Gruner Veltliner
This grape doesn't need the oak.
White wine -- refreshing.

It's funny how you find out about authors. I don't remember how I first stumbled across papersky's journal, but the entry was interesting, so I added her to my reading list. Then I read several of her thoughtful reviews over on tor.com. All in all, I decided I would not be sorry if I picked up some of her books, and I haven't been. I read Farthing and Ha'penny first, and am now working my way through her backlist.

Tooth and Claw is very different from the Small Change series, and indeed, from any other book I've read. In the introduction, Walton acknowledges a debt to Trollope's Framley Parsonage. I haven't read much Trollope (shame!) so I was reminded more of Austen. (Frelt in particular reminded me of Mr. Collins.) Some of the themes are familiar to Austen: class differences are obstacles to romance, financial concerns weigh heavily upon marriages, inheritances are up in the air. However, all the characters are dragons.

The book opens on a death. Bon Agornin, patriarch of the Agornin family, is close to death and concerned with leaving adequate provision for his family. His two elder children are well established and have no need for much in the way of an inheritance: Penn is a pastor with a wife and two children, while Berend has married well, to the Illustrious Daverak. These two are to have a token rememberence from his hoard and leave the rest to the three younger children, who need it more. Selendra and Haner, the two maidens, are to be separated upon their father'd death, while their brother Avan will return to his life in the city. Daverak shocks the family when he accedes to the division of the gold, but takes more than his fair share of the remainder of their inheritance: Bon Agornin's body.

Dragons only grow larger, and thus increase in social status, when they feed on their dead. Weak dragons are culled and eaten by the lord of their domain; lower-class dragons can go throughout life without ever tasting dragon flesh. Upper-class dragons, however, leave their bodies to their families (minus the eyes, which go to the parson,) so that they may increase in both size and social standing, as they will not on beef and fruit alone. Daverak gives Bon's liver to his children, and then greedily consumes more than his share of the rest of the body, stinting the younger dragons. Incensed, Avan brings a law suit against his brother-in-law, and from there, the book tracks the rise and fall in fortune of the individual members of the family as they seek justice and adjust to their new statuses in the aftermath of their father's death.

Walton excels at making the draconic society vivid and believable, with biological reasons for their mores to parallel those of Victorian England. The juxtaposition of the concern with matrimony and inheritance with the brutal and cannibalistic dragon society is startling and engrossing. She drops in background gracefully, so that as the story unfurls, so does the reader's understanding of the consequences of the characters' actions. The story concludes with rewards and punishments appropriate to each character's arc, just as the reader gets a wider glimpse of changes ahead for dragon society. I don't know that Walton has any intention of returning to this world -- the book doesn't feel like the beginning of a series -- but I'd be delighted if she did.

I just wrote a review of Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw, only to have my computer freak out in a most annoying fashion. At least it warned me that it was freaking out. I took pictures of the screen before I rebooted, but I'm not going to type it up again right this second. Too annoyed.

But I enjoyed the book greatly.

I just finished a reread of Season One of Shadow Unit, which can be read in its entirety for free at that location, or downloaded in a multitude of formats here, courtesy of arachnejericho. Shadow Unit is a collaborative project headed by Emma Bull, with Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Will Shetterly, Amanda Downum, and Leah Bobet (so far) all writing episodes either individually or together.

The Behavioral Analysis Unit is a subdivision of the FBI, in charge of anomalous crimes. The anomaly isn't entirely understood, but it manifests in individuals as a gift, an inexplicable ability. (Some examples: the ability to pass unnoticed, the ability to shoot someone without a bullet.) These individuals are referred to as gammas, and part of the anomaly seems to be a tendency towards causing destruction and pain. Normal humans are alphas. The team has two betas, people with anomalous abilities, but internal manifestations, and no desire to wreak havoc. It's The X-Files meets Criminal Minds, more or less, and it's fantastic. Part of the fun is getting to spend time with each member of the team, from that person's point of view; it really is an ensemble cast.

The premise of Shadow Unit is that it's fanfiction for a tv show that never existed. Each novella-length episode follows the structure of a tv show, and each one is self-contained (the season finale being the exception) but contributes to an overall arc. One of the joys of the show is piecing together character backstory over the course of the season, while tracing forward character development. And because it's fanfiction for a show that doesn't exist, the writers get delightfully meta with the concept. There are hidden dvd Easter Eggs in each episode, and teasers and deleted scenes between episodes. Some of the hidden treasures are actor interviews, or pages from the shooting script. Some kind souls at the Shadow Unit Wiki have put together a list of the chronological order of all the extras and episodes.

