The Charmed Life of Alex Moore - Molly Flatt

I've started listening to audiobooks from BorrowBox and Libby library apps, while on the bus to work. This was my most recent - a very Katieish blending of genres; half contemporary urban fiction, half psychological sci-fi. Six months ago, the titular Alex Moore took the leap from her dreary office job to become a trendy tech entrepreneur. Overnight, she became a brand- new person; braver, more confident, with a purpose - but also colder and weirdly disconnected from everything she was or knew before.

A weird series of events sends Alex to the Orkney Islands to take part in a research project, where she stumbles across huge secrets that have been hidden from the human race since the dawn of time... There was a lot about "Alex Moore" that fascinated me; complex ideas about what shapes our lives"; the lessons we learn, messages we believe and how our experiences dictate the way our personal "story" plays out. Author Molly Flatt asks uncomfortable questions about the rights and wrongs of sacrificing our past to move on from trauma, and how real, how fulfilling that can really be? The plot twists and turns, many unforeseen revelations making brilliant sense in hindsight.

However, I didn't like the ending. The consequences of Alex's final action didn't really make much sense to me, and one relationship took a turn that, though I saw it coming, felt forced and also crossed one of my red lines. Nope.

Also, please note that the unnamed (and fictional) Foyles bookseller who made an appearance early on did not reflect well on my profession. One might forgive her irritating fangirling at meeting a once-renowned author, but please note: no bookseller would ever - EVER - hand someone a book from a display table and tell them to lean on that when writing on a piece of loose paper. Nope nope nope.

Fool's Quest - Robin Hobb

Fitz and the Fool: Book 2

Fool's Assassin was a leisurely, bittersweet and foreboding but mostly cosy exploration of Fitz's new home and life, up until the last few chapters, during which Robin Hobb struck with a two-pronged emotional attack. Fool's Quest picks up just where the previous book left off, at least from one of the plotlines. But it is a while before primary narrator Fitz is even aware of the events that have befallen the other narrator. The tension is high because of the reader's awareness of the anguish in store for Fitz. Hobb has never been kind to her characters; Fitz and the Fool have been through a ridiculous amount of suffering through the course of three trilogies, but now Fitz finds himself caught between the only two people who could come near to testing his loyalty to the other.

After nearly the entire length of a book waiting for Fitz and the Fool's reunion, Hobb reminds us of the old cliche, be careful what you wish for. For the Fool has changed. It is devastating to see this beloved character broken by his experiences in his years apart from Fitz. The Fool is alternately pitiful and aggravating, and trauma has emphasised his worst traits. He has always been stubborn, when it comes to his sense of his role in a higher purpose, but now, he comes across as hard-headed, manipulative, self-absorbed. It's forgivable, given his desperate circumstances, and a natural evolution of the character of the previous books, but still hard to read without wanting to shake some sense into him. And yet, through it all, Fitz and the Fool's relationship is what gives the book its heart. It's far from being the only important relationship; Robin Hobb's strength is that her characters have multi-faceted lives, and despite his quiet existence, Fitz has built up a lifetime's worth of close friends and family, all of whom come together to make him who he is. But there is no love like that between Fitz and the Fool, and Hobb gradually reveals just how powerful that love is.

Amid the frustration with certain characters, and the anxiety for those whose fates are unknown, there are a few moments of joy. Hobb finally presents Fitz with a moment of triumph that has been withheld from him since the beginning of his tale - just so he can be fall the furthest from his highest peak to his greatest despair. And when that happens, watch out world! FitzChivalry Farseer is on the loose, and he is furious!

Fitz has been many people over the course of the series: stable-boy, assassin in the shadows, royal page-boy, outcast, wolf's companion, soldier, husband. Respectability, however, has never come easily to him. He has always had a wild streak, and at this point in his life, when he is expected to be on his politest behaviour, his wildness breaks out like never before. And it is terrifying to behold.

