Magician's Gambit / David Eddings

3.5 stars out of 5

Ce'Nedra, Imperial Princess of Tolnedra, was confused.

Everyone knew that the tales of the Orb that protected the West from the evil God Torak were just silly legends. But here she was, forced to join a serious and dangerous quest to recover that stolen Orb. No one believed in sorcery. Yet Garion's aunt and grandfather seemed to be the fabled sorcerers Polgara and Belgarath, who would have to be thousands of years old. Even young Garion was learning to do things that could only be sorcery.

Garion! He was nothing but a farm boy, totally unsuitable for an Imperial Princess. Then why did she have such an urge to teach him, to brush his tangled hair, and to comfort him?

Now he was going to a strange tower in the centre of all he believed evil, to face some horrible, powerful magician. And she wouldn't be there to watch over him. He might be killed! She'd never see him again...

The pace has picked up from the first two books and things are moving along quite well. Belgarath and Polgara have actually started to give Garion some information (which would have been more useful to him earlier, truth be told). But, better late than never, and his sorcerer training has finally begun.

One writing tic that Eddings displays—Belgarath scratches his beard about every second page! The poor old sorcerer either has anxiety issues or fleas! I’m amazed that no editor caught that irritating repetition.

While trying not to give away the ending, I was disappointed that a feared opponent (whom Belgarath has been working against for centuries) was defeated when he made a beginner-type mistake. Evil bad guys usually don’t just eliminate themselves. That was a bit anti-climactic.

Also, Princess Ce’Nedra seems to have been abandoned and I will have to wait for the next book to get a clue about how she is doing. I thought a little check-in with her would have helped to maintain the continuity of the series. However, I know that she is not abandoned permanently, as Eddings has very obviously telegraphed her role as future love-interest for Garion.

Love the religious fanatic who is actually confronted by his god and told in no uncertain terms to quit judging others and get on with making himself a better person. Eddings takes some pointed jabs at fanaticism which endears him to me. I will be interested in seeing where that particular story line goes!

Onwards! I hope to read the fourth book at some point this summer!

This is book number 176 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy reading project.

The Tastemakers / David Sax

4 out of 5 stars

Tastemaker, n. Anyone with the power to make you eat quinoa.

Kale. Spicy sriracha sauce. Honeycrisp apples. Cupcakes. These days, it seems we are constantly discovering a new food that will make us healthier, happier, or even somehow cooler. Chia seeds, after a brief life as a novelty houseplant and I Love the ’80s punchline, are suddenly a superfood. Not long ago, that same distinction was held by pomegranate seeds, açai berries, and the fermented drink known as kombucha. So what happened? Did these foods suddenly cease to be healthy a few years ago? And by the way, what exactly is a “superfood” again?

In this eye-opening, witty work of reportage, David Sax uncovers the world of food trends: Where they come from, how they grow, and where they end up. Traveling from the South Carolina rice plot of America’s premier grain guru to Chicago’s gluttonous Baconfest, Sax reveals a world of influence, money, and activism that helps decide what goes on your plate. On his journey, he meets entrepreneurs, chefs, and even data analysts who have made food trends a mission and a business. The Tastemakers is full of entertaining stories and surprising truths about what we eat, how we eat it, and why.

I found this an interesting book—in the same ways that Michael Pollan’s food books are endlessly fascinating to me. Sax is also trying to figure out how the world of food works, but he is looking at it from more of the marketing point of view. He still talks to a LOT of influential folks and attends a LOT of events.

Significantly (to me at least), he debunks the whole notion of a “superfood,” a notion which has always bugged me. Who decided that pomegranates are a superfood? Why a pomegranate producer, of course! Sponsor a rather anemic study and then get out there and proselytize, baby! It makes me grumpy despite the fact that I love the fruit and have never been known to turn down a pomegranate martini. Eat your veggies and fruits, people! They all have valuable nutrients and anyone who is trying to tell you that you should skew your consumption towards one plant is trying to make money from you.

