Reading/Watching Log #98

No, your eyes don’t deceive you, there are only books on the log this month – no films or shows save for the Doctor Who Christmas Special. This just sort of happened rather than being something I planned out; I’m still racing to catch up on all the posts I usually do for the end of the year, and there wasn’t much free time for anything else.

The two shows I am watching (Elementary and The Adventures of Robin Hood) are probably going to stretch into March, because February is when my annual leave kicks in, and I’m going to use it to finally get the quartet of Evil, Nancy Drew, The Great and Perry Mason under my belt. Three weeks of freedom to make up for my Covid Christmas!

Disney Princess Comic Collection by Amy Mebberson

Remember Pocket Princesses on Tumblr? They were super-cute, and at some point the creator clearly got herself a deal with Disney as there have been several official collections in recent years. I can’t keep track of them all, but this one focuses mainly on Ariel, Aurora and Pocahontas, who each get infographics at the start of the book.

It’s comprised of simple comic strips, mostly only lasting a single page, which cover little “slice of life” glimpses into the princess’s lives – before, during or after the events of their movies. There are appearances from the princes and animal sidekicks, and you can usually pinpoint the time each one takes place through visual clues: Rapunzel’s hair, Snow White as a scullery maid, or the Beast as... well, still a Beast.

I did a tally, and it’s Belle who gets the most stories at five, followed by Moana, Rapunzel, Aurora and Ariel at four. Pocahontas, Snow White and Cinderella get three; Jasmine, Tiana and Merida get two each, and Mulan only one. There are plenty of hair jokes (Ariel uses Sebastian as a hair clip; Pocahontas gets a face full of her own hair in the wind) and some genuinely funny stories, like Belle coming into the kitchen and the appliances putting on another huge song-and-dance number, only to learn that she only wants a snack, or the Grand Duke learning that Cinderella’s advisory council is made up of mice sitting on her head, shoulders and lap.

Mebberson has a very cute, distinctive style, which is best described as the original princess designs with slightly bigger heads on smaller bodies; a bit like bobble-heads. It sticks with the Roy Disney mandated rule that none of the princesses are allowed to interact with each other (unlike Pocket Princesses, they’re strictly within their own stories here) and oddly enough, there’s no sign of Elsa or Anna. There are a couple of glitches, such as Snow White asking Bashful to come out from beneath a “bench” that is clearly a barrel, but also some lovely details, such as Moana and her mother weaving flax in an otherwise unrelated strip.

It was a cute diversion, and it was nice to see Mebberson’s artwork again.

Azula in the Spirit Temple by Erin Faith Hicks

This is the latest instalment in the “girl-centric” line of Avatar the Last Airbender graphic novels, Dark Horse comics having seemingly put a halt to the ongoing post-show storyline in order to focus on specific characters at various points either during or after the events of the show. So far we’ve had Katara, Toph and Suki featured in these “spotlight” books, and now we’re turning to one of the show’s villains: Princess Azula.

Set after the events of the show and the graphic novel continuation, it depicts Azula hiding out in the forests of the Fire Nation with a new posse of warrior-women followers that she’s broken out of an institution. They’re engaging in petty acts of sabotage that they call a “destabilizing campaign,” and not really doing all that well.

Their latest strike is against a granary guarded by – among others – Ty Lee, who is now a Kyoshi Warrior. One of their number is captured as they make their escape, and the first quarrel erupts between the girls (who want to go back for their cohort) and Azula (who considers her capture an acceptable loss). The following morning, Azula wakes to discover the girls have abandoned her.

Striking out on her own, she comes across a Fire Sage Temple in the middle of the forest, and makes herself at home. The temple’s sole caretaker is a little perturbed at her presence, but allows her to stay. That night, Azula experiences a range of illusions brought on by the spirit that dwells in the temple – and that’s it basically. That’s the story. It operates mostly as a chance to delve into Azula’s psyche a little (why is she like this? What does she want?) and teases the possibility of her redemption.

Of course, because of upcoming movies overseen by the original creators of the show, and the fact that this is just a tie-in graphic novel, no actual character growth can take place. They’re obviously saving any real developments for the animated films, so here we get a bit of psychoanalysis, a cool spirit (a mix of spider and lizard) and that’s about it.

