Book Review: Metro Winds

Title: Metro Winds
Author: Isobelle Carmody
Year Published: 2012
Genre: Literary fiction, Magic realism, Fantasy, Young Adult (?)

I've been a fan of the Obernewtyn Chronicles as well as the Legendsong for quite some time, so I picked up Isobelle Carmody's latest offering with an expectation of dreamy, immersive fantasy. This expectation was only partially met. Though all six stories contain fantastical elements, all are grounded in our world. Further, there is a more literary quality to the writing than I am used to for this author, which also meant I spent some time adjusting. 

The first story, “Metro Winds”, is about a young girl who moves to live with her aunt in the city and becomes drawn to the tunnels of the metro. The writing in this story is simply beautiful; there is a poetic, magical quality to it, almost as if it's for children. I found the ending unsatisfying on a conceptual level, but it's worth reading for the language alone.

Next comes “The Dove Game”, in which an Australian travels to Paris to meet a woman on behalf of a dead man. This is story reads a bit more like general fiction, with the fantasy elements blended into the psychological confusion of the protagonist. While it's a perfectly decent story, the style felt a little generic. I can't help but feel as if it could have been written by any number of literary short story writers and it didn't really grip me as much as the other stories did.

At a little under a hundred pages is “The Girl Who Could See The Wind”. Here a girl is taken to a foreign land by her mother and eventually embarks on a quest to find her lost sister. This was one of my favourite stories in the book, being one of those pleasantly sweet kind of stories with allusions to various fairy tales. The writing style is more similar to the author's other works too, which is to say it's easy to read, dream-like and evocative. As a side note, (impliedly) indigenous Australians are portrayed in this story as spiritual people connected to the land, and I for one cannot decide whether this was respectful or cliched or both or neither.

I found the fourth story, “The Stranger”, to be the book's weakest. It's about a scriptwriter who travels to Greece and meets a strange woman. While the narrator's voice was novel (for example, how he sees reality as if it was shot as a movie), this alone was not enough to sustain my interest the whole way. It's alright, but not much happens for most of the story and I was constantly counting how many pages of it I had left.

“The Wolf Prince” was the other favourite of mine. It's the longest story of the collection and it involves a cursed faerie prince who must hunt a princess in order to save himself. It's told from the point of view of the queen who herself was hunted as a girl. The style is similar to the third story, albeit the fantasy here is front and centre. Again, fairy tales are inventively woven into the story, itself steeped with richness. It's a truly lovely read.

The last story is “The Man Who Lost His Shadow”, and involves the eponymous hero searching for his shadow in an unnamed European country. It's stark and strangely refreshing after the previous story, and the absurd notion of losing a shadow is treated is treated with a kind of frank practicality. The style is vaguely reminiscent of Peter Carey.

All the stories are quite varied – in style, tone and narrative. I personally found this jarring when reading them all one after the other; it might help if you think of the stories as being written by different authors, so you know to expect something different each time.

Still, despite the differences, common threads run through all the stories: the idea of a quest and the sense that a different world sits entwined with our own. Australia or Australians also feature in an express or implied manner, which adds another flavour to the tales.

Basically, if you're looking for a pure fantasy kick, you can just read “The Girl Who Could See The Wind” and “The Wolf Prince”. The others have a more ~literary~ general fiction kind of feel to them. All are well written. That said, while I was fine with reading it, there were also many times that I felt no compulsion to pick the book up again after having put it down. The author sets the bar so high with some stories that others seem lacking by comparison.

I've seen this book shelved in the YA section, but I would only recommend it to older teens or adults.

As a collection, Metro Winds feels a little patchy to me, though I admit this may be because I started the book with certain expectations. It's worth a shot if you're into literary fiction with a dash of magic. However, if you just want something similar to Carmody's fantasy series, then I'd just read the the odd-numbered stories.

Alex's Rating: 3.5/5

Book Review: Scarecrow Series

Title: Scarecrow Series
Author: Matthew Reilly

Year Published: 1998 - 2011

Genre: Action, Thriller

                                                      

Scarecrow series:

• Ice Station
• Area 7
• Scarecrow
• Hell Island
• Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves 

Before I start, I just want everyone to know that all these books can be read as standalones. But I recommend reading Ice Station first in case you enjoy the book and want to continue reading.