On the encouraging side of the equation, it seems to be a very hit-or-miss proposition as to whether a carefully planned campaign will actually achieve full blown trend status. As much as Indian cuisine has been attempting to become trendy for decades now, it keeps misfiring (at least in the US). I found that mystifying, as when I go out with friends we more often than not choose an Indian restaurant and curry is one of my absolute favourite things. Seriously, I have 2 friends who hate it and I have a hard time cooking for them when they come to my house—I use a lot of curry!

Another positive revelation: although the food establishment may try to declare a trend over, the people of the world do not necessarily listen to them! Hence the enduring appeal of cupcakes and bacon! The chapter on Baconomics contains amazing stories of the strength of the love of cured pork bellies.

Basically, food suppliers are attempting to imitate the fashion industry, with “what’s in and what’s out” each year. Perhaps this works in the world of clothing, but consumers feel very strongly about the food that they take into their bodies and they are not going to stop loving cupcakes just because a few food bloggers are tired of them!

Just for the record: I love bacon and pomegranates, I tolerate quinoa, and I absolutely loathe kale (and can hardly wait until it’s in the “what’s out” category). I am agnostic on the matter of cupcakes.

Normal / Graeme Cameron

3.5 stars out of 5

He lives in your community, in a nice house with a well-tended garden. He shops in your grocery store, bumping shoulders with you and apologizing with a smile. He drives beside you on the highway, politely waving you into the lane ahead of him.

What you don't know is that he has an elaborate cage built into a secret basement under his garage. And the food that he's carefully shopping for is to feed a young woman he's holding there against her will—one in a string of many, unaware of the fate that awaits her.

This is how it's been for a long time. It's normal... and it works. Perfectly.

Then he meets the checkout girl from the 24-hour grocery. And now the plan, the hunts, the room... the others. He doesn't need any of them anymore. He needs only her. But just as he decides to go straight, the police start to close in. He might be able to cover his tracks, except for one small problem—he still has someone trapped in his garage.

Discovering his humanity couldn't have come at a worse time.

The success of the Dexter novels and TV show has obviously started a bit of a trend. I’m thinking of Dan Wells’ novel I Am Not a Serial Killer, a story of a young man struggling with his urges, and now Normal, which features a killer as the main character, with limited success at making him a sympathetic character.

If you are squeamish, stay far away from this novel. Its first pages include a dismemberment and the whole thing includes multiple murders. The twist is that our main character (who never is given a name that I can recall) finally discovers a woman who makes him wish he was normal. Fortunately or unfortunately, the police are closing in and he still has a “guest” in his underground bunker. The tension of the book derives from his juggling of various half-finished crimes, police investigations, and a couple of new “relationships.”

It is an entertaining, quick read if you don’t take it too seriously. In my opinion, women (even those who have been severely abused) simply would not act that way that Erica does and that Rachel (the potential love interest) would never be as unaware and half-accepting as she is portrayed (the vast majority of women aren’t so desperate for a relationship that they are willing to overlook a habit of kidnapping & murder in their potential partners). Nor would a predator of the main character’s caliber be as easily manipulated by one of his prisoners.

If you are willing to overlook these deviations from true human behaviour and you have a strong stomach, you may find this novel worthy of a few hours of your time.

Mindkiller / Spider Robinson

2.5 stars out of 5

Wireheads, addicted to an electric current fed into the pleasure centers of the brain, are the new junkies. Karen, a former wirehead who barely escaped death by pleasure, is determined to bring down those who sell the wireheading equipment, but she and her lover Joe instead turn up evidence of a shadowy global conspiracy-not to control the world, but to keep anyone from realizing that the masters of mind control have been controlling us all for some time now . . . .

It’s very difficult to give this novel a star rating—some of it is very good, some of it is very predictable, some of it is not so good.

First the good: The plot is tight and interesting up until the last couple of chapters, where things get a bit loose and baggy, with a bunch of completely unbelievable coincidences. There are two plot lines that keep the reader’s brain actively trying to figure out how they relate to each other for the majority of the novel. Plus, I appreciated that substantial parts of it were set my home country of Canada.

The predictable: Well, of course there is a conspiracy to run the world.

The not-so-good: The characters are pretty cardboard—Robinson seems to think that giving them sexual partners and having them take various drugs contributes to character development. The women are particularly poorly written, depicted more as pseudo-men than as women. Men and women really do have differences in psychology (vive la difference!) and this book does not really acknowledge this situation.

