froggy's book corner

[frogbeastegg]

In the quietest corner of the Mead Hall frogbeastegg sits at her reserved table. Her geisha’s kimono is hung up behind her, and her geisha wig has been dropped on a spare chair. The off-duty frog has gone medieval, reverting to the Norman Conquest era noble lady’s clothes she used to favour back before she discovered a pressing need to look like an assassin of some sort. She is, as always, surrounded by scrolls covered in her untidy handwriting, with a pot of ink and a spare quill close to hand. Predictably she is scribbling away at a furious rate, ink spattering over everything nearby.

This time there is something different, something unexpected, something taking up large amounts of space on Monk’s newly cleaned floor. Books. Huge stacks of them, piles that teeter and sway unsteadily because froggy has heaped them too high. One pile in particular is threatening to fall and crush her, but she writes on, oblivious to her danger.




So, I’d better get explaining, I think. I decided this morning, about 6:30AM, that since I was writing and exchanging semi book reviews in emails for a few people I may as well write proper reviews and use the damned things a little more. I also found that the book I finished a few days ago was lingering in my mind, and actually I wouldn’t mind talking over a few things if I encountered someone else who had read it.

So this is it; a topic for the posting of reviews and the discussion of books. Fiction only; non-fiction is not really part of the Mead hall, and I specifically had fiction in mind when I got wondering. It’s perhaps the logical extension of something I started over a year ago when I expanded the Mead Hall’s original mandate to include book discussion as well as stories written by patrons. I’ve also seen similar topics over on the Paradox AAR forums.

I’m hoping I’m not going to be talking to myself. I would like to see other people posting reviews, and it’s hard to talk about a book on your own Just remember spoiler tags ([spoil ] text here [/spoil ] but remove the spaces from the tags) if discussing something which might spoil the book for others. I named the topic as I did because I'm really lacking in inspiration, not because I claim ownership or anything.

So, to get the ball rolling is froggy’s first ever book review, which I also just posted on Amazon.uk. It’s not appeared yet, so I don’t know if I messed anything up. Never done an Amazon review before. If and when I do more reviews I'll post them.

Wolfskin, by Juliet Marillier

Wolfskin is the first of a now complete duet; the other book is called Foxmask. It tells the story of Eyvind, a Wolfskin, or berserker, warrior and his friendship with Somerled. The two swear an oath of blood brotherhood as boys, and this oath affects both boys, and the others they encounter, significantly.

This book is some 700 pages long but I found it flowed past easily. Marillier's writing is easily readable, and does an excellent job of bringing the world to life. She manages to imbue certain, quite small lines with a lot of depth and impact, for example "He was not gentle with me." tells you everything you need to know and a whole lot more about both event and characters involved, and the simplicity makes it all the more powerful. To say even one word more would spoil the impact.

This is a book which benefits from being read slowly and with attention, rather than while half asleep or in a rush. This is partly because of some nice, subtle touches here and there, but also because it is a book set in the Viking world. The characters of Wolfskin explain how their world works, and the reader should listen and view the world as they do. These are not modern characters with modern values transplanted to an older setting, and Marillier should be praised for this. Not every author writing in a historical setting manages to do this, and anachronistic characters are a pet hate of mine. To modern eyes certain things characters do or say seem inexplicable, but those same things fit perfectly into the world. Blood brothers are sworn for life; breaking that bond is unthinkable.

Wolfskin managed to do something which none of the many other books I have read recently has done - it actually made me care. Normally when I read I'm very objective; the characters and story do not touch me at all. Books do not provoke emotion in me at all, with a very few exceptions. Tales of people crying, laughing or having to put a book down because of the emotional weight are almost entirely alien to me. However this book I did put down at two points, and I was astonished to find I actually felt slightly angry and upset on behalf of my favourite character (Margaret) quite frequently. No book has promoted any emotional effect from me in ... years. I also find the book is lingering on in my mind long after I put it down, and that is also rare.

Somerled is an interesting villain. Scenes where his better side shine through are quite touching because they show would could have been. The scene where Somerled teaches Eyvind to write his own name is, in particular, one of my favourites. I found it was quite clear Somerled could have been very different, if only ...

