The Land of Laughs

The 2nd of the C's in the challenge.

To tell the truth I was not expecting to like this book. I actually winced when I saw Carroll's name on the list. I had picked up and put down a number of his books over the years. I looked at them and for some reason something about them always told me that I wasn't going to like them.

Initially I felt that The Land of Laughs was going to bear out my misgivings. I didn't take to the central character of Thomas Abbey straight away, and considering that he's the narrator of the story that could have caused a problem. However after a few chapters I began to warm to him and started to enjoy his somewhat unusual way of looking at the world and his use of words.

Thomas is a bored English teacher at an East Coast preparatory school (think of Dead Poets Society's Wellton), he's the son of a dead Oscar winning actor, and sees this as more of a curse than a blessing, he decides to take a sabbbatical to write a biography of his favourite author; dead children's writer Marshall France (the name of the book is actually France's best known work), it is at about this time that Thomas meets with fellow Marshall France fan, the quirky puppeteer Saxony Gardner. Thomas starts a relationship with Saxony and she sort of invites herself on his project, becoming his researcher.

Marshall France proves to be a mysterious character. What Saxony and Thomas find out about him is contradicted by others in his life, most notably his editor and his daughter. When Thomas and Saxony go to France's hometown; the sleepy, mid western hamlet of Galen, Missouri things start to get weird.

The town itself appears to be normal enough, although it and it's inhabitants seem to be stuck in a time warp. Judging by the references made to songs and TV shows in the book it's set in the late 1970's, but Galen seems to be permanently stuck in the 1950's. Thomas makes a number of references to things in Galen being like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. There's something unreal about the people themselves, they all seem to defer to Marshall France's daughter, the formidable Anna France, as if she controls the town. The creepiest thing for me was the preponderance of pit bull terriers. I like dogs, but pit bulls are just creepy. It's then that the reader realises they're in the middle of a very odd mystery.

It was a wonderfully written tale and kept me turning the pages to find out what it was about Marshall France, his daughter, the town and the stories he wrote. That was another great thing about The Land of Laughs, Marshall's stories. There are tantalising references to them and some of the characters in them and I found myself hoping that they were real books, so I could read them. I had to keep reminding myself that they weren't real, worse luck.

A fun and surprising read. It's always nice to get something out of a book you don't initially have a lot of hope for. I haven't read a lot else like it, but Jeremy Leven's wonderful and criminally underrated Creator (the book, the movie was a good try, but didn't hit the mark) deals with the same theme of fiction becoming reality, it came out at about the same time as well.

Mass With Substance

Mass With Substance picks up where Final Ascension left off.

Cerebus clings on as the tower rises upwards away from the city. Eventually he gets his bearings and looks down. He begins to climb up the tower, straining as he makes sure that he hangs onto the golden sphere, which is quite heavy.

There aren't actually any spoken or even thought words in this chapter. It's mostly sight gags and wonderfully drawn Cerebi mugging for all they're worth. Cerebus keeps seeing Weisshaupt and picking up those cards which read simply Good Luck W. It's not made clear whether the statues, kind of like Easter Island heads, although of Weisshaupt are real or just part of Cerebus' fevered imagination. In fact given Cerebus' previous journeys within his own mind it is entirely possible that none of what the readers are seeing is really happening.

The chapter closes with one of the giant Weisshaupt heads falling onto Cerebus greatly abused and already very sore foot.

Tomorrow, When The War Began

Tomorrow, When The War Began is an Australian young adult novel by John Marsden.

The book first came out in 1993 and according to my copy has been reprinted over 50 times since then. It's a genuine Australian literary phenomenon. John Marsden can be considered the Bryce Courtenay of the teen set. The book has been critically acclaimed and it's required reading at a number of Australian high schools. Prior to writing Tomorrow, When The War Began, Marsden was a high school teacher, he already had a number of books published, but nothing would approach the stunning success of the Tomorrow series. John Marsden is still writing and is also still in the education game, he runs his own school called Candlebark. Tomorrow, When The War Began is the subject of an upcoming film to be released in Australia in early September.

