Voyager

By: Diana Gabaldon
Due to a vicious sinus infection I spent the last week in bed. Subsequently I was able to blast through Voyager, the third book in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. I liked this book a great deal more than Dragonfly in Amber. There were more locations and we didn't spend too long in one place, which prevented the stall-outs I found in the previous novel. The action centers around a treasure and a kidnapping. We jump from Scotland of the '60's to Scotland of the 18th Century, America, France, and finally the 18th century West Indies, giving things a very Pirate's of the Caribbean feel.
The characters have aged 20 years in this episode and we see more action from a few minor characters from the previous books. In particular there is a huge twist at the end which I did not see coming. Thing's tied up nicely and I found this plot to be much more intricate and better structured than the previous novels. I think the idea of a historical novel is great, but it's possible that structuring your story around specific events can be limiting. For instance DIA takes us up to the Battle of Culloden. This can't really happen until the end of the novel so the expanse before is used to build the political intrigue of the Jacobite uprising. Problem is, it was not very intriguing, it felt very forced. In Voyager the plot is driven by the character's attempt to resolve conflict in a historical setting. Not to participate in history itself. And yes, there were editing problems once again. This time the work suffered from an overuse of unreferenced pronouns and a few grammatical errors.
All in all, the series is still compelling and I'm moving on to the next book Drums of Autumn. I only hope it's as good as it's predecessor.

Catundra

By: Stephen Cosgrove
Illustrated by: Robin James
While I was sorting through the small mountain of books in my mother's attic I happened upon one of my favorite children's books, Catundra. In the late 70's, a fellow named Stephen Cosgrove was shopping for a book for his three year old daughter. What he wanted was a nice story, with pictures, with a small moral attached, and a small price tag. He didn't find any, so he wrote his own. Thus was born the Serendipity Books
I had several of these books, but my favorite was always Catundra. One, it had a cat, my favorite critter. Two, the cat was a big fat orange cat, my favorite kind of cat. Three, it had a good story. The good parts version: Catundra is fat, she lives alone in the woods, the forest critters laugh at her because she is so fat, so she is miserable. One day she is so hungry, she catches a mole to eat. The mole convinces her that she should not eat him but let him become her personal trainer. With hard work and coaching from the mole, Catundra loses the weight. She and the mole live happily ever after. The End.
What's now amazing to me, at age 30, is this book comes right out and says "Poor Catundra would feel so bad after their name calling that she felt she just had to do something to forget what they had said and so she would eat more and more. Every time she ate some more she got just a little fatter, which made her feel worse and so she ate some more." Catundra is the source of her own misery. She is comfort eating. This is still something people can't wrap their heads around, and this book was written in 1978?! Maybe if more people read Catundra, we wouldn't have this obesity epidemic in America.
I took a look around the web to see what Stephen has been up to. Turns out he's re-edited all the books to correct errors and now they all take place on the mythical island of Serendipity. He's also created this amazing website called bookpop.com. It has interactive stories, printable coloring books, and audio books read by Steve himself. I think it's a brilliant way to get kids reading- Stephen Cosgrove Rocks!

Mapping the World of Harry Potter

Edited By Mercedes Lackey
"Purveyors of Aids to Literary Mischief Makers is proud to present the highly unauthorized work: Mapping the World of Harry Potter." In which, science fiction and fantasy writers expound upon the Harry Potter world with varying results including but not limited to: hilarity, amusement, incredulity, and dullness.
I enjoyed this book a great deal. First off, there is the embossed cover which has such a nice texture to it that with the sepia and gold printing you are kind of fooled into the notion that it could be parchment. The essays were all relatively short, lending itself to mealtime and waiting room reading. The quality of the essays were all very good, well researched and holding strong points of view.
I learned a few things such as the existence and format of the "Schooldays Novel." The existence of extensive fan fiction that leans towards the, ahem, adult fantasy genre. Ok, fine it's porn, there is fan fiction porn out there, on the internet with Harry Potter characters! On one hand I'm not surprised, on the other I'm a little disturbed. It's like movies with puppets or muppets having sex. I understand it's about pushing an envelope for some people, it's supposed to be a controversial thing. For me personally, it crosses a line and I just can't go there.
Anyway, onward to more decorous topics. Sarah Zettel proves that Hermione Granger, while somewhat annoying, is indeed a feminist and a fine role model for girls. Martha Wells tells us why Neville Longbottom is an epic hero in his own right. Richard Garfinkle has the most ludicrous theory on why Harry should really die and leave the defeat of Voldemort in the far more capable hands of Hermione Granger. Maybe he's just writing this tongue in cheek, but seriously? Have you not read Hero With A Thousand Faces? Do you not know the epic hero's journey? Have you been reading the same books as the rest of the free world?

Dragonfly in Amber

By Diana Gabaldon
Wow. In looking back over the book blog I haven't finished a fiction book in two months. I've been mostly spending time in the Harry Potterverse working on the Snape Theory, so I've been perusing quite a bit of non-fiction on that subject. I had planned to finish Dragonfly in Amber long before I left for Oregon, but I became busy with the Theory and ran out of time. I couldn't take the book with me due to the enormous size of the hardback copy I own. It was also unfortunate that the book began to drag in the last third. Dragonfly in Amber is the continuation of Outlander and while it is a good book it was not as exciting as it's predecessor.
The characters are still amazing, the story is moving, there were interesting plot twists. But again the editing is out of hand. My previous experience with Outlander's editing was an annoyance at obvious grammatical errors. This time there was rambling and unnecessary action. I'm all for descriptive color. One of my favorite authors is John Irving who can ramble on about detail with the best of them. In the case of Diana Gabaldon I find some of it wasteful.
Perhaps my problem is too much Harry Potter and Lost. Both of these creations have so much depth and texture but all of it is carefully constructed and all of it has some deeper meaning. Maybe I'm being too hasty, after all there are at least four more books in the series and more to come that are not published. I think I'm putting this series in the Robert Jordan George R.R. Martin, and Jean M. Auel category of excellent writer, excellent story, amazing scope, however not quite brilliant-and in need of a better editor.
It is still compelling enough a series to move on to the next book Voyager. However the Acknowledgments are disconcerting.... "To...Jackie Cantor, as always, for being the rare and marvelous sort of editor who thinks it's all right for a book to be long as long as it's good..." Hmm, we'll see about that.