Book review: Prospero Lost [21 Dec 2009|08:56pm] fbajet [ mood | indifferent ] Prospero Lost by L. Jagi Lamplighter In Shakespeare’s famous play The Tempest, the saga of the Prospero family ended happily ever after: the power-hungry machinations of Prospero’s brother Antonio were exposed, restoring Prospero in the king’s favor; his beautiful daughter Miranda wedded the handsome prince Ferdinand; and last but not least, Prospero destroyed all of his powerful magical books and released his spirit servants from their servitude. However, as Miranda herself tells it, the truth is a bit more complicated. In fact, while Prospero was able to return to Milan, Miranda never married Ferdinand and spirits like Mab and Ariel were never freed. Most importantly of all, Prospero’s magic books were never destroyed. Now it is 500 years later, and Prospero and his entire family—Miranda has a whole slew of half-brothers and a half-sister from his father’s second marriage—have built Prospero, Inc., a multinational company responsible for keeping the supernatural world from wreaking havoc on mankind. But when her father goes missing, leaving a cryptic note “Beware the Three Shadowed Ones…”, Miranda fears for the worst. She sets off on a journey not only to rescue her father, but also to warn her siblings of the impending danger to the whole family. My thoughts I think contemporary fantasy is a tricky genre to master. Rather than building a separate, alternate reality like in a more traditional fantasy, the author has the uphill job of trying to convince you that the boundaries between this modern world and his or her fantasy-based one are porous and fluid. There are moments when Lamplighter achieves this fantasy, and other times when it falls flat, leaving much to be desired. I think from a storytelling perspective, Lamplighter has added an inventive, unique twist to traditional Shakespeare characters, adding more depth and complexity to the old while also adding new, unexpected characters (most notably Mephisto, Mirando's crazy-or-genius brother). Miranda is no longer a shy, lovestruck maid; 500 years of choosing to remain unmarried, and more than half of that being the CEO of her father’s company, has made her quite pragmatic, determined, and cynical. Part of her journey is to rediscover her human self too: she’s lived so long that it’s easy for her to alienate herself and to forget to be compassionate towards others (and to fall in love!). Mab is tough detective with an even tougher Bronx accent, but for all his blustering he still desires only one thing: his freedom. Even though he’s absent for the entire novel, Prospero himself is a mysterious figure, too: the more Miranda tries to find out why he’s missing, the more she starts to question everything she ever thought about him, which is that he is a loving, trusting father. But I think the eclectic world-building didn’t really make me invested in the story. Lamplighter draws on elements from all sorts of mythologies to create the modern yet supernatural world within Prospero Lost: she borrows from Greek mythology in creating a Circe-like figure (Miranda’s sister Logistilla, who turns all her lovers into animals); she throws in history from the medieval Catholic Church; she even includes Father Christmas and his elves at the North Pole. Such elements never really gelled into an unique world all its own; for me, it remained a sometimes confusing hodgepodge. And because of that, despite strong characters, I didn’t really find myself burning to turn the page. P.S. Is it just me, or am I the only one who gets grumpy when I'm not told from the start that there's going to be more books in the series? I really dislike coming to the end and realizing it's not the end, because I have all these unfulfilled expectations that have to wait. 2 comments|post comment

So. Avatar. Thoughts [19 Dec 2009|06:48pm] fbajet [ mood | ditzy ] It doesn't break any new ground in scifi, or in action movies, or in any movie genre for that matter* - but I LIKED it! *Solely in terms of the story, not regarding technical aspects ( spoilers ) 5 comments|post comment

Book review: Bleak House [15 Dec 2009|10:11pm] fbajet [ mood | accomplished ] Bleak House by Charles Dickens [I’m stealing from my edition’s jacket blurb because…uh…you try summarizing a 900-page book!] As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of the court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; Sir Leicester and my Lady Deadlock; and even Jo, a destitute little crossing-sweeper. A savage, but often comic indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dicken’s most ambitious novels. I really have only one genuine reaction to this book: ZOMG I’M DONE! This is one of the few cases I’m really glad I saw the excellent BBC movie version first instead of the other way around, because I know for sure I would’ve given up a long time ago. Although usually I quite like the structure and style of 19th century novels—call me old-fashioned, but there it is—this is 19th century style run riot, and it was too much at times: the long-winded character descriptions; the digressions into secondary characters; the sheer volume of said characters, which made it doubly hard to keep track of. Dickens is arguably the most modern of 19th century novelists, with his cinematic style, colorful characters, and cliffhanger endings, but even he had trouble getting the story going until page 600. I’m serious. That said, there are still lots of bright spots in this hefty tome. The intersecting storylines of the Jarndyce wards and the Deadlocks, and how Esther is a link between the two, often kept me reading with suspense, even though I’d already seen the movie and knew Esther’s history. It also got me thinking, on another level, about the women in Dickens novels. Why are they—the good ones at least—so incredibly angelic, so noble, so good? As likeable as she is, Esther is so self-sacrificing that even when she had a choice to be with the one she loves, she won’t do it, because she made a promise to the one she settles for. When I visited the Charles Dickens museum in London last October, the curators chalked it up to his close bond with his sister-in-law, who died in his home at an untimely young age—thus, his model of femininity never really altered from such an ideal. All in all, it’s a book mostly for Dickens enthusiasts and those who want to get caught up on their 19th century must-reads. For me, it was personally interesting because I couldn’t help but feel a little excited that I’ve wandered around such streets as Chancery Lane or the Royal Courts of Justice. Those places are still around!! 4 comments|post comment

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