The mystery of the anomaly is part of the fun of the worldbuilding, and I'll be curious to see how that unfolds over future seasons. More than that, though, I'm invested in what happens to the characters. The Shadow Unit writers have shown themselves to be ruthless with regard to what happens to the BAU team -- and honest about the consequences of their ruthlessness, both physical and emotional. If you haven't had a chance to check out Shadow Unit, I highly recommend it. New episodes of Season Two air the first Sunday of every month, with extra content airing every Sunday, but definitely start with Season One.

Day later reaction: still love it, minor caveats.

( spoilers ahoy below the cut )

Wines I've enjoyed lately, along with the price point at my local shop.

Yellow + Blue Torrontes, $11.99


Distinctive white wine.
Argentina's grapes taste like
Grapefruit; also, floral.

This box wine's not gross.
It's environmentally
Friendly (and holds more.)


Protocolo (2006) $6.99

A full-bodied red --
Black cherry, but not jammy.
Mmmmm, tempranillo.


Dona Paula Los Cardos Malbec, $6.99

My favorite grape,
If I had to pick -- malbec!
Big, dark, full-bodied.


Marqus de Caceres Rioja Rose, &8.99

A good summer wine-
Don't be afraid to drink pink.
It's crisp, and not sweet.

Cast in Shadow, Cast in Courtlight, and Cast in Secret are all collected in the Chronicles of Elantra Bundle for the Kindle. Kindle users: it's cheaper to buy them all separately, and you don't get the individual covers in the bundle. Cast in Fury is the fourth book, and the fifth, Cast in Silence, comes out in August.

The books are a combination of fantasy and police procedural. I'd call them urban fantasy, in that the action is urban and couldn't be set anywhere but in the city of Elantra. Six races inhabit the city: humans, Leontines, Aerians, Barrani, Tha'alani, and Dragons. The first book introduces the world, and each book after that focuses more-or-less on one of the other races. With each book, the scope of the city grows, as Kaylin and the reader explore more of it.

All Kaylin Neya wants after clawing her way out of a terrible childhood in the fiefs is to be a Hawk, one of three arms of the law in Elantra. When a series of crimes exactly like the ones that haunted her last year in the fiefs strikes the children of the city, she's sent to investigate. The investigation brings her into contact with figures from her past: Severn Handred and Lord Nightshade, the Barrani lord of the fief of the same name. What very few people know is that she is marked with tattoos on her arms and legs and possessed of a rare magical gift: she can heal. Cast in Shadow explores the connection between Kaylin's marks and the murders, and of course, follows Kaylin as she searches for the murderer.

After the events of the first book, it's becoming clear to some of the other characters that Kaylin is something special. She learns more about her own abilities in Cast in Courtlight, when she's summoned to the Barrani court to help prevent a murder just in time for the changing of the High Lord and the Consort -- that of the heir apparent.

Cast in Secret takes Kaylin to the Tha'alani quarter. Kaylin has a fear of the race of mindreaders, but faces her distaste to help find one of their missing children. The missing child is part of a larger plot that endangers the city.

Cast in Fury explores some of the consequences of averting the disaster of the last book. To complicate matters, Kaylin's Leontine Sergeant has been arrested for murder. Jaylin has to placate the new sergeant while trying to prove the innocence of her friend and protect his family.

Kaylin is an intriguing protagonist, with flaws that make her more interesting. Because of her own childhood, she's protective of children, regardless of their race. She's imbued with unusual abilities that make her a tempting piece in the power plays of those above her in the social hierarchy. She acts (and talks) before she thinks, she's hasty, and perpetually tardy. Her biggest blind spot lies in her refusal to educate herself about the city she lives in and the races that inhabit it until forced to. Similarly, she wants nothing to do with magic until she realizes she has no choice but to learn about it. If she can ignore an unpleasant reality, she will.

Sagara is very good at the slow reveal. Kaylin reveals her past a bit at a time. Severn's introduction is a difficult bar to overcome to make his character likeable, but Sagara handles the changes in their relationship believably, with their past connection both an impediment to their friendship and the basis of it. The world building comes across in the same way, mysteries revealed only at the proper time.

