Is the book always better?

I've long held a theory that you should always see the movie BEFORE you read the book.  There are two reasons for this.  The first reason is that almost everyone agrees that the book is usually better than the movie.  It's just too difficult to translate an art form into a different medium.  In the process, it becomes something different and much of the original is lost in translation.  The second reason is that chances are, if you liked the movie, you'll love the book.  It's like getting bonus features.  You'll be reading along, come to one of your favorite parts in the story and WOW--the author surprises you with something the screenwriter had to skip.  It's like a treasure hunt.

If you insist, however, on reading the book first, you end up with a bunch of sourpuss book lovers complaining about all the things they left out of the movie.  But if you see the movie first...you come away pleasantly surprised (usually) instead of annoyed.

This is my good friend and serious book lover, Christine.  And she has this awesome shirt...with which I usually agree.

I just finished The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.  As many of you know, Peter Jackson is making it into a two part movie, the first one coming out in December.  I LOVED Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and I'm sure he'll do just as fine a job with The Hobbit as he did with those books.  In fact, I'll wager that I'll like the movie even better than the book, essentially disproving my long held theory.  Here's where we come to the exceptions:  classics, non-contemporary books and poorly written but entertaining action stories. I attribute this to writing style and craft.  I find very few non-contemporary authors to be good writers.  And many contemporary authors are good storytellers are not necessarily good writers.  Tolkien particularly has this annoying habit of calling attention to the narrator when he's not even a character.  It drove me nuts.

My only previous experience with The Hobbit was an animated made-for-tv movie that I remember seeing as a kid.

I remember liking the movie a lot as a child and then seeing it again as a young adult and not appreciating it so much anymore, because it was really a movie geared toward children.  Now that I've read the book, I can see all the things they had to leave out to get the basic gist of the story into one animated short film.  Here's what I remember from watching the movie as an adult:  There were no women in it.  NONE.  Not a single female character.  Maybe there was a woman in the background somewhere, but none that have a memorable part.  Now that I'm done with the book, I'm realizing that the lack of women isn't the fault of the movie but of Tolkien. So what is up with that?

I also read a fair amount of sci-fi/fantasy and what I find interesting about The Hobbit is that in many ways that old animated movie was probably spot-on in gearing it for children, because I find the story quite child-like in many ways.  There are some scary parts, but only a few of the key characters die and only at the end...and the violence is not graphic.  There is no sex. Not even a hint of it.  Almost all modern Sci-fi/fantasy has some kind of sexual undercurrent or theme.  It's often part of a power struggle between characters or kingdoms. It is noticeably absent from this book.

My guess is that Jackson is going to create a total adventure experience with his movie and that the battle scenes will be exciting and the imagery will be beautiful and he'll even include a few women in there once in a while.  And my see the movie before reading the book theory will be shot.  And my friend Christine's shirt will also be proven wrong.  Because I'm 99.9% sure I'll like that movie a whole lot more than I liked this book.

With that said, feel free to comment with any times you thought the movie was better than the book.

Review of Blackout by Connie Willis

There is nothing like an incredibly long business trip to help you catch up on your reading.  I just recently returned from a trip to the UK and while I was there I was able to finish three books.  In fairness, I was mostly done with two of them, but it still felt good to cross three off the list.  I found it incredibly interesting, however, to be finishing Blackout by Connie Willis while I was in London, because much of it is set in London, so that made it fun to be walking the streets in which part of the story takes place.

Big Ben & The Houses of Parliament, Feb 2012-JJWBaker

Connie Willis is an award winning Sci-fi author that I first learned about from Grigg, the sci-fi loving character in The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler.  I trust his recommendations, having read two Ursula LeGuin books because of him, and Connie Willis was one of his favorite authors.  Turns out, she’s also won the Hugo award a few times, among other awards.  Blackout is the first volume of a two volume novel, All Clear is the second volume and together they won the Hugo for best novel in 2011, so I figured they were worth a look.

