Wicked: Munchkinlanders

I’m doing this in stages for the Wicked series, because Gregory Maguire so kindly divides the books up. So, this review focuses on the first parts, “Munchkinlanders.” I’m doing the reviews this way because the book was very heavy later on and I want to be able to sit down and think everything through, so hopefully, I don’t miss any of the major points.

I mentioned in my other post, “NEXT!” that Maguire’s books (and all of them, not just the Wicked series, but Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Mirror, Mirror as well) make me stop and think. Wicked in particular as a great deal of levels to it. “Munchkinlanders” is about Elphaba’s (you know, the Wicked Witch of the West) birth and toddlerhood. She is born to a unionist minister and his wife, who was a society lady; she is also born on the night that her father is disgraced by a “pleasure faith,” tiktokism, represented by the Clock of the Time Dragon.

The basic premise of the first part is young Elphaba, who is green and born with a full set of teeth and carefully avoids water, clearly not like other children, and her toddlerhood. She and her mother live outside of the town while her father travels, finding himself. When Elphaba is nearly two, a Quadling glassblower named Turtle Heart ends up at their house and stays with them. The readers are also introduced to Nanny, who tries to care for Elphaba and acclimate her to other children when her mother seems reluctant too. But Elphaba is clearly a strange child.

Maybe it’s reading the book for a third time or maybe it’s easier for me to understand the beginning, but I comprehend the religious and political overtones in this section of the book. When Frex, Elphaba’s father, begins to explain the various religions, they make sense. There’s Lurline, which is the pagan religion of Oz, unionist, which has become the primary religion and follows the Unnamed God and also has a figurehead in the Ozma whom is the ruler of Oz, and the pleasure faiths and tiktokism, which is a fatalism religion. Somehow I missed a lot of this the first time I read Wicked.

The other part of “Munchkinlanders” comes at the end of the section, when the characters are discussing the politics of the county. The current Ozma is only three and her father is the Ozma Regent. He is working on building a large yellow brick road throughout the entire country, which will make it easier to collect taxes and move troops. The building of this road is meeting resistance in some areas, such as Quadling Country, where the land is very marsh-like and boggy and difficult to build roads. The reader is told that there are also rubies in the marshes and the Quadlings worry about what the discovery of the stones will mean for their land. It hones in on the fact that Oz is a real country, so to speak. There are sections, such as the industry in Gillikin, the farmlands in Munchkinland, the desert of Winkie Country and the marshes of Quadling land; each section has its attributes and issues with the other sections. There’s a ruler and an agenda and religions that bring Oz to life, beyond the brief glimpse that Dorothy saw.

It also touches on the political unrest that will come in the rest of the book. After Turtle Heart explains the situation about the road and rubies in his homeland, he mentions that many of the Quadlings have “seen” that a stranger will come to Oz and that this stranger will be a danger to the country. Elphaba also sees the horrors in the glass that Turtle Heart made for her; the stranger comes from the air and the Regent will fall.

The upset in greater Oz is not the only foreshadowing. After Elphaba was born, Nanny went to an old witch and the witch as foreseen great things for Elphaba and her sister, although Nanny doesn’t tell the mother that the next child will also be a girl. But these two sisters will be part of history. Which we already know.

I Read It Anyway…

I know I said that I was going to start on the Wicked series, but they didn’t have the first book at my local library yet. But I put it on reserve so that’s all right (Memo to self: Reserve the third season of The Tutors too). I got a different book, Pegasus by Robin McKinley.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I love Robin McKinley’s books. Pegasus  was the last one that I hadn’t read yet. Wait, no, I retract that. I haven’t read Outlaws of Sherwood; well, I haven’t finished Outlaws of Sherwood and it’s been three years. I don’t think I’m going to get back to it any time soon.

But Pegasus… I cheated again. I read the last few pages before checking out the book. Now, I had read the first chapter on my Nook (free preview), which is why I talked myself into reading the last few pages.

