3.5 stars for this 1947 thriller/suspense novel, set in the mountains of Italy in the post-WWII era ... so it’s [image] The Dolomite mountains in Italy
3.5 stars for this 1947 thriller/suspense novel, set in the mountains of Italy in the post-WWII era ... so it’s a safe bet that there will be a bunch of Nazis menacing our hero. British journalist Neil Blair, recently released (demobbed) from the army, is having a hard time finding a decent job. He happens to run into his former superior officer, Engles, who offers him a job ostensibly writing a film script in an isolated ski chalet in the Dolomites, but Blair’s real job is to keep his eyes open and report anything unusual. If a usable script comes out of the trip too, so much the better.
Turns out there’s an awful lot to report. Something valuable is stashed up in those mountains in or near the chalet, and there are several different players who will stop at nothing to get their hands on it.
The Lonely Skier shows its age sometimes, with stereotypical characters. But the thriller parts are generally done well, with the exception of a scene or two that I found too hard to swallow. Still, there’s a really hair-raising chase in the snowy, foggy mountains that I won’t soon forget, and a solid ending with a good twist.
This review is only for Intruders from the Stars, a 1944 novella that's currently a Retro Hugo nominee. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature, aloThis review is only for Intruders from the Stars, a 1944 novella that's currently a Retro Hugo nominee. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature, along with a link to Internet Archive if you really want to read it. But I can't recommend it!
I have never seen a published work with so many exclamation points. There are dozens of them — on Every! Single! Page! This is one seriously overwrought novella, with tons of purple prose. It stars Bess-Istra, a gorgeous (of course) and megalomaniacal Queen of All She Surveys, who loses a battle against rebels on her home planet and takes off in a spaceship with her remaining (more or less) loyal soldiers to take over another planet 13 light years away.
Their scientist uses a sleeping gas to put everyone on the ship into suspended animation for the trip. Because of Reasons, they miss the planet they were aiming for and, many millennia later, land on Earth during WWII. Bess-Istra promptly moves to take over the Earth.
This novella features another those tough, highly competent guys so popular in Golden Age SF, a war correspondent in this case, who falls in love with Bess-Istra even though he knows she’s bad news (not to mention being, you know, an actual space alien, though she conveniently speaks English). When I hit the phrases “her breast heaving” on the third page and “her glorious, scarlet lips” on the page after that, used in a completely unironical way, I knew we were in trouble. It never really gets any better from there.
The only part that engaged me was the brief explanation of how and why they missed the other planet they were aiming for. :)...more
Subterranean Press is reissuing Connie Willis’s moody and bleak 1991 novella Jack, which w4.5 stars! Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Subterranean Press is reissuing Connie Willis’s moody and bleak 1991 novella Jack, which was a finalist for the Nebula and Hugo awards and has appeared in several anthologies over the years. It’s set during the London Blitz in WWII, one of Willis’ favorite settings for her works, including the time-travel novels Blackout and All Clear and the Nebula and Hugo award-winning novelette "Fire Watch". Once again, there’s something peculiar going on during the Blitz … but this time it’s not just time travelers visiting from the future.
Jack Harker is part of a squad of air raid wardens, charged with helping to put out the fires caused by German incendiary bombs and digging survivors out of the rubble left by explosive bombs. Their group is joined by a new part-timer, Jack Settle, who proves to be unusually good at finding live people who are trapped under the rubble. But Jack Harker can’t help but think there’s something suspicious about the new Jack. He never shares the group’s food, even when it’s a special treat; he works during the night and disappears at dawn.
Jack has a sense of mystery about it, although Willis doesn’t try especially hard to hide the answer. On rereading Jack for the first time in many years, I noticed all of the hints that Willis strews around like so many breadcrumbs. References to churches, the “walking dead” (exhaustion caused by lack of sleep, poor nutrition and anxiety), allusions to places and even characters’ names (seriously, take a hard look at the names!): all combine to create an increasing sense of anxiety and dread, compounded by the Nazis’ constant bombing.
But in the final analysis it’s not the particular mystery of “who or what is Jack Settle?” that Willis focuses on, but how the events in this novella affect Jack Harker and those around him. The name “Jack” isn’t all he shares with the man of whom he is so distrustful. And there are many ways for people to be monstrous, as well as human. The ending is gut-wrenching. It’s a finely crafted novella.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Thanks!...more
Sam Kean, who wrote the delightfully informative Caesar’s Last Breath in 2017 about the topic of gases, inclReview first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Sam Kean, who wrote the delightfully informative Caesar’s Last Breath in 2017 about the topic of gases, including a section on nuclear bombs, delves more deeply into the history of the atomic bomb in The Bastard Brigade. Though the subtitle might lead one to presume that it focuses solely on the Allies’ Alsos mission, the group charged with thwarting Nazi Germany’s development of the atomic bomb, this book is much more wide-ranging in its topics. The Bastard Brigade is a sweeping account of the development of nuclear physics prior to and during WWII, the race to develop a working atomic bomb, and finally the Alsos mission itself.
