Adventures in the Mouse House

It appears that feminist rage-fuelled fantasy is a theme here at the moment.

This one's good, but nowhere near as good as The Once and Future Witches.

Immanuelle lives in Bethel, a shame-centered polygamous evangelical religious community (you know the drill) in a post apocalyptic (maybe) America. Her family used to have a lot of prestige but have been disgraced by the actions of her mother leading up to the time of her birth and they now live in poverty in a literal and figurative liminal placen at the edge of the village. (I'm all about the liminality so this had me hooked.)

Poverty necessitates selling off livestock, which in turn requires getting to market early, and there is a shortcut through forbidden woods which are supposedly inhabited by witches who were banished there by the first Prophet some centuries back. Immanuelle is sent on this errand, takes the shortcut and events take a predictable (to an extent) turn.

A generation-old curse is unleashed and Immanuelle learns all of Bethel's dirty secrets and fights back with the aid of Ezra, the heir to the current Prophet (of course they have a Prophet, and of course he has All THe Wives).

There's not a lot new here, but it's still pretty good, some genuinely creepy moments and a whole lot of justified feminist rage moments. My caveat is that I read this on planes and trains so wasn't always giving it the attention it deserved. At some times it seems like it's aimed at a YA audience, but I think it also assumes a lot of knowledge about shame-driven cultures that such an audience might not have.

"There's no such thing as witches. But there will be".

I can't remember how I heard about this book, so that probably means Twitter.

Set in 1893 in a parallel USA where witches used to be real but were hunted out of existence, magic is still everywhere but has no real power.

Three estranged sisters from Appalachia find themselves in New Salem and drawn together when one of them reads aloud some handwritten marginalia in an old book of nursery rhymes.

The three meet again at a women's suffrage march - one is a librarian, one a mill worker, and the youngest has just come to the city, on the run from the law. It soon becomes apparent that the cause of votes for women and fairer labour conditions are intrinsically tangled up with returning witchcraft to the world, and the recovery of the Lost Way of Avalon, with the forces of conservatism and tradition ferociously opposed to both (and some of the feminists being opposed to witchcraft, wanting to be "respectable").

I loved everything about this book. The prose is gorgeous - the characters and setting feel very real. Harrow takes annoying popular tropes around magic and turns them on their head. Bloodlines? Irrelevant. (To the disappointment of the youngest Eastwood sister, who wanted to be special). Men's vs Women's magic? A false dichotomy. Words of power are encoded in fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Queer characters (including a trans witch) abound. It's full of (intersectional) feminist rage. But most of all it's a gripping, suspenseful story where I really wanted to know what would happen next, and I really cared about the characters.

I am finding that (even more than usual) I am by turns Getting Shit Done, and having a massive freak out.

I recognised this last night and realised that it's probably pretty normal, all things considered.

Long time no post. Again.

On Sunday we got back from a week in Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest.

Vienna is great but pretty much what you expect - huge imperial buildings everywhere. Even in the business district where we stayed there were buildings with massive fuck-off art deco reliefs on the walls. Every second corner you turn around there's something huge and monumental that makes you go "holy shit".

Our first stop was the crypt where all the Hapsburgs are buried. So many goth and metal album covers were explained. I didn't bother to brush up on who is who before we went - I have a blind spot with the Austro-Hungarian empire (it's not my period, as far as I'm concerned they're all just awful and I'm really only interested in stuff at the periphery with all the now-independent countries) so everything goes in one ear and out the other. It was the most goth thing you can possibly do, though, and far too much fun.

The last thing we did in Vienna was visit the crypt under the cathedral. It's got canoptic jars containing the viscera of all the Hapsburgs, as well as an ossuary from when they had to get rid of the cemetery in the grounds. Also ridiculous amounts of fun, but no pictures are allowed (and frankly would probably not have come out anyway).

I had in my mind that Vienna is a very Baroque city, and it is, but it's also goth as fuck if you know where to look.