The book is not perfect by any means, and as I write fiction myself I am a very picky reader. I find far less to nitpick about with Wolfskin than with the other books I have read recently. Eyvind and Nessa, the two main characters, felt less compelling to me than Margaret. Margaret is a character who gets relatively little space, perhaps only appearing in 1/8th of the book total, and yet she really did grab my imagination, and has continued to hold my attention several days after I closed the book. I found both her story and her character to be more engaging to those of the main duo. I wish she had been given a lot more pages. Nessa, in particular, had no real effect or interest for me, and I found her parts of the book to be my least favourite parts, except when her path crossed with Eyvind or Margaret.

There are certain moments where characters actions become a little hard to believe. At some points, even reading with the Viking viewpoint instead of a modern one, I found myself asking why Eyvind never even said anything about certain of Somerled's actions, or tried to explain why his friend was wrong. At first Eyvind does try, but he is always quickly rebuffed and made to seem stupid, and from there seems to give up. But I still find it hard to believe Eyvind, who is undoubtedly a good man, did not keep trying, especially when Somerled went from smaller evils to increasingly greater ones. He does finally start trying again in the end, but not before letting many things go.

Marillier manages something which both frustrates and delights me - she has her characters acting like real people, and at some points this gets rather unfair. It hurts when characters I like get the short end of the stick, but at the same time it's brilliant to see characters behaving just like real people, who do have selective memories and can be painfully unfair.

The book is not a pure historical novel; it does feature some magic. I would not say it is a fantasy story through, just a good story which needs certain parts of Dark Age mythology to be 'real' so it can tell the tale it wishes to. Indeed, this approach does lend the story a certain feeling of kinship to the old Viking sagas.

I am currently reading the second in this duet, and I feel that the two books should be read together. Marillier is doing an excellent job of adding new depth and insight into her original characters, even if the second books mostly concerns their children. Somerled in particular is becoming more and more sympathetic to me as I go. A re-read of Wolfskin will follow once I have finished Foxmask. I do not usually re-read books so soon after finishing them, but I feel I am learning such a lot I will gain more from both books.

In closing I would recommend both books.

[master of the puppets]

very thorough i must say

really enjoyed the little prequil thing at the beggining

[The Stranger]

i'm busy writing a book
it's called the "Last Empire"

[frogbeastegg]

Foxmask, by Juliet Marillier

Foxmask is the second book in the Children of the Light Isles duet. The first book, Wolfskin, told the story of Eyvind and Somerled, their oath of blood brotherhood, and the Viking colonisation of Orkney, or the Light Isles as the natives called it.

This second book focuses mainly on Thorvald, son of Margaret and Somerled, and Creidhe, daughter of Nessa and Eyvind. Other characters, both new and old, make their appearances. Thorvald finds out about his true father at his coming of age. He is shocked and disgusted, assuming he must also be as twisted as his exiled father because he does share many things with the stories he has heard of Somerled. He sets out on a voyage to find his father, wanting to know the truth. He travels with his friends Sam and Creidhe to the most likely landfall the exiled Somerled may have reached ...

One of my criticisms of Wolfskin was that the two lead characters, Eyvind and Nessa, were not as appealing to me as the villain and a minor character, Somerled and Margaret. This is both rectified and worsened in Foxmask. Thorvald is a very interesting character; a loner, unable to fit in because his intelligence is greater than those around him and he is unsure when dealing with other people. He yearns to be a leader, to prove himself after finding he is not who he thought he was. He is tormented by the knowledge that his real father was the evil Somerled, not the honourable Ulf as he had believed all his life. He shows flashes of light and dark, and he could easily follow his father's path into tyranny or find a nobler way. He knows this.

Creidhe, to be honest I found her about the same as Eyvind or Nessa: alright, but nothing too interesting. The same applies to Keeper; for all his strange quirks he just did not really grab my interest or sympathy. Sam is something of a minor character, and not too interesting to me.