I picked the book up and put it down a number of times. There were a couple of reasons for this. It came out in 1993 and I was largely over YA material by this age, the other was that the book on an initial glance bore striking resemblance to a 1980's American film called Red Dawn, about an invasion of the US by hostile foreign forces and how the high school football team, comprising most members of the 80's Brat Pack, began a guerilla action against the invaders. To a certain extent that's the storyline of Tomorrow, When The War Began, although I doubt Marsden was inspired by the film.

Over the summer holidays a group of friends: Ellie, Robyn, Fi, Corrie, Homer, Lee and Kevin go on a camping holiday in a remote wilderness commonly referred to by the locals of the small country town of Wirrawee as 'Hell'. While the kids are camping, their town, in fact the entire Australian mainland, is invaded by a foreign power from the north. The invaders nationality is never actually made clear, but it's widely believed that they are Asian, possibly from Indonesia. The kids decide that the best option is to go back to their remote camp site and see if they can work out the best way to make life difficult for the invaders and do their bit to help free their country.

Despite the situation there isn't a huge amount of action in the book, it's more about how the kids handle the circumstances they find themselves in and their interactions. The book is written from the point of view of farm girl Ellie, who was elected as the group's chronicler. It's written in a very personal style and although Marsden was a middle aged man when he wrote it, he portrays a teenage girl very effectively. The slang and language used to convey the story is contemporary and authentic. I'm sure Marsden observed his students when he was teaching and adopted their mode of speaking comfortably. I don't know if he initially planned sequels, but he certainly left the book open for one and has since written 6 more books in the Tomorrow series, plus a further 3 starring Ellie.

It was a quick and enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle the big screen treatment, even if the two stars of it are from Neighbours and Home & Away.

The Final Ascension

The first chapter of the 6th book of Church & State II is a short one. There are no words spoken in the actual panels. The story is told by the drawings and text placed somewhere on the page to explain what is going on in the panels.

Cerebus is rising, while still clutching his golden orb. Everyone else is watching. When I say everyone, I mean everyone.

From the far away Cirinist Abbess by means of a mechanical device, to Astoria in the cathedral, still awaiting sentence. From the dead Bran Mak Mufin in the hotel and the people frozen in the courtyard at Cerebus command, to Blakely wandering the streets of Iest. From Bear in a forest somewhere outside the city, to Jaka in a tavern located in the lower city.

Cerebus is clinging to the bottom of the Black Tower as it rises upwards at tremendous speed.

It was an interesting way of presenting an issue, something I'd never seen before. It's bloody hard to read, though. Dave couldn't just put the text at the one angle in the one place every page he couldn't just make the panels all the one size. Noooo! He had to stick it everywhere, all angles, slant it, make the panels irregular. To read it you're forced to turn the book over and over again, you forget what page you're up to and at times it makes you dizzy. Dave had to be an independent, back then no major publisher would have even considered doing what he did in The Final Ascension.

Favourite Authors

Some time ago I participated in a forum topic that asked people to name their top 5 favourite SFF authors. This is what I came up with at the time.

I tried to limit myself by not including an author who doesn’t have a body of work behind them or whose work has not yet stood the test of time. I also tried not to include authors who are still writing unfinished series, because I may not like the ending of
the series or they may never finish that series. Now having said all that I just know my choices are going to contradict some of it. These are in no particular order, all I had to was name my 5 favourites not choose who was better than someone else:

1) Tad Williams: I haven’t seen this bloke write a bad book. From Tailchaser’s Song to the first volume of the Shadow series. He also writes different things. Tailchaser’s Song was a whimsical little piece about the mythology of cats.
Memory, Sorrow & Thorn was a big LotR style epic, in fact I feel it was William’s homage to Tolkein.
Otherland mixed fantasy and science fiction and had nods to everything from Alice In Wonderland to modern role playing computer games.
Then he blew me away with the dark, but ultimately uplifting The War Of The Flowers.
I’m reserving judgement on the Shadow series. The first book was less gripping than his other work and I’m waiting until he puts out the final book of that before getting the others.