Part I, set during the prewar years to 1939, introduces readers to the various personalities who will be significant to this slice of history, along with some of the physics discoveries of the time. In particular, we meet Moe Berg, a Jewish major league baseball player from Newark who found he had a taste for international intrigue; the French wife-husband scientist team of Irène (daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie) and Frederic Joliot-Curie; and Boris Pash (originally Pashkovsky), a refugee from the Russian Revolution who became a high school P.E. and science teacher and, eventually, the leader of the Alsos mission. There are many more scientists, including Werner Heisenberg, Enrico Fermi, and Samuel Goudsmit (who later becomes part of Alsos). And, I suspect just because his name and story are so recognizable, there’s also Joe Kennedy Jr., JFK’s older brother who was (according to Kean) obsessed with proving himself a war hero and outshining his younger brother.
With Part II we launch into the WWII years, with a focus on the groundbreaking physics discoveries of many different scientists around the world. The Germans got off to a substantial head start in nuclear weapons research and development, enough to deeply alarm the Allies, who soon threw tremendous resources into their own nuclear programs. At the same time America was working on developing the atomic bomb, it was also assembling a group of scientists, soldiers and spies and sending them on missions in Nazi territory aimed at scuttling Germany’s nuclear program, whether by stealing uranium, sabotaging manufacturing facilities, trying to convince German scientists to defect, or other efforts.
The Alsos mission wasn’t created until late 1943. This part of the story begins at the end of Part IV, on page 253, more than halfway through the book, although there are several prior missions against Germany’s nuclear bomb program. The most intriguing of these are the British and Norwegian operations in 1942 and 1943 aimed at sabotaging a Nazi-held heavy water plant in Vemork, Norway ― a deadly mission for many men.
Kean relates these and other events in an informal, accessible way, focusing on the most interesting events and the personalities of the various players. Though there’s a detailed index and list of sources, this is not a scholarly text. I did sometimes wonder about Kean’s blithe recreation of long-ago conversations and his conclusions about personal motivations, like Joe Kennedy Jr.’s supposed obsession with outdoing his younger brother’s heroics. Though The Bastard Brigade’s subtitle suggests (a) that this book is all about Alsos, and (b) that Alsos actually did sabotage Germany’s atomic bomb, the book’s scope is far broader than that, and the actual degree of success of the sabotage efforts (and their significance with respect to the end result of the German nuclear program) is much more nuanced. The subtitle is a bit misleading, is what I guess I’m saying.
The Bastard Brigade is more in the nature of a traditional historical book than Kean’s previously-published popular science books. Personally I didn’t find it quite as appealing as Caesar’s Last Breath, but it was informative and kept my attention. I’d give this book a strong thumbs up for readers who are interested in learning more about the development of nuclear physics and bomb technology, and about Germany’s WWII atomic bomb program and the Allied efforts to sabotage it.
Initial post: Woohoo, I just got a hardback ARC! Sam Kean wrote the amazing Caesar's Last Breath and I was absolutely delighted when the publisher offered me his latest book!
Now I just have to keep my husband (a WWII buff) from stealing this one until I'm done. :)...more
[image] This is a fictionalized account of a real-life girl in post-WWII Japan, who begins to suffer the aftereffects of radiation poisoning from the b[image] This is a fictionalized account of a real-life girl in post-WWII Japan, who begins to suffer the aftereffects of radiation poisoning from the bomb that hit Hiroshima at the end of the war. Her quest to fold a thousand origami cranes begins with the gift of one gold paper crane.
[image]
Sadako Sasaki is an energetic 12 year old Japanese girl, who was just a toddler in 1945 when her town of Hiroshima was hit by the atomic bomb. Now it’s 1955, and Sadako is starting to have dizzy spells. Diagnosed with leukemia, a long-term after-effect of radiation poisoning, Sadako pins her hope on the legend that if a sick person folds one thousand origami cranes, the gods will grant her wish to be healthy again. Sadako sets to work, diligently folding hundreds of paper cranes, but she’s getting weaker and weaker.
