I happened upon a radio station that had story time, and heard these two colorful pieces. The first is "The Storm" by Jules Verne, and the second is "Robbed" by Ellen Currie. Fair warning that there is plot information throughout this post. Maybe you should go dig up a copy and read it first. Then write your own untainted review. Then come back and read and compare with mine.
The conclusion I've reached from short stories is that they are little bits of spice to life - quick vignettes that give color, perspective, and humor. They don't take a massive time commitment to read, they can force you to think about life. All in all, worth seeking out and reading.
Typically, Jules Verne is scientific. Think "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" or "Around the World in 80 Days". It is a unique style, but definitely scientific. While still stylistically Jules Verne, "The Storm" could otherwise have been written by Edgar Allen Poe; delving into the realms of the mysterious and unexplainable. It is also reminiscent of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, insofar as the main character is an old crotchety man who has not yet learnt to care for other people.
Here, the main character is a doctor who charges up front for care, and won't help unless he is paid, even if someone is dying. In the middle of a storm, a dying man's daughter, wife, and mother in succession come to knock on his door, and eventually they sell the house to have enough money to tempt him to come. When he eventually begrudgingly arrives, he discovers the house is his own, and he himself is the patient. Try as he might, he waited too long and cannot save himself. The townsfolk discover him dead the next morning. The proverbial takeaways here are that money isn't everything and that you should do what you can to help your fellow man.
'Robbed' was a fun story. It looks at the mental aspects of two people put into an unusual situation, and how they react differently. A jewelry store owner is being held up, and a regular customer of hers walks in. Everything we find out about the customer we find out through the store owner having a conversation with the robber. Apparently the customer always loses her wedding ring, and has to get a new one custom-engraved with "X and Y" forever. The irony of this appears to be lost on the woman, whose marriage seems to be a bit tumultuous and whose rings are definitely not for forever. The author lampoons the customer by having her try to act macho. When that doesn't work the stereotypical 'damsel in distress' only to have all of her acts shot down by the store owner.
The store owner takes the whole affair quite calmly and has an amusing outlook on life, considering that, with the robbery, she comes out ahead in multiple ways. She didn't lose as much money as she would have lost in insurance, she doesn't have to deal with the obnoxious woman anymore. She knows someone will eventually come in and find them, so she doesn't bother with the cliches like screaming that probably won't help but will definitely make the situation more odious. Aside from her willingness to insult someone (at least she does it to her face), we should all take things in stride like that.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Moby Dick - Herman Melville (Part 1)
I am attempting that Mount Everest of literature – Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. I am at no stopping point; I have merely reached a point where it is necessary to jot down some thoughts and empty my head before the reading may continue. My apologies for the grandiloquence of style – I have nothing to plead but that Melville is infectious.
A massive stylistic difference stands out to me between this book and more modern literature. We as modern readers have come to expect an action-based plot – where the actions that we are reading about are interesting for their uniqueness and that pertinence to the story which makes that story unique. So far, this has been the narrative of a rather ordinary sea voyage. Melville implies that the colorfulness of the characters are not atypical of the time and the sailing ships – the religiously unbending Quakers who nevertheless reconcile their zeal for the next world with the practicality required to live in this one; the three barbaric harpooners who are genteel and a good sort of fellow (barbarism only implies that they are not Christian, not that they are ‘barbaric’ in the sense of the word as we use it today.) The other sailors seem no more nor less noteworthy than any of their unmentioned counterparts ought to be, and the hiring Captains on shore implied that Harpooners were usually an odd lot. The weather was extremely cold in New England before the ship left port – who ever heard of such a thing? Oh, everyone? Nevermind, I guess that’s normal too. In short, almost a third of the way through the book, and it has been a narrative of entirely mundane events. No wonder many modern readers have trouble getting through this story – if you are not alive to learning more about the mundanities of whaling and cetology than you maybe thought possible, you’re going to close the book and leave it off well before ‘anything happens’ by your definition of the word.
