skygiants | Entries tagged with elizabeth wein

I just finished zooming through Elizabeth Wein's new book Stateless, which I read in about a day; it was extremely propulsive!

I feel like Elizabeth Wein these days is sort of a YA Dick Francis, but with planes instead of horses; the plot could be anything but there WILL be some early aircraft in it and we WILL all learn somethings about them. The premise here is that Our Heroine Stella North is the only girl among the various teens from various nations who have been brought together in 1937 (fraught year!) for a big promo-stunt air race promoting Peace In Europe (there isn't and there won't be!); quite early on it's clear that there is some Sabotage and Murder going on but everyone still has to fly their assigned legs and make all their publicity-stunt events while constantly frantically checking their planes and figuring out Who Amongst Them is a killer and whether said killer is operating off their own bat or as part of the broader messy political situation. (Why is Stella the only girl? Honestly I don't know, one of the main organizers in the race is a slightly clueless aviatrix who is THRILLED to support Women in the Air, but Wein has of course written plenty of important relationships between women in her previous books so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt this time.)

The other thing this reminded me quite a lot of is a Hitchcock suspense thriller -- in particular there's a big set piece later in the book where our plucky protagonists are trying to lose the Gestapo in 1937 Berlin, moving through pockets of feverish pre-war gaiety all night so they can get back safely to the airfield in the morning, that more or less played out in my mind as grayscale on 35mm.

Stella is honestly not one of Wein's most vivid protagonists and I didn't really feel that this was a very character-focused book, the cast is pretty much there to tick thematic boxes and ensure that the plot moved along. I think Wein really wanted this book to say something profound about borders and refugees and the tragedy of nationalism -- Stella and her love interest are drawn together by the fact that they're both of Russian expat descent, flying on refugee passports, and not citizens of the nations they are supposedly representing in the race -- and I am not entirely sure that she succeeds in this.

(The love interest also has Inappropriately Floppy Hair and a Brash American Drawl and unfortunately, having just rewatched Titanic last week, that did mean that I spent the whole book imagining Titanic-era Time Traveler Leo DiCaprio and laughing to myself. He also has the most incredible pile-on of dramatic backstory ( which is spoilery )

But! though I don't think this is one of Wein's greats, she did succeed in writing a very solid romantic-suspense thriller and I would love to go back in time and get Hitchcock or Curtiz or somebody to direct it. They'd probably age up the characters but that's fine, this is not the first YA book that would work perfectly well or better if everyone was an adult instead.

As we know, Elizabeth Wein's superpower is to look critically at any character archetype and go "What if that, but a WWII pilot?" but as far as I know her latest, White Eagles, is in fact only drawing from an actual factual historical World War II pilot: our heroine Kristina is a fictionalized version of Polish pilot Anna Leska, who escaped Poland by plane when the Nazis took over her airfield and then rejoined the remnants of the army to continue the war in France, then England.

In the White Eagles, Wein gives Kristina a stowaway: Julian, a fierce Jewish eleven-year-old who's determined to convince Kristina to take him all the way to his family in England in her out-of-date plane with a big Polish Army flag on the side of it. Since the plane can only travel about five hours at a time, this journey requires several fuel stops, generally in unfriendly bits of Europe and involving significant obstacles that needs to be overcome by either Julian's cleverness and bravado, Kristina's guts and flying skills, or their developing partnership.

Julian is very much in the Telemakos model -- a brilliant kid with outsized determination and ruthlessness for his age, motivated in large part by personal trauma -- but the prose style of the book, as with Firebrand, her last book in this vein, is definitely aimed significantly younger than the Aksum saga. This is sort of fascinating to me because the actual level of trauma in the content is pretty much equivalent, the way it's written about is just much ... less descriptive and more matter-of-fact? But like. By page 30, the Nazis have taken over Poland and Kristina has seen someone she loves get shot in the head at point-blank range. Later, there's a rape threat that's only thwarted by an eleven-year-old with a gun. It's all in there, just with prose that is, also, suitable for eleven-year-olds or younger. I don't really have an opinion on this, I just think it's an interesting shift.

