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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Word of the Week: Goblin

From Francisco Goya's
Los Caprichos (1799).
Goblins abound in fantasy literature, from Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market to George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit to Tyger Tyger, the book I reviewed last week, but where does the word come from? And what is a goblin?

Goblins come in many shapes and sizes and temperaments, ranging from grotesquely evil to mischievous and annoying. Tolkien's goblins, later rechristened orcs, lean in the evil direction while MacDonald's goblins lean the other way. Goblins are typically small, ranging from a few inches to the stature of a dwarf. In some stories, they possess magical abilities.

I assumed the word had a Germanic or Norse origin but it's antecedents are not so easily traced, which seems strangely appropriate for such a creature. One line dates the word's first recorded usage to the fourteenth century and traces it to the old French word gobelin derived from Gobelinus, a spirit said to haunt Évreux, a region in Normandy in northern France. Another theory relates goblin to the German word kobold--meaning household goblin--derived from the Medieval Latin term cabalus from the Greek words kobalos--a rogue or knave--and kobaloi--the wicked spirits that rogues invoked. Kobold was also used by silver miners in the Harz Mountains in northern Germany to refer to rock containing arsenic and sulfur. The contaminants degraded the ore and made the miners sick.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Goblin, Goblin: A Review of Tyger Tyger

Tyger Tyger: A Goblin Wars BookTyger Tyger: A Goblin Wars Book by Kersten Hamilton is a story steeped in tales of Irish mythology. The narrative centers on Teagan Wylltson--a teenager in contemporary Chicago with definite plans for vet school. Hamilton tells an exciting story about the Wylltson family's struggle with a group of goblins determined to kill them and the protagonist's struggle to discover how she and her family fit in to ancient Irish history. The ultimate answer is sobering--Teagan, her younger brother Aiden, and their mother Aileen fall into a gray area--but not without hope and speaks to the power of love and friendship to overcome old wounds and hatred.

Teagan's life turns upside down one day when her best friend Abby, who believes she is psychic, claims that in a dream, she saw goblins from the paintings Teagan's mother creates for her children's books attacking Teagan. Abby is so convinced of the danger that she drags Teagan to St. Drogo's church to ask for the saint's protection. Abby is not a regular churchgoer. Teagan dismisses Abby's fears but then receives another shock when her parents tell her that there will be a new addition to their family. Finn, Teagan's cousin who has been missing for several years after the death of his parents, has been discovered by social services. Finn gives the authorities Teagan's mother's name and her parents agree to take guardianship of the boy who has been living on the streets.

By most standards, Teagan's family is eccentric. Aileen is an orphan with a mysterious past who was taken in and raised by Mamieo--Finn's grandmother and a member of the Irish Travelers. She writes and illustrates children's books set in fantastical lands populated with fantastical creatures. The Wylltson's basement is filled with paintings. Aiden has a remarkable ability to remember and regurgitate songs. He also finds the tooth fairy and Elvis impersonators scary. John--Teagan's father--is a librarian by trade with a great love for poetry, especially old poetry like that of  William Blake whose poem "The Tyger" informs the novel's title. Mr. Wylltson reads to the family after dinner most every evening.

Finn Mccool Comes to Aid the Fianna,
by Stephen Reid (1932).
Strange events follow Finn's arrival. Teagan has no interest in a boyfriend as that would interfere with her plans for vet school, but she feels a strange electricity whenever Finn is near. He appears to feel an attraction as well. Mr. Wylltson reads an account of the Irish hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill who battles goblins. Aileen points out that Finn is a variation of the name Fionn. (We later learn that Finn is not only Fionn's namesake but the Mac Cumhaill, the person who carries on the battle with the goblins.) A baby hedgehog that Teagan is caring for at the Lincoln Park Zoo is found dead and it appears that the death is Teagan's fault. On the way home, she catches a fleeting glimpse of a cat-sidhe, a type of cat goblin. Aiden claims he saw a body-less shadow touch his mother. Finn leaves in the middle of the night, fearful of the trouble he may have brought on the Wylltsons. But the worst is yet to come and Teagan's life will become much stranger--including two trips to Mag Mell, the world the goblins now call home--before it makes any sense.

