Merry Christmas!

I have family staying until Friday so am taking a short break from my blog (definitely not a long one).

Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it, I hope the holidays are all that you wish for... and feature lots of books!

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The Postal Reading Challenge

Ok, well I think I probably need saving from myself now. I found yet another challenge I want to do! That makes five of them for next year and that doesn't include Carl's Once Upon a Time or RIP. I must be bonkers but what the hell... in for a penny, in for a pound.

This new one is the Postal Reading Challenge which is being hosted by The Indextrious Reader.

What is the Challenge?

The key is to read and review books with a postal theme. These can be non-fiction on the subject of letter writing, collections of real letters, or epistolary fiction of any era. Be creative! Review each one and link back to the challenge -- there will be quarterly roundup posts for you to link reviews and posts to as you create them.

The challenge runs from January 1st, 2014 to December 31st, 2014. You can sign up ANY TIME throughout the year.

Any books chosen can overlap with any other challenge, and rereads are allowed. Just remember to review them somewhere online in order for them to count toward the challenge. Lists don't have to be made in advance, though feel free to share your choices and inspire other readers if you wish! I always think that making lists is half the fun :)


There are a few ways to participate in this challenge.

Postcard Level: Read and review 4 books with a postal theme.

Snail Mail Level: Read and review 8 books with a postal theme.

Parcel Post Level: Read and review 12 books with a postal theme.

Air Mail Express Level: Read and review 12 books with a postal theme AND commit to sending more old fashioned letters this year. At least 12 pieces of mail (or more!), and you can share numbers or even images of your mail art in the quarterly roundups.


I'm going to have a stab at 'Snail Mail' level... reading and reviewing 8 books with a postal theme. I had a quick look at my tbr shelves and came up with seven books straight off:

The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh edited by Charlotte Mosley
Up the Country by Emily Eden
Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen by Fay Weldon
Letters From England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart
The Turkish Embassy Letters by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Up with the Larks Tessa Hainsworth
Jane Austen: Selected Letters by Jane Austen and Vivien Jones

Books I don't own but would like to read:

Letters from Yellowstone by Diane Smith
Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole
The Letters of Noel Coward edited by Barry Day
My Dear Charlotte by Hazel Holt

And no doubt there will be more...

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Dawn

My third book for Carl's Science Fiction Experience is Dawn by Octavia E. Butler.

Lilith Iyapo is 'awakened' on an alien spaceship. It's not the first time she's been awakened but her memories of what happened on previous occasions are a little vague: disembodied voices speaking to her but never answering her questions - where am I? What do you want with me? - strange alien rooms that she has tried to claw her way out of, to no avail. A terrifying nightmare.

She knows and remembers that humanity has destroyed itself in a nuclear war. She was alone anyway, her husband and young son having been killed in a car accident before the nuclear holocaust. Somehow she survived but how she was rescued she doesn't know.

This awakening is different. For the first time she sees one of her alien captors, the Oankali. She finds him grotesque and repellant but knows this is because he is so different. His job is to get her used to his species, speaking to him and touching him without being overwhelmed by her fear. Gradually they establish some kind of relationship and Lilith discovers her fate. It seems that a few humans survived and were saved from the nuclear winter on the planet. Lilith has been on the spaceship for many years, mostly in suspended animation. It seems that she has been deemed suitable to awaken a group of forty humans and is to teach them about the Oankali and lead them back to Earth to begin anew. But why should this alien race go to all this trouble? Is there something in it for them? But, of course...

Goodness me, I seem to have been seeing recommendations for Octavia Butler's work for years. She passed away only a few years ago I think, and if this the quality of writing lost - what a tragedy. I didn't really know what to expect when I started this, my first book by her. I gathered she wrote books from the black female perspective and this is what Dawn is... plus I expected a bit of a feminist slant to the story. Whether that's there or not is open to debate in my opinion. I didn't come away with a great opinion of the men in this novel, but then the women were a mixed bunch too. Lilith is by far and away the most interesting and sympathetic character, closely followed by the Oankali themselves.

