Review: Captain Blood

Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Captain Blood is a delightful example of a romantic story that is so refreshing! And by romantic I don't mean a romance, which it kinda is, but a book representing romanticism, though it was written some 30 years after the peak of the movement. It is, of course, naive in some regards, featuring a romantic and idealistic pirate figure, but it's not naive in a crude and inexperienced way. It's idealistic in a way of old stories with knights and ladies. It takes the reality and subtracts ugliness, showing beauty people should strive for.

The language of the book reminds me of a iron-cast railing: filigree, intricate, elaborate. Rafael Sabatini definitely knew how to use the full potential of English grammar. I had read a translation years ago and I must admit that the original is so much better. Reading it enriched my English considerably.

Besides, it provided quite a variety of topics for one of my family's favorite pastimes - kitchen linguistics. For example, I haven't known that numerals used to look in English the way they still look in German: eight-and-twenty instead of twenty-eight, just like achtundzwanzig. I'm still having troubles wraping my mind about it and trying to imagine the tought process associated with this format. And this is only one example.

I read a few reviews accusing the book of racism and saying that there is too much of it for a book from 1920s. But they forget that the book is set in the seventeenth century, and though the character is purely fictional, a lot of the facts are not. The author follows historical events pretty closely and enriches the story with real events, sometimes setting them at slightly different times and places. And no, we can't really re-write the history. It was as it was, and there is no point in forgetting or denying it.

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Review: Teachers' Night Before Halloween

Teachers' Night Before Halloween by Steven L. Layne
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

If you see this book, don't pick it up. Just don't. It's not a book for the Halloween season. Really, I'm completely at a loss for whom it was written. For children? Surely not. Why would children need to read how much teachers hate Halloween? Besides, it's poorly written, rhymes and rhythm are bumpy, illustrations are not exciting, and the book as a whole is only marginally funny. Besides, school-aged children are a bit too old for a picture book like this. For teachers? Well, teachers are definitely too old for a picture book. Overall, it's a parody book that is more insulting, than funny. People tell those kind of stories as a way to vent frustration, but it doesn't mean those stories are suitable to publish.

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Review: Crimson Spell, Vol. 4

Crimson Spell, Vol. 4 by Ayano Yamane
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just noticed that I haven't written a review for this volume, though I read it back in December and it's March now... I guess my procrastination is easily explained, since I didn't like the book. It's filled with fetishes I don't care much about to the prejudice of the plot, which is not only weak, but almost non-existent here. After the third volume this one was such a disappointment. At least, the next one is better.

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Review: Luck in the Shadows

Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

That was a delight to read! And quite surprisingly so, which makes the experience so much more precious.

The starting point is simple and commonplace; our two heroes meet in prison, one of them is innocent and one guilty, and make their escape together. But the plot spirals up from there to unexplicable intricacies.

I had put this book on my to-read list for educational and historical reasons, because I read that it was the very first fantasy with gay characters set in a world, where it's acceptable. According to Wikipedia, the author states that "gender issues are generally a strong theme for me...I think I created Seregil just to see if he'd work -- a gay hero, and a gay character who wasn't tragic, evil, victimized, or a bit player thrown in for color." I feel like she has really succeded in that. Most of the lgbt books are either tragic or porn, but this one is exceptional, offering the hero's orientation as a part of the carefully build world, not the sum of it.

I didn't expect so much from this book, which wasn't even published as a hardcover. The writing is great, the editing is good, the plot is intriguing, and the characters step from the pages right into the imagination, so alive and vibrant.

My only regret is that the story was conceived as a series, so the book ends with a cliff-hanger. Where is that second volume?!?

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