The Inheritance - Megan Lindholm/Robin Hobb

Megan Lindholm & Robin Hobb are the same person, but with very different writing styles. I'm pretty much in love with both of them, so it shouldn't be too surprising that I totally loved this book, but I'm not always a fan of short stories. I had only read their novels, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that all of these stories were gripping and wonderful. These stories were all long enough to let me actually feel involved with the main characters, and while they didn't all have happy endings, they were all very satisfying. I couldn't manage to read it all in one sitting, I had to take breaks between stories to process what I'd been reading.

Here's a breakdown of each story so I can remember them!

A Touch of Lavender - Aliens, addiction, abandonment, love in all its many varieties. I didn't really 'get' this story, I don't fully understand why it ends the way it does, but I really loved it while I was reading it. Billy's relationships - with his mother, with his sister, but especially with Lavender. What it can mean to a child when someone is really there for them, and listens and cares about them.

Silver Lady and the Fortyish Man - Magic isn't always what you expect it to be. And life doesn't always deliver what you want. But you're allowed to enjoy the good bits, and

Cut - A fabulous and chilling take on circumcision and female genital mutilation. It really has me thinking about parenthood and responsibility. At what point do we have to let our children go out and make their own mistakes?

The Fifth Squashed Cat - This is a really weird little story, but I enjoyed it. It is easy to feel superior when you're smart, but it doesn't always get you what you want. And people don't always appreciate your smug little feeling of superiority.

Strays - This is about stray cats, and a stray child. And more obliquely about when it is possible to help someone and when it isn't.

Finis - This one is really short, the POV character isn't really involved in the story at all, the main character only puts in a brief appearance, and most of the story takes place offstage. But it is great and it is fun rather than frustrating to figure out what is going on here.

Drum Machine - Dystopian future where you select your progeny from a list of officially approved prototypes who will be psychologically compatible and not prove unduly challenging to raise. In order to highlight the issues with this particular dystopia there is a little story running through the background about the difference between scripted and spontaneous music - and helps you see what has led to this particular future.

Homecoming - The first Rain Wilds settlers and their struggle to survive. Carillion is an artist, and aristocrat, and a mother who has been thrust into a horrible situation. It would be really easy for her to simply abdicate all responsibility, and in fact that is what she does initially, but watching her evolve as a person and put her own unique abilities to use solving problems is great. It is a scary story, hard to see how any good can come of this, but watching them fall in love with the Rain Wilds has made me want to go back and re-read Liveship Traders, and very excited about the new series.

The Inheritance - Shortest of the three Hobb stories. Set in Bingtown as the granddaughter of a Trader reclaims her inheritance - which isn't quite what she was expecting it to be.

Cat's Meat - The best story of the bunch in my opinion, although that's possibly only because I read it last. Set in the Farseer universe. The main character is almost totally powerless when her son's father shows up again after abandoning them years ago. She has to choose between fighting back (which is likely to have an immediate and disastrous outcome) and running away (also likely to be a disaster) and discovers a rather unexpected ally in her pet cat.

Elemental Assassin series - Jennifer Estep

The author's "Big Idea" behind this series is that books should be fun - and I would have to say that she succeeded admirably in that particular goal, because fun is exactly the word I would choose to describe this story. Gin Blanco is a really fun character, and the four books I've read so far have been extremely entertaining. Unfortunately that's about all they are - brain candy. Which isn't a problem if that's what you're looking for - fun, sexy, full of adventure - but doesn't make you come to new conclusions about the world. The big problem with Gin is that she's too powerful - she's a kick-ass assassin, she's got piles of cash, she's got a fantastic backup team, and she's the most powerful elemental around with not only one, but two elemental powers. So nothing ordinary can possibly be a threat - and so the author has to throw some really extra-ordinary bad guys in her way. So you wind up with this crazily powerful character getting beaten up over and over again (because that's the formula - the good guy isn't just allowed to walk in and win with no effort) which makes them seem much less powerful than they're supposed to be...which in turn makes the "I'm the best assassin in Ashland" line come off a bit whiny. Which is a real shame, because this series is otherwise excellent. There's a very decent background storyline running through the entire series. The little repetitive bits which have to exist because this is written as separate novels are short & sweet - they didn't bother me at all and that sort of thing usually drives me crazy. Really, what Gin needs is more people to beat up - she retires very near the start of book 1, and I think that's a real shame. One of my favorite bits is the hit in the opening chapter - excellent little story, nice demonstration that Gin is totally awesome at what she does. It would make the book a bit longer, but if there were one or two contract killings in each book that were just a cakewalk it would make things even more fun.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie

