Writers: Walking Thesaurus's

If you ask a writer for ways to say the same word differently, I wonder how many words with similar meanings they could give you?

One of our jobs as writers is to find that absolutely perfect word and plunk it down, a glowing jewel, amidst all the clutter of sentences. Not an "almost" perfect word. Not a "sort of" perfect word. THE perfect word.

For instance, you can't have a group of sentences with one redundant word occurring throughout the whole paragraph. It would get-- well, redundant. I mean, look at this sentence:

"The darkness lay like a bandage across my eyes. My groping hands reached through the dark, and my eyes tried to pierce through darkness' shield, but to no avail. The pressing dark was too much for me to penetrate. I lifted my foot and took a brave step forward, a blind man in the dark."

This might be a good sentence, but sheesh! Look at all those "dark"s! TOO many! You start getting hung up on how many darks are in that sentence. So, you have to be creative. What other words OTHER than dark can you substitute instead? Gloom. Black. Dim. Shadow. Murk. There's a bunch, isn't there? Let's rewrite that sentence again.

"The darkness lay like a bandage across my eyes. My groping hands reached through the shadows, and my eyes tried to pierce through the gloomy shield, but to no avail. The pressing dimness was too much for me to penetrate. I lifted my foot and took a brave step forward, a blind man in the murk."

Which one read better, one or two? See what I mean?

Writing isn't just about putting words together and hoping it's good enough. Writing is putting good words together inventively, and knowing that it's as perfect as you can make it.

The Ring of Solomon

Bartimaeus is back... and he's just as funny as ever!

Jonathan Stroud has written a masterpiece of wit set in the time of King Solomon.

King Solomon is an evil king, intent on ruling the world under the iron fist of fear. He commands a Ring of great power, a Ring that, with one twist, allows him to command all the spirits that reside in the Other Place. With the might of that Ring, all the world cowers in obedience before his omnipotence.

The djinni Bartimaeus has been summoned and bound to a magician in punishment for having escaped and slain his previous master. Forced to work for Solomon's henchman, Khaba, Bartimaeus and six other disgraced djinn are hard at work on his Solomon's new temple, with strict instructions to use no magic in the temple's making. When these orders are disregarded, Bartimaeus and his six companions are sent to hunt out other creatures who are disrupting trade routes. 

Elsewhere, the Queen of Sheba has received multiple marriage proposals from Solomon, which she has refused. Now Solomon threatens to destroy her country's frankincense trade. To keep her country's peace intact, the Queen sends Asmira, a guard in her regime, to kill Solomon and steal the Ring. Fiercely loyal and obedient even to death, Asmira sets off to Jerusalem.

On his hunt, Bartimaeus meets Asmira as she is traveling to Jerusalem under an assumed identity. After many episodes, during which Bartimaeus is beaten by a very powerful marid and imprisoned in a bottle, Asmira summons Bartimaeus and makes him her slave, with orders for him to assist her in killing Solomon and stealing the Ring. Despite the seeming impossibility of the task, Bartimaeus shines his way through with his customary wit, sarcasm, and ingenuity. During their escapades, Asmira and Bartimaeus form an uneasy respect for each other. As the climax reaches it's conclusion, surprising facets of Solomon's true character begin to emerge.

This book is a must-have companion to the previous books in Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy. (1. The Amulet of Samarkand; 2. The Golem's Eye; 3. Ptolemy's Gate.) The Ring of Solomon will fast become another favourite to diehard Bartimaeus fans. I give this book a five star rating, but I happen to love sarcastic djinnis with a penchant for eating weaker spirits.

My Rating:

*****

Leviathan: Scott Westerfield

Prince Aleksander, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in the year 1914, is woken up in the middle of the night by his tutor and his fencing master. At first, he thinks they're taking him out on another one of those midnight drills that he is expected to do whenever it is deemed necessary. However, this time it is not a drill. It is an escape. Alek's parents have been killed, poisoned by German sympathizers, and the prince is next on their hit list.

