Escape To Venice

Leon has been writing about police Commissario Brunetti for well over twenty years, and his city of Venice is one of the main characters, along with Brunetti and his family. The series stands out not only for its setting, but for the almost equal time devoted to Brunetti's home life as to his work; the story is never about the crimes alone, but about the people who are caught up in them. Twenty-odd years ago, Brunetti's job was petty thieves and stupid murders and working around corruption; his children were young. Brunetti, though he went to college and reads classics—Greek and Roman—for a hobby, is a working class man. His wife Paola is of the nobility, though she was a student radical and socialist; her father is a Count. The early books weave the politics of sex and class through issues of family and justice, a window into Venetian life. Venice is in the water as well as on the water, though, and the later books engage with crime in environmental issues, particularly water quality. This is all explored within the context of daily living; Brunetti's relationships at home and at work develop and change as everyone ages. There’s the ebb and flow of politics and of the canals, the rustic countryside fading away as the city grows, the customs of old fading as tourists become prevalent. Brunetti and Paola, a professor of literature whose other love is Henry James, discuss philosophy, psychology and ethics over dinner and pillow talk. In this book, we’re trying to figure out whether a crime has even been committed. Brunetti’s colleague Claudia Griffoni is featured; we always see his boss and his secretary Signorina Elettra, the most beautiful hacker in Italy, but Brunetti’s colleagues take their turn. Griffoni’s from the south of Italy, not Venetian; regional prejudices feature in the stories, too, echoing life outside the pages. They’re called to a deathbed, where the dying widow gives them not a confession, but a mystery. Who killed her husband, if he was killed? I hope I’ve intrigued you about the series; I hope you begin at the beginning. After all these years, reading Leon is like spending time with an old friend, congenial and satisfying. (Thanks to the publisher for the advance copy to review!)

What's Really Behind Those Schoolwork Packets, Or, Modern Education

Elden does a great job portraying a year in the lives of high school teachers at fictional Brae Hill Valley High School. The story takes place in Texas but teachers from all over will recognize themselves in the frustrations and hopes of these characters.During the course of the school year the tale switches back and forth from Language Arts (Lena is a spoken-word poet) to Science (Hernan has a green thumb and a crush on Lena) to Math (Maybelline has a teenage daughter at home) to Football (Coach Ray has a bellow and a soft heart) to idealistic Social Studies teacher Kaylee and tired Principal Dr. Barrios. It’s like reading a script for Parks and Rec or The Office, funny and touching at the same time. We get glimpses of their home lives and personal dreams as well as their teaching days and hopes for their students. These characters reminded me so much of teachers I have been and known, including my parents. Their hopes and dreams aren’t much different than those of the students, just more seasoned. There’s a satirical thread running through the course of this academic year: Brae Hill Valley has been chosen to model the next great packaged education system! Guaranteed! (Not.) It’s hard, when teachers have been teaching for millennia, to have to put up with fads in education; the underlying satire in the book pokes at academic and marketing professionals who proffer “expert” advice without ever having experienced the job itself. This is the cliché of modern life; it’s just particularly ironic in education. The real guarantees of education come from caring about the kids, about the subject you’re teaching, and having different strategies for different learners. This would be a great book club book; there are some reading group questions at the end—might remind you of English essays in your past, and a good author interview in the back of the book. Recommended.

The Queen's Bargain by Anne Bishop
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After I read The Queen's Bargain—I won it in a goodreads giveaway!—I immediately re-read the rest of the Black Jewels books. That’s how good it is in re-kindling the love for the Dark Jewels universe. Bishop's work focuses on the uses and abuses of power. (There are abuse triggers in her work, for those who need to be aware of this.)
This book takes up where the last left off, early years in the marriage of Surreal and Daemon. Their daughter Janaelle has been gifted the Twilight jewel at her ceremony, even though she is not Witch reborn. She’s going through growing pains. Jillian, the young Eyrian witch who helps raise Lucivar's young children, has finally hit puberty and started dating, another form of growing pains. Dillon, the young Lord she's dating, has some problems, and Lucivar and Daemon might become two more for him.
Daemon and Surreal aren't communicating with each other or their friends, and their relationship faces real consequences. Marian, Lucivar’s wife, isn’t recovering from her last birthing. Dillon and Jillian are young people making choices that have real consequences. Bishop explores consequences.
The balance of power between lesser and greater, the dance of power between duty and desire: these are the underlying themes of the work, interlaced with explorations of acceptance in diversity, not only of gender but of race and species. Those are the pleasures of a Bishop book—in addition to great storytelling. So far I've loved all of them.
Scelties abound, Karla (kiss-kiss) visits, and love is forever—the barriers between life and death notwithstanding. The door to new adventures is always open, and I'll follow Bishop there every time. Recommended.

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A Mad World, or a Moral World?

