Interworld apparently started as an idea for a TV show.  A high school kid who has the power to Walk between the various paralell worlds.  It’s actually rather pitch perfect for the TV environment of the mid-90s, when it was conceived.

Alas, it was not meant to be, and Interworld languished in the storage rooms of Neil and Michael until recently, when they decided to make it into a book.

I stumbled upon Interworld quite back accident.  I was trolling around Amazon (or perhaps it was the Ottawa Public Library site) and decided to do a search for my favourite author Neil Gaiman.  I was pretty convinced there would be nothing since his most recent anthology Fragile Things.  I mean, I read his blog almost daily, I would have read if there was anything new, right?

Apparently not, because a few things I had never heard of, let alone read, popped up, of which Interworld and The Eternals went on my library request list.

Interworld is probably well aimed at the 9-12 year old set, maybe a little older.  Certainly not a near 30 year old.  Not that that stopped me from liking it.  It was shades of Ender’s Game (light shades), and there’s something highly appealing about an army of various versions of oneself.  Some parts were a little too easy — Joey’s conversation with his Mom, for one — but in a book of this length and depth an author really doesn’t have time for intricate build-ups.  Plus, 9-12 year olds are much more forgiving about the suspension of disbelief thing.

Interworlds, at its heart, is a nice quick read exploring right and wrong, family and weird things like physics and math.  Oh, and a really fabulously named character — Hue.  That name, in context, made me laugh out loud.

This book was on my request list at the library, but I honestly have no idea why I originally put it there.

Regardless, it was a horrible book. Complete rubbish. There seemed to be no real plot or point, besides the main characters genius status in the area of math, and how this impacts her. Which we never really know, because all we ever read about is her studying, kissing a guy onc, then studying some more. To be fair there’s stuff about being a child of indian immigrants in Wales, but it was hardly compelling.

And the ending. That was the worst part. I’ll reveal it here because no one ever reads this blog, and frankly, anyone who does will likely never read this book.

She runs away to Brighton and, even though they locate her parents, gets put into foster care. Because she’s been abused. Because her parents made her do too much school work and too much math.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?

That has to be the most ridiculous idea ever. Any forgiveness I may have had for the utter blah of the book was driven away by that.

Ugh.

The Eternals is a rehash of a marvel comic by Jack Kirby that had its original run in the 70s. The version I just read is a mini-series (7 chapters) done by Gaiman in 2006. I picked this up knowing nothing of the premise, solely because it was by Gaiman, who I love beyond all imaginings.

For a good reason. This was really, really entertaining. X-menesque, with nods to the Fantastic Four. It’s pure comic goodness with the writing of Gaiman behind it. How can it get any better than that?

And it gave me one of my most favourite quotes. For some background, Earth is inhabited by three groups: The Eternals who were created by the alien Celestials, their enemies and counterparts, The Deviants – also created by the Celestials, and Humans, as far as I can tell, a happy accident. Over millennia, The Eternals (who are unkillable, hence the name) have been seen as gods by humans.

Anyway, at one point in the story a human is talking to an Eternal (Zuras). The conversation goes like this:

Human (speaking of fighting going on on Earth): You *have* to choose sides…..
Zuras: If you saw two groups of children arguing over which of them could play in some waste ground, would you choose sides?

It’s a perfectly simple statement from the perspective of god(s) when humans wonder why they don’t interfere. Brilliant!

I seem to be on a kick these days for semi-autobiographical books about difficult childhoods.  Like The Glass Castle, Lullabies is the story of a young girl growing up in less than ideal conditions.  The main character “Baby” (her name screams something indefinable about her parents right off the bat) is growing up with her father in Montreal.  They live a life of constant moves, illness, hunger, and drugs.  Eventually Baby garners the interest of the neighbourhood pimp, Alphonse.  Heather O’Neill does a remarkable job of giving Baby a voice.  She is easy to believe, and you follow her through the ages of 11-13, as she undergoes many changes with no one there to guide her.  Her mother is dead and her father Jules, who is 27 at the beginning of the book, is a heroin user who tries to raise his daughter but doesn’t quite get there.  The character of Baby is one of the best I’ve seen in this genre, and she walks the line between vulnerable and tough with little trouble.  She is particularly believable in her view of things that happen to her as “no big deal”.  A good example is when for the first and only time at age 13 her father hits her and leaves her with a black eye.  Baby, rather than feeling sorry for herself, or scared, thinks about how cool she’ll look at school on Monday.  They black eye gives her “street cred”.  One more experience to add to her list.  Unfortunately, like many children of bad situations, she doesn’t realize that certain things are supposed to make her scared or uncomfortable.  That line has long been erased.  I really enjoyed this book, and finished it in about 3 hours.  It helped to have a sense of Montreal.  It always helps to be able to visualize your environment.  I could totally picture Baby wandering St. Catherine street.

I haven’t read a book this quickly in a very long time.  2.5 hours, cover to cover.  Of course those 2.5 hours had to be the ones between midnight and 2:30 a.m.  I picked up the book from the library yesterday.  I thought to read a bit before bed, since I only had the book for a week (it’s part of the Express Reads collection – copies of highly in demand books that cannot be reserved.  They’re available first come, first served, and you can borrow them for a week.  When you’re # 140 or so on the request list, this can be a godsend).

And of course that “little bit” lead to me finishing the book.

The Glass Castle is Jeanette Walls’ memoirs of her childhood.  Like one generally expects, her experiences and memories are far from common or ideal.  Still, she manages to make you long for something as you read her book.  Perhaps it’s the us-against-the-world flavour that colours her interactions with most of her siblings.  It’s tough to say. 

