Botulf's Stone Blog

This is a revised post from my old blog.  The original can be found  here  for comparison. Abstract:  Amongst children’s literature, this is a great series.  The world feels generic, but the characters are distinct and engaging, and Alexander managed to parallel Taran’s development with the developing themes, which alone makes this series worth reading. Content Warning [highlight to view]:   magic/sorcerer, mild cursing, some scary scenes ——— “Is It Good Enough for Children?” Madeleine L’Engle, author of  A Wrinkle in Time,  asked this question in a essay of the same name, concluding that “if a children’s book is not good enough for all of us, it is not good enough for children” (L’Engle 431).  C. S. Lewis voices a similar idea in his essay “On Three Ways of Writing for Children.”  With this conclusion, both authors confront the assumption that children’s literature needs to be what we might call “childish,” stories that lose most, if no...

Warning: Contains spoilers for  All the Light We Cannot See  by Anthony Doerr In his essay “The Fantastic Imagination,” George MacDonald describes one of the fundamentals of writing an imagined world: “[An author’s] world once invented, the highest law that comes next into play is, that there shall be harmony between the laws by which the new world has begun to exist; and in the process of his creation, the inventor must hold by those laws… Obeying law, the maker works like his creator; not obeying law, he is such a fool as heaps a pile of stones and calls it a church.” There is a wealth of insight I cut out from between these sentences, so I highly suggest following the link I shall provide below to read the full work, whether or not you care for writing fantasy.  After all, the principle MacDonald describes here applies to all fiction: no matter if the world is fantastic or mundane, there must be harmony with the world building, with the laws the author has established....

Content Warning [highlight to read]:   Swearing, some graphic imagery, a non-graphic rape scene Abstract:  An engaging but also disappointing read.  Characters are likable enough, but the story is too long and shifting perspectives in present tense make events a bit hard to follow.  By the end, the parts are greater than the sum. All the Light We Cannot See  by Anthony Doerr is a beautiful title for a book that doesn’t quite deliver on the promise of that title and the book’s premise. The story follows two scientifically-minded characters, a blind, French girl who loves marine biology named Marie-Laure and a German orphan turned Nazi radio specialist named Werner.  It tells of their lives leading up to, during, and after World War II.  I can’t say much more without going into the critique, so I will begin with the positives.  Anthony Doerr accomplishes what I have seen very few authors do: capture a sense of wonder towards scientific study.  ...