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Neil Gaiman – The Graveyard Book

2010-07-30

Title: The Graveyard Book
Author: Neil Gaiman
Year: 2008

On the off chance that someone would ask me who my favourite author is, there have been a long period in my life when Neil Gaiman would have been an accurate (almost obvious) answer. I’ve never been a person prone to idolising other people, but Neil Gaiman is probably the only author to have come close.

I’ve read almost everything Neil Gaiman has published (and most of it has been reviewed on this website, have a look here) and I’ve seldom been disappointed. Therefore, I’m a bit sad to tell you that I did not find his latest novel, The Graveyard Book, to be even close to some of his earlier novels. It isn’t abysmally bad or anything, it’s just very disappointing.

The basic idea is interesting, however: an assassin is sent to kill an entire family, but the most important target, the baby boy, escapes and makes his way to a nearby graveyard, where he is taken in by the ghosts and protected against his pursuer. The child is raised by the late Mr. and Mrs. Owens, and protected by a shadowy figure called Silas. The boy is called Nobody, or Bod, and the narrative goes on to cover how he grows up among tombstones and crypts. In the background, the original story with the assassin also continues, because the man who killed Bod’s family did not complete his job and is still looking for the last victim.

As in all his other books, in the Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman lets his imagination flow, and although the various episodes are not as brilliant as some of the others he has written, they are still entertaining. There are  quite a few good adventures to find in a graveyard for a curious kid. The problem is that this book feels like a TV series, with each chapter having an independent plot, which is almost completely detached from the wider perspective.  Bod explores the Graveyard and grows up, but there is hardly any coherence in the sense that earlier episodes are necessary or prerequisites for later ones. There is the with the murderer in the background, but in my opinion, Gaiman lets it lie dormant for far too long before he really sets things in motion.

To be honest, I’m quite disappointed with this book and I can’t even give it three snails. The ideas are okay and the writing style is good, but it simply isn’t on par with Gaiman’s earlier performance. I still consider him to be one of my favourite authors, mostly because of Sandman, Coraline, Neverwhere and Stardust, but more recently, he’s been drifting farther and farther away from that idol status he was once close to ascend to. Before reading the Graveyard Book, I thought that Anansi Boys was a deviating low-water mark, but now I’m starting to doubt. Is the ability to write fiction that holds me spellbound, which I thought infallible in him, finally starting to fade? Neil Gaiman is still one of my favourite authors, but it would be a lie to say that I admire him as much as I did before.

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The Princess Bride

2009-06-05



Title: The Princess Bride
Directed by: Rob Reiner
Written by: William Goldman
Year: 1987

The Princess Bride opens up with an old man visiting his sick grandson to read him a story, which happens to be the novel by the same name, written by William Goldman. Even though the story is that of true love, the boy makes sure his grandfather doesn’t dwell too long on sissy details such as kissing. Instead, it’s a fairly straightforward story about a princess who loses her true love, and how he returns to find her, but has to fight the evil king in order to regain the hand of his beloved.

I think this film is extraordinarily difficult to rate and review, because it combines a rather dull story and setting with ingenious dialogue. If the film had lacked the dialogue, it would have been among the worst films I’ve ever watched, and reversely, if the story and setting would have been more interesting, it might have been a masterpiece. As it is, it’s worthwhile, but not exceedingly so. I enjoy the witty dialogue and some other details, but that’s not enough to please me all the time, probably because I’m not amused by everything that’s supposed to be funny.

Still, I might judge this film too harshly. It’s not meant to be a serious movie with an intricate plot and deep musings on the meaning of lite, but it’s rather intended to be plain entertainment. As such, it’s pretty good and if you’re not averse to such films in general, the likelihood that will you’ll like The Princess Bride more than I did is quite high.

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Stephen R. Donaldson – A Man Rides Through

2009-05-12

Title: Mordant’s Need – A Man Rides Through
Author: Stephen R. Donaldson
Year: 1987

A Man Rides Through is the sequel to The Mirror of Her Dreams, Stephen R. Donaldson’s Mordant’s Need, the story about Terisa, drawn from our modern world into a world of mirror, power and conspiracy. This is the last volume, which I felt I wanted to read after having been impressed by his mastery of plot shown in the Gap Cycle. At the end of the previous volume, most of the threads are still unconnected, leading me to conclude that the potential for greatness certainly was there.

I wasn’t completely mistaken. On the whole, this story is good and looking only at the plot, it’s a worthy follow-up to The Mirror of Her Dreams, which i gave four snails. Since the things I like with Donaldson stay roughly the same, I’m not going to elaborate on that now, but rather point out why I have decided to reduce the grade to a mere three.

