Tag Archives: Garth Nix

Book Review: A Confusion of Princes

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I apologize for the long absence! The last couple months have been…. well, they’ve been a THING. But, I have read a good number of books in the past few weeks that I keep meaning to write reviews for, so hopefully I will have plenty of things to say in the next few weeks (provided I can find the time and energy to get them written up). Some of the book reviews to expect include: Gideon the Ninth (I know I know it took me long enough!), Peaces by Helen Oyoyemi, An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris, and a couple upcoming ARCs. But first! We have a book that’s been out quite awhile that I just now got around to: A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix.

Title: A Confusion of Princes
Author: Garth Nix
Release Date: 2021
Source: owned
Stars: 2.5 out or 5

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love Garth Nix. I first fell in love with his work with Sabriel, and the rest of the Old Kingdom series, but I also own quite a few of his other works including Shade’s Children, Angel Mage, The Left-handed Booksellers of London (his newest book, which I haven’t read yet but is on the list for this year) and a bunch of his short stories. I have been meaning to read this one, A Confusion of Princes, for ages but just never got around to it. But for my 2021 Reading Challenge, this book fit the Space Opera category, and I needed a break from some of the longer/darker books I’d been reading, so I figured now was a good time.

A Confusion of Princes is a bit of a departure for Garth Nix. For one thing, its science fiction rather than fantasy (Shade’s Children is also science fiction, but it’s still not his usual fare). For another thing, the main character is a teenage boy (most, though not all, of Nix’s books tend to feature girls as the main character). It’s also a space opera, which I love, and which is not all that common in the realm of Young Adult fiction.

The basic premise is this: the main character is a young man named Khemri, a prince among hundreds of thousands of princes in an enormous intergalactic empire. The emperor rules the empire by means of the Imperial Mind, a psychic connection to the hundreds of thousands of princes, through which the Emperor makes their will known. The princes themselves (who are all called princes but can be any gender) are not from a hereditary line, but are rather chosen as young children from among the general population, and then genetically and technologically modified and trained to fulfill their roles. And for the most part the Imperial Mind leaves them to their own devices, so long as they adhere to certain rules, and they, therefore, run amok across the universe, commandeering whatever resources they desire and feuding with each other. What makes these princes even more powerful, however, is that they cannot die — or rather, they do not STAY dead: whenever they die (provided they have remained in the good graces of the Emperor) the Imperial Mind downloads their consciousness into a new body, exactly the same as the previous one.

Prince Khemri has just graduated from his training and is ready to take his place as a full prince within the empire at the opening of the novel. He is naive and arrogant and believes himself above all normal humans and all other princes. He is absolutely certain that he will be chosen as the next emperor when the current Emperor abdicates the throne as expected every 20 years. As he leaves the safety of his training ground and is sent to join the Navy, a common proving ground for new young princes, he quickly discovers that nothing is as he imagined it, the princes are often more like glorified pawns for the Imperial Mind, and someone or something has secret plans for him personally.

If I go much further into the plot than that, I will start to risk any number of spoilers, so we’ll see how well I can dance around them.

Here’s the thing: I tried to like this book. I really REALLY tried to like this book. And I did finish it, so I didn’t HATE it. BUT I nearly gave up and DNF’d it at about the halfway point because I just wasn’t FEELING it. The premise is absolutely fascinating to me, and while the writing is not Nix’s BEST, it’s hardly BAD. And yet… I think I can boil it down to two main problems, for me at least. 