Westminster Abbey, Feb 2012 - JJWBAKER

Blackout is the story of three historians from Oxford, England in 2060.  In Willis’ world, time travel is possible and historians regularly travel back in time to observe history as it is happening.  They have quite a complex theory about this, and genuinely believe that they cannot affect history as long as they stay clear of “divergence points,” which are critical times in history when a small change could have a big outcome.  These three historians are studying what seem to be mundane aspects of the war.  One is working as a shop girl in London during the Blitz, to study how Londoners cope during the air raids.  One is a maid in the countryside studying the evacuated children.  And the third is posing as an American reporter, studying the evacuation of Allied soldiers from Dunkirk, France.  One by one these historians encounter unforeseen problems and slowly come to the realization that despite the time travel theory, they may have altered the course of the war and their way back to the future may no longer exist. 

Fountain in Trafalgar Square, Feb 2012-JJWBaker

It seems I’ve read a good many World War II books recently.  I hadn’t realized it until one of the BABBs was complaining that we’d picked too many WWII books and she hates that time period.  Consequently I’ve added it as a label for the blog because I do have quite a few WWII stories in here.   What I found particularly interesting about this novel, however, is that all 3 of these time travelers are studying areas of history that you don’t normally hear about.  I’d never thought much before about quotidian life for Londoners during the Blitz, sleeping in Tube stations and the camaraderie that would engender.  Same thing for the life of a maid taking care of evacuated children.  They were unique perspectives on the war, and it was a nice change to get a new perspective.    

The London Eye, Feb 2012-JJWBAKER

While there is a lot of action in this story, it didn’t leave much room for serious character development.  Honestly I didn’t really miss it until I started writing the review…  The secondary characters I found more interesting than the three main time travelers, which make sense in retrospect as the time travelers are forced to blend into their surroundings, so aside from their inner monologues, you don’t see them doing many unique things to set themselves apart from their subjects.  The WWII contemporaries, however, are quite interesting:  The elderly boat captain with delusions of grandeur, determined to do his part in the Dunkirk evacuation, the mischievous Ralph & Binnie, evacuee children wreaking havoc on their country safe house, and the eccentric Londoners trapped in the Tube station during air raids with their attempt to put on a stage play underground to pass the time. 

Liberty Department Store, London, Feb 2012-JJWBAKER

This is a pretty good page turner, but at some point, I did feel like the story was dragging a bit.  About ¾ of the way through the novel, I thought—all of these characters know something is wrong, but they didn’t seem to be moving on to the next part—I felt like, let’s get on with them finding each other and fixing it already and it seemed like it took forever to get to that point.

Westminster Abbey, Feb 2012, JJWBAKER

One thing I really enjoyed about the time travel perspective was how these historians are constantly trying to blend in and fit the WWII roll they are playing.  Imagine if part of your job entailed pretending to be someone else and do her job.  It’s like these historians are doing triple duty:  1-the historical roll, 2-the historical job and 3-the historian, and they have to do it in a war zone... of course the stress catches up to each of them at different points.   They have to call on their historical and cultural knowledge and sometimes common sense or modern ideas trip them up because they forget that something hasn’t been invented in the 1940s, or they have to recall historical dates or bombing data and then worry that their actions look suspicious and they might be hauled in for suspicion of being a German spy.  And in many ways they are spies, just from the future.  It made for added complexity in the story.    

I think this is Whitehall, but I really don't remember. London Feb 2012 - JJWBAKER

Overall, this was an enjoyable, entertaining read, I’d even go so far as to categorize it as historical fiction as well as sci-fi. 

Review of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

As readers, we all know that a well written, entertaining, thought provoking book is a true treasure.  To find one that you can share with your kids is a gift.  I first heard Neil Gaiman’s name last summer, when an acquaintance of mine, a former librarian, recommended his books, including The Graveyard Book.  My List-Of-Books-To-Read has achieved record lengths recently… and this one was on The List, but it took a second encounter to push it to the top.  A member of my Sci-Fi Book club suggested we read it, because it won the Hugo award in 2009.  It is also the only book ever to win both the Newberry (US) and Carnegie (UK) medals.   So, in other words…lots of people think this book is amazing.

The story begins with a murder.  “The man Jack,” as he is called, murders a man, woman and child in their sleep, but their toddler escapes from his crib and out the front door.  He wanders down the street to the nearby graveyard.  The ghost residents hear the pleading cries of the recently murdered family, who beg them to help their baby.   Mrs. Owens, dead some 200+ years, and her husband promise to take care of the baby and become his parents.  The mysterious Silas, who is neither dead nor alive, but has the ability to leave the graveyard, unlike the ghosts, agrees to be his guardian and provide things like clothes and food that the ghosts cannot get for him.  They name the boy Nobody Owens, “Bod” for short. 