Both this and Firebird were kindly sent me by

osprey_archer in the spirit of a traveling book club, so if anybody would like to be their next stop, let me know! I enjoyed both but would be happy to pass them along.

osprey_archer very kindly sent me her copy of Firebird, Elizabeth Wein's recent only-published-in-the-UK children's novel.

This is definitely the shortest and youngest Wein book I've read, which is definitely not say that it's not, uh, on the same level of grim as most of Wein's other books, seeing as it's set during Nazi invasion of Russia and the siege of St. Petersburg; lots of people die, it's just largely offscreen!

The protagonist, Nastia, is a Soviet WWII pilot accused of treason for landing behind enemy lines. Her explanation for how she got there -- and into the war to begin with -- involves a number of factors, but primarily the support of her mentor, a sardonic battleaxe of a flying instructor with a perfectly made-up face, a Mysterious Revolutionary Past, and a number of rumors constantly flying around about her, including that she secretly wears fancy French underwear.

...needless to say I am in love with Nastia's flying instructor, so it is pleasing to me that their dynamic is the most significant in the book. ( Spoilers add A TWIST )

In other news, I have now passed the book on to

shati but

osprey_archer assures me that its destiny is to travel the globe or at least the country, so if you would like to be its next stop, let me know!

I forgot how short these Elizabeth Wein Lion Hunters books are! I zoomed through A Coalition of Lions and The Sunbird, the first two sequels to The Winter Prince, on my last trip out of town. In these books, Elizabeth Wein decides that she is bored of Arthuriana and picks up and moves 100% of the action over to the kingdom of Aksum, in Ethiopia. A Coalition of Lions focuses on Medraut and Lleu's sister Goewin, a character who has no analogues in any existing Arthuriana; The Sunbird follows Medraut's eleven-year-old Aksumite son Telemakos.

From my booklog at the time it seems I was not super impressed with A Coalition of Lions ten years ago but I find myself fonder of it now, in part because I appreciate more the change of pace from The Winter Prince -- The Winter Prince is SO DRAMATIC, ALL THE TIME and it's somewhat endearing how little actual plot A Coalition of Lions contains. Goewin goes to Aksum to meet her betrothed, has some doubts about his character, then spends the rest of the book wandering through the Aksumite court learning about local culture and politics until everyone can come to an agreeable negotiated solution. How pleasant!

I still find it wildly hilarious that ( spoilers )

That said, I still think Wein does Goewin better service writing her from the outside than from within; she's great as Spymaster Aunt in The Sunbird, which focuses on Telemakos' very first adventures as a child spy during a plague quarantine. I mean, everyone judges her for sending Telemakos into situations that are significantly too dangerous for an eleven-year-old, AND THEY ARE CORRECT, THAT WAS A BAD IDEA AND SHE SHOULD FEEL BAD, but, like, I know it, she knows it, we all know it, and her bad choices are really interesting choices, even if they occasionally lead to scenes in which Telemakos' entire family has an incredibly public sobbing fit while the emperor of Aksum looks deeply uncomfortable and eventually asks them to leave.

As I did ten years ago, I still love Goewin attempting to explain The Winter Prince to Telemakos, with a sense of mild embarrassment. Haven't we all had that overwrought stage of teenagerhood where we had uncomfortable sexual tension with our siblings and then tried to murder them? Ah, youth!

I got Elizabeth Wein's The Winter Prince out of the library a few weeks ago, because I had acquired all four of its sequels for ebook and I wanted to be able to read them on my travels (which, as it turned out, I didn't, but never mind, this fall contains MANY MORE travels.)

For the record, I DID read The Winter Prince some years ago but even with my distant thoughts helpfully documented it turned out I had forgotten quite ... a lot of it ......

... it's the incest, the thing I forgot was the incest.

I notice that in my old review I explained the Arthuriana plot and described it as "the main sell" for anyone who would want to read it. This is patently not true. The main sell for most people who would probably want to read this book is the intensely tropey Blonde Boy And Dark-Haired Boy Attempt Highly Fraught Emotional Dominance Games, Also They're Half Siblings, Also I Guess They're Both Heirs To The Arthurian Throne But Honestly At This Point Who Cares.