Niall is a fascinating character; I shall say little about him or I would give away far too much. Suffice it to say he demonstrates some incredible character growth and says a hell of a lot of interest. He is a deep character; even his name has meaning if you read the first book and remember a certain story told near the start ...

I found this book most interesting when revisiting old characters. Margaret's sections of the book in particular shone for me, as I loved her in the first book. I found myself eagerly advancing to find her next section, though they are all too limited in number. Fans of Nessa and Eyvind will be pleased to see them return, although my opinion of them remained unchanged.

Plot wise I preferred the first book. This is a preference of subject matter though; this second book is far heavier on the fantasy elements than the first, which almost read like a straight up historical novel. Magic, mystical creatures, seers, unnatural phenomenon, priestesses all feature quite heavily in this book - the plot is built around them. Like the first book these fantasy elements do lend a certain feeling of kinship to the old Norse sagas, but I am afraid a tale about recovering a seer is not as compelling to me as a tale of humans and their flaws.

Wolfskin was quite rare in that it made me feel some emotion as I read, and forged strong links between myself and two characters (yes, you guessed – Margaret and Somerled). Foxmask does manage to repeat this achievement, but to a lesser extent. It builds on what I already had from the first book; I did not find any bond to the new characters, and the few responses it drew from me were once again provided by Margaret and the little titbits about Somerled.

This said, I did find the book well worth reading. As I mentioned before the original characters are met once again, and you can not only see what happened to them after the close of Wolfskin but also find new insight into the events of the previous book. This is one reason why I loved Margaret's sections so much; I understood so much more of what makes her tick as a character, and this made me think again on what she had done in Wolfskin. There is another who alone makes the book worth reading for insight, but I shall not say any more as it would spoil some very nice plotting. You will know when you read. Thorvald also provides a nice insight by contrast of Somerled; two different yet similar people struggling with what they are. As you read his comments to himself you find they also apply perfectly to Somerled, explaining things you had previously only suspected. Having finished this book I am now going back to Wolfskin, which I only finished four days ago, to re-read it with my new knowledge.

Marillier is a strong writer; her work is always easy, and pleasant, to read. However with Foxmask I felt the first hundred or so pages seemed ever so slightly out of stride, almost as if the author needed a little space to settle in. That is not to say the beginning is painful or shoddy, only that it is fractionally below the usual standard. Once the rough spot finishes the writing resumes its customary polish and never lets it go. The ending did seem a little hurried, perhaps, but nothing too bad.

As you may have guessed I recommend this book is read in concert with its partner. The experience will be much more rewarding this way, I think. Reading Foxmask first will also spoil much of Wolfskin, because you will know in advance all those insights and details, the fates and the outcomes which Foxmask so deliciously provides. I do recommend the duet quite highly.




Not sure what, or when, I'll be doing another review. Since I finished the book today I thought I may as well complete the review set now.

[Monk]

The door to the Mead Hall swings open and a hooded figure stares in; a glare shins out from the shroud that covers it's face sending haunting chills into anyone who sees it. The Hall is empty as he enters; the creaking door swings itself shut as he walks slowly across the wooden floor. However as he moves he nearly crashes into a towering stack of books; he quickly jumps back as his gaze settles on a swaying and unsteady pillar of books. They are ready to fall at any moment threatening to dirty the floor he just cleaned a few hours ago!

The man tries to steady the tower; but his touch undoes the uneasy balance that had been achieved. The books buckle inward and fall down upon him burring him in a moments notice, throwing dust everywhere. A few muffled words of questionable meaning are then heard. He rises from the pile of books; his face uncovered revealing himself to be the resident AM. He sighes as he stacks the books up again, slowly one by one. As he finally steps away they sway and teeter; yet he believes he has balanced them properly. He moves over to his own corner and sits down; a mess of papers, pens and crumpled up paper awaits him as his own little humble abode.

Sorry Froggy; couldn't resist

First thank you for taking the time to post these review here. Perhaps I shall give these books a look. And also; if you spill any ink, there's some cleaning supplies behind the bar... thanks

[master of the puppets]

very good but as i have said many times before

[frogbeastegg]

After a long, long tour of duty frogbeastegg returns from the front; weary, battered, exhausted. There is a stain rather like blood down one side of her kimono, and a few of her hairpins are bent. The geisha wig itself is doing a very good impression of a defensive hedgehog; it will need to be severely combed back into respectable orderliness.

