Guest Post by Lory S. Kaufman
Mar
10
2011

Today I have a guest post about where characters come from by Lory S. Kaufman, author of The Lens and the Looker, to share with you.  The Lens and the Looker is the first book in the Verona trilogy, a YA science fiction trilogy in which three teens from the 24th century are sent back to 14th century Verona.

The Lens and the Looker

“Where do characters come from?” You might as well ask, “Is there life on other planets?” This is a question to give a writer pause.

Lincoln was the first character to materialize, sometime around 1989. Yikes, 1989! I was writing an ensemble piece at the time with, I think, seven main characters in the one book. The characters all went back in time in twos and threes, to different times in history, and their stories were loosely related. At the time I thought I was writing adult science fiction but with teenage characters.  I don’t think the concept of young adult literature was that differentiated at the time.

Then life got in the way. Sometime I had to put my writing aside for weeks and months, a few times for over a year. But I never lost the impulse, the need to create . . . to write.

I started taking writing classes and reading books on writing (don’t ask why I didn’t do this earlier). After many starts and stops, by the time I finished the first draft I had a tome of over 240,000 words, or about 800 pages. That’s when I realized I was trying to do what all first time writers do — write the perfect novel that include every scrap of detritus hanging about in my head. I cut the protagonists to three in 2005, and that’s when Hansum and Shamira showed up as composites from all the scrapped characters.

At first I wrote my characters with no specified intention. They just came out of my subconscious and foiled against each other in what I saw as interesting and “telling” ways. When the second draft was completed and reviewed, I saw how a character was contradictory to itself and in subsequent rewrites I would struggle to make changes to make them consistent. It was like sculpting a character out of plasticine. When pushing down to reshape something, a new lump would show up on the other side. I’d attempt to fix one plot hole and another one would take its place. At the beginning of 2008 I took some online classes through Writers Market and met Bonnie Hearn-Hill, a great mystery and young adult writer, and a very strict, but caring, teacher. Her first impressions were that the book is two and a half times too long and I must pick one character to be the central protagonist, having the other two support the other. My daughter, Jessica Suzanne Kaufman, who is a natural and talented editor, became my line editor and actually suggested a way to break the book in two and make two novels out of it. It took a year to accomplish this feat and, by this time, I was, more or less, retired, so I began writing every day.

Convinced I was ready to make my debut, but wanting to do it right, I decided to find the best science fiction editor I could and pay him whatever he asked to read and critique my work. That’s when I found Lou Aronica, a former publisher at Bantam and Avon books and the man who picked five Nebula winners in a row. I was very sure he would read what I had and pronounce it a masterpiece.  What I got back was eight pages of general overview notes, ending with, “there’s a lot of work to be done, but I see that something could come out of this.”

Half elated, half disappointed and totally exhausted, I went on vacation for a week. Then I girded my lions for whatever it would take to bring this thing to the next level.

In the process of this next rewrite, I took a giant step back and wrote essays on each character including what their purpose was.

Lincoln was to become a support character. He represented my younger self, as a boy, someone who did very poorly in school and was very frustrated and depressed, but on the outside he was a wise guy. Lincoln’s purpose would be to be thrown into the big bad world and either sink or swim. His character would show that, although people must be able to stand on their own, they cannot succeed on their own. Where Lincoln’s name came from, I think it has to do with Abraham Lincoln, but I still don’t know how. I guess I just liked the sound of it.

I wanted Shamira to be a person who had scads of artistic talent and to show that people who front projects must use artistic people to bring their own visions to life. She is strong, though misguided and jaded at the beginning, and she represented the adolescents who rebel against everything for rebellions sake, but often that rebellion is a sign that people have a hidden spark in them. When real life and a crisis intervene, the life skills their parents and education has taught them come to the fore. As for Shamira’s name, I thought I made it up. When I researched it, after the fact, I found it is Hebrew for protector. Sometimes we hear things and they lie around in our brains for years, till they just pop out. I love that about brains.

Then there’s Hansum. As the main protagonist, I wanted a name that would stick out. Remember the female character in the movie, Dirty Dancing? Her name was Baby and I always remembered it. The character I was writing was physically good looking, tall and athletic, so Hansum just popped into my mind. I was worried it would be seen as cheesy, but nobody’s laughed yet . . . that I know of.  Hansum’s talent is that of being a natural leader. Intelligent, but not necessarily an expert in any specialty, his burden becomes having expectations put on him and then struggling to succeed.