First, the plot felt like there was both too little and too much happening in a relatively short novel. In quick succession we move from Khemri’s intro and training, to his appointment to the Navy and year spent there, to his re-assignment to a secret installation where he trains for several months more (which takes like two chapters?), to being sent on another secret assignment that takes like half a year, to a big event at the Emperor’s main… not sure what to call it, headquarters? Home world? Whatever… and then the final big test/battle thing. A lot happens. Khemri get shuffled around a lot. And yet at the same time there were big sections of the book where I was just kind of bored. I felt that a lot of what happened would have been far more interesting if it had a) been more fleshed out, and b) probably written for an adult audience rather than a YA. And I realize that’s something of a controversial statement, but I have nothing against YA. I read plenty of YA. All of Garth Nix’s other works are YA and I have never had a problem with them before. I just didn’t feel that this particular plot/premise really WORKED as a YA. If it had been written in a more adult style/aesthetic, with a bit less “teenage ridiculousness” and a bit more realism and acknowledgement of the complexities involved, I think it would have been far better. To me it seemed like each of those different sections could almost have been their own “season” of a tv series, for instance.

The second problem for me was Khemri himself. I just could NOT like him. Now, I’m not saying every character needs to be “likable” by which most people mean: I would like this person and be friends with them if I knew them in real life. No. I have no problem with complicated, “unlikable,” amoral, main characters. But if you have a main character through which the entire story is seen/told, particularly in first-person as this one is, the main character has to be at least be TOLERABLE, right? But he just ANNOYED me. He was arrogant, he was whiny, he was insufferable. To be clear, these were obviously all conscious choices for the story, and part of the POINT of the story was to witness his transformation. Essentially, Khemri spends the majority of the novel learning to be HUMAN. I get that. That can make for interesting character development. But this time it just didn’t work for me. He was still just ANNOYING. I wanted to smack him through most of the book. And again, I think if this had been a longer adult novel, with more time spent acknowledging and wrestling with the complexities of the character and the imperialistic system that produced him, it might have worked better. But alas, I did not get that.

One last critique is the ending: I could tell about a third of the way through the novel that it was going to end one of only two ways. There were two very obvious options, and only two. And right on cue, one of those endings peaked around a corner before being like “no, just kidding, it’s the OTHER ending!” It wasn’t a BAD ending. Just very very obvious. And it felt a tad un-earned. For the same reasons stated above, pretty much.

If you are a completist who must read every book by a beloved author (as I often am), then by all means go try it! Maybe the main character will not annoy you as much as he annoyed me. But if you are just looking to try something by Garth Nix, please please please for all that is holy, go read The Old Kingdom series instead! They are beautiful and astounding and complex and wonderful! But every respected author with a lengthy oeuvre is due at least one or two misses, and this might be Nix’s.

Book Review: Clariel

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Book: Clariel (Book 4 of The Old Kingdom series)
Author: Garth Nix
Release Date: 2016
Source: owned
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I’ve been working my way back through the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix, as I have read the original trilogy several times, but never got around to reading the prequel (Clariel) or the sequel (Goldenhand) or the two short stories collections that include a couple Old Kingdom stories. So I decided to work through these as part of my “Finish the Series” 2020 reading challenge.

I knew I loved the first three books – Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen – and I trust Garth Nix implicitly, so I went into this book with high expectations. And for the most part, I was not disappointed. I noticed online that some people did not like this book as much as some of his others, but I disagree with most of the criticisms. Is it my favorite book in the series? No, of course not. But I thoroughly enjoyed it.

To give a brief description: Clariel takes place approximately 600 years before the events of the original trilogy, so as far as prequels go, it went pretty far back! The main character, Clariel, is a distant relation of both the King and the Abhorsen (and for those familiar with the books, you understand why this is important), but she wants only to become a “borderer” who monitors and protects the great forests of the kingdom, and to be left alone. Her family and political forces behind the throne have other plans however. Dragged against her will away from her home village to the capital city, she is forced to learn how to be a “proper lady” while the governor manipulates events in an effort to marry her to his son, depose the king (who has gone slightly mad and relinquished most of his responsibilities to the governor), and make her his puppet queen. At the same time, forces loyal to the king and the line of succession try to use Clariel to lure a dangerous free magic creature helping the governor out of hiding, and hope to make her a regent in a temporary effort to protect the royal line. (And folks, it just gets more complicated for there!)