On reaching her table frogbeastegg knows at once something is wrong. She stands still, only her eyes moving, shrewdly assessing that tiny, tiny little difference. Finally she exclaims, “Gah!” and frantically starts checking over the teetering stacks of books. Each tome she pulls off the stack, examines briskly and puts to one side. One book she cradles to her chest, wailing most piteously, “The cover’s scuffed!!” She carefully lays this book in a separate pile to the others and keeps on searching, with a new urgency.

Quarter of an hour later she has finished sifting through the masses of books. The scuffed book has been joined by two others. Frogbeastegg has dumped her wig, and is sat at her table, cup of steaming tea in one hand, the other absently caressing the trio of books. A curious patron makes the mistake of asking her what is wrong; surely something dreadful must have happened. “Oh it has,” frogbeastegg assures him, “something terrible.” She points at the small, barely visible creases and dents in the covers of the three books, and says rather testily, “Just look at that! Some vandal has dropped my books, and damaged them! Just look at that! Ruined! Scarred! Destroyed!” The patron nervously begins to back away, hands held up, a anxious toothy grin fixed in place. Once he reaches what he judges to be a good distance he turns and runs for it. Frogbeastegg doesn’t notice for a few moments, too absorbed in her precious, damaged books.

The Fatal Crown, by Ellen Jones

This book is about the civil war between Stephan and Maude (also know as Matilda). Maude, the sole legitimate surviving child of king Henry I of England, was the designated successor. However on Henry’s death Stephan usurped the crown. This started a war which would last around 19 years, and would transform England from a prosperous, peaceful kingdom into a bankrupt ruin.

This brings me very neatly to the first of my issues with this book – the historical accuracy is dire, though the author claims she is writing a plausible version of history. Near the start of the book Maude is married to the Holy Roman Emperor two years later than in reality, and from there matters get no better. The book is based around an entirely improbable romance between Maude and Stephan, and the author twists the facts and events to fit this. Jones has Stephan usurping the throne in revenge for Maude rejecting his absurd offer to run away with him. She even goes so far as to make Stephan the father of Maude’s eldest son, the future king Henry II. He is born too early, and all the traits and resemblances which contemporaries found the same as his father (Geoffrey, count of Anjou, thank you very much!) are either quietly dropped or twisted to fit Stephan. For example the famous Angevin temper is stripped from Geoffrey’s character and transformed into the Norman temper, i.e. a trait from Stephan and Maude, not Geoffrey. Geoffrey himself becomes a placid, limp, pansyfied wuss; not exactly what his contemporaries had to say of him, even if he did make a famous fuss about a minor wound to his foot. Jones is using real people and real events, but not respecting them, instead using them as little more than pre-made events and characters for an unrelated story. In a historical novel that is, in my eyes, a very big crime. Jones also adds in some rather unbelievable ‘adventure’ type events, such as Maude being drugged and carried off to Normandy because she refused to marry Geoffrey of Anjou. The refusal and subsequent change of mind is historically sound, the kidnapping is not, and more than a little absurd to boot.

