100 Books in 2011 challenge: Voodoo River

Aug9
I’m way behind on the 100 books in 2011 challenge, so I’m picking short, easy reads to try to catch up. Robert Crais is an easy read, and Voodoo River comes in at less than 300 pages.

Elvis Cole is hired to find out about the birth parents of an adopted woman, who is a TV star born in Louisiana. He finds out that her father was black and that her mother’s father killed him, facts known to a local private detective and a local crime lord. The mother and her husband know about the murder and that it was covered up. They’re being blackmailed and the husband, the sheriff, turns a blind eye to the crime lord’s human trafficking business.

It’s a pretty complicated plot to be wrapped up in a short book. It never feels like anything is being revealed too quickly, whilst at the same time, everything is there to make it all add up. It is well done and this is probably the best of Crais’ that I’ve read.

Characterisation is handled well and most characters are reasonably fleshed out. The dialogue got on my nerves a little. Cajun dialect was indicated by dropped letters and phonetic spellings rather than by cadence and word choice. It often felt heavy-handed. Other than that I enjoyed it.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 16

Aug8
Chapter 15 – Davos

Davos lands in White Harbor in the guise of an ordinary sailor. He’s familiar with White Harbor from his smuggling days and notes that the defences seem much better than they were before. In the inner harbour there is a war galley flying Tommen’s arms. Davos walks about for a bit, seeing what’s what. He learns that refugees are flocking to the city and any boy or man that wants it is being given a spearman’s job. He goes to a smugglers tavern and lurks in a shadowy corner, listening for gossip. He doesn’t learn much he didn’t already know, except that no one is talking about how Stannis went to the Wall to save the Seven Kingdoms from the Others, and that a Queen in the East has some dragons. He wonders what he should do for a moment, but in the end he is loyal to Stannis above all else. He goes to the castle.

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Basically, the plot point here is that Davos has arrived in White Harbor and is going to see Manderly. Borrell apparently sent him on his way, probably having decided it’s best not to get involved. It feels like quite a lot of padding. There’s repetition of stuff we already know from other POVs and the new information that Manderly seems to be investing quite a lot in his defences, gathering men and building ships. Also, there’s a bit of suspense created. I still don’t know how this is going to pan out.

A-Z blogging challenge: J is for Job

Aug7

Have to have a job to pay the bills, but it’s far away and I spend three hours a day commuting. J is for Job in the sense that I don’t get paid for writing and I like to have nice stuff.

But there’s also an element in which having a job meets some emotional needs that writing doesn’t. A couple of years ago I gave up my day job to focus on writing for a little while. It was amazing and fulfilling and as soon as I get the chance, I’ll do it again. However, when I went back to work I realised there had been something I’d missed. A job offers the opportunity to see the results of your labours quickly; it offers tangible results clearly linked to specific actions. The pay-off on a writing project takes a lot longer and sometimes it can be easy to lose sight of your gains.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 15

Aug6
Chapter 14 – Tyrion

Tyrion is on a riverboat with Griff, Young Griff and the rest of their party. They’re heading down the Rhoyne to Volantis. The party includes two Dornish orphans who’ve returned home to the Rhoyne and who own the boat. Along with Griff, Young Griff, Rolly and Haldon, there is also Septa Lemore, who Tyrion fantasises about. Griff is denying Tyrion wine, so he’s sobered up and not overly happy about it. Griff sleeps all day and guards the boat at night. During the day, Rollo trains Young Griff in arms, Lemore in matters of faith, and Haldon in everything else.

In the evening, Haldon and Tyrion play Cyvasse, a game like chess that has become recently popular. Tyrion has been losing badly so far and he suggests that they wager for secrets. This time Tyrion wins.

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Ahh, it’s drunk Tyrion that’s obnoxious, stupid Tyrion then. It was frustrating not to find out what Tyrion found out. I think I might have been supposed to picked something more up from this chapter. Hmm. Or maybe it was just about getting to know the characters a bit more.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 14

Aug5
Chapter 13 – Bran

Bran and his party are at the bottom of a steep climb up to a door in the mountainside. They are frozen and starving. The elk died and they ate it. It lasted for a week but that was all. Coldhands seems to be expecting Others. Jojen is nearly done for. Bran tries to motivate them all. He knows through Summer that the three wolves are following.

They start the climb. It’s steep and slippery and they are almost there when Hodor slips and falls. Bran is crushed beneath him and then wights start crawling out of the ground. They’ve been ambushed. Bran is thrown out of his basket. He slips into Hodor’s skin; for all his size and strength, Hodor doesn’t know how to fight and is terrified. Without Bran he would die. Meera, Coldhands, Summer and Hodor are fighting hard but the zombies are really hard to kill. Bran sees someone set the zombies on fire which gives them time to get into the cave. The cave is warded which means that the zombies can’t get in but also means Coldhands can’t come with them.