It's a tearjerker of a story, bolstered by an anti-war message. Seriously, I needed several tissues for the last half of the book. Unfortunately the story is fictionalized in some key respects(view spoiler)[- most significantly, the story says that Sadako dies before she completed her goal, and that her schoolmates finished up for her; Sadako’s brother has stated that she actually folded about 1400 cranes before she died (hide spoiler)]. The book and its message are simple and straightforward. Whether or not you think the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary to end WWII, it’s a powerful reminder of the cost of war and its innocent victims.
[image] The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, topped with a statue of Sadako and a crane.
This book was a Christmas gift from a friend who’s a teacher. Thanks, Janet!...more
4+ stars. This historical novel of WWII focuses on an unusual aspect of the war: the British women who were deployed to France under Britain's Special4+ stars. This historical novel of WWII focuses on an unusual aspect of the war: the British women who were deployed to France under Britain's Special Operations Executive or SOE program to work with the Resistance as radio operators, saboteurs, and couriers.
[image] Real-life SOE agent Christine Granville with members of the French Resistance in 1944
Most of the reason for this dangerous venture is that most men were too suspiciously visible in France (since most men were off at war). It was a highly perilous job for these women.
"You're transmitting in Occupied France and the Germans will do anything to stop you." Then her expression grew serious. "Six weeks."
"Excuse me?"
"That's the average life expectancy of a radio operator in France. Six weeks."
We follow this group of women - especially Marie, a young single mother - as they are recruited, go through intensive training, and then are sent over to France ... fully prepared or not.
This is also a dual timeline novel, but not quite like any I've ever read before. The secondary timeline is only a couple of years later, in 1946, when Grace Healey, a young American war widow, finds an abandoned suitcase in Grand Central Terminal in NYC, and impulsively takes a set of a dozen photographs of women from the suitcase. When she tries to return the photos later, the suitcase is gone, and this sends her on a search for the owner of the suitcase and the story behind the women in the photos.
Excellent but heart-wrenching historical fiction. I recommend it.
Bonus material: There's an excellent web page, The Female Spies of the SOE, that tells the true stories of several of the 55 women who served as SOE agents, including Noor Inayat Khan, who was executed in Dachau after being captured and betrayed, and Nancy Grace August Wake, given the nickname “the white mouse” by the Gestapo "because of her uncanny ability to evade capture. When she learned one of the resistance groups no longer had a radio for communication, she rode almost 300 kilometers on a bicycle to make radio contact with the SEO headquarters and arrange for an equipment drop. Despite many close calls, Wake survived the war."
I received a free copy of this book for review from the publisher. Thank you!!
Content notes: wartime violence and death. Otherwise this is pretty much clean....more
Tor online freebie: a bleak, harsh story about a group of time travelers trying to delay the end of the world, with a thread of hope running through iTor online freebie: a bleak, harsh story about a group of time travelers trying to delay the end of the world, with a thread of hope running through it. It's a thought-provoking story, though it does have a bit of an incomplete vibe to it, like it's an introduction to a novel or series (which I don't think is the case). One of the characters is called Constance Wills - I love the shout-out to Connie Willis.
Full review to come.
Content notes: disturbing imagery and sexual violence....more
I've seen Helen MacInnes vintage thrillers on library and used bookstore shelves many times over the years, but never bothered picking one up and readI've seen Helen MacInnes vintage thrillers on library and used bookstore shelves many times over the years, but never bothered picking one up and reading it until now. I should have given her a chance earlier; this was pretty compelling reading.
Above Suspicion, published in 1941 and set in 1939, on the eve of World War II, is about a young British couple, Richard Myles, an Oxford don, and his wife Frances, who are approached by one of their friends, Peter Galt, who's been involved in anti-Nazi espionage. He asks them to use their summer vacation on the European continent to try to contact another British spy in Europe, who's been a key figure in helping people escape from Nazi Germany. The British fear that this man may have been killed, but he's so difficult to contact that no one is quite sure.
Peter asks Richard and Frances to go through the various levels of contact required to find out what's become of their man, hoping that they'll succeed because they're intelligent but unconnected to the espionage organization - thus (hopefully) they'll be above suspicion to the Germans. So Richard and Frances, beginning in Paris, go through the painstaking process of traveling from place to place, and contact to contact, all the while with suspicious Nazis eyeing their moves (not quite as suspicion-proof as their friend Peter hoped).
I enjoyed the first part, with all of its spycraft, though the process of reaching out to this mysterious man struck me as a bit illogical, or at least unnecessarily complex. But there's an unexpected turn of events in the middle of the novel, and then things really get crazy and tense for the last half. It's not nearly as graphic as it probably would be if this novel were written nowadays - I did get the sense that MacInnes was pulling her punches a bit - but it's still very tension-filled and sobering reading.
