Arty -- Jinx by Sage Blackwood

Heeere's Arty!

Yeah, I'm colossally late.  Who's surprised by now.

Okay.  Jinx.  I picked this up initially because all there was on the spine was 'Blackwood' and I really, really hoped Gary Blackwood had a new book out.  If he does, this isn't it, but it was still a really great book to pick out.

Jinx has a pretty basic premise, one I didn't have much hope for.  I mainly kept it because, let's face it, that cover is gorgeous, and I was probably still subconsciously affected by the magical Blackwood surname.  Here's the summary from Goodreads:

In the Urwald, you don't step off the path.  Trolls, werewolves, and butterchurn riding witches lurk amid the clawing branches, eager to swoop up the unwary.  Jinx has always feared leaving th epath - then he meets the wizard Simon Magus.

Jinx knows that wizards are evil.  But Simon's kitchen is cozy, and he seems cranky rather than wicked.  Staying with him appears to be Jinx's safest, and perhaps only, option.  As Jinx's curiosity about magic grows, he learns to listen to the trees as closely as he does to Simon's unusual visitors.  The more Jinx discovers, the more determined he becomes to explore beyond the security of the well-trod paths.  But in the Urwald, a little healthy fear is never out of place, for magic - and magicians - can be as dangerous as the forest, and soon Jinx must decide which is the greater threat.

Pretty simple.  Or so it seems.

Jinx, for a book firmly in the children's section of the library, goes surprisingly deep into characterization - there aren't any blazing pieces of brilliance like Sydney Carton or Severus Snape, but Jinx, Simon, the Bonemaster, Sophie, and even characters I didn't think I'd like much were well-written.  The story, too, dives off the expected end of "as-good-as orphan gets taken in by a wizard and learns that he's three times as powerful as anyone else after he beats the Big Bad."

Jinx has a great ability - a sixth sense, rather - of being able to see the thoughts of others as colored clouds of emotion.  I love what Blackwood does with the ability - no spoilers, but the different twists and turns the story takes around this ability and around Jinx himself actually caught me by surprise.  That's not easy to do.  Simon and Sophie, too, are anything but cliché characters.  (Even though they greatly reminded me of Howl's Moving Castle, down to Sophie's name - turns out Blackwood is a Diana Wynne Jones fan, and it shows by the way her plot/magic/character development works.)  I could never really tell where either of them came from until the end, some good writing that actually made Jinx's conundrums feel real.

I was reading with a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm until about halfway through.  Then the story took another turn, in which Simon and Sophie greatly leave the picture, the story takes on a more adventurous turn, and two characters take Simon and Sophie's places - Reven the thief, and Elfwyn the granddaughter of a witch.  I did not like Reven or Elfwyn.  I wanted Sophie and Simon (especially Simon) back.  Especially when Elfwyn started turning into your usual girl-with-two-boys-as-friends girl, an obnoxious, domineering sort that the boys tolerated because - well, they liked her for some reason.

But, as much as I hate to admit it, they did grow on me - a little.  Their curses amused me.  Reven, especially, with his antiquarian way of speech and his more interesting curse, got to be one of my favorites.  They made suitable replacements for Simon and Sophie - logical ones, since Jinx couldn't have too much magic on his side, or everything would be too easy.

The book ends slowly, but in a good way.  The climax occurs and then another sixty or so pages are dedicated to resolution - which is something I really enjoyed.  Even if the ending as is dragged a bit, rushed would have been worse.  And while I think Blackwood could have taken more time sewing up loose subplot ends, the main plot was magnificently concluded.

Jinx is a great book with a great main character and a great supporting cast and a great plot and I'm hoping for a sequel sometime.  Definitely a recommendation.

Arty -- The Highway Cats by Janet Taylor Lisle

There are times when you just need a quick read to make you feel happy.  The Highway Cats fits this criteria.

It's about a community of cats who live, fittingly, by the highway - a rough-and-tumble community, a rag-tag collection of tough cats who look out for number one and no one else.  Among these cats is Shredder, an older tom who prides himself on being just as hard as the rest of them.

Shredder is out by the highway one regular day, in time to witness three tiny kittens trying to cross the road - in horrible traffic.  Miraculously, the kittens survive.  Not only do they survive, however - they also take a shine to Shredder.