Another stylistic difference is the use of allusions and epithets to color the narrative. He has shown me truly how badly versed in history, mythology, folklore, and pretty much everything else I truly am. This is another turnoff for many modern readers – we have lost so many of our classical and historical allusions that the reading is either incomprehensible or ceaselessly bogged down in searching for references. What would in the past have been a one or two-word descriptor that allows the author to paint a vivid picture is now a colorful liability. How many people trying to read the story now outside of England know who Nelson was, and why he might have a statue in Trafalgar square, and how that might be relevant to a sea-faring novel? How many of you know Trafalgar square? Removing the rhetoricity from this question for a moment, did you as a reader of this discussion know it? If not, have you looked it up yet? Are you going to be incredibly lazy and wait for me to tell you that he was an Admiral of the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars known for brilliant tactics and strategy, and that he was fatally shot during his victory at the battle of Trafalgar? If you don’t know what the battle of Trafalgar is and won’t look that up either, I despair for you.
It is of note that a great many highly religious people in these United States would do well to read Moby Dick. We are one-hundred-sixty years after it is published, yet Melville is able to more clearly write about religious tolerance than many people who profess to have learnt something in the intervening years.
A massive stylistic difference stands out to me between this book and more modern literature. We as modern readers have come to expect an action-based plot – where the actions that we are reading about are interesting for their uniqueness and that pertinence to the story which makes that story unique. So far, this has been the narrative of a rather ordinary sea voyage. Melville implies that the colorfulness of the characters are not atypical of the time and the sailing ships – the religiously unbending Quakers who nevertheless reconcile their zeal for the next world with the practicality required to live in this one; the three barbaric harpooners who are genteel and a good sort of fellow (barbarism only implies that they are not Christian, not that they are ‘barbaric’ in the sense of the word as we use it today.) The other sailors seem no more nor less noteworthy than any of their unmentioned counterparts ought to be, and the hiring Captains on shore implied that Harpooners were usually an odd lot. The weather was extremely cold in New England before the ship left port – who ever heard of such a thing? Oh, everyone? Nevermind, I guess that’s normal too. In short, almost a third of the way through the book, and it has been a narrative of entirely mundane events. No wonder many modern readers have trouble getting through this story – if you are not alive to learning more about the mundanities of whaling and cetology than you maybe thought possible, you’re going to close the book and leave it off well before ‘anything happens’ by your definition of the word.
Another stylistic difference is the use of allusions and epithets to color the narrative. He has shown me truly how badly versed in history, mythology, folklore, and pretty much everything else I truly am. This is another turnoff for many modern readers – we have lost so many of our classical and historical allusions that the reading is either incomprehensible or ceaselessly bogged down in searching for references. What would in the past have been a one or two-word descriptor that allows the author to paint a vivid picture is now a colorful liability. How many people trying to read the story now outside of England know who Nelson was, and why he might have a statue in Trafalgar square, and how that might be relevant to a sea-faring novel? How many of you know Trafalgar square? Removing the rhetoricity from this question for a moment, did you as a reader of this discussion know it? If not, have you looked it up yet? Are you going to be incredibly lazy and wait for me to tell you that he was an Admiral of the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars known for brilliant tactics and strategy, and that he was fatally shot during his victory at the battle of Trafalgar? If you don’t know what the battle of Trafalgar is and won’t look that up either, I despair for you.
It is of note that a great many highly religious people in these United States would do well to read Moby Dick. We are one-hundred-sixty years after it is published, yet Melville is able to more clearly write about religious tolerance than many people who profess to have learnt something in the intervening years.
The Cat Who Said Cheese
The long radio silence was due to the fact that I have started a new job and was in the process of moving. If you’re actually reading and following I apologize. If you’re coming in from the future then it doesn’t matter; you’ll get to see them all at once anyway.
As a second side note: I brutally abuse commas. My apologies to the commas. I hereby promise to attempt to curb the desire to use them when I should not. Please bear with me as I attempt to break habits and improve my writing. Any comments to that effect are appreciated.
The Cat Who Said Cheese - Lillian Jackson Braun (1996)
I ended up getting this book from my grandmother, who had been given it as some different reading material by my mother, who inherited it from her aunt, who probably was the one who originally bought it. There were about fifteen or so originally; I’m not sure how many there are total in the series. This one was selected randomly from the series; it is neither the first nor the last.
Some background: This is very squarely a detective story. The main character, James Qwilleran (Qwill), is a journalist from the big city who inherited significant riches in a small back-country town. He sets up a trust fund with the money to revitalize the area without ruining the local charm of the place and contributes to the small-town paper in the area. He lives with his two Siamese cats, Yum-Yum and Koko. At the beginning of the story, the town is being dragged into the future with the opening of several new shops during a celebration called the ‘Great Food Explo’. Shortly before this planned event is to take place, the major news story is a mysterious woman staying in the local hotel. Her room is bombed while she is out, and she takes off immediately for the airport without talking to anyone or returning for her bags. The story revolves around solving the mystery of the bombing and related subsequent events.