Perhaps the most interesting part is that MacInnes actually wrote this just when the Nazi machine was really gearing up. It's fascinating to read her views in the things the characters say and think: their horror at how the Nazi regime is changing people, and what it leads them to do; the pleas for people and countries not to be isolationist and stand aside, but to get involved to stop the Nazi threat to individuals and countries.
I will say that the novel is rather old-fashioned in its social views, especially with respect to the role of women. As intelligent as Frances is, she still exhibits weakness (which, honestly, isn't that unlikely), and it's still the men who are in charge and come to the rescue. That might frustrate some readers, though you have to take into account that this book was written over 75 years ago. Also there is one particular event where Frances takes action that made me cheer for her. (view spoiler)[ She throws a large rock at a Nazi chasing them in the mountains, resulting in him going off a cliff and saving her husband from being shot in the process. (hide spoiler)]
October 2017 buddy read with the Retro Reads group....more
3.66 stars. The Stolen Marriage is historical fiction with a mystery/romance element, set in North Carolina during WWII. In Brooklyn, 1944, Tess DeMel3.66 stars. The Stolen Marriage is historical fiction with a mystery/romance element, set in North Carolina during WWII. In Brooklyn, 1944, Tess DeMello is deeply in love with her fiancé Vincent, a doctor working out of town. But Vincent keeps extending his trip and Tess is getting perturbed, so one weekend she and her bestie Gina take an overnight trip to New York City to see the sights.
They go out to dinner with a couple of guys staying at the same place, Tess drinks far too much, and she and one of the guys end up sleeping together (it falls just short of date rape, IMO, but they're both very drunk). When Tess winds up pregnant, she writes a letter to Vincent breaking off their engagement and disappears from his life. She finds the guy, Henry Kraft, in Hickory, North Carolina, to ask him for money to go live somewhere new. Henry, who is from a wealthy, socially prominent family, unexpectedly offers to marry Tess, and she agrees.
Life in Hickory is difficult for Tess: Henry is kind but standoffish, and inexplicably hardly touches her again; they're living with his resentful mother and spoiled, hateful sister; and all the socialites in town hate Tess for stealing Henry away from the lovely girl who expected to marry him. Tess is of Italian descent, and experiences racial prejudice as well. Plus Tess has completed her schooling and wants to become a registered nurse, but Henry and his mother are appalled at the idea of her working.
When a terrible polio outbreak hits Hickory, it changes life for Tess and everyone in the town. The townspeople come together to set up a hospital within just 54 hours from when it was first publicly proposed. Tess finds several doors unexpectedly opening to her as a result, including that her nursing training may finally be put to use ... but there's a lot more.
Diane Chamberlain did a lot of research for The Stolen Marriage, and the polio outbreak and near-miraculous creation of a polio hospital there are based on actual history. Here's one account with pictures, and here's another more detailed written account. This subplot about the polio epidemic and the polio hospital in Hickory was the most interesting part of the book for me.
The rest is a serviceable though rather soap opera-ish historical fiction novel, with a romance subplot and a mystery. I had a few issues with it: The writing is competent but very straightforward, and the characters are pretty one-dimensional. There's a spiritualism subplot that I never warmed to; while I am of the "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio" camp and I think that spirits of those who've died can and occasionally do visit the living, I'm also strongly of the opinion that anyone who is a practicing spiritualist (i.e., one who contacts the dead for other people, usually for money, though that's not the case here) is almost certainly a fraud. There's also some moral relativism of the end-justifies-the-means type in the later part of the book that didn't sit well with me.
Still, it was an interesting story, and it does do a good job weaving in issues of the time, like the role of women and discrimination against blacks, Italians and other minorities. I think this one will appeal to readers who like light and somewhat romantic historical fiction, with a dose of educational historical content on the side.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley for review. Thank you!!...more
99 cent Kindle sale, Sept. 4, 2017. 3.5 stars for this 2017 SF novel, kind of a throwback, reminiscent of Golden Age SciFi. Final review, first posted99 cent Kindle sale, Sept. 4, 2017. 3.5 stars for this 2017 SF novel, kind of a throwback, reminiscent of Golden Age SciFi. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
It’s 1943, at the height of the air war during World War II. US Air Force Captain Joseph Farley and his crew of nine men fly a B-17 bomber on missions out of England, bombing German factories and other military targets. On their last mission their bomber Voice of America, a never-ending source of problems (“fixing this one’s like taking a gator to the vet. You’re just making it better so it can try to kill you again”) finally bit the dust permanently, and the crew is assigned a brand new B-17F bomber, which they christen Fata Morgana after an unusual type of mirage, along with a new ball turret gunner, Sergeant Martin Proud Horse, a Native American of the Lakota tribe. One of the men, Shorty, is a gifted artist who paints a sorceress type of woman on the nose of the Fata Morgana, following Captain Farley’s detailed description of a woman who haunts his dreams.