Shredder, against his better impulses, refuses to have anything to do with them.  Thus the three kittens fall into the hands of Khalia Koo, a once-beautiful Siamese who was scarred by a fire and now wears various pieces of trash over her head to hide her hideousness.  Khalia Koo and her henchcat, Jolly Roger, run a rat farm; they take the kittens in to use as pillows on cold winter nights.

But the three kittens make an unexpected impression on the highway cat community.  Suddenly these mangy, dirty, careless, foul-mouthed cats are cleaning up their acts around the kittens; the rat farm experiences a surge in productivity; and even Shredder and Khalia Koo find themselves softening.  Is it all the work of these three miraculous kittens, who seem to have a glow of their own?

Then a greater threat to their newfound peaceful lives presents itself, and it seems that even the kittens' particular brand of magic may not be enough to save the highway cats.

The Highway Cats is really short and really sweet and really... I don't know what.  Magical?  Actually, the friend who rec'd it to me may have the best word for it - surreal.  It's very surreal.  Kittens who glow, a she-cat who wears orange juice cartons to hide her deformities, a plan to drive off oncoming construction workers - it's just a very odd collection of things to work with.

But work, it does.

It's just adorable.  At just over one hundred pages, there's not a whole lot of time for anything, and yet it feels complete.  It's a bare-bones story and it works.  Sort of like Dread Locks, but fluffier.  And sweeter.  And, in a way, more fulfilling.

The characters are awesome.  Shredder was the perfect old-guy-who's-not-as-tough-as-he-thinks; Jolly Roger and Murray the Claw were funny (if shallow) henchcat types; and the three kittens, who could easily have come off annoying and perfect, were really just adorable.  Khalia Koo, however, is definitely my favorite.  She started off 'evil' and then sort of became just 'nasty' and then plain old heroic. (I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I love horribly maimed characters.  Khalia Koo actually does have horrific scars.  She has this awesome line... never mind, spoilers.)

It actually is hard to say too much about this book without spoiling a lot of the action that comes about. It's not that anything is shocking or unexpected, but... it's just the sort of book that you don't want to know too much about going into.  Let it surprise you.

Because the ending is terrific.  I started grinning when I read the last page - it's the perfect ambiguous ending.  Not a whole lot is explained, because it doesn't need to be.  It just... is.

So if you're in the mood for a quick, happy-feeling little book about cats and a bit of magic, The Highway Cats is definitely the right book.

Persy -- Cast In Shadow by Michelle Sagara

Kaylin Neya has a past (don't we all?). But she's trying to forget it. Now, she tells herself, she is a Hawk, serving the land of Elantra. Hawks are the eyes and ears of Elantra, serving to maintain the peace along with the Swords and Wolves (it's complicated, I think... that or just badly explained in the book). But it's hard to escape your past when you've got strange powers that don't go along with anything the Mages understand, and when your arms are covered in strange markings.

It's also hard when the nightmare from your past appears, and you're supposed to work alongside him. And a Dragon. Yeah.

Okay, so it's hard to sum up this book with a dramatic, realistic tone, so let's try it this way: Kaylin grew up in the Fiefs, a basically lawless group of lands each ruled by a Fieflord. There, mysterious and terrifying killings began, and all the victims had the same markings as Kaylin. But when she was thirteen, she managed to escape into Elantra, where she began serving the empire by becoming a Hawk.

But then one day, she is assigned a new mission by the Hawklord to go back to the Nightshade, the fief where she grew up, to investigate the reappearance of the murders of marked children. And her two partners are Severn, the boy she grew up with in the Nightshade (who did something REALLY BAD, but we don't get to know what that was until halfway through the book, so I won't say anything), and Lord Tiamaris, a member of the Dragon Caste (they aren't fully explained until later in the book either, so... no spoilers). Supposedly, both Severn and Tiamaris have become Hawks, but Severn might as well be a criminal, and Dragons never become Hawks.

Hijinks ensue. Yeehaw.

Okay, I sound sarcastic, but I actually did enjoy Cast In Shadow. Well, mostly. I would've enjoyed it if the writing was...better. It felt very much like a rough draft, like it could've been amazing if Michelle Sagara had just gone over it a few times. There were random sentences in there that were probably put in for poeticness, but they just made things confusing and cluttered. On the other hand, most of the writing was un-cluttered. There wasn't nearly enough description, and I had to fill in most of the gaps with my imagination and hope I was close to the truth.

