Title: Mistborn: The Well of Ascension
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Publisher: Tor
Date Published: 2007
Pages (Hardcover): 590

First Line: I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted.

After plowing through Mistborn: The Final Empire, the fist book in Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy, I couldn’t wait to get started on The Well of Ascension. That first book was fresh and exciting. It moved and flowed, constantly building momentum until the inevitable showdown. Indeed, the pacing was, perhaps, the single most accomplished aspect of the novel, and it hid, or lessened the impact of, some of the flaws. Characterization in particular, I think, is something that Sanderson wrestled with in the fist book, but his accomplished sense of urgency throughout the novel didn’t really give me time to worry about it too much.

Not so with The Well of Ascension.

The biggest issue for me was that this second book seemed… unfocused. The Final Empire had, if I recall, just two point-of-view characters: Vin and Kelsier. In TWoA, there are at least 6 (although I am sure to be forgetting someone), and while I didn’t have problems following their individual storylines, much of the cohesiveness of The Final Empire was lost. I was probably close to 200 pages in before I felt as if things were finally starting to come together. Some writers can pull off this kind of expansive, epic-style storytelling (George R.R. Martin leaps to mind), but Sanderson fell a bit short of the mark, I think.

Part of the problem is that this is a very, very different style of book than TFE. It is much broader in scope, and the narrative voice, unlike TFE, is focused not just on the crew from the first book, but also on their adversaries. Gone is the wonderful sense of not knowing what is going on with the crew’s primary targets. There is still mystery, to be sure, but because we are allowed inside the heads of characters on both sides of the conflict, it seems as though it is information the author is intentionally withholding, especially, for example, when the point of view character makes only vague references to the hidden secret only he knows… even when thinking to himself.

It’s important to point out, however, that even though I think Sanderson wrestles with characterization, something I specifically pointed out in The Final Empire write up, here in TWoA it is much, much stronger. Vin, especially, I found quite compelling this time around, especially in the scenes with OreSuer. There were moments that were quite touching, and the forging of that friendship takes on a new, special meaning in the final chapters. It was good to see Sanderson really let go and let us see a softer, unguarded side of Vin. Even though I figured out (guessed? whatever) “the big secret” long before it was revealed, I think that actually made those moments even more effective (and I wonder if we were supposed to figure it out before the characters in the book because of that).

Finally, The Well of Ascension is most definitely the middle novel in a trilogy. It even ends on a cliffhanger! Oh, the conflicts and storylines are all resolved, but there is absolutely a rather dissatisfied feeling when that final page is turned and a whole new problem is looming just beyond the printed page. Additionally, don’t make the mistake of reading this book before The Final Empire. It may take place a year after book 1 ends, but the majority of the novel not only references what has come before, but depends upon it. And the third book will, I imagine, be completely dependent on this one. I’ll let you know when I get there.

Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi

Title: Zoe’s Tale
Author: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tor
Date Published: 2008
First Line: I lifted up my dad’s PDA and counted off the seconds with the two thousand other people in the room.

As fate would have it, I found myself in a discussion recently where John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War universe came up. Talk about behind schedule, though… It’s been over a year since I read Zoe’s Tale. To be honest, I swear I reviewed it (and the other OMW books, for that matter) at some point, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere on the site or my own plethora of storage drives. So here I am… a bit fuzzy on plot details, perhaps, but I have the book propped open next to me and, if necessary, I’ll use it now and again as a bit of a refresher. Be that as it may, I think I’ll try something a bit new since so much time has passed. I’ll try to focus on the lasting impression the novel left me with.

I think every reviewer out there has probably mentioned the obvious Heinlein influences in Scalzi’s series. I’m not an expert on RH by any means, but from my own pedestrian point of view, I find Scalzi to be infinitely more “approachable” in his writing style. Yes, there are similarities to plot construction and thematics, but Scalzi’s isn’t simply mimicking the Grand Master. His voice is all his own, and he excels at creating nuanced, complex, and thoroughly enjoyable characters.

