Jan 11 2022

The Smurf Tales Vol 3: The Crow In Smurfy Grove And Other Stories by Peyo

This latest volume in Peyo’s translated oeuvre certainly shows how far we’ve come since the days when borderline offensive jokes about Smurfette were considered, if not outright hilarious, then certainly acceptable consumption for young children. Behold how in the 50 or so intervening years, the Smurfs universe has acquired an entire other village of female Smurfs, each with their own personality and specialty, and watch how the vague objectification of Smurfette falls away as other vital, interesting female characters get their time in the spotlight. There is a moral here about female solidarity being a tide that lifts all boats. But even if you don’t care for feminist discourse, however mild or subtle, there’s a lot to enjoy in this third volume of the Papercutz series.

While on an expedition in the Forbidden Forest, Smurfette, Brainy Smurf, Hefty Smurf and Clumsy Smurf come across the hidden village of Smurfy Grove, populated entirely by female Smurfs. The villagers are initially suspicious of the newcomers but quickly befriend them, a process helped in large part by Smurfette’s sunny disposition. This volume actually begins after the Smurfs of Smurf Village have been accepted by the inhabitants of the grove. The first story, Brainy Smurf’s Walk, is an introduction to the many ways that Smurfy Grove differs from Smurf Village. The next tale, Challenges For Hefty Smurf, sets up a rivalry between the strongest Smurf and Smurfy Grove’s most accomplished warrior/huntress. Clumsy Smurf’s Dragonfly details how that hapless Smurf trains an insect friend, while the next three stories showcase the external threats facing Smurfy Grove. The last of these, as well as the final Smurfs tale in this volume, examine as well the internal threats to Smurfy Grove, and point to a new direction for our tribe of female Smurfs.

Also included here are two bonus throwback stories of the Smurfs facing off against Gargamel’s magic, as well as a tale of Johan and Peewit that, while brief, is chock-full of humor and surprises, particularly for those hoping to relieve Peewit of the musical instrument he plays so badly. Overall, the stories are extremely strong, bringing fresh plots and humor with their expanded cast of characters, tho emphasizing always the value of friendship and adaptability. I was really pleasantly surprised by the vivid color palette used for Smurfy Grove, too. While Smurf Village tends toward primary colors, Smurfy Grove loves its oranges, hot pinks and jungle greens, making for a lovely, lush contrast to the usual tones I’ve come to expect from illustrations of the Smurfs.

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Jan 10 2022

Cinder The Fireplace Boy: And Other Gayly Grimm Tales (Rewoven Tales) by Ana Mardoll

Oh, man, the punctuation in that title sets my teeth on edge. It also bothers me that it’s part of a series but there’s no numbering for said series which, as of writing, consists of a novel and two short story collections. I suppose it doesn’t matter if the books are read out of order, but there’s value in knowing at a glance what was written when in an author’s career, without having to research publication years.

That said, the content of this book is a lot of fun. Ana Mardoll grabbed a bunch of Grimm’s Fairy Tales straight from Project Gutenburg and re-wrote them to be inclusive of trans and queer characters, while excising anti-Semitic and other questionably religious messaging. The introduction talks about how fundamental fairy tales often are to the early career of a reader, and the importance of seeing yourself represented within their pages. To that end, this book succeeds tremendously. Whether it be having the classic tale of Cinderella feature an AFAB boy named Cinder who enthralls the King’s son during local festivities, to the Brave Little Tailor being a young cis woman who understands the power of marketing, the selection is well-curated for all genders, with significant disability rep as well. I was also pleased that the villains aren’t predominantly female either, with a good balance of evil parents and rulers as foils for our protagonists.

Helpfully, there are content warnings (which I far prefer as a term to the oddly reader-blaming slant of “trigger warning”) and guides to pronouns at the beginning of each story. While I freely admit to finding many neopronouns cumbersome and arbitrary — and, to be clear, I strongly believe in using people’s preference of he/she/they/no pronouns altogether — this collection is helpful in rubbing the edges off of my dislike and making said neopronouns easier to assimilate into one’s reading.

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Jan 07 2022

Taking Stock of 2021

For a year that started out with a struggle to read much of anything at all, 2021 brought numerous books that made me very happy to read, to have read, to browse repeatedly, and to go back and read bits of them again and again. Both Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins and Fletcher and Zenobia are children’s picture books, and they delight me every time. Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History is a picture book of a different sort; the time I spend with it on re-reading is a mix of remembering and imagining, and it is a wonderful book for both.

