Category: Writing

First in the Bartimaeus Trilogy was pretty good

The Amulet of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 1)Since I went on yesterday about Not the end of the world, I thought I should mention briefly that the book that Sub-Evil Boy and I just finished (thereby opening up the option of reading Not the end of the world) was pretty good.

The book in question was The amulet of Samarkand, the first in the Bartimaeus Trilogy. Bartimaeus is a fiesty djinni summoned by Nathaniel, a young magician-in-training in an alternate universe London. Unlike the Harry Potter universe, where the ability to use magic is a gift one is born with (or not, for us muggles), here magicians are trained by taking/buying young children from their families and raising/training them in magician households. The governmental structure is vaguely similar to the current system (Ministers of departments and the Prime Minister at the top), but with magicians in all the ministerial positions going well back in time (Disraeli and Gladstone were magicians, apparently). This creates a strong social class system, where the magicians are “the Good and the Great” and the rest are (just) “commoners”, and I suspect that much of the second (and perhaps third) book will hinge on that tension.

Nathaniel is a high precocious fellow, and summons a very powerful djinni in a fit of spite. They then have many exciting adventures before winning the day (in a manner of speaking) and setting the stage for the next book. It’s not high art, but it’s fun and addresses some significant issues without beating you about the head and shoulders with them. Probably more substantive than the Artemis Fowl books (which are major faves of Sub-Evil, and which I also enjoyed), but hard to say at this point how they’d compare in terms of depth and development to the Harry Potter books.

The second in this series (The Golem’s eye) is out, but still in hardback, and the third is yet to be published. Sub-Evil’s keen to read more, though, and I look forward to it.

Also, it’s pretty clear that Sub-Evil isn’t going to press on with Not the end of the world. I’m quite taken with it, though, and will read it on my own.

No tag for this post.

Related posts

  • No related posts.

Sub-Evil wouldn’t hire Noah to run a captive breeding program

Not the End of the World (Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award (Awards))Sub-Evil Boy and I have just started Not the end of the world by Geraldine McCaughrean. The opening’s pretty dark (more below) so we may quit this and try something else (which is perhaps a shame, because it seems to have some real potential).

One good thing to come out of it, though, is Sub-Evil’s excellent observation that only taking two of each creature wasn’t the brightest plan because “What if those two didn’t want to mate later?”. Obviously his exposure to his aunt’s interest in and work on animal behavior, conservation, captive breeding, and reintroduction, has left it’s (good) mark.

As to the book, McCaughrean explores the tricky problems of the reality of standing by while the rest of the human population drowns around you, begging for aid and mercy, and then starting the human race over again. A striking example from early on:

Hands were clinging to the hull, the hands of swimmers who had somehow managed to find a grip on the rough timber … Fearless, placable as ever, Shem swung out from the ship’s rail by one hand, wielding his stave, dislodging people from the hull in the same way you might swat horseflies…

Not surprisingly, Sub-Evil found this and similar passages pretty tough, especially as bed-time reading. It’s not the bulk of the book, though. The death of the rest of the human race is complete within the first 30 pages of a 180 page book, but still it’s tough going, with even Timna herself pointing out

It should have been over in a flash. If it had to happen, it should have been quickly over… If it had to happen, then all life ought to have been extinguished in an instant, like a candle flame pinched out. But people are so resilient. They put up such a struggle.

The writing’s quite good and reads aloud almost like poetry, although not always as carefully crafted and edited as poetry would be. The ideas are quite striking, with all manner of rich parallels to our world and lives and strong (if perhaps overly modern) commentary. Timna (mentioned above), for example is an introduced character, the daughter of Noah who knows even in her life that the men get all the glory and*

They are the only ones who will be mentioned a hundred years from now when people tell our story. I know I won’t figure.

I’ll end with this question from Timna to her mother, which has wonderful parallels to the common worries today of how we balance human jobs and lives against the loss of creatures and species:

‘No, I meant … If it weren’t for the animals, we could have picked up so many. So many people, I mean. Why did they have to … ?’

It’s an interesting start, and I suspect I may finish it on my own even if Sub-Evil doesn’t want to press on.

*And who’s actually on board according to the King James version?

And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;

They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

Four women, all as nameless as “every beast”. Sigh.

No tag for this post.

Related posts

  • No related posts.