From this point, we watch Bod grow up and learn life lessons from ghosts and ghouls, werewolves, witches and the undead.  Some of the lessons are simple ones about learning to listen to the people who love and care about you, when they warn you about something dangerous---and others are more complex, like lessons about learning to do the right thing, about helping and caring for others.  It’s almost as if each chapter has a different coming of age story for each stage of Bod’s life.  I found it particularly charming that many of the views of morality, community, tolerance, justice and common sense decency are taught by these otherworldly creatures that in most stories are depicted as evil. 

Even though this is technically a kid’s book, I never felt as though the story or writing were dumbed down or cleaned up for children.  If anything, Gaiman offers splendid learning opportunities within the story---beautiful images that an adult can fully appreciate and enjoy, like “he walked up the side of the hill, to where a picnic some thirty years before had left its mark in the shape of a large apple tree.”  I grinned when I read that passage, but my kids didn’t get it right away.  This book is filled with places like this, where I could stop and ask my kids what they thought, how they felt, if they understood, etc. 

Ratings  (For an explanation of my rating factors, please visit the Rating System Key page.)

http://booksrmycrack.blogspot.com/p/rating-system-key.html

Crack Factor – 9.5.  I read this book twice.  It’s not the first book I’ve read twice, nor will it be the last, but it’s the only book that I have read twice within a two week time frame.  It was even better the second time.  A definite crack book. 

Tears Shed Factor – 9.5.  I also think this is in some ways a love story, not in the romantic sense, but in the filial and platonic sense, definitely.  As Bod grows and learns, he learns about love from his parents, guardian and friends and it tugged at my heartstrings in more than one place.  This book has it all—you’ll laugh, cry, triumph and tremble along with Bod and his friends.  Gaiman’s gift is to help the reader feel the story as he reads it. 

Enrichment Factor – 9.5.  Multiple pearls of wisdom adorn the pages of The Graveyard Book.  One of my favorites is when Bod is asking his guardian about the difference between the sacred ground of the graveyard and the unconsecrated ground beyond it.  Silas explains how different beliefs hold different things sacred.  He also makes it clear that most of the people buried outside the bounds of the sacred ground are most likely no worse than those within.  In this small passage, they touch on the idea of judgment and how it can be unfair and how rules and laws change from time to time.  Like this passage, there is so much discussion material throughout this book---not only topics I can bring up with my kids but also reminders for the grownup in me that sometimes forgets. 

PeopleFactor – 9.5. I’m a true character lover.  Gaiman’s characters don’t disappoint.  I felt invested in their lives and despite a perfect ending to the story, I had a hard time saying goodbye to them.

Story Telling Factor – 9.5.  One of the things I loved about this book is that each chapter is a separate adventure in Bod’s life—a complete story, set within the larger novel, and all along you get clues to the mystery of why bod’s family were killed.  It makes for a quick read—definite page turning action within each smaller story, and propulsion to keep going to know the whole picture.

Writing Skills Factor – 9.9.  This book is beautifully written.  I found our copy of the book dog eared with parts I found memorable, picturesque, and moving. 

Total Rating: 9.57

End Note:  I hate to write things like “If you like the Harry Potter books, you’ll love this book.” But I’m still going to write it.  While this one book is quite different from the world of Harry Potter, I put them in the same league for many reasons.  The writing quality of both is excellent, and while reading the graveyard book, I felt the same reactions as when I read the Harry Potter books—a kind of excitement, joy, fear, protectiveness.  They not only thrilled the kid in me, but they stirred the parent emotions in me, too.  The reader in me loved every minute in the graveyard, same as at Hogwarts, so I bet Potter fans will also like Bod. 

One More End Note---Neil Gaiman's website is cool.  He writes a journal on it--almost like a blog.  It's worth checking out. http://www.neilgaiman.com/

Not Beginning Sci-Fi: Review of Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

I had high expectations for this book.  It won the Hugo award for best novel, which is a big deal in the Sci-fi world.  In retrospect, I can understand this distinction, but it did take me a while to appreciate why it may have won this honor.  Most sci-fi books take a good 30-50 pages to establish the futuristic universe and time frame setting.  This book took more like 150 pages to get there.  The beginning was agonizing for me.   If you’ve never read sci-fi before—don’t start with this book, it is more complex than most sci-fi and the casual reader will get fed-up with it.  With that warning out of the way, once I got invested in this book, I did enjoy it. 

