We’re getting our first real snow of the season. We’ve had a few clouds piss some snow down on us twice before. But it wasn’t hard enough to do more than pepper the ground and that was gone in hours. Tonight’s snow storm is expected to leave a good couple inches on the ground and looking out the window it looks so peaceful. Come morning though, the snow will have been disturbed by those unfortunately souls who have to be at work before I do. Plus I’ll have to clear the snow from my car which never puts me in a good mood. *sigh*
Tag: Snow
It was raining when I went home for lunch today. When I left to head back to the office; the rain was mixed with snow. *blech* It’s still too warm out for the snow to do anything except melt the moment it touches down, but it’s a sign that we’ve truly moved into Winter. Bah humbug!
Threads of Malice
My rating: 4 out of 5.
I read Threads of Malice last week1 and wowsers! If you’ve read Ghosts in the Snow then you need to be warned before reading Threads that Ghosts is a much lighter book than Threads. The villian in Threads is far more evil than the one in Ghosts and this gives the book a much darker tone. Still with that being said, Threads is a great read.
This time around Mrs. Jones takes us out of the castle and up into The Reach. Young boys have been disappearing throughout the region for the past couple of years. When Dubric arrives in the area; he’s greeted by dozens of ghosts all at once. It’s quite the unexpected & draining experience for him. Additionally, we get to see Dien’s family and Lars learns what real family life is like.
I don’t really know what else about the story I could tell you without giving away either the mystery or the good non-mystery bits. This is a problem that I’m not the only one has. I say this because at ICON this past weekend, I attended a panel where Mrs. Jones read some passages from Threads; as well as a few pages from her third Dubric book2. One of the passages she read from Threads was included one of my favorite scenes in the book, though it turns out we visualized it somewhat differently. The scene takes place as Lars along with 2 of Dien’s daugthers are walking into town to buy some supplies3.
He hurried after them, their names hovering in his throat, but he halted after a few steps. Aly climbed onto the head of a massive stone rabbit, then slid down its back, laughing all the while. Jess leaned against it, her hand on its nose, regarding him with mirthful eyes.
“Lars, Hargrove, I’d like to introduce you to your geandfather’s rabbit.” She bowed with a flourish and grinned at him.
That’s just a fragment of the scene, but it’s the important part to me. When I first read this scene, my mind drew up a picture of a rabbit sitting up on its hindlegs wearing a waistcoat (like something you’d expect from Alice in Wonderland). The rabbit was made of a “mostly” white marble, with bits of grey scattered about here & there. The weather had caused a small crack to form near the top of the rabbit’s head, just above the left eye. Some moss had begun to grow in that crack, looking something like a scar and giving the rabbit a certain roguish appeal. From speaking to Mrs. Jones at ICON, I found out she had imagined the stone rabbit looking like a rabbit you’d see in nature. Ok, so maybe it’s not all that important but I found the scene very endearing.
I’m feeling a bit out of it; so I’m going to wrap this review up. The book was excellent but didn’t quite grip me like Ghosts had. On the other hand, the intense evil and darkness in this book was somewhat balanced out with Lars getting his first real taste of what family life is like. It’s a highly enjoyable read and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to any adult readers4. Mrs Jones, good job and I look forward to the next book!
1 Since then I’ve read through Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad. I just didn’t feel like writing up reviews for those books.
2 Currently, the third book is titled “Valley of the Soul”.
3 Taken from pages 144-145 of Threads of Malice.
4 Given the forms that the evil takes in this book; I would not recommend this for younger readers.
A friend of mine recently asked if other people had similar reactions when reading a good book. Since this site has been heavier on the brainless fluff of late; I decided to answer the question here rather than in her comments.
When I’ve got a really good book in my paws, — mind you this is only for a REALLY GOOD book! — I’ll start reading and won’t notice the passage of time until either:
A. My bloodsugar has dropped from not eating in 8 hours.
B. It’s suddenly four in the morning and my eyes are tired so the words on the page start looking insanely small.
With a book that catches me like that, my head is totally in the book. People in real life can try talking to me, but they’ll get grunts for answers (at best). When my favorite character1 is happy, I’m happy. When they’re running through forests; I can hear leaves rustling and feel the branches drag across my face as I dash through the trees.
The last time I really felt this way about a book was when I first read the book that I’m currently reading, Ghosts in the Snow by Tamara Siler Jones. A friend of ours had gotten her hands on an early (review?) copy of the book and recommended it to my wife & I. Ariesna sat down and read the entire book while we were at the friend’s house that night. I think I managed to wait until we bought a copy of our own to read it, but once I did I started to get really angry.
I need to pause a moment here to explain about how I generally enjoy my entertainments. If the book/movie/whatever has even a reasonably decent story; then I’ll suspend my disbelief and just enjoy it without analyzing it. This is particularly true on my first experience with the book/movie/whatever.
And what exactly does that have to do with getting angry while reading Ghosts in the Snow? Ghosts is a mystery story with a fantasical setting and I was getting attached to one of the characters. This character happened to be a suspect in multiple murders and some of the clues in the book seemed to be pointing to him being the killer. The thought of this being true was making me too angry to continue reading. Eventually, I had to ask my wife if he was the killer because I was so upset about it that I wouldn’t be able to finish the book if he was. She told me he wasn’t but not who the killer was (at my request) and I was able to finish the book.
It’s for moments like those that I read.
1 This will usually be a supporting character. Why? Because the main characters tend to get all the glory while somebody else is doing more to accomplish the goal (e.g. Sam vs. Frodo).
Dear Mr. S. Bot,
Mr. S. Bot, do you mind if I call you Spam? No? Good. I thought I would take a moment to let you know this blog uses comment moderation to prevent you from ever appearing on its pages. Additionally, I use a variety of plugins to prevent you from even showing up in my moderation queue. Unfortunately, you’ve managed to find a few ways to sneak past those plugins so I actually have to do something about you. I’d rather not have to do that and since you are never going to be allowed to display any information on this blog or link to your own sites from it; please give it up and go bother somebody else.
Sincerely,
Mark
P.S. I know the odds of this actually cutting back on the flow of spam to this site are less then the odds of me throwing a snowball from my office parking lot at the sun and hitting it, but it’s nice to dream. 🙂