When back in time, in the 14th century, he is renamed Romero, and he falls in love with a beauty name Guilietta. It’s not too big a leap to realize that a sub plot of the first series is that it’s in part a Romero and Juliet story. Same city, similar names, close time period. And it’s fun.

It took a year and three more rewrites to come up with what is now entitled The Lens and the Looker. The darn thing has changed into a trilogy. It’s been a long road. You can find out more at www.history-camp.com . You can also “like” the History Camp Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/historycamptrilogy?v=info.

Thank you, Lory!  It was rather interesting to learn more about the process of developing the main cast from The Lens and the Looker.

Guest Review of The Skin Map by Stephen Lawhead
Mar
07
2011
The Skin Map
by Stephen Lawhead
448pp (Kindle)
My Rating: 4/10
Amazon Rating: 3.8/5
LibraryThing Rating: 3.5/5
Goodreads Rating: 3.74/5
 

The Skin Map is the first book in Stephen Lawhead’s new Bright Empires series, which he describes as “the most challenging work I’ve ever undertaken.”  Lawhead is the author of such excellent fantasy series as the Pendragon Cycle and the King Raven Trilogy, so he certainly has the pedigree to take on a work of the scope that he describes on his website as the future of science fiction and fantasy.  Unfortunately, one is left not only wondering what is revolutionary about the book but what is unique about it at all as it recycles popular storylines from the past twenty years and is ultimately disappointing as a stand-alone book.

Kit Livingstone is a standard issue–if somewhat wishy-washy–modern-day Londoner, much more concerned with avoiding crowds on the Tube than quantum physics or mystical esoterica.  Or at least he was, until one day he deviates from his normal commute and wanders down a dark alley where he meets his long-lost great-grandfather Cosimo.  After a strange conversation he decides to simply walk away, but quickly discovers that the exit isn’t quite where he left it: nor is the alley, or even London itself.  Instead he’s been transported to another time and place, and is only able to get back home with Cosimo’s help.

Even after Cosimo brings him home, Kit has trouble simply returning to his normal life; he’s seen too much, and really, his life wasn’t that great to begin with.  So he drags his girlfriend Wilhelmina back to the alley and triggers the transportation again, only to discover that it is not quite as easy as Cosimo made it look and Wilhelmina doesn’t arrive with him, lost somewhere in space and time.  So begins a search for Wilhelmina that ranges from ancient Egypt to Portuguese Macau to Habsburg Prague and uncovers a variety of friends and enemies, all of whom seem to be after the same artifact: The Skin Map, the only map that shows how to navigate through the portals, hubs, and lines that allow all of this extra-dimensional travel.

I said in the opening above that I found the book disappointing.  A large part of that disappointment comes from it being a Stephen Lawhead book, who I generally find to be an excellent author even when the story he’s telling may not be the best (see: Grail).  The Skin Map is, frankly, just not a well-written book.  The characters are quite thin and spend a great deal of time trying to explain the implications of the world’s time/space travel system.  It is based on the idea that ley lines serve as tunnels between worlds in a multiverse, and though there is some prevarication on this point, the multiverse seems to be a pretty standard version of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  Far more words are spent on getting this point across than are necessary, and the characters (mostly Kit) are in such awe of the concept that they don’t come across as modern–certainly, they’re not fans of sci-fi or fantasy, at the very least.  Paradoxically, despite spending so much time explaining what the ley lines do, there is almost no explanation of how they work.  Sometimes they seem to be based on natural phenomena, sometimes human will, and sometimes narrative convenience, but nowhere in this book are the mechanics of what’s going on explored and so the reader is often left wondering exactly why what just happened took place.

The long infodumps explaining ley lines and generally shallow characters made me feel like this was intended to be a YA sort of book, though Kristen assures me it isn’t (and I asked several times).  Normally I don’t have any problem with YA books–I often like them better than books intended for adults since they tend to have a level of wonder and imagination that adult books usually lack.  The Skin Map has the negatives that are often associated with YA books without the positives, though.  Kit spends most of the book either whining or reacting to events that are happening to him instead of setting out to explore the world(s).  Wilhelmina, who is initially described in less-than-glowing terms, quickly becomes a much more likable character than Kit or Cosimo and I enjoyed reading most of her sections.  The POV character who I found the most intriguing is the original creator of the skin map, but unfortunately he is also the character that we spend the least time with.

