Nicole Robichaud, (view spoiler)[also known as Elspeth Harrow (hide spoiler)], lives in Halifax now, with her birth parents, close tNova Scotia, 1774�
Nicole Robichaud, (view spoiler)[also known as Elspeth Harrow (hide spoiler)], lives in Halifax now, with her birth parents, close to her adoptive sister and brother-in-law, Anne and Cyril. Nicole loves her newfound family dearly, but feels compelled by duty to become Uncle Charles� heir. She sails to England, confident that she’s doing the right thing but swamped with anxiety. She forms a friendship with Emily Madden, the ship captain’s wife, and tentatively flirts with first mate Gordon Goodwind. Yet at her core, Nicole is still restless and rootless.
British high society proves intimidating. Her uncle’s grand residence feels too big and opulent, and the other nobles expect the heir of Harrow Hall to glitter like the chandeliers above. Uncle Charles has problems of his own—he’s one of the only Tories arguing in Parliament for the independence of the American colonies, which has not made him popular. The stress aggravates an already pressing heart condition. He needs to finalize his succession soon.
Tragedy drives Anne to England, with something unspeakably precious in tow. As she and Nicole support each other with sisterhood and Scripture, they wonder if they’ve got their destinies all wrong�
No content advisory needed. The book deals with mature subject matter—namely death—in a gentle, reassuring manner. Nothing here a twelve-year-old reader can’t handle if they’re so inclined.
This book relies on deus ex machina even more heavily than The Sacred Shore did, but I think that’s the point the authors want to make—God is literally present in the machine of the world, bringing unlikely cogs together for purposes only He can see. It would not work for every book, but here it works well enough.
The other parts that bothered me were minor. One is the name of Harrow Hall. In all the British classics I’ve read and period dramas I’ve watched, it doesn’t seem that grand English manor houses are usually named after their owners. The de Bourghs owned Rosings, the Darcys owned Pemberley, the Bertrams owned Mansfield, and the Crawleys owned Downton.
The other aspect I found odd was how both girls seemed to think of Catherine and Andrew as their main set of parents, even though Nicole was raised by Louise and Henri. The Robichauds disappear about two chapters in, while the Harrows are a presence throughout.
Nicole continues to be a brave and steady lead character, who grows in spine and soul. Anne never gets quite the same amount of detail, but she still has a definite personality and arc, rising from her grief strong and hopeful. It was cute how they wound up studying the Bible together in their time of need, just like their moms before them.
Cyril was sweet, (view spoiler)[but not around long enough to really take shape on his own. His death is sad because he’s young and has so much to live for; I just never felt like I knew him as a character (hide spoiler)]. Thomas and Gordon (seriously, Gordon Goodwind is the best sailor name ever) both have potential, and I know that they’ll get fleshed out more in the next book.
John is adorable and I hope that he stays safe and healthy.
The last quibble is a matter of historical accuracy, not aesthetic quality. The characters, particularly Charles, seemed to have it in their heads that the American Revolution was about freedom of religion. The hope of religious freedom was what drove many colonists to settle in the future States—the Puritans of New England, the Quakers and Anabaptists of Pennsylvania, and the Catholics of Maryland were all driven out of Britain. The war posed a religious conflict for some of the many denominations in the colonies; Anglicans had to reconcile the Divine Right of Kings with the Declaration of Independence, while Quakers were forbidden to take up arms for either side (although some did, notably including General Nathanael Green). But the main causes of the war were secular: the colonists wanted Parliamentary representation.
Overall, while this book wasn’t as good as The Meeting Place, I did enjoy it and look forward to the rest of the series. ...more
Catherine Price has just married Andrew Harrow, a captain in His Majesty’s army. They are very much in The disputed Canadian territory of Acadia, 1753
Catherine Price has just married Andrew Harrow, a captain in His Majesty’s army. They are very much in love, but he is almost always away from home. They live on a volatile piece of land, occupied by their fellow British colonists, French Catholics loyal to Louis XV, and Huguenots (French Protestants, historically persecuted by, and exiled from, their mother country), who swear allegiance to neither king. The drums of war echo in every hill and valley of this land.
With Andrew usually absent, Catherine finds herself stuck in a small-minded settlement, full of suspicious, petty matrons who have no wish to associate with her. Her mother died when she was a little child, her cold, imposing father is in the army like Andrew, and she has no other family.
Between Andrew’s visits, Catherine obsessively cleans the house, flips through her Bible, and takes long walks in the woods just beyond the settlement.
On one of these walks she bumps into Louise Belleveau Robichaud from the neighboring Huguenot settlement of Minas. Catherine can only speak childish French, Louise only stiff and limited English. But the two young women discover that they are the same age and facing many of the same problems�
Louise is also newly married, to Henri Robichaud, who’s quickly becoming a community leader despite his youth. Both of Louise’s parents are alive and loving; she has several siblings and is related to almost everyone in her tight-knit village.
Yet the folk of Minas are poor, especially compared to their English neighbors, with each generation fighting desperately against hunger and cold. They have no love for the French crown—the memory of their martyred ancestors is far too near and dear for that—but that doesn’t mean they’re about to swear allegiance to George II either. Sensing bad times ahead, Louise has turned to Scripture and nature for solace and guidance, just like Catherine.
As the two keep meeting up and chatting, they learn enough of each other’s languages to have real conversations, and study their Bibles together. They trade herbal remedies and husband stories, and share the anxieties and thrills of their first pregnancies. Catherine is embraced by Louise’s giant family. At first Andrew is quite alarmed to hear that his wife has been taken under French wings, but Louise and Henri adopt him too.