2) Terry Pratchett: you can’t not include him. When A Colour Of Magic came out there were a number of ‘funny’ fantasies along the same lines of hapless, inept wizard (Rincewind) blunders from disaster to disaster, but eventually comes out on top, ACoM was a cut above most, but then when he decided to use totally different characters and examine another part of the world in Equal Rites that elevated him to a new level. He’s demonstrated that he can write across ages (the Bromeliad trilogy and the Johnny Maxwell books) and genres (Good Omens with Neil Gaiman and the new Nation, which is very different, but
still immensely enjoyable).

3) J.K Rowling: the first contradiction. The Harry Potter books, whilst fantastic, are all one genre and about the same characters. She may have other books in her, but following HP is a hard ask. I’ve included her because I loved the HP books, the way the world was presented and how the characters, even the peripheral ones (Neville Longbottom from shy, awkward kid to butt kicking revolutionary hero) grew throughout the 7 books. She also provided many people with their entry into the wonderful world of fantasy and reading in general.

4) Jasper Fforde: he’d get in there just for Thursday Next, a concept which turned amusing fantasy on it’s head. I think the books have been described as silly books for smart people. He’s also done some ‘nursery rhyme’ mysteries, which while not as groundbreaking orbrilliant as the Thursday Next series, are still thoroughly enjoyable and made me laugh out loud on public transport, something which always earns me disapproving glares from the people in dark suits and I love it when that happens. He did a good job with the first book of a completely new series: Shades of Grey, which I reviewed here back in January.

5) JRR Tolkien: had to be there. The Hobbit is one of my all time favourite books, very different from LotR. I’m not a big LotR fan, I liked the book and the films and I can appreciate the achievement and the writing, but mainly the good professor makes this list for what his masterpiece did. It legitimized fantasy writing, it revolutionized the genre. If not for LotR and it’s stunning success many of the authors we have all loved and enjoyed may never have written and certainly would not have been inspired to turn their talents to thetype of work that they have produced.

There were a whole bunch of people who missed out: George RR Martin,I’m a huge Ice and Fire fan, but I haven’t really enjoyed anything else that Martin has done and the last half a book (don’t kid yourself AFfC is half a book, no matter what spin the author or his more enthusiastic fans try to put on it) and the time and obvious struggle that the creator is having with the second half and the delay in producing it leads me to believe that he has lost control of the concept and that it may remain unfinished.
Alan Dean Foster missed out, he’s predominantly a science fiction author, but his Spellsinger series was something I really had a lot of fun with, however the last couple of books in that were written purely for the money and cheapened the whole concept. Clive Barker couldn’t quite get in there, yes I know he’s mostly horror, but Weaveworld and Imajica were pure fantasy.
Parke Godwin, although I see Firelord as fantasy, his other work was largely historical fiction.
Roberta MacAvoy, probably my fault because I’ve only read the Damiano series, but I did try to read The Book of Kells and was unable to get through it.
I would have loved to have included Scott Lynch, but the Gentleman Bastards series is unfinished and has yet to stand the test of time.
Joe Abercrombie was unlucky, because The First Law trilogy almost tops Martin for edgy, hard, epic fantasy, but again we’ve yet to see how well his work will be regarded in 5 or 10 years time.
Dave Duncan was another person I couldn't include. I still think his first Pandemia series: A Man Of HIs Word is one of the best fantasy series I've ever read, but aside from it's sequel series and the two Omar books (Reaver's Road and Hunter's Haunt) Duncan hasn't ever reached those same heights for me.

Invisible Cities

The first of the 'C' authors as the challenge continues.

Italo Calvino was a highly respected Italian author (he passed away in 1985), and Invisible Cities is considered to be one of his notable works.