The someone turns out to be a child of the forest. She leads them down inside the mountain to the three-eyed crow, who is a man on a throne, entwined and pierced through by weirwood roots. Bran thinks that there must be a massive and very old weirwood grove above them. Bran asks if the crow can fix his legs and the crow says he will never walk again, but that he will learn to fly.

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That was hairy. Varamyr’s lurking about; I don’t suppose he’s up to any good. So, the three-eyed crow is a man, not a child of the forest, and was once a man of the Night’s Watch. Hmm, wonder who it is.

When Hodor fell, I thought they weren’t going to make it. So what happens now? Who will Bran become?

Things I have liked this week

Aug4
Writing stuff
This article is about judging the quality of your writing. It makes an interesting point about how agents and publishers are not in the business of judging writing quality, but instead, the marketability of the product. When I’m thinking about self-publishing, the little voice in my head says ‘but who will tell me it’s good enough?’. This article provides an answer. Sort of.
The graffiti at the station where I work
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Pretty clouds of hydrogen gas. The universe is awesome.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 13

Aug3
Chapter 12 – Reek
Reek is in a dungeon eating rats because he is starving. He hears footsteps approach and is terrified because he has been tortured. He has lost some fingers, toes and teeth, is being starved and kept in the dark. He struggles to remember who is – or at least who he’s been told he is. Who is was before is even harder to remember. He recalls that he tried to escape with a girl called Kyra, to go back to Winterfell, but it turned out to be a trap because Lord Ramsay Bolton likes to hunt people. The footsteps belong to two boys, who come in to the dungeon and mock him. He begs to be left alone but Ramsay wants him. The boys are Little Walder and Big Walder. They take Reek into the castle, where Ramsay and his men are dining. Ramsay has two guests, one of whom recognises that Reek is Theon Greyjoy, white-haired and three stone thinner.
Ramsay says that he’s going to marry Arya Stark and he wants Reek to come with him, as a sobered, obedient Theon.
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Oh boy. That was just awful. Sure, Theon was an arse, and a bit of nasty piece of work, but no one deserves that. Eugh. It was horrible, and I feel a bit sick after reading that. But, hang on, why would Ramsay want Theon at the wedding? Does he want Theon to tell him whether or not it’s the real Arya? I thought the Bolton’s were in on the plan.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 12

Aug2
Chapter 11 – Daenerys

Daenerys is woken in the early hours of the morning as nine of her people have been killed by the Sons of the Harpy. One of them is Missandei’s brother. She allow Skahaz to torture the owner of a tavern where three were killed. Otherwise they have no leads.

She comforts Missandei who says Daenerys is the mother of them all. But Daenerys can’t go back to sleep because she is worrying that she can’t protect anyone. In the morning she takes a bath and Quaithe of Asshai appears with more riddles. Quaithe says beware the perfumed seneschal. She says that suitors will come, first the pale mare, then the Kraken, the dark flame, the lion and the griffin, the sun’s son and the mummer’s dragon.
When Daenerys is dressed and has eaten she goes to the purple hall for her audiences. Ser Barristan Selmy has piled her ebony bench with pillows. She spends the time making judgements and trying to be fair. The owner of the slave pits, Hizdahr zo Loraq, comes back, this time with seven former slaves, champions who want to fight. It is the only skill they have and they want to earn money. Daenerys says she will consider it.
Daenerys leaves the hall and asks Barristan to tell her of his escape from King’s Landing. He says he disguised himself as a peasant and no one recognised him. He says he watched Eddard Stark’s execution and Dany say’s he was a traitor. Barristan tells her that Eddard was an honourable man who wouldn’t condone Robert’s desire to assassinate her when she was pregnant. Dany says the Starks had a hand in the slaughter of her family and Barristan returns that it was Lannister work. Dany says they are all guilty, then breaks off, saying she needs to see the pit.
The Dragon Pit is under the pyramid and currently holds Viserion and Rhaegal. The dragons are locked up so they don’t kill any more children. Daenerys thinks of all the stories about dragons and the battles they were used in that she heard as a child, and realises that none of them talk about how dragons were fed or controlled. Drogon could not be captured. They tried several times and then he stopped coming back to Meereen.
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So, who are the suitors? The kraken is Victarion on behalf of Euron; the lion must be Tyrion and the sun’s son is Quentyn Martell. I don’t know who the rest are. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. I think the pale mare has been mentioned before though?
The slave pit is a real conundrum, isn’t it? But rulers can’t ban stuff just because they don’t like it. It seems like this is the circuses part of the ‘bread and circuses’ guide to ruling. People need some fun – even if that fun is watching people hacking each other to pieces. It also raises the question of consent. The former slaves want to fight because they had better lives as slaves than they do as free men, but they have an opportunity to make their own money, doing the only thing they know how.
And the dragons are in a pit. That’s sad. It’s a really interesting point about how she manages her weapons. Can dragons be trained? Will Drogon come back? I think he will and he’ll be huge. But what will Dany do with him?
And poor old Dany doesn’t get to have Daario. That sucks. If she were a man she could have whoever she wanted.

