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Aug. 4th, 2009 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI feel like I have mentioned in many of my reviews that Joan Aiken is CRAZY. I mean, in a good way, but still, her plot twists are on the crack. In the case of the Dido series, the books seem to be veering further and further away from genial friendly pink-whale-oriented crack and more into dark and twisted Gothic crack, but I am not complaining really!
Cold Shoulder Road is another book following Dido's little sister Is. It is not quite as dark as the last one, which featured a full colony of children forced to work in dark underground minds, but it is still pretty dark - at one point a large group of relatively friendly people SUDDENLY EXPLODES.
The plot is pretty whacked out and involves a religious sect that refuses to speak, some Evil Smugglers, buried treasure, a boat in a tree, and cursed jewelry! I do not even actually remember how all of these fit together. What's really interesting is the dynamics between the characters, who include Is (relatively sane), her sister Penny (sour and antisocial and AWESOME; like a grown-up Mary Lennox!), her cousin Arun (who feels the need to act like a cat when he is under stress, which Is considers UNHELPFUL), Arun's mum Ruth (definitely not a demonstrative lady, but a great painter!) and Pye, an abused hostage that Ruth has rescued who is emotionally scarred, possibly developmentally disabled, and very much not an adorable moppet. Everyone in this very weird family is cranky and practical and stompy and jealous and awkward and gets into fights and it's so awesome I can't even complain about the sudden explosion of Twites.
The Whispering Mountain, on the other hand, is set in the same universe (although I can't for the life of me figure out the timeline) but has no Twites at all and in fact appears to be Joan Aiken's attempt to write a Susan Cooperish YA Welsh Fantasy. Or possibly to parody a YA Welsh Fantasy. I - I can't actually tell!
The book has all your basic required YA Welsh Fantasy elements:
1. A ~legendary golden harp~
2. A MYSTERIOUS RHYMING PROPHECY. About MOUNTAINS
3. An Boy-Hero who Doesn't Fit In
4. A Wise Herb-Gathering Welsh Girl who throws bach and cariad in every other word
5. With a Special Hawk Friend. (Named Hawc.)
6. Small mysterious craftspeople Under the Mountain
7. An absent-minded poet!
HOWEVER, it also has, among other things:
1. Small mysterious CAMELS Under the Mountain!
2. WILD BOAR ATTACKS
3. Deus ex drunken Prince of Wales!
4. Surprise . . . Turks . . .? (I don't even know, it is too weird even to be Orientalism!)
5. Evil attack snakes who are feeling ill and need to be given medical attention at once, AT ONCE!
6. Brother Ianto, the chipper monk who just walked his way back to Wales from a mission in China!
Joan Aiken does all this, so far as I can tell, with a perfectly straight face, and I really cannot tell whether it is for the subtle lulz or whether she honestly thinks that every generic YA Welsh fantasy should include the camels under the mountain. I'M SO CONFUSED, GUYS.
Cold Shoulder Road is another book following Dido's little sister Is. It is not quite as dark as the last one, which featured a full colony of children forced to work in dark underground minds, but it is still pretty dark - at one point a large group of relatively friendly people SUDDENLY EXPLODES.
The plot is pretty whacked out and involves a religious sect that refuses to speak, some Evil Smugglers, buried treasure, a boat in a tree, and cursed jewelry! I do not even actually remember how all of these fit together. What's really interesting is the dynamics between the characters, who include Is (relatively sane), her sister Penny (sour and antisocial and AWESOME; like a grown-up Mary Lennox!), her cousin Arun (who feels the need to act like a cat when he is under stress, which Is considers UNHELPFUL), Arun's mum Ruth (definitely not a demonstrative lady, but a great painter!) and Pye, an abused hostage that Ruth has rescued who is emotionally scarred, possibly developmentally disabled, and very much not an adorable moppet. Everyone in this very weird family is cranky and practical and stompy and jealous and awkward and gets into fights and it's so awesome I can't even complain about the sudden explosion of Twites.