To begin with, this book is too long. Yes, yes, I know, I always say that, but bear with me, To begin with, the story could have been written using fewer pages without any problem. More serious than that, though, is that quite a number of pages are spent on things lacking even the slightest trace of interest. Without spoiling too much, I can say that there are way, way too many and too long descriptions of battle in A Man Rides Through. Personal conflict is okay, but descriptions of pitched battles? I might have liked that when I was fourteen, but now it’s just a waste of time.

Additionally, I have a minor complaint. Donaldson uses phrases like “Oh, Geraden” or “Oh, Terisa” almost compulsively. Once I noticed this, I got more and more vexed for every time I heard it. I admit it might sound insignificant indeed, but it still annoyed me a lot.

That being said, this book isn’t bad. I have chosen to focus on the differences between this second volume and The Mirror of Her Dreams, and then it is true that the latter surpasses the former in almost every regard. However, these books have to be read together, because the story isn’t even remotely finished after the first book. Taken as a whole, I think Mordant’s Need is good, but the two books don’t even come close to the brilliance of the Gap Cycle.

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Stephen R. Donaldson – The Mirror of Her Dreams

2009-05-06

Title: Mordant’s Need – The Mirror of Her Dreams
Author: Stephen R. Donaldson
Year: 1986

It’s been ten years since I read Mordant’s Need for the first time, that time in translation to Swedish. I read my notes from that time and my opinion wasn’t very favourable. In short, I said that the book was full of good ideas, but implemented in a bad way. I was not pleased. Since then, I’ve read and liked a lot more by Donaldson and I’m 25 instead of 15. This lead me to the decision to revisit Mordant and see if my opinions from a decade ago still held true. They did not.

Mordant’s Need is the story about Terisa Morgan being pulled from her existence in our world into Mordant, a kingdom on the brink of disaster, caught between mighty enemies, and with a king who seems to have lost his sanity as well as his will to defend his people. Around the king, his followers begin to doubt their reasons for their loyalty and start making their own decisions on how to meet Mordant’s need. In this realm, mirrors work as gateways to other places and other dimensions. Terisa is translated from our world as part of an effort to save Mordant, but apparently something went wrong, because the imagers were expecting a mighty warrior, not a young, insecure woman.

I have said it many times before, but Donaldson is exceedingly good at two things: characters and plot. This book contains a number of unique characters, and although they might seem a bit exaggerated at times, they fulfill their function. The plot is intricate, but it’s hard to say how good it is before it is revealed in the second and final volume about Mordant, A Man Rides Through. However, I have faith in Donaldson’s ability to handle plots.

I have three things I would like to complain about. First, there is a serious flaw in the plot. I don’t like to spoil the reading for potential readers, so I will let it suffice to say that Donaldson portrays a number of characters that should be able to figure something out, but still fails to do this (even though it’s blatantly obvious to the reader). Second, the character of Terisa is a bit annoying. I’m sure Donaldson has written her that way on purpose, but her weakness is tiresome in the long run. Of course, she is not a static figure throughout the book, so I’m prepared to disregard this complaint. Third, the book is too long. The story isn’t at all finished after The Mirror of Her Dreams, so it’s really a question of reading both volumes or none at all. I will continue with A Man Rides Through straight away, so you will have my opinion about this book in more detail later.

These flaws still only add up to a subtraction of one snail, because this book is much, much better than I remembered. It’s not as good as the Gap Cycle (quite far from it), but it’s still interesting enough. Donaldson is a master of intelligent plots and that means a lot to me. Let’s hope he can keep the story going at this pace to the end.

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Terry Pratchett – Thud!

2009-02-11

Title: Thud!
Author: Terry Pratchett
Year: 2005

It’s amazingly difficult to write more than thirty books set in the same fictive universe without repeating oneself a few times, and even though Pratchett has shown that he isn’t above that (see Going Postal  and Monstrous Regiment, for instance), Thud! is still a good try. It’s a continuation of my favourite Discworld thread, namely the one about the City Watch (containing pearls such as Feet of Clay). The story focuses on the anniversary of the Battle of Koom Valley, a recurring source of friction between dwarfs and trolls everywhere in the world. A dwarf leader named Grag Hamcrusher is murdered and Vimes, Carrot, Angua and the others are sent to investigate (incidentally, there’s also a new figure, a vampire). Of course, it turns out that it isn’t a simple murder and that this time the anniversary has a potential to be much more than a rough night in the city’s streets and bars.

