New YA

While A Reader's Respite can't claim that John Stephens wrote an entirely original new Young Adult Fantasy/Adventure in The Emerald Atlas, we can tell you that originality aside, this was a rollicking good ride.

Time-travel, dwarfs, evil warloards, benevolent wizards, and one very pissy Russian countess all come together to present the adventure of a lifetime for three young orphaned siblings in this first-book-in-a-series.  Shades of Middle Earth and Narnia abound throughout the story, but one can forgive that in light of the well-rounded characters.  

Kate, Michael and Emma have been shuffled around various shabby orphanages for as long as they can remember and this latest one is the worst yet.  Oddly, they seem to be the only three children there.  And when they discover a strange book in a forgotten room, their adventure - and the mystery - begin.  Resourceful without being overly-precocious, the children start to piece together the mystery of their vanished parents and encounter a magical world that exists within our own, albeit hidden from view.

Geared towards a YA audience, none of the plot or dialog is simple or insipid which makes this a fun read for adults, as well.  And talk about a fast-moving plot....yowza....A Reader's Respite had to stop in our tracks several times and re-read a paragraph or two just to make sure we were keeping up.

But the best part of this novel?  The fully-developed and often quirky secondary characters that abound throughout the novel.  Stephens didn't skimp in this department and for this reader, it made all the difference between just another Lord of the Rings/Narnia/Harry Potter knockoff novel and a fresh, new voice.

At 400+ pages, this isn't a skimpy book.  But it was engrossing and fast-paced enough that we blew through it in about 48 hours.  Stephens has our attention.....where's the next installment?

Cuteness Aside, You Still Need a Plot....

Title: Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl

Author: Daniel Pinkwater

Genre: Young Adult/Middle Reader

ISBN: 978-0-547-22324-7 

Book Source: Amazon Vine Program

Grade:  C

A Reader's Respite got suckered in by another cute cover, damn it.  We can't help it....we're cover whores.  Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl is being touted as a companion book to two previous Pinkwater books:

Although we haven't read Pinkwater's two related books, we felt fairly confident that a companion book could be read as a stand-alone.  Wrong.

As it turns out, companion book is actually publisher-speak for this book has no real plot and is just skating along on some cute characters, a few lines of witty dialog and the laurels of the author's previous two books. 

In other words: cute, but sucky.

There are plenty of fun little characters, including our protagonist Audrey, the title-mentioned Cat-Whiskered girl ("I do not have a problem with my appearance - I am a nice-looking girl with lovely whiskers") who comes from a different plane of existence to Poughkeepsie, New York, where she meets an insane college professor, a new friend named Molly, a wise-woman named Chicken Nancy, the giant Harold and what appears to be a horrible monster, The Wolluf.

Despite being a Young Adult/Middle Reader book, there are plenty of references only adults will understand:

Professor Tag appeared from around the corner of the building.  He was wearing a woman's dress, sort of - it looked like he had made it out of a big window curtain....

"Hello, Professor," I said.  "Yes, I came to see you."

"Thank you," Professor Tag said.  "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

As compelling as the characters and dialog was, however, A Reader's Respite never did find a plot.  At one point, it seemed the characters might be searching for aliens.  There were several references to flying saucers (and their drivers, who apparently enjoy the apple fritters we serve up here on Earth), but in the end that came to nothing. 

We also thought for a while that the plot might be Audrey's quest to find out about her long-lost parents, but that, too, came to nothing.

In the end, we were left with a patchwork novel....plenty of great pieces that didn't come together.  Perhaps if we had read Pinkwater's previous novels (which were very well received, both critically and popularly), we would have found more enjoyment.

Book Smackdown!

A Reader's Respite recently read, reviewed and raved about Justin Cronin's new novel, The Passage.  We couldn't help but notice, however, that there have been more than a few comparisons out there in Bloggy-Land between The Passage and Stephen King's The Stand.

We're intrigued by this comparison.

A Reader's Respite, you see, hasn't actually read a Stephen King novel since his best-selling horror novel Christine was published back in 1983.  (And to be honest, to this day we still flinch whenever we see a 1958 Plymouth Fury.  Thankfully, that doesn't occur too often.)  We're not sure why we stopped reading King's novels.  Okay, yes we are.  We're reasonably certain we stopped reading them after the damned evil clown in It scared the crap out of us.

But it's since come to our attention that The Stand, a novel which many people consider to be King's masterpiece, is NOT your typical, garden-variety horror novel.  Apparently the novel falls more in the fantasy genre and is a genuine good versus evil epic tale.  Hmmmm....much like Cronin's The Passage, eh?

Sparked by a genuine creative interest, A Reader's Respite has decided to embark upon King's 1134 page novel and when if we finish, give you - the reader - a fair and unbiased comparison of The Passage and The Stand.

Oh, what the hell, let's call it what it is....

SMACKDOWN

The Passage vs. The Stand

Get ready to rumble.....

So who out there has read The Stand??  Have you read them both?  Tell us about it....

Breaking Prejudices....

A Reader's Respite has been busy breaking prejudices.  Why on earth would we want to do something like that?  For the Take Another Chance Challenge (sponsored by Find Your Next Book Here), of course.  Readers were challenged to think up a reading prejudice that we hold -- genres we eschew, authors we traditionally dislike, etc -- and then dive in.

