Book Log #25: Folly, by Laurie R. King

Man, Folly was a difficult book to read–but fortunately, not quite as much a difficult to review. As I’ve said before in my reviews, I greatly enjoy Laurie King’s work, and this is easily one of the most substantial novels of hers I’ve tackled to date, if not the most.

Folly has just enough of a mystery in it to qualify as an actual mystery novel, but without a doubt, the true core of this story is the struggle of Rae Newborn against her own history of crippling depression. She’s had to fight against it all her life, but most recently, it’s been exacerbated beyond all bearing by the death of her second husband and youngest child, and on top of even that, suffering a rape attempt. Now, certain she needs to either conquer her demons or let them destroy her, she’s taken refuge on a remote island in the San Juans and is determined to rebuild the wreck of a house once owned by one of her ancestors. Once there, she discovers secrets about her great-uncle’s history–and disturbing hints about what may well have been going on in her own.

If you’re someone who’s suffered depression or who has a loved one who’s done so, this may not be the book for you; I haven’t had to deal with that burden, and even then, I had a hard time making my way through this book. A great number of the passages when Rae is alone on Folly with nothing but the surrounding wilderness and her own treacherous thoughts are almost painful in their evocativeness. So are several of Rae’s initial interactions with her neighbors, and her later interactions with what’s left of her troubled family. Balancing this out are King’s vivid descriptions of the island’s setting itself; Folly is as much a character as any of the people in the cast.

I think my only real complaint with it is that certain plot revelations at the end slightly cheapen the struggle Rae goes through, but overall this was a fairly minor complaint. I was very pleased to make the trek through the entire book… but yeah, it was a tough go. So if you go in, I’d recommend taking your time and reading it in whatever size chunks you’re up for tackling, and intersperse them with something joyful. Four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Right then so we have us a new Doctor!

So we’re a few episodes in now on the new guy, and I know some of you out there are watching directly via the BBC, some of you are watching via BBC America, and some of you are using Means Which Shall Not Be Mentioned! Me, I’ll eschew going into specific episode details since I don’t know who’s up to date with what–but I will say I’m caught up through the most recent BBC episode, “The Time of Angels”.

And suffice to say, yeah, I’m down with the new guy. He’ll do. ;)

I’m always going to miss Tennant, who I daresay will always be My Doctor(TM), but I’m happy to see Matt Smith starting to get his bearings with the role. In the first couple of episodes, it’s the Murkworks consensus that he’s still channeling a bit too much Tennant. When he’s not chanelling Tennant, he’s apparently channeling Two, a.k.a. Shemp Doctor in our house; solarbird and spazzkat, as the original Classic Who fans in the house, are better at picking that out than I am. But I can kind of see it as well. As of the most recent episode, though, there are moments when Smith seems to finally meld both of these influences into something new and therefore his own.

Companion-wise, I like Amy Pond pretty well so far too. Yeah, she’s pretty much still in the mode of clever, beautiful young woman we’ve had established as the Standard Companion with New Who. But on the other hand, she’s starting to show the sorts of cleverness that seem best on display in the episodes Moffat previously wrote. And she’s got the best Companion backstory, hands down, ever.

I think too that the most recent episode, fourth one they’ve aired so far, is the first one to really feel like the season’s truly underway and not just hitting all the usual notes of “okay we’re introducing a new Doctor AND a new Companion and oh hey let’s get the obligatory Dalek episode out of the way”. mamishka and jennygriffee have been joining us for Doctor viewing the last couple of weeks, and I mentioned to everyone that with this week’s episode, one of the things I really enjoyed was the simple fact that the Weeping Angels are the most effective monster that the new show has ever introduced. And this episode? A worthy followup indeed to “Blink”.

Which of course leads me to mentioning River Song. No real surprise that she’s back too since her introduction was also in a Moffat episode–but we were also all in strong, strong agreement that the handling of her return was excellent, and as is very fitting in a show featuring time travel, continuing the delightfully screwed up timeline of meetings between her and the Doctor.

Yeah. I think our favorite Time Lord’s in good hands indeed.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.