The universe Vinge creates in Fire Upon the Deep has multiple layers of civilization and intelligence that depend on where you are located in the universe—a very interesting concept.  The story begins as a human ship escapes from a terrible power to crash land on a planet inhabited by wolf-like creatures that must live in packs to transcend beyond the intelligence level of an animal.  The larger the pack, the more intelligent the being—but a pack of 4 or 5 of these creatures is still considered one individual.  In that sense, they can also be nearly immortal as they can add new members as previous ones die.  A rescue mission ensues across the galaxy to help the stranded humans who may hold the keys to stopping the blight/power that is consuming the known universe. 

I have really simplified the story here, but you get the idea.  This is fringe—totally out there, which makes it both frustrating and enjoyable.  With books like this, I find I have to let go of my need to understand everything in order to enjoy the story—there are some things in this made up world that will never make sense, never be explained and I’ll never understand them—once I made peace with that, I enjoyed the characters and the details of the story much more.  

Review of the Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin

When I think back to my Women’s Studies classes in college, I remember one professor talking about how we perform our gender every day.  I’m going to be simplifying this a lot more than the entire week we took discussing it in class, so forgive me.  Each person’s sex is, of course, either male or female regardless of how someone chooses to act or dress.  But being a man or a woman is a gender performance as much as it is an identification.   This is a really striking thought that is part nature, but also results from what our culture nurtures.  Little girls are taught to wear dresses and are told they are cute and pretty and little boys are dressed in camouflage and are called “buddy” or “tough guy.”  Almost from birth we program people to act and look a certain way based on their gender.

But what if gender didn’t exist?  How would a culture look and act if there were no men or women, only humans?  This is the primary question that Ursula Le Guin raises in her fascinating book, The Left Hand of Darkness.  The story takes place on the planet of Gethen, called “Winter” by outsiders, because of its extremely cold temperatures.  It begins many tens of thousands of years into the future when humans have colonized innumerable planets in the galaxy.  The colonizers of Gethen, however, experimented with genetic manipulation and created a sub-species of humans that are completely hermaphroditic.  All people are born with the potential to become either male or female.  Adults come into a monthly period of fertility where they become either the male or the female.  As one partner changes to female, the other would change to male.  If a child is conceived the female continues the pregnancy and breastfeeds the child, but the male would revert back to the hermaphroditic state after mating.  Each individual does not always become the same gender either, so the same person can both sire children and become pregnant at different times. 

The main characters in the book, are Genly Ai, an envoy from a consortium of planets that is trying to make contact with the Gethenians to share information and technology, and Estraven, a Gethenian native whose motives are misunderstood at the beginning of the story.  Ai, being a human male, is perceived to be a “pervert” in Gethenian society because he is always in the male state, which to them is unnatural.  He is also taller, stronger and darker skinned than most Gethenians, and they do not know what to think of him.  Estraven starts out as Ai’s “sponsor” of sorts in one of the Gethenian kingdoms, but when the king banishes Estraven as a traitor, Ai must also head to another kingdom in search of a leader that will listen to his unbelievable claims of other planets, spaceships, and worlds beyond Gethenian imagination. 

An adventure begins, as our protagonists must escape persecution and prosecution.  They travel from kingdom to kingdom, and across a glacier to find a willing ear to hear Ai’s story.  It’s a survival story and a friendship story as much as it is a course of gender studies.  As these two characters traverse the planet, they learn about each other’s cultures.  We learn several things that are unique on Gethen.  Unlike most humans who learn to value themselves in terms of being male or female, Gethenians do not have that distinction, so people are valued for their qualities as a human being.  And even more interestingly, the Gethenians have no word for war.  There is no rape, no seduction, no sexual abuse.  It simply doesn’t exist for them. 