Their next mission is to bomb a German munitions factory, and on this run the Fata Morgana and its crew, under heavy fire from German fighter planes, are drawn into a mysterious vortex near the factory. They emerge on the other side in an unrecognizable world, a barren, blackened plain where there are only two small, domed cities that are engaged in a bitter war with each other. The Fata Morgana is attacked by a huge winged monster, but they manage a relatively controlled crash landing. Then the crew promptly loses control of their wrecked plane to soldiers of one of the warring cities and is taken in by the other group, led by a woman who is the image of the painting on their plane. The crew tries to adjust to life in this technologically advanced but decaying world. Still, their ultimate mission is to recover and repair their plane and make their way back to their own world, to fulfill their duty despite almost insurmountable obstacles.
Fata Morgana (2017) reads as a retro type of science fiction novel, and not just because the main characters are WWII military men. It’s a straightforward, action-packed story with a focus more on the adventure and excitement than on characterization or depth. Captain Farley’s romance (such as it is) is courtly and sweet, if a little trite. There are detailed and true-to-life descriptions about B-17 bombers and bombing runs, particularly in the first eighty pages, which part reads like a straight WWII historical novel. For the most part this is a hard science fiction novel, but there’s a slight “there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio” element to a couple of aspects of this novel that edges it just a bit toward fantasy. The dénouement managed to remind me of both the ending of the WWII memoir Band of Brothers and the love-beyond-time element from the movie Somewhere in Time.
Because the main characters are from the 1940s, most of them have outdated views toward, for example, women and minorities ― specifically, Sergeant Proud Horse. Steven Boyett and Ken Mitchroney don’t shy away from giving these men dialogue that is true to the era, but may make some modern readers cringe. When Proud Horse introduces himself and tells his new crew that he’s Lakota (which means nothing to the men) and an Indian, the flight engineer greets him with “How, Chief” and another crewman asks him if he’d left his teepee to come to England and shoot Germans. Proud Horse responds with broad humor and a sizzling baseball pitch that earns him general respect, though the “Chief” nickname lingers. To give them credit, the men do prove to be somewhat open-minded when they find themselves in a world where women are treated equally.
With a crew of ten men, it’s understandable that not all of them are distinguishable personalities, but Boyett and Mitchroney did a reasonable job of making several of them memorable, even if they are more or less familiar types. For example, there’s the brave and noble leader, the loyal lieutenant, and the engineer who’s improbably brilliant in figuring out completely unfamiliar technology. (How does he manage to hack a robot when he’s never seen a computer before?)
I have to admit I was initially rolling my eyes when the Fata Morgana crew landed among English-speaking people, but Boyett and Mitchroney eventually disclose the reason for that, and the overall plot is fairly well-constructed. I always appreciate it when elements that initially seem random eventually become relevant to the plot in ways that are surprising but logical. The one exception to the lucid story-telling is a climactic scene with some mysterious technology that seems to bend time and space. It was clearly supposed to be confusing, but it veered a little too far into the incomprehensible. On the other hand, the winged monster, a cyborg-like being called the Typhon, felt terrifyingly real, especially when some of the characters get to see it up close.
Fata Morgana is not a book that is likely to appeal to every science fiction fan, but if you’re interested in WWII history or like vintage-type hard SF, it’s worth taking the flight with Captain Farley and his crew.
I received a free copy of this book for review from the publisher. Thank you!
Content note: Somewhat surprisingly for a novel about military guys, there's only a single F-bomb here. There's some innuendo talk among the guys, and some violence, but it's all fairly tame. Call it a mild PG-13....more
I started this nostalgic book, intending to read just a couple of chapters, but found it too hard to put down and Good old-fashioned historic fiction.
I started this nostalgic book, intending to read just a couple of chapters, but found it too hard to put down and finished it off the same night. It's the story of the Ayrton family and their beloved estate in Scotland, Amberwell. In particular, it follows five siblings through their childhood and into their lives as young adults during the WWII years. With emotionally absent parents, Roger, Tom, Connie, Nell and Anne learn to rely on each other for support. But life pulls them in different directions.
It's rather leisurely-paced but insightful, and the characters are well-drawn. I wanted to punch out the parents, who really did their children — especially their daughters — a disservice. The parents' motto was "never explain" (citing Benjamin Disraeli: "Never complain and never explain."). They just issue orders. The girls are never taken anywhere as children, not even to church or the local village.