Perhaps Azula takes a couple of tiny steps forward, as she decides not to punish her former-followers when she chances upon them again, but it’ll be interesting to see if these graphic novels end up being canon-compliant. Because this ends with Azula heading out into the wilderness by herself, which is a fair cry from where she was at the end of the show.

So it’s a fairly uneventful story, but there are some nice details throughout, such as Azula’s hair still being a little short and uneven. Hicks is good at capturing each character’s voice, and I can hear Grey DeLisle’s tonal inflections in the dialogue given to Azula (“Some are worthy, some will never be. I know the difference.”) There’s some grating As You Know exposition here and there, and there’s no explanation given for why the temple caretaker gets so panic-stricken over Azula having bad dreams instead of peaceful ones, but on the whole – it’s fine.

Patterns in Time: An Anthology by various artists and writers

This is a nice little collection of comic strips pertaining to The Legend of Korra, with stories involving everyone in the show. I get the feeling that many of them have been published elsewhere prior to the release of this volume (I know I saw panels of the first story online years ago) but are collected here in a neat little package.

They range from reasonably long stories to single-page glimpses into the world of Avatar, and are set at various points of the original show’s run. My favourite was probably the one that detailed how Korra first met Naga, who is the cutest little puppy you’ve ever seen, and well-matched with the precociousness of little Korra. Naga never had as much presence in Korra as Appa did in Avatar, but this was a sweet story about how the two of them found each other.

There are two Meelo stories (sigh), one about how he helped return pets to their owners after the evacuation of Republic City, and another in which he and Uncle Bumi take a fieldtrip to an air-bender island and end up gaining some insight into Aang and Tenzin. A lot of them aren’t really stories at all, but various characters just coming to terms with where they are in life, which has always been a big part of both shows: people talking out their feelings and gaining tiny bits of wisdom as they go.

For example, one story has Asami and her mother bonding over the plans for Republic City, another has Korra and Asami help Jinora find her inner peace. There’s a very short one about how the monk Laghima attained the power of flight, one about Korra’s training as a child and how isolated it made her feel, and one in which Tenzin tries to resolve the tension between his children by telling them a story about himself as a young man (we get to see Aang as a father!)

Except little cameos from the likes of Kai, Raiko, Katara, Toph, metal-bender cops and the Order of the White Lotus. Also, I dig that cover art: combining Korra and Asami with Raava, in an image that simultaneously looks like DNA and the spirit portal in the very last episode? Nice.

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King’s Christmas Shenanigans by Alex T. Smith

I was planning to read this one in the lead-up to Christmas, but Covid put an end to that. In fact, this book and The Secret of Helmersbruk Manor (see below) were both designed to be read across the month of December, with twenty-four chapters per book. The idea is that you read one chapter per night all the way up to Christmas Eve, which would be a lovely thing to put into effect if you had children.

Though it’s obviously based on The Nutcracker, this retelling drops the mysterious ambiance of E.T.A Hoffman’s original story and the ballet for a more comedic take on the material, with a modern vibe that reminded me a little of Roald Dahl (who isn’t exactly modern these days, but definitely remains so in comparison to the 1816 release of the original story).

The story starts with the Sugar Plum Fairy trying to offset the shenanigans of the Mouse King by covering the Land of Sweets in a protective magical shield and giving the key to Walter the Nutcracker for safekeeping. Over in the real world, Clara and Fritz Strudel (not Stahlbaum) are celebrating Christmas, and thrilled with the presents brought by their mysterious Uncle Drosselmeyer.

That night they creep downstairs, only to find a vehicle of mice trying to wrest a golden key from their nutcracker – and their adventure begins. Following the broad strokes of the original story, they must traverse the Land of Sweets to defeat the Mouse King (who isn’t really that bad – he just loves causing trouble). Just to put a ticking clock on the whole thing, Fritz is under a spell that is gradually changing him into a mouse.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of the spiky, stylistic illustrations of this retelling, or the more comedic edge to the story. Even as a child, that aesthetic never appealed to me. Also, the Sugar Plum Fairy has rather inexplicitly been changed from a beautiful woman to a dumpy statesman (he kind of reminded me of the mayor in The Nightmare Before Christmas, but with candyfloss hair) and there’s nothing on the story of Princess Pirlipat or the Krakatuk. Why is this part always left out? It’s not part of the ballet either, and most people don’t even realize it exists!

It’s a fun story and kids would probably love the experience of being read a chapter per night in the lead-up to Christmas, but it has none of the evocative mystery of the original story.

