The Book of Apex: Volume Four of Apex Magazine – A Review

The Book of Apex: Volume Four of Apex Magazine Lynne M. Thomas, Editor Apex Book Company (October 3013) science fiction/fantasy/horror 4.14/5

I received an electronic copy of The Book of Apex: Volume Four of Apex Magazine through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program in exchange for an honest review. Gotta say I was pleased.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente – A Review

“She fed me fish,” he whispered. “And blackberry jam.”
“Not together, I hope.”

 

 

 

 

 

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See that beautiful cover? That’s one of the reasons I was excited to read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente, even though I can never wrap my head around the complete title of the thing and have taken to calling it the Fairyland book (#1). That lovely illustration, plus all the other delightful ones inside, were created by Ana Juan.

I mean no disrespect to the title or Ms. Valente, by the way. The title sets out the situation of the book nicely. September is the active participant in her own story of heroism, and the title is a fun callback to books of another era (as is the list of dramatis personae at the beginning).

I really enjoyed the Fairyland book. September is a girl living in Omaha who is whisked away one day by the Green Wind and his leopard friend to the magical place of Fairyland. There she has adventures, meets amazing creatures, and goes on quests. (As another once-upon-a-time young girl who lived in Omaha, I can’t count the number of times I wish I had been offered the same invitation. I don’t think I would have done as well in the same place, though.)

For the most part, I love Valente’s use of language (she likes adverbs way more than I do, and that’s the reason she lost a sliver of a star). She has a wonderful sense of humor and description, and I like how the narrator butts in occasionally with opinions of her own. The story has an old-style feel to it, reminding me a little of Roald Dahl and JRR Tolkien (The Hobbit). I also like what Valente does with the fairy tale trope by flipping things around and not being afraid to show the dark side that lurks under all of those stories (when it’s not right there, fangs glistening in your face).

Valente has also created some wonderful characters who I’m hoping to read more about in the rest of the series. Especially the wyvern who claims to be part library and calls himself a Wyverary. His name is A-Through-L, but September calls him Ell. But there are so many others: Saturday, the blue-skinned marid, Betsy with her gargoyle puppet, and Gleam, the one-hundred-and-twelve-year-old paper lantern, for just a few examples.

I took so many notes when I was reading the Fairland book. There are so many wonderful sentences, turns of phrase, and conversations. While the book is marketed as one meant for young adults, I think anyone who has a thing for old fairy tales and The Wizard of Oz (movie or book) and is looking for a story where the princess is fully capable of saving herself would enjoy The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.

One of the many things I copied in my notes:

Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. –p. 35

4.875/5

Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge

I don’t normally do reading challenges. Not that I’m all superior to them or anything. I just hate taking on obligations I may not be able to meet. That, and, well yeah, I’ll read what I want when I want, thanks very much, is usually how I feel.

That said, this year’s challenge from Worlds Without End caught my eye on Sunday, and I decided to sign on. That challenge is to read 12 books by 12 women genre authors in 12 months. Looking over the list of possibilities, it reminded me that there is still so much to read, and I hadn’t read as many authors on the list as I wish I had.

Time to amend that.

Although for me, it’s going to be 12 books in 6 months, because of the whole just discovering this two days ago thing. Fortunately, I read fairly quickly.

The other aspect of this challenge is that I have to review all 12 of those books. Blog post material!

Here’s what I’m going to read (Note that I’ve not read any of these books before and I made it a point to choose authors I haven’t read before either, for the most part.):

• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (One of two of these that I own, part of R’s massive collection of older sf.)
• Sea Kings of Mars, Leigh Brackett. I decided to change the Brackett book I’d picked because it’s now almost November and Sea Kings of Mars is crazy long. Now I’m going to read…
• The Sword of Rhiannon, Leigh Brackett
• The Between, Tananarive Due
• Native Tongue, Suzette Haden Elgin (Elgin I’ve read, but only one short story. Really looking forward to this and the rest of the trilogy it belongs to; that short story is one of my favorites, “Old Rocking Chair’s Got Me.”)
• Outlander, Diana Gabaldon This one’s wicked long, too, so I changed it out for…
• Downbelow Station, C.J. Cherryh (which is also long, but not quite as)
• Half World, Hiromi Goto
• Mindscape, Andrea Hairston
• Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
• The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N. K. Jemisin
• The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin (Surprisingly, A Wizard of Earthsea is the only Le Guin book I’ve read, and that was 30 years ago. I love the film of The Lathe of Heaven PBS made, so this is another one I’m looking forward to.)
• Up the Walls of the World, Alice Bradley Sheldon (AKA James Tiptree, Jr.) (Another one from R’s collection. No, that’s not the only reason I hooked up with him. Jeez, people. [It was the record collection that did it, actually.])
• The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente

I’m actually excited to read all of these, not just the ones I commented on. And the first one’s already done; just need to write the review. Oh, Victor.

What do you think of reading challenges in general and this one in particular? Are there books by the authors above you think are better? (I can change what I’m reading any time.)