The Avid Reader - December 2010

Camber of Culdi is one of the many books written by Katherine Kurtz. She has created a detailed world of the Deryni. The Deryni are people who have magical abilities, and they are currently in power over the rest of humanity. The plot of this book is of an older Deryni lord Camber and his family not thinking that the king is becoming a tyrant, killing 20 humans for every single Deryni life, and then killing Camber’s eldest son. The best way is to put the Haldane heir on the throne, if they can find him. It is a book of excitement, intrigue, and human loss and gain. It is quite well written. I give Camber of Culdi an A-.

The Grail Tree by Jonathan Gash is the third of the Lovejoy books. Only two of the major characters of the previous book make it over to this one, Lovejoy himself and his helper Tink. Lovejoy opened up his expertise and hires a new apprentice – a beautiful young woman, of course. This book explains the ‘divvy’ angle a little more. Lovejoy is a ‘divvy,’ a diviner, able to look at something and immediately know if it is real or not. His beautiful apprentice can do that, too, but only with furniture. It’s an interesting difference. The retribution is as violent as it was the time before, with a tricky series of traps set up. It was a good read. I give The Grail Tree a B.

Solo Command is the seventh book in the Star Wars: X-Wing series. This book brings the focus back to one of the main characters of the Star Wars universe, Han Solo (therefore, Solo Command). The main X-Wing characters – Wedge Antilles, Face, Gavin Darklighter – are all there as well. The story builds on the previous several books, including a continuation of Han’s showdown with the Warlord Zjinj. I found myself enjoying this book perhaps more than the previous ones. It brings Wedge back into Rogue Squadron and gives the spotlight to many different characters over time. I was not thrilled when one of the most noble characters from a race that gets the short end of the stick so often was killed as a result of brainwashing, but overall, I liked Solo Command. I give it a B+

The Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card is the first book in an alternate North America. The United States does not exist. New York is still New Amsterdam, George Washington was Lord Potomac, a British lord, Thomas Jefferson was hanged for treason, and there is magic in the world. The story centers around the seventh son of a seventh son, a very significant number in magic. It is a story about Alvin, a strange little boy who is a Maker and who is destined to do great things; whether these are great and wonderful or great and terrible remains to be seen. The Unmaker, sort of an anti-life spirit, is trying to destroy him even before he is born, and continues to try throughout Alvin’s childhood to destroy him, whether through water or through people. I also enjoy finding out who the Talespinner, the Merlin-like figure in the story, is. In our world, he is my favorite poet; in that world, he is a wandering bard. You’ll have to read the book to find out who my favorite poet is. I give The Seventh Son an A-.

I have been following the Marvel ‘Incredible Hercules’ comics for some time. They are some of the best that are out there right now. They mix a great deal of humor and drama into these graphic novels. This version of Hercules is one of the world’s biggest losers. He has incredible power, naturally, but is not all that bright and fumbles his way through to victory. Written by Greg Pak and Fred van Lenthe and artwork by Rodney Buchemi, they capture a lot of the essences of the Greek myths and go back to a lot of the original material for character development. In addition to Hercules, the other main character is Amadeus Cho, the seventh smartest person on the planet. The interactions between Hercules and Cho are wonderful and entertaining. This particular graphic novel, Assault on New Olympus, is actually the seventh in the series. It is the culmination of Hera’s mad plan to destroy the world; the death and rebirth of Zeus; the love of Hebe, Hercules’ estranged wife (and Spider-man’s date); the New Avengers coming to his aid; and the mysterious plans of Athena, who has been guiding Hercules for 3000 years to get to this point. It does have a few extraneous moments, and the addition of USAgent (a Captain America wanna-be with no social skills) is always irritating. Overall, I enjoyed The Assault on Mount Olympus and give it a B+.

With so much of my reading being science fiction and fantasy, I thought I should go back to a classic. I went to my bookshelf and pulled out Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. I had forgotten how dense the writing is. Very full of description to the point at times when I started reading it I felt like I was slogging through it. It took me a while to get into it and to get used to the writing style, but once I did I enjoyed it immensely. According to Dickens, it was his favorite book; many experts believe it was the most autobiographical of his books. It follows the life of David Copperfield, following him from early life with a gentle mother, loving nurse, and tyrannical step-father through his days at school through college and into adulthood. David touches several levels of society, from his nurse’s working class family to the merchant and white color workers to the very rich. Characters continue to recur throughout the book, and a seemingly throwaway character from his school days becomes one of his greatest allies later on. One entertaining piece of the novel is a young man’s ‘infatuation’ stages with beautiful women. Falling madly in love to the point of distraction and making a fool out of oneself. It is something that as an educator of adolescents, I have seen many, many times, and remember experiencing, I say with a certain amount of embarrassment. Overall, the novel is thick and wordy, but the storylines are fun, the characters very memorable. Even though I am a firm believer in the ‘Small World’ effect, there was a little too much coincidence in David Copperfield, even for me. Of course, the novel was written in an episodic format, with a new chapter coming out each month (much like a modern day comic book), and the coincidences would have a little less impact if read over several months instead of during a week of reading. Now feeling a little self-conscious, I, a humble writer and educator, give Charles Dickens, one of the greatest writers in the English language, a B+ for his novel.

The final book I read during December was another Star Wars book, The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton. I was excited to get back to the Star Wars universe and to return to the main characters from the movie – Luke, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3P0. I have to admit, however, after the rich descriptions of David Copperfield, Courtship felt a bit on the sparse side. In addition, the characters did not feel ‘right’ to me. My biggest gripe is the characterization of Chewbacca, who just happens to be my favorite character in the Star Wars universe. He is continually described as scared and fearful. I realize that in the first movie, bits of humor were used in his being afraid of the compactor creature, but in this novel, it was nothing but Chewie being a coward. I also have a problem with one of the main premises of the novel, which is Han Solo kidnapping Princess Leia when he thinks that she is falling in love with another character. I know Han is a rogue, but I just can’t get to him stunning Leia, smuggling her on board of the Falcon, and then fleeing to a planet to force her to spend time with him. Now, without that, there is no real story going on, and Wolverton does add some wonderful elements to the Star Wars universe, such as where the rancors comes from, and he introduces some characters whose descendants will become very important in the future stories, but overall I was disappointed by the novel. Even the confrontation between Zjinj and Han felt lacking. I did take a look to see when these books were written, and this book ending the fighting between Zjinj and Han was written five years before the big battles of the X-Wing sagas, so it’s understandable why the feeling of depth was not in there. It felt trite. Overall, I found The Courtship of Princess Leia disappointing, and I give it a C-.