It does make you wonder what life would be like if that whole part of our lives didn’t exist.  I remember a joke I heard once:  What would the world be like without men?  A bunch of fat, happy women and no crime.  Of course the Gethenians aren’t fat on the whole, and they have their fair share of crime, but  the gender issue was one of the most fascinating parts of this story.  As Ai and Estraven become friends and start to explain their world to each other, Ai tries to describe how women are in his world.  I’d never thought how you would describe the opposite sex to someone who would have zero frame of reference.  Of course in our world this is irrelevant, but the idea was thought provoking.  On the whole, this was a great adventure story made even greater by its unique setting. 

Ratings  (For an explanation of my rating factors, please visit the Rating System Key page.)

Crack Factor – 8.5. 

Distraction Factor – 9.5.  The gender identification issues in this book are so thought provoking that you’ll remember this book when you hear a news story about transgender people, watch Chaz Bono on Dancing with the Stars, or otherwise encounter gender identification questions, issues, stories and etc. in you own life. 

PeopleFactor – ?.  The characters are usually my favorite part of any book.  I love strong, rich characters that are well described and well understood.  This doesn’t feel like a character book to me.  It seems more about the journey these characters take. 

Story Telling Factor – Like many sci-fi books, the reader is pretty lost throughout the first umpteen pages, as the setting is established.  That part of a sci-fi book always bugs me, and this book is no exception.  Getting thrown into a world of make-believe is irritating when you feel more lost than amazed, and I felt lost for longer than usual in this book.  With that said, for being written more than 40 years ago, I only found a few instances where the content felt “dated.”    

Writing Skills Factor – 8.5.  Le Guin’s style is more complex than most writers, which I enjoy.  This is not an easy, brainless read.  It makes you work.  It makes you think. 

Bad Ass Babe Factor – 9. There are zero women in this book!  But I don’t think I can mark it down for that.  So the BAB factor here is given to LeGuin, whose intellect, creativity and writing skill shine brilliantly in this story.  

Total Rating: 8.875

Review of Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber

Eight or nine years ago, my dad gave me a copy of On Basilisk Station, the first book in the Honor Harrington series, by David Weber.  I had never read sci-fi before and I had no reason to start.  I think I even said to him, “I’m not going to read one of those nerd books.”  I picked the book up many times but never got through the first few pages.  Dad kept telling me I needed to give it a serious chance.  I’m so glad he did because once I made it past the first 35 or 40 pages, I was hooked.  A serious David Weber/Honor Harrington/sci-fi fan was born.  Recently I found a random David Weber book that I’d never seen before in the clearance hardcover section at Barnes & Nobel.  Of course I bought it and when I showed it to my dad, he said, “That’s not the first one in the ‘Safehold’ series.”  Which is one of the most important things you need to understand about sci-fi: many books are part of a series and if you don’t start at the beginning you’re lost.  So, I had to find Off Armageddon Reef at the library since it was the first in the series. 

Off Armageddon Reef begins about 500 years from now, upon the discovery of an alien species that seeks to destroy all potentially competing species.  The Gbaba completely obliterate every human colony they find throughout the galaxy within only a few decades.  The human race makes a desperate attempt to fool the Gbaba into thinking they’ve destroyed them all when in reality, they planted one more colony on a distant planet more than 10 light years away from the last human stronghold.  The irony is that the Gbaba aren’t that much more technically advanced than we are and in the last few decades, we’ve been able to almost match their capabilities.  Almost, but not quite…

Here is where the story really begins.  On the new planet of Safehold, the colonizers who are chosen agree to have false memories installed.  But what they don’t know is that the command crew of the colonization task force decided to artificially regress the human race to a pre-industrial society.  As part of that, they create a religion that outlaws any technological advances.  The command crew’s justification for this is to keep the human race safe---if the Gbaba can’t detect them because they lack any sophisticated technology, then they’ll be safe forever.  The few dissenting commanders argue that humans are tool builders.  There is no way you can stop technological advancement forever and if you don’t preserve the memory of the Gbaba’s invasion, it will only be setting humanity up for failure again. 

Before the resistance is destroyed, they are able to hide one android, called a “PICA,” in the mountains, along with some “modern” equipment.  This PICA is actually a completely functional, totally realistic appearing robot avatar body with the personality of a real human being inside it.  It has the personality and memories of Nimue Alban, a young naval officer who died in the Gbaba’s final assault.  900 years later, her PICA wakes up to find everyone she knows is long dead, even she herself does not exist.  Her solitary mission is to infiltrate the deeply religious society now inhabiting Safehold and over time, get them to understand the truth of who they are and prepare them for the eventual Gbaba threat. 