Fool's Quest is relentless, the darkest book of the series so far. In a series starting with Assassin's Apprentice, you can expect dubious morality, grey areas, but really, assassinations were never the focus of any of the stories. And when they were, there was a strict code of professionalism (if that makes it any more palatable.) There was violence, there were battles, there was self-defence or defence of the realm or mercy-killings. But Fool's Quest is the start of a revenge narrative, and that doesn't sit well with me. From early on, Fitz was taught that his job was political, not personal, but now he's thrown all that to the winds. And worst of all, I can feel the narrative nudging me to cheer him on as he sets off on his murderous rampage, because they deserve it. It is an uneasy situation to find oneself in. Still, Hobb has taken us thus far, and I trust her storytelling enough to be sure that the final volume, Assassin's Fate, will be much more than an epic bloodbath. It'll be messy. It'll be morally complex. Fitz will make some terrible decisions. There will be dragons, and there will be tears.

Fool's Assassin - Robin Hobb

Fitz and the Fool: Book 1

Note: you really need to have read The Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies to get the full appreciation of this one.

Review contains minor spoilers for previous books.

Many years have passed since the events of the Tawny Man trilogy. FitzChivalry Farseer has left behind his former existence, and settled down to a happy family life in the country, living as Holder Tom Badgerlock of the Withywoods Estate. But Withywoods is not the sanctuary Fitz had come to believe. Strange and dangerous things are afoot in the world, even infiltrating Fitz's own home. So often, the trail seems to lead back to the Fool, who Fitz has not seen since they parted at the end of Fool's Fate, but whose absence is a constant weight on his mind. Why has the Fool kept his* distance for so long? And what can he want with Fitz now?

After the intrigue, action, might and magic of the previous books, Fool's Assassin has a much more domestic feel to it than Robin Hobb's readers may be used to. The plot is slow-burn, taking place over a decade or more, slowly building up a thorough picture of a quiet life in the country. Fitz still visits his friends and family at Buckkeep castle, but he is no longer a part of the political wrangling. His concerns are of his family and home; his ageing wife, his youngest child, the household staff and difficult guests. Most of the book is setting up events for the action to come: Hobb builds an entire new world for Fitz, with just enough hints from the outside world and his retrospective narration to fill the reader with terror for when everything comes crashing down. It's only a matter of time.

A new point-of-view character is introduced, who allows us to see the same story from different perspectives, and to show us Fitz as others see him. This was less jarring than I'd expected after six books with only one narrative voice; I wasn't instantly sold on the new character, as at first I found them a little too precocious to be true, but they soon won me over. I enjoyed the alternating chapters, and the new voice brought a freshness to the book while fitting in as though they had always been there. Despite lacking much action for the majority of the book, Fool's Assassin is every bit as engrossing as the previous titles, and has forced me to put the rest of my to-read pile on hold until I find a way to extricate myself from this series.

The book's title, Fool's Assassin, brings together the title patterns of the previous two series, and begs the question, why would the Fool require an assassin? It is so out of character for someone who despite all the chaos and devastation he's caused and endured, is at heart a gentle soul. And we don't even meet the Fool in person until about the last tenth of the book, although he has been at the heart of most of the disturbances that have come into Fitz's life. When he does show up, everything goes terribly, horribly wrong. The longed-for reunion is devastating; one reckless action has far-reaching consequences, and the volume closes on a cliffhanger that made me very grateful that I had waited until the whole trilogy had been published before losing myself in Hobb's world again.


* I use the male pronouns to describe the Fool here, as although the character's gender is ambiguous, he presents as male in the Fitz-narrated books.

The Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies - Robin Hobb (reread)