So it was really interesting seeing what life brought to their five children, and what they made of their lives, especially when hard times hit ... as they do nearly all of them, with one notable exception.
When he had gone Nell lay awake for a long time trying to tidy up the chaos in her mind. It was not easy. She had always thought of herself as a complete nonentity, unimportant and ineffectual; but now, all of a sudden, she had had heavy responsibilities placed upon her shoulders, and placed there quite confidently. Roger obviously had no doubt at all of her ability to cope.
It's always nice seeing people rise to a challenge. Not that life is all rainbows and sunshine here; WWII, not to mention the fraught family dynamics, both have a real effect on the characters' lives.
This book isn't nearly as heartwrenching as some WWII era books; it felt a little more like a cozy read, with most of the deaths and trauma taking place with a little distance. But I really liked that it was realistic, both about the effects of the family's dysfunctions ((view spoiler)[those parents!! I really wanted to snatch their neglected daughters away from them! (hide spoiler)]) and the wartime experiences....more
In early 1940’s San Francisco, when the Golden Gate Bridge had only recently been completed, Franny, a cartographer who creates highly unusual maps, lives on Caligo Lane, a hidden street made more evasive by magic, and generally found only by accident. Her home is filled with maps, both those she makes as well as those on which she follows the malignant news of World War II.
One day a postcard is delivered to Franny from her homeland (much delayed; the postman has difficulties finding Caligo Lane as well). On it are only a set of geographic coordinates. Franny needs to make a new map, creating a magical escape route for those in need, at great cost to herself.
The secret of ori-kami is that a single sheet of paper can be folded in a nearly infinite variety of patterns, each resulting in a different transformation of the available space. Given any two points, it is possible to fold a line that connects them. A map is a menu of possible paths. When Franny folds one of her own making, instead of plain paper, she creates a new alignment of the world, opening improbable passages from one place to another.
Once, when she was young and in a temper, she crumpled one into a ball and threw it across the room, muttering curses. A man in Norway found himself in an unnamed desert, confused and over-dressed. His journey did not end well.
Much of the rest of the story is spent following the detailed description of the process of creating this map. What could be dry takes on an unlikely beauty of its own, as mapmaking and origami and the San Francisco fog combine to create a magical work of art that consumes life as well as rescuing it. It’s a haunting and heartfelt tale of love and loss as well as creation.
Ellen Klages described her creative process in Subterranean Press, where this story was originally published, as a combination of an idea about a cartographer witch and a concept from China Mieville’s novel Kraken, with its “descriptions of impossible origami and folding objects into forgettable space.” The magic of the San Francisco setting and Franny’s origami-like maps are enchanting, contrasting effectively with the ominous backdrop of the war and the Holocaust.
3.5 stars. This is a dual-timeline historical fiction novel, about the arrests of Jewish families in France during WWII and their terrible experiences3.5 stars. This is a dual-timeline historical fiction novel, about the arrests of Jewish families in France during WWII and their terrible experiences, focusing on the actual historic Vel' d'Hiv' roundup in July 1942, and a modern journalist's investigation of that event and her search for some of the people involved.
[image] The inside of the Vélodrome d'Hiver bicycle stadium, demolished in 1959
In the 1942 timeline, in Paris: a 10 year old girl is arrested with her Polish mother and father in the middle of the night. Her 3 or 4 year old brother, terrified, hides himself in their secret hiding place, a hidden cupboard. Sarah locks him in, assuring him that she'll be back in a few hours. Instead her family is taken to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, a bicycle stadium, where they and thousands of other Jewish families, including many children, were held in deplorable conditions, without enough food, water or sanitary facilities, for 5 days before being sent on to prison camps. The family, frantic to get their little boy, plead with the police, but nothing is done.
In the other timeline, the year 2002, also in Paris: Julia Jarmond, an American journalist married to a Frenchman, who has lived in Paris for about 25 years, is asked to write an article about the Vel' d'Hiv's roundup on its 60th anniversary. As she investigates, she finds that her husband's family home is where Sarah's family lived before they were arrested. Julia feels compelled to investigate this particular aspect of the tragedy, and gets involved deeper and deeper, despite resistance from her husband and others.
This book had a major impact on me, and when I first finished it I thought it was an easy 4 stars, despite some significant weaknesses in characterization and what felt like author manipulation. But in the cold light of morning those things are bothering me more. The characters, especially the present-day ones, are mostly stereotypes: the suave, cheating French husband, the wise-beyond-her-years daughter, the over-eager nurse at an abortion facility, people hiding old secrets with a stiff upper lip. It's pretty well written, but they're still thin. It's also an emotionally manipulative book, from Sarah's experiences to Julia's love life. I felt like the author was too obvious in pushing the reader to feel in certain ways.