But many in the village of Edward have been spying on the Harrows and accuse them of treachery. As Andrew’s position is endangered, Catherine hatches a compassionate plan that may still end in tragedy�
No content advisory needed. This is one of the cleanest adult books I have ever read. The problems are pretty grown-up, but there’s nothing in the book itself that a twelve-year-old couldn’t handle.
Conclusions When I read Oke and Bunn’s Acts of Faith trilogy, I enjoyed the story, prose, and characters. But I thought that the likeable cast acted more like American (or Canadian) Protestants of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries than the first century Jews and pagan Romans that they were supposed to be. I figured the authors might be more at home writing about people closer in space and historical time. And indeed, they are!
It’s clear that our authors know and love the land of Acadia; the characters—Catherine, Andrew, Louise, Henri, Captain Price, Marie, Jacques, and Pastor Jean Ricard—seem sprung from its soil. With the exception of the (understandably) bitter Captain Price, they are all the sort of people you would want for neighbors, unfailingly generous and eager to help.
I do think that the whole concept might have been even more effective if Louise and her village had been Catholic. The English bore no great love for any French, but they found “Papists� especially disgusting.
Don’t misunderstand me—the persecution of the Huguenots is probably one of the most shameful chapters in the history of both royal France and Catholicism—but it seems like the only acceptable French characters in Christian historical fiction must be Huguenots, and that annoys me.
There was also a throwaway line in this book about a warmongering, royalist Catholic priest because of course there was *eye roll* . Not saying it didn't happen, obviously it did, but since the majority of French Canadians were Catholic I wish they had been represented better, especially since reaching out to people from different cultures is the whole point of the story.
The only other flaw was the twice-repeated reference to a city in the thirteen lower colonies called Washington. Given that Washington DC wouldn’t be founded for another thirty-seven years, and George Washington was just a twenty-one-year-old surveyor in 1753�does anyone know where the heck this book is talking about when it mentions Washington?!? I know it’s a nitpick, but it was bothering me.
When only three sentences out of a novel bother me, the author(s) did an excellent job. This was a surprisingly engrossing story that introduced me to a time and place I knew almost nothing about. The prose is good, the characters lovable, the setting deep, and the crisis at the end unexpected and wrenching. Now I’m eager to find out what becomes of the Harrows, the Robichauds, and their “beloved land.�...more
King Artos has been dead a hundred years, and nothing of Rome remains in Britain beyond the increasingly rare Christian faith aBritain, circa 584 A.D.
King Artos has been dead a hundred years, and nothing of Rome remains in Britain beyond the increasingly rare Christian faith and the ruins that dot the countryside. The Saxons are coming.
The Britons made a valiant last rally against the Saxons, but they were crushed. Among them were the father and older brother of fifteen-year-old Owain, who wanted to fight but lay incapacitated for most of the battle. The only survivor of that force, he leaves the corpses and sets off for climes unknown. He is accompanied by a mysterious hound, whom he names simply Dog.
Owain makes a slow journey toward the coast. In a dead city, he and Dog meet Regina, a beggar girl clinging to life through sheer will. She joins them, but when she falls ill, Owain must leave her to heal with one Saxon family while he sells himself to another.
As he grows up, he joins in battle for his homeland—but his homeland is not the same place he knew as a child. Will these people be Saxon or British? Will they be pagan or Christian? Will anything of Arthur and Rome survive the present chaos?
Content Advisory Violence: A few battle sequences, not gory but still full of death. A man dies after being thrown by a wild horse. Young men pretend to abduct unmarried girls as part of a wedding ritual.
Sex: A beggar girl is almost kidnapped by a group of violent men; rape is never mentioned, but the threat is clearly present. Later on, that same girl runs away from the homestead where she’s been indentured, to avoid becoming a concubine. A cruel young man nurses an obsession with the daughter of a neighboring lord, which he shows by attempting to kidnap her during the faux abduction ritual, and later demanding her hand in marriage even though she’s clearly terrified of him.
Nightmare Fuel: The opening scene is Owain extracting himself from the corpses of all his kinsmen and friends, who died fighting the Saxons. Later, someone accidentally touches a skeleton in an abandoned house.
Politics & Religion: Sutcliff takes a largely neutral view of the tension between Germanic paganism and Christianity in early medieval Britain. Owain is raised Christian, but occasionally prays to Norse and Roman gods as the years go on.
Conclusions I’ve been consistently impressed with all the Rosemary Sutcliff books I’ve picked up so far, and Dawn Wind is no exception.
Owain is a plausible, detailed character with a complex inner life. We learn his obvious major concerns—his frustrated patriotism, his mourning for his family, and his fierce loyalty to Regina—while also picking up details, like his consistent compassion for animals and his drifting between religions, that a lesser author might have skipped.
Regina, unlike most of the women in this series so far, is in a lot of the story. She’s believably skittish, admirably tenacious, and surprisingly kind. Her and Owain’s relationship is subtle, warm, and eminently shippable.
The supporting cast are all vivid, from Priscus and Priscilla in their forlorn farmhouse, to Brani with his green eyes aglitter with vengeance. When I first read the name “Vadir� I wanted to make a Star Wars joke, but soon I was so swept up in his part of the tale that I completely forgot. This fictional treatment of the historical St. Augustine of Canterbury was a bit heavy on subjective analysis—Owain concludes that the Archbishop had courage, faith, and zeal, but lacked compassion, after watching the man at a diplomatic meeting for a few hours. That said, I found this Augustine absolutely intriguing and wish he had been in more of the book.
And what evocative scenes this story has! From Owain stumbling over the corpses of his people and finding Dog…the unnamed refugee girl clutching her cage full of doves…Regina and the little blue songbird…the olivewood fire…Owain burying the dolphin ring…the ruined temple of Silvanus…the shipwreck…the incident with the silver horse, who receives St. Augustine’s blessing…it really enthralled me.