It can be a risky thing to return to a book series you loved a decade ago. Time and distance can change your perspective; sometimes it can give you an added appreciation for things you didn't spot before, but also there is the danger of disappointment, disillusionment. I was a different person ten years ago, when I first discovered Robin Hobb's fantasy epic, beginning with Assassin's Apprentice. It was my "last summer" between finishing university and taking the first steps into the wider world. I found the Farseer Trilogy in the Kingston borough libraries, and was instantly captured by the narrator's voice. From the first page, I could envision the writer, a world-weary scribe in an untidy stone room, scratching his memoirs onto parchment by flickering torch- or lamplight. That summer, I was swept away into a land of political intrigue and half-comprehended magic in a diminished world whose glory days have faded into shadowy myth. And during the weeks while I was engrossed in Hobb's universe, I discovered that by coincidence, three of my friends were at a similar point in the series. We would meet up as an informal bookclub, with cheese and wine on the seafront, and exchange thoughts, theories and hints about what we had read and what was to come. I raced through those books that summer, not only the Farseer chronicles, but the Liveship Traders and Tawny Man set in the same universe. With the publication of a new trilogy, Fitz and the Fool, I returned to the Realm of the Elderlings to refresh my memory of the story so far. It's been a while since I was really into the sword-and-sorcery genre (Terry Pratchett excepted, if he counts) and now science fiction is more my cup of tea. But I was fond of Hobb's characters, and want to see how their tale concludes.

FitzChivalry Farseer is a royal embarrassment. The illegitimate only child of the heir to the Six Duchies throne, he spends his youth hidden and despised, working variously in the castle stables, as page to his father's widow, and learning the arts of the royal apprentice, the shadowy figure Chade. In his lowly position in the royal household, Fitz sees everything, and there is a lot to see, for it is a turbulent time for the Six Duchies. The country is under siege from outside forces, and threatened by treachery from within. The only hope seems to lie in a desperate quest to dangerous territories. But what has this to do with Fitz? And what is the meaning of the cryptic prophecies by the King's Fool?

Superficially, The Farseer Trilogy, and its sequels, is cut from the same cloth as many other fantasy novels, its setting resembling a medieval society, with kings and queens, tradesmen and peasants, with taverns aplenty. Fantastical elements are quite light on the ground. Magic, called "The Skill" is a trait that runs through the bloodline of the Farseers, the ruling family, but its rules and workings are mostly forgotten, passed on by word of mouth and preserved in scraps of scrolls buried deep in the archives. The Skill is a mixed blessing, powerful but addictive to its user and potentially deadly. There are also other, earthier magics, most notably "The Wit" - the ability to bond with an animal companion, a privilege granted to few and viewed with hostility. Fitz is gifted - or cursed - with both Wit and Skill.

The series is fairly slow-paced, taking time to introduce the reader to a rounded cast of characters: Burrich, the stablemaster tasked with Fitz's upbringing and training, Chade, the cantankerous, scarred spy and assassin. The aging King Shrewd, noble Prince Verity and cruel, foppish Prince Regal. Patience and Lacey, Molly Chandler, Nighteyes the wolf, and the Fool. Oh, the Fool! That character stole my heart from his very first appearance. The Fool is an enigma, a character of many contradictory identities, each of which are completely real. Frivolous and melancholic, gender-fluid, stoic and vulnerable, brave and so afraid, all these elements come together to create one of the most exasperating but beloved characters of fantasy fiction.Whenever the Fool arrives on the scene, Fitz must prepare for his life to be turned upside-down. Their relationship grows from youthful antagonism, to friendship, to a love story - whether you call it bromance or romance - that is the heart of the entire saga.

The Farseer Trilogy is followed chronologically by The Liveship Traders, but it takes place in another part of the world, with an entirely new cast - entirely new, but for one character whose familiar identity is revealed gradually. Although I enjoyed that trilogy well enough on my first reading, I decided to skip it on the rereads, as I didn't feel a strong connection to the characters, setting or plot. However, it does give extra background to the events of The Tawny Man, which pick up Fitz's story, fifteen years later.

The Farseer Trilogy and Tawny Man series (and Liveships if you're reading them) are worth savouring and taking time over - and then, when things start to go wrong, you feel the full impact on the characters and the wider world. Robin Hobb makes you fall in love with the characters and then whack you in the emotions, because when things go wrong, putting them right comes at a great cost. Yet Hobb keeps the story from growing too bleak with a light touch of humour, characters who are good company, and a world woven of wonder. Happiness is hard-won, and tempered with sorrow and suffering, so when contentment comes, it is all the sweeter.

