Describe your latest project. Norton has just published The Autobiography of Fidel Castro, a novel that took seven years of my life to complete as I...
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Color. Look around. Note the shades of greens and blues out the window. The yellow and orange threads in a carpet. Now imagine all but one shade gone. You can only see one natural color. Everything else comes through to you through artificial paints, as if Ted Turner’s colorization had taken over the rest of the palette. And that’s only if your town can afford to keep the artificial color pumps on.
Welcome to Jasper Fforde’s new novel, Shades of Grey. Since an unexplained incident sometime in the distant past, almost everyone in the world can see only one color. People are ranked according to which color they can see and how much of it they can see. The Greys see no color and are at the bottom of the caste system. Reds are just above them, with higher status and power granted the further along the color spectrum you are. Signs tell us the univision world was once very similar to, or perhaps was, our world: Picasso and Vermeer paintings still exist.
At the start of the novel — or rather, right after the main character tells readers he’s being digested by a tree — Eddie Russet accompanies his father to an outlying village with little synthetic color. As the village prefects explain their looser interpretations of the color laws, readers get tantalizing glimpses of the rules that govern Fforde’s latest world. Great Leapbacks have erased most technology, etiquette must be followed, and spoons are incredibly important to one’s self worth.
All Eddie wants is to earn enough credits to leave the village and earn the hand of his beloved Constance, a member of the highly regarded Oxblood family. A Grey named Jane soon ends his hopes of a normal, unassuming life by introducing him to thoughts of revolution and forcing him to decide what matters most: marrying up and upholding the laws of the community or falling in love and standing up for honor and integrity.
The Univision world has existed for hundreds of years, so characters are familiar with intricacies readers are not. Some parts of the world are very similar to the real world, while others are not. It’s easy to get bogged down in the differences and throw your hands up and walk away. Readers familiar with Fforde’s Thursday Next novels may have a leg up in understanding Shades of Grey. The best approach is to tilt your head slightly to get a different perspective and let Fforde’s deftly drawn characters and well-paced plot pull you along. It’s not necessary to understand all the laws of the world. After all, Eddie is starting to question some of them and even break one or two. Besides, Fforde plans two more books in the series, which may — or may not — explain why swans attack and what causes Mildew
It seems everyone on the planet has some level of familiarity with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Devoted fans eagerly awaited the next installment of the lengthy books. When the last book in Meyer’s series appeared in August 2008, the books’ fans switched their anticipation to movies based on the books.
Thanks to a parody from The Harvard Lampoon, Twilight devotees now have something new to read, although Nightlight’s humor may be better appreciated by Twilight’s detractors.
Nightlight pulls no punches in its entertaining vivisection of Meyer’s mythos. Situations and characters from the source material are stretched, inflated and mutated to comic proportions. Twilight’s Bella Swan becomes Nightlight’s Bella Goose; the original’s quirky lack of coordination becomes the parody’s death-defying clumsiness. Edward Cullen, the vampire heartthrob, becomes Edwart Mullen, a “venture meteorologist with a bent for slowly accumulating money from .0001-cent web ads.”
Edwart is not a vampire. A fact Bella Swan doesn’t let stop her in her obsessive pursuit to date a vampire and have him turn into one of the undead. After all, Edwart doesn’t eat his baked potatoes, snowflakes magically melt when they touch his skin, and he is able to resist the charms Bella is sure she possesses. All well-known signs of the undead to Bella, who manages to twist every coincidence to fit her world view.
The Harvard Lampoon takes every possible shot it can at Meyer’s often clichéd writing and bizarre plot twists. Nightlight mimics Twilight’s style perfectly, down to its mockery of New Moon’s — the second in Meyer’s series — depiction of Bella’s months of depression.
True Twilight fans may bristle at Nightlight, but they’re also the ones who can appreciate it the most. Without a basic understanding of Meyer’s characters and plots, a Nightlight reader will most likely be lost. Those intimately familiar with Twilight will find much they recognize in Nightlight.
Hard-core parodies can be tough to get into, and the beginning of Nightlight tests its readers’ determination. Absurdities pile up quickly to the point of, well, absurdity. The writing style seems juvenile, but mirrors Meyer’s style perfectly. After the first few chapters, however, it becomes easier to settle in to Nightlight’s rhythms and appreciate the fun it pokes at Twilight and its legions of devoted fans.