The Secret of Helmersbruk Manor by Eva Frantz

As mentioned above, this also follows the “twenty-four chapters” format, with the intention being that the reader starts on the first of December and reads one chapter per night until Christmas Eve. Geared towards an older audience than The Nutcracker, this is more in line with the old Victorian ghost stories that were so popular back in the day (and still are to some extent thanks to the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas).

Flora Winter travels with her mother to the seaside town of Helmersbruk for Christmas, glad to get some distance between herself and the bullies at her school, even if it’s only a temporary reprieve. Her author mother has come in the hopes that the fresh setting will provide her with the inspiration she needs for her new book, but Flora is the one that’s truly captivated by the empty Helmersbruk Manor, situated on the same property as the small guest house in which they’re staying.

As befits any self-respecting ghost story, strange occurrences start to happen almost immediately: porcelain figures of the Nativity start to appear out of nowhere, a strange boy in old-fashioned clothes introduces himself on the grounds, and there are eerie whispers in the night. More than this though, is the overpowering sense of hominess that Flora feels when she walks the gardens and circles the old manor – almost as if she’s been there before, though she knows she never has.

A lot of plot is at work in this book (I haven’t even mentioned the white squirrel or the main gates that don’t open to anyone but a select few) but it unravels pretty neatly and towards a logical conclusion. Perhaps a little too logical, as I feel there should always been a little bit of ambiguity and spookiness in any ghost story, but this one is very straightforward and gentle. There’s no sense of danger at any point, and at times it feels more like a time-travel story (which by design, must always have very carefully calibrated plots) than a ghost one.

If you like your Christmas ghost stories dark and creepy, this isn’t for you. If you’re after a light mystery with some supernatural trimmings and a Christmasy setting, then this would make a decent holiday read.

Jessi’s Babysitter by Anne M. Martin

This is the fourth Jessi book and unfortunately not a particularly good one, especially since she’s had a solid run so far. The setup to the story can be found in the ludicrous events of The Babysitters Island Adventure, in which Claudia and Dawn were stranded on a deserted island with four children (including Jessi’s little sister Becca) while Jessi’s parents were out of town.

During this time, Aunt Cecilia (Jessi’s father’s much older sister) came to Stoneybrook to look after Squirt – and essentially blamed Jessi for the entire boating disaster. Now that Jessi’s mother is going back to work permanently, the Ramseys have decided that Cecilia should move in with them in order to care for Squirt and do basic housekeeping while they’re out of the house.

It remains unclear whether Cecilia is being paid for these services, or whether the Ramseys think they’re doing HER a favour considering she’s been recently widowed and her own children are grown adults (like I said, she’d have to be Mr Ramsey’s MUCH older sister for any of this to make sense).

Jessi and Becca are naturally apprehensive, all the more so when Cecilia lays down the law. She controls when they leave the house, what they wear to school, and how they care for Squirt. Annoyed that she’s being treated like a child, Jessi responds by playing pranks on her aunt (shortsheeting her bed, leaving fake spiders under her pillow, putting shaving cream in her slippers) which is of course the best way to prove you’re actually a mature and capable young adult.

In the babysitting B-plot, specially designed to thematically resonate with the A-plot, Jessi helps Jackie Rowdowsky with his science fair volcano, only to completely take over the project – writing him a speech, doing the research, making a sign – to the point where he’s not having fun anymore. When the time comes for him to explain his volcano to the judges, all he can do is repeat the facts Jessi drilled into his head, with no understanding of how his experiment actually works.

If you squint, I suppose it tracks – but there’s a pretty big difference between an eleven-year-old getting overzealous in helping another child with their science project, and a grown woman punishing her niece for being ten minutes late from a babysitting job by forbidding her to attend a Babysitters Club meeting.

Most of this is the fault of the Ramsey parents, who apparently didn’t explain the rules of the household and their parenting framework to Cecilia when she first moved in so that everyone would be aware of what was expected of them. Instead the frustration escalates until Jessi has her “eureka” moment with Jackie, and the whole thing is cleared up with a simple family conference. Talking things out? Man, why didn’t anyone think of that in the first five minutes of this situation? There’s also a “yikes” moment in which Cecilia tells her nieces she’s strict because Black people often have to work harder to gain people’s respect, and Jessi immediately applies this to Jackie’s status as a klutz, who is constantly having to work overtime to overcome that stereotype of him. Um… no. Not quite the same thing.