I understand that this is the first in a trilogy, so the (for me) unsatisfactory ending is obviously not the last word, but I am completely unmotivated to seek out the second book. I just don’t care what happens to these people. The book also suffers from unintended problems of time—it is set in the 1990s, published in the early 1980s, and although Robinson got many things right, there are many details that are jarring to a modern audience. Not his fault, even Arthur C. Clarke’s masterful 2001 suffered from these (after all, we still don’t have a moon base and travel to Jupiter/Saturn is still only a dream in 2015).

Overall, I really wonder how this book was included in the NPR’s list of best science fiction and fantasy. It is very average—I am giving it the absolutely average rating of 2.5 stars. It was good enough to finish but not good enough to continue the series.

This is book 175 in my science fiction & fantasy reading project.

Magician : Apprentice / Raymond E. Feist

3.5 out of 5 stars

To the forest on the shore of the Kingdom of the Isles, the orphan Pug came to study with the master magician Kulgan. But though his courage won him a place at court and the heart of a lovely Princess, he was ill at ease with the normal ways of wizardry.

Yet Pug's strange sort of magic would one day change forever the fates of two worlds. For dark beings from another world had opened a rift in the fabric of spacetime to being again the age-old battle between the forces of Order and Chaos.

It is interesting to be reading the Belgariad by David Eddings and the Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist at the same time. Published very close together in time, they have some striking similarities and I can see why they were very popular in their day. Both feature boys becoming men and also becoming sorcerers/magicians.

For me, the Riftwar Saga is much more engaging of the two. I like Feist’s writing better and I find that the plot moves along at a slightly swifter pace than the rather glacial Belgariad. Feist also introduces a very interesting plot device—a rift in time/space that allows another culture to invade. I am used to this device’s use in science fiction and in a technological environment, but I found its use in a rather medieval fantasy setting to be interesting. I believe it was Arthur C. Clarke who said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so it is appropriate that it is apparently magicians who have control of this rift in spacetime. (The rather unbelievable part of the plot is that both civilizations on both sides of the rift have virtually identical technologies otherwise).

Pluses: fast moving plot, innovative way to introduce enemies, interesting magical system.

Minuses: not much for female characters to do (and they are depicted as moody & changeable, very stereotypical), can’t stand the name Pug for the main character.

I wonder why we, as fantasy fans, are so enamoured of medieval-type settings? What is it about swords and horses that we prefer to ray guns and spaceships? Why do we romanticize that very difficult way of life? Mind you, I know that many or most science fiction & fantasy fans love both, but I wonder why there are so many of these fantasy worlds with medieval technology in print.

Also noticeable: reflections of LOTR’s Galadriel and Lothlorien. A settlement in the tree canopy is frequent in these epics (see Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant as well as Feist).

Now, my main problem is finding book 2, Magician: Master, which is not to be found in either library that I have access to. Interlibrary loan, here I come!

Wolf Winter / Cecilia Ekbäck

4 out of 5 stars

Swedish Lapland, 1717. Maija, her husband Paavo and her daughters Frederika and Dorotea arrive from their native Finland, hoping to forget the traumas of their past and put down new roots in this harsh but beautiful land. Above them looms Blackåsen, a mountain whose foreboding presence looms over the valley and whose dark history seems to haunt the lives of those who live in its shadow.

While herding the family’s goats on the mountain, Frederika happens upon the mutilated body of one of their neighbors, Eriksson. The death is dismissed as a wolf attack, but Maija feels certain that the wounds could only have been inflicted by another man. Compelled to investigate despite her neighbors’ strange disinterest in the death and the fate of Eriksson’s widow, Maija is drawn into the dark history of tragedies and betrayals that have taken place on Blackåsen. Young Frederika finds herself pulled towards the mountain as well, feeling something none of the adults around her seem to notice.

As the seasons change, and the “wolf winter,” the harshest winter in memory, descends upon the settlers, Paavo travels to find work, and Maija finds herself struggling for her family’s survival in this land of winter-long darkness. As the snow gathers, the settlers’ secrets are increasingly laid bare. Scarce resources and the never-ending darkness force them to come together, but Maija, not knowing who to trust and who may betray her, is determined to find the answers for herself. Soon, Maija discovers the true cost of survival under the mountain, and what it will take to make it to spring.