Hershel and a goblin

I read two large books about rock bands from the 1960s, and I loved them both. Outside the Gates of Eden was written by Lewis Shiner, who was there for the ’60s; Utopia Avenue was written by David Mitchell, who was born in 1969 and thus has a different perspective. Shiner is a Texan, Mitchell is an Englishman, both have their characters start bands locally but then pass through New York and San Francisco where they encounter well-known personalities of the era. Mitchell ends the main story still in the ’60s, with the bridge to the 21st century sketched out in a touching epilogue. Shiner follows his characters all the way through to a slightly alternate version of the 2010s. Both books are brilliant and worth the long ride.

Other books that were long on delight and make me smile again just thinking about them: The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison, a second book set in the world of The Goblin Emperor; All Systems Red by Martha Wells, since I finally got around to the first Murderbot novella; All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney, exactly what it says; and A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher, which is not so much a guide but would probably be helpful all the same under certain circumstances.

In 2021, I read nine books in translation: four from Japanese (manga not reviewed here), plus one each from Polish, Icelandic, Turkish, Spanish and Italian. I read five books in German, all from the series “München erlesen” (“Munich selections” with a pun on the German verb for reading). One of them was terrible, another was meh at best, and none of the other three was really great, so on the whole it was a so-so year for reading in German. I did better with poetry: seven book-length collections, which is definitely the most in many years. Four from Seamus Heaney, all terrific. I think of North and Station Island with particular pleasure. I did not connect nearly as well with Louise Glück. Part of the reason could be that I started with her first published collection about which she wrote, “Toward the poems of Firstborn, some written nearly 35 [now more than 50] years ago, I try to cultivate an attitude of embarrassed tenderness.”

The Refrigerator Monologues

Thirty-five of the books I read this year were written or co-written by men. Twenty-six of the books I read this year were written or co-written by women. I read three books (plus the excerpt from Cemetery Boys that was in the Hugo voter’s packet but which did not move me to get the rest of the book) by people who are publicly non-binary and/or trans. Wikipedia says that the gender of the author of The Promised Neverland is not known to the general public. A lot more of the books, especially the Hugo finalists, had characters who were non-binary or trans, but I did not keep specific count.

Eight of this year’s books were re-reads, including three of the first four books I read in 2021. It was that kind of a January. I’ll probably re-read all of them again, except for Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, which was nevertheless worth re-visiting. Now that I have a proper copy, I keep Fletcher and Zenobia close at hand for those moments when it’s the very thing.

Best deconstruction of tropes: The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente. Best trilogy by a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford: Do I even have to name this one? Best romp not yet mentioned: The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix. Scariest book: The Man Without a Face by Masha Gessen. Best book of big ideas and best bits about Ethiopia: Gnomon (twice) by Nick Harkaway. Best example of entirely too much: The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. Best encounter with the numinous: Piranesi (redux) by Susanna Clarke. Best encounter with theology, possibly best mid-book twist, and best year-ending review: Lent by Jo Walton.

Full list, roughly in order read, is under the fold with links to my reviews and other writing about the authors here at Frumious.

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Jan 06 2022

The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Diana Burgin & Katherine Tiernan O’Connor

with notes and an afterword by Ellendea Proffer, who is smart enough to put all her illuminating, excellent content at the end in order to avoid spoilers. That said, I rather wish there’d been a bit of footnoting to direct readers to this area, tho understand that this isn’t meant to be an annotated version.

Lord knows, I could have used one, tho. You know how there are some books that you read and you realize “this was not written for me”? Well, this was not written for me. My familiarity with Russian culture and history is broad but not deep; similarly with my grasp of Christian history. Yet a more than working familiarity with both these subjects is integral to the enjoyment of this modernist novel, that was written with decidedly Romantic sensibilities while under a repressive Soviet censorship system. On its face, it’s a perfectly acceptable, madcap satire that reworks the tales of both Pontius Pilate and Faust into a post-Revolution Moscow setting. For people with little to no familiarity with Russia/Christianity, it reads like a fever dream. Its pathos and sophistication only become apparent once you learn about its direct influences, as, in my case, through Ms Proffer’s excellent endnotes.

Essentially, a practitioner of black magic named Woland (who is, perhaps, the Devil himself) comes to Moscow and wreaks havoc among the literati and associated circles. The otherwise nameless Master has already been confined to an insane asylum prior to Woland and co’s arrival, but his faithful lover Margarita will do anything, including dealing with the Devil himself, both to restore the Master to her side and to restore the novel that he burned before being sent to the sanatorium. Interspersed with the goings on in Moscow are chapters from said novel, reimagining the tale of Pontius Pilate in his dealings with Jesus of Nazareth.

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Jan 05 2022

Shapes & Patterns in Nature by Magdalena Konečná, Jana Sedlackova & Štěpánka Sekaninová

This gorgeous picture book is a riot of color and shape, feeling just as much art book as nature guide.