As an aside, the deserted island fiasco is brought up fairly frequently, and it’s hilarious every single time. The Babysitters Club books are generally pretty grounded, and the Super Specials grow increasingly absurd, so having one constantly reference the other makes for a tonally bizarre read.

There’s also what feels like some foreshadowing here – once again Stacey remarks that she’s not feeling so great, and Mallory announces that her father’s job may be in jeopardy. Given that upcoming books are called Stacey’s Emergency and Poor Mallory!, I’m going to go out on a limb and say these comments are relevant to future stories.

Dawn and the Older Boy by Anne M. Martin

This one was just plain weird. On the surface, sure, a story about how a girl gets too caught up in a crush to realize that the object of her affection is treating her rather shabbily is a decent topic to tackle in a book series geared towards teenagers. But everything about Dawn and the Older Boy is just so bizarre, that any important life-lesson that could have been gleaned from its existence gets lost in the bewilderment. It’s one of those stories in which absolutely no one behaves in a normal human manner.

Let’s start with the cover. That guy on the right is meant to be sixteen. HAH! That individual is not a day younger than thirty-five.

On the morning after a Babysitters Club sleepover party, the girls head downstairs to discover boys sitting around Kristy Thomas’s kitchen table, one of whom is called Travis. Dawn is instantly smitten. He’s good-looking, he eats health food, and he’s also from California. According to her: “Travis and I talked nonstop for the next half hour and I have never met anyone whose feelings were so close to my own. We could have been twins.”

Then Travis comes to visit Dawn at her house. Considering he’s in high school, this is a little weird, and the conversation is basically her nodding along as he talks about his car, and him interrupting her constantly in order to talk about all the friends he’s made and the clubs he’s joined since moving to Stoneybrook. Then out of nowhere, he gives her a necklace and some hairclips, encouraging her to wear her hair a certain way and trim it a few inches. “Think about it, okay? For me.”

On another day, he picks her up from school unannounced, orders a meal for her at the restaurant they visit, continues to talk about himself incessantly, and then tries to talk her into getting extra holes pierced in her ears so she can wear the earrings he’s just bought her. She puts her foot down at this suggestion, and he gets annoyed with her. (And of course, when she finally gets home she’s in trouble for going out with a boy that Sharon and Richard have never met).

So, all this is classic love-bombing with a side order of carefully testing the limits of how far Dawn can be pushed into doing what Travis wants. The bragging about how popular/good at sports he is textbook narcissist behaviour, and the controlling behaviour (ordering food for her, instructing her how to change her hair) should throw up red flags in every direction. Dawn is clearly being groomed by a predator.

Unfortunately, the book itself seems unaware of this. Just over halfway through the book, Kristy announces at a club meeting that Travis is dating a high-school girl. In trying to figure out what’s going on, Dawn ends up going to the high school and following the pair of them to the mall, where it becomes blatantly obvious that they’re on a date. Dawn confronts them, and Travis seems completely unfazed by it all – then when she calls him up to give him a piece of her mind (which is pretty awesome, by the way) he seems completely bewildered.

And sure, maybe that’s just another manipulation. He comes out with the old “you’re overreacting” comment, after all. But the way it’s written on the page, it really does come across as though Dawn is in the wrong for having misinterpreted Travis’s true intentions toward her. Which were...? Who knows? Either we’re dealing with a narcissistic psychopath-in-training or a closeted gay kid who just really likes giving makeovers. Perhaps in thirteen years’ time he ended up on Queer Eye.

As ever, the babysitting B-plot acts as a thematic mirror to what’s going on in the A-plot: in this case the Hobart kids want to put on a play that James Hobart has written, only for neighbourhood bully Zach (who at this point, really just needs to be told to fuck off already) to continually mock him and pressure him into doing something else.

Also, there’s a glitch in chapter twelve. All these books are told in first-person narration, though it can feel like a switch to third-person when the text moves into the experiences of other babysitters in the alternate chapters. But it’s still meant to be the narrator of the book recounting these adventures in babysitting, which means it’s a glaring fault when here, the text suddenly reads: “Then Mary Anne thought about Dawn and Travis and got an idea. Dawn would be sure to read the notebook. Maybe this was Mary Anne’s chance to tell her some things she’d been thinking about.”

