The Warlock by Michael Scott (Book 5 of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series)
From the jacket: “The twins of prophecy have been divided — the end has begun.”
My take: Honestly! I finished this book way back at the end of May and then couldn’t figure out a way to review the fifth of a six-book series without giving away key plot points.
Let’s just say that this mythology-driven series continues to be a strong one.
Twins Josh and Sophie, whose auras glow gold and silver respectively, turn out not to be the normal teenagers they’d always assumed they were, nor is anyone else quite what they seem. The elderly owners of the bookstore where Josh works turns out to have been Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, two gifted sorcerers. The Flamels’ yoga instructor friend is a vegetarian vampire who (along with her twin sister) was born in Atlantis before it fell. The aunt they have been staying with while their archaeologist parents are on a dig is thousands of years old — literally.
It’s only been a few weeks since the twins’ world started falling apart, but everything they thought that they knew, that they could trust, has disappeared. Is it any surprise that the one thing they’ve always leaned on to keep them out of trouble — their connection to one another — also is tested?
If you’ve read earlier parts of the series, you’ll know where the storyline is taking us. I admit I was surprised to learn author Michael Scott would be stopping at six books, as the traditional fantasy schema would dictate seven, and he’s got an awful lot of loose ends still to pull together.
I admit that about halfway through this novel, a plot device was introduced and I groaned because it was such an obvious out for where book six would go that I couldn’t believe Scott had availed himself of it. But then, on the last page, he pulled off a second twist that I totally didn’t see coming, which immediately required that I give him credit that he may yet pull a peacock out of his top hat instead of the expected rabbit. And I read it straight through, start to finish, in one sitting, which speaks worlds of any book these days.
If you haven’t read the series, start at the beginning, because it’s a very linear story chronologically, except that it’s not linear nor is it chronological. It is, however, a masterful work of storytelling, and Scott, whom I met when he read at Politics and Prose this spring, seems both genuinely nice and remarkably knowledgeable.
And if you’re a returning reader, know you’re in for a good yarn that will keep you turning the pages.
Pages: 380
This was my third book for this spring’s Once upon a Time Challenge. Also, I reviewed books three and four on the blog as part of last year’s challenge.
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From the jacket: “It’s a time of unrest in the BookWorld. Only the diplomatic skills of ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. But a week before the peace talks, Thursday vanishes. Has she simply returned home to the RealWorld or is this something more sinister?”
My take: Thursday Next — oh, no, not that one; the written one, but a darn good facsimile — has enough on her plate. She’s training a new understudy. She’s trying to avoid the advances of a fellow BookWorld resident who may not turn out to be the nice guy he seems to be. She’s working hard to keep the peace amongst her fellow cast members, who are all upset with her because the previous written Thursday ran a much looser, more fun ship. But while this Thursday was asked by the real Thursday to try to make their story more respectable, it also has meant that the books are duller and, therefore, more at risk of not being read at all — a dangerous fate indeed.
So, you see, the written Thursday already has plenty going on.
She does not need to be pulled into a coverup. She does not need to be caught between Jurisfiction and the Council of Genres. She does not need to be hunted by the Men in Plaid. She does not need to suddenly be in possession of the real Thursday’s Jurisfiction badge. And she definitely does not need to reach the conclusion that something bad has happened to the real Thursday, just as she is about to serve as an emissary to settle a boundary war between Racy Novel, Dogma, and Women’s Fiction with potential implications across a dozen genres.
And, yet, like her namesake, the written Thursday Next does not seem to have a lot of choice about the adventures that fall into her life.
If that was hard to follow, it’s because Jasper Fforde is one of the cleverest writers currently working. This is the sixth book in a series about Thursday Next, a woman living in an alternate version of modern-day London, who also happens to be able to transfer inside of books in the same way you or I might take a trip to Disney World. Jasper Fforde makes your head explode, but in a nice way, and then puts it back together again.
Here, for instance, he explains one of the side effects of the Feedback Loop, the device that allows BookWorld to be fleshed out, as it were, by readers’ own RealWorld experiences that they bring to the books they’re reading:
The Lady of Shalott was of an indeterminate age and might once have been plain before the rigors of artistic interpretation got working on her. This was the annoying side of the Feedback Loop; irrespective of how she had once looked or even wanted to look, she was now a Pre-Raphaelite beauty with long flaxen tresses, flowing white gowns and a silver forehead band. She wasn’t the only one to be physically morphed by reader expectation. Miss Havisham was now elderly whether she liked it or not, and Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker and smoked a ridiculously large pipe. The problem wasn’t just confined to the classics. Harry Potter was seriously pissed off that he’d have to spend the rest of his life looking like Daniel Radcliffe.