Good news, I had no idea how the book would end the way I did. I love it when that happens, because there have been times when I read the last chapter of a book and can plot out the events of the book. However, I wasn’t sure how the end would come about in Pegasus.

But I’m not entirely sure why I picked up the book. See, the ending wasn’t a happy one. And I’m big on happy endings. But somehow, I went back four more times to read the ending, still uncertain about how that ending would come about.

But I’m sure you want to know what happens in the story. The premise is that in this country, there are select humans who are bound to a Pegasus because the Pegasus and humans have an alliance against the various other creatures that lurk near the country. The main character Sylvi, is the fourth child and only daughter of the current king and is bound to the Pegasus King’s fourth child, Ebon.

Normally, the humans and Pegasi can’t really understand each other. They can’t speak each other’s spoken languages. They need human Speakers to translate. But Sylvi and Ebon are different; they can speak to each other using the Pegasi’s silent language. And it doesn’t make it easy for them; there are those who are upset by this change in the status quo, even as there are those who are intrigued by it.

I know I’ve talked about Robin McKinley’s books before. One of my favorite things about her is that she dives right into the world and doesn’t give the reader a lot of backstory. Sometimes it can be very confusing. But it worked for this story; I was sucked right into the world of Sylvi and Ebon and could happily live in their world for hours at a time.

I suppose you want to know about the not-so-happy ending. The short part? Sylvi and Ebon are separated because of a jealous and power-hungry magician. Want to know how the book ended that way? Truthfully, I not sure I could tell it. There are so many nuances and little details that I don’t think I could do justice. The biggest detail? The Pegasus suspect that something went wrong with the human magician’s spells, something that prevents humans and Pegasi from understanding each other the way Ebon and Sylvi do.

However, and I’m really excited about this, the sequel to Pegasus is supposed to come out in 2014. I know it’s two years away and I’ll be twenty-six and probably “too old” for the age level of the book. But I want to know what happens to Sylvi and Ebon and how everything works out. Because not only are Sylvi and Ebon changing the status quo, but the more dangerous creatures have been invading the human territory. And they are ready to fight.

I can’t wait!

NEXT!

All right, so you’ll notice that I finished up the Princess Series, by Jim C. Hines (Fantastic series). And I have a LONG list of books that I want to read next. However, I already have my next series picked out.

There’s a short story behind this. I went to the book store (that’s usually the beginning) and found Out of Oz, which is the fourth and last book in Gregory Maguire’s series about the true story of the Wicked Witch of the West and what really happended in Oz. And I almost picked it up and bought it there.

Notice the “almost”.

I didn’t buy it for several reasons. For one thing, I never got around to reading the third book. For another, I can’t remember what happened in the first two that I did read.

So, my next step is to take a few days, then go to my local library and hunt up Wicked. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to start at the beginning. And I know that there’s going to be a lot of lag time between reviews now. I love Maguire’s books; they force me to slow down and really think about what is happening in them. And they really make me think. However, it also means that it takes me longer than usual to get through them (It took me a day between most of the Princess Books, once I had a day to sit and read). I should probably hunt up a notebook and takes notes this time…

But how exciting!

A Different Sort of Happily Ever After

I admit, I cheat. I often pick up a book and read the last chapter of a book to figure out what happened. In this instance, I would have bought Snow Queen’s Shadow anyway, but this sneak peek is what really prompted me to pick it up. I almost started reading it in the Barnes and Noble.

Snow Queen’s Shadow is the conclusion to Jim C. Hines’ Princess Series and it is a great conclusion. By great, I mean that he tied up all the loose ends, such as what would happen to Talia and Snow when Queen Beatrice passed on, Talia and Snow’s relationship, and closed the matter of Danielle and Duchess, the fairy that has been plaguing the princesses since Stepsister Scheme. Not only did Hines tie off all these loose ends, but the ending is just open-ended enough that he could always pick up the series again, if he ever wanted. To me, that is what makes a truly great ending.

And he has found a way to give all three princesses a Happily Ever After, even when Snow White and Talia thought they wouldn’t have theirs.