Why is Dawn referring to herself in the third person?

Wildsmith: Into the Dark Forest and City of Secrets by Liz Flanagan

At the beginning of last year, I churned through plenty of Joe Todd-Stanton’s books, loving his artwork and subject matter. The Brownstone Mythical Collection in particular was a delight, featuring children having adventures in various mythologies. So, when news broke that a new book series called Wildsmith, illustrated by Stanton, was due to be released, it went to the top of my must-read pile.

The problem is, I was under the impression it was going to be another Brownstone Collection – large and fully coloured graphic novel/sophisticated fiction stories that would make the most of Todd-Stanton’s talent. Plus, with a title like that, I was expecting a dark faerie tale ambience like that found in Skye McKenna’s Hedgewitch (see below). I mean, look at those covers! They were clearly tailor-made for my specific interests.

Instead, they were your standard children’s fantasy books, along the lines of Star Friends or Jewel Kingdom (admittedly, much better written than either of those). Though Todd-Stanton does indeed provide the illustrations, they’re small and in black-and-white, strewn throughout the pages.

My disappointment is somewhat unfair on the books themselves, which have committed no crime beyond not being exactly what I wanted them to be. The context of the overarching story is surprisingly dark for a children’s book. During a time of war, Rowan and her mother are forced to flee the city in which they live to seek refuge with Rowan’s grandfather in the Dark Forest, leaving behind their husband/father until the fighting ends.

Rowan has never met her grandfather before, but he’s well-known in the community as a Wildsmith: that is, a person who can communicate with animals. Soon enough, it’s revealed that Rowan has this ability too, which comes in handy when helping the magical creatures currently being hunted by the enemy country, whose agents want to weaponize them. Dragons and winged horses are the featured animals in these first two books; given that the third is heading to the coastline, it’s safe to assume something like mermaids or selkies will be next.

So yeah, Wildsmith turns out to be a variation on those children’s book in which the young protagonists have to deal with the care and husbandry of mythical beasts, like the Magical Rescue Vets or The Rescue Princesses or Hattie B: Magical Vet books. Yes, those are all 100% real books. It’s a niche market.

This series so far feels less formulaic than those others, in that Rowan’s situation is rather fraught and has already changed significantly from one book to the next. They promote what you’d expect: kindness towards animals, open-mindedness toward those that are different, caution in times of danger – though it’s all still within the confines of what a young reader can handle.

(Though at this point, I have to say it’s a little cringy that Rowan is white, and the two sidekicks she makes at her grandfather’s house are darker-skinned – especially since one of them fangirls over what Rowan can do while the other is resentful and jealous. That cover art, in which Rowan is flanked by the two of them, speaks volumes).

Stanton’s illustrations may be limited in terms of their size and scope (and the fact they’re all in black-and-white) but he still manages to infuse the characters with personality and the animals with vast quantities of cuteness. I’m not sorry I read, just sorry that it wasn’t something more.

Hedgewitch and Woodwitch by Skye McKenna

As above, I’m going to talk about these books together, as I read them consecutively and the events of the first have blurred into the events of the second. If you can get past the first few chapters, which basically feel like warmed-over Harry Potter (magically gifted child is stuck in terrible environment manages to escape with the help of a flying broomstick and a talking cat) then you’re in for a treat.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so fully immersed in the ambiance of a book, and this one beautifully assembles a small English village called Hedgely, filled with teahouses, cottages, farmlands, antique stories, cemeteries, ruins on the hills, and shops called “Marchpane’s” and “Widdershin’s”. I could wander those streets for hours.

Even better, the village is situated on the edge of a dark forest filled with ancient secrets and marked with weirstones that form the boundary between this world and the realms of Faerie.

I hate to continue this comparison, but the Harry Potter narrative formula is followed in that protagonist Cassie Morgan’s initiation into the world of magic is mingled with a mystery that she must solve – in this case, the disappearance of several children, not to mention what happened to her mother eight years ago, when Cassie was abandoned at her dreary boarding school.

It turns out that Cassie’s Aunt Miranda (her mother’s sister) is what’s known as the Hedgewitch: the powerful guardian that’s responsible for monitoring any movements between the denizens of Faerie and the human world. Once Cassie is safely ensconced in her home (filled with moving bedrooms, a secret library, and a tree growing in the entrance hall – can I move in?) she begins her niece’s lessons in witchcraft.