Hamilton populates her story with a vast array of fantastic creatures. Some are hopelessly evil; others are charming. A quote from Hamlet, which comes up several times in the novel, does well to sum up Hamilton's story.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet Act 1, scene 5)

The narrative--told entirely from Teagan's point-of-view--is fast-paced but not hurried and Hamilton further flavors the story with her sense of humor. Some scenes are as amusing as they are terrifying. In one case, a pair of hell hounds chase a vintage truck through suburban Chicago. However, unlike the proverbial dog chasing the car who doesn't know what to do with the car if he catches it, these nasty creatures know exactly what to do with the occupants of the truck. Hamilton also makes some subtle plays with names if you read carefully. Finn's guardian angel for example is named Raynor Schein, which could be read as "rain or shine." The novel ends with a satisfying conclusion that answers the questions posed at the outset but leaves room for more adventures to come. This reader is looking forward to another trip to Mag Mell.

I received an advance copy of Tyger Tyger from the publisher through NetGalley.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

CSFF Blog Tour: The Skin Map Day Three

The Skin Map is speculative fiction. To paraphrase Orson Scott Card's broad definition, much of the story takes place in worlds that have never existed or are as yet unknown. I suspect few would argue with the speculative tag, but what kind of speculative fiction is this? Is it fantasy, science fiction, or some sort of alternate history? It combines a bit of each. The worlds to which the characters jump have much in common with our own, but their histories are slightly different. In the seventeenth-century England that Kit visits, the English Civil War has not taken place. Oliver Cromwell is an itinerant preacher. In another world, Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon discover the untouched tomb of a high priest rather than King Tut. (Lawhead does marvelous work in that chapter building up our anticipation of the discovery we know is coming so that we can share in Carnarvon's disappointment. Rather than filling his tomb with gold, the priest has spent his money on art, covering the walls and ceilings with paintings.) While these historical differences are significant, Lawhead does not focus on them or spend much time speculating on their consequences for subsequent historical developments. As for fantasy, the cave lion and the chapters set in seventeenth-century Europe give the story a touch of fantasy, but the genre's touchstone, magic, is completely absent. Aren't those ley lines magical? No, Cosimo and Sir Henry argue a naturalistic explanation. The alternate worlds are simply part of the grand universe in which the characters reside, a characteristic as "magical" as gravity, light, or the moon. Time travel has been a staple of science fiction, and the alternate worlds follow the same rules as our world, except for the ley lines. All of which leads me to conclude that The Skin Map has more in common with science fiction than anything else.

Despite the various attempts by Cosimo and Sir Henry to explain how ley lines work, it is still not clear what is required to use them. Are only certain people with some sort of gift able to initiate a jump? Or, is ley jumping a skill that anyone can acquire with practice and knowhow? Some of Cosimo's comments suggest the former, but Wilhelmina is able to make jumps by herself at the novel's conclusion. Hopefully Lawhead will elucidate this mystery in subsequent volumes.

The Great Fire of London,
with Ludgate and Old St. Paul's,
ca. 1670, artist unknown.
As with most stories involving time travel, there are some moral questions. If you know that a great calamity is about to occur and you can stop it, what do you do? Let history play out or intervene? On their way to dinner in seventeenth-century London, Cosimo makes a late night stop at a particular baker to buy a stale loaf of bread. He pounds on the door to wake the baker who is most displeased with the interruption to his sleep. Cosimo tosses the loaf to some women on the street after leaving the bakery. Kit learns that Cosimo has woken the baker whose untended fire caused the great fire of London. Kit questions altering history since Cosimo had stated earlier that ley travelers should strive to impact alternate worlds as little as possible. Cosimo argues that preventing the great fire spared many poor people a great deal of suffering and that the building boom in the wake of the fire would occur with or without the mass destruction.

Wilhelmina alters history in a different way. Plunked in seventeenth-century Prague with no idea how to return to modern-day London, Wilhelmina makes the best of her situation and attempts to integrate with the local society. However, when the bakery she and her partner operate is faring poorly, she uses her knowledge of modern-day coffee houses to reshape history to her own commercial success. Rather than waiting for coffee houses to evolve in Prague as the taste for coffee slowly spreads across the continent, Wilhelmina determines to start a new type of business from scratch and sends her partner out to find coffee beans. Knowing what a success coffee will ultimately be, Wilhelmina is hardly taking a gamble. The only serious problem is finding enough coffee beans. Lawhead does not treat the morality of Wilhelmina's actions. Other than Burleigh, who appears to have no moral scruples, Wilhelmina has no one with whom to discuss the situation.

Considering how to sum up The Skin Map's philosophy, two quotes come to mind.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet Act 1, scene 5)

And Cosimo's rebuttal to Kit:

Who's to say the reality in which we find ourselves is the best one possible? (p. 61)

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of The Skin Map from the publisher.

To learn more about the author, visit his website at http://www.stephenlawhead.com/.