Butler, in fact, created a very believable alien race in these books... this is book 1 in the Xenogenisis series... and to be frank I found them more sympathetic than the humans. For one thing this book is, if nothing else, is a study of how groups of people behave in circumstances that are stressful and out of their control... when the experience is prolonged. How they form cliques, create a hierarchy, take sides, find a scapegoat when things are difficult or inexplicable and so on. I found myself getting severely frustrated by the stance adopted by many of the human group, even found myself thinking, 'If they'd ever read any science fiction they might not be behaving in this manner!' Which is silly... which of us has any idea how we would behave in these totally unknown, terrifying and unpredictable circumstances?

Lilith truly did not want this job. She's not hungry for power and is possessed of a great deal of wisdom and tolerance. She can easily see how this could pan out but is frustrated that the alien race are very bad at listening to her. It's a recipe for disaster, but she is still the best person to handle it. It made me consider the kind of people we allow to have power in our various countries and the wisdom of giving it to those who actually *want* it. This is indeed a very thought-provoking book. You can't read it without thinking quite hard about the nature of humanity, power, group-dynamics and so on. The aliens in this book consider humans to have a fatal flaw and if you can read this without at least giving some consideration to the idea that they might be right, you're a better person than me.

Book two in this series is Adulthood Rites. I don't own it yet but believe you me I intend to.

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My Kind of Mystery challenge

Well, here I go again with yet another reading challenge. I'm past caring now, LOL, the more the merrier!

This one is called the My Kind of Mystery challenge and is being hosted by Riedel Fascination.

Mystery needs no murder! Hidden passageways, ancient places, eerie phenomenon… “Dan Brown” meets Nancy Atherton! Gothic greats of the 1960s-1980s, modern releases. I am launching a reading challenge that welcomes the lot: tutorials, mystery author biographies, fiction… Any form of mystery and its authors fit my all-encompassing theme.

The categories are:

Any format.
Any demographic
Non-adult must be published by 1990 or earlier.
Limitless length.
A short story, compilations; bring them to the table!
Reviews wanted.
A link to Goodreads, Book Depository… just to show you finished. One line is fine.

Catch your breath: we launch February 1st, 2014 – February 28th, 2015!

OK, well I've decided to go for the category 'Secret Messages' which is to read 5 to 10 books. A few books I've searched out that fit the challenge:

Touch Not the Cat - Mary Stewart
The Mystery of the Sea - Bram Stoker
The River of Adventure - Enid Blyton (YA)
The Rendezvous and other stories - Daphne du Maurier
Not After Midnight - Daphne du Maurier
Agatha Christie An Autobiography - Agatha Christie
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
The Riddle of the Sands - Erskine Childers
Aoife's Chariot - Katherine Pathak
The Talisman Ring - Georgette Heyer
Whispers in the Sand - Barbara Erskine


Hopefully I will read a few of these... the plan is for this challenge to help me get a few more books off my tbr mountain in fact. But I'm also sure other books will be added to the list as I go along.

Books actually read:

1. The Talisman Ring - Georgette Heyer
2. A Moment of Silence - Anna Dean
3. Touch Not the Cat - Mary Stewart

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The Warrior's Apprentice

My second read for Carl's 2014 Sci-Fi Experience is The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Miles Vorkosigan is the son of an aristocratic family on the planet of Barrayar. Due to something that happened while he was in his mother's womb he was born disabled - thus he is dwarfish and brittle boned. Despite all this he still wants to be an officer in the Barrayaran Military but, obviously, although he has sailed through the accademic exams he's struggling badly with the physical requirements of the training.

Crashing out, Miles is sent off to the planet Beta to visit his grandmother, along with his bodyguard, Bathari, and Bathari's daughter, Elena. Of course it doesn't work out like that. Miles ends up saving a pilot who has holed himself up in his ship and won't come out, by buying the ship and hiring the man. Another man, in different circumstances, an engineer, is also saved by Miles and suddenly he has the start of his own freight business come mercenary force. Along with Bathari and Elena the five of them end up in a war zone where things really turn interesting, because deciding whose side they're on is really difficult...

