Rosy's scrawled book recommendation: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

The Eyre Affair
Jasper Fforde

Blurb
There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where Thursday Next is a literary detective without equal, fear, or boyfriend. Thursday is on the trail of the villainous Acheron Hades who has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre herself has been plucked from the novel of the same name, and Thursday must find a way into the book to repair the damage.

She also has to find time to halt the Crimean conflict, persuade the man she loves to marry her, rescue her aunt from inside a Wordsworth poem and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Aided and abetted by a cast of characters that includes her time-travelling father, Jack Schitt of the all-powerful Goliath Corporation, a pet dodo named Pickwick and Edward Rochester himself, Thursday embarks on an adventure that will take your breath away.

Publisher
Penguin Books

ISBN
9780340733561

Rosy's scrawlings on The Eyre Affair
Finally, I've reached a book that instead of being lent out and lost has been lent to me and sneakily kept. I could buy another copy and send this one back but I believe there's no hurry as I think he forgot he lent it to me. Not any more though, I believe. I'm now wondering if I'll get a little reminder. This book was one I found on a friend's shelf. As is usually my way, I entered their home and went to the bookshelf to see what was new and interesting (I can tell as I do this during every visit). There I found a copy of The Eyre Affair with a much blander cover but with the blurb above. The blurb was all it took but my friend also said it was a must. So I 'borrowed' it. Really, I did intend to bring it back but, well, I kind of got attached to the story...
When I was young, one of my personally selected children's books was Jane Eyre. I was also interested in fantasy and horror by that stage too, some very dark. You can see why I was interested in The Eyre Affair even though this book is of a lighter nature than most fantasy books or horror I tend to read. This book brought with it, in a big way, a love of fantasy comedy and bright fantasy adventures.
Reading The Eyre Affair is a little like reading Alice in Wonderland as from the outset life is a little strange but soon you find that being a literary detective involves actually travelling into stories and making sure they follow the preferred story line. Escaping characters must be stopped, relationships must be conducted properly and stories must end as desired. Of course, what was, is and will be don't necessarily follow the stories as you currently know them. Reading The Eyre Affair is much like falling down the rabbit hole of literature: imaginations within imaginations.
Thursday Next fights fires, chases bad guys, tumbles through books and cares for her pet dodo. She's the new Jane Eyre while Jane's away and has to do her best to ensure the story continues to exist, hopefully with the same sort of plot and development as it had had before Jane's kidnapping. Thursday Next is an older, wiser and tougher Alice who's mostly, not always, in control of what's happening within Wonderland of the written word.
If you've read any other Jasper Fforde books you are probably familiar with his styles. What's notable about this series is just how many strange ideas and traditional concepts he melds together to form the adventures of Thursday Next. This book and the ones that follow are for those who love tangents, odd and twisted plot lines and wild combinations of ideas. In fantasy, this series has established a new form of sub-genre, one I hope to see continue and broaden. There is a world within the written world. And as every avid fan of a book series will like to do, realising characters and stories is brilliant fun. Within The Eyre Affair  some well known and much loved characters are dusted off and given new, playful dimensions.

I'd recommend this book to: anyone who love grand flights of fancy, believing literary figures to be real, the classics and brilliantly bright fantasy.

Rosy's scrawled book recommendation: Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

Sandman Slim
Richard Kadrey

Blurb
Supernatural fantasy has a new antihero
Life sucks, and then you die. Or, if you're James Stark, you spend eleven years in Hell as a hitman before finally escaping, only to land back in the hell-on-earth that is Los Angeles.
Now Stark's back, and ready for revenge. And absolution, and maybe even love. But when his first stop saddles him with an abusive talking head, Stark discovers that the road to absolution and revenge is much longer than you'd expect, and both Heaven and Hell have their own ideas for his future.
Resurrection sucks. Saving the world is worse.


Publisher 
HarperCollins Publishers

ISBN
9780061714306

Rosy's scrawlings on Sandman Slim
Richard Kadrey is a new author for me, even though he's written a few books by now. This means that although he's got some history and proof of talent there I still instinctively judge the first work I read as though it were any first work. For me, what matters is more a meeting of minds and a creation of scenes and coherent story telling than anything like typos or writing style. I have to be able to get into the swing of things, as it were. And Richard Kadrey looks to be another author I'll be following because as soon as I finished Sandman Slim I immediately went online and bought the rest of the series now available from the Book Depository UK (an awesome place to buy books). Job done, as far as advertising through your work goes.
James Stark, Stark, Jimmy or Sandman Slim as he comes to be know, is a man bent on personal vengeance that just happens to coincide with saving the world in various ways. When others try to convince him to be more caring of the fate of others he steadfastly only cares about seeing the blood of his enemies and betrayers on his hands. He's rude, crude, frequently beaten down, powerful but unable to act on it, ignorant by choice most of the time and far too worldly in the ways of Hell and Lucifer. He's a character you greatly enjoy reading about as all sanctimonious do-gooding for the sake of others is tossed out the window for some deep-seated personal concern.
Also, I have to say that you'll likely greatly enjoy the depiction of Lucifer. He's a quiet one, a thinker and planner with a huge capacity for violence he has yet to act on. He's also a great fan of movies and collects whatever good movies he can get his hands on.
Like all good urban fantasies there's plenty of darkness, swarms of new and old monsters, a magic system to be used and abused and a city/world under siege from the forces of evil. What makes this story stand out though, is that there's a character in the middle of it all who just doesn't care, a lot of slapstick moments written with a touch of horror and a light hearted approach to the end of the world. Sandman Slim is an urban fantasy that leaves you smiling rather than frowning or puzzling over the nasty things in life. And for that it is well worth a read and I'd also suggest it as a Friday night in read.