In the introduction to Cast in Fury, Sagara writes that she hopes each book can stand alone. I think they could, so far. However, the books paint a broader picture together, and it's worth reading them in order to see the scope of the subtle changes in the characters. These subtle changes and the fantastic world building will definitely bring me back to Elantra in August, and I'm looking forward to reading Sagara's other works.

I'm a bit pressed for time at the moment, so instead of doing an actual review, I'm just going to make a recommendation for any coffee lovers who happen to be in the Birmingham area:

O'Kafes Coffee. Their tropical rum flavored coffee is my favorite. Pumpkin spice and Snickerdoodle also rock. Not too strong a flavor, not too little, and not sweet.

Also, they will ship it to you.

The King of Persia, by Walt Holcombe, is no longer in print, but it's been collected, along with some of his other work, in Things Just Get Away from You. (The serial Poot, also collected there, is worth looking at as well.)





Faisal, the titular king, falls in love from afar with Ayyala, a peasant who speaks the language of animals (as does the king.) She dreams of an emerald and falls ill, telling the king that she will marry him if he brings it to her. Faisal and his love-struck camel, Jamila, seek the emerald on the advice of a djinn that lives in the desert. In the course of their search, they find a magical kingdom far from Persia.





The King of Persia is a gem of a book. The black and white artwork is whimsical and lush, with lovely crosshatching. The dialogue ranges from lyrical to comical within the same page, or even the same panel. There are wordless sequences in which the strength of the artwork shines.

The story is bittersweet. Faisal says, "I pray my emptiness has not deformed me." Instead, his emptiness deforms those around him. Although a slight book, it's packed full of humor and melancholy, each strengthened by its juxtaposition with the other.

World's End, by Mark Chadbourne, is the first book of the Age of Misrule trilogy, in which the old fairy tales are returning to Britain, bringing about the end of the Age of Reason.

In London, Jack Churchill and Ruth Gallagher witness a brutal murder that leaves them both unconscious and with no memory of the murderer. The come to realize that the perpetrator was unnatural, and that more instances of the supernatural are occurring all over Britain, along with intermittent failures of technology. The two of them leave London to look for answers. As they travel, they're pursued by the frightening Fomorii and their vile allies. They meet a few helpful people along the way and come to realize that they're two of five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons -- fated to stand against the horrors invading the world. Their task is to collect four items of great magical significance, hidden in ancient sites of power. Along the way, some beneficent creatures offer help, but of course, they're few and far between compared to the evil ones.

Chadbourne has clearly done a huge amount of research into Celtic mythology and Arthurian legend, weaving folklore into a secret history. The result is a layered, complex world invaded by gruesome terrors, but lit with occasional moments of awe and beauty. The protagonists, Church, Ruth, Laura, Shavi, and Veitch, are flawed people thrust into a position of responsibility, doing the best they can against overwhelming odds. Their acceptance of their situation builds at realistic pace, contrasting nicely to the descent of the world into supernatural terror and technological failure. The relationships between the five of them are shifting and not without tensions.

Another strength of the book is the atmosphere of desperation, as humanity becomes less and less able to stand against an invasion of powerful, frightening creatures with no regard for human life. The feeling is of an insidious cataclysm, creeping up despite their best efforts. The tension ratchets up throughout the book, the stakes increasing the more the protagonists know. This will undoubtedly continue in Darkest Hour and Always Forever, books two and three, which will be out in June and July.

Sample Chapters available here

Linda Medley's Castle Waiting collects her first two graphic novels (The Curse of Brambly Hedge and The Lucky Road into one beautifully designed volume. It's a hardcover with a ribbon bookmark and 457 pages of glorious black and white illustration. The individual issues that make up this book ran over ten years and several different publishers.

The Brambly Hedge section is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. What happens to all the rest of the inhabitants of the castle when the princess takes off to marry the prince? In this case, they turn the castle into a sanctuary, the eponymous Castle Waiting. Medley is more interested in exploring what happens after the fairy tales are over. (The three little pigs open the Wolf's Head Inn, for example.)

The next section introduces Jain, who has heard of Castle Waiting from her late father, a merchant, and sets off to find it. She's pregnant and on the run from her abusive husband. When she gets to the castle, she meets its eccentric inhabitants, including the steward, Adjutant Rackham, and a nun from the Order of Solicitines (motto: "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"), Sister Peace. The story of how she became a nun makes up the third section, told to Jain on a rainy day.