This book came to my attention when I heard the author interviewed on local radio—she is Scandinavian, but she now lives in Calgary with her family. What I heard in the interview intrigued me and I waited quite a long time to receive the book from our public library. Wolf Winter is basically a medieval murder mystery set in 16th century Sweden.

Should you read this book? Well, if you like historical fiction, murder mysteries, and Scandinavian fiction, all with a touch of the supernatural, this will be your book. The author is extremely good at producing an aura of creeping dread (to go with the usual rather bleak and somewhat gloomy haze that permeates most of Scandinavian fiction). The reader is left to decide for themselves whether the supernatural elements really happen or if the circumstances are all the result of damaged people (somewhat reminiscent of The Turn of the Screw, I felt).

None of the characters is overwhelmingly good—they all have their own baggage and problems that they are dealing with, some more complicated than others. Correspondingly, no one is absolutely evil, although a couple of characters move closer to that line than most do.

Not a book for everyone (what book is?), but very enjoyable for me.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde / Robert Louis Stevenson

4 out of 5 stars

Published as a 'shilling shocker', Robert Louis Stevenson's dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with 'damnable young man' Edward Hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde's true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil.

I wonder if this story had any influence on Carl Jung’s shadow theory—that we each have a shadow self to embody our negative traits, as Henry Jekyll quite literally does with his alter-ego, Edward Hyde.

Stevenson had surely studied Descartes’ philosophy. René Descartes (and his theory of mind/body duality) has an awful lot to answer for. Our whole Western world view tends towards dividing the world into two camps: us & them, man & nature, church & state, those for us & those against us. And life is so much more complex than that! We know from studies of dementia & Alzheimer’s disease that physical exercise is protective for the brain, an organ which we tend to think of as somehow separate from the rest of our physical body because it is perceived as the home of the mind. But it is a body organ nonetheless and requires the same physical care as the rest of the physical self, to my mind invalidating the mind/body separation.

Jekyll takes this dichotomy to an extreme, becoming two separate people sharing one body. And because life is more complicated than an either/or choice, Jekyll soon loses control of the process, awakening to find that he has degenerated in Hyde without the assistance of the initial potion. Like any drug taker, he soon finds that he requires increased doses to achieve the same end.

Surprising how much is packed into this slim little volume, published as a “shilling shocker.”

Queen of Sorcery / David Eddings

3 out of 5 stars

The master Sorcerer Belgarath and his daughter Polgara the arch-Sorceress were on the trail of the Orb, seeking to regain its saving power before the final disaster prophesized by the legends. And with them went Garion, a simple farm boy only months before, but now the focus of the struggle. He had never believed in sorcery and wanted no part of it. Yet with every league they traveled, the power grew in him, forcing him to acts of wizardry he could not accept.

The second installment of the Belgariad—and although this world certainly has some commonalities with Tolkien’s Middle Earth, there are many distinctions as well. Yes, there is a company of travellers on a quest for a powerful jewel, but they are not nearly as noble as LOTR characters. Can you imagine Gandalf getting drunk and having a hangover on the morning of an early departure? Belgarath does. How about producing sweets to attract Dryads to him and stating that Dryads will do almost anything for a candy? (Leaving us to guess what he may have coerced them into doing). Gandalf may have withheld information from Bilbo and Frodo, but he eventually fills them in on essential information that will keep them safe(r). Garion gets almost no information from Belgarath or Polgara, he tries to fill in the gaps on his own, and then gets chastised for it. Not very logical, really.

Another Tolkien echo is Bard, the warrior, who tends to become a huge bear when he is in the thick of battle—this reminded me strongly of Beorn, the bear man, in The Hobbit. But the key thing for me is that Eddings manages to give these ideas his own twist—he may take inspiration from Tolkien, but he doesn’t just copy him wholesale. Plus, he has many more female characters with much more substantial roles.