My only gripe with this book is that it feels a little too long compared to the precision of The Eagle of the Ninth or The Lantern Bearers.
Alexios Flavius Aquila is an excellent swordsman but an immature military leader. A disastrous decision nearly gets him discharged from the RoA.D. 349
Alexios Flavius Aquila is an excellent swordsman but an immature military leader. A disastrous decision nearly gets him discharged from the Roman army, but his high-ranking uncle begrudgingly pulls some strings, and well-meaning-but-inept Alexios is transferred instead.
The young man quickly discovers that discharge might have been the more comfortable option. He’s been sent to mind the fort on the very edge of Caledonia (present-day Scotland), the most northern and remote part of the Roman Empire. The soldiers here are some of the toughest and fiercest in the Empire. They call themselves the Frontier Wolves, after the wolf-pelt cloaks they wear in the tradition of Hercules� Nemean Lion-skin.
Outside the fort walls dwell numerous Celtic tribes. The Votadini are tentatively friendly with the Romans, while others, especially the Picts, are notoriously hostile. In these far northern climes, the Druids still hold power, and they have no forgiven Rome for driving them out of southern Britain. Imperial forces here must also stay alert for conspiracies between the Scots and their sea-raiding cousins from unconquerable Hibernia (Ireland).
Alexios discovers some comforts in this bleak landscape. He’s treated well by the Votadini chieftain and becomes best friends with the old man’s two sons, steady Cunorix and irrepressible Connla. But the peace is fragile. If the Druids don’t break it, Alexios� Roman superiors might�
Content Advisory Violence: Several battle scenes, a single combat, and one execution by stabbing—none gratuitously gory, but most involving the deaths of characters we’ve come to care about. Casualties include women, children, horses, and a kitty cat.
Sex: It is implied that a young Celtic widow might have been raped by a marauding tribe. This is never confirmed, and a younger reader probably wouldn’t pick up on the hint.
Language: One soldier swears by Christ, while his compatriots usually swear by Mithras. Sometimes they mix things up by swearing by Ahimran or Satan.
Substance Abuse: The Votadini hold a great feast wherein the vast majority of warriors get impressively sloshed.
Politics and Religion: Brief internal monologue from Alexios about why he thinks the Mithras cult is better suited to army life than Christianity. A Druid is portrayed as a sinister character, although he is shown as a political evil rather than a spiritual one, and it makes perfect sense for our POV character to see the man as a villain.
Nightmare Fuel: The Votadini play a primitive ballgame with the severed head of a calf. The foul thing leaves a faint bloody residue all over the playing ground, and one of its eyeballs falls out during the game.
Conclusions Frontier Wolf was published in 1980, twenty-three years after The Eagle of the Ninth. in her foreword, Sutcliff states that she had always wanted this story to be part of the Dolphin Ring sequence, but no evidence of Roman occupation that far north had been unearthed until the late seventies. Chronologically, this installment fits between The Silver Branch and The Lantern Bearers.
I bring up the publication order and time gap because they might explain the significantly darker content and tone of this book compared to its predecessors.
Even while reading the comparatively cheery Eagle, I wondered why these books were classified as children’s. The vocabulary and sentence structure can be quite advanced. The tone is bleak. The main characters are in their late teens or early twenties. Sutcliff assumes that her readers have a basic knowledge of Roman and British history—a fairly safe assumption at the time, but not in these dumb times—and she never talks down to the reader or hits them on the head with the moral of the story.
In Frontier Wolf, the violence, while still not gratuitous, is a lot more upsetting than that of Eagle or Silver Branch. (view spoiler)[This time the most tragic deaths are witnessed, and our hero, through no will of his own, has a hand in them (hide spoiler)].
Granted, the series so far is so sexless it makes the Chronicles of Narnia look like today’s hormone-marinated YA by comparison, but “lack of romance� does not automatically equal “kids� book�, especially when the rest of the book would be a hard read for youngsters regardless.
This is a dark and sorrowful story, not dark for the sake of darkness like so many today (*cough* An Ember in the Ashes *cough*), but accurately reflecting a dark period in history, a time when Roman apathy and the anger of various “barbarians� would bring about the Empire’s end, taking antiquity itself with it, in about a hundred-and-fifty years.
It’s also the personal tragedy of a young man trapped between horrible choices, always wanting to do the right thing, and having to settle for doing as little damage as possible. I shed a few tears for Alexios.
The most searing installment yet in a series I’m so glad to have found. Recommended. ...more
The very pretty cover photograph of The One gives the whole thing away, but that’s alright. This is one of those books where the ending was fairly easThe very pretty cover photograph of The One gives the whole thing away, but that’s alright. This is one of those books where the ending was fairly easy to call, and the journey mattered more than the destination anyway.
(Also, the gowns on the covers are blue, red, and white. Because the girl's name is America. I just caught that).
As the teen drama of the Selection process continues, the Northern Rebels make diplomatic overtures to Maxon and America, whom they believe to be sympathetic to their cause. Our heroine is going to learn a lot about her country, her father, Maxon, and even Celeste and Aspen. The opulent life at the palace is revealed as the façade it is. Before the Selection ends, there will be great change. And with all major social change comes bloodshed.
Content Advisory Violence: The beginning and climax of the book both contain a shoot-out. I don’t remember any notable casualties from the first skirmish, but the later one turns into a massacre (view spoiler)[with three major character deaths, two of which were really sad. Another major character dies off-page, and while his family claims he had a heart complaint, it appears more likely that he was assassinated for knowing too much. (hide spoiler)] King Clarkson continues to beat and verbally abuse his son. America is caught in a skirmish off the palace grounds and is badly wounded.