   Alek's escape coincides with the escapades of Deryn Sharp, a young girl who has joined the British Air Service disguised as a boy. Deryn, a midshipman aboard the Darwinian airship Leviathan, is a brilliant airman. Her love of flying makes the danger of her deception a worthwhile venture. During an intense air battle, theLeviathan is heavily wounded and forced to crash land in the freezing Swiss terrain, coincidentally near a secret castle where Prince Alek and his men have taken refuge.

   This story ends on an unexpected cliffhanger, leaving you open and ready for the second book in the trilogy, Behemoth.

   This story, set in a steampunk World War I, grabs hold of the reader from the first paragraph. Scott Westerfield writes an imaginative alternate world about how history could have been. Peopled by Clankers -- men who put their faith in machines of metal -- and Darwinists -- men who command genetically engineered vehicles such as the Leviathan. an enormous whale-like air ship with it's own ecosystem --Leviathan is a must-read for the avid steampunk reader.

   This book was a masterpiece of storytelling. Perhaps my only complaint about it was the Darwin element. I am NOT a fan of Darwin, nor do I believe any of the theories he came up with. However, Scott Westerfield manages to take the theory of Darwinism just far enough to explain his biological air ships. Aside from that one element, this was a fantastic story.

My Rating:

*****

Under the Green Hill: Laura L. Sullivan

Perhaps the Morgan children would never have met Phyllida and Lysander Asher, their distant English relatives, were it not for the epidemic that threatened America. Afraid for their children, college professors Tom and Glynis Morgan ship their children off to England.

For Rowan, Meg, Priscilla, and James Morgan, life with the Asher's seems like it could be ideal.  The house, officially named "The Rookery", is enormous, with lots of places to explore, and a fabulous garden just outside the house. The only downside to their stay may be the last-minute additions of two boys, both of them sons of other college professors: Finn Fachan, an annoying boy that the four Morgans despise equally, and Dickie Rhys, a bookish boy that the Morgans mostly ignore.

The Ashers are pleasant old people. However, they have some very strange rules. The children wonder, why is the forest forbidden? Why can't they give their names to strangers? And why mustn't they accept food from anyone?

Very soon, the Morgans discover the reason. They have arrived in England on May Day, and when they ignore the Ashers' warnings and venture beyond the grounds on the first night of their stay, they come upon the Green Hill, threshold of the Seelie Fairy queen's domain. There, Rowan is chosen to be the Queen's champion in the Midsummer War, a battle fought between the two opposing fairy courts, Seelie and Host. Rowan is their human champion. He must fight the Host's human champion, and either he or his opponent must die.

Determined to save her brother, Meg vows to do all she can to prevent Rowan from fighting in the battle. When she discovers that, without the spilling of the blood of mortal man the land will die, Meg is in a quandary. Can she justify preventing the War to save her brother if it means destroying England?

This was a very gripping story. Laura L. Sullivan draws heavily on Celtic and Arthurian legends to create a story that is as real and believable as the sun outside.

My Rating:

*****

The Name of This Book Is Secret: Pseudonymous Bosch

"Cassandra" is your normal, average, eleven-year-old school-girl...except she has pointy ears. She carries a backpack all the time, because her motto is "be prepared".

Also, Cassandra isn't her real name.

Cassandra and her colloborator Max-Ernest (a small, hyper, non-stop-talking boy whose name really isn't Max-Ernest) are thrown into a dangerous predicament when a real-estate agent drops off the box called "Symphony of Smells" to Cassandra's surrogate uncles. Cassandra is curious about the death of the magician, to whom the Symphony belonged, and when she and Max-Ernest go to investigate the house they come face-to-face with the eerie Ms. Mauvais and strange Dr. L, who are after a certain journal that contains a dark...Secret.

Cassandra and Max-Ernest manage to keep the journal away from Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L long enough to discover the message hidden "underneath" the journal's pages. They are clever and plucky enough to rescue a classmate, Benjamin Blake, a unique boy with "synethesia" (the gift to see things as a mixture of colours, smells, and sounds), from a dismal fate.

This book started out very, very deliciously, with an intriguing twist of writing-style and a delightfully confusing plot. I felt that the end kind of got a little too weird, but I want to read the second book in the series, to see if I really do like the books.

I recommend this book at least for a one-time read. It's got a good pace and intriguing style. It wasn't until the very end that I felt a little disappointed.

 My Rating:

* * * * *