Zoe’s Tale is a “parallel novel” to The Last Colony in much the same way that Ender’s Shadow is a parallel novel to Ender’s Game, which, as it happens, I just finished teaching my college freshmen. Without going into too much summary, it retells the story of TLC from the perspective of teenage Zoe. And it’s the difference in those perspectives that makes ZT such a wonderful story. The Last Colony is a story about the settling of a new world and all the if-it-can-go-wrong-it-will adventures from the perspective of a married couple, he an ex-marine, she the equivalent of ex-special forces. Zoe’s Tale, on the other hand, is told from the perspective of their adopted teenage daughter.

Here’s the meat of it for me: Zoe is, without a doubt, the singular most impressively rendered character I have read in the last five, maybe even ten years, regardless of genre. She’s smart, witty, and sarcastic to a fault. She’s filled with love and angst, desire and rebellion. She’s coming of age in a new world she loathes and loves with adoptive parents she both adores and, at times, wants nothing to do with. Oh, and she’s the messiah for an alien species who have sworn to protect her from harm, even if it means destroying the rest of the human settlement. Most of all, though, Zoe is both charming and compelling, and her story went by far, far to quickly.

Scalzi’s character work with Zoe shouldn’t have surprised me. His characters are consistently strong and fresh, regardless of which of his books are being discussed. It is, I think, the primary reason I continually return to his work. With this is mind, Zoe’s Tale is, I think, the strongest of the books in the Old Man’s War series. And while it is a parallel novel, I don’t think it is necessarily a stand-alone novel. Scalzi, as I remember, does a fine job of filling in the important blanks for those new to the series, but his previous books lay an important foundation of backstory that is impossible to capture in any amount of detailed summary. And while the omitted bits and pieces aren’t necessarily essential information to the telling of Zoe’s Tale, they are, I think influential in how the recurring characters are perceived. But that’s the tricky bit of writing a series, and I’d be compelled to argue with anyone who thinks any part of a multi-novel universe with recurring characters and storylines can successfully “stand alone” within that universe.

Regardless, Zoe’s Tale, like the rest of the OMW series, is a fun, fast read that touches on some weighty subjects. I highly recommend not just Zoe’s Tale, but all the books in the Old Man’s War series.

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Title: Mistborn: The Final Empire
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Publisher: Tor
Date Published: 2006
Pages (Hardcover): 537

First Line: Sometimes, I worry that I’m not the hero everyone thinks I am.

Like, I hope, a lot of folks, when I heard that Brandon Sanderson was tapped to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, my first thought was:

Who?

I say I hope a lot of folks said this because I don’t want to be the only idiot who has never heard of him. Thank goodness he finally landed on my radar, though, because, in a nutshell, Mistborn is a fun, fast, thoroughly entertaining read. It has some flaws, to be sure, but all in all I couldn’t wait to turn the page, and I tore through the story as fast as anything I have read in the last few years.

Much of what makes this such a quick, light read is the marvelous pacing Sanderson established from the very first scene. Mistborn is, at its core, a heist story. It’s like Ocean’s Eleven with with magic and a couple of fantasy tropes thrown in to complicate matters. The pace starts off slow, almost plodding, as the players are introduced, but it builds steadily, page after page, complication after complication. From a purely mechanics point of view, the work Sanderson has done with tension and plot is quite astounding. The pace of the action is easily what kept me reading well past my bedtime.