100 Books in 2011: The Ghost Writer

Aug1
July’s book club book was The Ghost Writer by John Harwood. I was quite looking forward to this as the blurb was quite enticing.

A boy, Gerard, grows up in Australia listening to his mother’s tales of Sussex and her idyllic childhood. One day he finds a story by his great-grandmother and a photograph hidden in his mother’s drawer. She becomes angry and the stories stop. Later he is contacted by Penfriends International and put in touch with Alice Jessell, who lives in Sussex. They write over many years and become very close, a relationship driven by the fact that Gerard doesn’t have friends because his mother is so over-protective.

Eventually, Gerard wants to meet Alice, but she doesn’t as she is disabled and doesn’t want to see him until she has had surgery on her spine. He goes to England anyway, thinking he can find her. He doesn’t but instead finds another story by his great-grandmother published in an anthology. After some years his mother dies. He’s in his early thirties, still living at home, still passionately corresponding with Alice. Along the way he finds more stories by his grandmother. At some point, a woman claiming to be a friend of his aunt writes to say she thinks something terrible happened to his aunt and asking him to go to his mother’s childhood home to investigate. The stories of his grandmother start to bear a resemblance to the events of his mother’s life.
That’s not much of a synopsis and that’s because the plot doesn’t make sense. There are stories within stories, allusions to ghosts and madness, and references to The Turn of the Screw. And none of it really works. The first of the ‘Victorian ghost stories’, Seraphina, is probably the best writing in the book. It has a Poe-esque feel to it and is a little creepy. The rest of the Victorian ghost stories aren’t so good. They lose the tone and end up feeling as though they were constructed to give clues to the mystery. Not that it’s much of a mystery; the misdirection is completely unbelievable. The ending picks up a little and comes close to being exciting but in the end the story is not resolved satisfactorily. The plot holes are massive.
There are loads of great reviews on the interwebs, but I didn’t like it. Neither did most of the book club.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 11

Jul31
Chapter 10 – Jon

Melisandre puts Mance Rayer in a cage of weirwood and burns him. The burning is on the north of the Wall, in front of the stockade of captured wildlings. The weirwood is an offering of the old gods to her new god. Mance screams and pleads and denies his kingship. She also burns the Horn of Joramun. After a few minutes of burning, Jon has the Night’s Watch archers kill Mance.

The wildlings are offered the chance to go South, through the Wall and settle in the Gift. The price is that they have to kneel to King Stannis and commit a piece of weirwood to the flames. Melisandre proclaims Stannis Azor Ahai and he draws Lightbringer, which seems to Jon to be brighter than before. Most of the wildlings accept the offer but some go north into the trees.

Bowen Marsh tells Jon he should seal the three gates in the Wall so that no one can get through. He says ranging is a waste of men they can’t afford. He also says that men think he is too close to Stannis. Jon says he is trying not to take sides and points out that Stannis still has three times the men the Watch has.

Jon wants company but he has sent Aemon and Sam away. He thinks he can eat dinner with Pyp and Grenn and his other friends, but when he finds them he realises he can’t. He remembers that Mormont tells him that a Lord Commander can love his men, but can’t be their friend. He goes to speak with Maester Clydas and says that he has read the passage Aemon left for him. It was about Azor Ahai and Lightbringer, which was hot. It indicates that Aemon doubts Stannis is Azor Ahai reborn.

Jon goes to his chambers and writes orders despatching his friends to other castles along the Wall.

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Oh Jon. Sending your friends away won’t make your loneliness easier to bear.

I can’t believe Melisandre burnt the Horn of Joramun. That’s like an archaeological treasure! The woman is evil. And I didn’t mind when she burnt effigies of the Seven, but burning the weirwood is wrong. The old gods are definitely the best ones. She burnt Mance. I thought that would get dragged out a bit more, but it seems Jon sent Sam away just in time.

I don’t think the gates should be sealed up. What about keeping the treeline back? What about when things go back to normal and the Watch can go ranging again? It seems like it would be irrevocable and a big mistake.