However, a new trilogy awaits, and even as I can't wait to reunite myself with Fitz and the Fool, I fear for what else Hobb has in store for them.

Complete saga. Titles in bold are the Fitz/Fool books, which I'm reading this time around.

The Farseer Trilogy

Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

The Liveship Traders Trilogy

Ship of Magic

The Mad Ship

Ship of Destiny

The Tawny Man Trilogy

Fool's Errand

The Golden Fool

Fool's Fate

The Rain Wilds Chronicles

Dragon Keeper

Dragon Haven

City of Dragons

Blood of Dragons

Fitz and the Fool

Fool's Assassin

Fool's Quest

Assassin's Fate

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

It is England at the beginning of the nineteenth century: the time of King George III, and the Napoleonic Wars. And yet it is not quite England as we know it. For this England is made up of two kingdoms: the north and the south. The King in the North, the Raven King, John Uskglass, was the last practicing magician in the country, but he disappeared three hundred years ago. Since then, English magic has been limited to dusty old men reading dusty old books, studying the theory of magic, but the theory alone. Actual, visible, practical magic is a thing of the past. Or so it seemed, until now...

The story opens with the framing device of a third party - not Norrell, nor Strange, but Mr Segundus, posing the question to the society of magicians: why is magic no longer done in Britain? The following thousand pages proceed to tell us exactly what happens when mortals meddle with magic. The two titular magicians could not be more unlike each other. Gilbert Norrell, the one and only practical magician turned up at the beginning of the book, is a pompous, dull, irritating man, cautious of the powers of magic, and desiring that he should keep the secrets to himself. Meanwhile, Jonathan Strange is outwardly charming, a brilliant apprentice magician, but capricious and reckless.

The story really begins when, against his better judgement, Mr Norrell resurrects a lady from the dead, making a bargain with a shady, David-Bowie-in-Labyrinth-like figure from fairyland known only as the gentleman with the thistle-down hair. Once the fairies get involved, nothing is predictable, and Clarke spins a bewitching tale that draws you into this world like and yet unlike our own, until you are as bewitched as if you too spent half of your life dancing the nights away at the gentleman's kingdom of Lost-hope. Strange and Norrell contrast with one another in almost every aspect of character and approach to magic; one in favour of bringing back magic to English shores in full force, the other wanting only to control it and keep it secure, and by no means to involve the fairies, whose morality, if they have such a thing, is completely alien and unpredictable.

It took me a decade between first buying Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell as a Christmas present for my dad, and actually getting around to reading it. Even though I suspected it would be right up my street, I found the length a little intimidating, and when I watched the TV adaptation last year, I was the only person in the room not to know the story - a rare event, especially in this genre. Strange and Norrell is absolutely my sort of story, full of dark fantasy and magical story-telling, dangerous fairies, set in a deftly-drawn alternative history and told with dry wit. The narrative reads as though written at the time it was set, and the language and spelling of the regency era serves to draw the reader even further into the world of the novel -  with copious amounts of in-universe footnotes, giving background to the alternative version of history.

Although there were a few chapters near the end (when Strange is travelling in Venice) which seemed less tightly-woven into the plot than the rest, on the whole, the pages flew by easily, and I thoroughly enjoyed spending a week or so in this magical world. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is an indulgent and all-absorbing novel, an excellent comfort read on long winter nights.

N0S4R2 - Joe Hill

Victoria McQueen has a talent for finding things. As a little girl, she cycled across the Shorter Way Bridge near her home, to come out miles away. Throughout her turbulent youth, all she had to do was go out on her bike and the bridge would take her wherever she needed to go. But one day, an angry, teenaged Vic found Charlie Manx, kidnapper, serial killer, and vampire of sorts, and she barely escaped with her life. Sixteen years on, Manx snatches Vic's son in his vintage Rolls-Royce Wraith (number plate N0S4R2 or N0S4A2 depending on which edition of the book you're reading.) Wayne (first name Bruce) is whisked away to Manx's Christmasland, a place that promises eternal happiness, fun and innocence. But Vic McQueen will do anything to get her son back.