Another element that I enjoyed was the magic system Sanderson developed. There is great danger in creating a magic system, I think. In a world such as Sanderson’s, where so much depends upon the use of magic, a balance must be struck between revealing too much detail and not enough. Sanderson achieves this balance by having his protagonist, Vin, discover and train her abilities through the course of the novel. His system is unique, though. Rather than your standard wizard or warlock, in Sanderson’s world, some people, most often those of the upper class, are born as “mistings.” By ingesting a particular metal, they are able to tap its resources. This allows them to either enhance an ability they already have, such as heightening their senses or strength, or it grants them a more mystical ability, such as pushing metal objects with their mind or allowing them to see a few moments into the future. The ability all depends upon the metal ingested, and what their body is predisposed to “burn” or utilize. Someone who uses strength can only use strength, for example. Someone uses tin (sensory enhancement) can only use tin. Even rarer in Sanderson’s world, however, are the mistborn, who are able to use all eleven metals at the same time. There were times I thought that Sanderson was a bit repetitive in his explanation of his system, but overall I found it quite compelling. And because we learned about it as Vin did, Sanderson was able to spare the reader any long passages trying to get the basics of the system across.

But while the magic system and pacing were so good, there were some minor issues I had with the overall story. **Potential spoiler here. I’ll be as vague as I can, but if you absolutely don’t want any hint about the end of the book, skip to the next paragraph!** The biggest problem for me was the giant “ah-HA!” Sanderson pulled at the end of the book with a “FINALLY! The Truth Comes Out!” kind of moment. It wasn’t a tremendous let-down, and I think, perhaps, it may well be a technique used in heist stories, but I hate having huge, gigantic plot elements withheld from me. It’s one thing if the story is told in 1^st person PoV and the narrator makes the discovery right along with the reader, but Sanderson tells the story in 3^rd person, and one of the characters he focuses on knows everything from the very beginning. It was handled fairly well, all in all, but I still couldn’t help feeling a bit deceived.

Another issue for me, and more minor than the first, was that I just didn’t buy into some aspects of the growth of Vin. There were times I felt as if she had shed her past all too easily without any kind of justification. The intent, I think, was to create an inner conflict for her, but most often I felt it failed as it led to what seemed to be obvious contradictions in her motivations. These contradictions then complicated matters by making the characters around her appear foolish in their affection and trust of her.

Those points aside, though, there is a lot to like in Mistborn. It’s quite a refreshing take on the fantasy genre, and it brings loads of new and exciting possibilities for the remaining two books in the trilogy, which I plan on getting to just as soon as I possibly can.

rfdc reader Martin, currently reading the Dune series, sent me a note asking about Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and why the heck I don’t have a search function for old posts.

I used to have a search function, but for some reason, after I switched to the current implementation of the Thesis engine, it stopped functioning correctly. I disabled with with a note to look into getting it working again, and just never got around to it. I’ve made a (new) note and will try to get it up and running soon(ish).

As for The Dark Tower series, it remains one of my favorite series ever. Martin’s comment, however, was shared by a lot of people when the final book of the series wrapped the story up:

what Roland finds is a case of “what happens when a writer doesn’t know how to end a series”

It’s been a while since I read the series, and I have been meaning to do a re-read and series review like I did with the Dune and Harry Potter books, but there’s been too much on my plate (like the series review of Mistborn, thanks Nick and Brian for finally shoving my face in the first of the trilogy!) to take on another 7 (8? I forget exactly how many books are in The Dark Tower series) book read.

Suffice it to say this for now… I remember that I wasn’t all that irked by the ending of the final book. I understood what people were getting at, but it didn’t really bother me as much as it seemed to bother other folks. That said, the ending was also entirely forgettable, which I think is actually a bigger problem. I remember the criticism of the ending better than the ending itself. In fact, I had to do a bit of research to jog my aging brain as to what actually happened in those final pages.

And while that is a tremendous problem, it’s a problem that I think King has suffered from throughout his career, especially in his early years. Even Duma Key, one of his best and most recent books, has an ending that seems completely contradictory in tone and intent than the rest of the book.

Anyone familiar with King, I think, would not have been surprised how The Dark Tower series wound up. I know I wasn’t. Disappointed, perhaps, especially after the equivalent length of about 5 Lord of the Rings trilogies, but not surprised.