Sex: Max and America spend a night kissing and snuggling in their undergarments. They discuss going further but decide that that can wait until after the royal wedding.
Early in the book, the girls are watching the guards work out with their shirts off and America blurts out that Max’s body is the equal of any man there. This leads to an awkward conversation where we find out exactly how intimate he’s been with each girl there—which is not very. I could have sworn that book two said he and Celeste had slept together, but I might have misunderstood.
Substance Abuse: Kriss becomes uncharacteristically confrontational at a party and America wonders if her friend has hit the champagne a little too hard.
Nightmare Fuel: The book makes it very clear that getting shot is not fun.
Conclusions In The One, the Selection series finally comes of age. There’s still plenty of pretty dresses and stupid misunderstandings, but the catty girl fights are firmly in the past, as is (for the most part) the love triangle. America, at long last, starts paying attention to what’s going on around her and noticing other people’s needs. There’s also lots of positive development for two characters I had absolutely despised in the first two books, which was pretty cool.
My only major complaint with this one was that Max—the rock of the story up until this point—started acting like an impulsive jerk about twenty pages from the end. He snapped out of it quickly, but it seemed out of character and just there for drama. Then again, he’s only seventeen. And his father is a monster.
Cass also leaves some world-building threads dangling, such as the conflict with the Southern rebels, but there are two additional books after this, so I guess she’ll address that there.
This series ended (at least the initial trilogy) on a much stronger note than I expected going in. It’s a cute, often silly, surprisingly poignant mix of dystopia, chick flick and fairytale that should never work but somehow does. Max is one of the sweetest male leads in a YA series in some time. America starts out a world-class idiot but eventually grows into a heroine worthy of respect. Aspen is a pain, but he fades into the background like he should. And some of the supporting characters will surprise and refresh you. (view spoiler)[Celeste and America have the cutest former-enemy friendship since Kim and Lindsay on Freaks and Geeks. (hide spoiler)]
I liked this book. I’m curious to see where this series goes now....more
In 117 AD/CE, the Ninth Legion of the Roman Army marched into the mists of Caledonia (the land known today as Scotland). They were never seen again.
ThIn 117 AD/CE, the Ninth Legion of the Roman Army marched into the mists of Caledonia (the land known today as Scotland). They were never seen again.
The standard-bearer of the Legio IX Hispana, who held aloft the golden eagle as they marched, was the father of our hero, Marcus Flavius Aquila. Marcus was a lad of twelve years when his father vanished. Now a young adult eager to prove his mettle, Marcus himself serves as a Roman officer in Britain.
He is discharged after a grievous battle wound that gives him a slight limp. While recuperating in the house of his uncle, Marcus has nothing but downtime in which to ponder the fate of his father and the standard he carried into the Caledonian mists.
He also forms three fast friendships. The first is with Esca, a young Briton whom Marcus purchased as a manservant-slave to save him from the gladiator fights. The second is with an orphaned wolf cub, named simply Cub, whom Esca adopted when on a hunting excursion that killed Cub’s mother. The third is with Cottia, a British girl being (unwillingly) raised as a Roman by the family next door.
When he has sufficiently recovered, Marcus, accompanied only by Esca, decides to go north, beyond the wall of Britannia, and follow the trail of the Ninth Legion into Celtic lands unknown. His intent: to bring back the Eagle, and restore the honor of his father’s Legion.
Content Advisory Violence: There’s a gladiator combat where men and beasts are slain, although Sutcliff spares us the worst of the gore. There’s also a battle sequence that focuses more on Marcus� state of mind than the carnage around him. Another battle towards the end of the book has minimal bloodshed.
Sex: Marcus nicknames Cottia a "little vixen." This is a reference to her red hair and ferocity, but he probably also calls her that because he finds her rather, well...
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Language: Nothing.
Substance Abuse: Everybody drinks wine and beer because the water back then was a sanitation hazard.
Nightmare Fuel: The Celtic Feast of New Spears features some rituals that could be rather frightening to younger kids, including men prancing about wearing dead animals (the emblems of their clans) on their heads. The being here called the Horned Hunter (also known as Cernunnos or Herne) has a strange presence in the book—the main characters don’t believe in him per se, but almost fear that he might spring on them as they go about their task—and he’s kind of spooky even though he never materializes.
Conclusions This is my first Sutcliff book, and my only complaint is that somehow I did not find out about this book’s existence until recently. Ah well. Better late than never.
What an outstanding novel. Nearly every aspect of it is perfect. The characters have such vibrancy and depth, especially Marcus and Esca.
Marcus, unlike most young Roman men in fiction, is a gracious and humble fellow who cares so deeply for the honor of his father and people, but thinks nothing of his own pride and even life.
Esca is quiet, observant, loyal, and deep. The way the lads develop over their journey is amazing, from master and servant to brothers in arms. They were able to transcend the prejudices of their respective cultures and have one of the strongest literary friendships I’ve ever seen.
These two are the main focus, but the supporting cast is wonderful too. Guern is particularly lovable, Tradui is intriguing, and Tribune Placidus is just one of those smarmy little pseudo-villains that one loves to hate.
Cottia reminds me a bit of Éowyn with her desperate desire for freedom, not to mention her penchant for standing in the wind with her bright hair billowing out from under her cloak. My only complaint with her is that she should have been in more of the story.
But Roman society in those days kept men and women apart most of the time. The only way, unfortunately, that Cottia or any other girl could have participated in an adventure like this one, is by disguising herself as a boy, which wouldn’t have worked in this case anyway because Marcus and Esca would have recognized her instantly.