But all of that aside, beyond the plot and characterization the part of The Skin Map that is most distressing to me is the quality of the writing at the line-to-line level.  For example, the first eight pages of the book have Kit navigating the London Tube.  While I’m told that Londoners take a sort of perverse pride in the spaghetti-on-a-plate nature of the Underground, opening a fantasy book with a narrative version of Mornington Crescent is simply not a good idea.  In other places the clichés are so thick and common that they have become meta-clichés in popular culture:

 
“You won’t get away with this.” Kit gave the blade a shove with his foot.

“No?” The man moved toward him. “I think you’ll find I already have.”

…really?  Without irony or anything?  Presumably “if not for you meddling kids” is being saved for later books in the series.  From the man who wrote Merlin and Taliesin, I expect more.

The Skin Map is clearly designed to be the first book in a series and suffers as a result of setting up the world’s mythos, but the flaws are deeper than can be explained away by that excuse.  Instead of being revolutionary and deep it is a shallow rehash of every many-worlds story written in the last few decades.  Maybe it will become wonderful as Lawhead moves deeper into the story, but I’m not sure I’m interested enough to find out.

My Rating: 4/10

Where I got my reading copy: A giveaway of the eBook on Lawhead’s Facebook account.

The Leaning Pile of Books
Mar
06
2011

This week brought a lot of books.  For one thing, I was bad and bought 3 myself .  Also, I received 4 YA books from Penguin that were a complete surprise, some of which look very good (and one of which prompted that third purchase of the week since I desperately want to read it but it was a sequel).

The Native StarThe Native Star by M. K. Hobson

This book has already been one I’ve been wanting to read for a while after reading reviews by Janicu and The Book Smugglers. Then when it was announced as a Nebula nominee, I knew I had to read it soon and was given some extra incentive when it was one of the first books to read for the Nebula Readathon. So I bought it and should have started it by the time this post goes up (since I’m writing it the day before).  Chapter One can be read on the author’s website.  A sequel, The Hidden Goddess, will be released in May 2011.

It’s 1876, and business is rotten for Emily Edwards, town witch of the tiny Sierra Nevada settlement of Lost Pine. With everyone buying patent magicks by mail-order, she’s faced with two equally desperate options. Starve—or use a love spell to bewitch the town’s richest lumberman into marrying her.

When the love spell goes terribly wrong, Emily is forced to accept the aid of Dreadnought Stanton—a pompous and scholarly Warlock from New York—to set things right. Together, they travel from the seedy underbelly of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, across the United States by train and biomechanical flying machine, to the highest halls of American magical power, only to find that love spells (and love) are far more complicated and dangerous than either of them could ever have imagined.

A Madness of AngelsA Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin

Recently, the third book in the Matthew Swift series landed in my mailbox, and I also had received a review copy of the second book.  So when I saw the first copy was available on Amazon for $7 in hardcover, I snatched it up (it was cheap and it would match!).  This was a series I wanted to read anyway so it will be nice to be able to start it from the beginning.

When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford – Samuel Johnson

In fact, Dr Johnson was only half right. There is in London much more than life – there is power. It ebbs and flows with the rhythms of the city, makes runes from the alignments of ancient streets and hums with the rattle of trains and buses; it waxes and wanes with the patterns of the business day. It is a new kind of magic: urban magic.

Enter a London where magicians ride the Last Train, implore favours of The Beggar King and interpret the insane wisdom of The Bag Lady. Enter a London where beings of power soar with the pigeons and scrabble with the rats, and seek insight in the half-whispered madness of the blue electric angels.

Enter the London of Matthew Swift, where rival sorcerers, hidden in plain sight, do battle for the very soul of the city …

EonEon by Alison Goodman

This would be the book I purchased because the sequel showed up this week. Thea from The Book Smugglers (her review) had recommended me this book at one point, so it’s been on my wish list for a little while.  Having the conclusion sent to me just gave me that incentive I needed to procure the first book.  It sounds great – Asian-inspired fantasy setting, dragons, gender dynamics.  And the pretty cover didn’t hurt, either – those colors are just gorgeous!  I noticed it’s also published by the same imprint that released Fire by Kristin Cashore (one of the most awesome YA books I’ve ever read) and that just made me more excited to read it.  It’s also a winner of the Aurealis Award, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Locus Recommended Reading Selection, a James Tiptree, Jr., Award Finalist, a CBCA Notable Book, and a Bank Street College Best Book of the Year. I’m hoping to read this one fairly soon – it really does look wonderful!

This book has also been published under the title The Two Pearls of Wisdom in the UK and Australia.

