(no subject)
May. 18th, 2009 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo I am pretty sure that these two books bring me up to as far as I got in the Joan Aiken books when I was young, which means that after this it is all brand-new territory!
The books have always balanced the dark with the cracktastic, but Dido and Pa tips a little bit more on the 'dark' side of the scale - which is not to say that there are not cracktastic plot elements, because there totally are. (My favorite is how the bad guys are picking off everyone in the British government as part of their Evil Plot to replace the King with a double, and NOBODY NOTICES, it is all "oh dear, it seems that Minister so-and-so had a terrible boating accident! Just like the last six!") But the main theme here is Dido's relationship with her father, who is a flat-out terrible human being and also an incredibly genius musician; Dido is completely aware of both of these things, and spends a lot of time trying to reconcile them in her head. We also get more of her with both her older sister Penny, who is sour and cranky and completely antisocial and sews creepy stuffed animals for a living and WHOM I LOVE, and her possibly-younger-sister Is, who is even more of a starved and neglected rat than little Dido ever was. Also there is some Simon and Sophie being good and kind and generally bemused, but mostly it is all about the street children. There are plot developments foreshadowed through creepy children's games, some crossdressing, and a high-speed wolf chase or two, and, in my favorite bit at the very end, Simon sort-of proposes to Dido and gets TOTALLY SHUT DOWN and it is awesome. Also, Penny and Is form the most adorably undersocialized family unit ever!
Is Underground leaves Dido for a bit and follows the adventures of Is, who is almost but not really Dido Jr. - for one thing, she's a great deal less socialized and comfortable around people than Dido is, which I like a lot as a distinction between them. ALSO she is capable of creating telepathic hiveminds. (No, seriously.) This book is for some reason the one that stuck with me most when I was young, possibly because it is bizarre. For a start, the basic premise is that the North of England has seceded from the South and is luring London children up to its coal mines with a secret midnight train to work as child slave labor! (Hilariously, every time someone asks "but - seriously, the North just picked up and seceded?" everyone else is just like "I AM SORRY BUT THE KING HAD A LOT ON HIS MIND AT THE TIME, OKAY.") Also at one point there is a giant tidal wave over the coast of England. And did I mention the telepathic hivemind? Aside from the strangeness of the premise, it is also extremely dark, with a great deal of implied child death, and the happy ending is not unambiguous either.
I am increasingly curious about the next one, which I understand features more Is and her cousin who thinks he is a cat. And I believe another upcoming one has werewolves!
The books have always balanced the dark with the cracktastic, but Dido and Pa tips a little bit more on the 'dark' side of the scale - which is not to say that there are not cracktastic plot elements, because there totally are. (My favorite is how the bad guys are picking off everyone in the British government as part of their Evil Plot to replace the King with a double, and NOBODY NOTICES, it is all "oh dear, it seems that Minister so-and-so had a terrible boating accident! Just like the last six!") But the main theme here is Dido's relationship with her father, who is a flat-out terrible human being and also an incredibly genius musician; Dido is completely aware of both of these things, and spends a lot of time trying to reconcile them in her head. We also get more of her with both her older sister Penny, who is sour and cranky and completely antisocial and sews creepy stuffed animals for a living and WHOM I LOVE, and her possibly-younger-sister Is, who is even more of a starved and neglected rat than little Dido ever was. Also there is some Simon and Sophie being good and kind and generally bemused, but mostly it is all about the street children. There are plot developments foreshadowed through creepy children's games, some crossdressing, and a high-speed wolf chase or two, and, in my favorite bit at the very end, Simon sort-of proposes to Dido and gets TOTALLY SHUT DOWN and it is awesome. Also, Penny and Is form the most adorably undersocialized family unit ever!
Is Underground leaves Dido for a bit and follows the adventures of Is, who is almost but not really Dido Jr. - for one thing, she's a great deal less socialized and comfortable around people than Dido is, which I like a lot as a distinction between them. ALSO she is capable of creating telepathic hiveminds. (No, seriously.) This book is for some reason the one that stuck with me most when I was young, possibly because it is bizarre. For a start, the basic premise is that the North of England has seceded from the South and is luring London children up to its coal mines with a secret midnight train to work as child slave labor! (Hilariously, every time someone asks "but - seriously, the North just picked up and seceded?" everyone else is just like "I AM SORRY BUT THE KING HAD A LOT ON HIS MIND AT THE TIME, OKAY.") Also at one point there is a giant tidal wave over the coast of England. And did I mention the telepathic hivemind? Aside from the strangeness of the premise, it is also extremely dark, with a great deal of implied child death, and the happy ending is not unambiguous either.
I am increasingly curious about the next one, which I understand features more Is and her cousin who thinks he is a cat. And I believe another upcoming one has werewolves!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-18 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-18 09:27 pm (UTC)