The other aspect of historical accuracy, the setting and detail, is perhaps a little better. At the end of the book Jones lists some of the sources she used to research; there are not many of them, and many of them are over fifty years old, one over a hundred years old, and not a single one was more recent than 1974. This book was published in 1991. As you might imagine this leads to plenty of errors, including many ideas, beliefs and theories which have now been proven to be wrong. If you have even a smidgen of knowledge of this time period the book varies from at best tolerable to at worst laughable. The errors go from tiny little things such as saying most noble women could not read or write (actually, literacy was higher amongst noblewomen than noblemen) to the rather large and consequentially ridiculous. I found myself chuckling when the eighteen year old Empress Maude came running into the Holy Roman Emperor’s throne room while he had guests, bouncing with glee because she had judged her second caught case. Sadly I was not laughing because it was a funny scene, but because that simply would not happen. If Maude had been five it may have been believable. She is supposed to be an empress, one who has been trained rigorously for a decade, dignified, intelligent, lived much of her life in a culture that was known at the time to be rather restrained, and (by the standards of the time) she is well into adulthood. The real Maude was so reserved and ‘German’ in manner her English subjects considered her foreign. In another notable gaff Maude is seen wandering about markets, accompanied by just one other person, shopping personally and haggling with merchants. Er, if she were a minor noble this would be alright, but the heir to the English throne? She also manages to speak to Stephan unchaperoned rather too often for it to be believable, and they seem to have little difficulty in sneaking away for the occasional tryst without anyone being any the wiser. The attitudes of the characters conform to the outdated views now cast aside by historians. The largest example of this is that the main opposition to Maude’s inheritance of the crown is because she is female, and they do not want a queen. This was a very Victorian view; it is generally accepted now that the problem was not with Maude being a woman, but with her being married to a hated Angevin, and with her being very domineering, undiplomatic and generally difficult to get along with. She alienated her supporters rather frequently.

In the midst of all this griping about accuracy I do have to say that Jones has managed to get some things right, and on those occasions where she avoids mistakes she does create a believable atmosphere.

While I am on the subject of the unbelievable, how about the rather silly fact both of Maude’s husbands are essentially impotent until she suddenly needs Geoffrey to erm, perform, so she can claim he is the father of her child, at which point he experiences no difficulties at all? It’s believable in the case of the aged emperor, but not in the case of the fifteen year old, famously rampant Geoffrey who is rather :cough: busy with other women throughout the book. Maude was famously beautiful, and in the book that has only been emphasised. Course, by the time Geoffrey finally gets to erm, show what he is made of, the Maude/Stephan romance is virtually over, and so he demonstrates a permanent recovery. Somehow I got the impression he would not have recovered if history didn’t require him to father two other sons with Maude. Oh why not? Let’s also toss in the fact Stephan’s wife loves him to bits, is completely devoted to him, and does all kinds of things on his behalf, but for reasons unexplained has nothing but distaste for the idea of sex with him. Stephan has had numerous affairs, but all conveniently lacking that special something, and not really mentioned at all once the adult Stephan sets eyes upon Maude. It feels rather like the author set things up so Maude and Stephan could play ‘true love’, despite circumstances forced on the story by history. This would be rather typical of the way reality has been twisted to serve the improbable love story.

As far as technique Jones is actually quite good, and this is perhaps the real pity. She has talent, and it has been wasted here. If she had either severed the already strained link with real history, or if she had done her research better and dropped the love story Jones could have produced a much better book. Her writing is generally crisp and clear, she describes characters and places well, her grammar and so on is very good, and generally she is very readable.

I felt as though the last half of the book was rushed, or the author was told she had to work within a strict page limit and thus did not have the space to tell the story she wanted. The author took around half of the 549 pages to get to the start of the civil war. This is not a bad thing; it gave the reader chance to watch Maude grow up, to get familiar with the characters and situation. I enjoyed the first half of the book far more than the second. Once the civil war starts events rush by, entire years passed over without a mention. Even the famous, decisive battle of Lincoln where Stephan was captured passes swiftly. The characters age suddenly, the political and military situation is poorly described, and everything just generally feels rushed and boring. Given another two hundred or so pages Jones could have completed the story in the same detail as she started. Perhaps she just lost interest in telling the story once the Stephan/Maude romance essentially ended.

If you want a decent fictional account of the civil war then go for Sharon Penman’s ‘When Christ and his Saints Slept’. That book is far truer to history, Penman has done her research well, and consequentially the book is far more believable. It also does not rush past the war itself.




I’m so glad this was a library book, and not one I brought! A bit of an example of how not to do historical fiction using real events and characters. The main lesson here is this:
DO YOUR RESEARCH AND DO IT PROPERLY!!

For those wondering, yes I really am that obsessive over my books. I keep all my books pristine, in brand new condition, no matter how many times I read them. Any damage, even a tiny bent corner on page 496, will set me mourning.