Throughout all of this, Clariel discovers she is a Berserk (she goes bloodthirsty with rage when under threat or in high-stress situations) AND she has an affinity for free magic – which is considered highly dangerous and antithetical to human society. While trying to avoid all these political machinations that are attempting to control her, and while trying to find a way to escape back to the forest and the only place she has ever been happy, Clariel slides deeper and deeper into a life of violence, death, and bad decisions.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

It is difficult to talk about why this book is so interesting and unique to me without getting into some spoilers. Some of these spoilers will not be a surprise to people who have read other books in the series, but I still want to give you plenty of warning!

Ready? Ok, here we go into spoilers.

In the original trilogy, there is a character – a villain, one of the people working for the main antagonist – named Chlorr of the Mask. I suspected from the get-go that Clariel was going to end up BEING Chlorr of the Mask. I think anyone who comes into this book with some knowledge of the series would also suspect this. And we would all be correct.

So, what makes this book so interesting is that it is literally the descent of a main character into, perhaps not evil exactly, but amoral self-serving behavior that she manages to rationalize to herself for most of the book. It is a villain origin story. In some ways, it reminded me a bit of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, as we watch Anakin Skywalker, through both manipulation and a series of bad decisions based on fear and anger, fall into darkness and evil. Some online reviews have argued that Clariel’s descent was too quick and not sufficiently developed, but I disagree. I think it was very well done. In fact, I think it was done in a much more believable manner than that of Anakin Skywalker. Her motives, and the ways she is manipulated and tricked by outside forces, were well-written and developed, and fit the character and the world very well.

And, of course, the prose was beautiful and powerful, as Garth Nix’s writing always is.

This is not the first or only book to feature an evil origin story. But I do think such stories are outside the norm, especially in YA (and especially when this book was released in 2016). And I appreciate that Garth Nix did something a bit different and unique, in writing a character that we can totally sympathize with, and even like, while also recognizing that many of the decisions she makes are wrong. That, to me, is the sign of a well-written and complex character.

One other characteristic of note about Clariel is that she is, I believe, written to be asexual/aromantic. And that is EXTREMELY unusual in any fiction, especially in YA. There are many points in the book where Clariel explicitly states that she has no interest in romance, or falling in love, or sex. At one point, she says she isn’t interested in boys, and her aunt suggests maybe she’s interested in girls (which is totally fine to these characters!), but Clariel says, no. She isn’t interested in any of that. At another point, she explains that she experimented with sex a couple times and simply did not understand the appeal. And one of the characters throughout the book expressed romantic interest in her, and she rebuffs him every single time. At no point does the story imply that she just needs to be won-over, or that she hasn’t find the right person. This is just who she is. And I really loved that.

Clariel is not, I think, quite as well-plotted, or as beautifully written, or as emotionally impactful as the original trilogy. But I think it holds up with the rest of the series very well, and I really enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to anyone who has read the first three books and was undecided about whether or not to continue.

Recent Acquisitions and a Mini-Review

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My book buying habit has been a bit out of control recently, and so I have a bunch of recent acquisitions to share. So! A catalogue of recent book purchases that have been added to the TBR pile:

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix (a new book by one of my favorite authors! I received an ARC of this through work, but never got around to reading it, and I knew I wanted to buy a copy anyway, so here we are!)

Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro (I have not read Mark Oshiro’s other work, but this book sounds really interesting and unique, and I watched a virtual book tour talk he gave, and he seemed really cool too, so I bought it!)

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini (I have had this book on pre-order for MONTHS. I was so excited when it finally showed up!)

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh (I ADORED Allie Brosh’s blog, and I bought her first book and loved it with a fiery passion. I was shocked and delighted when I found out she was releasing a new book after 7 years! I ordered it immediately!)

Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First-Person by Anna Mehler Paperny (this title, and the subject of this book, is something I understand deeply, and struggle with on a daily basis, so… yeah.)

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson (I got this as my August Book of the Month book, and then kinda just forgot about it. But it looks amazing and its definitely on the TBR list!)