But, back to the beginning. In the last book, Red Hood’s Revenge, the readers were brought to Talia’s homeland, Arathea; in Snow Queen, the readers are brought to Snow’s home of Allesandria, which is far north, a place of snow and mountains. Where no one in Arathea was allowed to practice human magic, Allesandria is filled with human mages. Every noble and royal has magic in their blood. The secrets of Snow White’s mother are also shown; the former Queen Rose trapped a demon in her magic mirror, the very mirror that Snow White has been using for years. When Snow asks the mirror to accomplish a task beyond its means, the mirror cracks and releases the demon.

If anyone knows the original Snow Queen tale, you know that a shard of ice entered the eye of the boy and that is what drew him to the Snow Queen. Hines uses this method of infection. Snow’s mirror cracks and the glass shard gets in her eye and infects her. Not only does her main mirror crack, but all the little mirrors she has around the castle also crack and some people are cut and get those pieces in their bloodstream. Snow is possessed by the demon and the others follow her orders. Having a bit of the demon in them makes the infected people “see the world for what it truly is.” The demon sees no beauty or happiness, so the infected are the same.

And there is a twist (there’s always a twist): Prince Jakob cannot be infected. And the possessed-Snow kidnaps him and brings him to Allesandria with her; Danielle and Talia follow them, hoping to save Jakob and Snow. Along the way, they learn more about Snow’s homeland and her past; they also end up fighting and fleeing from their friend as they travel through Allesandria.

But to save her son, Danielle will do anything and she contacts the fairy Duchess, whom she dealt with in Stepsister Scheme. She makes an impossible deal: Jakob will spend six months a year with the Duchess in return for the Duchess’s assistance in saving him. The Duchess spends a darkling, a creature that nearly killed the princesses in the first book and accelerated Jakob’s growth in Danielle’s womb.

I keep referring to the other books and I love it. Out of all the Princess Books, Snow Queen’s Shadow was my favorite because you need to remember events from the other books, such as the acts of the Duchess and how the Fairy King and Queen are waiting for her so they can lock her up, Snow White’s and Talia’s backstories (such as Talia’s relationships with women and Snow’s true love, the hunter, Roland), Beatrice’s nearly fatal wound from the knife in Mermaid’s Madness, Beatrice’s personal ship and her unique attributes, Red Hood’s cape and the effects that it has on the wearer and many other details.

And perhaps, the most important thing, how someone will do just about anything to save the person they love. Snow tries to do the impossible to stop Beatrice from dying; Danielle is prepared to give anything to rescue her son; Talia isn’t willing to give up on Snow White when she’s possessed.

I have to tell you, I’ve left out two very key details. One relates to Danielle and Jakob, and it’s the reason that Jakob can’t be infected and why Danielle’s mother was able to linger so long and protect her daughter in the form of a tree. The other relates to Talia and Snow’s relationship, where Talia long for Snow White to be more than a friend, but Snow has already found her true love and watched him die.

Don’t forget, I said that everyone gets their Happily Ever After.

Red Riding Hood vs. Sleeping Beauty

Ever read a book a few times, just to understand it? That’s my relationship with Red Hood’s Revenge, the third book in Jim C. Hines’ Princess Series. Fortunately, every time I read it, I understand a bit more.

Now, Red Hood introduces The Lady of the Red Hood, Roudette, who is an assassin. Years ago, she attacked Beatrice and Talia managed to fend her off. Now, she’s come back, but not for the royal family of Lorindar. Little Red Riding Hood has come for Sleeping Beauty.

Red Hood takes the reader back to Talia’s home country and what has become of it since the princess ran away, fearing her safety. In a way, it’s similar to Mermaid’s Madness; Mermaid delved into the mermaid culture, while Red Hood explores Arathea and its traditions, particularly the fairy church, which is different from the fairy interactions in Lorindar.