I had a conversation last week with

shati about how it's carefully explained several times in canon that Medraut (older, tragic, sinister) is the blonde one and Lleu ("Bright One," younger, refuses to kill things) is the dark-haired one, because Elizabeth Wein Is Trying TO Write Against Tropes, and I've only just now realized that it's not writing against tropes at all; Medraut has to be blonde. The Lymond always is! Julie Beaufort-Stuart in Code Name Verity remains Elizabeth Wein's best Lymond, but she had to get her training wheels in somehow.

I do still love how she handles the poor Orkneys.

Last night I read Rose Under Fire and then I dreamed about archiving Holocaust film footage all night, so that was fun.

I think there are two ways to talk about Rose Under Fire, which is to praise it for being at the high end of concentration camp novels, or to castigate it for not being as good as Code Name Verity, both of which I think are sort of unfortunate ways to discuss it but can't really be helped. Rose Under Fire was never going to be as good as Code Name Verity. This is sort of like when Conspiracy of Kings came out and everyone was disappointed because it wasn't as good as King of Attolia, which was also never going to happen. Code Name Verity was a very new story and an emotionally wrenching story and a very clever story all at once and that kind of thing just doesn't come together all that often.

Rose Under Fire is a concentration camp novel and a concentration camp novel is sort of fundamentally a concentration camp novel. As concentration camp novels go, it's compelling and harrowing and grants its characters as much agency as it possibly can -- although our protagonist Rose Justice does I think sort of falls into the trap of being the Identifiable Viewpoint Protagonist of a concentration camp novel. Why does she have to be naive and American and a bit literary, instead of one of the Polish girls that the book is really about? So that the presumed naive American reader can imagine themselves in her place. It's like The Devil's Arithmetic, except without having to bother with time travel.

Although of course the protagonist of The Devil's Arithmetic was Jewish, and none of the characters in Rose Under Fire are -- and here I think is where I am going to say something sort of horrible and and I certainly don't expect anybody else reading this to feel the same way, but I hugely appreciate reading World War II Germany novels about how things were also awful for people who are not Jewish.

Because, I mean, like, I know. I know about the Holocaust. I have taken in a staggering amount of knowledge and media about the Holocaust over the course of my life as a Jewish girl, and it was and is incredibly important to take it in, but, like. It's been a lot. And I do think there is a danger in The Jewish Story be the story that everyone always talks about -- not that it wasn't and isn't important to remember, always. But the Holocaust is not the only Jewish story, and the Jewish story is not the only story there is from that time, and these are both things I think are sometimes at risk of being forgotten. Single stories are a problem. We all know that.

So I'm pretty glad that Elizabeth Wein decided to tell the story of the Polish Rabbits in Ravensbruck, rather than the story of Auschwitz or any of the other Jewish concentration camps; I have no background in which to gauge how well she did it, but I'm glad she did.

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/353953.html

OKAY SO CODE NAME VERITY

If you have not read or heard of Code Name Verity, here is what you need to know: it's about two women in World War II, and one is Scottish and one is British, and one has a title and a giant castle and one is the granddaughter of a mechanic, and one of them is a pilot and one of them is a spy, and they are BEST FRIENDS, and their friendship is the heart of the book.

Also at the start of the book the spy, code name Verity -- who is brilliant and clever and brave -- has been arrested in the first two weeks of her mission for accidentally looking the wrong way when she crossed the street in France, which tipped off the Gestapo that she was British, and now she is being tortured and selling off radio codes to the enemy to survive. The other thing she is selling off is her story: the story of her friendship with Maddie, the pilot, and the story of how both of them got to where they are. And that's the story that you're reading.

Also Elizabeth Wein is really, really good at pulling your heart slowly out of your chest by her fingernails, but if you've read any Elizabeth Wein before, then you know this, this isn't news.

( This part is not what I would consider to be spoilery, but if you want to go in completely fresh you might want to avoid it. )

( Now for the actually spoilery bits )

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/300926.html

I have fallen rather behind on booklogging; the idea is to catch up before the end of the year. Uh. We will see. Anyways, towards that end, several pretty much unrelated ones for today!