The artwork is absolutely charming, hearkening back to older pen-and-ink styles, but with a cartoony touch to it. The characters are individually realized, both by the art and the writing. The characters drive the story. The story doesn't, however, wrap up in this one volume; Fantagraphics is publishing volume 2 as individual issues. I hope they collect it in a single book like this one at the end of this run, as it is both lovely and convenient.

This would be a good comic book to give to younger people, perhaps especially if you know a girl who likes comics but is turned off by more mainstream fare. There are a few scenes of violence, but most of it occurs offstage. The twining of th fairy tales with the story is deftly and delightfully done.

I love this series. I have read and re-read it over the years. (The book came out in 2006, but I have the previous graphic novels, and a few of the individual issues, too.) It's one that I come back to every few years because I love the characters and the world, and want to visit them again. I hadn't been following volume 2, but I see that Fantagraphic has a bundle of the first ten issues, so I probably won't wait for the collection to come out before catching up.

Alien Express (2005)

Last night, we happened upon a SciFi (SyFy?) original movie, Alien Express. It wasn't even so bad it was good; it was just so bad, it was bad.

A meteorite hits a train carrying a senator (Barry Corbin) and his staff to Las Vegas for a rally. Aliens take over the train and start killing people. Also, there's a terrorist on the train for some reason.

Lou Diamond Phillips stars as a law enforcement officer who realizes there's something wrong after the train stops (as a train would, when smacked by a meteor, I suppose.) To complicate matters, his ex-wife is on the train. Todd Bridges plays a security officer, and he and LDP try to save lives as the alien menace becomes apparent.

The set-up is just an excuse for everyone to run around on the train while being attacked by some of the most gloriously craptacular special effects on film. The aliens clearly originate from the planet Latex. Their superpower is moving really quickly. The train set is only convincing from the inside, apparently, because the effects department used a model for the exterior shots half the time, and some deeply unconvincing CGI the rest.

The dialogue was astonishing, with gems such as: "Are you sure about this?" "Way past sure!" and "I'm kicking some alien ass!" The movie did win my love when the lady on the end of the train help line expressed a further plot complication as a word problem:
"If train A is moving West at 70 miles per hour, and train B is ahead of it on the track, moving at 50 miles per hour, how long will it take until they collide?" Beautiful.

I find really bad movies compelling, in a way. We watched until the bitter end. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, unless you have the same perverse fascination with crappy cinema.

Happy May Day!

Inspired by Maureen Johnson's Blog Every Day in April (BEDA), I am doing Review Every Day in May (REDM). May is Stuff I Like Month over here. Probably it will mostly be books, because that's how I roll, as the kids say (do the kids still say that?), but who knows. It could be anything. Comic books. Movies. TV shows. Flea medicine.

My inaugural review is Silver Phoenix, by Cindy Pon:

Silver Phoenix is Cindy Pon's debut novel, set in the Kingdom of Xia. Ai Ling's parents have arranged a betrothal for her, but at the disastrous first meeting, her fiancé rejects her and she discovers a new ability; she can hear the thoughts of those around her. Her father, Master Wen, is called away to the imperial palace. What should have been a journey of two months drags out to seven with no word from Master Wen, and Ai Ling and her mother are beset with worry and debt. When a questionable merchant pays court, Ai Ling runs away in search of her father.

Ai Ling quickly discovers that not only do supernatural creatures inhabit the world around her, they're targeting her for reasons unknown. Her only defense is a jade necklace her father gave her before he left. A monster drags her into a pond and the necklace's mystical powers save her from drowning, with the help of a fellow traveler, Chen Yong. Chen Yong is half-Xian, half-foreign, and looking for information about his parents. After a number of setbacks, they decide to travel together to the palace, joined by Chen Yong's adoptive brother, Li Rong.

The three teenagers discover that there are benevolent supernatural forces at work in the world as well as evil ones, some bent on guiding them to the palace, and some trying to keep them from their goal.

Silver Phoenix moves quickly, packed full of action. The monsters disgust and the fantastic delights. Ai Ling is an engaging protagonist, whose moral sense about when it's right to use her ability develops throughout the book. Pon handles the romantic thread with a light touch. The primary plot is resolved satisfyingly, with a few loose threads for the sequel. I'm curious whether Chen Yong or Ai Ling will narrate in the second book; either way, I really look forward to it.

I read this on my Kindle, in the interests of immediate gratification. I wish the publisher had provided a b&w scan of the awesome cover art in it, and the chapter headings, which , from reading Cindy Pon's website, she painted herself. So if book packaging appeals to you, by all means get this as a paper book rather than an ebook.