This series is based on a Marine by the name of Shane Schofield, call sign Scarecrow. It follows his missions and adventures which include:

Ice Station – Lieutenant Shane Schofield is introduced. He is sent to the arctic to secure an amazing discover under 100 million year old layer of ice

Area 7 - Schofield accompanies the President of the United States to a secret base were hostile forces await

Scarecrow - Schofield’s own head is on the line when a group of international bounty hunters search him out to kill him, the bounty being $20 million

Hell Island – four special force units, one lead by Schofield, are sent to an mysterious island where an experiment has gone horrible wrong

Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves – a group of terrorists and fugitives, who call themselves the Army of Thieves take over an abandoned base in the Arctic and threaten to re-activate a weapon powerful enough to wipe out half the world. Schofield is sent to stop the Army before it’s too late

My first thought when writing this review was: these books are AWESOME! They are action-packed!!! Gun slinging, hungry crazy polar bear tearing, bombs blowing AWESOME!!! Please excuse my excitement. As you can see I really enjoyed this series.   

From start to finish, you will be on the edge of your seat, holding your breath wondering what will happen next! I mean that for all 5 books.

(Ok, I admit I’m a big Mathew Reilly fan.)

Matthew Reilly writes with the sole intention of entertaining, and entertain he does. Every turn of the page you will be wondering how our hero gets out of this one. And when you get the answer, you will think “how is that possible?”, then reality hits, “it’s a book, that was cool, who cares if it’s possible or not.”

What I love about Matthew Reilly is, as an author he can translate complicated locations or items into more simple terms without them losing their integrity.

Example: a gigantic complex base. There will be a simple diagram of the base at the front of the chapter for you to use as a reference. The diagrams are simple enough to understand and do not compensate for the description written in the book.

When reading an action novel, there may be times when you lose track of where the characters are. These diagrams will help tremendously. It helped me a lot since I have the “memory of a gold fish” according to some friends of mine.

I’ve read some negative reviews on these novels. Most are about the “depth” of the books. It is an action/thriller novel.” Not a "dramatic family story expanding over 6 decades.” So don’t expect something emotional to change in you. Matthew Reilly does over use italics and exclamation marks but I believe it helps with the emphasis of every action and urgency.

   

Sure, we all know the hero will survive. Sure, we all know the hero will always save the world, but isn’t the fun part, the journey of it? Trust me, this journey is worth taking.

So I recommend this series to anyone who loves an action-packed adventure. If you’re into “dramatic family stories expanding over 6 decades” then I still say give it a try. You never know. You might want more after finishing the first book.

Just remember to breathe.

Terri's rating: 4.5/5

Book Review: Shade Fright

Title: Shade Fright (A Valerie Stevens novel)

Author: Sean Cummings

Year Published: 2010

Genre: Urban Fantasy

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” the saying goes. I did the exact opposite. I took one look at the comic book design cover and went for it. Can you blame me?

So this story follows Valerie Stevens who was born with a unique gift to see the preternatural world. She works for the Canadian Government who sends her to locate things or people from the supernatural world.

 In this first Valerie Stevens novel she gathers the help of her zombie best friend and the ghost of a former Prime Minister of Canada to... you guessed it, save the world.

There are many books based on characters that see the supernatural and happen to be a P.I. Even though Valerie works for the Government, she’s still an investigator of some sort.

So what makes this book appealing (besides from the cover) is the normal girl Valerie. She’s not your typical “I do not remember my past, all I know is I have powers” female character, or your “depressed vampire that wears black leather and heavy eye liner”. She is a civil servant that earns her money and pay taxes just like the next person. A person you can relate to if you minus the whole seeing the dead thing.

As the first of the Valerie Stevens Novel, it does a good job introducing the characters. It gives a solid understanding of each of them so they can move forward to the next novels.

However, I wasn’t a fan of the plot/problem Valerie had to solve. For example, Valerie had to go back to the farm (the first crime scene) 3 times before finding the truth. A lot of her information was given to her rather than her finding out. Because of this, I lost interest half way through the book. It did not make me believe Valarie was good at her job even though according to the book, she’s been doing it for awhile. She’s also not a physical fighter, more of a witch, or what she calls herself, an alchemist.

I did enjoy the little time travel and the perfect balance of romance in this book. The romance is just enough for the reader to understand the position the characters are in and enough not to overflow the actual story line. Also there is no cliff hanger at the end so readers can read this book separately rather than in a series form.

If you’re looking for a light urban fantasy book, this is the book for you. If you’re looking for something dark, you might want to give this a miss. But I expect the following novels will get darker and we will see Valerie’s power improve.

The next book to the Valerie Stevens novel is Funeral Pallor.

Terri's Rating: 2/5