Canto Volumes 1-5

Canto: If I Only Had a Heart by David M. Booher with art by Drew Zucker (2020) 152 pages 

This series is clearly inspired by The Wizard of Oz, which is why I picked it up. The artist is also bringing the style of Jim Henson's Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal to the visuals, which I honestly find a bit ugly. But hey, it's dark fantasy with a bit of steampunk. The writer has also borrowed some ingredients from Dante's levels in The Divine Comedy. There is a Tin Man, a lion-like creature, and an elfish Dorothy with a small pet dragon. There is an alternative Wizard conjuring fantastic, frightening, but false, sights. There is a quest on a yellow brick road to an emerald tower. There is the story of a traditional hero's journey that ironically leads to the villainous overlord in the tower. There is tons of action centered around our tiny hero Canto. The action and close-up detail frames are not as crisp and clear as I would like. Overall, I'm liking the writing, but not entirely loving the art.

Canto: The Hollow Men by Booher with art by Zucker (2021) 168 pages

I liked the introduction of a half mechanical witch that reminded me slightly of Mombi from Oz. I liked a little more character development for three of Canto's tin knight friends. Scarecrows appear and bat things stand in for winged monkeys, but they feel extraneous. The fight with the furies is exciting. Again the dark fantasy story and themes are enjoyable, while the art is of mixed quality.

Canto: Tales of the Unnamed World by Booher with art by various artists (2024) 128 pages

I liked this volume more overall. The giants are not my favorite characters from the first two volumes, but the first three issues of this book spin a fun quest in the giants' city of Brob. I like that the new artist brings more light to his panels. The second half of this book involves a storytelling challenge. I like the other artists who get to contribute their different styles. The Bard character who is blocking the bridge is a wonderful mix of the Patchwork Girl from Oz, the Cheshire Cat from Wonderland, and Anansi from West African folklore.

Canto: Lionhearted by Booher with art by Zucker (2024) 152 pages

This leads up to many double page battle scenes. I still think the art isn't as clear as it could be with so many tangled bodies and limbs making the action confusing. This book leans more into Dante's Divine Comedy and that is not as exciting for me. We do get a little backstory on a couple supporting characters.

Canto: A Place Like Home by Booher with art by Zucker (2025) 160 pages 

Nice wrap up of Canto's themes, loss and hope. Here's an inspirational quote from one page, "For our days that have passed! For our friends who are gone! For the hearts we possess! Our life is our own." The Shrouded Man is a threat right out of Dante's Inferno. Aulaura the elf's home life brings good emotional beats to the story, but was introduced a bit too late. Several battle scenes still have the same art issues that I explained in previous volumes.

The Everlasting

 The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, 320 pages.

Owen Mallory has been obsessed with Sir Una Everlasting, hero of Dominion and part of the nation's foundational legends, since he was a child. It was her face that sent him to war, and her story that drove him to study history. But when he is sent through time to preserve Dominion's history, he learns that the woman is not so simple as the legend. Una is a broken woman; her decades at war have left her scarred inside and out, and she wants nothing more than to abandon the story she is trapped in. Instead they must live out the end of her life: her final quest, a great betrayal, her noble death, again and again. Finding a different ending means breaking her myth, so they both have to decide what is more important: the woman or what she represents.

I liked this book so much it's hard to talk coherently about it. This book is doing so much at once, and it's doing it with balance, grace, and beautiful prose. This is partially a love story about knowing someone on a bone-deep level built through an uncountable amount of time. It's also a tragedy. It's also a scathing critique about how fascism needs to rewrite history to justify its own existence. I cried at the end and haven't stopped thinking of them since. I do believe this is my best book of the year. 

The Fireborne Blade

 The Fireborne Blade by Charlotte Bond, 176 pages.

Maddileh, Knight of the Stairs, has been cast out of the king's favor and the knighthood unless she can do something truly impressive to win back her place. So she decides to pursue the legendary Fireborne Blade in the lair of an equally legendary dragon. Only dragon's lairs are full of strange magic, and things may not be what they seem. 