Naturally Cassie meets a range of friends and foes, from fellow coven-members Rue and Tabitha (perfect witch names, though I had to roll my eyes at the inevitable inclusion of Ivy, the catty overachiever) to the live-in staff at Aunt Miranda’s cottage (every house like hers needs a full-time cook who can rustle up any number of delicious meals and snacks at a moment’s notice).

So the superficial comparisons to Harry Potter may continue (a male relative appears out of nowhere to gift Cassie with a superior broomstick; one of the adults in a position of authority is a traitor working the system from the inside) but the real charm of the book is in its setting and the plot-seeds that are being carefully sown throughout the page-count. This has apparently been planned as a five-book series, and you can tell that a much larger story is brewing, in which the threat of the Erl-King and the mystery of Cassie’s mother are intertwined.

As it happens, Hedgewitch was brought to my attention by Philip Reeve’s recommendation on his website, who said of it: “There are only two sorts of fantasy story: the ones that feel fake and the ones that feel real. It's hard to explain the difference but you know the real ones when you read them, and Hedgewitch is one of them.”

I know exactly what he’s talking about, and Skye McKenna’s portrayal of Faerie is everything it should be: beautiful, dangerous, mysterious and intoxicating. J.K. Rowling’s use of magic was always a little too cartoonish for my liking, but here it’s rightfully depicted as deep and strange and unknowable. The vibe put me in mind of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, especially with the use of the Wall (or in this case, the Hedge) marking the boundary between our world and Faerie, with all the hazards that naturally come with living in such close proximity.

Between the stark, mysterious beauty of Faerie and the cozy warmth of Hedgley, I was in reading heaven.

White Fox and White Fox in the Forest by Chen Jiatong

Even without the author’s name on the cover, I probably would have guessed that this was an English translation of a Chinese children’s book simply by the content and atmosphere. Not just the fact that a polar fox is attempting to be reborn as a human, but that (for example) he is helped by a young couple with a newborn baby who are shortly afterwards shot dead by a greedy land developer.

There is a pervasive air of melancholy that’s shot through this entire book, culminating in our protagonist Dilah and all his friends actually dying. You know, for kids! (Granted, it really ends with Dilah’s spirit moving through a gateway into a new life, but it’s still the strangest thing you’ve read in a children’s book since The Last Battle).

Dilah is raised by his parents in a remote arctic den, only to be suddenly orphaned one day when his parents are killed by hunters. Yup, it starts on a cheerful note as well. His mother survives long enough to return home and direct Dilah into uncovering a moonstone buried at the back of their den, which is said to have the power to guide any animal to a treasure that will transform them into a human being.

So his journey begins, in which he traverses land and sea, meeting various other animals along the way and struggling to make sense of the human world that surrounds them, filled as it is with such cruelty and destruction. It kind of reminded me of The Adventures of Milo and Otis, though with a more fairy tale ambiance considering the world that Dilah inhabits bears no resemblance to our own (he starts in the arctic, crosses some deserts, mountains and forests, then ends up on an island – all while travelling in what feels like a straight line).

I’ve reviewed these two books together, as unlike Wildsmith and Hedgewitch, they really are two halves of a single story, with the first ending on a cliff-hanger. I’m not entirely sure what a child reader would make of this – it can get pretty intense at times, though I suppose Watership Down and The Animals of Farthing Wood are also aimed at kids, and they’re also full of tragic animal death.

Song of the Far Isles by Nicholas Bowling

This book felt like a fusion of Diana Wynne Jone’s Cart and Cwidder quartet and Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea books, especially in regards to the archipelago of islands that most of the action takes place on. Maybe add a dash of Garth Nix’s use of musical notes as magic in the Abhorsen books, not to mention the presence of ghostly spirits that assist the living.

That’s not to say this is a pale imitation of any of those books; in fact, it was immensely refreshing to read a fantasy novel that had a straightforward beginning, middle and ending. Set in a fantasy world that is based on the Hebrides in Scotland, Oran is a young cithara player who lives on Drum Island. All her people have deep and lasting relationships to the musical instruments they play, which almost work a bit like Zodiac signs in terms of how each ordains their personality (there’s a chart at the beginning of the book that lists all nine instruments and what their players are like).