I saw Sherrill Tippins' February House on sale in the bookstore where I volunteer, and - did not immediately buy it, because, budget, but did go out and immediately check it out of the library, because it looked like exactly the sort of dead-author gossip I am most shamefully fond of. ( And it was! Gossipy details below. )

And then after that my list got disrupted, because the sequel to The Lion Hunter, Elizabeth Wein's The Empty Kingdom, came in for me at the library and I dove for it. And it is awesome and I think my favorite of the series so far. ( Cut for spoilers for the whole series, so . . . no one should read this except Shati, basically. )

While I was at the library getting The Empty Kingdom, I also picked up Diana Wynne Jones' Dogsbody, which I had been meaning to reread. Although I love all things Diana Wynne Jones of course, this one was never my favorite when I was little; it is still not my favorite of hers, possibly just because I am not a dog person, but I think I appreciated it a lot more as a book this time around. The plot follows Sirius - the Dog Star - who, as penalty for a crime he didn't commit, is reborn as a mortal dog and sent to look for a mysterious item that inconveniently changes in its size and shape all the time and that he can't quite remember anyways. The book is really well done in terms of portraying a powerful and intelligent consciousness trying to use a much less powerful and conscious brain to think, and being constrained by the limitations of form. As usual, Diana Wynne Jones also does a very good job with conveying the dysfunctionality of the family that takes Sirius in, and the tensions surrounding the political situation, and though Duffy is a little too straight-up evil stepmother for me - and Kathleen honestly a little too straight-up good - I really like Duffy's sons Basil and Robin, and how legitimately messed up they are by the environment they're raised in. So, this one I respect rather than adore, but as is usual for Diana Wynne Jones, recommended still!

When I have actual work to do, I get behind on my booklogging. D: Travesty and tragedy, clearly!

Anyway, I just read Elizabeth Wein's The Lion Hunter, a continuation of her Arthurian/Aksumite series (significantly more Aksumite than Arthurian at this point, which is sort of awesome in and of itself.) Like the last one, The Sunbird, the book is Telemakos-centric; most of the opinions I have read say that this is the better book, and I think I probably agree with that, although personally I liked them just about equally.

What I loved most: The protagonist Telemakos suffers a pretty dramatic physical setback early on in the book, and he is the least emo kid about it in the history of literature. I don't mean that he is a happy bouncing Pollyanna, but he copes! Sensibly! This is amazing and rare, and while I liked him as a character before, he is now firmly entrenched as a favorite. I also continue to be very impressed and interested by the political issues in Aksum and its neighbors, and the lack of tolerance for Medraut's own angry emoness.

My biggest issue: I have to admit, while I like the relationship between Telemakos and his precocious baby sister Athena, I kept getting thrown out of the book by having to stop and wonder whether babies can be that - characterized, I guess, is the best word - that young. I do not even know if any of Athena's characterization is implausible, and it is probably not the book's fault, but being not sure distracted me. I also continue to wish I was getting more of a sense of Turunesh, Telemakos' mother, because I really want to like her and I cannot seem to get a grasp on her enough to care about her. (I was also looking forward to seeing one of the Orkney boys again, and was sad when he did not end up appearing. Maybe next time!)

My other biggest issue: I am now on tenterhooks waiting for the next one to come in at the library so I can find out what happens. :O Damn you, literary cliffhangers! You get me every time.

Elizabeth Wein conquers third-person narration in The Sunbird, sequel to The Winter Prince and A Coalition of Lions". No, I am serious! The first book was written in second-person and worked beautifully, the second book first-person and not quite as well, but close third-person is perfect for the story of Telemakos because it can capture his dignity and his childishness both. (The second book would probably have been better in third person as well.)