While ostensibly aimed at children, there’s so much for readers and art aficionados of all ages to savor in Magdalena Konečná’s dazzling illustrations, pleasingly arranged by shape and color around various biological/geological themes. The organization reminds me a bit of those challenges you occasionally see on social media, where artists practice drawing fifty or so discrete items in a category, e.g. animals or flowers, in one cohesive piece.

There are twelve main categories in the book, each spread across two pages that invite investigation and contemplation. The labels are great, but the pithy little paragraphs that accompany the images are decidedly not. Some of the word choices were head scratchers from the very beginning, with, for example, chameleons being referred to as monkeys: cute as a colloquialism, but out of place in a science book. Readers of most ages know, ofc, that lizards aren’t primates, but later paragraphs talk about insects’ noses, which is just one lax euphemism too close to misleading for me.

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Jan 04 2022

The Perfect Escape by Leah Konen

This page-turner of a thriller will have you either sighing with satisfaction at the ending or grimacing with dismay, depending on your personal worldview.

Three friends have decided to take off from the hurly-burly of New York City in order to have a girls’ weekend upstate, all while nursing wounding sorrows. Diana is hiding from her stalker ex Brandon, while our two viewpoint characters, Sam and Margaret, are mourning the ends of their own marriages. Sam’s husband left her for his own needy ex, while Margaret’s marriage broke down irreparably after the loss of their baby. In an effort to pamper themselves and push all thought of disappointing men out of their minds, the three women embark on a road trip for a cabin in Saratoga Springs, where they’re planning to soak in a hot tub, sip wine and indulge in a lot of sheet-mask-related self-care for a few days.

Only they never reach Saratoga Springs. The key to their rental car goes missing while at a rest stop on the way, stranding the women overnight in Catskill, New York. They decide to make the most of it anyway, finding a rental to stay in and heading out to a bar, before realizing that at least some of their exes are in town, too. Sam’s encounter with her ex Harry is particularly mortifying, its aftermath the lowlight of her whole evening… until she reunites with Margaret and they realize that Diana has disappeared.

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Jan 03 2022

Dracula: Curse Of The Vampire by Jonathan Green, illustrated by Hauke Kock

Happy New Year, readers! Here’s to another wonderful year of reading and discovery for you all!

Back in 2020, we told you about the very cool Kickstarter campaign for Jonathan Green’s gamebook Dracula: Curse Of The Vampire. I received my copy partway through 2021, but didn’t have time to sit down and read/play through it till the recent winter holiday. I admit that I’d been missing RPGs quite a bit, so this felt like a nice light-to-medium-weight solo stopgap till at least one of my groups picks up again in the New Year (tonight, even!)

Tho I’ve certainly read more than my fair share of vampire novels, I’ve never been a big Dracula aficionado. And tho I love rpgs (enough to design a few games myself,) I can be a little iffy on following rulesets. While D:CotV is set up so you can just read through your options without rolling any dice or marking up the game sheets in the front (which was the approach I took for a number of reasons while reading game books as a teenager,) I thought I’d do this the “proper” way, so sat down one evening once the kids were in bed and started reading through the several pages of instruction. As RPGs go, the rules are fairly simple, tho still more complicated than people whose only exposure to the genre are Choose Your Own Adventure books might feel comfortable with. And that’s okay! The rules are here for those who want the crunchy experience of rolling dice and marking points: the book works just as well if you skip those aspects altogether.

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Dec 31 2021

Lent by Jo Walton

In Lent, Jo Walton takes the life of Girolamo Savonarola both seriously and literally. Not only his life, the whole framework in which he lived that life: God, demons, Purgatory, the Rule of St. Benedict, the Dominican Order to which Savonarola was dedicated, his desire to create a new Jerusalem in Italy, and ever so much more. She opens the book with Girolamo and two other Dominican brothers called to a women’s cloister in the dead of night to banish an infestation of demons. Girolamo can see them in all their grotesqueries and hear their shrieking and their mocking laughter.

Lent by Jo Walton

Brother Domenico can see nothing unusual, but “I think I can hear something—it sounds like distant laughter. It’s very unsettling. I can see why the nuns might be disturbed.” Brother Silvestro adds, “I don’t see or hear anything, but I feel an evil presence here.” (p. 12) Girolamo sees so many at the convent that he wonders whether the Gates of Hell have been opened, and he almost despairs that his brothers, the most sensitive among his order, can sense so little. He banishes them, even the one who has possessed a young novice, even the vast number of demons apparently drawn to a book that was a recent bequest by the King of Hungary. “‘God has given me these gifts, I must use them for the good of all,’ he says, in complete sincerity. ‘I will keep this book, if I may, or it will draw them here again. Them, or worse things.'” (p. 22)

Girolamo is sincere in his desire to help, and in his piety, but he is not above fault, as Walton shows just a few paragraphs later.