For instance... how the heck do they get from Elantra to the Fiefs? Everytime they'd go it seemed like they just walked over and it took about five minutes. If the Fiefs are lawless and so hard for the Dragon Emperor (who I think rules Elantra? It was hard to tell) to control, then shouldn't they be a little farther away than NEXT DOOR?

There's also a lot of chitchat, which seems to be how most of the explaining is done. Oftentimes, I couldn't tell who was speaking, either.

The characters are pretty cool though, for the most part. Lord Tiamaris is freakin' awesome. FREAKIN' AWESOME, I SAID!! *glomps him*

Ahem, anyway.

Severn is just okay. Bit of a cliché, but he pulls it off passably. Lord Nightshade (ruler of Nightshade) is pretty cool. And then we get to Kaylin Neya. Heh.

Basically, she's pretty darn stupid, but that makes her kind of endearing. I mean, everyone knows she's stupid, and I love how she's not one of the big shots at Hawk HQ. She's lowest of the low, always late, never proper, and never really knows what's going on. She failed pretty much every class in Hawk school, which gives everyone else the excuse to explain things to the reader.

Though sometimes, they don't explain. She'll say something stupid, and the other people will look at each other and go "You didn't tell her?" "Of course not." "Okay, let's leave it that way." and they'll just carry on with their lives. It gives the impression that Michelle Sagara hasn't really figured out the details yet.

Like I said, rough draft.

There are like, five more books in the Elantra series, so maybe she'll get around to explaining a few things. I'm hoping her writing gets better too. The second book is called Cast In Courtlight, which sounds absolutely stupid, but by "Court" they mean the Barrani High Court, so maybe it'll cool after all (the Barrani are one of the high races, along with the humans and Dragons and... other people I can't remember). Although with her stupidity, I don't see how Kaylin would last two seconds in a Court, much less a Barrani one.

--Persy

You might like this if you: like fantasy worlds like Poison Study (Maria V. Snyder) or Graceling (Kristin Cashore); are looking for a fantasy book that's not very typical; have a fondness for unattractive covers (I really don't like this cover, I'm sorry); if you like awesome Dragon people (WE LOVE YOU, TIAMARIS); or if you have a fondness for vampires, dragons, or zombies and want to read every single book that so much as mentions them.

Arty -- The Time Of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Freakin' Jones!

If you've been with us for a while - like, since the beginning of the Library - you'll remember that our first review ever was by yours truly, on the inimitable Howl's Moving Castle by the sadly late Mrs. Jones. My estimation of her work has only gotten better now that my biggest book collection is of her books, and my only complaint is that she isn't more widely read in the US. (Not sure about the UK.)

Now about The Time of the Ghost instead of mindless fangirling.

She doesn't know who she is, and doesn't know why she's invisibly floating through the buildings and grounds of a half-remembered boarding school. Then, to her horror, she encounters the ancient evil that four peculiar sisters have unwittingly woken - and learns she is their only hope against a deadly danger.

I gave you the summary from the back of the book because you really shouldn't go into Ghost knowing too much about it. The fun of Jones's books is learning alongside the main character, and that's especially true in this book. Ghosty (just calling her 'the ghost' is so cold, isn't it?) is completely clueless, and I can imagine that it wouldn't be half as intriguing if you aren't, too. Therefore, I won't go too much into plot or individual character, and therefore, this is going to be a very short review.

BUT! I'm not going to let you go with some more fangirling, so I am going to expound on the general plot and characters.

The plot is, as I said, a bit confusing at first, because you have no idea what's going on. No idea. It's confusing, it's bewildering, and you can feel exactly how Ghosty feels. And though you eventually get your sea legs, to mix my metaphors, there are still points where you scratch your head and think, 'But I thought it went THIS way...' And then you have to scrap your preconceived notions about the lot of it and start again.

Which, for me, is just fun.

The characters are typically amazing for Jones. None of them are quite what you think they are at first or second or even third glance. Ghosty, for the most part a mere observer in her quest for victory over the ancient evil, is a pretty interesting main character. The 'four sisters' mentioned in the summary are a wild, varied bunch of witches that would make Macbeth's hags run away in terror, but at the end of it all, I actually really liked all four of them. And the two villains, though extremely different, are both detestable, and you dearly want them both to go die in a hole by the time the book ends.

Oh, and that ending is wonderful. Just so you know.

There's very little I can say against The Time of the Ghost. Maybe that one character swears a bit more often than is typical for a Jones book? It's still not bad. In other words, go read this book. And all of her others. Because Diana Wynne Jones is amazing.