I really enjoyed several aspects of this story.  The characters are really great.  Quite early in the story, Nimue Alban’s PICA has to change its gender, since as a woman, she’d never be able to find a place of influence in this male-dominated world.  She becomes “Merlin Athrawes, ” and given his special PICA abilities, he quickly finds his way into the household of one of the planet’s kings.  Merlin’s struggles with being a female consciousness inside a male body are interesting, funny and sometimes sad, but it gives the character considerably more depth.  He also struggles with the realization of his own “immortality.”  He knows that all of the people he is growing to care about will not live as long as he will if he is to complete his mission.  It will probably take decades if not hundreds of years to get the planet to the point of being able to defeat the Gbaba, yet all the humans on the planet will only live a normal lifespan. 

I also really enjoyed the juxtaposition of this almost medieval society with a technologically advanced robot.  It’s almost like you get the best of both worlds---like a historical fantasy and a futuristic sci-fi book in one. 

Crack Factor – 8.5.  I’ve never read a boring David Weber book and this one doesn’t disappoint.  You’ll speed through the book because you can’t wait to find out what happens.  I even had to skip ahead a few times—a sure sign of intensity in my world. 

People Factor – 9.  David Weber never shortchanges the reader on characters.  You’re bound to love at least a half a dozen people in each book and loathe at least as many. 

Story Telling Factor – 9.  The story is very intricate and well thought out.  He develops this whole religion for Safehold and explains exactly how the colonizing command crew designs the planet and dupes every man woman and child who colonize it.  What’s great about the book is that even with these intricacies, it’s still an action book and moves fast. 

Writing Skills Factor – 8.5.  I’ve read a lot of Weber in the past and his writing skills are really fabulous.  At times he does get a little wordy with description which is why I’m putting this lower than a 9.  I tend to skim the overly-detailed parts because they bug me.  But with that said, he can also make you feel the emotions of his characters, and that is a mark of a great writer. 

Bad Ass Babe Factor – 9.  Technically, I guess Merlin is not a woman, he’s a male-appearing robot, but because he started out as a woman, I’m going to keep her in the BAB arena.  Aside from the cool android stuff that Merlin/Nimue can do, what impressed me most about this character was her amazing intelligence, her compassion and her sense of duty and loyalty. 

Total rating 8.8.

Review of the Sharing Knife series by Lois McMaster Bujold

Let’s talk about ruts.  How many of you readers out there find yourself in a rut from time to time?  All of the sudden you realize that everything you read is the same.  I’ve gone through an Oprah book phase, a classic phase, a Janet Evanovich phase, a mystery phase, a Sci-fi phase, a historical drama phase, etc.  From time to time I realize how deep the rut has gotten and I try to climb out of it.  When I most recently went looking for something outside my norm, I tried to find a “fantasy” novel written by a woman, because normally when I read sci-fi it’s a military/space drama written by a man.  My very brief search ended with Lois McMaster Bujold’s Sharing Knife series.  It consists of four books, Beguilement, Legacy, Passage and Horizon. 

The Sharing Knife series is set in a fictional world, without modern technology or warfare.   Two groups of people live in this world.  The “Farmers” are regular humans just like us, with no special powers.  The “Lakewalkers” are also human, but with a developed sense of the world around them.  They can sense and manipulate energy, which they call “ground.”  I imagine “ground” as similar to the Chinese concept of Chi—a life force that flows through all living things, although in the books, even dead and inanimate objects have ground as well, it just manifests differently.  Because of their “groundsense,” the Lakewalkers live longer and grow taller than farmers.  They can also sense the location of other beings within a finite distance and they can feel the emotions of others as well.  They use ground for healing and they imbue ground in the products they create to make them stronger or better.  For example, a leather coat with ground reinforcement may be strong enough to repel arrows.  A ground reinforced rope may never break, etc.  Their groundsense and abilities also give Lakewalkers the ability to track and kill the “malices,” which are creatures that suck the ground out of everything around them, leaving a trail of blight that takes decades or even centuries to recover. 