It isn’t often that I start a book but not finish it. I’d much rather struggle through to the bitter end clinging to some vague hope that there will be a payoff in the end. In fact, I can only think of three books I abandoned partway through. Two I went back to and eventually finished, but the third I have tried and tried again, only to set it aside each time for something else. Three books over the course of 30-something years of rather voracious reading… not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Imagine my surprise, then, to start this year off with not one, but two books I put down by page 100. I wasn’t even going to post on them, but I received them through the Library Thing Early Reviewer’s program, and while a review isn’t mandatory the folks over at LT ask so nicely that I hate to disappoint. The question becomes, then, is can I honestly review a book that I didn’t finish?

It happens all the time. Book reviewing is a business, after all. Critics are under deadlines and have both public and corporate expectations to meet as far as timeliness goes when it comes to new releases. Most often they will receive advanced reading copies direct from the publisher which allows them, hopefully, to publish their review on or shortly after the book’s release date.

That said, I don’t really think it’s appropriate for me, personally, to give a thumbs-up or down kind of review for a book I didn’t even get a third of the way through. Instead, I’ll touch briefly on the reasons why I put each book down. Reading is, after all, a personal experience. The act of reading itself is what I have always focused my reviews on, and that doesn’t necessarily correspond to the “literary quality” of the book being read. Moby Dick may well be one of the greatest books ever written, after all, but I’d never know it. I’ve put that sucker down three times.

So, without further babblage, here are the two books that didn’t last more than a hundred pages:

Title: Vilnius Poker
Author: Ricardas Gavelis
Translator: Elizabeth Novickas
Publisher: Open Letter Books
Year Published: 2009 (originally published in Lituanian as Vilniaus pokeris by Vaga in 1989)
Pages: 485
First Sentence: A narrow crack between two high-rises, a break in a wall encrusted with blind windows: a strange opening to another world; on the other side children and dogs scamper about, while on this side – only an empty street and tufts of dust chased by the wind.

To be, for once, succinct, I was not at all ready for this book. Vilnius Poker is a deep, difficult read that I will absolutely return to. For whatever reason, however, I couldn’t muster the focus the writing demands of the reader. Realizing this, I set it aside and will try again at some point down the road.

That said, even though I struggled with it, I knew I was reading, or trying to read, something very special. Gavelis’ writing is, in a word, stunning. It is also packed with big, huge, tremendous ideas as the main character, Vytautus Vargalis, struggles to maintain what little grasp of reality he has left after being imprisoned and tortured in a Soviet prison camp.

In some ways I shared that struggle, as I found myself, more often than not, confused as to what was happening to Vytuatus. I never felt as though I had a firm stance on where the story started out, what the baseline was, and that left me frustrated and continually flipping pages backwards and rereading in an effort to clear things up for myself. I do not think, however, that this is indicative of a flaw in the writing itself. It is a result of the perspective of Vytautus and, I think, extremely important to the overall tone of even the short bit I struggled through.

Vilnius Poker is not for the casual reader or the faint of heart, and, now that I better understand that, I’ll approach it much differently when I next pick it up and start at page 1.

Title: Brideshead Revisited
Author: Evelyn Waugh
Publisher: Knopf (Everyman’s Library)
Year Published: 1993 (originally published 1945 by Chapman & Hall)
Pages: 315
First Sentence: When I reached ‘C’ company lines, which were at the top of the hill, I paused and looked back at the camp, just coming into full view below me through the grey mist of early morning.

I stopped reading because I was bored. That sums it up, really. The book started out strong with a prologue that set up the plot (or what I thought was the plot) extremely well. It was both active and introspective and presented a situation that was rich with both internal and external conflict for the first-person pov protagonist. But then the prologue ended, and with it all the tension it built up, and chapter one takes the reader back in time.

I assume that the final chapter(s) return to the present-day that the prologue established, but I didn’t make it far enough to find out. I found the story plodding and slow, with far too much focus on “realistic” conversation that seemed endless and ultimately pointless. I cared nothing for any of the characters, therefore I cared nothing for what they were talking (and talking, and talking, and talking) about.