To learn what the other CSFF bloggers are saying, follow the links below:

Red Bissell
Thomas Clayton Booher
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Jeff Chapman
Christian Fiction Book Reviews
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
George Duncan
April Erwin
Tori Greene
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Timothy Hicks
Christopher Hopper
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Becca Johnson

Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Shannon McDermott
Allen McGraw
Matt Mikalatos
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
John W. Otte
Gavin Patchett
Sarah Sawyer
Chawna Schroeder
Kathleen Smith
Rachel Starr Thomson
Donna Swanson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler
Nicole White
Elizabeth Williams
Dave Wilson

Monday, November 1, 2010

CSFF Blog Tour: The Skin Map Day Two

In yesterday's post I mentioned two protagonists in addition to Kit and Wilhelmina: Arthur Flinders-Petrie and Lord Archelaeus Burleigh, Earl of Sutherland. In the grand scheme of ley lines and world jumping, Kit and Wilhelmina are minor figures, amateurs, interlopers. The real movers and shakers are Flinders-Petrie and Burleigh.

Flinders-Petrie is a pioneer in the use of ley lines. Through trial and error, he has learned to navigate the lines to go where he wants when he wants. He has documented his findings as a map tattooed on his torso. After his death, the map is removed and preserved as a thin piece of parchment, the skin map of the novel's title. We enter Flinders-Petrie's story as he arrives in Maccau, China to have a new tattoo added to the map. This addition records directions to the Well of Souls, which Flinders-Petrie describes as "the ultimate prize, . . . the greatest treasure ever known" (p. 132). To Wu Chen Hu--the tattooist who has recorded all the maps in his unique, vivid blue ink--the designs are "a tightly controlled swash of abstract ciphers. . . , elegant in their own way as the Pinyin script was elegant, but utterly devoid of any comprehensible meaning" (p. 132). Burleigh makes his first appearance, interrupting the tattoo session to invite Flinders-Petrie to dinner to discuss mutual business interests. Chen Hu is suspicious of Burleigh but remains reticent. Dinner turns out to be a trap. Burleigh knows about Flinders-Petrie's discoveries and requests that he and Flinders-Petrie form a partnership. When Flinders-Petrie refuses, Burleigh decides to acquire the map by force. Only the intervention of Chen Hu and his daughter Xian-Li save Flinders-Petrie from being killed and skinned.

The Foundation Stone above the
Well of Souls.
Burleigh is the novel's charming but ruthless villain. He's also an atheist, flatly stating, when Cosimo invokes God in a plea for mercy, that God does not exist, "only chaos, chance, and the immutable laws of nature" (p. 337). Burleigh claims to give people choices, usually cooperate or die in some dastardly manner. As with Flinders-Petrie, we know nothing of Burleigh's past. He possesses considerable wealth, some of it obtained from selling antiquities on the black market, and employs a small army of henchmen whom Cosimo calls Burley men. All the other protagonists cross paths with him at some point in the novel and none of the meetings conclude pleasantly. What motivates Burleigh? Avarice? He has more than enough money. Burleigh's aim is the Well of Souls.

So, what is the Well of Souls? According to Wikipedia, the "Well of Souls is a natural cave located immediately beneath the Foundation Stone, under the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem." When Burleigh presses Cosimo for an answer, Cosimo calls it a myth with Jewish, Arab, and Egyptian versions, but none agree on its nature or location. Cosimo continues:

Some tales have it that the well is an earthly place, an underground region where the souls of the dead congregate to await the coming Judgement. Others hold it to be a heavenly place where the souls of those not yet born await their call to life in this world (p. 336).

But in Lawhead's universe, it appears to be something more. Flinders-Petrie tells an Egyptian priest that the Well of Souls is beyond Sirius--the Dog Star--and that he will take his wife Xian-Li--who has just died of an acute fever--to the Well of Souls in a last attempt to heal her or, more accurately, bring her back from the dead. Lawhead does not give us a difinitive answer.

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of The Skin Map from the publisher.

To learn more about the author, visit his website at http://www.stephenlawhead.com/.

To learn what the other CSFF bloggers are saying, follow the links below:

Red Bissell
Thomas Clayton Booher
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Jeff Chapman
Christian Fiction Book Reviews
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
George Duncan
April Erwin
Tori Greene
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Timothy Hicks
Christopher Hopper
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Becca Johnson

Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Shannon McDermott
Allen McGraw
Matt Mikalatos
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
John W. Otte
Gavin Patchett
Sarah Sawyer
Chawna Schroeder
Kathleen Smith
Rachel Starr Thomson
Donna Swanson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler
Nicole White
Elizabeth Williams
Dave Wilson