Cub is a delight, the fiercest of all hunters yet the doggiest of dogs, who nearly starved himself to death when his master had to leave him behind, and greeted him with a flurry of tail-wagging and slobbery kisses when he finally came home.
The desolation and ferocity of Roman Britannia is the baseline of the story, and Sutcliff paints the environs richly with her well-chosen words. The only way to make the moors, the old forests, and the Lowlands even more forlorn than usual is to step back to this ancient era—before Heathcliff and Catherine, before Macbeth and the three witches, before even King Arthur rose from the ashes of Rome and Druidism. The few settlements are lonely little lights in the mist.
And as you can imagine, the people living in those settlements are rather nervous. Rome is far away, and reinforcements take a while to reach the lime-cliff shores of Britain. A fell sweep of northern Celtic tribes could push the Romans back into the sea. Even the gladiator fights, which were aggressively festive events in Rome itself, are portrayed here as being nearly as nerve-wracking for the viewers as for the combatants. Sutcliff masterfully evokes the tension and dread that the Roman colonists must have lived with on a daily basis. With all the Biblical fiction I’ve been reading lately, it’s interesting to see how the Western and Eastern frontiers of the Empire paralleled each other. The Celts and the Judeans had nothing culturally in common beyond their fierce independence, and both lands seethed against their overlords.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable book. I’m hugely impressed with Sutcliff’s storytelling ability, and I can’t wait to read the adventures of Marcus and Cottia’s descendents.
P.S. A movie based on this book came out a few years ago, starring Channing Tatum as Marcus and Jamie Bell as Esca. It looks like a highly enjoyable film in its own right, and I could easily picture those two actors as the heroes of the story. However, I’m annoyed that the movie appears to have written Cottia and Cub out of the story entirely, and the subplot about Esca (view spoiler)[turning on Marcus and enslaving him (hide spoiler)] is even worse. That’s like Frodo turning on Sam in the Return of the King movie, only here it was deemed important enough to be shown in the trailer. I’m still curious to see it, but those elements worry me.
P.P.S. Apparently modern scholars are pretty divided about what became of the Ninth Legion. Some say that they never vanished at all, others that they went missing in Parthia during the bar Kokba revolt, at the opposite end of the Empire from Britain. Isn’t this the same legion that wound up in China in the Rick Riordan timeline? ...more
On a cold, remote, seemingly backward planet with two distinct, isolationist cultures, a boy and a girl, he a settler and her a native, dream of beingOn a cold, remote, seemingly backward planet with two distinct, isolationist cultures, a boy and a girl, he a settler and her a native, dream of being TIE pilots for the mighty Galactic Empire. Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree won’t let anything get in the way of their shared dream. But while they are strong together in the face of disapproval from their families and snobbery at their imperial piloting academy, they break apart when confronted with proof of the Empire’s evil. Thane, the firebrand, can’t stand for this and eventually joins the Rebellion. Ciena, the principled one, stays on an increasingly Dark Side due to a misapplied sense of honor.
But even as the War drags on, and these two childhood friends/on-again off-again lovers meet in battle after battle, they still can’t make themselves kill each other�
Content Advisory Violence: The violence here is about the same amount and intensity as that of a Star Wars movie. Both Death Stars and a number of smaller spaceships get blown up—here we know some of the characters on those ships. Thane tries to convince Ciena to abandon her ship and reluctantly fights back when she strikes him (he is eventually able to capture her). As a child, Thane was regularly beaten by his father.
Sex: Thane and Ciena impulsively hook up twice, in spite of dire consequences for both should they be caught together. These scenes are not raunchy or overly detailed, but they do contain a lot of these two hormonal kids kissing, snuggling, and ogling each other. On another occasion, one of Thane’s bros makes a mild pass at Ciena, and continues to have a crush on her throughout. There is a brief reference to a boy watching a pornographic hologram in his dorm room. I will be ranting about this last point later in the review.
Language: A few “damns� and “hells�, in addition to nonsense words that are only swears in this universe.
Substance Abuse: Thane gets roaring drunk a few times to deal with his dreadful circumstances. One time Ciena joins him, but she usually has tighter self-control.
Nightmare Fuel: Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious is really creepy. So is Vader. I figured everyone here would know that, but one can never be sure.
Conclusions In Lost Stars, Claudia Gray’s adorable enthusiasm for the Star Wars universe is on full display. Unfortunately, so are many regrettable tropes she probably picked up from the mainstream YA market.
While I certainly felt bad for Thane and Ciena, neither has much going on in their heads. If one were to draw maps of their brains, one hemisphere would be labeled “Hormones/Relationship Drama� and the other would be labeled “Getting in a TIE Fighter/X-Wing and Blowing Things Up.� Thane has three moods: miserable, angry, and enraged. Ciena is more stable, but she’s also willfully blind and unable to adjust to change. The most interesting character in the book is Thane’s pal Nash Windrider, who has a far bigger reason to hate the Empire than either protagonist (he’s from Alderaan) yet remains staunchly loyal because he’d go insane if he let what happened to his home planet sink in. Nash spends the bulk of the book with an unrequited crush on Ciena, and I kept hoping she’d give him a chance because unlike Thane, Nash actually has more than two thoughts.
As for the (excuse the pun) star-crossed romance at the center of this novel…it’s 99.9% pure raging hormones, which is odd because these two characters grew up together and would have noticed each other that way long ago if they were romantically compatible. If they’re really friends from early childhood, then their relationship should be less intense and more chastely portrayed. If they’re mutually attracted enemies who hate that they want each other, they should have met as young adults. But Thane and Ciena are so thoroughly marinated in lust, it’s like they barely know each other, yet we’re told that they have been inseparable since age eight. It just doesn’t add up.