I'm not sure whether this can be counted as the first book in the Miles Vorkosigan series or not. This is because there is a book, Shards of Honor, that deals with how Miles's parents met and the reason for his disability. I believe some look upon it as a different series (Fantastic Fiction list it as such) or a prequel, but it was actually written in the same year so possibly they're meant to be read one after the other depending on what the reader wants to do. Personally, I wanted to start the series and Shards of Honor had not yet arrived so I read The Warrior's Apprentice first. I'll be able to judge when I've read both whether it makes any difference whatsoever.

This a hugely popular series and I can see why. This first book is a very enjoyable space opera romp... possibly coming into the 'military science fiction' category too. I'm not sure that would normally be my thing as I'm not hugely into war stories or battle scenarios. But Miles is an excellent character, reminding me at times of Star Trek's Captain Kirk with his charismatic personality, and that saves it completely in my eyes. I love the fact that Lois McMaster Bujold was bold enough to make him disabled. How very much more interesting is he in his thinking when you can share his unbidden thoughts about his disability and how he can cope with physical challenges or the manner in which he is treated differently to everyone else. For me this was probably the best element to this book. That said, I also enjoyed its other-worldliness... I always enjoy this characteristic of sci-fi novels... build me a convincing alien planet with weird customs and I'm always a happy bunny. It's the reason I read this genre if I'm completely honest, and it's very well done here.

Obviously, I'll be continuing on with this new to me series. I have a couple of other sci-fis I want to read first but will definitely be reading Shards of Honor within the confines of The Sci-Fi Experience.

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Books read in November

Last month was rather a slow reading month for me it seems... though it certainly did not seem like it at the time. I read five books, a little less than my average six to eight, but that's fine, I no longer stress over numbers and prefer to deliberate more over whether I actually enjoyed what I read. And the answer to that is 'Yes, I did'.

Here are those five books:

75. The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. The author travels from London, right across Europe and Asia to Japan and back again via Siberia. I found this a bit slow at times, at other times it was very interesting particularly when dealing with the people he met. I got an excellent idea of the frozen wastes of Siberia from it and that's mainly what I remember best about this travelogue.

76. The Dragon's Eye by Dugold A. Steer. A YA fantasy, recommended by my grand-daughter and I have to say I enjoyed it rather a lot. Lot's of skullduggery regarding dragons.

77. Last Wool and Testament by Molly MacRae. Crafty crime yarn (sorry...) Very enjoyable.

78. Dolphins Under the Bed by Sandra Clayton. Part one of a trilogy of sailing travel books, of course I read book two first... typical. Enjoyed this one just as much anyway. It charts the couple's first trip down the north coast of France, across the Bay of Biscay, along the Spanish and Portuguese coast to the Med. Very chatty style of writing and nice descriptions of the coastal areas of various countries. Annoyingly the library does not have book three. In my opinion this is a heinous crime and ought to be punishable by something very nasty indeed.

79. Helliconia Spring by Brian W. Aldiss. My first book for Carl's Sci-Fi Experience.

So, five books ranging from good, to very good, to 'amazing'. Which book was amazing and therefore my favourite book of the month? Helliconia Spring. It reminded me why I love classic science fiction SO much and that I really must read a lot more of it next year.

I'm currently reading two books. The first is, Jaguars Ripped my Flesh by Tim Cahill. This is a book of travel 'essays' really. He's had adventures all over the world and written a number of very good books about his travels and experiences. Enjoying this very much. And secondly, The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold. I'm fair galloping through this one as it's a wildly entertaining space opera romp. There are a lot more in this series and I can see me reading quite a few of them next year.

So, here we are in December once again. I say 'once again' because I can't believe how quickly this year has flashed by. It's frightening. Never mind... there are always good books to read and thank goodness for that.