In this world, Lakewalkers and Farmers do not mix.  Farmers generally misunderstand and fear Lakewalkers for their seemingly “magical” powers; and because Farmers cannot sense or “veil” their own ground, many Lakewalkers feel uncomfortable around them because they feel bombarded by all this “loose” energy and emotion.  And when two groups of people don’t understand each other, problems are bound to happen. 

The main protagonists in the series are Fawn, a young Farmer woman, who is fleeing from her overbearing family and facing an unwanted pregnancy.  Along the way she meets Dag, a one-handed, middle-aged Lakewalker, who rescues her from some bandits in the road.  When a malice threatens the pair, their lives become entwined even more.    Each of these books has a separate plot, and yet they are all moving in one direction.  Our main characters’ desire is to bridge the gap between Farmers and Lakewalkers so they may work together to overcome the seemingly endless threat of malices that endangers both groups.

I normally try not to read other people’s reviews before I write my own.  I can be spongy and I don’t want another reviewer to influence what I’m going to say.  But I did read several reviews of this series of books, both positive and negative.  Interesting to me was that another female reviewer blasted the series for being too “romance-like” (and she couldn’t get past the age difference between Dag & Fawn).  A more positive review was from a man who admitted they were “chick books” on the surface, but said that if other men discounted them because the first book seemed too much like a romance, then they would be missing out on a great series.  I agree that the first book does have a love story at the core; the two main characters struggle a bit getting together, but the rest of the series won’t happen if they don’t.  If these two characters don’t get together, there is no motivation to move the story forward and bridge the gap between these two groups.  So once we get Dag & Fawn together, the adventures get better because they both are experiencing the other’s culture and finding ways to maneuver through a world different from their own.     

CF (Crack Factor) – 10.  Honestly, I couldn’t put these books down.  I picked up the first one only planning to skim the first 10 pages since it was due back at the library the next day.  I wanted to see if it was interesting enough to check back out some other time.  I read 100+ pages that night.  Bujold definitely knows how to keep the plot moving forward.  These are action books.  Each book took me only about two days to devour.  I work full time and have two little kids, so if I’m making the time to power through a book, it’s good. 

TSF-Tears Shed Factor – N/A—This series isn’t going to make you cry with emotion wrenching parts, although there were a few parts that got to me---mainly because I empathized with Fawn’s insecurities. 

DF (Distraction Factor) – 10.  I actually found myself thinking about this “Sharing Knife” world quite often.  There were so many bits of Dag-wisdom that I found really insightful.  And Fawn’s emotional and social struggles and triumphs really resonated with me. 

PF (People Factor) -- 9.5.  Bujold’s characters are great.  She does a wonderful job of describing them without hitting you over the head with description.  She also gives her characters room to grow and change; character development is something I always appreciate.  And for all the likeable characters, she also gives you a good bunch of nasty ones to hate.  I swear you meet the most horrible mother-in-law ever created in the 2^nd book, Legacy. 

WSF (Writing Skills Factor) –8.  Bujold’s style is a little different.  She moves easily from Dag’s and Fawn’s perspectives.  The story and ideas come across clearly and beautifully.  She does well to convey the “folksy” conversation of her characters when writing dialog, which doesn’t always come off well with other authors.  She also does a good job of giving description of characters and scenes without over-doing it, or making it seem forced. 

STF (Story Telling Factor) – 9.  I love this world Bujold created.  Each book has a separate plot and yet, they all move toward the overall series plot of bridging the gap between these two disparate groups. 

BABF (Bad Ass Babe Factor) – 8.  Bujold creates many strong female characters.  On the surface Fawn may not appear to be a BAB, but she is fierce in her own way.  Although physically small, she’s as tough and brave as they come and despite her diminutive stature, she is courageous enough to do what she needs to do to protect the people she loves.  There are many other strong female characters in the books as well and I loved how the Lakewalker culture has total equality for men and women.  The women are warriors and healers and leaders just as much as the men are.  And the society is matrilineal.  Very cool. 

HTAF (Too be explained soon but basically the hot guy factor) – 8.  Dag is a great character; he’s tough and wise.  He’s incredibly ethical and very creative in his way of thinking.   Even though his wife is 1/3 his age, he treats her like a complete equal.  He upends his entire life for her.  

It was hard to say goodbye to these characters and this world.  Bujold tied up the story nicely, but I still left it wanting more…Total rating:  8.9