Brideshead Revisited is shelved and there it will stay until, one day, when I once again run out of shelf space, I donate it to the local library.

Title: Just After Sunset
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Scribner
Year Published: 2008

Overview: 4 out of 5
A collection of mostly new short stories. Overall, not as strong as previous collections, but there are a couple of gems here. Most of the stories are new, but there is one, “The Cat From Hell” which is over 30 years old. It’s also my favorite in the collection, and seems in many ways to be very “Poe-esque.” I think I may have even seen the television version of it on Tales from the Darkside he mentions in the notes section at the end of the book, but I can’t be sure of anything further back than Tuesday’s breakfast.

Detail
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating… I’ll read everything Stephen King writes. I may not like everything he writes, but I’ll certainly give him the benefit of the doubt. Such is the effect King’s prose has had on me over the years. And, with the exception of The Stand and The Dark Tower series, I prefer his short fiction over his longer work. That said, it was with great excitement I picked up his latest collection of short stories.

Just After Sunset is King getting back into his groove as far as I am concerned. For the most part, he cruises happily along with stories that do not disappoint, but also just don’t seem to have the same kind of ooomph that his older stories have. There are, however, a couple moments of brilliance.

“N.” is easily the strongest of the new batch of stories. Much of King’s recent longer work has focused on psychological and emotional explorations of his characters. Here he continues that exploration through, of all things, a psychologist’s report on patient “N.” King combines his new focus with his focus of old: the unexplainable and perhaps supernatural. It’s a wonderful tale of obsession and intrigue.

In “Willa,” the first story of the collection, King explores the afterlife. The subtlety of this particular piece is what sets it apart from the others. Rather than keep us locked out of the reality of the situation, this is a new kind of King, I think, one that starts with the door cracked open and lets us peek through at what is really going on with his characters. It’s touching, charming, and, I think, the most endearing piece I the book. It also contains my favorite quote: “Perception isn’t everything. But perception and expectation?”

If “Willa” is the new King, then “Stationary Bike” is a tribute to what first attracted me to King so very many years ago. There are no rules in a story like this. Reality and fantasy blend, and with them goes the “perception and expectation” of the story’s central character, Richard Sifkitz. It is this blending that captured my own imagination in his early collections. Everything about this story just screams vintage King.

In some cases, though, such as the final story, “A Very Tight Place,” King’s absence from the short form is painfully evident. To be completely honest, I was utterly repulsed by this story, and I think that is exactly what King intended. In my mind, it’s the kind of story I’d expect to receive in a freshman creative writing class. Granted the writing is technically superior to anything I’d receive at that level, but the story itself is, quite simply, needlessly gross. Moreover, to end the collection on such a note is to do a disservice to all the stories that preceded it.

Overall, if you enjoy Stephen King, I think you’ll enjoy the stories here. Or, conversely, if you can find the four good ones I mention (“The Cat From Hell,” “N.,” “Willa,” and “Stationary Bike” in other places, definitely pick them up, as they are King at close to his best.

I know I haven’t been posting, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading. I don’t have time to write up full blown reviews for the books of the last couple months, so these little snippets will have to do.

The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil – Epic Poem

You probably remember Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, which told the story of the Trojan War from the Greek point of view. Well, The Aeneid is the other side of the coin. After the sacking of Troy, Aeneas, a Trojan, is tapped on the shoulder by the gods and told to go off and found the city of Rome. It was presented to Alexander and gave the Roman Empire, in general, and Alexander’s lineage, specifically, a divine source. Virgil pulls heavily from Homer and Ovid, creating an almost intertextual epic poem as he uses other works to justify much of his fictional history of Rome.

Away by Amy Bloom – Fiction

I was prepared to dislike this novel from the start. Instead, I ended up loving it. Not so much the story itself, although I thought the second have was significantly more interesting than the first half, but rather, I loved the way in which Bloom told this story. Her implementation of both the flash forward and the flashback are simply masterful, and the narrative is impeccably paced because of it. More important, the techniques Bloom uses are what make the story itself so interesting. Away is an adventure novel, and until the adventure really gets going, the storyline itself falls a bit flat. Once it does, thought, about a quarter of the way in, it is a difficult story to put down.