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(20 of 23 readers found this comment helpful)
Fulfilling the wishes of the Fates, the Norse goddess Freya becomes enchanted by a necklace crafted by four dwarves. The price they set for the necklace is high: Freya must spend a night with each of them. From this myth grows Betsy Tobin’s Ice Land.
Tobin weaves Freya’s quest for the necklace with that of a young Icelandic girl’s for love. Fulla lives with her grandfather in an Iceland at the turn of the first millennium. It is time for her betrothal, and, as in all good love stories, Fulla finds herself drawn to a man from a family who opposes her own.
At first glance, Tobin’s novel may seem like yet another in a long line of Tolkein-wanna-be fantasy novels. However, it is anything but.
The strength of Tobin’s writing lies in her handling of daily life. When Fulla and her grandfather attend an annual festival, the reader gets a look at how early Icelanders likely lived. Christianity is beginning to alter the religious landscape of Iceland; a new law demands everyone be baptized and follow Christ publicly, although they are allowed to practice the old religion in private.
Ice Land changes viewpoints with every chapter, focusing on a different character’s experiences and outlooks. Freya’s chapter is written in the first-person point of view, with the others in the more removed third-person point of view.
Although changing viewpoints from character to character works, the change from first- to third-person can be confusing and doesn’t seem to serve a purpose for the novel. Fulla and Dvalin’s stories hold the reader’s interest just as much as Freya’s, and the three characters work as equal protagonists.
However, that may be the only drawback of Ice Land. Otherwise, Tobin’s writing shines. The novel is paced slowly, allowing the reader to absorb early Iceland and know the characters fully. Even minor characters like Sky, the mute giant boy, and Gerdling, Dvalin’s youngest brother, shine in the novel.
Ice Land does not adhere strictly to any of the Norse legends about Freya and her necklace or Fulla’s grandfather, Hogni. Instead, Tobin takes the best of the legends and of the Icelandic Sagas and creates a detailed, interesting world of her own that is well worth reading.
In The Angel’s Game, Carlos Ruiz Zafón envelops the reader in a world full of mysterious characters and complicated plot twists. Zafón’s gift of creating fully realized characters and settings overcome the at-times confusing plot. The reader is content to let 1920s Barcelona wash over him as he accompanies David Martin, the main character, on a Dickensian journey.
The Angel’s Game is a follow up to Zafón’s first novel, The Shadow of the Wind, and takes a step further into the world of magic realism at which Shadow hinted. Where the events in Shadow could be explained through a series of almost implausible coincidences, The Angel’s Game’s plot depends on what can only be explained by a touch of supernatural. A brothel that turns out in the morning’s light to be a long abandoned building with no sign of life. Questions of reincarnation and time loops. Echoes of The Cask of Amontillado.
The through line of the novel appears simple on its surface: after success writing penny dreadfuls, David is commissioned to write a book by a strange Parisian publisher and discovers the cost of literary fame. Not far below this surface is a complex, dizzying maze. Characters are not always what or who they seem to be at first or third glance. Plot threads which appear innocuous when first introduced become central to the novel.
Even the long lectures about the nature of faith, dogma and the origin of belief by David’s new publisher seem to hold clues to the obsession that overtakes David as he struggles with completing the commission. David is never sure who his employer really is or who employs his employer. Neither is the reader, although sinister hints continue to grow as both David’s and Zafón’s books progress.
The trick with making magic realism work for the reader lies introducing the unexplainable without crossing into the fantastic. Zafón pulls off this balancing act seamlessly. The Angel’s Game never comes close to becoming a fantasy novel; the supernatural elements may have an explanation, but David can’t find one and Zafón doesn’t offer one.
Readers looking for ties to Shadow won’t be disappointed. The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is more important to The Angel’s Game than in Zafón’s first book. David Martin is good friends with characters readers already know from the earlier book. And the atmosphere of David’s tower house will remind readers of the Aldaya mansion.