This story is a part of a series revolving around the same main characters - Qwill and his cats. It is strongly implied that Koko at least has a sixth sense which allows him to know what is happening and why. He changes his actions to try to communicate with James about what is going on, by knocking certain books off the table, actions, and meowing at certain times. Based on both the name of the book and the writing, the cats are the linking factor between the books, and the author’s attempt to set her detective stories apart from all the generic other detective stories out there. To some extent it worked. They made colorful characters, and in several places did move the plot ahead. The image of cats tearing through a black-tie gala with several gentlemen in their best suits in hot pursuit is definitely an amusing image, enhanced by the idea of clouds of gray fur being thrown up onto everyone’s best clothes.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that everything in a detective story should be relevant, and I will give the cats the benefit of the doubt because they did know what was going on before the main character did and they also moved the plot forward by demanding certain things from Qwill. Unfortunately, they do begin in a position of doubt, due to two points – the explanation of how the cats actions related to the plot only came after the final reveal, so it didn’t have a direct bearing on the plot. In addition, most of the times they forwarded the plot could have occurred without the interference of the cats. If Qwill has a random cabin that sits unused, he can go out and check it out on a regular schedule, and does not need the cats to tell him they want to go. In addition, if he was given a turkey following a class in which he learns to dress a turkey, it would be the most natural thing in the world for him to try out his new skills and cook the turkey. There is no need for the cats to demand that he cooks the turkey. There really wasn’t any particular rush at that point in the story, if I recall. At that point most of the plot had already occurred and they were in a latent period of trying to figure out the how’s and the why’s of everything that had already happened.
That is one point of the story which I found interesting and a bit different – the events of the story happened, and then they were figured out. The plot was completed in the first part, and then the detection begins. This stands in significant contrast to many other detective stories, where the unraveling of the events is a direct catalyst for further action. It worked well for this story, and I did not feel the lack of action at all. The plot was unique enough, as were the characters.
At one point the main character writes a column about nobodies – unique characters who don’t ever sit in the spotlight of fame. This seems to be the author speaking through the main character – the book is a collection of nobodies that are a lot of fun to read about. There is the police chief who plays bagpipes, the ever woman recovering from heart surgery, the cantankerous hotel owner, the hotel owner’s shy-but-talkative-to-friends handyman (and hobbyist beekeeper). The characters were unique and enjoyable, and decidedly human with human failings and foibles. If I had to select one true strength about the story, it was the writing about the people inhabiting the town and the town itself.
I had a little bit of trouble with the way the main character was written. At times the writing felt almost pretentious. I’m not sure I can give any specific examples right now since I left it at home with my mom, but there were times when it felt like I just wanted the main character to get over himself and get a real job. There was no real detective work in the story. It was more a story about a mystery unfolding than a story about someone doing anything to actually solve something. The story had enough plot points that it was sufficiently obvious after you find out what actually happened and go back to the beginning to start again, but even during the first time through there were points were my thoughts were, “A-hah, that speech felt like it was written specifically so she could drop that tidbit of information!” I really can’t go into more details than that without entirely (or at least mostly) ruining the story, so I won’t. However, I can tell you that the moments jumped out at me several times. There were also times that felt like the author was writing just to put in red herrings. If you come across any such feeling while reading this book, trust your instinct; you’re probably right. Maybe they
Overall, this was a light, fun read. It is a respectable stab at a respectable detective story with some interesting and unique characters. The series feels like a hotel read – go ahead and read one if you come across one. You won’t regret it, but not something to go out of your way for. It is possible that other books in the series are more compelling, since my great aunt went ahead and bought fifteen or so, but this randomly-selected one is decent.
Half of this was written with my eyes closed, while falling asleep on the train. This is fun. Also, I’m listening to Pride and Prejudice as an audiobook while working on the train. If there are any randomly misplaced words, I attribute it to either spell-check getting the wrong word or my brain substituting something from what its hearing.
As a second side note: I brutally abuse commas. My apologies to the commas. I hereby promise to attempt to curb the desire to use them when I should not. Please bear with me as I attempt to break habits and improve my writing. Any comments to that effect are appreciated.
