The Bronze and the Brimstone by Lory S. Kaufman

In The Bronze and the Brimstone, the second in the Verona Trilogy by Lory S. Kaufman, we return to 14th century Italy where Hansum, Shamira, and Lincoln are continuing to figure out how to survive in a world that is very different from their homes and lives in the 24th century. 

It is always interesting to see how an author will handle (or ignore) the need to orient new readers to what is happening in a given series.  I won't give away how Kaufman chooses to do this in The Bronze and the Brimstone, but I thought it worked well. 


I continue to be intrigued with Kaufman's idea of what a post-apocalyptic utopia would look like and how society would choose to educate their children about what came before.  All children go to History Camp, where they experience life as their ancestors did (think colonial Williamsburg but less touristy and more mildly boot camp-ish).  In The Lens & the Looker (Book 1 in the Verona Trilogy), History Camp doesn't seem to be having its intended effect on Hansum, Shamira, and Lincoln but when they are kipnapped and taken to the real 14th century Verona, it's a different story.   

And now, in The Bronze and the Brimstone, the adventures continue.  Hansum continues his work with the ruler of Verona, introducing gunpowder and cannons before their time with all of the danger that comes along with them.  Meanwhile, the Black Plague has begun its deadly tour of Europe and Pan, the a.i. who was with them from the beginning, is suddenly no longer around to help. 

I've found it difficult to place these books in a certain age category.  The reading level is very accessible yet there are certain things that seem meant for an older audience.  My guess is that Kaufman is writing for a high school age audience.

3.5/5 stars

The Lens and the Looker by Lory S. Kaufman

Let me just start by saying:  With The Lens & the Looker, Lory S. Kaufman begins a YA trilogy that is post-dystopian -- definitely not the norm these days! 

I'm a sucker for time travel and so I was interested to see what The Lens and the Looker would be like.  It's set in a 24th century where humans have partnered with artificial intelligences to create a harmonic society.  From the back cover:

To make equally perfect citizens for this world, the elders have created History Camps, full-sized recreation of cities from Earth's distant pasts.  Here teens live the way their ancestors did, doing the same dirty jobs and experiencing the same degradations.  History Camps teach youths not to repeat the mistakes that almost caused the planet to die.  But not everything goes to plan . . . three "hard cases" refuse the valuable lessons History Camps teach.  But when they are kidnapped and taken back in time to 1347 Verona, Italy, they only have two choices:  adapt to the harsh medieval ways or die.


I will be looking forward to reading the second book in the trilogy, The Bronze and the Brimstone.

Teaser Tuesdays -- The Lens and the Looker by Lory S. Kaufman

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading. To participate, all you have to do is the following:

• Grab your current/upcoming read
• Open to a random page
• Share 2-3 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers!  

"We don't want the game over before it's begun."

 

Hansum looked at Lincoln and Shamira, and all looked cautiously around the room.  Hansum was aware of the ever-contradictory History Camp rules of balancing privacy and safety.

page 28, The Lens and the Looker by Lory S. Kaufman

My review of this one will be up on Sunday.  I'm enjoying it so far -- you don't see many YA utopias these days and I'm always a fan of time travel.  I think the cover is kind of cool.

Book Beginnings and Friday 56 -- Time and Again by Jack Finney

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence, or two, of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

In shirt-sleeves, the way I generally worked, I sat sketching a bar of soap taped to an upper corner of my drawing board.   

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Check out the rules and join in the fun.

Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
Turn to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. Post a link along with your post back to this blog.

 I stared out at the uncountable thousands of windows in the sooty sides of hundreds of buildings, and down at the streets nearly solid with car tops.  I tried to turn it back into a rural scene, imagining a man down there with buckles on his shoes and wearing a pigtailed white wig, walking along a dusty country road called the broad way.  It was impossible.


I enjoyed Finney's take on time travel to the past, specifically from late 60s New York City to NYC in 1882.  I was thinking, as I read, that I would probably give it four out of five stars.  But in the last 60-100 pages I started feeling desperate to know how it would all play out and turning page as quickly as I could read them (or vice versa . . . I'm not really sure).  That makes me think that perhaps it deserves five stars after all. 

Theme Thursday -- Emotion -- Time and Again by Jack Finney

Hosted by Reading Between the Pages

Rules:

*A theme will be posted each week (on Thursday)

*Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you're reading that features the theme

*Post it and don't forget to mention the author and title of the book

*Event is open for the whole week

*Link back to Reading Between the Pages

This week's theme is Emotion.