It's rather hard to know how to even classify the book, let alone review it. It is most definitely fantasy, but it's not really a novel, more a collection of prose poems. It also doesn't follow the classical novel structure, only two characters and these are only sketchily drawn, no narrative and no real focus.

The premise is a series of imaginary conversations between the Italian explorer Marco Polo and the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan (grandson of the mighty Genghis Khan). The explorer entertains his host with stories of fantastical cities, largely imaginary (an alternative title could be Imaginary Cities), that he has seen on his travels. Some of the described cities are very obviously facets of Polo's birthplace and home of Venice, others have never been heard of before and are not recognisable as any known city on this world. Most, if not all, of the cities have female names and I wondered if perhaps the author was using his depiction of the city as a metaphor to describe some of the women in his life or or women who had influence on his life in some form or another.

Each of the book's 9 chapters begins and ends with a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai. The cities are divided into 11 categories: Memory, Desire, Signs, Thin, Trading, Eyes, Names, Dead, Sky, Continuous and Hidden. The Continuous cities seemed to be modern cities mentioning things such as airports, refrigerators and radios.

The book isn't written as a novel and I doubt it was meant to be read that way, it seems to be more something you dip into from time to time, or read a bit of it and think on it before continuing.

It is beautifully and lovingly written, Calvino chooses his words carefully and uses them well, often with maximum impact on the reader.

It's not something I would have ever chosen to read had it not been on the list and I doubt it will prompt me to read any of Calvino's other work, but it was an interesting and brief experience. Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora with it's loving descriptions of the Venetian inspired Camorr and Brian Aldiss' Malacia Tapestry also put me in mind of Venice, so they share something with Invisible Cities. If the book's two main 'characters' interest, both have been written about extensively and a good deal of non fictional work can be found about them if anyone wishes to explore further.

From Fabletown With Love

From Fabletown With Love is a collection of a 6 issue standalone Fables related series starting Cinderella. It's the first Fables related project I've seen where the writing duties have not been handled by Bill Willingham. Novelist Chris Roberson handles the words in this one. I think it may have been his pet project. The pencils are provided by Fables regular guest artist Shawn McManus.

As indicated by the title Cinderella of glass slipper, Fairy Godmother, pumpkin coach fame, is Fabletown's version of James Bond. Cindy has been a secret agent for over 200 years, she was initiated by Fabletown's long term sheriff Bigby Wolf. As you can imagine with a couple of centuries to hone your skils you can get pretty good at something.

Cindy's espionage activities are not known to the Fables at large, only a select few are aware of what she does when she's not in Fabletown, the rest think she's a gadabout, shoe shop proprietress. The shop is amusingly enough called The Glass Slipper. During it's owner's frequent absences the shop is managed by the much put upon Crispin Cordwainer.

The current sheriff Beast (yes the same one that married Beauty) gives the missions out to Cindy and the community's most proficient and dangerous magic user Frau Totenkinder (remember all those wicked witches in the stories? Hansel & Gretel, etc.... that's Frau Totenkinder) provides Cindy with some sort of magical gadgetry, kind of like an old female version of Q, with knitting.

The mission detailed in this series takes Cinderella to the Arabian Nights homeland, where she's paired up with Ala Al-Din, or as we know him, Aladdin. The two are trying to find a cartel that is selling magical artefacts to Mundy's in exchange for high powered automatic weapons.

The story in the here and now is intercut with shorter episodes from Cindy's past, ranging from France in the early 19th century to East Germany in the 1960's.

There's also a side story in Fabletown involving Crispin's attempts to make a name for himself in the magical shoe industry by making a deal with elves. This has hilarious consequences when, as expected, the elves maliciously cheat the naive clerk.

It's a well written addition and a worthy one. If for whatever reason Willingham cannot write the book he's got a ready made replacement in Chris Roberson. It was a great story, very funny at times with plenty of pop culture references and while it also references other Fables books, events and characters it stands well enough on it's own for the reader not to have to have read the main book. There's also a well handled relationship between Aladdin and Cinderella.

This is one I'd advise anyone who has read Fables to get and enjoy.