Under the harsh regime of an ambitious master, Eon is training to become a Dragoneye – a powerful Lord able to command wind and water to protect the land. But Eon also harbours a desperate secret – he is in fact a young woman living a dangerous masquerade that, if discovered, will mean certain death.

Brought to the attention of the Emperor himself and summoned to the opulent court, Eon is thrust into the heart of a lethal struggle for the Imperial throne. In this new, treacherous world of hidden identities and uneasy alliances, Eon comes face-to-face with a vicious enemy who covets the young Dragoneye’s astounding power, and will stop at nothing to make it his own.

Eon is based on the ancient lores of Chinese astrology and Feng Shui. It is a thrilling, timeless novel of deadly politics, sexual intrigue and dazzling swordplay set in a brilliantly envisioned world …

EonaEona by Alison Goodman

This sequel to Eon, which concludes the story, will be available on April 19, 2011.  I’ll have to read Eon first, but as you may be able to tell, I’m super excited about reading these books!  For those of you who have already read Eon, the preface and chapter one of Eona can be read online.  This book is also being published with the title The Necklace of the Gods in the UK.

Eon has been revealed as Eona, the first female Dragoneye in hundreds of years. Along with fellow rebels Ryko and Lady Dela, she is on the run from High Lord Sethon’s army. The renegades are on a quest for the black folio, stolen by the drug-riddled Dillon; they must also find Kygo, the young Pearl Emperor, who needs Eona’s power and the black folio if he is to wrest back his throne from the selfstyled “Emperor” Sethon. Through it all, Eona must come to terms with her new Dragoneye identity and power-and learn to bear the anguish of the ten dragons whose Dragoneyes were murdered. As they focus their power through her, she becomes a dangerous conduit for their plans. . . .

Eona, with its pulse-pounding drama and romance, its unforgettable fight scenes, and its surprises, is the conclusion to an epic only Alison Goodman could create.

ChimeChime by Franny Billingsley

After Eona, this is the young adult book I was sent that looks the most intriguing.  That’s partially because I am shallow and once again like the colors on the cover but also because it looks like a good book.  It has a first page that sucked me in and made me want to know more.  Chime will be released in hardcover on March 17.

Before Briony’s stepmother died, she made sure Briony blamed herself for all the family’s hardships. Now Briony has worn her guilt for so long it’s become a second skin. She often escapes to the swamp, where she tells stories to the Old Ones, the spirits who haunt the marshes. But only witches can see the Old Ones, and in her village, witches are sentenced to death. Briony lives in fear her secret will be found out, even as she believes she deserves the worst kind of punishment.

Then Eldric comes along with his golden lion eyes and mane of tawny hair. He’s as natural as the sun, and treats her as if she’s extraordinary. And everything starts to change. As many secrets as Briony has been holding, there are secrets even she doesn’t know.

The Dark CityThe Dark City by Catherine Fisher

Since I’ve heard good things about Catherine Fisher’s duology consisting of Incarceron and Sapphique (again, mostly from Thea), I was curious about this one as well.  The cover blurb by Robin McKinley also made me interested in reading it. The Dark City is the first book in a new series, Relic Master, and it will be released in May.  The other three books in the series will be released in increments of one month after that one – The Lost Heroes in June, The Hidden Coronet in July, and The Margrave in August.

Welcome to Anara, a world mysteriously crumbling to devastation, where nothing is what it seems: Ancient relics emit technologically advanced powers, members of the old Order are hunted by the governing Watch yet revered by the people, and the great energy that connects all seems to also be destroying all. The only hope for the world lies in Galen, a man of the old Order and a Keeper of relics, and his sixteen-year-old apprentice, Raffi. They know of a secret relic with great power that has been hidden for centuries. As they search for it, they will be tested beyond their limits. For there are monsters-some human, some not-that also want the relic’s power and will stop at nothing to get it.

Department NineteenDepartment Nineteen by Will Hill

Since this is a vampire book, I’m not as sure I’ll read this one, but it looks like it could be fun.  Since I can’t find a website for the author, I’m not sure if it’s the start of a series or not.  A quote in the praise section on the publisher’s website indicates there will be at least one more installment, though.  Department Nineteen will be released on March 31.

Jamie Carpenter’s life will never be the same. His father is dead, his mother is missing, and he was just rescued by an enormous man named Frankenstein. Jamie is brought to Department 19, where he is pulled into a secret organization responsible for policing the supernatural, founded more than a century ago by Abraham Van Helsing and the other survivors of Dracula. Aided by Frankenstein’s monster, a beautiful vampire girl with her own agenda, and the members of the agency, Jamie must attempt to save his mother from a terrifyingly powerful vampire.