And yet we spent most of our time in the zoo. It was the one really warm day we had (like 16 degrees) and we only went in to see the giant pandas, but it's a really good zoo.

Vienna was great but it was pretty much what we expected, and maybe it was the bits we saw (I did not mean to spend a whole day at Schonbrunn), it seemed a bit soulless. I also ate a disappointingly small amount of baked goods.

Oops, I have work to do - Bratislava will follow later.

Still here. Getting into more of a routine with the new job and it is kicking my ass less.

As some of you will know from Facebook, the fireplace was installed yesterday. I'd got all worried that it was too big (not in a "it won't physically fit" way but in that it would look wrong). That was the anxiety speaking - it looks perfect!

Sunlight is good for me. Even though it's been too hot even for me the last couple of days, I still feel better than I have in about two years. Today has cooled off but it's also overcast and sticky, so I hope I stay feeling well. In order to avoid over-thinking and stressing over packing for the Newfoundland trip (6 days away!!!) all weekend, I have decided to go to London for the weekend to catch up with some people. This was mainly made possible by the new super off peak train fare - it's not as cheap as, say, booking the coach a month in advance, but it's faster than the coach and I can catch any train on the weekend, so I can come and go when I am ready rather than either rushing or having to hang around.

Have not done any book blogging for several months now. I could start, or I could continue to prevaricate over whether to continue doing it here or to start a "proper" blog. Guess which I've opted for?

Messed up my knee at the gym last night. Not doing the really high impact stuff (like Tuesday) or even the twisting-round stuff, but just stepping up on to the step. The class was nearly over so once I established I could weight-bear, I carried on.

Iced it when I got home, and it hurt less.

This morning it hurt like a sonofabitch. It's a long walk to the bus at both ends, but once I get walking it's fine. Stairs are less fun, but I can avoid them at work at least. Getting up from sitting & walking short distances are also pretty awful - guess what I do all day at work?

Anyway, if it still hurts tomorrow I'll make an appointment, but I really do hope it passes. I had finally got back to doing exercise something like regularly, and I'm quite heavy enough as it is, thanks.

16. Early Medieval Scotland: Individuals, Communities and Ideas b David Clarke, Alice Blackwell and Martin Goldberg

I picked this up at the National Museum of Scotland last year. Early medieval Scotland is an extremely poorly documented period; this is an account of what we currently think the archaeology is telling us. I admit to mainly buying it because it's full of gorgeous colour photos. The text is a bit dry but it brought me up to speed on a subject where there was a gap (I know a lot about most of the rest of northern Europe during this period). Definitely worth it for the photos though.

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I was going to give each book its own post this year; however, I'll never catch up that way. So here I go with quick drive-by reviews. Ask me if you want to know more.

9. Path of Gods by Snorri Kristjansson

The final volume of Snorri's Viking age trilogy. It's been fun watching Snorri develop as a writer through the series. The first book was just OK but he pulled out a really *interesting* take on the mythology surrounding the Norns at the end, so it had my attention. Plus, Vikings. The second book was better and represented a big improvement in pacing. This one pulls it all together and is very good indeed.

Snorri's next project is, allegedly, going to be Viking murder mysteries. You could say I'm eagerly awaiting it.

10. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

My first thought on finding out Neil was writing this was, "does the world really need another retelling of Norse mythology"? But I was full of plague the day it came out, and I wanted some comfort reading so I bought a copy.

The answer is, strictly speaking, no. On the other hand, it is not much of an exaggeration to say that Neil's voice was made to write the Norse myths. It's also a very lovely book (I say to justify paying full price for the dead tree version). Nothing new here, but it livened up an otherwise miserable weekend.

11. The Death House by Sarah Pinborough

This is the grimmest thing I've read in a very long time. And, you know, I'm a goth who used to read Dostoyevsky for shits & giggles, and thought A Man Lies Dreaming was a great fun black comedy. It's clearly very well written because I couldn't put it down even though I had a good idea that [redacted]. I had A LOT of thoughts about this at the time, some of which I've even remembered, but there's no way to discuss without major spoilers. Happy to discuss it over a pint though.