Vic McQueen is a messed-up character, there's no doubt about that. Combine a childhood of living with parents who loathed each other with her reality-defying gift and her near-death experience at Charlie Manx's, and it's no wonder she went off the rails. But I found it impossible not to like this tough-talking, tattooed young mother just trying to make the best of things despite her brokenness. In the aftermath of her first encounter with Manx, the adult Vic goes through various institutions, and emerges not sure of what is true and what is illusion. It is notable that Manx's return into Vic's life coincides with her running out of medication. Though it's pretty certain that N0S4R2 is a tale of the supernatural, Joe Hill subtly introduces a hint of doubt. There are times when the same scene is shown from two different points of view, each account differing just enough to make you question the narrator's reliability.

Vic is one half of the most unlikely but endearing couple, and I will continue to call them a couple though they are separated at the time of their son's abduction. Lou is the improbable knight on a shining motorbike who helps her escape from Manx; overweight and nerdy, Lou is an archetypal "loser," but he has a heart of gold and an enduring loyalty. Even when Vic and Lou are apart, their love for each other shines throughout.

In N0S4R2, Joe Hill has created characters you can really care for. Even people who appear for just a scene or two are rounded out and make you feel for them - a very dangerous thing in a horror novel. Due to the genre, you know that dreadful things are sure to happen, but I found myself aching for certain characters to be spared. Surely they must be immune? The devastating impact of each death reaffirms that no one is the expendable extra, that when a serial killer is on the loose, there is no containing the consequences of his actions. No man is an island; the redshirt is a myth.

On the other hand, the villains are repulsive. Manx is awful enough, evil and twisted enough to convince himself that he is doing what is best. But his henchman, Bing, is so much worse, utterly vile, a rapist and murderer, broken in the brain, and unlike Manx you get to see inside his mind. His point-of-view chapters made me feel defiled just by reading them.

At nearly 700 pages, N0S4R2 requires some commitment, but it is a twisty page-turner, an unusual and attention-grabbing thriller. Each chapter takes the story in a new direction. In some ways, I was hesitant to read much of the book in one sitting, for fear of what might lie in store for the characters, but that was continually overridden by the desire to get caught up in this adventure and spent my time in the world of the novel.

Lucky No. 14: Blame it on the Bloggers.

I wasn't planning to buy the book this year (whoops - I mean last year!) although I've had my eye on it since its hardback release. The current edition in the shops is the unpopular trade paperback - size of a hardback, but with a paper cover, neither one thing nor the other - and I had planned to wait for the smaller paperback. But Hanna, Sarah, Laura and perhaps some other people I've missed, kept raving about the book and as it was a Christmas-themed book, I could not wait another year. I'm very pleased I gave in: N0S4R2 was an excellent beginning to the new year. Let's see if the rest of 2014's reading can live up to this one.

Key Quotes

Christmas was almost three months in the rearview mirror, and there was something awful about Christmas music when it was nearly summer. It was like a clown in the rain, with his makeup running.

He was as tall as Lincoln and just as dead.

"What are you really scared of? Scared that you're crazy? Or scared that you aren't?"

"I am a leaf on the wind," Lou said, and the man-nurse said, "Dude, don't say that. I don't want to start crying on the job."  (Hurrah for the Serenity reference!)

He believed in his own decency with all his heart. So it was with every true monster, Vic supposed.

TV: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1988)

They don't make kids' TV like they used to. Fact.

The Lion...

As a child, I watched very little television indeed, but perhaps that made the programmes and dramas I did watch all the more special. In particular, I have a soft spot for the old Sunday night dramas the BBC used to show in the run-up to Christmas: six-part adaptations of classic children's literature. The Phoenix and the Carpet was one, and The Borrowers ran to two series, which remained buried deep enough in my subconscious that on my first viewing of Lord of the Rings, many years later, I saw Ian Holm's Bilbo Baggins and my brain screamed "IT'S POD!" But no drama can live up to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I would have been just about three, and almost certainly this would have been my first encounter with the story, but I have no memories of seeing it for the first time. I've just always known that story.