Between Panic & Desire by Dinty W. Moore – Nonfiction

I absolutely loved this book, and have read it cover to cover three times in the last six weeks. It is chock full of baby boom generational observations and cultural commentary. Far from the style of a traditional memoir, Moore tells his own story experimentally, using devices and structures uncommonly found in nonfiction. He plays with form, and he plays with words, and the end result is an immensely fun and entertaining look at a man who seems to have surprised himself by staying alive.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno by Dante Alighieri – Epic Poem

What can I say… it’s Dante. Take a moment and close your eyes. Ok, wait until after you read this, and then close them. Once they’re closed, picture Hell. Got it? Chances are, whether you have read Inferno or not, your own image of Hell is formed at least partially from this book. That’s the kind of effect this manuscript had on the world. Told in the first person, it is Dante’s account of being escorted through the nine rings of Hell by Virgil. Dante utilizes contemporary events and people to put an almost autobiographical feel to his verse, as much of the inhabitants of Hell are, or were, his contemporaries. It is a wonderful blend of fact and fiction in an effort to increase the sense of veracity throughout his text.

Doctor Faustus­ by Christopher Marlowe – Drama

Another look at Hell, Marlowe takes much of his version from a mixture of Ovid, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. In this play, Faustus sells his soul to the Devil in order to become the most learned man in the world. It’s a wonderful look at the dangers of temptation and pride. Perhaps the most famous question to come out of this text revolves around the reasons for Faustus’ damnation. Is he damned because he is wicked? Or is he wicked because he is damned? A bit chicken or the egg, really, but in my opinion, the answer is there in the text. I’ll leave it to you to find it.

Duma Key by Stephen King – Fiction

Victim of a horrendous construction site accident that takes his right arm and much memory, Edgar Freemantle moves to Duma Key, Florida in an effort to piece his life back together. In classic King fashion, Edgar’s recovery is laced with a curious new ability: a talent for painting. Duma Key is, much like Lisey’s Story, a character driven novel. It’s about recovery and friendship, trust and truth. Until the end, anyway, when it becomes plot driven and looses much of the personal power it had in an effort to explain things. It’s still an enjoyable novel, but I am a firm believer that not everything needs to be wrapped up all the time.

Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart – Memoir

Yes, that Neil Peart. I am conflicted with this one. The first third and the last third is some of the most engaging and, really, inspiring writing I have seen recently. Specifically, the chronicles of his 55,000 mile motorcycle odyssey is breathtaking. I found myself in tears, and I laughed out loud. The conflict comes in the middle third, where Peart relies on letters he sent to various people along his journey, and I almost ended up putting the book down on several occasions. In these letters, there are numerous instances where he tells the same thing to different people, using almost identical verbiage, and it got very old, very fast. And really, I think the letters were a diversion to what the book was about, and ultimately sidetracked what is an otherwise memorable narrative.

The Last Communist Virgin by Wang Ping – Fiction

This collection of linked short stories is a wonderful look at what happens when cultures collide. Ping’s portrayal of the contrasts that torment Chinese immigrants is simply stunning: cultural contrasts, personal contrasts, and emotional contrasts all interwoven into individual stories that both stand on their own as well as unite each other into a single cohesive arc. Ursula K. LeGuin called these types of books “Story Suites” as they fall somewhere between a novel and a collection of short stories. If the links are too strong, they begin to resemble chapters and the “novel” seems lacking. Ping’s links are subtle and strong, not so much providing a direct relationship between the stories (although some of the stories are most definitely directly linked) but rather an overall feeling of cooperation. A wonderful collection whether read and viewed separately or as a whole.