The Whispering Mountain, on the other hand, is set in the same universe (although I can't for the life of me figure out the timeline) but has no Twites at all and in fact appears to be Joan Aiken's attempt to write a Susan Cooperish YA Welsh Fantasy. Or possibly to parody a YA Welsh Fantasy. I - I can't actually tell!
The book has all your basic required YA Welsh Fantasy elements:
1. A ~legendary golden harp~
2. A MYSTERIOUS RHYMING PROPHECY. About MOUNTAINS
3. An Boy-Hero who Doesn't Fit In
4. A Wise Herb-Gathering Welsh Girl who throws bach and cariad in every other word
5. With a Special Hawk Friend. (Named Hawc.)
6. Small mysterious craftspeople Under the Mountain
7. An absent-minded poet!
HOWEVER, it also has, among other things:
1. Small mysterious CAMELS Under the Mountain!
2. WILD BOAR ATTACKS
3. Deus ex drunken Prince of Wales!
4. Surprise . . . Turks . . .? (I don't even know, it is too weird even to be Orientalism!)
5. Evil attack snakes who are feeling ill and need to be given medical attention at once, AT ONCE!
6. Brother Ianto, the chipper monk who just walked his way back to Wales from a mission in China!
Joan Aiken does all this, so far as I can tell, with a perfectly straight face, and I really cannot tell whether it is for the subtle lulz or whether she honestly thinks that every generic YA Welsh fantasy should include the camels under the mountain. I'M SO CONFUSED, GUYS.
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Date: 2009-08-04 04:50 pm (UTC)*horrified*
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Date: 2009-08-04 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-04 05:51 pm (UTC)Wales.
Duh.
:)
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Date: 2009-08-04 05:59 pm (UTC)Honestly, given the trends of the rest of the book, I'm kind of surprised Joan Aiken didn't make one our hero's Special Camel Friend. Named Cwmyl.
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Date: 2009-08-04 06:44 pm (UTC)*wants one*
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Date: 2009-08-04 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-04 05:57 pm (UTC)Oh and I found a two volume, lovely paperback version of The Dalemark Quartet for ten dollars and now if only the net in my apartment would work, life would be really good. I just reread the last book and remembered just how much I adore Maewyn and Tanaqui.
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Date: 2009-08-04 06:01 pm (UTC)And oh man, AWESOME. The last book will always be my favorite. Maewyn is so awesome! And Mitt is so cranky!
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Date: 2009-08-04 06:06 pm (UTC)Well I'm in the land of lovely used bookstores and I have some of my books that I'll be selling so I'll look for her stuff.
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Date: 2009-08-04 06:14 pm (UTC)Used bookstores are the best. :D
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Date: 2009-08-04 06:15 pm (UTC)Someday you must visit so we can spend hours there, because the books feel like they're going to fall on you and its long and lovely.
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Date: 2009-08-04 06:28 pm (UTC)Someday I will! If I'm going to die, buried in an avalanche of books is totally the way I want to go.
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Date: 2009-08-04 06:54 pm (UTC)Is there also a dog named Cavall? Because that was always the tip off for me.
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Date: 2009-08-04 07:03 pm (UTC)There was actually no dog named Cavall! I was kind of shocked at how non-Arthurian it was, no long-lost descendents or Sleepers Awakening or anything.
On the other hand, this is the same lady who wrote the book where Queen Guinevere transplanted the lake of Avalon to South America and has been hanging out there for the past thousand years eating the bones of virgins to keep herself alive for Arthur's return . . . so maybe she felt like that would be difficult to top, Arthurian legend-wise? In which case, I DO NOT BLAME HER.
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Date: 2009-08-05 12:05 am (UTC)I can't decide if that is genius or...what.
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Date: 2009-08-05 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-05 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-05 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 04:16 pm (UTC)- oh darn, and I was totally going to give you Black Hearts in Battersea so you could get an idea of the Aiken Crazy, and I forgot to pack it. NEXT TIME.
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Date: 2009-08-07 04:18 pm (UTC)Uh, speaking of, what am I sending home with you this time 'round? Gender Variation, Spock's World, The Wounded Sky... have I promised you anything else? I can't remember.