In Arathea, human magic is forbidden and fairies are worshipped as gods. The human rulers have less power than the fairies and humans are seen as second class. And everyone wants to use Sleeping Beauty in order to control her homeland.

But Talia is still a princess at heart and she sees how the fairies are manipulating her homeland. She has spent a great deal of time nursing a hatred for fairies and fairy magic. Their curse ruined her life and took away her family once and she isn’t going to allow them to do it again.

Roudette also nurses a hatred against the fairies and the Wild Hunt; her family and town also followed the fairy church, but it hadn’t protected them from the Wild Hunt. Hiding in the shadows, she watched fairies slaughter her family and her village and she has hunted them ever since. Now, she will use Sleeping Beauty’s curse to get her revenge. She plans to deliver Talia to the fairy-in-charge and then activate the curse again. Sleeping Beauty will send everyone around her into a deep sleep and Roudette prays that the humans will enter the palace and slaughter the fairies, just as fairies slaughtered her home.

And of course, Danielle and Snow White are along for the ride. But it isn’t easy; Snow White’s head injury from Mermaid’s Madness has been affecting her and her ability to do magic. Every time she uses her magic, she is a little more tired and she needs more time to recover from spells than she used to.

But what I like best about this book is Talia’s interactions with the people who helped her after her escape from her curse. She goes to the Temple of the Hedge and the Mother helps her there. She also finds one of her friends, Faziya, whom Talia has a history with. It’s interesting to see Talia and Faziya together and how caring they are. Talia is willing to do anything to save Faziya when she is captured by fairies and Faziya won’t let Talia go into battle alone. This is more than the hints that Talia has a crush on Snow White, this is a real relationship between a fairy tale princess and her female lover.  

However, Faziya is staying in Arathea while Talia, Snow White and Danielle return to Lorindar. And there are still unresolved issues such as Beatrice’s failing health, Snow’s injury and headaches and Snow and Talia’s relationships. Fortunately, there’s one more book: The Snow Queen’s Shadow.

Magic, Seafoam and Souls

It’s always interesting reading books a second time. If it’s been a while since the last time I’ve read it, then I don’t remember all the details, but enough that I manage to completely confuse myself. That’s kind of what happened while read The Mermaid’s Madness, the second Princess book by Jim C. Hines.

Now, I also know a great deal of the original fairy tales, not the Disney versions, so I read this story with Hans Christian Andersen in mind, which helped clarify things a bit.

For those who don’t know the Andersen version, the mermaid doesn’t end up with the prince. The prince marries another princess and the mermaid sacrifices herself. Actually, there’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s the basic ending.

It doesn’t end that way in Hines’ tale and the book is the after-effects of those decisions. Lirea (the mermaid) kills her prince and ends up going mad because of it. As her madness consumes her, she eventually kills one of her sisters and her father and taking control of her merfolk tribe. She also nearly kills Queen Beatrice and that’s when Danielle, Talia and Snow step in.

Lirea isn’t the only mermaid involved; in the beginning and middle of the book, most of the Princesses interactions are with Lirea’s younger sister, Lannadae, and their grandmother, Morveren. And Mermaid’s Madness does for the mermaid culture what Stepsister Scheme did for the fairies. As Danielle, Talia and Snow work to save Beatrice’s soul, they learn more about mermaid culture and traditions. Hines’ way of working that in is one of the reasons that I really enjoy these books. They are part history lesson with the story and in the three books that I have read, I walk away with a little more knowledge of a mythical culture.

I think it’s cool.

Hines also highlights the manipulations and politics that exist in the royal class. Talia in particular talks about being attacked and being used as a political pawn and how she feels about it; Snow has also experienced being used at the hands of her mother; Hines also mentions it in the mermaid culture and other human kingdoms, as princes kill each other to get closer to the throne.

The most interesting (and slightly sick) manipulations come within the mermaid family as Morveren uses magic on Lirea, controlling her granddaughter’s mind, encouraging her to create one united mermaid tribe to rise against the humans. Morveren uses souls to enhance her magic, human souls.