2/5 Memoir of a Misfit­ by Marcia Ford – Memoir

Suffice it to say that I didn’t care for this one. I found the narrator uninspiring and seeming not invested in the stories she was telling. There was a constant state of detachment that affected the overall narrative, and I found myself bored more often than not.

Title: The Book From the Sky
Author: Robert Kelly
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Year Published: 2008

First Line: I’m on my way back.

I don’t get it. I mean, I consider myself a pretty smart guy. Maybe even smarter than the average bear, but there are likely those who would argue that. And I really like science fiction, and weird things that go bump in the night. And I really like abstract tales that take time to coalesce into something firm, complete. That said… I don’t get it.

To be fair, let me start out by saying that there are passages in The Book from the Sky that are simply stunning. There are moments where the images that Robert Kelly manipulates quite simply took my breath away. The manner in which he constructed and manipulated his prose (not to mention the poems published on his website) has convinced me to become familiar with more of his poetry. Which gets at the heart of the issue for me as far as The Book from the Sky is concerned.

Regardless of the prose’s beauty, the story just isn’t there. It is so filled with heightened language and abstractions, that I have no clear idea what it is about, or what Kelly wants me to take away. Even the jacket text on the back cover doesn’t seem to give an accurate summation of the book I read. I got the basics… struggle with identity, boy meets girl, more struggle with identity, yadda yadda… it was actually fairly formulaic as far as that goes. But the presentation so muddied the waters that anything that could have really raised the bar and set it apart from others that use the same formula was lost in the poetry. It never coalesced into something that helps explain what has happened over the course of the previous pages, and what, if any, stance the characters need or seem to take on the multitude of issues.

Rather, I felt incredibly cheated by the shift in POV at the end of the book. A wonderful little relationship had been established, perhaps the single element that made the finishing the book even possible for me, and the change in POV reveals information that casts everything into doubt. The relationship, the state of mind of the characters, the trustworthiness of the narrators, everything was turned upside-down.

There was also a problem, I think, of trying to explore too much. Kelly broaches some heavy topics in here, and he does so in rapid fire succession. Religion, government, identity, creation, procreation, evolution, reincarnation… He fires these off in succession without ever really give his characters time to weigh in on or consider these issues. Neither does he give the reader an opportunity to sit back, say “woah,” and take a breath and think about what he just lay out there on the table. Instead, he changes topic and moves immediately on to something else.

I really wanted to like The Book from the Sky, but in the end it just seemed that it was too much style and not enough substance. There is poetry in Kelly’s prose, to be sure, but the story was too far buried in the poetry for me to enjoy.

Title: Firefly Rain
Author: Richard Dansky
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast: Discoveries
Year Published: 2008

First Sentence: I remember a night when I was six years old the way some folks remember their first kiss.

Richard Dansky’s first original novel, Firefly Rain, is a wonderful tale that follows the tradition of the southern gothic ghost story. And yet it’s not just about ghosts. It’s about relationships, memory, and family. The plot, in brief, is fairly straight forward: A young man, Jacob Logan, has returned to the small town he grew up to collect his thoughts after living and thriving in business. Both his parents have died, but he still has the old family house to stay in. The trouble starts almost the moment he moves back into the house he grew up in. Elements of the supernatural, local legends and myths, and his own repressed memories all combine to weave a mystery that slowly becomes a life-or-death struggle for Logan to solve.

Though the plot is straightforward enough, what stands out most in Firefly Rain is Dansky’s absolutely magnificent pacing. The build he structures from the very first page is simply masterful, and it infects every element of his story. Even the dual love stories are constructed and entwined in such a way that, when they finally intersect, they build off each other rather than play against each other. As Dansky continues to weave his story elements together, the relationships between these elements is what creates the mounting feeling of fear. So while Firefly Rain isn’t really a horror novel, it is a thrilling and often times chilling read.