The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem (I received this ARC through work, the book comes out in November. I’m about 1/3 of the way through so far, and I really like it. I’ll do a full review of this one later!)

So that’s my recent acquisitions. In addition, I wanted to drop a very quick short mini-review for a book I did not finish. I received an ARC of Midnight Bargain through work, but…

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk
Release Date: October 2020
Status: DID NOT FINISH

I only got about 1/4 of the way through this book, which is a shame because I really tried to like it. It’s basically a second-world version of a Victorian fantasy romance, which I usually love. And the basic premise is, if a bit derivative and well-worn, was enjoyable enough. The basic plot is this: in a world reminiscent of Regency or Victorian England (but not), where magic is real, a young woman named Beatrice wants to be a sorceress. Both men and women are capable of magic, but only men are allowed to practice it, and women are barred from it once they become married because of fears of danger to an unborn baby. Beatrice doesn’t want to get married though, she wants to practice magic, and she is willing to make a deal with a mischievous spirit in order to make that goal a reality. Unfortunately, for her, she just happens to meet a charming man who seems to actually SEE her for who she is, and the romance that threatens to blossom between them, could undue all her ambitions.

It’s not a bad plot. Like I said, a bit well-worn, but certainly capable of being made interesting, entertaining, even compelling in the right hands. But the characters were very one-note, especially Beatrice. The love interest has a tad more personality and could be a very swoon-worthy leading man, but the very SUDDEN nature of his romantic interest was… hard to swallow no matter how much “suspension of disbelief” I threw at it. The dialogue was clunky and inauthentic, and the narrative prose was… not great. I was surprised because C.L. Polk’s other books (Witchmark, etc) are very highly regarded, so I was expecting this to be better. But overall, I was just unimpressed and uninterested. I’m a little worried it might just be ME, that I’m missing something, or being too critical, but… *shrug* There are too many books, and time is too limited to keep pushing through something that is clearly not working for me.

Ironically, I am currently also reading Clariel by Garth Nix – it’s the fourth book in the Old Kingdom series – and it has a somewhat similar plot to Midnight Bargain, and does it SO MUCH BETTER. The main character, Clariel, comes from a family with distant connections to the king, and a series of political machinations mean to marry her off, put her on the throne, and make her a political puppet. But Clariel has no interest in marrying anyone (I think she’s written to be aromantic/asexual even!), she has no interest in the throne, or magic, or the city: she just wants to go be a solitary hunter/border patrol in the great forests, and she’s willing to do some questionable things to get what she wants. Like I said, somewhat similar plots, but the difference in writing is ENORMOUS. All the characters in Clariel are much more real, flawed and complex and interesting. And the prose is just WORLDS AWAY better. It’s been a very apt comparison, and its pure coincidence I happened to be reading them at the same time, to make that difference in quality so much more apparent. But here we are.

Rereading books and making zines: a quick Update, Aug 2020

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Hello folks! I apologize for the long pauses between posts lately. I’ve been working a lot of hours and that trend is likely to continue through November at least. I am trying to get better at staying on top of things and using what free time I have productively, but alas, I’ve been so exhausted the last couple weeks that I usually get home from work, make (or order) dinner, take care of the dogs, and then crawl into bed to stare at the ceiling for a few hours.

Anyway! I confess I haven’t done much reading as of late, and what reading I have done has been mostly re-reading, rather than reading anything new. As I mentioned before, I am working my way through Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series, again. I recently finished the second book, Lirael, and have now started the third book, Abhorsen.

I am, however, also reading the first of the Chrestomanci books by Diana Wynne Jones, which is called Charmed Life. I have been meaning to read these books for AGES and just never seemed to get around to it. And I needed something a little lighter/funnier to listen to while I work, so I borrowed the first audiobook from the library. I’m about ⅔ of the way through it now and I really like it!

I am technically also reading Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente. I am reading that one in print, but I haven’t actually picked it up in almost two weeks so… Not much progress is being made on that front currently.

What little free (and conscious/lucid) time I have had lately has been devoted to a new project.

