Italia Vecchia: A Review of The Book of Hidden Things, by Francesco Dimitri

There are two Italies.  There is the Italy seen by tourists on their trips to Rome, Venice, Florence, and the other northern cities.  Then there is the Italy of the south.  The old Italy, where modernity has not quite wormed its way throughout the towns and cities.  Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia.  This is the Italy most people never see, an Italy which you rarely see in movies and books.  This is the only Italy, and the only part of the world, where you can see trulli, the conical houses unique to Puglia.  Walking through the endless vineyards and olive groves, one never knows when they might stumble upon a crumbling, forgotten trullo.  A piece of history.  This an Italy which is steadily disappearing, and this is the Italy Francesco Dimitri shows in The Book of Hidden Things.

The New Rumpelstiltskin: A Review of Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik

The fairy tale is one of those story types which never goes out of fashion, with authors always reinventing the tales for the newer generations.  In Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik takes on the classic tale of Rumpelstiltskin.  Everyone knows the name, if not the spelling or the story beats.  A father boasts about his daughter’s ability to spin straw into gold.  A local king who takes the daughter and tasks her with the impossible feat of transforming three storerooms into gold.  The imp who arrives with magical powers in exchange for gifts and favors.  In most versions, the imp forces the girl to promise her first-born child for the final task.  The girl, however, is clever, and arranges a new deal.  If she can guess his name in three days, he will relinquish all claim to her and her blood.  The girl, through stealth and wit, discovers his name, Rumpelstiltskin, and frees herself from his grasp.  While Rumpelstiltskin and straw never appear in Spinning Silver, the beats are familiar enough to echo the original tale.

A Silence of Three Parts: A Review of The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

The best fantasy novels do not tell stories, they build worlds.  Worlds that draw you in, make you believe that the empires and elves inhabiting the pages before you are real.  Dragons dwell on top of the highest peaks, avoiding the peoples living in the valleys below.  There is real drama, intrigue, racial and religious tension, defined magic.  Behind everything, the classic battle between good and evil.  There will be twists, and the most interesting heroes possess major flaws which inform their character, but all great fantasy stories share one thing.  They force you to stop seeing words on a page and start seeing the worlds in your head.

The Allure of the Lost: A Review of Spellbook of the Lost and Found, by Moira Fowley-Doyle

Magic is a fascinating concept.  An invisible, unknowable force that will somehow allow normal people to accomplish extraordinary things.  The wizards in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series can conjure creatures, fly, teleport, and more.  Going back to the middle ages we can find stories of alchemists attempting to create homunculi through arcane spells.  Even farther back, ancient Greece had the oracles, young women who could commune directly with the gods.  There are still those today who believe in magic, but the magic they believe in is very different from what came before.  Instead of wizened crones serving the village, we have the internet.  Instead of elderly wizards studying in towers, we have teenagers holed up in their bedrooms.