16 « August « 2009 « Medieval Bookworm

The Sunday Salon: Bookish Rambling

tssbadge1 It’s looking like my reading totals for August are going to be down from the past three months. I’ve finished 10 books so far and we’re halfway through, so that will leave me with 20, a fairly significant drop from 30 and 31 in June and July. I’ll be back up there in September though. My dissertation is due in completed form to my supervisor on September 3rd, and while I’ll probably have some edits to do after that, I won’t have time for the intense reworking I’m doing now. I’ve actually done most of the work already (go me!) so I have about 2 weeks just to form a conclusion from an essay I’ve already written and my own thoughts.

I’ve been feeling very nostalgic this month; it’s my last month in full-time school and I find myself missing my undergrad university and friends more than ever. I don’t like stages of transition, I prefer to be one place or another, not in between. I’m sure it’s because I haven’t been reading as much. Do you find that not having time to read as much as you’re used to reflects in your mood as well?

Well, that brings us to what I have been reading this week. I just finished Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen last night and found myself enjoying it far more than I’d expected by the end. What got me was that even though she plays with the facts, none of it is needless or derogatory and I found it a refreshing new spin – for fiction – on a story I’ve read in various forms many, many times. Not even the magic really bothered me, because I don’t believe that anyone is going to go around convinced that Jacquetta and Elizabeth were witches. Historical accuracy only gets to me if I think people are going to believe that something wrong is true, and that’s not the case here, so I liked it. I bet that’s a surprise to many who know me – it was a surprise for me too!

Right now I’m reading The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan so my mom can get a book off Amazon Vine on Thursday. It’s billed as a love story with some tragedy tossed in, set around Niagara Falls in the early 20th century and loosely based on the life of a real man. So far, it’s not earth shattering, but I like it. This brings me to another point; both this and The White Queen are written in present tense. It gives a certain feel, but I’m not sure I like it as much as past tense. It can dissolve into the story if I read long enough, but it always bugs me a little in the beginning. What do you think? Do you prefer past or present tense? What about 1st or 3rd person? Or do you not care?

That’s enough from me for now. I’ll leave you with two bits of news. One, the wonderful Michelle Moran, whose Cleopatra’s Daughter I will be reading and giving away shortly, has asked that I mention her contests. You can find details about them here. They sound exciting, and I know if I was still in the US I’d go hunting in a few of those independent bookstores. Two, you have until Wednesday to enter to win a copy of American Lion by Jon Meacham from me, and you can do that here.

Next weekend I will be in Cornwall, so expect pictures when I come back! Have a great week everyone!

Reviews: The Last Colony and Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi

I’m going to be a little different and review these together. They are different books, but they have essentially the same overall plot seen through two different characters. John experiences different things than Zoe does, but the main events are the same and I thought it would be easier on my blog schedule to just combine!

After spending eight years on Huckleberry, John Perry and his wife Jane, a former Special Forces soldier, are recruited to help start a new world on Roanoke. Their daughter, Zoe, doesn’t have as much choice in the matter, but is completely ready herself to move on, with her two Obin companions in tow as always, since she is revered as a near goddess by the Obin race. From the moment the family and their settlers first see Roanoke, they know that nothing is going to be quite what they expected and soon they find themselves embroiled in what may be an intergalactic war. John, Jane, and Zoe must each use their special advantages in order to keep the colony alive and save all of those they love.

First of all, I just loved the way these books worked together. I am actually quite a fan of the same story told from two different perspectives, although it was surprisingly difficult for me to yank myself out of John’s head and place myself into Zoe’s since I read the books in a row. John Scalzi’s brand of prose is very distinctive and while Zoe is certainly a teenage girl (and many props to him and his female test-readers for pulling that off) I have gotten used to the idea that his writing = a man. This is one of the instances in which having a very distinctive writing style worked against the book. I got over it eventually. I loved the way that certain holes left in The Last Colony were filled masterfully by Zoe’s Tale in particular. What’s amazing is that Scalzi didn’t even plan it that way, but rather came back and thought about how things came to be from Zoe’s perspective.

The story itself is, as always, a very interesting one. More and more problems occur from almost the first pages of the books onwards as the Roanoke colonists realize just how very much trouble they’re in. Both of these books are very quick reads; they’re on the short side and it’s difficult to put them down. By now I love all the characters and I have them firmly in my head, but they still develop here. This is especially so for Zoe, who is a teenager and changing faster than you can imagine with all the pressure placed on her. She learns so much about the world but I didn’t find any of it to be too much, if that makes sense. She develops but in a more realistic way given her extraordinary lifestyle.

I love these books. I’m a little sad that we’ve left these characters behind, probably for good. I adored the entire series and I highly recommend it, even if you don’t like science fiction. I know I didn’t. These are still fantastic books, with strong characters, an exciting plotline, and plenty of laughter and emotional intensity.

The Last Colony | Zoe’s Tale

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