With links!  Because I’ve actually reviewed a few of these due to my TBR mission.

1. The Proof House by K. J. Parker
2. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
3. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
4. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
5. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
6. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
7. Touchstone by Laurie R. King
8. The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia A. McKillip
9. The Curfew by Jesse Ball
10. Pirate King by Laurie R. King
11. The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker
12. The Manual of Detection by Jedidiah Berry

Best Mystery: The Manual of Detection, which I promise to review tomorrow, since I’ve only just finished it

Worst Mystery: The Pirate King, alas

Best Reread: The Queen’s Thief series, which is also the best read of the month, despite some other serious contenders

It looks like my life is going better than it was in June (10 books), July (11 books), and especially August (9 books).  The summer really set met back, though; I had hoped to read 200 books this year, but I’m three-fourths of the way through the calendar and have read exactly 120 books.  (I blame it all on K. J. Parker, who has yet to write a book less than 450 pages long.)

At least I’ll reach 150 books in 2011.  Fingers crossed.

How to be a writer

While writing an article praising the publishing success of Octavia E. Butler in a genre dominated by white men, I opened up Bloodchild and Other Stories, a collection that also includes two essays, one about how Butler got her start as a writer and another entitled “Furor Scribendi” (a rage for writing).

Butler’s advice for how to become a writer is probably the best I’ve ever read, a friendly encouragement to me as I’m trying to publish my work.  Here’s what she says.

1. Read about writing and read the type of books you want to write.
2. Take classes and go to writers’ workshops.
3. Write every day, even if you don’t want to.
4. Revise your writing until it’s the best you can make it.
5. Submit your work for publication.
6. Persist.

And that’s it.  It isn’t easy, but it isn’t really hard either.  If I keep at it for a few more years, I’m bound to make a professional sale.  Because there’s talking about wanting someday to be a writer and then there’s doing what Octavia E. Butler tells you to do.

I plan to take her advice.

26. The Folding Knife

TBR #26.  The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker.

First sentence: “On the morning of the day when Basso (Bassianus Severus, the future First Citizen) was born, his mother woke up to find a strange woman sitting at the foot of her bed.”

This makes the seventh K. J. Parker book I’ve read, the first stand-alone novel.  I confess I was apprehensive about what a Parker story would be like in only 450 pages rather than the customary 1,000+, but I needn’t have worried.  All the things I like about Parker, primarily the deliciously dark role of fate, circumstance, and luck, are still present.

Set in a Roman-style culture, the novel tells of Basso’s cataclysmic rise and fall from prominence.  He begins his career as a banker but quickly follows his father into politics.  However, an early action–what he calls his only mistake–alienates his sister, who becomes his mortal enemy, using his favorite nephew against him in a struggle to ruin his life.  Basso, like most Parker protagonists, is not necessarily a likeable but is an unquestionably fascinating character.

This novel is clever, dark, and sardonic, with a thoroughly developed culture and plenty of politics and war.  Even the banking parts were interesting.  I’ll definitely be reading The Company and The Hammer, Parker’s other non-series novels, quite soon.

Poor students

My poor students can’t trust me one little bit.

Before they turn in an essay, I have them do a day of workshop/peer review in which they give each other structured feedback about each other’s writing.  For their first essay, I had them bring three copies, one for themselves to read, evaluate, and write on, and two for their classmates.  A student asked me, with a bit of panic in her voice, whether I was going to read their Essay 1 drafts before the final version was due.

“Of course not,” I said, affecting surprise.  “Peer review is a time for you to make improvements to your essay based on each other’s responses, not mine.”

So they worked really hard on their first drafts for nothing.

This week held the workshop day for my students’ second essay.  They wrote their first draft of Essay 2, believing that I wasn’t going to read it, and they trustingly brought three copies to class.  So I led them through the peer review exercise, in which they traded essays twice and gave responses.  And as they were packing up their backpacks to leave for the day, I told them to wait a moment more.

“I want the third copy of your drafts,” I told them brightly.

You should have seen the looks of horror on their faces.

They had been ready for me to read Essay 1 but I didn’t; they weren’t ready for me to read Essay 2 but I did; and from now on, they’ll always have to be prepared because they won’t know what I’ll do.

Gotcha.

27. Pirate King

TBR #27. Pirate King by Laurie R. King.

First sentence: “‘Honestly, Holmes? Pirates?'”

The two main complaints I have about the eleventh Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes novel are these: 1) For almost a hundred and fifty of the three hundred pages, there was no Holmes, and 2) for almost two hundred of the three hundred pages, there was no crime.  That’s right, folks, a crimeless mystery novel.  You didn’t think it could be done, did you?

Well, it can’t.

If you want to read a clever novel about 1920s film, Lisbon, and Morocco, with moments of comedy and derring-do, this is the book for you.  Laurie R. King’s writing style is seamless and engaging, even if she does have a cast of nearly fifty with heavy historical seasoning; on the score of being well-written, Pirate King is a ten.  But if you are hoping for a murder, or even a theft, possibly with sweeping political ramifications, and some scenes in which Holmes is sardonic or moody, you will be disappointed, as I was.

I’m terribly sad to say it: this might be the last Mary Russell novel I read.

28. The Curfew

TBR #28.  The Curfew by Jesse Ball.

First sentence: “There was a great deal of shouting and then a shot.”

The city of C.  All policemen are plainclothes policemen.  No one really knows why the government has changed but it has.  William Drysdale was a violinist, but now he writes epitaphs.  His nine-year-old daughter Molly is mute, loves riddles, and barely remembers her mother, who was taken by the government.  When William has a chance to learn what happened to his wife, he makes the decision: to stay out after curfew.

This dystopian novel is extremely short and oddly formatted, with strangely large paragraph breaks and brief scenes, often told by an intrusive narrator.  The odd gets odder when William writes epitaphs, meets a member of the resistance, and leaves his daughter Molly with an old puppeteer who helps her put on a play about her life.  Flirting with magical realism, this experimental, postmodernist novel is a tragedy about a man who loves his daughter and a daughter who loves her father in a time when love is an even more destructive force than politics.

29. The Bell at Sealey Head

TBR #29. The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia A. McKillip.

First sentence: “Judd Cauley stood in his father’s rooms in the Inn at Sealey Head, looking out the back window at the magnificent struggle between dark and light as the sun fought its way into the sea.”

Sealey Head is a sleepy town near the ocean with magic it doesn’t even think about.  Every sunset there is the mysterious sound of a bell tolling, which has many local legends explaining its origin but remains shrouded in hearsay and storytelling.

Judd Cauley is the young innkeeper who welcomes the traveling scholar, Ridley Dow, in search of the magical origin of the bell.  Gwenyth Blair, a merchant’s daughter, writes stories about the bell, trying to get close to the truth.  And in the great Aislinn House, where Lady Eglantyne lies dreaming, the housemaid Emma can open doors into another time and place, where a ritual is about to change everything.

This charming fantasy blends together fairytale, myth, and legend with hints of medieval romance in a vaguely Regency setting.  It’s for people who love beautiful writing, a bit of humor and romance, a lot of invented folklore, and a house with a spell on it.