Having said that, the genders are still treated in a stereotypical fashion—Polgara is rigid, rather puritanical, and very controlling, while Belgarath is looser, both in discipline and morals, and much more improvisational. Women are expected to control themselves and are somehow responsible for restraining the men’s sexuality, implying that men are unable or unwilling to control themselves. This is a much more sexual world than previous high fantasy epics (pre 1980s). To me, there was also an echo of Mary Stewart’s King Arthur series in the sheltering of Garion from sexual experience, which an implication that it would “complicate” his study of sorcery (just as Merlin was required to remain chaste in order to practice his magic).

Considering the number of pages in each volume, the plot doesn’t advance very quickly. Eddings was obviously focussed on income and more volumes equalled more money. I find that I can’t blame him for wanting to make a living, but I’m wishing that things moved along with a little more vigour. At least, up until this point, there has been no poetry and no singing.

Book number 173 in my science fiction & fantasy reading project.

Stone Mattress / Margaret Atwood

4 out of 5 stars

In these nine dazzlingly inventive and rewarding stories, Margaret Atwood's signature dark humour, playfulness, and deadly seriousness are in abundance. In "Freeze-Dried Bridegroom," a man who bids on a storage locker has a surprise. In "Lusus Naturae," a woman with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. In "I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth," we remeet Tony, Charis, and Roz from The Robber Bride, but, years later, as their nemesis is seen in an unexpected form. In "Torching the Dusties," an elderly lady with Charles Bonnet's syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. In "Stone Mattress," a long-ago crime is revenged in the Arctic. This is classic Margaret Atwood, and she is at the very top of her form.

I hesitate to think about how many decades it has been since I read anything by Margaret Atwood—perhaps since the early 1990s? Reading this book of short stories reminded me of how much I appreciate her outlook on the world (and this from someone who isn’t really a big fan of short stories).

I particularly enjoyed the first three stories, which were inter-related and which provided a look into the poetry scene of the 1960s, something that Atwood knew from the inside. There seemed to be a lot of looking back at the past in all of the stories in the volume—not exactly in a nostalgic way, but in a clear-eyed sort of way.

I was particularly fond of the story which provided the title to the volume, having a bit of a soft spot for stromatolites. One summer I volunteered as an educator at a local paleontology museum. The paid staff, of course, grabbed the positions with the sexier dinosaur fossils, leaving the volunteers such treasures as a stuffed Gar fish, a petrified ray of some kind, and the trusty stromatolite. I researched all three and made them as interesting as I could (partially, I must admit, to avoid the puzzles & games that were also on offer and which bored me to death). I felt I had done my job when my supervisor would stop by to pick up educational tips on my subjects.

I have also been on educational cruises like the one Atwood describes in this story (and which she was on when she began to spin this tale) and have thoroughly enjoyed myself—although I never plotted murder. She also seems to enjoy the murder mystery narrative that entertains me.

I must remedy my lack of Atwood in my reading life—how talented she is to be able to write novels, short stories and poetry and do it all well.  

And the Birds Rained Down / Jocelyne Saucier

4 out of 5 stars

Tom and Charlie have decided to live out the remainder of their lives on their own terms, hidden away in a remote forest, their only connection to the outside world a couple of pot growers who deliver whatever they can’t eke out for themselves.

But one summer two women arrive. One is a young photographer documenting a a series of catastrophic forest fires that swept Northern Ontario early in the century; she’s on the trail of the recently deceased Ted Boychuck, a survivor of the blaze. And then the elderly aunt of the one of the pot growers appears, fleeing one of the psychiatric institutions that have been her home since she was sixteen. She joins the men in the woods and begins a new life as Marie-Desneige. With the photographer’s help, they find Ted’s series of paintings about the fire, and begin to decipher the dead man’s history.

Who among us hasn’t fantasized from time to time about escaping the rat-race and hiding away in the wilderness? This was a beautifully written tale of three older men who had done just that, supported by two younger guys who are growing marijuana out in that same wilderness. It is also about the disruption that occurs when two women enter the picture, one of them the elderly aunt of one of the pot-growers, the other a photographer searching for people who survived an enormous historic forest fire. The elderly aunt has spent the vast majority of her life in an institution for the mentally ill, and her nephew, knowing that there is freedom available out in the woods, spins a tale for the authorities and drives her out into the forest.