This was mentioned by Cloud on Wandering Scientist. It is the story of Junior, a Spokane Indian, growing up on the reservation and his decision to attend an all-white school in the neighbouring farm town in the hopes of escaping the trap everyone else on the rez seems to have fallen into - giving up. Junior has had to fight his entire life, but this decision puts him at odds with almost everyone in his community, and drops him into a social setting which runs according to totally different rules than he is used to.

This is a fascinating look at two different societies through the eyes of someone who doesn't quite fit into either. It could be a horrible and depressing book, but Junior is such a brave and positive character that it isn't. There are really horrible incidents with people both on and off the reserve, but there are some absolutely fantastic examples of kindness and humanity which balance these. None of the characters were black and white. Junior's best friend spends most of the book refusing to talk to him, and only at the very end does he manage to cope with Junior's decision to leave the reservation. The big mean kid at the new school, who is initially very mean and racist, winds up being one of the kindest and most thoughtful characters once he has actually gotten to know Junior as a person rather than a stereotype. People are people, and they act it in this book. No one is all good or all bad. Sometimes good decisions lead to tragedy. Sometimes horrible things happen for no reason. But people go on being people, and mostly they are good people.

There's an astonishing amount of depth in this very short and very readable little book, and the cartoons scattered throughout are fabulous. Not just simple illustrations, they actually help tell the story. I loved it and it is going on my list of books to put in Elli's way once she's a bit older.

To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis

Still in the mood to time travel with Connie Willis, I decided to re-read To Say Nothing of the Dog which is one of my favorites and the book that made me really fall in love with Willis. Set in future Oxford, in Mr. Dunworthy's time travel lab, this story is a lighthearted comedy/mystery which pulls strongly from Jerome K Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)", and Agatha Christie murder mysteries (without the murder).

The time-travel lab has accepted a commission in order to help finance their research. While it may be impossible to bring items from the past through the net into the future (well, present from their POV), it is certainly possible to observe historic places in order to recreate them. The absurdly wealthy Lady Schrapnel wishes to rebuild Coventry Cathedral, exactly has it was immediately prior to the bombing in WWII. She has virtually taken over the time-travel lab in order to accomplish this, and refuses to take no as an answer. Ned Henry is in charge of attempting to locate something called the "Bishop's Bird Stump" which was in the cathedral in the weeks leading up to the bombing, but which disappeared at some point and cannot be located. It is of vital importance to Lady Schrapnel, as seeing the Bishop's Bird Stump in the original Coventry Cathedral was a turning point in the life of one of her ancestors - Tossie Mering - although the details are missing from the rather waterlogged diary which has survived. Verity Kindle has been sent back to Victorian England to attempt to peek at the diary before it gets ruined, and hopefully accompany Tossie on her trip to Coventry. On one of her trips she accidentally brings something forward through the net, which shouldn't be possible, and everyone fears that it will trigger a paradox and change the future - it seems that the change wouldn't be immediate, but that alternate timelines would slowly converge - giving people a little time to attempt to fix the problem. Ned has made so many trips to try and figure out what precisely has happened to the Bishop's Bird Stump that he has become severely time-lagged - and so he is sent back to the Victorian Era to get a couple weeks rest in the only place Lady Schrapnel will be unable to track him down. Ned becomes involved in Verity's attempts to fix the incongruity she may have caused and hilarity ensues.

As usual the details of the time-travel mechanics are slightly different from previous books. There is a much stronger focus on objects not being able to travel forward in time, to the extent that the characters have to ensure that the clothing they are wearing is from the future. There is mention of safeguards being built into the net to cause it to fail to open in the case of too much slippage - and yet based on the details given it always appears that slippage is something which gets calculated after the travel has taken place. It is also the case that people originally tried to bring treasures through the net, and were unable to, years prior to any safeguards being implemented, so it is very unclear exactly what is preventing objects from travelling forwards in time.