“Is it true that the Magnificent Lorenzo is dying?” [the First Sister of the convent] asks.
“Yes, everyone is saying his death will be on him soon.”
“And is it true that you foretold it?”
“Yes,” he says, baldly. It annoys him that she asks, treating him as some kind of oracle. It annoys him too that God has vouchsafed to him such a worldly prophecy, such a petty matter as the death of a gouty merchant prince. Girolamo has never met Lorenzo de’ Medici. He has in fact avoided him, for reasons that are partly pride and partly a confirmed distaste for hobnobbing with the rich. Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, after all. (p. 22)

Lorenzo is in fact dying; he has already received last rites. Girolamo meets his impressive daughter and his petulant son, both kept from their father’s presence a little longer while he speaks with the Dominican. To the surprise of everyone except Lorenzo — and perhaps Marsilio Ficino, a Platonist and scholar in the Medici orbit, and also a Walton favorite from her Thessaly books — he is dying in a state of grace. “Not old, middle-aged only, but certainly dying. There is nothing unusual about him except the celestial light shining from him.” (p. 42) It’s not obvious at the time, but the scene with Lorenzo is pivotal for the whole book, and worth an extended quotation.

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Dec 30 2021

Outside the Gates of Eden by Lewis Shiner

There’s a live recording of a Bruce Springsteen song — “The River,” I think — with a long spoken introduction in which Springsteen talks about his difficult relationship with his father. The elder Springsteen, a veteran of World War II, didn’t understand what his son was doing with his long hair and his late nights and his rock n’ roll and all of that business. He tells his son just wait until the army gets you, they’ll make a man of you. Well, Bruce’s draft number comes up. By the time he’s supposed to go in for his physical, he’s too scared to say anything to his parents, so he takes off for a few days with his friends. When he gets back, his old man asks him where he’d been. Bruce said he’d been to the induction center for his army physical. “So what happened?” “They didn’t take me.” “That’s good, son. That’s good.”

Outside the Gates of Eden

Like Springsteen, Jeff Cole (“But everyone calls me Cole”) has a difficult father, a World War II veteran who came back to work as an accountant in the oil business. He’s moved the family around — Mexico, Egypt, Midland (Texas), “one armpit to another” as Cole puts it — and at home he always has the TV on too loud for conversation, but insists that Cole get up and change the channel if for some reason a music group comes on. Outside the Gates of Eden opens in 1965 on Cole’s first day at a new school, St. Mark’s, a pricey private school in Dallas, the latest oil-patch stop. Cole is a junior, and he’s paired for tennis practice with Alex Montoya — “small and wiry, light-skinned despite the Mexican name. Short black hair parted on the left. Good-looking and confident—hell on women, Cole figured.” (p. 3) Cole is new, and a scholarship kid; Alex is established at the school, and rich.

It’s the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Outside the Gates of Eden begins in 1965 and ends, not quite 950 pages onward, at an unspecified “Later” some time after 2016. Cole and Alex are still alive and still friends, despite some of their best efforts on both counts over the course of the intervening years. They bond over cars and sports and, most of all, music. Cole’s admiration for Alex is already visible in the sentence quoted above. Shiner shows what Alex sees as he brings Cole home for dinner the Friday after that first tennis set:

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Dec 29 2021

Animal Adaptations: Unique Body Parts by Radka Piro & Lida Larina

And so, here is my last review of the year, dear readers, the review of a gentle but thoroughly intelligent, beautiful and extremely accessible book that encourages curiosity about the world around us. Hopefully, it’ll be a harbinger of the year to come!

Why yes, I am an eternal optimist in many regards.

But to this delightful board book, which is the perfect way to get young readers interested in zoology, emphasizing the weird and cool of the animal kingdom without overwhelming with too much information. It’s a slender volume, in keeping with the format, brightly illustrated and concisely written. While brief, the vignettes are thoughtfully selected. Honestly, this book taught me stuff even I didn’t know about animals!

Animal Adaptations: Unique Body Parts is divided into five, um, parts. Each section begins with a question and hint about a particular body part/adaptation, with a cunning peekaboo cutout to pique readers’ interest in the answer. With said answer comes four more illustrated facts about animals related to the first one showcased in the section. The illustrations are cute while staying faithful to biology, and the shading and colors just gorgeous, with a slight but not overwhelming tendency towards a pastel palette.

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