Some other similarities threaten to make The Angel’s Game nothing more than a pale retelling of Shadow — both main characters have lost their mothers and are in love with women whose first names begin with “C” and who don’t return their affections, for example — but as Zafón picks up the pace, the similarities are covered by each additional layer of the story.
Not all of the novel’s questions are answered, but most readers will not mind as The Angel’s Game provides such a richly textured world it is easy to believe it is reality, where answers aren’t guaranteed.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(8 of 14 readers found this comment helpful)
Jennifer Woodlief's A Wall of White takes readers into the days before and after the avalanche. Woodlief's strengths as an author lay in her ability to detail complete characters who readers quickly become invested in. Although knowing the outcome makes it easy to point out mistakes made by visitors to the resort caught in the avalanche, Woodlief's characterization also makes it easy to understand the decisions taken on March 31 and for readers to feel they may have made the same decisions.
Every one of the seven killed become fully realized portraits. The jacket copy lets readers know one woman is pulled from the debris 5 days after the disaster, so readers are aware the people they're beginning to care about don't make it out. Still, the yearning is there to issue a warning, to see a father and daughter turn back from their journey, to direct the rescuers to the right spot just in case a way exists to save those lost.
Woven into the character-driven narrative are facts about avalanches in general -- what causes them, what it feels like to be caught in one -- and the Alpine Meadows avalanche in particular.
The avalanche occurs about 60% of the way through A Wall of White. By that time, readers are caught up in the individual stories of the participants. The turning of the pages is like the ticking of clock counting down to tragedy.
With its mix of characterization and avalanche lore, A Wall of White may remind some readers of Sebastian Junger's A Perfect Storm. Similarities exist, but because Woodlief was able to speak to people present at the time of the avalanche and use, her book draws readers into a tragedy rather than a mystery.
Throughout the book, Woodlief hits all the right notes. Her pacing drives the readers to the avalanche without sacrificing the portraits of those involved in the disaster. The pauses to inform readers about avalanches are brief and serve the overall story.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(0 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
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Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
Tammy Dotts, December 28, 2009
Color. Look around. Note the shades of greens and blues out the window. The yellow and orange threads in a carpet. Now imagine all but one shade gone. You can only see one natural color. Everything else comes through to you through artificial paints, as if Ted Turner’s colorization had taken over the rest of the palette. And that’s only if your town can afford to keep the artificial color pumps on.Welcome to Jasper Fforde’s new novel, Shades of Grey. Since an unexplained incident sometime in the distant past, almost everyone in the world can see only one color. People are ranked according to which color they can see and how much of it they can see. The Greys see no color and are at the bottom of the caste system. Reds are just above them, with higher status and power granted the further along the color spectrum you are. Signs tell us the univision world was once very similar to, or perhaps was, our world: Picasso and Vermeer paintings still exist.
At the start of the novel — or rather, right after the main character tells readers he’s being digested by a tree — Eddie Russet accompanies his father to an outlying village with little synthetic color. As the village prefects explain their looser interpretations of the color laws, readers get tantalizing glimpses of the rules that govern Fforde’s latest world. Great Leapbacks have erased most technology, etiquette must be followed, and spoons are incredibly important to one’s self worth.
All Eddie wants is to earn enough credits to leave the village and earn the hand of his beloved Constance, a member of the highly regarded Oxblood family. A Grey named Jane soon ends his hopes of a normal, unassuming life by introducing him to thoughts of revolution and forcing him to decide what matters most: marrying up and upholding the laws of the community or falling in love and standing up for honor and integrity.
The Univision world has existed for hundreds of years, so characters are familiar with intricacies readers are not. Some parts of the world are very similar to the real world, while others are not. It’s easy to get bogged down in the differences and throw your hands up and walk away. Readers familiar with Fforde’s Thursday Next novels may have a leg up in understanding Shades of Grey. The best approach is to tilt your head slightly to get a different perspective and let Fforde’s deftly drawn characters and well-paced plot pull you along. It’s not necessary to understand all the laws of the world. After all, Eddie is starting to question some of them and even break one or two. Besides, Fforde plans two more books in the series, which may — or may not — explain why swans attack and what causes Mildew
Nightlight: A Parody (Vintage) by Meyer and Harvard Lampoo
Tammy Dotts, November 4, 2009
It seems everyone on the planet has some level of familiarity with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Devoted fans eagerly awaited the next installment of the lengthy books. When the last book in Meyer’s series appeared in August 2008, the books’ fans switched their anticipation to movies based on the books.Thanks to a parody from The Harvard Lampoon, Twilight devotees now have something new to read, although Nightlight’s humor may be better appreciated by Twilight’s detractors.
