Unabridged Opinions

The ever-awesome bookgeeks sent me an ARC of Kristin Cashore’s Fire, and the review will be up at the site a little closer to the publication date (the 24th of September–it’s worth grabbing a copy when you see them about).  It was an excellent fantasy novel, interesting and original.  I enjoyed it hugely, and, although the characters, plot, and world-building was great, part of the reason it was so much fun to read was that it felt like a straight old-school fantasy novel that I could reccomend to anyone without feeling the need to add the caveat “for adults” or “emmm, there are some adult themes”.

That is not to say that the novel is completely devoid from romance, sex, or physical love.  It even deals forthrightly with violence against women and struggles to be more than a pretty face. The difference between Fire and much of the epic fantasy being written now is the level of violence successfully wielded against the female characters and the use of sex as a weapon.  This distinction does not necessarily make Fire the better book, it is only the author’s second after all, but it did make Fire feel more like a book I would pass around my family and friends without hesitation.  It reminded me of the books I read by Robin McKinley, Mercedes Lackey, and Isaac Asimov–the ones that got me hooked on reading and on the fantasy and science fiction genres in particular.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate and understand what is going on in some of the more convoluted and violent epic fantasies.  But, it does show that there is certainly a place for a book that reminds me that is possible to write an entertaining and simpler story–and to enjoy reading one.

After the last book of McFadyen’s I read, I should have known better than to a) read it while alone in the flat and b) read it on what can only be called “a dark and stormy night”.  Truly, the last book frightened me, and while this one wasn’t quite as difficult to get through, I still ended up staying up until 1am to finish it because if I’d gone to bed with the murderer still at large in the novel the nightmares would have been unspeakable.

So, I stayed up until 1am, the murderer was safely in jail, and I could at least think about sleeping.  For some reason, I find McFadyen’s books particularly powerful.  The main character, Smoky Barret, is engaging and strong–but I believe that the complete immersion I find in the books comes from the deft sketching out of all of the characters around her as much as Smoky herself.  Because of this, I care deeply about what happens to everyone, even tertiary characters, which ramps up the anxiety levels considerably.  Add in McFadyen’s habit of at least having a small portion of the narrative done from the victim’s point of view, and I’m well and truly inside the world of the novel.  Of course, it’s a world filled with psychotic killers, which makes it heart-stopping, but it’s definitely there. Continue reading

I enjoy reading non-fiction, and one of the best bits of reading this genre is that you can, occasionally, look at a book and think, “Wow, someone wrote an entire book on that?” with equal parts bemusement and fascination.  Salt was such a book for me.  I knew, of course, that salt was an essential part of a healthy diet (and a large part of some un-healthy ones…), but, beyond that fact and a vague sense that salt was a good cleaning agent, and you could use it to exfoliate, I didn’t really know what a book that went on about salt for over 400 pages would be like.

It turns out; it’s pretty good. Kurlansky kept me entertained for the entire book, and it was good enough that, a few days ago, I picked it up to read again. Even the second time around, it’s still a very entertaining book.

Kurlansky does an excellent job of tracing the history of salt through what I thought of as “the better-known bits of history” (the American Civil War, the Roman Empire, English colonization), but he especially shines at drawing out the part salt had in the daily life of everyone–whether it’s a peasant in medieval France or American settlers struggling to become self-sufficient and independent. There are enough small details to make the entire story of salt flow, and it is easy to follow the story of salt as it darts around the world (following the rise and fall of empires, as it happens).

Salt is everywhere, and it turns out to be a fascinating subject–especially because the modern vision of salt is as a danger (and a sneaky, occasionally hidden one at that), but the story of salt, and how it saved and supported people as they travelled and lived all over the world is one worth knowing–and it is a well-written one, at that.