If you’ve never read a Thursday Next novel, start with The Eyre Affair, which sets the story up properly. If you’re already up to speed, I will note that while I liked this book quite a bit, I would have done well to re-read (or at least flip through) the earlier books before beginning this one, because there were some details I was a little fuzzy on when they were referred to in this novel.
All in all, though, I thought One of Our Thursdays Is Missing did a good job reinvigorating a series that was in danger of straying too far into pun for its own good. I look forward to the next tale in the adventures of Thursday Next — both real and written.
Pages: 362
If you’re a Jasper Fforde fan, you might consider checking out this podcast at Chatting Up a Storm with Claudia Cragg. I haven’t listened yet, but it’s in my queue for the iPod.
From the jacket: “The daughter of a struggling greengrocer, Maisie Dobbs was only thirteen when she was sent to work as a maid for wealthy London aristocrats. But being bright and thoughtful beyond her years, Maisie studies her way to Cambridge, then serves as a nurse on the Front during the Great War. Now, it’s the spring of 1929, nearly ten years after the Armistice, and Maisie has just opened up her own detective agency. Her first assignment, a seemingly open-and-shut infidelity case, will reveal a much deeper, darker mystery, forcing Maisie to revisit the horrors of the war and the ghost she left behind.”
My take: How I came to this mystery is a bit of a mystery itself. Rudi and I will tell you that about four years ago we watched one in a handful of Masterpiece episodes featuring a female sleuth in London in the 1920s/’30s. It was well done and I traced it to a series of books by Jacqueline Winspear. Thing is, though, PBS and the BBC haven’t made such a series. There apparently was a tv series, but there’s only a whisper or two about it on the internet. No entry exists on IMDB. If Rudi didn’t remember watching it, too, (and if the end of the episode didn’t match the end of one of the books — I peeked to verify) I would swear I’d made the whole thing up, dreaming something based on a book review.
Anyway, the reason I finally picked the book up is when I went to pick up my copy of the newest Thursday Next novel at Politics and Prose, an author was giving the store’s daily reading. I didn’t really pay attention, focusing instead on tracking down another book I was after, so it didn’t sink in who she was until I caught her say something about “Maisie.” Oh! I turned around, tuned in, and walked right over to buy the first book in the series to get signed.
Maisie Dobbs tells the story of a young woman in London in 1929 who has just set up a detective agency with the blessing and support of her patron, Lady Rowan, and her mentor, Maurice Blanche. Her detective agency is not the usual sort, however, as she will not take a job and provide results without comment or concern for how that information will be used. If you want “just the facts,” then you’d be better off finding yourself a different detective. Maisie is a holistic detective and will only take the job if she feels you are inclined to hear her out at the end. She brings with her to the job not just the dedication, attention to detail, and reasoning you expect from any sleuth worth their salt, but also elements of psychology and physiology, as well as a quick intellect. She routinely mimics the stance of those she’s observing in order to better understand their emotions. And she finds little ways to leave people feeling better after sharing difficult moments with her.
In this book, Maisie’s first real case is an easy commission to find out if a wealthy man’s wife is cheating on him. She finds not just the answer, but also a second mystery — one involving disfigured World War I veterans and a mysterious commune — that turns out to be of great importance to Lady Rowan.
The book continues from here in two parallel veins. We get flashbacks of Maisie’s back story, from the time the motherless girl is placed by her father in Lady Rowan’s service at age 13, through her tutelage with Maurice, into her years at Cambridge, and finally landing in the muds of France as a field nurse.
At the same time, the narrative moves forward with Maisie, with the help of local handyman, Billy Beale, investigating The Retreat. It’s a commune created by and for gravely injured World War I veterans who have difficulty coping in the real world for one reason or another. But there have been some deaths of residents in recent years and there’s also the question of the money that’s deposited by incoming residents into the programs coffers. Is this a legitimate communal sanctuary for badly scarred men or is it a scam? And can Maisie adequately investigate this mystery without raising her own ghosts from the War?
Winspear offers an engaging and unusual heroine in this series and has an uncanny eye for detail, which helps to bring scenes to life as you read the words. I wholeheartedly recommend this for all mystery lovers and fans of literary fiction.
I’m here still. I’m struggling with a book review for a book I really liked but seem to be at a loss to describe why, so it will appear shortly because it’s holding up other reviews for things I’ve read more recently.
