Brendan Doyle is a scholar of literary criticism. He's greatly struggling, so when an offer of $20,000 comes from an eccentric for him to give a lectuBrendan Doyle is a scholar of literary criticism. He's greatly struggling, so when an offer of $20,000 comes from an eccentric for him to give a lecture about a well-known literary figure he readily agrees. His current research is about a barely known poet and it's driving him mad. The eccentric has developed time travel and wants to take his wealthy patrons back in time to listen to the literary figure in person. Doyle is to serve as an expert authority, basically as a bonus to the actual event. It all goes well until Doyle ends up stuck in the past without any means of survival. The first half of the book is mostly Doyle drifting around in despair, incompetency, and misery. However, there's also a considerable amount of humor. Most of it didn't work for me, but there were a few times where I chuckled. The second half is very different. Time travel is far from the only thing that occurs, as much magic and supernatural phenomenon become involved. Doyle becomes only one of several perspectives, though he's still the primary one. He also becomes less useless.
Although this is the first novel I've read by Powers, I know that he usually does secret history narratives and that's what this is. Various historical figures are mentioned and a few are characters. Why and how some historical events proceeded are given explanations that differ from the official records. There's a lot that's done with this that would be of significant interest and enjoyment for the relevant reader, though in this case I'm not one of them. There are various types of time travel stories. This is one without any paradoxes and where everything is fully resolved by the end. The time travel may be the easiest part to follow relative to what else happens. This isn't a difficult story to follow what's happening, though you may want to keep the changing circumstances and names of some characters in mind.
This is the first book of this current whim of having others determine a book I'll read after they've won a game of luck. If it were otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished this. It's not bad, or uninteresting, poorly written, or disagreeable. However, there's just something about how it's written that didn't work well for me, which is almost certainly a personal problem. I wasn't engaged and I only liked reading about a single character, Captain Jack. This is the kind of book where I can completely understand why others would think it's wonderful and would recommend those who are interested in it to try it for themselves. The first half wasn't to my preferences in terms of how the protagonist should be. It's realistic and understandable, too much so for me in this case. I've read some short fiction from Powers before and found some to be enjoyable, so I know he can write stories that I like. However, I don't think I'll be reading another novel of his unless I have an external reason to do so.
A Portrait in Shadow is a historical fantasy novel that loosely follows the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, a renowned 17th century painter, who accomp A Portrait in Shadow is a historical fantasy novel that loosely follows the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, a renowned 17th century painter, who accomplished several firsts as a female painter. The first half is Artemisia at nineteen years old trying to establish herself in Florence. She paints, seeks out patrons, attempts to be accepted by the academy/guild of magical artists, and tries to earn enough to avoid literally being a starving artist. The latter half has a focus on romance, introspection, and conflict. This novel is about her daily life and the struggles she goes through. It's almost entirely character driven. As this is a fantasy novel, the few years of her life that are depicted are considerably different from what is thought to be known. These differences are explained to be because in this version of Earth, magic and mythical beasts exist.
Magic is either healing or necrotic. The passionate emotions that an artist imbues their art with determines its function. A work of art can either be bound to a single person or affect everyone in an area. The two most common healing properties are alleviating chronic ailments and life extension. As a result the wealthy and Vatican priests commonly live to be well over a hundred years old. Artists die young though because they must give away part of their soul for each magically imbued work of art they create. The more powerful the magic is, the more of their soul it costs. At the opposite end is necrotic magic, the most powerful of which caused the Black Plague. The Grave Age then followed where for centuries all artists were hunted down and killed out of fear that they would bring down more plagues upon the world. Even now, centuries after the Grave Age, any artist who is even accused of dabbling in the dark arts can lose their entire reputation and be tortured to death. The two most important beasts are the Griffon and the Blood Drake, which symbolize Good and Evil, and were nearly hunted to extinction in Europe during the Grave Age.