Apart from covering the standard subjects of this series, such as policing and the various problems contained within the watch, Thud! focuses on ethnic polarisation and antagonism, with obvious references to real world occcurences of such phenomena. Since Vimes is now father to a young boy, it also means that these harsher themes are interlaced with something softer and more affectionate, although the combination itself is of course a crucial point in the story.

This setup reminds me of many of the other novels in this series, all of which I like rather much. Some things repeat themselves, especially things about the city. Yes, Ankh-Morpork is a colourful explosion of wild ideas, but there are limits to how many books one can set in it before it becomes too old. Pratchett has passed that point a long time ago. Still, I do think that the author develops for every book and that there’s a distinct difference between later and earlier books. In short, he’s become a better author and this gives this book an edge towards the older ones.

To sum things up, this book is probably much better than many of its predecessors, but that effect is somewhat cancelled by the fact that I’ve read more than thirty books by Pratchett. Thud! is good, but it’s not unique and it contains too few new things to be really good. Considering that the most recent two books I’ve read by this author only received two and a half snails each, the three and a half I’ve decided to give Thud! is pretty good.

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Terry Pratchett – Going Postal

2008-09-11

Title: Going Postal
Author: Terry Pratchett
Year: 2004

I have not read or listened to every Discworld novel, but not far from it. This is due to many things, but the fact that I listen to them rather than read them is more than just a contributing factor. The first half of the series (from Isis Audio Books) is read by Nigel Planer, who probably is one of the best narrators of fiction of all time. The second half, thus including Going Postal, is read by Stephen Briggs, a competent but not brilliant narrator.

In the chronology, Going Postal ought to be placed after The Truth, since the newspaper from that novel is well established in the city. The story focuses on Moist von Lipwig, a masterful swindler with a face no one seems to be able to remember. However, he is caught and sentenced to death, but is offered a second chance after a fake execution; he is to become the new Grand Post Master of Ankh-Morpork. Of course, this is not as easy at it seems, since the post service has been out of order for a long time and the new clacks (semaphore) system has taken its place. Or has it? Moist decides that this ought not be the case, but he has to fight against, prejudice, rivalry, madness and more to revive the mail service.

All this works, but it is not good. Perhaps it is because I have read so much by Terry Pratchett, or perhaps it is because I do not enjoy Stephen Briggs as a narrator. Most likely, it is a combination of both. The story itself feels rather weak, with some unfinished threads and no truly unique features. On the positive side, Going Postal contains some original characters that are highly enjoyable. On the whole, though, I expect more of Pratchett. Or at least, I did expect more, but perhaps not in the future. Two and a half snails to Terry Pratchett and Going Postal.

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Vonda N. McIntyre – Dreamsnake

2008-09-10

Title: Dreamsnake
Author: Vonda N. McIntyre
Year: 1978

Winners of both the Hugo and the Nebula Award are usually very good (see for instance Dune, The Gods Themselves and Ender’s Game). It might not be in a way I feel is important, but it is always easy to spot why other people think any particular novel in this genre is excellent. Sadly, this is not the case with Vonda N. McIntyre’s Dreamsnake.

In this 1978 novel, the reader follows a young healer called Snake through her first exploratory year away from her teachers at home. She and her colleagues make use of snakes to produces antidotes, vaccines and a whole array of medicines to cure and aid the sick who inhabit a post nuclear war desert. When one of Snake’s serpents, the dreamsnake, is accidentally slain, she has to find a substitute or face grave consequences when she returns to the healers’ station.

I admit that the setting is nice. I like deserts and I like fantasy in deserts as well. Sadly, that is not enough to make a good novel. The story is extremely weak and sports no unique features or nothing at all out of the ordinary. Indeed, the whole basis for her adventure feels weak in the first, because I never grasped what was so important with the dreamsnake. Supposedly, it helps people to die without pain, but why should there be so much fuss about such a snake? Why is it impossible to be a healer without this capability? I have no idea, which undermines the whole story because this is what it is all about.

There is not much else that interests me either. The language is adequate, but very far from being brilliant. The same goes for characters, dialogue, and almost any aspect of the novel except for the setting, which I have already said I liked. This is not enough to make this book worthwhile and I have decided to give it two and a half snails. If anyone fancies Dreamsnake, please tell me why, because as it is now, I have really no idea at all how it could manage to win both the Hugo and the Nebula Award.