But there were a couple of unexpected twists for me in the plot, and the Vel' d'Hiv' plotline is truly compelling. It brought tears to my eyes. I don't regret reading it at all, if only because I'm glad to know more about this tragic historical event. ...more
This is a short but extremely intense book, first published in 1946. It begins with the author's experiences in four (!!) different German conc[image]
This is a short but extremely intense book, first published in 1946. It begins with the author's experiences in four (!!) different German concentration camps in WWII, including Auschwitz, and how he coped with those experiences -- and saw others cope with them, or not. He continues in the second half of this book with a discussion of his approach to psychiatry, called logotherapy, based on the belief that each person needs to find something in his or her life, something particular and personal to them, to give their life meaning. We need to look outside ourselves.
There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is meaning in one's life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."
The first half of the book is completely absorbing, fascinating reading. When I tried to read the second, more academic part of it years ago, I floundered (I don't think I ever got through to the end). But I stuck with it this time and found it truly rewarding.
The second part did sometimes challenge my brain cells with concepts like this:
I never tire of saying that the only really transitory aspects of life are the potentialities; but as soon as they are actualized, they are rendered realities at that very moment; they are saved and delivered into the past, wherein they are rescued and preserved from transitoriness. For, in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything is irrevocably stored.
I had to read that one two or three times before I felt like I really grasped what Frankl was saying. And this one:
Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
I assume it's to help give us motivation to avoid making a wrong choice, by thinking through the likely consequences of what we are about to do. But there are so many nuggets of wisdom in this short volume. A few things that really impacted me:
We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.
One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated.
It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. ... In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end.
Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.
Inspiring words; inspiring life.
Bonus material: Here is an interview with Viktor Frankl when he was 90 years old. He died just a couple of years later....more
Now available! 4.5 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Emmaline knows a secret: Briar Hill, a Shropshire mansion turned into a chiNow available! 4.5 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Emmaline knows a secret: Briar Hill, a Shropshire mansion turned into a children’s hospital during World War II, has beautiful winged horses that live in the mirrors of its elegant rooms. They move in and out of the mirror-rooms, walking through doorways, nosing half-finished cups of tea. But only Emmaline can see them, and she keeps the secret to herself. She knows the boys like Benny and Jack will tease her mercilessly if they knew. She doesn’t even tell her best friend Anna, who’s the most ill person at the hospital, for fear that she’ll distress Anna.
One day Benny steals a treasured piece of chocolate from Emmaline and eats it. Upset, Emmaline runs outside and (breaking the hospital rules) climbs over the ivy of a walled garden on the grounds. Inside the abandoned garden, a beautiful white horse with a soft gray muzzle, a star-like blaze of dark hair between her eyes, and snow-white wings approaches her. Emmaline notices that the horse’s wing is hurt and figures that the horse must have somehow come into our world from the mirror world to find a place of healing.
Soon Emmaline begins finding written messages in the garden, signed by the Horse Lord, telling her that this winged horse, Foxfire, needs her help to avoid being captured by the sinister Black Horse that flies about the hospital by night, hunting for Foxfire in the colorless moonlight. Before the moon is full again in two weeks, the Horse Lord’s message tells Emmaline, she must surround Foxfire with large, colorful objects, one for each color of the rainbow, to create a spectral shield that will protect Foxfire from the Black Horse, whose eyes are burned by color. But there are very few bright colors in Emmaline’s drab world.
Everything at Briar Hill is white snow and gray stone. It is the dull browns and greens of soldiers’ uniforms, and the black of nuns’ habits. No wonder we have drawn the Black Horse straight to us. Our world is colorless midwinter.
This will be a huge challenge for Emmaline. But the Horse Lord’s messages, always signed “Ride true,” encourage her to do her best.
The Secret Horses of Briar Hill is a gem of a middle grade book, wondrous and bittersweet. Surrounded by sickness, death and fear, and burdened by traumatic memories, Emmaline treasures her glimpses of the mirrored horses and her growing bond with Foxfire. The search for brightly colored objects at the Horse Lord’s behest gives her a new purpose, but it also leads her into trouble and some questionable decisions, and even into danger.
Megan Shepherd gracefully captures the atmosphere of this one small corner of the World War II conflict, children with tuberculosis who were evacuated to hospitals and wards in the British country. Emmaline calls tuberculosis the “stillwaters,” partly because she feels that her lungs are as “still and thick as swamp water,” running deep within Emmaline’s body. But it’s also a reminder that of the proverb that still waters run deep, and that children and teens (not to mention older people) may be struggling with deep, hidden troubles ― whether physical sickness or other types of distress ― that may not be visible to others.