My friends Neil and Angelica, in their reviews, pointed out that the culture portrayed in this book is very modern, frequently crass, and generally a lot more like Star Trek than Star Wars. The galaxy far, far away seems so old-fashioned in most ways that it seems unlikely that its members are this cavalier about sex or alcohol. Not to mention that the films themselves are some of the cleanest blockbusters on the market. The parts about Thane getting drunk, or his and Nash’s obnoxious roommate watching porn with them in the room, just felt weird. Like a Lord of the Rings fanfic where hobbits trade bawdy jokes, or a Narnia fic portraying Tumnus as a womanizer. It did not feel consistent with the spirit of the saga.
Aside from the romance, there is very little story here. The plot is a sped-up, abridged version of the original film trilogy, with Ciena and Thane just tagging along. It’s like the old PBS Kids show Liberty’s Kids, only with Star Wars instead of the American Revolution. This was a fine plot structure for Liberty’s Kids, because it was meant to teach history and aimed at eleven-year-olds. But this is ostensibly YA/adult and really ought to just have more going on in it. Take away the personal journeys of Luke, Leia and Han—and their connection with Vader, unknown to most around them—and there’s not much here but spaceships going kablooie.
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Speaking of Liberty’s Kids, that’s not the only similarity between the two seemingly disparate works. The cartoon also featured two young folks on either side of the war, who started out zealots for their respective sides, became attracted to each other, and eventually came to seriously question the righteousness of their causes. In both cases the young man has only one mood, a plateau of angst, while the girl is more reserved and traditional but deadly when angered.
But the relationship between James Hiller and Sarah Phillips in LK is actually developed a lot better than that of Thane and Ciena. James and Sarah met in their mid-teens and immediately clashed. Yet it was obvious from the beginning that he was drawn to her, and she started (slowly) softening towards him when she realized that for a seditionist and traitor, he wasn’t a bad fellow. Both started out the war absolutely sure that they were right, but had to grapple with their beliefs when they witnessed both sides commit atrocities.
And because this was a middle-grade show (on PBS, not on Nickelodeon where Zuko could take his shirt off on a regular basis), James� growing (and eventually reciprocated) interest had to be shown in subtle ways—he gave Sarah his coat when she was cold, he made her a necklace (with his dead mother’s ring for a pendant) when she lost her own choker, he got very annoyed whenever another young man paid her attention…I’m not saying that this book needed to be that buttoned-up, but if Thane had ever made a kind gesture like that for Ciena, or she for him, that would have meant so much. It would have proved that they actually cared about each other as people, that they felt love and empathy for each other as opposed to only lust.
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The world Lucas created is interesting and fun, but does not hold up under close inspection. We’re talking about a universe where humans, humanoids, and other large sentient life-forms can thrive on all kinds of planets, including gas giants! All the planets appear to rotate on the exact same schedule and contain the same amount of gravity. Every atmosphere contains enough oxygen for humans to breathe and apparently no poisonous gases. Let’s not even discuss that time that two dudes in heavy robes had a sword fight on floating islands in a stream of lava—in our world or a world anything like ours, their blood would have boiled in their veins and their skulls might have exploded (just ask the poor citizens of Pompeii or Herculaneum).
What makes Star Wars magical for me, in spite of the massive suspension of disbelief required for its universe to exist, is the characters...
Anakin, the frightened (man)child forced into a destiny he was never ready for. Obi-Wan, the proud young warrior who learned too dearly the consequences of hubris. Padme, the gentle and lonely young queen who believed the best of her husband even when all the goodness in him was naught but a dulling ember. (The prequels had terrible scripts, but the characters� struggles are compelling when described by anyone but Lucas)...
Luke, the fatherless boy whose worst fear came true. Leia, the dauntless princess whose only goal was to serve the galaxy. Han, the mercenary who found himself offering his own life to save his friends...
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Poe, the reckless zealot with the Empire/First Order in his crosshairs. Rose, the tough and kind Resistance mechanic who never forgets what they’re fighting for. Finn, the traumatized Stormtrooper who might have altered the prophecies. Rey, the noble-minded scavenger with a heart full of anger, grief, and a frightening power. Kylo—Ben—the broken and beastly prince, the dark and splintered knight, a being of incredible strength and passion yet a haunted child still, slowly dying under the weight of his family’s sins, desperately reaching for the girl who cared enough to hold his hand from light-years away.
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And that is ultimately why Lost Stars fell flat for me—the Skywalker-Solos were distant figures. Other than Vader, they didn’t even have any lines. And I missed them. Anything else would have been far-fetched, granted—there’s no Thane, Ciena, or Nash mentioned in the original films, so they can’t have been part of either Light or Dark inner circles. But still—the drama between these characters felt manufactured and cheap compared to the truly inspired, epic journeys of the core movie characters.
That said, I still like how Claudia Gray writes and would read more stuff by her, Star Wars or otherwise. Maybe they should commission her to write a book about Padme or Kylo. I share her sympathies for those characters and would love to read her take on them....more
This companion and pseudo-prequel to Douglas� best-seller The Robe chronicles the ministry of Jesus from His calling of the first inauspicious ApoThis companion and pseudo-prequel to Douglas� best-seller The Robe chronicles the ministry of Jesus from His calling of the first inauspicious Apostles to the Church that rose and grew so rapidly in the first few years following His death, resurrection, and withdrawal from the world.
