Lewis Carroll’s gets a makeover in this old Czech film from 1988. And what a makeover it is!
The movie starts off on an eerie note, when little Alice, troubled and lonely, begins to tell you about her dream. It’s told like a child’s story, even a nursery rhyme, but the movie is clearly intended for older audience.
Book/ Series: A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson (Operation Otherworld Series Book #3, but can be read as standalone)
Published: 1974
Book Tropes: Alternative English History/ Fantasy
Recommended for fans of: Shakespeare (esp. The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream), R.L. Stevenson (esp. The Black Arrow)
Awards: 1975 Mythopoeic Award
Some time back, LibraryThing recommended A Midsummer Tempest for those who like Shakespeare’s plays, steampunk, the old adventure classics and medieval English history. I’ll second that recommendation, as long as you are certain that this blend is exactly what you’re looking for.
Oh, what an absolute gem of a book. Quiet and unassuming on the surface, yet so utterly charming and thought-provoking.
Bon Agornin dies one day, leaving behind two sons and three daughters. His sons, Penn and Avan, are in the clergy and government respectively, and his eldest daughter, Berend, is the matron in a wealthy family. The youngest daughters, Haner and Selendra, are unmarried, and are forced apart when their patriarch dies. Much of the story is about Haner and Selendra being uprooted from their old home and settling down in their new environment: Haner with Berend and her husband, and Selendra with her parson brother Penn.
They are all dragons. And dragons have a singular custom — that of eating dragon flesh of the deceased, because that is the only way they can increase in power and sustenance. Walton gives them other dragon-like characteristics and rituals too, but at the heart of the story is the grim truth that dragon eats dragon to flourish. It is to Walton’s credit that she makes dragon customs like these feel real but empathetic.
May 2021 was a slow reading month for me. I blogged much more than I read, which was unusual, but all thanks to the wonderful Wyrd And Wonder challenge. The link has all the posts for that challenge, most of these being SFF rec lists, but one standout read was Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi.
Aside from that, here’s a wrap-up for the month.
A very short book, with poems of varying length. These are all love/ heartbreak poems, but I think we can view them from a non-romantic lens too. I’m sure we’ve all had friends and loved ones with whom we had a parting, Lang’s poetry would ring true for those relationships as well. Rating: B–
The Bulfinch Encyclopedia of Mythology states that the twelve most illustrious knights of Emperor Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire were called Paladins. Lois McMaster Bujold took this term and applied it to the hero of her 2003 book, The Paladin of Souls, for which she got her fourth Hugo Award.
Paladin of Souls is a fantasy work set in Chalion, a land where religious practice is split among the Five Gods: Father of Winter, Mother of Summer, Son of Autumn, Daughter of Spring, and the Bastard (God of Death). The Five Gods put a curse on Chalion a long time back, and people still suffer from the after-effects. The mythological world-building in this book is absolutely gripping.
Piranesi is fantasy fiction but at its heart, it is a mystery. And what a mind-boggling, thought-provoking mystery it is.
A house with at least 7000 halls, giant statues, sea tides and migratory birds has only 2 inhabitants: Piranesi and The Other. Where have all the other humans gone? Does the House leave secret messages for Piranesi, even as he struggles to record all that he sees there? And why is The Other searching for secrets of immortality and other occultist knowledge?
Thanks to the wonderful Wyrd and Wonder challenge for reminding that May 22 is Maritime Day. So, let’s make it watery with all kinds of seaborne fantasy books: mermaid tales, sirens, ladies in the lake, pirates and other nautical adventurers. Get in the sea!
The Darkangel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce
Books: The Darkangel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, The Pearl of the Soul of the World
Published: 1998-1999
Recommended if you like: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin / The Chronicles of Narnia / The Ancient Mariner / Gothic mysteries in general
Rating: 8.5 / 10 – Recommended!
The Ancient Ones created the world, and disappeared. The wicked White Witch took advantage of their disappearance, and enslaved and bewitched the Wardens of the kingdoms. Her evil magic has caused the planet to become a barren, perilous desert.
The Witch’s vampyric sons, the Icari, also trap the souls of human women in order to become immortal. One of them, Irralyth, kidnaps a human bride and the bride’s slave girl, Aeriel.
Wyrd & Wonder is a super cool reading challenge for May 2021, hosted at There’s Always Room for One More.
“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.
Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”
Ironically, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke is the exact reverse of this contemplation. It is the downhill path that a magician’s ambition must inevitably take him. If you are looking for a finger-biting adventure into the hearts of men, look no further.
The book is based on an alternative history of England, when magicians once used to rule the land. The most illustrious of these was John Uskglass, or the Raven King. For some unknown reason, Raven King wrapped up his Faerie courts one day and vanished. With him, magic disappeared from England for centuries.