The Institute by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Once again, Stephen King writes a novel that shows true horror lies not in the supernatural, but in the choices humans make. The world sees Luke Ellis as pretty special; he's got an incredible brain, and gifted with caring parents, he has reasonable social skills as well. He’s only twelve, but he’s all set to begin college classes in the coming fall. Except he wakes up in the middle of the night to his own kidnapping. His parents are also murdered, though it takes him a while to realize that fact.
Luke wakes up at the Institute, where a bunch of other kids are also imprisoned. They’re experimented on in Front Half and then disappear into Back Half and are never seen again. They each have a psychic gift, and all this murder and torture is enabled by taxpayer dollars diverted to a shadow government program.
The kids bond together, and Luke is not the only hero. In fact, the book starts out with the story of our adult hero, a cop who’s drifting his way on to a new future.
This would make a great movie, of course.
King is a master storyteller, keeping the suspense at a constant but tolerable level. We want the kids to escape, just like in the fairytales. This is the appeal of genre books and popular fiction: it’s clear who the good guys are, even if right and wrong get murky. The world is a scary and dangerous place and the only thing that helps is love and kindness; that’s what the stories are there to teach us.
The lesson is always hope, and the moral is always kindness, in the fairytales where horror was born.
King does a good job showing how people can let themselves torture kids for a living, either not caring in the first place or fooling themselves with the pretense of necessity camouflaged as national security. With this particular story, King asserts that no matter how lofty the goal, there is never a moral excuse for keeping children in cages.
(I won a Goodreads giveaway for the book, yay! and thanks!)

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Favorite SFF Read in 2019

It's Not Just America

Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Qualityland is both a good scifi story and an extended joke. The author takes the everyday situation of receiving something you didn't order and don't want through the typical absurdities. In the process he shows society has gone beyond the Peter Principle and Murphy's Law into Peter's Problem. With its near-future setting, it reads like a cross between Douglas Adams and a Monty Python script. 
In Peter's country, Qualityland, everything is great. The status quo is always great, even if it changes often. Algorithms decide everything, from jobs to relationships to diet to social status. It's all so great. And most things are automatic. In fact, TheShop sends you things before you know you want them, and charges you accordingly.  One day Peter receives something from TheShop that he absolutely does NOT want, and he attempts to return it. But that calls Qualityland's greatness into question, being not so great. Bureaucracy and frustration ensue. 
It's a satire of modernity bringing to mind Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” from the 18th century and Karel Capek’s play "RUR" from the early 20th; it's a cri de couer for the everyman of the 21st Century—all without preaching. The most interesting and gratifying thing about the book is that, like those other literary works, this is not about America. It's a scathing indictment of (insert name of “First World” country here). We're all alike. Kling skewers capitalism, colonialism, tribalism and most other -isms out there with an even touch, highlighting human foibles. We really are all alike.
The translation has given just the right touch of exasperation to elicit humor over tragedy as Peter tries to assert his individuality in a world gone mad with conformity and consumption, and the end result is thoughtful laughter (or facepalm) instead of tears. Highly recommended.

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It's the Season of Lovingkindness

This year for Christmas, I’m hoping to pass on to you, dear readers, the gift I got last Christmas: a writer. Jodi Thomas’ new book, Christmas in Winter Valley, is as heartwarming as a Hallmark Christmas movie. It follows last year’s Christmas book, Mistletoe Miracles—and in between the two I’ve hunted up and read at least 44 of her other books. Thomas writes authentically about Western life and people, both historical and modern; most of her latest books are contemporary. She does a perfect blend between western and romance, and anyone who’s ever lived in small-town anywhere will find someone or something to recognize in her stories.
This one, part of her Ransom Canyon series, has ranch life at the forefront: wild mustangs, a runaway orphan, a kind cook, a mysterious inheritance, and Christmas are thrown into the mix as well. As usual, there’s a lot of laughter but some tragedy, too, just like life.
The Holloway men are trying to run the ranch as usual while their brother Griffin and sister-in-law Sunlan are visiting her sick dad. The collegiate cousins-in-law have shown up to visit before Christmas, three city girls who mostly shop and party. Cooper takes off to the back country to care for the mustangs before they’re snowed in, and Elliot is trying to manage the cow hands in addition to his usual job of manning the books. Coop gets injured, Sunlan’s dad needs more care than expected, and Elliot’s college girlfriend shows up to add to the chaos. It all adds up to a merry time in Texas.
More than one character will get their happy ending when the snow clears; it’s another specialty of Thomas’ to intertwine several stories in a book.
While not quite under the “clean romance” umbrella, Thomas never focuses on the sex scenes for more than a page or two. Her books focus on regular people making the best of things through hard work and kindness. Isn’t that really what love is, after all? Dear readers, I hope you find the best books all year long—and may you be blessed with the gift of lovingkindness in this season that celebrates love.