What was our prejudice?  A prejudice against stupid people really didn't seem to apply here, so we had to go another direction.  A Reader's Respite fully admits to having unexplainable issues with the Fantasy genre of fiction.  Even fantasy books we want to love, for example, let's say the unimpeachable Tolkien trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, turned into one big snooze-fest.  We never even made it past the first book of The Chronicles of Narnia.  In fact, our only claim to fantasy novels might be Rowling's Harry Potter series, but given the targeted age group of those books, we might be stretching things here.

It might be all the unpronounceable character and place names:

Je'har-eeza, Queen of the Baa'shods on the planet of Zon'rumba fights for truth and justice for all of her oppressed race, all the while trying to keep her boobs inside of her outfit.

Really, if we can't keep the character's names straight, how in the hell are we supposed to follow the plot?  Guess our prejudice is pretty evident here, isn't it?

So in order to meet this reading challenge, we decided to pick up a fantasy novel that came highly, highly recommended by one of our bloggy friends over at Passages to the Past.  In fact, not only did Amy recommend this book, she BOUGHT it for A Reader's Respite last Christmas.  As you can see, we were flat out of excuses.

This was a huge moment for us.  At best, we'd break a prejudice.  At worst, we'd have 800-plus pages of sleep inducement.

To our immense surprise and delight, A Reader's Respite loved this book.  Truly.  The Name of the Wind is the first of a proposed trilogy  written by Patrick Rothfuss.  His characters are lovingly complex, the plot has just the right amount of twists, and his fantasy world is actually believable.  We want to live in his world.

First of all, the character names weren't exactly mind-numbing.  Our main character is a mysterious inn keeper named Kvothe who, we might add, is one very sexy man.  Can a character be sexy in your mind's eye even when we aren't really given a physical description of him and the author doesn't necessarily intend this?  We think so.

He is dark, brooding, mysterious, and clearly is not just an inn keeper in the world of.....of.....okay, we're not really sure what planet he's on.  But it doesn't really matter.  It's a lot like Earth without all of our 21st century gadetry.  We're thinking more like the European dark ages, but who knows for sure.  Anyway,  Kvothe is a man with a past, which is expertly revealed in flashbacks when Chronicler, an infamous lore-writer-downer, appears at the inn and prys all Kvothe's deep, dark secrets from him.

Okay, so we're being overly simplistic here.  It's actually much more sophisticated than that.  The point is, A Reader's Respite was left wondering what else we've been missing out on.  How many other fabulous fantasy novels are just floating around out there, undiscovered by yours truly?  We're a little dismayed by the thought.

So our question for you this week is:

1.  What reading prejudices do you hold?
2.  What other fantasy novels should A Reader's Respite be reading?

Review: Starfinder

Starfinder: Book One of the Skylords, by John Marco



Did any of you ever read fantasy books as a child? A Reader's Respite did and has fond memories of hiding under our blanket at night with a flashlight reading the likes of Madeleine L'Engle and Anne McCaffrey. Fantasy books and childhood seem to go hand-in-hand and it's always been our considered opinion that when we leave those fantasy books behind, it signals the end of childhood innocence and wonder.

In the tradition of the memorable Young Adult fantasy writers comes the first in a new series by John Marco, entitled Starfinder: Book One of the Skylords. It is here that we meet thirteen year old Moth, who lives in the city on the edge of the world and harbors dreams of becoming a Skyknight, the most elite of all pilots.

Of course his dreams will lead him on an incredible adventure and thus begins what turns out to be a very well-written and richly-imagined fantasy tale in which Moth is transported to another world beyond his own.

Well-developed characters abound (we wish half of the adult novels we read could do this as well) and there is a subtle moral to the story, something all young adult novels ought to contain. Marco deftly walks a fine line here, managing to keep the story out of the shallowness of simplicity and yet still draws the reader into a richly imagined world.

If you have fond memories of childhood fantasy books, you'll want to read Starfinder and we'd be willing to be this one will make it's way onto your permanent bookshelves. If you have kidlets, we're thinking ages 11-13 ought to make a nice fit for this book, but you'll want to read it yourself, too.

If A Reader's Respite gave away starred reviews, this one would be a five. Kudos to Marco for creating what we are hoping will become a classic in the young adult fantasy genre!

And in case you were thinking the author's name sounded familiar, Marco is the author of two well-known adult fantasy series: The Lukien Trilogy and Tyrants and Kings. A Reader's Respite has added both series to our Leaning Tower of Pisa TBR Pile. *sigh*




Title: Starfinder: Book One of the Skylords
Author: John Marco
ISBN-13: 978-0756405519
400 pages
Publisher: DAW Hardcover
Date: May 5, 2009

Still not certain? Read these reviews, too!

Medieval Bookworm
At Home With Books
The Tome Traveller
Shooting Stars Magazine
In Search of Giants
Back to Books
Bookfoolery and Babble
Fantasy Book Critic
Steph Su Reads
Musings of a Bookish Kitty
The Book Smugglers
Becky's Book Reviews
Wagging the Fox

Starfinder has been on tour with TLC Book Tours. Kudos to TLC for choosing a quality book to showcase!