For me, this book was an exploration of dependence versus independence, our human need for companionship, and the desire to choose life on one’s own terms. Several of my own elderly friends have told me how invisible they feel as they grow older. “Younger people stop seeing you at some point and it’s hard to get service in stores or get answers to questions,” one of them told me. In North America we have adopted a very youth focused culture and we no longer honour our elderly citizens, choosing instead to warehouse them in seniors’ centres and hospitals. It is such as shame, as my older friends have so much experience to draw on and wisdom to impart. It has been a painful experience to see them declining, losing their independence and their memories, finding it more difficult to visit with them as the months progress.

The nature of art is explored through the paintings of Ted, the recently deceased member of the original three men, as well as through the work of the photographer (whose name we never learn). It is during one of the photographer’s interviews with a survivor of the great fire that we hear the phrase that gives this novel its poetic title. The translator did a superb job—it did not feel like a translation at all.

Pawn of Prophecy / David Eddings

3 out of 5 stars

Long ago, the Storyteller claimed, in this first book of THE BELGARIAD, the evil god Torak drove men and Gods to war. But Belgarath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected men of the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe.

But Garion did not believe in such stories. Brought up on a quiet farm by his Aunt Pol, how could he know that the Apostate planned to wake dread Torak, or that he would be led on a quest of unparalleled magic and danger by those he loved--but did not know...?


PoP is truly a lovely amalgam of Tolkien and T.H. White. When I read about the Orb of Aldur, I couldn’t help but think about Tolkien and the Silmarils of Fëanor, stolen by Melkor, and burning his hands. It parallels Torak’s theft of the Orb and it’s destruction of the left side of his body.

Reputedly, Eddings was inspired to write fantasy when he saw a copy of LOTR on sale and learned that it was on its 78th printing—he went home and started to renovate a previously drawn doodle of a map into a fantasy tale that lasted a great many volumes!

But there is also very much a Sword-in-the-Stone vibe about this book, as Garion, our farm boy main character, dangles along with Mr. Wolf and Aunt Pol. He has very little information about his parents, his background, or what will be required of him and they are in no hurry to enlighten him. Very reminiscent of T.H. White’s young Wart who has no idea that he is Arthur, the King’s son.

The writing is adequate—not bad as a first stab at high fantasy. I’m hoping that will improve as the series progresses. Since I am a fan of both Tolkien and White, I’m finding the tale enjoyable, even if the plot points are a bit obvious.

The King Must Die / Mary Renault

4 out of 5 stars

Theseus, the boy-king of Eleuisis, is ritually preordained to die after one year of marriage to the sacred Queen, but he defies the Gods' decree and claims his inheritance - the throne of Athens. His friends are the young men and maidens, slaves of the Gods, chosen for death in the Bull Dance. His fabled enemy is the monstrous, half-man, half-bull, Minotaur, devourer of sacrificial human flesh. In her classic re-creation of a myth so powerful that its impact has survived down the centuries, Mary Renault has brought to life the world of ancient Greece. For here is the true Atlantis legend, with its culmination in the terrible, fateful destruction of the great Labyrinth, the palace of the house of Minos.

I found myself rooting about in my memory, struggling to recall the Greek mythology that I studied as an undergraduate student, as I evaluated this lovely historical fantasy. My memory is rather hazy, but I think that Renault did a remarkably lovely job of formulating the myth into a plausible tale.

I had to love Theseus’ young-man enthusiasm, his gung-ho attitude, and his willingness to plunge into whatever the Gods presented to him and attempt to succeed at it, whether it is wrestling, chasing bandits, governing, or acrobatics. Oh, to have that youthful energy later in life!

I also appreciated that although Poseidon speaks to Theseus, that he doesn’t literally appear and conduct a conversation with the young man. We just take Theseus’ word about what he is experiencing when he receives communication from the deity—it remains his personal experience, not requiring the reader to join him in his faith.

In addition, I found Renault’s version of the shift from matriarchal to patriarchal society in the ancient world to be believable.

I can see where I will be revisiting some of the classical tales in the near future, to restore my memories and prepare to read more of Renault’s charming fiction.

It was Jo Walton's excellent book, Among Others that inspired me to pick up this novel and I am very glad that I did.