The Cat Who Said Cheese - Lillian Jackson Braun (1996)
I ended up getting this book from my grandmother, who had been given it as some different reading material by my mother, who inherited it from her aunt, who probably was the one who originally bought it. There were about fifteen or so originally; I’m not sure how many there are total in the series. This one was selected randomly from the series; it is neither the first nor the last.
Some background: This is very squarely a detective story. The main character, James Qwilleran (Qwill), is a journalist from the big city who inherited significant riches in a small back-country town. He sets up a trust fund with the money to revitalize the area without ruining the local charm of the place and contributes to the small-town paper in the area. He lives with his two Siamese cats, Yum-Yum and Koko. At the beginning of the story, the town is being dragged into the future with the opening of several new shops during a celebration called the ‘Great Food Explo’. Shortly before this planned event is to take place, the major news story is a mysterious woman staying in the local hotel. Her room is bombed while she is out, and she takes off immediately for the airport without talking to anyone or returning for her bags. The story revolves around solving the mystery of the bombing and related subsequent events.
This story is a part of a series revolving around the same main characters - Qwill and his cats. It is strongly implied that Koko at least has a sixth sense which allows him to know what is happening and why. He changes his actions to try to communicate with James about what is going on, by knocking certain books off the table, actions, and meowing at certain times. Based on both the name of the book and the writing, the cats are the linking factor between the books, and the author’s attempt to set her detective stories apart from all the generic other detective stories out there. To some extent it worked. They made colorful characters, and in several places did move the plot ahead. The image of cats tearing through a black-tie gala with several gentlemen in their best suits in hot pursuit is definitely an amusing image, enhanced by the idea of clouds of gray fur being thrown up onto everyone’s best clothes.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that everything in a detective story should be relevant, and I will give the cats the benefit of the doubt because they did know what was going on before the main character did and they also moved the plot forward by demanding certain things from Qwill. Unfortunately, they do begin in a position of doubt, due to two points – the explanation of how the cats actions related to the plot only came after the final reveal, so it didn’t have a direct bearing on the plot. In addition, most of the times they forwarded the plot could have occurred without the interference of the cats. If Qwill has a random cabin that sits unused, he can go out and check it out on a regular schedule, and does not need the cats to tell him they want to go. In addition, if he was given a turkey following a class in which he learns to dress a turkey, it would be the most natural thing in the world for him to try out his new skills and cook the turkey. There is no need for the cats to demand that he cooks the turkey. There really wasn’t any particular rush at that point in the story, if I recall. At that point most of the plot had already occurred and they were in a latent period of trying to figure out the how’s and the why’s of everything that had already happened.
That is one point of the story which I found interesting and a bit different – the events of the story happened, and then they were figured out. The plot was completed in the first part, and then the detection begins. This stands in significant contrast to many other detective stories, where the unraveling of the events is a direct catalyst for further action. It worked well for this story, and I did not feel the lack of action at all. The plot was unique enough, as were the characters.
At one point the main character writes a column about nobodies – unique characters who don’t ever sit in the spotlight of fame. This seems to be the author speaking through the main character – the book is a collection of nobodies that are a lot of fun to read about. There is the police chief who plays bagpipes, the ever woman recovering from heart surgery, the cantankerous hotel owner, the hotel owner’s shy-but-talkative-to-friends handyman (and hobbyist beekeeper). The characters were unique and enjoyable, and decidedly human with human failings and foibles. If I had to select one true strength about the story, it was the writing about the people inhabiting the town and the town itself.
I had a little bit of trouble with the way the main character was written. At times the writing felt almost pretentious. I’m not sure I can give any specific examples right now since I left it at home with my mom, but there were times when it felt like I just wanted the main character to get over himself and get a real job. There was no real detective work in the story. It was more a story about a mystery unfolding than a story about someone doing anything to actually solve something. The story had enough plot points that it was sufficiently obvious after you find out what actually happened and go back to the beginning to start again, but even during the first time through there were points were my thoughts were, “A-hah, that speech felt like it was written specifically so she could drop that tidbit of information!” I really can’t go into more details than that without entirely (or at least mostly) ruining the story, so I won’t. However, I can tell you that the moments jumped out at me several times. There were also times that felt like the author was writing just to put in red herrings. If you come across any such feeling while reading this book, trust your instinct; you’re probably right. Maybe they
Overall, this was a light, fun read. It is a respectable stab at a respectable detective story with some interesting and unique characters. The series feels like a hotel read – go ahead and read one if you come across one. You won’t regret it, but not something to go out of your way for. It is possible that other books in the series are more compelling, since my great aunt went ahead and bought fifteen or so, but this randomly-selected one is decent.