I am considering making a zine.

Well, I say “considering” – I am, in fact, already tinkering with/formatting one in a free publishing app. What I’m considering is whether or not I will actually try to print and sell it.

I love zines. Good ol’ fashion handmade DIY zines. Newer, more modern, glossy printed zines. Political zines. Personal/poetry zines. Fan zines. Art zines. ALL THE ZINES!

If you aren’t familiar with the zine as a genre, here’s a couple links to some useful explanations:

Wikipedia article

“What is a zine?”

“A brief history of zines”

(sidenote, there is some crossover and bleedthrough between zines and chapbooks…)

Zines are such a great way to make something with your own two hands (or computer), as an outlet for political ideas, fandom, emotions, creativity, whatever! And I have always wanted to try my hand at one. Or several. Eventually, I think I’d like to try making/collaborating on a fanzine or two, with other writers and artists and such, but for now I’m trying a personal zine on my own. I have compiled a collection of poetry and a few short creative nonfiction/memoir-ish essay-thingies that I’ve written over the years and didn’t know what to do with, in combination with a couple photos and a few doodles, and I am tinkering with putting them together into something semi-passable.

I’m still on the fence about whether or not I will try to print and sell it. If you look on Etsy there are tons of great, fun zines for sale! Some are totally handmade DIY old-school, and some are more glossy and professionally designed and printed, perfect bound instead of just stapled, and so forth. And they can range in price anywhere from like $5 to something like $15 depending on the quality and on the person selling them. If I did sell mine, it would probably only be for like $5-6 since it would be entirely handmade and all. But, we’ll see… *shrug*

Anyway, how are you all doing? Is the situation of the world-at-large freaking you all out yet? Here in Houston we are currently flipping out over the fact that there are currently not one, but TWO separate hurricanes forming in the Gulf! For the first time in recorded history! How fun! Only in 2020, folks… *cries*

Reading Challenge Update, July 2020

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Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

I’m sure no one actually cares about this, so this post is mainly for myself to keep track of my progress, but here is how I’m doing on my 2020 reading challenges!

Overall, I have read 24 books so far this year. I know this is small potatoes to a lot of big readers (and years ago, it would have been small potatoes to me too), but considering just a couple years ago I wasn’t reading AT ALL, this is great progress for me! And considering that in 2019, I read 29 books in the whole year, I’d say 24 is really really good. I’m on track to read approximately 50 books by the end of the year. We’ll see if that trend continues.

For my “Storm the Castle” 2020 Reading Challenge, I have read 13 of the 21 books in the challenge, so I’m over halfway there! In fact, I’m also ⅔ of the way through! I have slowed down on that front the last month or so because I’ve been reading a lot of books that don’t count towards the challenge. But I’m ok with that. Particularly because some of the books I’ve been reading count toward the “Finishing the Series” 2020 Reading Challenge instead.

For the “Finishing the Series” challenge, I have completely FINISHED the Artemis Fowl series! Eight books down! In addition, I have read books 1-6 of The Dresden Files series. I suspect I will not actually finish THAT series by the end of the year as there are currently 15 books in the series, AND books #16 and #17 are being released in July and October! Still, I am making good headway on that series. In addition, I am currently re-reading Sabriel by Garth Nix, the first in the Old Kingdom series. I read the original 3 books of that series WAY back in high school and absolutely ADORED them, but never got around to reading the 2 sequel novels and the handful of short stories in the series, so I’m working on that for the challenge as well.

Right this minute, I am reading several books. Sabriel (as I said), Dresden Files book #7: Dead Beat, and I am now starting Hyperion by Dan Simmons, which is on my “Storm the Castle” challenge list. I also JUST received the ARC for Garth Nix’s new book The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, which will be released in September. Since I ADORE Garth Nix (see above!), I will probably go ahead and start that one as well.

So that’s my reading progress and plans for the month. How about you folks? What is everyone reading right now? And how are you progressing on any goals you set for yourself for the year? Please feel free to share in the comments!