Department 19 takes us through history, across Europe, and beyond – from the cobbled streets of Victorian London to prohibition-era New York, from the icy wastes of Arctic Russia to the treacherous mountains of Transylvania. Part modern thriller, part classic horror, it’s packed with mystery, mayhem, and a level of suspense that makes a Darren Shan novel look like a romantic comedy.

News & Links
Mar
05
2011

If you’re on Twitter, Elizabeth Bear is running a Twitter giveaway for an ARC of The Tempering of Men!  The Tempering of Men, the sequel to A Companion to Wolves (co-written with Sarah Monette), will be released in August so this is a good opportunity to read it very early if you win!

This year Daniel Abraham has two books coming out from Orbit Books.  The publisher recently announced that they will be doing an e-book promotion for these two books so when you buy one, you get the other book with it and the opportunity to try both first books in each new series. The Dragon’s Path, coming out on April 11, is the first book in an epic fantasy series called The Dagger and the Coin.  Leviathan Wakes, a space opera co-written with Ty Franck under the name James S. A. Corey, will be released on June 15 and is the first book in the Expanse series.

In case you skip the weekly books bought/received post, I’ll mention this again – The Book Smugglers announced a Nebula Readathon covering all the books in the novel and young adult categories.  It’s a pretty intense schedule with a lot of books, some of which are two or more books into a series, so I know I won’t be reading all of them myself.  But it does look fun and I’m going to try to read at least some of them, starting with The Native Star by M. K. Hobson (and I’ll finally read A Conspiracy of Kings later!).

Review of Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Mar
04
2011
Howl's Moving Castle
by Diana Wynne Jones
448pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 8/10
Amazon Rating: 4.5/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4.33/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.24/5
 

Howl’s Moving Castle is a young adult fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones, perhaps one of the best known authors writing fantasy and science fiction with over 30 books published.  This particular work of hers is a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book, an ALA Notable Book, and an ALA Best of the Best in YA.  It has two loosely connected sequels, Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways.  These two books both have different main characters than the first novel, but the main characters from Howl’s Moving Castle do make appearances.

As the eldest of three girls, Sophie Hatter has resigned herself to being the least successful daughter in the family.  So it is hardly surprising to her when her two sisters get to move away to become apprentices (with the youngest in the position to have the greatest adventures, of course!), leaving her behind to make hats day after day.  In spite of her talent for making lovely hats, Sophie’s life remains rather dull until the Witch of the Waste comes to her family’s shop.  The Witch of the Waste has heard of Sophie and views her as competition – and for this crime she turns Sophie into an old lady and renders her incapable of telling anyone she is under a spell.

Sophie accepts her new fate just as easily as she accepted her old one, but she decides she’d better leave before her stepmother finds her in this state.  Eventually she finds herself near the noisy moving castle belonging to the infamous wizard Howl, reputed to steal the souls of girls.  As an old woman, Sophie figures she’s safe and the idea of sitting by a nice warm fire is too alluring to turn down.  So she commands the castle to stop and climbs aboard to the dismay of the wizard’s apprentice Michael, claiming she wishes to wait for the Wizard Howl as the only one who can help her.  Once she is settled in, she discovers the fire in the hearth can talk.  It is actually Calcifer, a fire demon who made a contract with Howl and now must remain in the wizard’s fireplace.  Calcifer can see that Sophie has been enchanted and makes a deal with her: if she can figure out how to break his contract with the wizard Howl and free him from his agreement, he’ll make her young again.

Ever since I saw the Hayao Miyazaki’s movie based on Howl’s Moving Castle, I’ve wanted to read the book.  I purchased it one day when I saw it in the bookstore, but I was recently reminded I should read it when Ana raved about it.  With some further encouragement from Chachic and Twitter nagging urging from Janicu, I decided to take a break from the long book I was reading and finally read this book.  Thank you to all of them for the incentive to finally read Howl’s Moving Castle – it was a charming original story that still had a classic fairy tale feel.