As the plot unfolds, we gradually learn more about Emmaline’s past and how that affects her now, which sheds new possible interpretations on Emmaline’s experiences. One of the intriguing aspects of The Secret Horses of Briar Hill is that it’s unusually ambiguous for a middle grade book. There are different possible interpretations of the events related by Emmaline: this might be a truly magical story, or it might be that the winged horses exist only in Emmaline’s imagination. Readers will need to decide for themselves what they believe actually happened. In some books this ambiguity would frustrate me, but here I found it lovely and emotionally touching.
The Secret Horses of Briar Hill deals with deeply serious issues but is delightfully imaginative at the same time. It’s a timeless story, combining fantasy and magic with sometimes dark realities. This book deals with some difficult subject matter but does so in a way that isn’t too ponderous or distressing for young readers, and inspires us to keep hope, to follow our dreams. To ride true.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, Delacorte Press, in exchange for a review. Thank you!...more
Thirteen year old Dale goes to the retirement home to talk to his great-grandfather, ninety year old Rhett. Dale just wants a couple of stories about the old days for a school history report, but gets a lot more than he bargained for. Rhett begins reminiscing about radio shows (they were “really sponsored by cigarettes?” asks Dale), but soon Rhett tells Dale to turn off his iPhone recorder: Rhett’s going to tell him something really interesting.
Rhett’s tale is about his broken family and “peculiar” mother, who Rhett and his brother Jack would travel across town to visit. His mother told them stories about an alien world, called Lalanka, in another dimension right next to ours, where some terrible things were happening, including time freezing and a creeping white mist called forza that kills small animals and gives larger ones convulsions. And she would feed them all kinds of different cookies ― always fresh, always delicious ― from the blue ceramic cookie jar that she kept on a high shelf. After their mother commits suicide, the boys inherit the cookie jar and discover that it constantly and magically refills with cookies. The only question is: what’s at the bottom of the jar? Rhett eventually decides to find out.
Stephen King ties Rhett’s later horrific experiences in WWII to his mother’s tales of the other world, where creeping mist kills and time stops. The vanilla sweetness of the fresh cookies is a disturbing contrast to the sick, war-torn worlds ― both Lalanka and ours. However, if the cookie jar is cursed, or dangerous, Rhett’s final decision on what to do with it is inexplicable. In fact, I found that the fantastical part of the plot of “Cookie Jar” didn’t really make much logical sense upon closer scrutiny. Still, it was a well-told tale, with a couple of appealing characters in Rhett and Dale, and I really enjoyed it while I was reading it.
3.5 stars. This WWII novel is set in the earlier days of the war, focusing on its effect on four young Brits: Mary North, a lovely and privileged but 3.5 stars. This WWII novel is set in the earlier days of the war, focusing on its effect on four young Brits: Mary North, a lovely and privileged but rebellious young woman who is earnestly trying to do her part to both help the war effort and combat prejudice, especially against blacks; Mary's best friend Hilda, quick with a joke but always feeling overshadowed by Mary, who always seems to attract the men that Hilda is interested in; Tom Shaw, head of the local education authority who gives Mary a teaching job and then becomes her lover; and Tom's best friend Alistair Heath, who works at the Tate museum restoring paintings, but quickly joins the army when the war begins.
The novel alternates primarily between Mary and Alistair's viewpoints, with Mary experiencing the London Blitz firsthand as a teacher and then as an ambulance driver, and Alistair caught in the siege of Malta, where the British military was holed up, trying to maintain control of the strategic island while being constantly bombed by the German and Italian air forces. It also combines the trials of their star-crossed love -- complicated by Mary's prior relationship with Tom, and Hilda's interest in Alistair -- and the far worse travails of war, particularly as Alistair is deployed to Malta and conditions for the soldiers there degenerate to really harrowing depths, between the high mortality from the constant bombing and the near-starvation from lack of adequate food and water on the island.
This novel is comparable to other recent WWII novels like All the Light We Cannot See and Code Name Verity, though it was perhaps not quite as successful for me as those. It does offer a few unusual takes on the war experience: the siege of Malta, where Cleave's own grandfather served, the problem of morphine addiction due to injury, and the deep-held prejudices against blacks in WWII-era London. Chris Cleave writes well, with sympathy for the characters but not holding back on the bleakness and horrors of war. The ending was rather indeterminate, which is certainly fitting given the themes of the novel, but did leave me feeling a little dissatisfied.
I received this as a free ebook from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for a review. Thanks!...more
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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