Another of Dansky’s strengths is his creation of setting and place. True to the southern gothic tradition, the various places that Firefly Rain is set in are as much a character Logan or Carl (the caretaker hired on to manage the family homestead in Logan’s absence). Logan’s house has a life all it’s own, as do various parts of his property and the little town of Maryfield itself. Through the relationships Logan develops with these places, they become an increasingly active and important part of the primary storyline, and the secondary storylines are totally dependent upon the various locations.

There are a few shortcomings to Firefly Rain however. Most importantly, it starts out amazingly slow. The first dozen pages creep along as introductions are made and all the basic elements are put into place. Though Dansky’s pacing is evident even this early, there was just barely enough going on to keep me interested. For the most part it’s all establishing information that Dansky builds upon and refers back to throughout the book. And yet there is a distinct lack of information about the immediate past of Logan. There is precious little backstory given, and the reader is left to build a character from scratch through his actions from the start of the novel on. Normally, this would be a wonderful choice, but without a solid foundation of the big city nature Logan has developed since he left his small hometown, it is difficult to see how much he changes, if at all, as the story progresses. This is particularly important when we get to the final scenes and the eventual obligatory confrontation between the townsfolk and Logan.

Which is one reason the ending fell terribly flat for me. It wasn’t just that I saw it coming a mile a way, which I did, or the loose ends Dansky left dangling, which he does. The primary storyline is, of course, completely resolved. But the secondary storylines are left dangling and feeling incomplete. Specifically, the final outcome of the major relationships, which Dansky crafted so wonderfully throughout the story, are left with no solid resolution because the reader was never really given a firm starting point for Logan’s character. Without that foundation, it’s difficult to see exactly how much Logan has changed over the course of the book. It’s almost as if Dansky were trying to leave himself an out for a possible sequel or prequel, building his own version of Castle Rock or Yoknapatawpha County.

Though it has its problems, Firefly Rain is a solid introductory novel, and, due to the pacing and structure, a really enjoyable read. It’s wonderfully crafted, and the characterizations, for the most part, are explored through charming and believable relationships. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more original Dansky titles in the future.

Title: American Gothic Tales

Editor: Joyce Carol Oates

Publisher: Plume

Year Published: 1996

This huge collection was used as a textbook for one of my graduate classes. The forty-six stories included follow the development and evolution of the Gothic genre from an excerpt of Charles Brockden Brown’s 1798 novel Weiland, or The Transformation through Nicholson Baker’s 1994 short story “Subsoil.” The collection is intended, as far as I can tell, to gather not only the more significant stories of the genre, but also important stories that may typically go unnoticed by most readers. It is the latter of these which makes this collection so special, I think.

When you think of Gothic literature, there are several authors which immediately come to mind. Names like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, HP Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson, and even Stephen King and Peter Straub are just some of the more familiar names. Indeed, King’s story “The Reach” is, I think, one of his finest, and one of the best stories in the collection. These authors have become almost synonymous with the Gothic genre. Stories like “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (Washington Irving), “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Charlotte Perkins Gillman), and “The Black Cat” (Poe) have all but defined the genre and are looked at with monotonous regularity by High Schools and colleges across the country.

There are fine examples from authors you might not expect, however. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is likely the best known of these, as Faulkner has included Gothic elements in many of his works. “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, however, is a wonderful example of the direction the genre went and how it began to become incorporated and even parallel other genres. Other authors known for writing outside the Gothic genre are Harlan Ellison, Don DeLillo, Raymond Carver, and Ursula K. Le Guin (perhaps the most accomplished and versatile author in the collection) have all been included with stories that range from borderline horror and science fiction to the just plain bizarre.

What is perhaps the nicest surprise, though, are the stories that Oates found from authors I am less familiar with. In particular, “Cat in Glass” by Nancy Etchemendy is a hauntingly wonderful story that turned out to be my favorite in the entire collection. Also strong, and significantly strange, is “Ursus Triad: Later” by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg, a superb appropriation of “The Three Bears” fairy tale.

All in all, this is an outstanding collection that serves not only as a chilling, entertaining compilation of short stories, but also as a reference book of some of the most important stories in the evolution of the Gothic genre.