Anyways, this book is the Story of Telemakos On His Own Saving the Day. It's interesting because compared with the other books, the story is somewhat narrower and more focused - most of the main characters are for one reason or another closed off, so you don't get the tight codependency between characters that there is in The Winter Prince or the political complexity of A Coalition of Lions, but it works well as a very different kind of story for just that reason. Unsurprisingly, I loved angry, bratty Sofya, and I loved the tense and in large part offstage dynamic betwen Medraut and Goewin. I wish Turunesh got more characterization and more to do. I also loved this moment:

Gowein: *recaps The Winter Prince for Telamakos*
Telemakos: That is so messed up.
Goewin: It made sense at the time! Um.

I am going to Boston this weekend! I will see Millifriends and friends from school and my baby brother who is in his second week of college in Boston and is thus not a baby anymore (:O :O :O) and possibly my friend from high school's baby sister who is in her second year of college in Boston and therefore even less of a baby. (All in two days. It will be a packed weekend.) It will be full of awesomeness. Tragically, however, this also means that I will miss the Brooklyn Book Festival. Susan Choi (whom I have not yet read, but I have checked out of the library due to

schiarire's LJ recommendation)! Joan Didion! Arthur Phillips! Susan Cooper! I was going to send my roommate as my proxy for awesome, but she has some kind of work bonding thing that day. BUT New York-area people, you all should totally go and then tell me about it!

Meanwhile, I will sulk and instead get my book-babble fix by inflicting more booklogging on you all. I read The Winter Prince on

shati's orders; now I have finally managed to get my hands on the next book, A Coalition of Lions. This is the book in which Goewin, King Arthur's daughter from the complex English politics of the previous book, bops over to ancient Aksum (what is presently Ethiopia) to engage in complex politics there. I did not like it quite as much as The Winter Prince - I think Goewin is slightly more compelling from the outside than the inside - but I still very much enjoyed it; complex politics! Ancient Aksum! It is mostly, I think, that the plot is not as strongly crafted in terms of arc as in The Winter Prince. But Wein's prose remains very compelling, and I will definitely be reading on in the series.

I do, however, have to share my one facepalm moment:

BECCA, reading book: Oh, I really like how she is handling the relationship between Goewin and [Character X!] It is pretty clear that they feel strongly about each other without her ever having to hit us over the head with a 'ZOMG I love him, how did I not realize?' sledgehammer moment. This is kind of refreshing!
BECCA: *turns, literally, a single page*
GOEWIN: ZOMG! I love [Character X!] How did I not realize! *pulls out sledgehammer, bonks Becca over the head with it*
BECCA: *sees tiny book-shaped stars!*

Once again, after lots of time spent on public transportation, I have a fair amount of booklogging to catch up on! However I only have time to do one right now, I think, which is Elizabeth Wein's The Winter Prince.

shati ordered me to read Elizabeth Wein's books, and I always do what Shati tells me to! . . . this may be a dangerous thing to admit.

The book is technically an Arthurian retelling, but it is not really like any other Arthurian retelling I have read, in large part because it focuses in very closely on the relationship between two characters and one of them does not actually exist in The Legend As We Know It. The main character, who is telling the story, is Medraut, illegitimate son of Artos - you all can guess the analogues here - but the other focus of the story is Artos' other son Lleu, who is much younger, less experienced, and sickly, and of course going to inherit. Lleu also has a twin sister, Goewin, who is awesome. Medraut, of course, has a very complicated love-hate relationship with Lleu, and while this often leads them both to do very dumb things, I really enjoyed seeing it carefully explored and pushed and tested (you know I love the sibling stuff). My main complaint: the back cover copy spoiled me for developments halfway through the book. Don't read it!

This is the basic gist of the story, and probably the main sell for anyone who would want to read it; however, there are a few other smaller things I really liked that I am putting down just for me. First: Orkneys! I would have liked more Orkneys, because I love them, but I found it hilarious how their main role in the story was to sit around staring during Important Confrontations visibly thinking the medieval equivalent of ". . . AWKWARD." I also loved Ginevra, Artos' wife; there isn't much of her, but what we see easily makes her my favorite Guinevere ever. She is sensible and skilled at making maps! She has a practical skill! I adore this.

My library system has every book in the series except the second one, which makes me sad. But I will definitely be reading the sequel if I can manage to get my hands on it.