Nightlight pulls no punches in its entertaining vivisection of Meyer’s mythos. Situations and characters from the source material are stretched, inflated and mutated to comic proportions. Twilight’s Bella Swan becomes Nightlight’s Bella Goose; the original’s quirky lack of coordination becomes the parody’s death-defying clumsiness. Edward Cullen, the vampire heartthrob, becomes Edwart Mullen, a “venture meteorologist with a bent for slowly accumulating money from .0001-cent web ads.”
Edwart is not a vampire. A fact Bella Swan doesn’t let stop her in her obsessive pursuit to date a vampire and have him turn into one of the undead. After all, Edwart doesn’t eat his baked potatoes, snowflakes magically melt when they touch his skin, and he is able to resist the charms Bella is sure she possesses. All well-known signs of the undead to Bella, who manages to twist every coincidence to fit her world view.
The Harvard Lampoon takes every possible shot it can at Meyer’s often clichéd writing and bizarre plot twists. Nightlight mimics Twilight’s style perfectly, down to its mockery of New Moon’s — the second in Meyer’s series — depiction of Bella’s months of depression.
True Twilight fans may bristle at Nightlight, but they’re also the ones who can appreciate it the most. Without a basic understanding of Meyer’s characters and plots, a Nightlight reader will most likely be lost. Those intimately familiar with Twilight will find much they recognize in Nightlight.
Hard-core parodies can be tough to get into, and the beginning of Nightlight tests its readers’ determination. Absurdities pile up quickly to the point of, well, absurdity. The writing style seems juvenile, but mirrors Meyer’s style perfectly. After the first few chapters, however, it becomes easier to settle in to Nightlight’s rhythms and appreciate the fun it pokes at Twilight and its legions of devoted fans.
(20 of 23 readers found this comment helpful)
Ice Land by Betsy Tobin
Tammy Dotts, August 23, 2009
Fulfilling the wishes of the Fates, the Norse goddess Freya becomes enchanted by a necklace crafted by four dwarves. The price they set for the necklace is high: Freya must spend a night with each of them. From this myth grows Betsy Tobin’s Ice Land.Tobin weaves Freya’s quest for the necklace with that of a young Icelandic girl’s for love. Fulla lives with her grandfather in an Iceland at the turn of the first millennium. It is time for her betrothal, and, as in all good love stories, Fulla finds herself drawn to a man from a family who opposes her own.
At first glance, Tobin’s novel may seem like yet another in a long line of Tolkein-wanna-be fantasy novels. However, it is anything but.
The strength of Tobin’s writing lies in her handling of daily life. When Fulla and her grandfather attend an annual festival, the reader gets a look at how early Icelanders likely lived. Christianity is beginning to alter the religious landscape of Iceland; a new law demands everyone be baptized and follow Christ publicly, although they are allowed to practice the old religion in private.
Ice Land changes viewpoints with every chapter, focusing on a different character’s experiences and outlooks. Freya’s chapter is written in the first-person point of view, with the others in the more removed third-person point of view.
Although changing viewpoints from character to character works, the change from first- to third-person can be confusing and doesn’t seem to serve a purpose for the novel. Fulla and Dvalin’s stories hold the reader’s interest just as much as Freya’s, and the three characters work as equal protagonists.
However, that may be the only drawback of Ice Land. Otherwise, Tobin’s writing shines. The novel is paced slowly, allowing the reader to absorb early Iceland and know the characters fully. Even minor characters like Sky, the mute giant boy, and Gerdling, Dvalin’s youngest brother, shine in the novel.
Ice Land does not adhere strictly to any of the Norse legends about Freya and her necklace or Fulla’s grandfather, Hogni. Instead, Tobin takes the best of the legends and of the Icelandic Sagas and creates a detailed, interesting world of her own that is well worth reading.