I was the perfect audience for this book from the first page, where it sucked me in with Jeanette’s story about riding in a cab down a New York City street one night and seeing her homeless mother rummaging through a dumpster.  She ducks; hoping not to be seen, and then is forced to reflect on her mixed feelings of shame and guilt that having a homeless mother invokes.  At one point she recounts a story of a professor asking her opinion on homelessness, and she replies, “sometimes, people get the life they choose.”  Her teacher and classmates look at her like she’s grown horns. 

I could relate to her feelings all too well.  I was gone from the first page.

Overall the book was a poignant read, not overly saccharine or dramatic.  And although there were times I wanted to roll my eyes at the whole “Look what I overcame!” tone, the Glass Castle ultimately felt like a looking glass, and left me feeling just a little bit homesick.

News: Update: Dumbledore was gay, says ‘Potter’ author

How much do I love JK Rowling right now? A whole hell of a lot. This is awesome.

I hate building webpages. So you’d think I’d stop changing my domain name, but yet that doesn’t seem to stop me.

But before I get into the whinging and complaining about code, the background/story behind the site and the domain. Because, of course, there is one.

In all the fic I write, most of the fic I read and a fair chunk of the tv and movies I love, there is a theme. I confess that I have a thing for the “little boy lost” story. See: Harry Potter, The OC, Stand by Me, Seaquest. The more orphaned the better, apparently. It’s wildly embarrassing for a 30 year old woman to get all emotional over themes like this, and I’m sure there’s some sort of psychological explanation for it, but I’d rather not think too hard about it. You love what you love. Embarrassing or not.

So. While I was reading Deathly Hallows I came across a line that just about killed me. It went like this:

Hogwarts was the first and best home he had known. He and Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned boys, had all found home here.

It kills me every time. Every. Time.

I was thinking about it after that, and it occured to me that that particular line “the abandoned boys” could so easily apply to all the characters I really love.

I thought about registering the domain for a while, but figured it would be taken. But yesterday I found a really good deal on hosting and registration AND the domain was available, so I grabbed it up.

But man the “site builder” that comes with the hosting package is pants. It’s completely useless. And I haven’t been able to find any free HTML editor yet. Well I did find one, used it, was happy and then discovered when it came time to publish that it could only be used to post to their company’s hosted sites. NOT something it says on the software download page at all.

Hours down the drain. Plus all the time it took to make the banner. I don’t know why I do this to myself. I’m distinctly not a techie. Ah well. Some skills you learn the hard way.

The Thirteenth Tale is a book about books, as well as a book about stories. Diane Setterfield wrote penned this novel about an aging British author (Vida Winters) who has evaded all attempts to find out her background and her past.

Facing death she has invited a young amateur biographer to hear the truth of her life tale. Intrigued, said biographer (Margaret), comes to know Ms. Winters very well, guessing at the secrets in her past.

I read this book relatively quickly, as these things go recently. I took me two half days, made easier by having the large print version. It was also a quick read, in and of itself — not too mired down in its own seriousness, full of just enough intrigue to keep you turning the page.

**Minor Spoilers below **

The resolution of Ms. Winter’s story was relatively surprising on two levels, her own identity, which I did not guess outright until it was stated (though I had certainly caught the foreshadowing and hints) as well as the reality behind Emmeline. That, I never would have guessed at. Indeed I’m not even sure why it was included, as that twist seemed entirely unnecessary.

Indeed there were a few plot twists that seemed unnecessary — Margaret’s twinness, for one. Setterfield, it seems, wanted to mash as many twists and turns into this story as she could. She handles most of it well, even some of the stories that seem unnecessary keep you wanting to know more (see: Aurielius). But there are a lot of intertwining of relationships that are in the book just to have one more twist.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. On the contrary, I enjoyed it immensely. I was surprised. Part of what drew me in were the descriptions from both Margaret and Vida about books, stories and reading. They felt very real, obviously written by someone who has enjoyed reading immensely.

This particular bit rings the most true for me, and it is when I knew I would forgive the book all its faults based solely on the fact that Setterfield (via Margaret) expressed something I have felt for a long time:

I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when it was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning one ever expects to be fulfilled.

In the end it feels like The Thirteenth Tale is just a well-written VC Andrews tale — instead of being told in the present it is a long-done history.

I finished reading this book several weeks ago just before an interview at the National Arts Centre with Michael Ondaatje. In face, I believe I finished it mere hours before seeing him speak.

I had never read an Ondaatje book, and felt that I should, given the fact that I was about to see an hour long interview with the man. I chose In the Skin of A Lion based on this thread on Ask Metafilter. Lion came up several times as the Quintessential Canadian Novel (something I find interesting, given the fact that it’s written by a man who moved here from the UK at 18 or so).

While I would see it more as the Quintessential Toronto Novel, there’s something about the way Ondaatje writes these characters, especially Patrick, that make them as recognizable as the landscape. While you recognize the Bloor St. aqua ducts, Kingston Pen, and small town northern ontario, you also recognize Patrick and all the characters that thread in and out of his life.

Ondaatje doesn’t write this story in a truly linear fashion, so if you don’t like a little guess work this probably isn’t for you.  But I highly recommend it.

Neil Gaiman – How To Talk To Girls At Parties

A short story by my favourite author.

I cannot believe that I will ever forget that moment, or forget the expression on Stella’s face as she watched Vic hurrying away from her. Even in death I shall remember that.

Her clothes were in disarray, and there was makeup smudged across her face, and her eyes—

You wouldn’t want to make a universe angry. I bet an angry universe would look at you with eyes like that.