In later years, we had a taped-off-the-TV video of an animated adaptation, which now I think is... not very good. Back then, I viewed it as fair, but not "the real thing." My grandmother was the custodian of the (mostly) live-action mini-series, and to watch this was a rare treat. As far as I was concerned, this was the book come to life off the page.



The music of the opening titles is the closest thing I've found in the real world to magic, and it brings tears to my eyes. It evokes the reality of magic, and the knowledge that if I went into my wardrobe, maybe I would find my way into Narnia. Or, alternatively, I could stick pictures to the back of the wardrobe, imagine myself there, and it would be just as real, just as good. There was none of the wistfulness of knowing that the real world just isn't as exciting as the world of the imagination, because as far as my younger self was concerned, they were the same thing.

...The Witch...

Of course, in 2005, Walt Disney Pictures brought out their Hollywood film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I have no complaint with their treatment of my beloved story. (The sequels left a fair bit to be desired, but I can count even teeny, minor criticisms of L, W & W on my thumbs.)

The BBC mini-series is very much a product of its time, with theatrical over-acting and a quaint combination of costumes and animation for special effects. We've got a dwarf with a broad Yorkshire accent, beavers who resemble lisping potatoes, and an Aslan who, if he opens his mouth wide enough, reveals a man inside a lion suit. And yet, all this fades away, leaving the storytelling to do the work. Watching it now, I was pleasantly surprised how well it stood the test of time in an age of 3D, CGI and Blu-ray, proving that above everything else, what is needed is a good story. The casting is wonderful - I love the hammy White Witch, plummy-voiced, blinky older brother Peter, the freckled and resentful Edmund, Susanish Susan and round, toothy Lucy.

...and the Wardrobe

The BBC also adapted three other Narnia books: Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which were put together as a six-parter, and The Silver Chair. I saw The Silver Chair, which features Doctor Who's Tom Baker as a marvellous Puddleglum, while still a child, and once again I found it was close to perfect, but I was older and more critical of the Prince Caspian/Dawn Treader adaptation - it was a bit rushed and I thought Caspian really ought not to have such childish curls - but even so, with its limited budget and dated special effects, I feel that it captured the essence of the original stories better than its more cinematic Hollywood remakes.

Twelve Days of Christmas 12: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

A glowing lamppost in the middle of a snowy wood. A faun, wrapped in a scarf, carrying parcels and an umbrella. This is one of the images that has lodged in my mind for as long as I can remember, and which is inextricably linked with Christmas. Which is odd, because there hasn't been a Christmas in Narnia in living memory. The country has been placed under a spell which means that it is always winter, but never Christmas.

When I was little, I always wanted so much to find Narnia in my wardrobe. It is so beautifully described, and though it is supposed to be a curse, I think it is at its most beautiful when shrouded in snow and ice. Perhaps I would grow tired of it if I lived in perpetual winter - after all, in real life, I am already wishing that spring would come again. But that snowy wood with its lamppost is the first sight you get of Narnia, and that is the most special, the most iconic image of this wonderful land in the wardrobe. And every time I read this book, which I do most winters, I am transported to the innocence of childhood, when, although even then I knew the story inside out, it never lost its magic and its wonder.

And with the arrival of Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter, and the return of the Great Lion Aslan, the Witch's power begins to wane. Father Christmas is seen once more. I love the fact that, although here Christ is known as Aslan and is in the form of a Lion, Christmas is still Christmas. (It was probably brought over by the first King and Queen of Narnia, Frank the Cabby and his wife Nellie in The Magician's Nephew.) Father Christmas is instantly recogniseable, as old as time, wise as well as jolly. I was pleased to see that in the recent film adaptation, Father Christmas was an old-fashioned, graver version of today's Santa, in a darker red coat, as befits an old-fashioned British story - and yet still very much recogniseable.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is, to my mind, the classic child's fantasy story, a fairy tale not only for children, but for those who have outgrown being too old for fairy tales. It never loses its magic.

And I still check the wardrobe in every room I stay in.

Merry Christmas to you all.