This novella is told alternating between Maddileh's story, both in the past and the present, and in primary source documents about other dragonslayers. This book felt like everything I would love, but somehow it didn't come together for me. Despite being less than 200 pages long, it felt like it dragged, and while it felt like there were a whole lot of elements that felt like they could be really interesting if they were further explored, overall I couldn't point to anything that I found particularly compelling. I'm afraid I have to mark this one down as a disappointment.

Timeline

Timeline by Michael Crichton (1999) 496 pages

Hammy recently reviewed this book as well.

The title refers to the time travel story going back to the 1300s in France near the time of the Hundred Years' War, but also to what could be called chapter headings. Something this book does well is build tension through the countdown that provides something like chapter breaks. The scientists who have traveled back in time have a device that they can activate to bring them back to the present when they've retrieved the Professor, who went back a few days before. But you know the mission will not be easy or quick! They will need the full time granted until the time travel machine automatically pulls them back. Marek and the Professor adjust pretty well to life in Medieval times with their knowledge and skills. Chris and Kate, despite some historical knowledge, stumble through the adventure. One scientist from the French archeology site stays in the present at the tech company facility of ITC. The CEO of ITC is a brash, ambitious guy who doesn't seem to care what sacrifices others make to advance his company. Turns out the technological problems in the present are as dangerous as the life-threatening challenges in the past.

Thornhedge

 Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher, 116 pages.

Kara wrote about this wonderful Sleeping Beauty retelling here a few months ago, and I entirely agree with everything she had to say. I find myself especially infatuated with the characters. Toadling is not much of a fairytale hero (like at all), but she is extremely compelling, as is the knight who drives the story. 

This is an incredibly gentle little novella, and reading it feels very cozy. Unsurprisingly, it reminds me quite a bit of Kingfisher's Nettle and Bone, which was an Orcs & Aliens selection recently. The books feel like they could exist in the same world, although this one has more of a character focus than a plot focus. I would also recommend it for fans of Alix E. Harrow's A Spindle Splintered, which has the same formula of a fairytale with a very different configuration combined with a lot of introspection. Overall, a really phenomenal novella.

The Story of Silence

The Story of Silence by Alex Myers, 451 pages

Between a ridiculous law decreeing that only male children can inherit and a greedy father who can't stand to see his precarious claim to Cornwall disappear, Silence is raised as a boy despite being born female. For the most part, he grows up far from prying eyes, but still longing to become a knight and uphold the chivalrous ideals of knighthood. However, despite his father's attempt to block his knighthood, Silence takes a roundabout path that includes time as a traveling minstrel, participation in tournaments (as both a singer and a swordsman), and a quest to find Merlin.

While this reads very much like a traditional Arthurian tale, the Nature vs. Nurture element plays a large role in Silence's story as they sort out who they are. It's a particularly intriguing take, in that the dual nature of Silence is forced by their parents — and given that the story itself is rooted in an 800-year-old poem called Silence, I was particularly intrigued by this. I enjoyed what Myers did with the story, though I have a few questions about the ending. If anyone else reads this, please let me know so we can chat!

The Buried Giant / Kazuo Ishiguro 317 pages

From the author of Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day, among others.  Axl and Beatrice are an affectionate couple in (I guess) late middle age in post-Arthurian England.  The vicious wars between the Saxons and the Britons have ceased and the land is peaceful, save for the occasional ogre, pixie, and dragon.  But the people of Axl and Beatrice's Briton village are afflicted by a condition they call the mist, which affects their memories such that they collectively forget recent visitors, missing family members, and their own personal histories.  In the occasional periods in which their mental fog lifts, they remember that they have a son, and that they long to see him.  And so they set off on a journey, in which, as in most stories, they will find things they never imagined possible at the beginning.