At any rate, if you're willing to overlook some incongruities, and accept that the universe has some sort of organizational principle which prevents certain types of paradoxes and contrives to repair itself in the case of minor damage, then the plot is quite entertaining. But the plot isn't the best thing here, that's definitely the characters and the Victorian setting. This is a story I will keep coming back to, but I think it is better to read it by itself.

Doomsday Book - Connie Willis

After finishing Blackout and not having All Clear to dive into, I felt compelled to pick up Doomsday Book so I could at least visit with some of the characters. I've read this several times, and it seems to improve with each reading. The first time I had a lot of trouble getting into the story, there's so much going on what with the book being set simultaneously in the future and in the past. Willis doesn't waste much time setting the scene, she lets you figure things out for yourself, but it was published in the early 90's, and so her vision of the year 2060 doesn't always work - they've got video phones (it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure this out), but not cell phones which just feels all wrong...sort of like some weird version of the past rather than the future. On top of that, the future setting is Oxford college, which is such a timeless setting that I often managed to forget we were supposed to be in the future. Once I got past my initial confusion (which wouldn't have been so bad if I had only slowed down and read things more carefully...but I'm impatient like that) things got fabulous. Like all of her other books the pacing is breathless. Lots of miscommunication, lots of faulty assumptions. Unlike most of the other books, the person travelling to the past, Kivrin Engle, was quite well prepared. At least she was about as prepared as she could have been, but she was going rather a long way back, and it turns out that her preparations weren't perfect.

There are two separate stories going on here, Kivrin's story which is taking place in the past, and Mr. Dunworthy's story which is taking place in the "present" which is actually the future from our point of view. Kivrin has travelled back to the 1300's in order to experience a Medieval Christmas (the number of holy days means it will be easy for her to figure out exactly when she has arrived since time travel is usually off by a few days). Mr. Dunworthy is spending Christmas in Oxford, in the middle of an epidemic which begins very shortly after Kivrin leaves for the past.

As usual there are mysteries to unravel. The tech in charge of Kivrin's trip to the past is too ill to explain exactly what has gone wrong, the source of the epidemic is unknown, Kivrin fell ill shortly after arriving in the past and doesn't know exactly where her drop is located - vital information if she is going to be able to get back there in order to get home. The thing which struck me reading this was the amount of time the time travellers spend obsessing about how they will get back home again. It does make sense, being stuck in the past is scary, but they often seem to spend more time worrying about the details of exactly how they are getting home than in observing their surroundings. It certainly keeps the level of suspense high, but it is a bit disconcerting.

The big thing that struck me upon reading this is the subtle differences in how time travel works between the books. In this book the tech needs to establish a "fix" on the person who has travelled back in time that will allow them to reopen the "net" to the precise physical and temporal location in order to retrieve them. At one point in the story it appears that this fix has been lost (due to someone shutting off the power!) and so it will be impossible to retrieve Kivrin. In Blackout on the other hand, the time travellers have the expectation that failure to return on schedule via their original drop will result in a retrieval team being sent after them. This is time travel after all...if the folks in the future realize that there is a giant problem, they can just send someone back to the moment where the original traveller arrived, and have them return immediately. It does make sense that the mechanics are slightly different from book to book - it makes the plot work properly. If someone could have simply stepped through and prevented Kivrin's trip, the story would not have taken place. And the whole idea of sending a retrieval team probably didn't occur to anyone until afterwards. Still, it really seems like they might have come up with a better plan than "show up in this exact spot precisely two weeks after you arrived".

While the specific details of the time travel mechanics and protocols are in flux, which does sort of make sense as the technology is still relatively new, the story itself is fantastic and the characters are wonderful. I highly recommend it, but if you've got a choice I think they will work much better if you read Doomsday Book first!