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Roger Zelazny – A Night in the Lonesome October

2008-04-06



Title: A Night in the Lonesome October
Author: Roger Zelazny
Year: 1993

In England towards the end of the 19th century, in a year in which Halloween and a full moon coincide, a number of highly unusual players (more or less obviously taken from other famous and/or fictional characters active at the time, for instance Dracula, Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and Victor Frankenstein) gather to play the ancient game of opening and closing. Some of these people want to open a gateway and allow the Great Old Ones (known from H.P. Lovecraft’s horror stories) back to the Earth, whereas others want to close the gateway and keep Earth as it is. Each of the characters have familiar, and the narrator of the story is the dog Snuff, belonging to Jack. Until this night in october, in every game played, the closing side has always won, but will it be so this time, as the ones playing for the opening side is being murdered one by one and the 31th of October draws nigh?

The most interesting thing about A Night in the Lonesome October is probably the narration. Each of the 31 chapters (one for each day) elaborates the details of the game, its players and so forth, but this is done piecemeal and very skillfully at that. In the beginning, it is only apparent that there will be some kind of summoning, but the rules or traditions of the game are only revealed as the story goes on. The twist of having the story told by the dog is also nice, since it gives little insight into what the humans are doing, but all the more into the relationship between their companions.

Still, although Roger Zelazny manages to be entertaining, and even if the concept feels fresh, the overall impression is not sparkling. The story is not interesting enough, the characters, although a wonderful collage of real and imaginary heroes and villains, are not interesting enough. I am, however, prepared to award A Night in the Lonesome October three and a half snails for its quite unique perspective, as well as for its narration.

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Neil Gaiman – Odd and the Frost Giants

2008-03-20



Title: Odd and the Frost Giants
Author: Neil Gaiman
Year: 2008

Neil Gaiman is incredible in that he never writes anything that is even remotely reminiscent of something bad, regardless of if he writes for children or for adults, if he writes novels, short stories or comics. Odd and the Frost Giants is a lightweight book, clearly intended for children, presenting a short and to-the-point story about the not quite ordinary boy Odd and his encounters with Norse mythology. Odd lives in a viking village in Norway, to which spring refuses to come. Odd leaves his home, and while wandering in the woods and hills, he encounters three magnificent creatures: a bear (Thor), an eagle (Odin) and a fox (Loki). These gods have been ousted from their home of Asgard by a devious Frost Giant, and Odd sets out to help them and set things straight.

Of Neil Gaiman’s earlier works, I think Stardust comes closest to Odd and the Frost Giants, but admittedly, the two books are not very similar. In my opinion, Stardust has much more to offer the adult reader than has this book. That is not to say that I did not enjoy Odd and the Frost Giants, but it is to say that it is far from the masterpiece I consider Stardust to be. Still, I like Neil Gaiman’s way of writing. He always manages to put a unique touch to everything he writes that makes it Neil Gaiman, and thus, something I enjoy immensely. Although I do not recommend Odd and the Frost Giants in general, I would say it is an excellent introduction to the author for young readers.

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Terry Pratchett – Monstrous Regiment

2008-02-19

Title: Monstrous Regiment
Author: Terry Pratchett
Year: 2003

I have always liked Pratchet, but I can see three reasons why I did not like this novel particularly much: I have grown tired of his writing, it was an inevitable bad novel in a series of better ones or Pratchett has started writing worse novels in general. I tend to think that the second is the most plausible, since I would need more data to assess the relevance of the other two.

Monstrous Regiment is a book about women in the armed forces, drawing its title from the work The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women by John Knox. The reader follows the story of a girl named Polly “Oliver” Perks, who disguises herself as a man in order to find out what has happened to her lost brother. The squad she joins is, as usual, comprised of a plethora of strange characters and creatures.

There are mainly two things with this novel that bother me. Firstly, the theme is a sort of kindergarten-level gender discussion which fails to enrich me in any substantial way. I think the underlying messages are germane, but they are on such a basic level that they might appeal to teenagers, but hardly to myself. Satire is present in this novel, but it is not as profuse as in other works by Terry Pratchett. Since this is one of the major reasons I read his novels, I am disappointed.

Secondly, there is hardly anything unique in this story. Many concepts are present, but have been expounded more expertly elsewhere (vampires in Carpe Jugulum, newspapers in The Truth and so forth). Admittedly, some characters show more depth than is usual for Pratchett (I am thinking of Lieutenant Blouse in particular), but these small glimpses are simply not enough. Adequate language and concepts save this novel from utter failure, but does not on its own motivate a higher grade than two and a half snails.

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