Everything I've read by Ishiguro is strange, and Buried Giant is certainly that.  Reading this I felt a clammy menace which I recall feeling throughout Never Let Me Go, too.  (That novel has a big 'reveal' at the end which I won't mention.)  It's not pleasant, this feeling, but it is compelling, and I don't know another author who evokes the sensation so well.  While an imperfect work, I appreciate Buried Giant for its strangeness, for its evocative exploration of themes like the burden of memory, and for asking questions like "What are we supposed to do with the fact that we know we're going to die?" and "How are we to get along with one another?"  Holy Grails, indeed!

Castle of Whispers / Carole Martinez 181 p.

Esclarmonde is the beloved only daughter of a powerful knight of Medieval France.  When she's forced to the altar to marry a man she detests, Esclarmonde makes a dramatic move to escape.  Although she enters a cloistered existence, she becomes the center of high drama in her village. And, intriguingly, her disdained fiance becomes a musical troubadour who remains faithful to her.  Conveying a sense of religious hysteria and superstition with lyrical writing, this is a highly unusual story. 

The Credition Killings

The Credition Killings: A Knights Templar Mystery by Michael Jecks  386 pp.

In 14th century England, a band of unruly mercenaries has descended on the town of Credition. When someone steals silver from Sir Hector, the leader of the mercenaries, Sir Baldwin Furnshill and his assistant begin investigating. Suspicion falls on the newest member of the band and the young man is arrested. A young barmaid is found dead and the thief is blamed until a beggar woman is also murdered while he was in custody. Soon a relationship between the dead women and Sir Hector is revealed and suspicion falls back on him. I enjoy mysteries set in medieval times but this one was rather bland and disappointing. I doubt I'll continue with this series.

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes, 940 pages.

Our summer reading big book for 2013 was a big hit. We read Cervantes's classic about a man born in the wrong time, a chivalrous knight in the age of exploration commerce and religious upheaval in Spain. The Library had Flamenco dancers, a movie, two story times for grownups and a whole lot more. I barely made it through the book in time. I think this was the first time I finished the big book during the summer (though not in time for the last meeting.
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Templar

Templar by Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham, and Alex Puvilland, 473 pages.

Mechner and company have done a great job with this graphic novel. His characters, some based on actual people, and some made up, are all solid and consistent throughout this work. The story itself, that of the Knights Templar, their legal trouble in France, in 1291, is based on fact. Many of the scenes within the book are fictional, or at least imagined.
When the King of France sends his troops to investigate the
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Don Quixote

Don Quixote/Miguel de Cervantes & Edith Grossman 989 pgs.

Widely considered the first modern novel, Don Quixote is a real classic. This book is full of adventures of Don Quixote, knight errant and his dedicated squire Sancho Panza.  There is too much to easily summarize but the themes focus on chivalry, insanity, and friendship.  Sancho is said to be "simple" over and over again but he consistently makes the most astute observations and statements.  The characters are often the butt of ridicule and pranks but soldier on as if their fantasy world is reality and they stick to their principles.  It isn't difficult to see modern parallels.

We finish up our adult summer reading program Wed. the 28th with our final discussion of this book.

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The Mongoliad Book One

The Mongoliad Book One by Erik Bear, Neal Stephenson, E.D. deBirmingham, Mark Teppo, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, Cooper Moo  502 pp

What began as a social experiment between a group of authors was turned into a trilogy called The Foreworld Saga. The Mongol horde is ravishing Eastern Europe. A group of former Crusaders called the Shield Brethren is trying to stop them though vastly outnumbered. The Brethren are being guided by C'Nan, a young Chinese woman who is usually a messenger. While this is happening, assassins are trying to kill the Khagan, Ogedei who is Genghis Khan's successor. In addition, one poor Mongol warrior named Gansukh has been sent by Ogedei's brother to to keep the Khagan from drinking too much. Gansukh becomes enamored of Lian, a slave in the Khagan's household who is assigned to teach him court protocol. Add fifty other characters and you have an uneven, rather confusing tale. I haven't decided if I'm going to continue with the trilogy although, while I wouldn't call it a cliffhanger, the story ended unresolved.