Oran is a bit of a wild child, and regularly sails to a nearby island where she’s tutored in music by a strange hermit-woman who is bereft of her own instrument and claims she used to own one of the ancient citharas that were used in the creation of the world. Oran isn’t sure how much of this story she should take seriously, but she’s not about to turn down lessons from such a great teacher.

The story starts properly when envoys from the ruling government on the Headlands arrive at Little Drum and issue a ban on music, as decreed by the Red Duchess. This is almost beyond belief to the inhabitants of the island, as music is the very cornerstone of their culture. Most importantly, music keeps the ghasts with them, the souls of the deceased who are able to pass on their wisdom from beyond the grave. Without music, they’ll dissolve into the ether.

As such, Oran – a gifted musician – decides to sail to the Headlands and use her music to change the Duchess’s mind. With her is Alick, the ghast of a young boy who is also Oran’s best friend, and soon enough, the crew of a wandering band of pirate-musicians known as The Opera. There are a few interesting twists toward the end of the story, when more insight is given as to the Duchess’s ban on music, and some genuinely riveting scenes throughout – there’s one in which Oran is marched to the gallows in bright sunshine as she tries to process what’s happening to her that’s just chilling.

It’s always a bit of a risk to make music such a big part of a written story, since obviously the reader cannot hear any of it, but the richness of this world and the obvious passion its people have for the music they make is well realized. The whole thing is written very neatly and concisely – again, that sounds like damning with faint praise, but it was a very well-structured and imagined book.

There was only one thing that really bugged me, and that was Oran’s total negligence of her friend Alick. As stated, he’s a ghast who is bound to his ashes, which Oran carries around in a pouch so that he can accompany her when she leaves the island. But to say she is careless with them (upon which his entire existence depends) is putting it mildly. To start with, she leaves the ashes in the hold of the ship, which inevitably get knocked over during a storm, which then leaves his manifestation missing certain features (such as an ear).

Not great, but she’s learnt her lesson, right? Nope. Once she reaches the Headlands, she COMPLETELY FORGETS ABOUT HIM. Without close proximity to his ashes, he can’t travel with her, and yet she manages to leaves the pouch of his remains behind in a shop. I mean sheesh, with friends like these, who needs enemies? If he’d let her swing, I might not have blamed him. 

Wildoak by C.C. Harrington

This was a thoughtful little book that follows the standard “child takes responsibility for a wild animal and grows up in the process,” with the added complication of young Maggie having a bad stutter. At the start of the book she’s resorting to self-harm in order to get herself out of talking at school, a situation mad worse by the fact her father is threatening to send her to an institution if her speech doesn’t improve.

Maggie’s last resort is a stay with her mother’s father in Cornwell. Having long been estranged from his daughter due to a fight with his son-in-law (yeah, Maggie’s father is a real piece of work) grandfather and grand-daughter are pleased to finally meet each other, and get along well in his secluded forest home.

But unbeknownst to Maggie, alternating chapters are relating the adventures of a baby snow leopard called Rumpus who has recently been brought at Harrods as a lavish gift (this book is set in the sixties, and yes, you really could purchase “exotic pets” at the famous department store). On realizing that wild animals don’t go well with luxury apartments, Rumpus’s new owner has him driven out to the countryside and abandoned on the side of the road.

Naturally, it’s only a matter of time before Rumpus and Maggie cross paths, and when they do Maggie finds in the snow leopard a way to heal herself – not from her stutter, which is permanent, but from her self-loathing and inability to stand up for herself.

To be honest, I grabbed his book off the shelf because its title and cover art made it look like a fantasy book that would go well with the other stories I read this month, but it ended up being something quite different. C.C. Harrington writes about Maggie’s stutter with insight and compassion, and has some beautiful turns of phrase when it comes to describing the forest and countryside of Cornwall.

She wisely decides on a bittersweet ending for her story: Maggie’s stutter doesn’t magically go away, and the Wildoak Forest of the title is eventually destroyed by land developers, but there’s still hope for the environment and conservationism – an epilogue has a grown-up Maggie giving a speech to an auditorium of people about those very subjects. She still has a stutter, but is able to communicate confidently.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

I re-read Six of Crows back in June last year, and then obviously stalled when it came to its follow-up. This was partly brought on by malaise in the wake of Netflix’s cancellation of Shadow and Bone which was just about to get to the good part of this particular story, but also because of the show’s odd decision to dramatize the events of this book in its second season – namely, Kaz’s vendetta against Pekka Rollins.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that showrunner Eric Heisserer was trying to clear the narrative floor so that he could give the Ice Court heist (the centrepiece of this duology) his full attention, not to mention the space and time he needed to properly do it justice. That’s the grim irony of this adaptation: everything had to be speedily dealt with in order to get to the part of the story everyone was really interested in, only for Netflix to pull its usual bullshit and cancel it.  