I’ve been working on reknitting the second leg of my Bastille Day socks. I ripped back to the heel and got the stitches back on the needle okay, then discovered after a few inches of knitting the correct pattern on the back of the leg, that the yarn was still pooling unattractively. I was stuck on the idea that not knitting the second leg on the same needle as the first must be the problem, but couldn’t figure out why it should matter as much as it did.
Yesterday I found myself idly thinking about how my US1 needles had become my default pair when it used to be US2.5. And that’s when it hit me. In the three years since I knit the first sock, I’ve become a more confident lace knitter, causing my tension to become looser. So while a US2 had been necessary back when I knit the first sock, perhaps it was no longer the correct answer. I slipped the sock from its dpns to waste yarn so I could try it on and discovered that the new leg was much looser than the old one.
I ripped back yet again last night and put the stitches back on a set of US1.5s. Two inches up the leg and I can see that we finally have a winner. No pooling. Correct patterning. We might get a finished pair yet!
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It’s been a kind of up and down week, but I think the ups are winning. Here are three of the beautiful moments from the past week:
1. On Monday afternoon, I skipped out of work early to catch author Michael Scott’s appearance up at Politics & Prose. Although I missed his talk and reading, I did catch most of the q&a, where he answered kids’ questions about The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series. With his lilting Irish accent and quiet demeanor, he gave thoughtful replies to questions ranging from how to become an author (read all sorts of books, write every day, know most of your early writing will be terrible, force yourself to finish, and find a comfortable chair because you’re going to be sitting an awful lot) to the origins of some of his lesser known mythologicallybased characters (he draws from South America and Ireland, as well as more traditional Latin, Greek, Norse, and Egyptian sources). When the bookstore employee tasked with keeping him on schedule so he wouldn’t miss his train back to New York shut down the question period, Michael encouraged anyone who hadn’t had a chance to ask something to bring it up when they got their book signed. He chatted with everyone in line and seemed to remember several fans from previous visits, including an excited teenage football player. (And, yes, I do have a shiny (literally), signed copy of The Warlock to read this weekend when Rudi’s off on his cycling holiday.)
2. Passing through a dark park with a mirror-like reflecting pool, Rudi realizes the last duck at the sidewalk’s edge is perched over her fluffy baby ducklings, keeping them safe from predators and chatty pedestrians. The ducklings want to know why their sleep is being disturbed, so after a few minutes of night birdwatching, we move along.
3. A baby new to walking has squeakers in her shoes, so she beeps with every rapid, toddling step she takes on the sidewalk.
And this was so crazily beautiful it needed the distinction of being a rare fourth beautiful thing:
4. As I mentioned on Monday, last night we went to DAR Constitution Hall to see Paul Simon perform. What a joyful show! The band worked well together, the show as a whole had what I think of as an upbeat New Orleans vibe (mind you, that’s without ever having been to New Orleans), the audience was dancing in the aisles, and Paul himself seemed to be having a great time, shaking audience members’ hands each time he left the stage. Plus, Paul sang some great songs (including “Mother and Child Reunion,” “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” (we almost called, Mum and Dad, but we were holding out for a song that didn’t end up getting played, “Only Living Boy in New York” (we nearly called you, Rebs), and “Here Comes the Sun”). And then, just when you were thinking, what a great, well-oiled concert, he missed his cue to come in on a song. A fan up front must not have, though, because all of a sudden, Paul was motioning him up on stage to come and sing “Gumboots” with him. The two of them had a blast performing together and the audience just went wild. It was just one of those moments where you’re lucky to be in the room.
This is the best of the videos that have surfaced thus far. None is complete, but this catches the event earlier on than the rest, even if the camera work is a bit shaky at the beginning:
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?
The Book I Am Currently Reading
I am stuck a third of the way into Jasper Fforde’s One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, just before Thursday gets thrust into a dangerous position. I seem unwilling to commit her to danger. And I just picked up Erin Bow’s Plain Katehalf an hour ago and read the first chapter.
The Book I Finished Last Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. That’s the last 2011 book review I owe before I’m caught up to date here on the blog.
The Next Book I Want to Read Tea: A Global History by Helen Saberi, which Rudi gave to me for Christmas.
The Last Book I Bought The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, in part because I had kept the library copy out past its due date and still hadn’t started it. This paperback copy will fit nicely in my bag.
The Last Book I Was Given Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer — a birthday gift from a coworker.
The Warlock by Michael Scott (Book 5 of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series)
