I feel like this book falls into the trap common for second books in trilogies - it takes all the intense, fast-paced action of the first book and slows it way down while subtly hinting at the climax coming in book three. This slowing down of the story can take something that started out very exciting and dull it down a little bit. I still like the series and still enjoyed the story but the tone here was so significantly different from A Discovery of Witches, that, if not for the repeat characters, it would be hard to tell the books belong together.
Shadow of Night has our heroes - Diana the Witch and Matthew the Vampire - travel back to the 16th century to track down a magical book Diana encounters in her present. This encounter proves extremely dangerous for Diana as we see in Discovery because it is believed this book contains the origins story for all non-humans who live in the world today. Diana is somehow magically bound to the book while her relationship with Matthew also has some alchemical link to it as well. They've also traveled back to hide out from those chasing Diana giving her time to explore her magic.
Matthew was actually already a vampire by the 1590's so he and Diana resume the life he's already lived in England among such historical characters as Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth, Christopher Marlowe, and Shakespeare himself. In addition to these historical characters, this book is overloaded with new characters to keep track of; a lot of whom are significant in Matthew's extensive vampire family tree. It's a lot to keep up with as Matthew and Diana are married again and really begin to build their romantic relationship which had it's negatives for me as well. At times, the relationship felt a little Twilight-ish for me with too much angst and over emotion, but at least we're dealing with two adults here instead of teenage hormones.
While I didn't really care for the intricacies of their romance, it was interesting to meet the rest of Matthew's family and go deeper into the hierarchical structure of a vampire clan. The witches and their magic get a little silly for me and I felt the historian part of Diana's character all but vanishes once she goes backward in time (and I really liked that part of her character from Discovery.)
The story was still a good read and definitely an adventure but just a bit patchy when compared to Harkness' first attempt. Not much of a cliffhanger either so am definitely curious to see where the story is going to go and what's going to happen in book three. I'm also a little concerned about how much will actually be crammed into book three to make up for the slower pace of this volume.
Shocking would be the single word to describe this book. You're reading along, getting most of the way through, and then BLAM! and the book wraps up. Obviously, I can't give away the shocking moment, but I'm warning you it's there. I was caught totally by surprise.
This is a complex story heavily linked to the Holocaust allegorically so while spared the Nazis and war stories, a no less disturbing story plays out for Beatrice (the donkey) and Virgil (the Howler Monkey). They've been isolated from society living on the brink of starvation in fear.
The story of Beatrice and Virgil is actually a play written by a creepy taxidermist who features pretty centrally in the book. Beatrice and Virgil sit, stuffed, near the taxidermist's desk. We meet the taxidermist as a fan of Henry's work (another layer of character). Henry is a writer and actually our main character although I found him much less interesting than the taxidermist, Beatrice, or Virgil. Henry is asked to help finish the play and gets sucked in because he's unable to create anything on his own at this point in his writing career. Doing everything he can to avoid his writer's block and the disappointment from his last writing endeavour, Henry spends way too much time working with the taxidermist who he knows nothing about. It's this relationship that leads to our shocking moment.
I wasn't sure about this book through most of the story. I felt like I caught on to things quicker (to a point) than Henry even though Martel does a great job of keeping his cards close to his chest until the very end. This is also a harsh novel. The writing feels rough and scratchy enough to make you squirm which doesn't make for a relaxing read. The best part of this book though is how much I want to talk to someone else about it. I want to find someone who has read the book and see what they think, talk through the scenes that disturbed me the most. I haven't read a book in a while that made me feel like this.
It's hard to recommend Beatrice and Virgil. It's not as if liking Life of Pi will mean you'll like this, but it's definitely a book to be appreciated for what Martel was able to create. He is an extremely talented writer and tells such intricate and complex stories always leaving the reader with a lot to think about.
There is too much book in this book. The payoff isn't worth the 900+ pages it takes to get to the end of the story, which isn't actually an ending but rather one of MANY flashbacks. In fact there are so many flashbacks within flashbacks in this book I found myself frequently getting confused as to who was narrating.
The gist of the story is the quest for Dracula. Does he still exist? Is he a vampire? Where does he hide to have gone undetected for so many hundreds of years? A mysterious book, containing nothing but an image of a dragon is the only link to the possibility that Dracula is real. The book, filled with nothing but blank pages and this dragon image keeps finding its way into the hands of academics studying Vlad the Impaler. These mysterious books prompt deeper research into the life and death of Vlad with things getting increasingly dangerous the closer one gets to discovering the truth.
It's actually an interesting adventure story of Indiana Jones-esque proportions and would have been a fantastic read if it had followed the story in a more chronological order. Instead we are taken all over the place through flashbacking. Follow this if you can: the story starts in present time with a historian being charged with retelling a story from her youth. She flashes back to her childhood to get the story going where we then flash back to her father's time in graduate schools. From there, we have an additional, brief flashback to the youth of the father's dissertation advisor. So, most of the story bounces between our historian's childhood and her father's past. It's a jumbled mess clouding the exciting adventure of an academic leaving his books behind to go on a real search for truth.
I'd have to give away more plot than I want to and truly spoil the book to talk about a few other elements in the story that bothered me. Suffice it to say, I don't think Kostova flushed out her characters very well. I feel like she got too caught up in the chase to really think through the ultimate end for everyone. I also think she put plot points into her book that were totally undervalued in what they could have added to the story.
So, over all this book just falls short, but it was nice to read a Dracula story firmly rooted in academia, moving through real places in Europe full of dusty manuscripts and dank, medieval crypts.
This is the third Discworld book I've read, and yes I'm reading them completely out of order. I lean toward the books about a trip of witches - Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick and they don't appear frequently. They're all so odd, so intelligent, so connected to the outcome of the story in their kingdom of Lancre; I absolutely love them even as Practchett works to make them as crochetty and/or whiny as possible.
Midsummer's Night is approaching and Magrat is to marry the King of Lancre if she can ever figure out exactly how to be a "proper" queen. Before the wedding can take place, the lords and ladies invade and the lives of every person in Lancre are put at risk. Who knew that elves were so evil their very name couldn't be said (so they were referred to as the lords and ladies)? Who knew that at midsummer the barriers between worlds weaken enough for people to pass through if they try hard enough? Between a witch battle, the return of an old love, and imminent death, Granny Weatherwax attempts the impossible to save Lancre. Equally effective, but with a completely different strategy, Nanny Ogg resists the distraction of her own love affair to help save the day. And, timid, clueless Magrat finds the courage (with a little help from an old helmet) to become a warrior. It's a busy wedding weekend full of as much humor as chaos.
Pratchett's wit and style leave nothing to be desired when visiting Discworld. Every character he writes is quirky and interesting and never bored (or boring). It's always a good idea to take a little trip to Discworld and make as many return visits as possible.
