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Aug. 26th, 2009 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsApartment-moving stress -------> the need for short brain-candy reading --------> finishing the Dido Twite books!
I have now read the last two in the series, Midwinter Nightingale and The Witch of Clatteringshaws, and - okay, brain candy is the wrong word here. These are not candy. They are CRACK IN ITS ESSENCE. Like, I know I say that about every Joan Aiken book, but this is new levels of ridiculous!
Midwinter Nightingale has the King of England (or bits of England, since apparently England has now divided into five or six countries without anyone bothering to mention it by this point in the series) being smuggled out to the country in Top Secret, because Our Heroes think it is a shame that the poor man should have to deal with things like, you know, succession and government, CAN'T A MAN BE ILL IN PEACE WHILE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY RUNS AROUND IN A PANIC WONDERING WHERE HE IS, OKAY. (It is things like this that make me think that it would be better if the bad guys just took over, because at least they seem to have some interest in making sure someone is running the country!) Simon spends most of the book hanging out with him and befriending random animals, including some bears imported from Russia by mistake (the army wanted boots! BOOTS! But the Russians mistranslated, alas.) Dido, meanwhile, has to deal with a werewolf baron, a moat full of man-eating fish, poisoned cakes, a flood of molten silver, an army of meditating levitating rebels, and the development of surprise precognition that is never explained (and vanishes by the next book). In the grand climax, our main characters stand around and watch in mild bemusement while various evil-doers attempt to attack them and then accidentally fling themselves in front of spears and over cliffs. Hooray for Team Good!
The Witch of Clatteringshaws is even less plot-coherent. What's left of England goes to war against the Saxons, but fortunately the day is saved by a complicated board game! Dido goes north to hunt for the missing heir to the throne, the answer to which question is hilariously convenient and random! Half the book is told in letters written by an exiled witch/social worker who lives in an abandoned ladies' restroom and has made friends with the faux-Loch-Ness monster! Everyone constantly talks about a group of monsters or elves (I am really not sure which) that steal and - eat? kill? - unsuspecting passersby, but they hardly ever appear or do anything plot-relevant! There is another plotline about saints and their last words that I cannot make head or tail of! One thing I am sure of, however, is that A GROUP OF OLD PEOPLE IS BEING ABUSED BY EVIL PLASTIC SURGEONS, AND IT IS VERY SERIOUS! I - I have no idea. It is a hilarious if nonsensical read, though! And I am charmed by any book where the witch rides a golf club because it's more comfortable than her broom and nags the townspeople about recycling and social responsibility.
I have to admit, I really want to hunt down Joan Aiken's Jane Austen fanfics now just to find out if they feature Emma Woodhouse thwarting evil zombies! Given the evidence of the books I have read so far, I WOULD NOT PUT IT PAST HER. (She would do it better than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, too.)
I have now read the last two in the series, Midwinter Nightingale and The Witch of Clatteringshaws, and - okay, brain candy is the wrong word here. These are not candy. They are CRACK IN ITS ESSENCE. Like, I know I say that about every Joan Aiken book, but this is new levels of ridiculous!
Midwinter Nightingale has the King of England (or bits of England, since apparently England has now divided into five or six countries without anyone bothering to mention it by this point in the series) being smuggled out to the country in Top Secret, because Our Heroes think it is a shame that the poor man should have to deal with things like, you know, succession and government, CAN'T A MAN BE ILL IN PEACE WHILE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY RUNS AROUND IN A PANIC WONDERING WHERE HE IS, OKAY. (It is things like this that make me think that it would be better if the bad guys just took over, because at least they seem to have some interest in making sure someone is running the country!) Simon spends most of the book hanging out with him and befriending random animals, including some bears imported from Russia by mistake (the army wanted boots! BOOTS! But the Russians mistranslated, alas.) Dido, meanwhile, has to deal with a werewolf baron, a moat full of man-eating fish, poisoned cakes, a flood of molten silver, an army of meditating levitating rebels, and the development of surprise precognition that is never explained (and vanishes by the next book). In the grand climax, our main characters stand around and watch in mild bemusement while various evil-doers attempt to attack them and then accidentally fling themselves in front of spears and over cliffs. Hooray for Team Good!
The Witch of Clatteringshaws is even less plot-coherent. What's left of England goes to war against the Saxons, but fortunately the day is saved by a complicated board game! Dido goes north to hunt for the missing heir to the throne, the answer to which question is hilariously convenient and random! Half the book is told in letters written by an exiled witch/social worker who lives in an abandoned ladies' restroom and has made friends with the faux-Loch-Ness monster! Everyone constantly talks about a group of monsters or elves (I am really not sure which) that steal and - eat? kill? - unsuspecting passersby, but they hardly ever appear or do anything plot-relevant! There is another plotline about saints and their last words that I cannot make head or tail of! One thing I am sure of, however, is that A GROUP OF OLD PEOPLE IS BEING ABUSED BY EVIL PLASTIC SURGEONS, AND IT IS VERY SERIOUS! I - I have no idea. It is a hilarious if nonsensical read, though! And I am charmed by any book where the witch rides a golf club because it's more comfortable than her broom and nags the townspeople about recycling and social responsibility.
I have to admit, I really want to hunt down Joan Aiken's Jane Austen fanfics now just to find out if they feature Emma Woodhouse thwarting evil zombies! Given the evidence of the books I have read so far, I WOULD NOT PUT IT PAST HER. (She would do it better than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, too.)
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Date: 2009-08-26 03:11 pm (UTC)They have one sitting at the Tattered Cover on the shelf RIGHT NOW. I saw it there last night!
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Date: 2009-08-26 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 03:29 pm (UTC)Also, fun fact peripherally about Joan Aiken: her father is buried in Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery, and I make it a point whenever we visit to go to his grave and sit on it. (It is a granite bench! A neat one!)
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Date: 2009-08-26 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 03:28 pm (UTC)Still, even if it has started out bad, it is bound to get better from here, yes? Especially with the judicious application of used bookstores.
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Date: 2009-08-26 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 03:46 pm (UTC)Ooh what variety of bad tv?
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Date: 2009-08-26 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 04:05 pm (UTC)Also its sort of not the myth I'm most attached to so I accept the crack easier and Arthur and Merlin are such dorks.
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Date: 2009-08-26 04:08 pm (UTC)T.H. White is my favorite too! But all my favorite characters are the ones that Merlin has not yet gotten around to doing (Orkneys Orkneys Orkneys *cough*)
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Date: 2009-08-26 04:14 pm (UTC)I actually haven't watched an episode with her in it, Robin Hoodie just doesn't work for me.
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Date: 2009-08-26 04:20 pm (UTC)I cannot blame you at all, it is a TERRIBLE show. I would never actually recommend it to anyone unless they also enjoyed terrible shows. *laughing*
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Date: 2009-08-26 10:13 pm (UTC)o_o
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Date: 2009-08-26 11:21 pm (UTC)