As such, it’s odd to read this and find the characters in very different places than they were at the conclusion of season two (for example: in the show, Inej is chasing slavers onboard her own vessel; in the book, she’s been kidnapped by Wylan’s father as leverage against Kaz). Crooked Kingdom takes place in the aftermath of the Ice Court heist, in which Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Nina, Matthias and Wylan have successfully broken into the most impenetrable stronghold/prison complex of the Fjerdan nation and spirited away Kuwei Yul-Bo, the son of the scientist responsible for creating a drug that enhances Grisha powers to god-like levels.

Naturally, the existence of such a drug would cause havoc in political and economic circles, which is why the Crows were commissioned by Jan Van Eck to “rescue” its inventor. After his sudden but inevitable betrayal, the remaining Crows find themselves on the backfoot, with almost the entire city of Ketterdam eager to hunt them down for one reason or another.

A lot of this material was repurposed for the Crows’ plots in Shadow and Bone, but the book focuses more on rescuing Inej and then taking down Van Eck’s business empire. There are all the twists and turns and bluffs and fronts you’d expect from such a story, and Bardugo is to be commended for throwing a lot of narrative balls in the air and successfully juggling them right into the final chapter. A lot could have gone wrong, but the story remains succinct and elegantly plotted despite the risk of bloat and convolution.

Also, she commits to a bittersweet ending: the Crows may be triumphant, but there’s a heavy price to pay and not all of them make it out the other side.

On the downside, there are quite a few “YA tells.” Too much dialogue is witty banter; there are too many obvious setups for pithy comebacks or overwrought declarations. “I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together – knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.” Come on, no one talks like this except a protagonist in a YA novel. You can almost see them preening for the reader. 

Netflix really dropped the ball on this show, as it was about to crank into high gear, and (despite what some viewers insisted in the wake of season two) had a ton of emotional material left to explore – not just the Ice Court heist, but stuff like Wylan’s fraught family situation, Kuwei Yul-Bo, Jesper’s father, Nina and Matthias’s reconciliation, Dunyasha, the effect the jurda parem has on Nina’s abilities... gah, there was so much good stuff left over! As it is, we’ll never even get to see all Six of Crows together. I guess Matthias is just going to stay in that prison indefinitely.

Is it too much to hope that maybe it’ll get a reprieve? I mean, if Warrior Nun can get saved, why not Six of Crows?

Doctor Who: Christmas Special (2023)

Ncuti Gatwa is off to a thundering start, and it looks like Russell T. Davies was telling the truth when he said he was going to lean into a more fairy tale vibe for the show. This episode gives us goblins, flying ships, changelings and an orphan girl left on the doorstep of a church at Christmastime. It even starts with the words: “once upon a time.”

The formatting of a standard Doctor Who season never strayed far from the formula of “overarching storyline with a few standalone episodes sprinkled throughout” (which was taken wholesale from Buffy the Vampire Slayer – if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best) but Davies is back in form with a Christmas Special that deliberately leaves plenty of unanswered questions. Who dropped Ruby off at the church? Who is the elderly neighbour who knows what a Tardis is? Stay tuned.

Every new Doctor needs a new Companion, and Millie Gibson is certainly enthusiastic enough in the role – though so far Ruby seems a bit like a Rose redux, except she comes with a mysterious backstory because apparently Rose wasn’t quite special enough. (Not helping is that they’ve already announced Varada Sethu is replacing her next season, which makes it hard to invest knowing her story is over before it’s even begun).

There are some fun ideas involving the concept of coincidences and happenstance, a giant falling snowman, plenty of kooky side-characters who have names like Cherry Sunday, an obvious budget increase, and the Doctor dancing in a nightclub while wearing a kilt. Also, we’re still referring to gravity as “mavity” so there’s no way that’s going to be a one-off joke.

But more than all that, there’s a palpable sense of joy and excitement that feels like it’s been missing from the show for a while. It’s a great start for a new Doctor, so let’s bring on the rest of the season.