Half of this was written with my eyes closed, while falling asleep on the train. This is fun. Also, I’m listening to Pride and Prejudice as an audiobook while working on the train. If there are any randomly misplaced words, I attribute it to either spell-check getting the wrong word or my brain substituting something from what its hearing.
Sunshine: Robin McKinley
Been a while. My new work laptop isn't compatible with Blogger. Needless to say, its working now.
Sunshine: Robin McKinley
This is a book review that is long overdue. This is one of my favorite books of all time as evidenced by the abuse it has endured after countless times ending up as my pillow.
Sunshine is best classed as a dark fairytale/fantasy. Robin McKinley has made a name for herself rewriting and expanding fairy tales, including Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, some original fairy tales, and several versions of Beauty and the Beast. She excels in creating fully-realized worlds and expanding out motivations behind the inevitable fairytale events. In addition she is often able to introduce unpredictable twists despite re-writing a predictable fairytale.
I should interject here to say that a fully realized world allows me to slip into the world and accept a suspension of disbelief. There are rules governing actions even in this real world – someone in the habit of gossiping is not going to refrain from passing on a juicy bit of gossip for no reason whatsoever. Likewise, within the framework of a story, a gossip will not refrain from passing on a juicy bit of gossip just because the plot requires the main character to remain in ignorance. If the plot depends on characters breaking character for no reason beyond continuing the plot, then it is badly written. Likewise, if someone thing the world appears to exist despite the accepted universe, it annoys me badly. There have been very few moments that have sent me into as much of a height of fury as seeing fireworks in the bows-and-arrows forest technology of the Prince Caspian’s Narnia.
Robin McKinley is a master of creating coherent universes and characters which behave according to the accepted structure of that universe. Sunshine is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, in which humans exist side-by-side with non-human known as demons. Humans and demons (and all the crosses thereof) live in stark opposition to vampires. McKinley’s vampires are horror creatures – faster than humans, stronger than humans, and antithetical to everything that means being human (also, thank you Ms. McKinley for your wonderful vocabulary. I learned that word from Sunshine). It is rumoured that vampires have better technology than humans, and the only thing keeping them from taking over the world is the minor fact that the sizzle in the sunlight. There is no magic in the world that has been discovered that allows a vampire to walk in sunlight.
The story is unique among McKinley’s works in that it is told in first-person narration. The narrator is Sunshine, a book-loving coffeehouse baker with a latent magic talent based on sunlight. The story opens with her explaining to the reader why on earth she went out to a secluded lake one night, where she was subsequently captured by vampires. The entire story is based on explaining to the reader why she is still alive. Nobody escapes from vampires.
The world is disclosed to the reader in asides and tangents by Sunshine. She’s an eccentric character and the story is told in a way that truly reflects her mind and the shape of her thinking. It’s the narration of someone who is vividly remembers some aspects and doesn’t remember others as well.. She tells things in a very human and un-rehearsed way, with asides as she realizes the reader may not have enough relevant information to understand what she’s talking about, tangents as she follows her thought processes out to their completion, and sometimes forgetting to put minor facts into the story in chronological order and going back to flesh out the detail. It comes across as thought through by someone who has had to process this entire story mentally, but a bit disorganized as you would expect from her personality. The narrative style truly brings Sunshine to life.
That said, I suspect the narrative style will cause people to either love or hate this story. I love it because all the asides and only semi-relevant information truly fleshes out the world, but it creates a lot of exposition for those people who don’t mentally build the world as they are reading. There is action, but there is a lot of discussion too. The story is not a neatly wrapped package with all the loose ends tied up. Sunshine isn’t the kind of person to tie bows – she needs to get the job done and a knot will work so she ties a knot, loose ends be damned. One of the reasons I love this story is because it ends right after a major piece of action but before all the fallout of the action becomes known. You do not find out how all the characters react, and you know that there are still fireworks to come. One of the best parts of this book is that the world and characters are so fully fleshed out that it is possible to speculate on what happens next. If the author never writes a second part, I will hunt her down in whatever life comes next and demand to know what happens next, simply so that I can see how close my mental images of the aftermath mesh with what actually happened. This story was made for fanfiction. Someday I will look some up, or write some if it fails to exist (I can’t imagine that it would fail to exist though). It would certainly be interesting to chronicle here some of the best fanfiction which manages to follow the rules of the universe.