Happy December and 'Christmas' reading for those that do that. I have one or two myself that I might indulge in.

~~~oOo~~~

Helliconia Spring

Well, Carl's Sci-Fi Experience 2014 doesn't officially begin until Sunday but, unable to resist the temptation, I started my first book over a week ago.

Helliconia Spring, by Brian W. Aldiss, is science fiction on a huge canvas. This is in fact the first part of a trilogy and the most important thing to understand is the astromony of the system to which the planet of Helliconia belongs. It's one of several planets that revolve around the star, Batalix. All of these in turn revolve around a much bigger star, Freyr. Helliconia is a planet with two suns. What this means for this inhabited planet is that basically it has two years. One is around the same length as ours - slightly longer - and the other is over 1,800 years long. What prevails, climate-wise is the year that is 1,800 years long, which means that the seasons they get are each nearly 500 years in length.

Their winters are like an ice-age, their summers unbearably hot to the point of extinction of huge numbers of the population. In the space of one of these centuries long 'years', whole civilisations rise and then are brought to the edge of extinction again.

When the book begins a young human boy, Yuli, is out hunting with his father. It seems like the dead of a snow and ice filled winter but in fact, unbeknown to them, it is not. The endless winter is coming to an end. They of course know nothing about this. They need food to take back to Yuli's mother who is ill. A massive herd of grazing beasts passes them and a few days later while harvesting the fallen and trampled animals, Yuli's father is taken prisoner by Phagors, the other sentient beings on the planet. Yuli is now alone with nowhere to go.

The boy wanders and eventually ends up in Pannoval, a city built under a mountain. Eventually the boy becomes a priest to try and discover some of the secrets of the city. It's hinted that there are places where the secrets of the history of the planet can be found, but are there?

Yuli's descendants in the town of Oldorando will be the people who experience the huge climate changes that the planet of Helliconia is now undergoing. And it's the women with their thirst for knowledge who will try to change the way humans think and act and who will aim once more at a modern civilisation for the population.

Very, very hard to do this book any justice at all. As I said before it's a painting on a huge canvas. If you're looking for a fast paced, exciting science fiction novel to read then this is probably not it. The story deals with several generations of the same primitive family living in conditions similar to early Native American Indians... and probably those living in the frozen wastes of Canada - at the start anyway. As the weather warms up things begin to change but attitudes remain entrenched... the women do the work while the men hunt. Thus it has always been and thus it will always stay if the men have their way. It's up to the women to try and introduce education but it's an uphill struggle and I found it a very interesting process to follow. Rather frustrating at times as you know the women are right but the men are not good at listening.

Along with all this we learn that orbiting the planet is a space-city peopled with Terrans, and that they are watching and recording events on the planet. They know that the Phagors who kidnapped Yuli's father are carrying a disease. They know what will happen as the climate warms. And thus, little dribs and drabs of information are fed to the reader regarding astronomy, the science of the planet, diseases endemic to the world and so on. It's all utterly fascinating... well I found it so anyway. It might not be to everyone's taste but this mix of factual science and a character-driven narrative suited me right down to the ground.

The world-building in the book is some of the best I've ever encountered. I'm a bit of a sucker for a good alien world anyway... possibly it could have been a trifle more alien as it does read rather like Earth during the Ice-Age... but I found enough differences to keep me happy and mysteries enough to keep me absorbed. There's a lot you're not told that's presumably being kept for successive books. Basically, this is a 'Rise and Fall of Civilisation' book... I gather Brian Aldiss was/is (he's still alive and writing) very interested in that theme.

At 550 pages this is quite a chunky read. The slowness of it might put some people off too; it isn't a quick read, partly because of its length and partly because of all the detail. It's densely written and you need to concentrate while reading. But oh goodness, is it worth sticking with it. I finished this book days ago and am still thinking about it, wondering what the next two books, Helliconia Summer and Helliconia Winter, will hold and whether they'll answer various questions. I now have both books and intend reading at least one more for the sci-fi experience. These books are from the early to mid-1980s and part of me wishes I'd read them earlier as I did know about them. The rest of me is actually grateful I didn't as I'm certain my reading brain is far more mature than it was 30 years ago and I'm not at all sure I would have appreciated this book as much back then as I do now.

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