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Tammy Dotts, June 1, 2009
In The Angel’s Game, Carlos Ruiz Zafón envelops the reader in a world full of mysterious characters and complicated plot twists. Zafón’s gift of creating fully realized characters and settings overcome the at-times confusing plot. The reader is content to let 1920s Barcelona wash over him as he accompanies David Martin, the main character, on a Dickensian journey.The Angel’s Game is a follow up to Zafón’s first novel, The Shadow of the Wind, and takes a step further into the world of magic realism at which Shadow hinted. Where the events in Shadow could be explained through a series of almost implausible coincidences, The Angel’s Game’s plot depends on what can only be explained by a touch of supernatural. A brothel that turns out in the morning’s light to be a long abandoned building with no sign of life. Questions of reincarnation and time loops. Echoes of The Cask of Amontillado.
The through line of the novel appears simple on its surface: after success writing penny dreadfuls, David is commissioned to write a book by a strange Parisian publisher and discovers the cost of literary fame. Not far below this surface is a complex, dizzying maze. Characters are not always what or who they seem to be at first or third glance. Plot threads which appear innocuous when first introduced become central to the novel.
Even the long lectures about the nature of faith, dogma and the origin of belief by David’s new publisher seem to hold clues to the obsession that overtakes David as he struggles with completing the commission. David is never sure who his employer really is or who employs his employer. Neither is the reader, although sinister hints continue to grow as both David’s and Zafón’s books progress.
The trick with making magic realism work for the reader lies introducing the unexplainable without crossing into the fantastic. Zafón pulls off this balancing act seamlessly. The Angel’s Game never comes close to becoming a fantasy novel; the supernatural elements may have an explanation, but David can’t find one and Zafón doesn’t offer one.
Readers looking for ties to Shadow won’t be disappointed. The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is more important to The Angel’s Game than in Zafón’s first book. David Martin is good friends with characters readers already know from the earlier book. And the atmosphere of David’s tower house will remind readers of the Aldaya mansion.
Some other similarities threaten to make The Angel’s Game nothing more than a pale retelling of Shadow — both main characters have lost their mothers and are in love with women whose first names begin with “C” and who don’t return their affections, for example — but as Zafón picks up the pace, the similarities are covered by each additional layer of the story.
Not all of the novel’s questions are answered, but most readers will not mind as The Angel’s Game provides such a richly textured world it is easy to believe it is reality, where answers aren’t guaranteed.
(8 of 14 readers found this comment helpful)
A Wall of White: The True Story of Heroism and Survival in the Face of a Deadly Avalanche by Jennifer Woodlief
Tammy Dotts, May 19, 2009
Jennifer Woodlief's A Wall of White takes readers into the days before and after the avalanche. Woodlief's strengths as an author lay in her ability to detail complete characters who readers quickly become invested in. Although knowing the outcome makes it easy to point out mistakes made by visitors to the resort caught in the avalanche, Woodlief's characterization also makes it easy to understand the decisions taken on March 31 and for readers to feel they may have made the same decisions.Every one of the seven killed become fully realized portraits. The jacket copy lets readers know one woman is pulled from the debris 5 days after the disaster, so readers are aware the people they're beginning to care about don't make it out. Still, the yearning is there to issue a warning, to see a father and daughter turn back from their journey, to direct the rescuers to the right spot just in case a way exists to save those lost.
Woven into the character-driven narrative are facts about avalanches in general -- what causes them, what it feels like to be caught in one -- and the Alpine Meadows avalanche in particular.
The avalanche occurs about 60% of the way through A Wall of White. By that time, readers are caught up in the individual stories of the participants. The turning of the pages is like the ticking of clock counting down to tragedy.
With its mix of characterization and avalanche lore, A Wall of White may remind some readers of Sebastian Junger's A Perfect Storm. Similarities exist, but because Woodlief was able to speak to people present at the time of the avalanche and use, her book draws readers into a tragedy rather than a mystery.
Throughout the book, Woodlief hits all the right notes. Her pacing drives the readers to the avalanche without sacrificing the portraits of those involved in the disaster. The pauses to inform readers about avalanches are brief and serve the overall story.
(0 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
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