Blackout - Connie Wilis

I've been a Connie Willis fan for years, ever since someone whose advice I trust told me that I absolutely had to read Doomsday Book. Blackout has been out for a while, but I hadn't really been paying attention until I saw Jo Walton's post which started with this very relevant piece of information

Blackout and All Clear are one book, conveniently bound in two volumes. Don’t read them out of order, don’t read one without the other.

So I waited until they were both available at the library, and put them on hold. Of course Blackout showed up first (which I guess is a good thing), but it has a reasonably long waiting list, and All Clear won't arrive for a while. So now I've read the first half of this story and am waiting very impatiently for the second. I'm so glad that I knew this one would end without a real resolution, because otherwise I would have been incredibly disappointed. Which isn't to say the ending is terrible. When you know that the next bit is coming soon, it is a totally reasonable point to leave off the story - the immediate source of tension has been relieved, and it is apparent that the folks back home are aware that there is a problem. But there's still a giant problem which has yet to be resolved.

To get back to the story. This is set in the same world as Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. Not too far in the future, time travel has been discovered, and it is possible to go back in time (although not forward), and observe historic events. Although it is impossible to bring most objects back, and there are some self correcting mechanisms in the continuum itself which prevent things like the murder of Hitler which would affect the course of history. This story revolves around three different time travellers - Polly Churchill (Polly Sebastian), Merope ? (Eileen O'Reilly), and Mike Davis who have travelled back in time to WWII in order to observe various different things. Like every Connie Willis book I've ever read, the style is fairly confusing. People are rushing around looking for something or someone, hiding from someone else. Nothing is going quite according to schedule and no one is ever totally prepared. The first few chapters wind up being fairly confusing - each chapter is from a different POV, and there are four different POV characters, and it takes a few paragraphs before it is entirely clear who you're following. Also, there's timetravel, so you not only have to figure out who is talking, but where & when they are. Which is additionally confounded by the fact that time travel isn't precise, so often the character in question is trying to figure out when exactly they are - and they can't just walk up to someone and ask the date & time without seeming incredibly suspicious, there's a war going on after all! Surprisingly it doesn't take long to become completely absorbed in the story - the sense of confusion you have as the reader is similar to the sense of confusion the characters are experiencing which seems to make it easier to empathize with them, which I'm sure is the point to this writing style. Real life is often confusing and only forms itself into a coherent narrative in retrospect. Still, things are confusing enough that I think this book will benefit enormously from being re-read. And I really can't wait until the next one shows up!

Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy

Maeve Binchy is one of my favorite authors when it comes to comfort reading. Her stories don't require a ton of mental effort and they tend towards happy endings. This is her latest novel, centering around an infant named Frankie and her father Noel, but actually about the entire community who is pitching in to help take care of her. There are so many characters in the novel that there's almost no overarching story, but almost all the supporting cast are characters from previous stories, so they don't need as much introduction as they would otherwise. We get a quick visit with the twins, Simon & Maud, and see how they are growing into fine young people and a real credit to Muttie & Lizzie. The characters from Heart & Soul get some time in the spotlight, and the plotline involving Clara Casey & Frank Ennis gets pushed along a little...but not much. Mostly this book just felt like a series of vignettes, loosely held together by the Frankie plotline, but I really felt like that plot wasn't nearly strong enough to hold the book together. There were some moments where it really felt like it was about to take off, and then it just didn't. On the one hand that's a good thing, because Frankie's just a tiny baby and doesn't deserve to have her first year of life be totally traumatic, but Noel and his ongoing struggle with alcoholism just isn't quite compelling enough. Noel's cousin Emily was also a great character, who could have been the plot tying the story together...and again it just sort of fell flat. She's corresponding with her friend Betsy in America, and there's a whole story there, but you just get a glimpse of it. She has a whole romance, that just sort of happens while you're looking the other way. And Moira seemed like she could have been a really neat character...and then just when things seemed like they were starting to get really interesting with her, nothing much happens. Then there's Lisa with her miserable childhood and relationship with Anton.

On the whole I enjoyed this book. Much more than Night of Rain and Stars, but it felt much more like a set of interconnected short stories rather than a novel. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I really enjoyed getting caught up with some old friends who I had missed, but I'm not nearly as invested in any of the new characters as I usually am by the end of one of Maeve Binchy's novels.