I'd recommend this book to: lovers of urban fantasy that includes trips into other dimensions or mythological places, lovers of action and antiheroes as well as lovers of stories inclusive of magic. Otherwise, anyone who is into fantasy.

Rosy's scrawled book recommendation: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers

The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear
Walter Moers

Blurb
"A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen and a half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest," says the narrator of Walter Moers’s epic adventure. "What about the Minipirates? What about the Hobgoblins, the Spiderwitch, the Babbling Billows, the Troglotroll, the Mountain Maggot…Mine is a tale of mortal danger and eternal love, of hair’s breadth, last-minute escapes." Welcome to the fantastic world of Zamonia, populated by all manner of extraordinary characters. It’s a land of imaginative lunacy and supreme adventure, wicked satire and epic fantasy, all mixed together, turned on its head, and lavishly illustrated by the author.

Publisher

The Overlook Press; Tra edition

ISBN

978-1585678440

Rosy's scrawlings on The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

Welcome to one of my most treasured books and one that gave me hope that I could combine some of my great project loves together. I'll just say simply that any book with illustrations personally drawn by the author makes me treasure it a whole lot more than any other book. Where I might once have dog-eared pages, cracked the spine, scrawled notes in the back or passed them on you will find me incredibly reluctant to do so simply by adding illustrations from the author. I guess this is because to do such a thing is to take the story a level up, to reveal more and to make a physical artwork out of a mental landscape. I also hold a lot of respect for art, be it good or bad, purely for the effort put into making it. Plus there's something a little magical about it all that takes you back to an age when hearts were more easily read, if not pure. I remember reading an illustrated edition of The Hobbit and it was the first proper book I ever read (not Spot the Dog) and it is back to roughly that age I fly whenever I see or read this The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear. That I now hold hope to have my own illustrations printed along with a story I imagined because of this book is aside from the point but it does show more of the impact a good book can have.

Even without intricate illustrations and onomatopoeia displayed large this book is extremely fun to read, likely for both adults and kids. The world of Zamonia is large and yet intricate, full of little delights and scenes written in a manner that adds magic to the experience of reading. Tension is there but the high stress of many fantasy and urban fantasy stories written today is nowhere to be seen so instead of coming away stressed and strung out there's a feeling of delight and ease. Captain Bluebear's story/ies are for those who find the little things in life enchanting and the big things in life stunning. There's no end to the play involved and it appears in the large and tiny creatures Captain Bluebear (I should include him as one of them) encounters, the strange landscapes he wanders through, the nooks and crannies within caverns, the booming sounds writ large, Captain Bluebear's journey and the completely unpredictable plot.

All in all, this book is a combination of comics, literature, children's literature, classic fantasy and creature features, to name a few things. I'm sure there's more you could say about it but really this book is just one to try. It is a whole other world, one you've probably never encountered before - not even the like. And because of this you should go and explore it. The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear is very well written, highly imaginative and playfully illustrated and I know that if it hadn't been The Hobbit picked as a first real book to read then this one would have been a fine pick. It has all you need within it, including some morals and life lessons as all good literature has.

So I shall end the recommendation with this: read it! You won't regret it even if you feel like you're mind is turning inside out.

I'd recommend this book to: anyone with a playful heart, reading to children in need of an imaginative and colourful challenge, who likes illustrated books and simply anyone who loves light-hearted but meaningful fantasy. In fact, I'd highly recommend this as a first real book for any child, especially if they find the reading material they've encountered so far boring. This will cure all that.

The Treasure Hunter character introduction: Anne Bonne

Illustration by Rosalie Fitzpatrick

Anne Bonne

A merciless pirate Captain set on becoming the queen of the seas, Anne decides to embroil herself in Amelia’s business in order to regain her own stolen property as well as to scupper Blackbeard. And she won’t overlook any moneymaking opportunities while she’s at it.

The Treasure Hunter character introduction: Ilona

Illustrations by Rosalie Fitzpatrick

Ilona

A pixie royal who disregards nature as no other of her kind does, Ilona is tiny, leather-clad, wicked, grumpy and a brilliant tinkerer wielding disturbingly powerful magic. In her minute form she is a force to be reckoned with. In her battle form she’s almost unstoppable.

The Treasure Hunter character introduction: Nikola Tesla

Illustration by Rosalie Fitzpatrick

Nikola Tesla

Nikola seeks shelter from those who vilify him for destroying the old world. He also seeks a place to tinker on small projects in peace. He appreciates the opportunity to work for Amelia as the work offers everything he desires. As a result he will do almost anything asked of him but wisely keeps this knowledge to himself.

The Treasure Hunter character introduction: Lily Táralóm

Illustration by Rosalie Fitzpatrick

Lily Táralóm

Amelia’s cousin born only a year before, she was sent back in time (with her elf father) to grow up in an alternate timeline and reunite with the rest of the family as a teenager. Outgoing, vocal, enthusiastic, beautiful and tiring, Lily is one to tackle life head-on. She’s yet young and has much to learn about looking before she leaps, leaving those about her frantically guiding her actions to keep her safe. She has no clue just how special and powerful she is as one of the few elf-humans ever born.