We see these events unfold through the eyes of Simon, known to history as St. Peter, the Big Fisherman himself, who was such a majestic and comforting presence in The Robe. He shares point-of-view duties with Fara/Esther, the apparently fictional daughter of Herod Antipas and Phasaelis (called Arnon in the novel) an Arabian princess whom he was forced to marry for political reasons and divorced in favor of his older, cougarish sister-in-law Herodias.
Of the two protagonists, Fara has the more adventurous life. At age twelve, she swore to avenge her mother’s honor, and when her mother dies young of a mysterious illness four years later, the girl takes off for Judaea, disguised as a boy for her safety, aiming to assassinate her faithless father. Near the start of her quest, she runs into John the Baptist, finding him sympathetic and inspiring but frightened by his vision of the future.
She is followed after several months by her boyfriend, Voldi, who becomes friends with the Roman Mencius (who also appears in The Robe) and both become embroiled in the events of Passion Week, but neither to the same extent as Peter or Fara.
Peter, born Simon, is just a fisherman of Capernaum with little education and no use for religion. He hears of an itinerant preacher with apparently magical healing powers from his young friend John, son of Zebedee. Annoyed that someone has taken John’s attention away from his job fishing, Peter storms off to one of Jesus� sermons, and witnesses the Man of Galilee give eyesight to a toddler who was clearly blind before. His whole worldview shaken, Simon spends the next several weeks irritable and depressed. Meanwhile, Fara, under the alias Esther, seeks refuge in Simon’s mother-in-law’s house, and gets a day job as a maid at Antipas� palace, where she hopes to eventually carry out her oath.
Then Jesus calls Simon to follow him, and the miserable man only feels right in the presence of the Carpenter, so he obeys Him. His brother Andrew and his friends James and John soon join them. As Jesus travels across the country, trailing miracles in His wake, His following swells. After Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law with Fara as witness, He convinces her to follow Him, and she does. We witness the dance of Salome and the execution of John the Baptist (all handled with the utmost discretion); the Feeding of the Five Thousand (which diverges a bit from Scripture, but nothing really alarming); the raising of Jairus� daughter; the Last Supper; the sham trial, torture, and execution of Jesus; the Resurrection; the meeting on the road to Emmaus; the Ascension; the Pentecost; and finally the events immediately leading up to Peter’s execution in Rome.
There are fleeting references throughout to Marcellus, Senator Gallio, Demetrius, and other characters from The Robe, which was fun. Mencius is an important supporting character in both.
The Big Fisherman is not quite as good as its predecessor—it feels rushed in parts, and Voldi’s arc is a lot more melodramatic than anything in The Robe. This book is also a bit more didactic in the religious department, which might have been inevitable since Jesus is actually a character this time, rather than a permeating invisible presence. But The Robe was a sky-high bar to clear, and I can forgive Douglas if he can’t quite vault it this time.
The character development for Simon/Peter is obviously quite good; he seems ready to step off the page by the end. Fara/Esther is not quite as developed, but she has spirit and gives up everything for her beliefs and the safety of her loved ones, making her a truly heroic character.
Douglas� Jesus is very gentle, gracious, and wise. The book makes a point of contrasting Him with His spitfire cousin John, a ploy which unfortunately makes His outburst at the money-changers in the Temple seem far out-of-character, but overall is quite effective. Douglas also makes a point of showing Jesus doing His day job—He was a carpenter, remember?—and doing it exceptionally well.
I wish as a Catholic that Douglas could have made the Virgin Mary part of the story. It is strange that Esther was a female disciple but never met either her or Magdalene. Oh well. Douglas was a Protestant, so his avoidance of the subject is understandable.
This book seemed to play loosely with history at times (for instance, Herod Antipas died in exile but was probably not assassinated as shown here) but a story set this far back in time, with so few complete records of anything, has a lot more wiggle-room in this regard than something from the Renaissance onwards.
The violence (except for the Passions of the Baptist and Jesus, neither of which is gorily portrayed) is nonexistent, the sex (just some insinuations regarding Herodias, Herod, and Salome) is also nonexistent, and there’s only the mildest of language and drunkenness. It would make a fine addition to the library at your church or upper-grade parochial school.
It would also make a fine addition to your home library.
Mirjana Soldo was one of six children who saw the Blessed Virgin in the village of Medjugore, former Yugoslavia, starting in 1987. Reports of the appaMirjana Soldo was one of six children who saw the Blessed Virgin in the village of Medjugore, former Yugoslavia, starting in 1987. Reports of the apparitions spread like wildfire throughout the small nation, and the Communist government, already weak, feared this spurt of religious fervor would bring them down entirely.
So they sent all their best weapons after the children - state psychiatrists, police, and secret informants. When Mirjana returned to her home city of Sarajevo, she found herself expelled from her school - despite her good grades - and forced to attend a run-down inner city school for juvenile delinquents, many of whom were violent.
The communist government eventually collapsed, only to be replaced by the hideously bloody war that split Yugoslavia in three. Death and darkness were all around, it seemed, and yet in the tiny town of Medjugore, a steady ray of hope hang down.
For Our Lady never stopped coming to Medjugore, no matter what threat they faced. The six could see her, and millions of others came to believe in her presence there though they could not see her. When Mirjana was stuck in Sarajevo, Mary appeared to her there. There was no stopping the Mother of God and her messages. She spoke of darkness at present and darkness to come, but always assured that, with prayer and sacrifice, all would be well.
The Vatican is still in the process of confirming the Medjugore Apparitions, but you will search this book in vain for the faintest hint of heresy. Mirjana's deference to Rome is clear throughout the book, as is that of her fellow visionaries. No new doctrines or concepts are introduced: Mary gives the same message that she gave at Fatima, to turn aside from evil and embrace the Love offered to all of us by her Son. A sinister being in her guise would instruct its listeners to do wrong, or issue doomsday warnings with no hope of mercy.