This part of the book draws on Andersen’s concept of souls in the fairy tale; mermaids are made of magic and seafoam and have no souls; when they die, their bodies are returned to the sea. Morveren feels that this makes the mermaids incomplete. But humans have souls and souls have power, so she captures and controls them to do her bidding. She tries to binds the prince’s soul to Lirea and create a new race of mermaids that can live in the sea and on the land. But the magic twists Lirea’s mind and drives her crazy and any attempts to help her only drive her further into her madness.

Morveren doesn’t just manipulate Lirea, but Snow White as well. She offers to teach Snow about magic and Snow White is so enthralled that she doesn’t realize all of Morveren’s plans. Talia is also nervous around the mermaids because it is spawning time and the royal mermaids produce a scent that encourages love and lust. It feeds on her attracting to Snow and eventually, Snow finds out about Talia’s true feelings for her, but they aren’t resolved by the end of the book.

And Danielle begins to realize how much work goes into being a queen and all the responsibilities that come with it. However, she is unaware of how little time she has to learn everything before Beatrice is gone.

Mermaid’s Madness is not my favorite of the Princess Series, although  I liked it better the second time around, probably because I understood more of it (I love re-reading books and catching the little details that I missed before). But I enjoyed the exploration of the mermaid culture, mostly because it wasn’t something that I had ever explored before, even though I love all things fantasy. However, it is still a great read and a wonderful tale about the After Happily Ever After, even if we don’t get Happily Forever After.

Three Extraordinary Girls

I love fairy tales; Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Red Riding Hood, all of them. My particular favorite is Beauty and the Beast. One day, I would like to teach a class on fairy tales and the various incarnations over the years.

However, most of them end with the ‘Happily Ever After,’ when the princess has been saved and she and the prince are married.

What happens after that? Is it all rainbows and butterflies and happiness? It can’t be, every couple has their ups and downs and arguments. And what about the other characters, like the stepmothers and stepsisters and huntsmen and kings and queens?

Enter The Stepsister Scheme.

I picked up this book because of the title and the image. Three women on the cover, all armed. Who were they?

Turns out, they are Cinderella (Danielle Whiteshore nee de Glas), Sleeping Beauty (Talia) and Snow White. And even though Danielle married the prince, happily ever after wasn’t quite achieved.

The tale starts out with one of Danielle’s stepsister’s trying to kill her and then the reader finds out that the prince has been kidnapped. And instead of the prince going to save the princess, it is Cinderella who will rescue her prince, with help from Talia, a warrior, and Snow, a sorceress. And just as this isn’t quite the Cinderella you might remember, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White aren’t typical princesses either. Both are given refuge by Queen Beatrice Whiteshore and both have their own stories to tell.

Talia isn’t the pale skinned, blonde and blue-eyed princess that Disney created. She is dark- dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair- and still fairy-gifted. However, she resents fairies and all they stand for. And after sleeping for one hundred years and being helpless, she rarely sleeps and has trained in a variety of weapons. She is not only Danielle’s maid, but her bodyguard. And her story didn’t end the way that everyone supposes. When she fell into a deep sleep and the rest of the court followed, those who took over the throne fought to enter the palace. After one hundred years, the invaders made it in and killed the sleeping court. And Sleeping Beauty wasn’t woken by a kiss, but by her twins being born. Jim Hines referenced an older version of Sleeping Beauty for his character, Sun, Moon and Talia and created a cunning princess from it.

And Snow White isn’t the demure beauty that Disney portrayed. In fact, she is a buxom beauty and quite the flirt. While she was chased out of her place by her mother, the huntsman took her in and fell in love with her. They were together for a while before the queen tracked them down. And the seven dwarves aren’t quite dwarves in this version.

Stepsister Scheme doesn’t include the fairy tales, but also fairies, in their original characters as tricksters. These fairies aren’t your fairy godmothers, but pixies, goblins and gnomes who want to bargain for human children, especially the one that grows in Danielle’s womb.  And there are some people, including Danielle’s stepsisters, who will do nearly anything to get that child and gain power over the throne.

