Book Post: Clarke, Vernon, Baum and Penman
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, 206pp [Hugo book]
A Hugo winning book from 1973. I read some Clarke before but not a lot of it. I do like him as a writer and I did enjoy this book, but I could not keep track of the characters on the Rama Council - they all seemed the same to me. There were, of course, barely any women in the story - and the doctor, who was kind of cool, ended up having an affair with the captain in the end for no reason at all, so that earned the side eye. I did like the scenes that took place on Rama, an alien ship that appeared in the solar system and that the ship had a limited time to explore. The atmosphere on the ship was appropriately weird since the crew didn't know what to expect or what they were looking at and neither did we. There is some excitement as various human factions decide what to do with this alien ship and try to figure out its intentions but mostly it is a novel about exploring. A very systematic and professional crew that didn't get a lot of personality.
It was also a hard science sci-fi, since the whole docking and exploration and various gravity, was scientifically plausible and described. This novel is known for its realism and it certainly felt like it. I certainly agree. It wasn't all exciting in places but it was a good book overall and I certainly see why it won the Hugo.
Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs by Ursula Vernon, 206pp [Dragonbreath 2].
I was reading it along with Tanya, since she occasionally needs help with some long/hard words, and this was a nice sequel to the first book. In this story Danny is obsessed with ninjas so he is thrilled when he and Wendell learn that their classmate Suki, who is an exchange student from Japan, is being attacked by some ninjas. The three of them take a trip to Mythical Japan (by bus) to get some answers from Danny's Japanese great-grandfather dragon, and get into a pickle. There is a volcano, and a heron and general silliness and we learn a bunch of things about ninjas and samurai. This book was pretty funny, I really enjoy the humor. I liked Wendell's crush on Suki and Danny rolling his eyes at that. And Suki's utter puzzlement at the bus route that led to mythical Japan.
In the last two weeks, Tanya was reading the 2nd Ramona book, which she finished on Sunday, so today we will start on the 3rd Dragonbreath book. I'm looking forward to it. We have 6 out of 11 of those at home, and Tanya seems to really like them and find funny bits in them. Yay in finding her things to read.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, 159pp. [slightly abridged]
My Dad gave this to Tanya last year, and I was reading it to her at night, after she read her own book. She has seen the movie so she liked getting to familiar references. This was my first time reading the proper Baum original version, although I was a bit upset to discover that this book, with beautiful illustration, was an abridged one. Still this is a close as I came to reading the original. I grew up with the Russian Volkov "translation" "Wizard of the Emerald City", which kept some elements and also invented many new ones. And I really loved the five Volkov sequels, which was something he made up and did not really relate to the Baum universe. That was my universe though and I absolutely adored it. I loved Urfin Jus, and especially the one with underground kingdom and Ellie's (Dorothy's) adventures there. I liked the books with her sister.
When I was a child I read one of the Baum sequels, the one where the boy turns out be a girl, who was enchanted, which was very bewildering to me as a kid. I don't even remember the rest of the plot but that stuck with me. And as an adult I read "Wicked", which was ok (Bear really liked it and I gave him the whole series for his birthday at some point. And I eventually watched the classic movie as well.
I liked the original book. I was already very familiar with a lot of details but some caught me by surprise. I didn't remember the mice rescuing them from the poppy fields at all. And because of the movie, I completely missed that the Good Witch of the North, that appears to Dorothy in the beginning was not Glinda at all until almost at the very end, which threw me a bit. Anyway, I'm glad I read this book as it is a classic although I do wish I had a full unabridged version.
The Land Beyond the Sea by Sharon Kay Penman, 658pp [280 pages in 2021]
This was Sharon Penman's last book. I now read all ten of her historical novel - I stumbled on "While Christ and his Saints Slept" (about Stephen's reign and anarchy) in the library when I was 15. It was this really, really thick book with a shiny gold cover in the new book section and I just randomly picked it up. I think it took me three weeks to read it. Then I came across "Falls the Shadow" (about Simon de Montford) when I was 18, when I got a free copy at the college book fair. I now own all of her ten historical novels in paperback. These books and Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy is what influenced me to study medieval England. And her books actually helped me understand some possible motivations of historical figures, like Thomas Becket, when I was already in grad school, studying medieval English history. I just love how she researched and how honest she was in her Author's Notes about what she made up and how she changed her mind later. She knew how to write her characters and how to add details of medieval life. And some of her scenes just stay with you.
"The Land Beyond the Sea" is the only book that is not about the English monarchy. It is the book about the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the end of the 12th century, the reign of Baldwin IV, the leper king and the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin after Baldwin's death. Penman got fascinated by this place and time where she was writing about Richard I and his time during the Crusades. I'm familiar enough with this history of Outermere (I mean I took a Pilgrimage and Crusade seminar in college, wrote a paper on Melisandre and later I taught the Crusades to students), but I did not know the deep details so that part was interesting to me. Unfortunately I think this was her weakest book. Not the story per se, but the writing seemed more stilted. You can see when she was cramming random historical information about culture and society in and some sentences were awkward. She still did great in many scenes and made battles vivid and other motivations, but I didn't find it as engaging as a lot of her other books. I really enjoyed the "King's Ransom", her previous book where Richard I got captured on the way back from the crusades, so maybe this was just the subject matter of this book. Or less familiar characters. It just wasn't the best. Maybe that is why I read 280 pages last year (out of 658) and sort of stopped. I made myself finish it this year. And it did pick up. It wasn't a bad book at all, but I read better ones. I'm really sad though that there won't be anymore. She was one of my favorite authors and certainly one who changed the course of my life.