As could be expected from the woman who wrote Tough Guide to Fantasyland, an examination of the usual fantasy tropes, Jones has some fun with twisting conventional storylines.  The beginning seems as though it is heading in the direction of “Cinderella” at first with the revelation that Sophie and Lettie’s mother died.  Afterward, their father remarried and the two girls ended up with a younger half sister, Martha.  However, there were no wicked, ugly stepsisters nor was the stepmother evil or even partial to her own daughter. Furthermore, from the opening lines, we’re told Sophie is doomed to failure as the oldest sibling:

 

In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if you set out to seek your fortune. [pp. 1]

Because of this, Sophie always expected her youngest sister to be given the best opportunity for success while the other is put in a position to find a good husband (as she’ll not amount to much as the middle child, either).  In spite of Sophie’s resignation to her own fate, her sisters are not as ready to be dictated by their positions and actually quietly trade places.  Nor does Sophie end up as the least successful sister – she may have it rough for a while but she still finds adventure and romance.  At the same time, that doesn’t mean her sisters don’t have a role to play or end up miserable failures in the end, either.

Once Sophie is transformed into an elderly lady by the Witch of the Waste, the rest of her character changes, too.  Before this, she just accepted her circumstances and was rather timid.  When she first meets Howl (without even realizing he’s the man accused of eating girl’s hearts), she appears terrified and he calls her “a little gray mouse” because of it.  After she’s an old woman, she’s still rather accepting of her lot, but she soon notes that her point of view has altered.  Elderly Sophie is much more bold – she doesn’t fear Howl at all, as evidenced by how she bursts into his castle and takes charge.  She bullies Calcifer into getting what she wants. When she needs an excuse to stay in hopes that her hex can be broken, she tells Howl she’s his new cleaning lady.  This prompts Howl to ask  her who said she was, to which Sophie responds, “I do.”  In some ways, the Witch of the Waste did Sophie a favor as she takes control of her life instead of spending her days talking to hats until she naturally becomes an old woman.

Sophie is not the only charming character; of course, there is also Howl himself who works wonderfully as a likable yet extremely flawed character.  He’s a charismatic, talented wizard who is also compassionate with a tendency to undercharge the poor who come to him. At the same time, he’s also prone to fits of temper, a womanizer, and a very vain man who spends a couple hours in the bathroom getting ready to go out every morning.  (There’s a brief interview with Jones in the back, and I rather liked her comment about finding it surprising that girls wrote to her saying they wanted to marry Howl: “My opinion of Howl is that, much as I love him, he’s the last man I would want to marry. Apart from anything else, I would want to get into the bathroom sometimes.”)  The fact that he has so many bad and good qualities makes him such a fleshed out, believable character and that’s part of what makes him so endearing and memorable.

Although it wasn’t a comedy, there were many great moments of humor spread throughout the book.  Jones has a way of wording phrases and writing scenes that is wonderful.  There were so many great scenes where Howl and Sophie clashed with her need to clean and snoop and his need for messiness and privacy, and I loved Sophie’s thoughts about the rumors she’d heard about Howl as she explored his castle:

 

She cleaned the bathroom next. That took her days, because Howl spent so long in it every day before he went out.  As soon he went, leaving it full of steam and scented spells, Sophie moved in. “Now we’ll see about that contract!” she muttered at the bath, but her main target was of course the shelf of packets, jars, and tubes. She took every one of them down, on the pretext of scrubbing the shelf, and spent most of a day carefully going through them to see if the ones labeled SKIN, EYES, and HAIR were in fact pieces of girl. As far as she could tell, they were just creams and powders and paint. If they once had been girls, then Sophie thought Howl had used the tube FOR DECAY on them and rotted them down the washbasin too thoroughly to recall. But she hoped they were only cosmetics in the packets. [pp. 91]

The conclusion and how everything tied together was also well done. It would be fun to look for all the hints about breaking the contract and more about what caused the Witch of the Waste’s ire at Sophie on a reread.

Howl’s Moving Castle is a delightful story.  It’s not a familiar fairy tale, but it seems like one with witches, demons, curses, magic, and wizards all accepted very matter-of-factly as part of the world. The main characters are flawed enough to be realistic but not so flawed that they’re not likable.  To top it all off, there’s an undertone of humor and a nicely wrapped up ending.  This is a definite keeper.

My Rating: 8/10

Where I got my reading copy: I bought it.

Other Reviews:

Release Date for A Dance With Dragons!
Mar
03
2011

A Dance With DragonsNo, it apparently still isn’t done yet. However, A Dance With Dragons is close enough that it actually has a release date! George R. R. Martin’s website reports that editors and the publisher have set a date of July 12, 2011 for the fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. Conveniently enough this is just a few months after the beginning of the Song of Ice and Fire HBO series, so we’ll at least remember the first book even if we don’t remember the next three because it’s been years YEARS since the last one came out.