But Danielle knows what her mother did to see that Danielle had a happily ever after and she is going to do everything she can to see that her child gets the same. Move over, princes, the ladies have this one under control.

A Happy New Year

So I recently quit my dead-end minimum wage job, which suddenly freed up a lot of my time. And my mother looked at me and told me that it was fine that I quit, but I was going to be in charge of dinner (fine by me), making sure the house was clean (again, not a problem), and I was going to write/blog every day.

Wait, back up.

Now, it isn’t the edict that I have to write. In fact, I haven’t written anything substantial in months, mainly because of lack of time and lack in inspiration. I haven’t been happy and haven’t wanted to write.

But I handed in my two weeks notice and suddenly, I was happy again. I didn’t have this weight on my shoulders anymore and after a week, ideas were filling up my brain faster than I could write them down. I feel I have a goal again, not just a day-in-day-out drudgery. So, I am going to take that edict and start doing what I really love.

I’m going to try and write nearly every day and I’m going to seriously start trying to finish books and write reviews on them. I’m almost finished with the first book of the new year now.

So, Happy New Year

Across the Egyptian Desert

For the fans of Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, you might want to check out The Alexander Cypher by Will Adams. It had the same effect on me that the other two had: I couldn’t wait to finish it and stayed up until three in the morning to do so.

Alexander Cypher is about the search for Alexander the Great’s body, which was taken back to Alexandria. According to the book (because I’m not a history person), Alexander’s wishes were to be buried in the Siwa Oasis, but when he died and his empire was broken up, whoever wanted to remain in power would need his body to establish a power base. However, he had a guard of thirty-four members who tried to fulfill his wishes about his burial. Unfortunately, they were stopped before they could complete their task.

Most of what is interesting about this book (besides the mystery part of it, such as ‘Where is Alexander’s tomb?’) is the interactions. The main character, Daniel Knox, annoys one guy right off the bat and gets in trouble trying to protect a girl from him. However, by the end of the book, he is going to need help and that one guy is the person that can assist him. He doesn’t like the head of the SCA, Yusuf Abbas, but has to collaborate with him in order to escape prison. He nearly alienates his love interest because of their relationships with her father. And outside of Knox, there other people just as mixed up. One of the archeologists, Elena, is only working for her employers, the Dragoumis, so that she can get revenge. You spend most of the book thinking the Dragoumis are responsible for her husband’s death only to learn that Elena is the one who arranged it. I think these characters should spend some time in an intense therapy session.

The plot and the setting are also fascinating. I group the two together because it kind of works. The mystery of Alexander’s tomb revolves around the fact that no one knows where he is buried, so the location is just as important as the plot. And while the book opens on the tale of what happened to the honor guard, it quickly moves on to the discovery of a tomb in Alexandria. From there, it is pieced together that the tomb is not Alexander’s, but his standard-bearer, who was briefly mentioned in the prologue as one of the honor guard. He also looked very similar to Alexander, similar enough that his body could pass.

Which leads the characters and readers to question, Where is Alexander actually buried if the double was in Alexandria? And it turns out that the honor guard wasn’t unsuccessful in their pursuits to fulfill the Great’s last wish. However, the political advantages to owning Alexander’s body have not diminished since 318 BC and the Dragoumis want the body so that it can be brought back to Macedonia and inspire the people to fight for their freedom instead of being divided between the surrounding nations. The parallel is fascinating because Nicholas Dragoumis often contemplates how Macedonia would still be great if Alexander’s body had been returned to his homeland rather than captured and brought to Egypt.

And possibly the most interesting question: How did the honor guard smuggle the body away and bury it in the proper place? Well, that’s in the book.

When the Sequel is Better

“Javier de Castille, queen’s bastard, wearing a pretender’s crown though he’s the rightful king of Aulun. Rule wisely, brother, for my blade’s yet unblooded, and I’ll not have my country ruined by your revenge.”
From The Pretender’s Crown