CSFF Blog Tour: The Skin Map Day One

The Skin Map (Bright Empires)This month's tour features The Skin Map by Stephen R. Lawhead, a well-known writer with several novel cycles to his credit. The Skin Map is the first book in the Bright Empires series. The second novel in the series--The Bone House--is scheduled for September 2011. If you have read my previous post, you will know that we received our review copies late. (Mine arrived last Saturday). I prefer a couple days to think about a novel before I write about it and I usually have the first post written well before Monday but no such luxury this time. I finished the book Sunday night, so I feel like I'm doing this tour by the seat of my pants, which may be appropriate. Two of the protagonists--Kit and Wilhelmina--are living by the seat of their pants as they jump from one time and place to another. Before I go any further, I must point out to potential readers that there is a major problem with this book. The pages end before the story does. Yes, a few (very few) issues are resolved and a mystery or two is cleared up but there is a lot more story left. Reading The Skin Map is like stopping The Lord of the Rings after The Fellowship of the Ring.

Down Tor stone row on
Dartmoor in South Devon, UK.
In an essay at the back of the book, Lawhead remarks on his inspiration for the story. In the early twentieth century, Alfred Watkins noticed that many ancient landmarks in the English countryside were aligned in straight lines. He documented the phenomenon, termed them "ley lines," and published at least three books on the subject. Theories abound regarding ley lines. There are many landmarks in Europe, so some argue that lines formed by various points are inevitable based merely on random chance. Others dispute the purpose and significance of ley lines. Were the ancients marking something, such as "the telluric energy that is associated with various geodynamic forces of the earth: underground streams, fault lines, movement of the earth's crust, and even, perhaps, lightening strikes?" (p. 402) No one knows, but Lawhead has crafted one scenario, that these lines are points at which alternative universes touch, into an exciting and engaging story.

The story begins with Kit trying to make it across modern-day London to his girlfriend's flat where she is waiting for him to take her shopping for curtains. Everything Kit does goes awry. He eventually wanders down a dark alley known as Stane Way (Anglo-Saxon for Stone Way, referring to standing stones) and meets a man named Cosimo who claims to be his great-grandfather and seems to know everything about Kit's dull existence. (Most people would say Kit does not have a life.) Cosimo convinces Kit to have a drink with him and when the pair emerge from the alley, they are in an early nineteenth-century fishing village. Over a tankard of ale at a local pub, Cosimo explains ley lines and jumping between worlds and asks Kit to aid him in a project. Kit believes that he is suffering from some extended hallucination and refuses any part in Cosimo's plans.

Kit reenters London through the Stane Way ley and eventually arrives at his girlfriend Wilhelmina's house eight hours late. She is not pleased. Neither Kit nor Wilhelmina appear to be all that fond of each other but remain as a couple out of mutual desperation. Wilhelmina is plain and severe looking. She is a baker and lives a life of early mornings and early nights, different from Kit's time schedule. Kit reluctantly tells her the story of his meeting with Cosimo because he can think of no other "plausible" explanation. He decides the only way to convince her is to show her, so she accompanies Kit to Stane Way. They both make the leap to another world. Kit winds up where he left Cosimo. Wilhelmina winds up somewhere else. Ley jumping takes practice and Kit is a novice. Kit and Cosimo set out to find Wilhelmina and their storyline takes them to seventeenth-century England and later a tomb in twentieth-century Egypt. Wilhelmina finds herself in early seventeenth-century Bohemia. Fortunately, Wilhelmina learned German from her grandmother. She hitches a ride from a baker--another fortunate coincidence--on his way to Prague to set up a new shop. Two other characters have their own plot lines--Arthur Flinders-Petrie and Lord Archelaeus Burleigh, Earl of Sutherland--but more about them tomorrow.

As expected from a writer as experienced as Lawhead, the narrative flows and we move from story to story without too much jarring. The various worlds are rendered in detail. (I know more about seventeenth-century London eating habits than I ever wanted to know.) Lawhead has clearly done some research.

Photo Credit: Attributed to Herby. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of The Skin Map from the publisher.

To learn more about the author, visit his website at http://www.stephenlawhead.com/.

To learn what the other CSFF bloggers are saying, follow the links below:

Red Bissell
Thomas Clayton Booher
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Jeff Chapman
Christian Fiction Book Reviews
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
George Duncan
April Erwin
Tori Greene
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Timothy Hicks
Christopher Hopper
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Becca Johnson

Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Shannon McDermott
Allen McGraw
Matt Mikalatos
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
John W. Otte
Gavin Patchett
Sarah Sawyer
Chawna Schroeder
Kathleen Smith
Rachel Starr Thomson
Donna Swanson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler
Nicole White
Elizabeth Williams
Dave Wilson