I read this because I'm reading a manga, Arte, that's inspired by the life of the same historical person. It's even further from her life, though that's because isn't meant to be her. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. A lot of that is because I simply like how it's written. The romance of the latter half is a bit too saccharine and all the would-be sex scenes are fade to black, though I felt it did well enough. I'm conflicted about the purpose of changing so much and saying it's a different version of her rather than being an inspired character, but in this case I'll accept it. I had concerns about how meaningful the beasts and magic would be, but they're both organically integrated into the story in a pleasing way and matter a lot. There's also a considerable amount of sociological exploration concerning magic that I appreciated alongside the social commentary....more
The Terror is based upon Captain John Franklin's lost expedition that set off from England in two ships, Terror and Erebus, in 1845 to find the NorthwThe Terror is based upon Captain John Franklin's lost expedition that set off from England in two ships, Terror and Erebus, in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Artic. This is not a retelling of what happened as that mostly remains unknown, but rather an extrapolation of the author's research and supernatural elements. There's a bibliography included at the end. I didn't read anything about the expedition before reading this, so I don't know how that would affect the reading. At most I believe it would show how what's known was integrated into the book. Research into what happened continues on to this day, so some of the details may become outdated.
This is also a horror novel, there is a monster, though the environment itself is the greater horror to me. The greatest horror though is how the mind and body breaks down in extreme conditions when there aren't sufficient resources. It's a bleak story, though not oppressively so. There are times of merriment, joy, and hope. Overall it tends much more towards historical fiction and natural horrors.
The writing is excellent and I compulsively read through the novel. The abundance of description and details made it considerably easier to immerse myself. For the most part everything felt real and didn't disrupt the flow of my reading. I have no complaints in that regard.
There are eleven POVs, though the majority of them are only a few chapters at most, while a few other dominate the narrative. I enjoyed almost all of them. The characters usually feel like real people of their time, age, and station, but sometimes they make decisions that seem out of character and irrational for plot reasons. That's mostly in the latter half, which due to their circumstances can be somewhat understood.
As noted, the characters feel of their time and that includes their beliefs and behaviors. Essentially every character is male and expresses a masculine, if not chauvinistic, worldview. The hierarchy must be maintained and deviance is unacceptable. At least in theory anyway, if not so much in practice. The primary female character, and and one of the only outside of flashbacks, is usually in a state of undress and whichever POV come across her almost unfailingly describes her body. There are sexual scenes.
I enjoyed the first half considerably more than the second half. I don't know what I was expecting from the latter half, but what it was isn't what I wanted, at least in comparison to the first half. Near the end there's a considerable about of metaphysical infodumping that could've been shortened, though it does explain the supernatural elements. The first half is somewhat nonlinear while the second isn't.
I was asked to read this several months ago and thought that it would be appropriate for this month. I'm glad that I did. I'll be watching the TV series somtime next year. What I most realized is how little historical fiction I've read. I'll have to read more in the future....more
In California, on June 9th 1976 a 26 year old black woman married to a 38 year old white man, inexplicably disappears and readily comes to understand In California, on June 9th 1976 a 26 year old black woman married to a 38 year old white man, inexplicably disappears and readily comes to understand that she's thousands of miles away, near Baltimore, Maryland, and it's 1815. As she travels between the past and present, she quickly comes to realize the truth of these sojourns. To ensure her ancestor is born, she must repeatedly save another ancestor of hers, the white male son of a plantation owner with dozens of slaves. Many sacrifices have to be made, both of herself living as a slave, and of the dozens of other slaves present, to ensure that the tragedies that have already occurred, occur again.
While this was a time travel story, that wasn't really what it's about. The fictional aspects are simply plot devices to allow for telling a certain kind of narrative. Aside from that, it almost may as well be historical fiction. Butler described as it being a "grim fantasy". The story itself was told non-linearly, which in this case worked well for me. Story progression is mostly plot driven, though the characters interactions are rather interesting. I appreciated the parallelisms between two of the male characters and how it indicted them both, in different ways.
I think this would be a suitable text to teach in English classes in the United States in high school during either the junior or senior years. It's relatively short and filled with dialogue, so it made for a quick and easy read. Though, when I looked at the covers of the other editions I saw that one of the French editions had almost full frontal nudity on the cover, which was a curious choice. The closest I read to this in high school was Native Son by Richard Wright (1940) during my Junior year.
Sometimes when topic of slavery has come up when I've been talking to non-Americans it had led to interactions that I found interesting. One particular example was a German guy I talked to who after I told him that I watched 12 Years A Slave told me that he completely avoided anything to do with slavery because Germany's national trauma had made it to where he couldn't deal with the traumatic history of any other country.
I don't quite know why I didn't enjoy this more. There's just something about it that didn't feel like it accomplished all that it could've. Maybe it's because it seemed liked it was written for educational empathy purposes, which is why I felt like it would be a good fit for being taught. Even so, it's certainly still a worthwhile read. There's also an adaptation that's in the works. I was going to read more from black authors this month, but it seems that I didn't.
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