12. Z for Zachariah by Robert C O'Brien

The fun just kept on coming last month. This was last month's book club selection. Most of us had read it in school. For a post-apocalyptic number, it's surprisingly upbeat. I liked it but not all that much; however it was a good book club selection because we got a shitload of discussion out of it.

13. Former People: The Destruction of the Russian Aristocracy by Douglas Smith

I vaguely meant to read this when it came out, forgot, and then picked it up at the library some weeks ago. It's the story of the fate of the Russian nobility who did not escape Russia after the revolution in 1917, told through the medium of two large aristocratic families (who between then covered the full range of experience).

This book wasn't quite what I expected - it was a lot more thorough and well researched than I expected. I did the Russian history course as an undergrad so I used to know a lot of this stuff, especially about the decades leading up to the revolution but I'd forgotten most of it. I'd mainly forgotten that everyone knew a revolution of some kind was coming and that the days of the empire were numbered. For decades.

If there is a fault with this book, it's that the author is too sentimental towards the noble classes. There are complicated reasons why he is sometimes right to defend them (in the absence of a middle class they were the artists, doctors, teachers, etc). Or maybe I'm just a crusty class warrior.

I couldn't keep the cast of characters straight. But you get the general idea - every time the "former people" found a niche for themselves and a way to survive in Soviet Russia, another round of persecutions started. The distance many people traveled over the years were staggering, and not just those who were went to the gulags.

Because my brain is an asshole, the thing I've come away with is the reference to the fact that by its end, serfdom has been compared to American slavery. Most things that are compared to American slavery are just a cover for racists trying to justify it; however, this could be an exception. I made a note of the source in the footnote - something totally obscure. Must. Not. Expend. Time. and Money. Tracking. It. Down.

14. Ode to a Banker by Lindsey Davis

Falco, book 12. Falco investigates the murder of a publisher, who was also a banker. All the usual stuff, Falco taking lots of swipes at bankers and publishers. Good fun. Well, except for one of Falco's sisters possibly making an enemy of the wrong person.

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7. The Janus Cycle by Tej Turner

Also from January.  I had a lot of thoughts about this at the time, too, but they're all gone.

The author read from his work in progress, which is the sequel to this, at the January BristolCon Fringe. It was very funny so most of us came away with a copy of the first book, which is made up of a series of interlinking short stories surrounding the young people who go to the Janus Club.

It reminded me a lot of people I knew in my late teens and early 20s - all the misfits with no family, adrift, not having found their place in the world yet. Only weird supernatural shit didn't happen to us.  But the heartbreak and the shitty living conditions, that's all too real.  There are gay characters, trans characters (so like any alternative scene), so if you feel that representation matters, this is the book for you.

It's very much a first book, but I enjoyed it a lot. A good reminder that being young sucks a lot of the time.

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5. The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell

I'd not heard of this series until it was filmed by the BBC last year. I thoroughly enjoyed the adaptation and grabbed the book when the Kindle edition was cheap.

I still haven't worked out whether Cornwell is a terrible writer or he just does Uhtred's voice very well. (When your narrator is a barely-literate 9th-century warrior, it's kind of hard to tell). Either way, I found it very hard to put down. For those of you not familiar with the story, Uhtred is born into a Northumbrian noble family, his father is killed in a Viking raid and he is taken captive by a Danish family. But he is valuable to the Danes even though his uncle has taken over his lands, and the Danes like, him, so they treat him like a son. As an adult he goes to Wessex & serves Alfred the Great in the hope of one day getting his lands back. It's mostly about fighting and becoming a proper warrior - the exact sort of thing I don't usually like.

On the one hand, it's been a long time since I read something this easy and pulpy. On the other hand, a lot of serious writers get their history & culture less right than Cornwell. I hesitate to recommend it, because there really is not a lot to it, but I loved it and had to stop myself downloading the second book right away. (Must finish the Shardlake series and the Falco books before I start on another historical series).

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