Memories of the World's End

[vovat]

I finished the second (and currently last) of Clive Barker's Abarat books today. I found it enjoyable, with more of a unifying plot than the first one. There was some interesting development for some of the established characters. I appreciated that Christopher Carrion, while thoroughly evil from start to finish, had a more complex personality than "I'm evil just because I am." I think Finnegan Hob's mission to kill every dragon because one of them murdered his fiancée is overkill, but maybe I'm just used to fantasy worlds where dragons are often noble creatures. And Chickentown returning to play a significant role was a clever touch.

The ending to this book was more of a resolution than that of the first one, but still left a lot of lost ends, most of which were detailed in the book itself. One character that it didn't say much at all about was Rojo Pixler, whose Commexo Kid I pretty much immediately thought to be the Abaratian equivalent of the Wal-Mart smiley face. Maybe he'll play more of a role in the third book, if there ever is one. If there is, does anyone know whether that's going to be the last one? Trilogies are pretty common these days for fantasy books especially, although I'm not totally sure why. I suppose three is a ubiquitous number in fairy tales, but maybe it's just an attempt to imitate The Lord of the Rings. Of course, that was actually six books in three volumes, but still.


I guess next I'll re-read L. Frank Baum's John Dough and the Cherub. I have three Oz books on order, and Terry Pratchett's new one on hold at the library, but I'm not sure when either of them will actually arrive. Is there anything else I should be reading? I'm kind of on a fantasy kick as of late, but I'd probably be willing to read something non-fantastic (in the genre sense, not the qualitative one) as well.

Comments

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Last time I went to the library both books were checked out, so no I still haven't gotten around to reading it. And I didn't read under your cut.

I can't think of any new reading sug... NO! I forgot. Check out "the Mysterious Benedict Society." (probably in the children's section, maybe YA) Not exactly fantasy, more of a weird sort of science fiction magic realism humorous mystery adventure sort of thing, but lots of wordplay and puzzles, you'd dig it.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'll check that out at some point. Thanks for the suggestion!

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Bonus points if you can figure out what fictional character the main character is named after! --because I just found out last night and am totally amused. It's absolutely not obvious though unless you happen to... do the particular thing I did last night to find out that bit of info; and I'm sure no one in the intended audience (middle schoolers) would ever get it, it's probably something the author did just for his own amusement. Still, there's a puzzle for you.