Anyone still doubting the visions will also have to square that with the personality of our author. If Mirjana and her friends made this story up for attention - which would have been suicidal in a communist nation - they would have to be narcissistic kids with too much time on their hands, a la the Salem Witch trials, and hence they would assign themselves grandeur and great authority in the narrative they created. The humility of Mirjana and her friends cannot be overstated. She tells us many times in the book that she's still a bit bewildered that God chose them for this.
So leave your fears at the door, because Our Mother wishes to comfort you. The twentieth century - and, so far, the twenty-first - have been scary times to live, and there are disasters still to come. But God will save His people, and peace will be restored. As Mary said in the title, "My Heart will triumph."
I urge you to give this book a chance, regardless of your beliefs, if you are at all curious about the march of history and the chaos in the wide world. It will offer you solace, and may explain a lot of what is now unfolding. ...more
Short review: a generic coming-of-age novel, inoffensive but uninsightful. The sixties setting - conveyed mainly in summaries of Walter Cronkite news Short review: a generic coming-of-age novel, inoffensive but uninsightful. The sixties setting - conveyed mainly in summaries of Walter Cronkite news casts - is the most interesting part of the book. The characters have the barest scratches of personality, the episodic plot lacks tension, and the Shakespeare element is barely integrated. Competently written but has little to teach and almost no entertainment value. I really liked Schmidt's What Came from the Stars and expected more from him....more
Lloyd C. Douglas didn’t take up writing till he was fifty. That astounds me. This is as fine a novel as any produced by someone who had been scribblinLloyd C. Douglas didn’t take up writing till he was fifty. That astounds me. This is as fine a novel as any produced by someone who had been scribbling since childhood.
I hope most of us are familiar with the plot of The Robe, since it’s the basis for one of the most sweeping, epic films of Old Hollywood. Marcellus Gallio is a high-born, somewhat indolent Roman Tribune who gets shipped to the fractious province of Judaea, and is conscripted into helping execute a young Jewish man accused of treason and blasphemy. The soldiers gamble for the crucified man’s few possessions and Marcellus gets his robe—a remarkable garment, woven without seams. But when he touches it, a mysterious madness and a sickness comes upon him. The dead man was named Jesus of Nazareth.
Marcellus is joined on this venture by his loyal slave, a Greek named Demetrius, who is deeply touched by the Nazarene and desperate to learn all he can about him.
Meanwhile, Marcellus� family and friends back in Rome struggle to stay in the favor of mad Emperor Tiberius and Gaius, Tiberius� depraved heir apparent. (view spoiler)[(Unlike the film version, Caligula doesn’t show up until almost the end. The character in the movie is a combination of him and his uncle Gaius, which is a bit confusing since Caligula’s real name was also Gaius). (hide spoiler)]
Most commendable is his ability to evoke the lead-poisoned, perverted world of the Roman aristocracy without overwhelming the reader with the vile decadence of it all. He gives us just enough detail to get by, only implying the more sordid rumors and practices. This does not in any way detract from the quality of the work. (Contrast the odious Cleopatra’s Moon, where every other word once the heroine reaches Rome is about pederasty. And that was marketed as YA). Nor does he wallow in gratuitous gore—the Crucifixion and the Stoning of St. Stephen have plenty of it built in, without an unnecessary plot detour to the gladiator fights.
Douglas also casts a good balance portraying good and evil. Like in real life, it is spread evenly among the Jews and Romans. A few unflattering stereotypes of both peoples are employed, while their virtues are lauded. Come down too heavily on one side and the work would seem either directly anti-Semitic or obliquely anti-Catholic (tainting the Romans beyond redemption can’t help but imply things about the Roman Church). Douglas deftly avoids both pitfalls. If anything, he’s a bit too kind to the Greeks.
I only have a few small complaints about this book, none of which merited knocking off a star. Like most books of its length, it does drag in the middle and perhaps a few sentences could have been sacrificed to make it flow better. It’s also annoying that the female characters (except Miriam) do not seem to understand the stakes of the conflict to the degree that the men do, but that, alas, must be expected of a book from this time, especially one written by a man.
As a Catholic, the Protestant undercurrent in the book sometimes annoyed me. The story of the weaver-woman who made Jesus� Robe was touching, to be sure, but isn’t it just far more likely that His Mother made it? Justus even offers to introduce Marcellus to Mary at one point, but Marcellus says no. His reasoning is sound—she might remember his face from the execution and flee from the sight of him. But I wish that Douglas had gone there. Our Lady would have been the first to reach out to Marcellus.
(view spoiler)[Finally, and this is a complaint about the plot rather than the quality—I really shipped Demetrius with Lucia. I know he was a slave and she his owner’s sister, and such a romance would have been clandestine and difficult, but what’s a love-interest arc without a bit of star-crossing? (hide spoiler)]
The 1953 movie based on the book—starring Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, and Victor Mature as Marcellus, Diana, and Demetrius—is smashingly good, but diverges from the book so often that I almost wish someone would remake this as a big-budget miniseries, with younger actors to match the ages of the characters, and catch all the intricacies of its cast and its plot. Or maybe split the book into two or three theatrical movies. If they managed to eke three movies out of The Hobbit, this has a lot more material already there and might actually work as a one-book duology or trilogy.
The Robe will enthrall any reader who gives it a chance. A Christian reader will find both their faith and their imagination invigorated by it, while a secular reader might gain a new perspective on the faith, in a sweeping historical novel with lively characters and deep, thorough world-building. People of any creed should be able to enjoy that. It’s appropriate for teens and adults. Highly recommended....more
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