Sunshine: Robin McKinley
This is a book review that is long overdue. This is one of my favorite books of all time as evidenced by the abuse it has endured after countless times ending up as my pillow.
Sunshine is best classed as a dark fairytale/fantasy. Robin McKinley has made a name for herself rewriting and expanding fairy tales, including Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, some original fairy tales, and several versions of Beauty and the Beast. She excels in creating fully-realized worlds and expanding out motivations behind the inevitable fairytale events. In addition she is often able to introduce unpredictable twists despite re-writing a predictable fairytale.
I should interject here to say that a fully realized world allows me to slip into the world and accept a suspension of disbelief. There are rules governing actions even in this real world – someone in the habit of gossiping is not going to refrain from passing on a juicy bit of gossip for no reason whatsoever. Likewise, within the framework of a story, a gossip will not refrain from passing on a juicy bit of gossip just because the plot requires the main character to remain in ignorance. If the plot depends on characters breaking character for no reason beyond continuing the plot, then it is badly written. Likewise, if someone thing the world appears to exist despite the accepted universe, it annoys me badly. There have been very few moments that have sent me into as much of a height of fury as seeing fireworks in the bows-and-arrows forest technology of the Prince Caspian’s Narnia.
Robin McKinley is a master of creating coherent universes and characters which behave according to the accepted structure of that universe. Sunshine is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, in which humans exist side-by-side with non-human known as demons. Humans and demons (and all the crosses thereof) live in stark opposition to vampires. McKinley’s vampires are horror creatures – faster than humans, stronger than humans, and antithetical to everything that means being human (also, thank you Ms. McKinley for your wonderful vocabulary. I learned that word from Sunshine). It is rumoured that vampires have better technology than humans, and the only thing keeping them from taking over the world is the minor fact that the sizzle in the sunlight. There is no magic in the world that has been discovered that allows a vampire to walk in sunlight.
The story is unique among McKinley’s works in that it is told in first-person narration. The narrator is Sunshine, a book-loving coffeehouse baker with a latent magic talent based on sunlight. The story opens with her explaining to the reader why on earth she went out to a secluded lake one night, where she was subsequently captured by vampires. The entire story is based on explaining to the reader why she is still alive. Nobody escapes from vampires.
The world is disclosed to the reader in asides and tangents by Sunshine. She’s an eccentric character and the story is told in a way that truly reflects her mind and the shape of her thinking. It’s the narration of someone who is vividly remembers some aspects and doesn’t remember others as well.. She tells things in a very human and un-rehearsed way, with asides as she realizes the reader may not have enough relevant information to understand what she’s talking about, tangents as she follows her thought processes out to their completion, and sometimes forgetting to put minor facts into the story in chronological order and going back to flesh out the detail. It comes across as thought through by someone who has had to process this entire story mentally, but a bit disorganized as you would expect from her personality. The narrative style truly brings Sunshine to life.
That said, I suspect the narrative style will cause people to either love or hate this story. I love it because all the asides and only semi-relevant information truly fleshes out the world, but it creates a lot of exposition for those people who don’t mentally build the world as they are reading. There is action, but there is a lot of discussion too. The story is not a neatly wrapped package with all the loose ends tied up. Sunshine isn’t the kind of person to tie bows – she needs to get the job done and a knot will work so she ties a knot, loose ends be damned. One of the reasons I love this story is because it ends right after a major piece of action but before all the fallout of the action becomes known. You do not find out how all the characters react, and you know that there are still fireworks to come. One of the best parts of this book is that the world and characters are so fully fleshed out that it is possible to speculate on what happens next. If the author never writes a second part, I will hunt her down in whatever life comes next and demand to know what happens next, simply so that I can see how close my mental images of the aftermath mesh with what actually happened. This story was made for fanfiction. Someday I will look some up, or write some if it fails to exist (I can’t imagine that it would fail to exist though). It would certainly be interesting to chronicle here some of the best fanfiction which manages to follow the rules of the universe.
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