Image by four new colors via Flickr

Something I don't like admitting and which I've learned to disguise is a shyness about meeting people, and now I felt the familiar slight apprehension and momentary confusion as he turned at the sound of my approaching footsteps . . . I hope he's not a salesman, I thought; then he smiled as I stepped into the lobby, a real smile, and I liked him instantly and relaxed.  No, I told myself, he's not selling anything, and I couldn't have been more wrong about that.

pages 8-9, Time and Again by Jack Finney 

 I'm just starting this one and looking forward to it.

All Clear by Connie Willis

I've just finished All Clear by Connie Willis -- the conclusion of the time-travel/WWII/great characters story she began in Blackout.  With both books, I felt a little muddled and confused at times.  Not only does the reader go back and forth between 2060 Oxford and WWII-era England, but that reader must also follow the pathways of a given character at various points during various years.  I couldn't decide if I was confused because I'm dumb, because the reader is supposed to be confused (which I'd be okay with), or because I should be less ignorant of WWII history/European geography.  I'm guessing that it may be a combination of all three.  ;)

Nonetheless, it all largely came together for me by the end of All Clear and I'm glad I persevered.  Willis' storytelling is rich and the conclusion so satisfying.  I'm a big fan of what ifs to start with and that is a part of the appeal but there is more than that to my enjoyment of her books.  And of course I was amused by the brief cameo of a certain mystery author in her role as a dispensary worker.

Friday 56 and Book Beginnings -- Blackout by Connie Willis

Hosted by Katy.

How to participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you're reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

Colin tried the door, but it was locked.  The porter, Mr. Purdy, obviously hadn't known what he was talking about when he'd said Mr. Dunworthy had gone to Research.


I have a lot of fun with time travel and I enjoyed this one.  I will say, though, that it was hard for me to keep up with exactly who was when and how that compared to the other characters -- Thiswhere was a book that needed the name of the chapter (for example "En Route to London, September 17, 1943) at the top of each page.  All Clear is Collins' follow-up/conclusion to Blackout and I'll be putting it on hold at the library as soon as there is space on my account!



Hosted by Freda.
Rules:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it here.

His first instinct was to put his hands out in front of him and feel his way forward, but this was the southeastern coast of England.

Teaser Tuesdays -- November 30, 2010 -- Sabotaged by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers! 
  Cover of Sabotaged (Missing)

"But . . . but . . I could start a fire with a magnifying glass," Jonah protested. "Or, I saw this thing online, where you use a Coke can and a chocolate bar --"  

~p.117, Sabotaged by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I really really like Margaret Peterson Haddix's work.  Her target audience ranges from 4th grade to high school, depending on the book.  This is the third in (what I believe is) newest series, The Missing.  I'm not sure they are my favorite of hers, but I am enjoying them.  In this scene, Jonah, his sister Katerine, and Andrea (a.k.a. Virginia Dare) have traveled back in time to what they think is the original colony of Roanoke.  

Don't Know Where, Don't Know When by Annette Laing == Time Travel

I was so pleased to receive, from the author, an autographed copy of Don't Know Where, Don't Know When (The first book in the Snipesville Chronicles!) by Annette Laing.  From the back cover:

What a nightmare.  Hannah Dias, California Girl with Attitude, and Alex, her laid-back brother, have moved from exciting San Francisco to boring Snipesville, Georgia.life doesn't improve when they meet Brandon, a dorky kid who is plotting his escape from the Deep South, and the weird Professor, who has a strange accent.  

Suddenly, the kids are catapulted thousands of miles and almost seventy years to England during World War Two.  They fall into a world of stinging nettles, dragon ladies, bomb blasts, ugly underwear, stinky sandwiches, painful punishments, and non-absorbing toilet paper.  They learn so much more than they could ever learn in a history class.  Not that they want to learn it.

But they can't go home unless they find George Braithwaite, and whatever it is that he has to do with Snipesville.

This is one of those books that it would be a pleasure to re-read, to catch all the little connections you didn't catch the first time around.  I'm a big fan of time travel (and parallel worlds -- I love the movie Sliding Doors) and this book was definitely a hit for me in this area. 

I appreciated the discussion that Brandon and the professor have about what is different because it's 1915 and what's different because it's London (versus the United States).  The distinction makes total sense to me and I could see myself wondering the same thing.  In fact, I have wondered something similar -- I grew up in small-town Indiana.  Before moving to Denver four years ago, most big cities I'd spent time in were located in another country (China, Guatemala, Costa Rica) and I often wondered what was "big city" and what was "different country". (If we were talking in person this is where I'd probably lapse into the mildly amusing story about the butcher shop in NYC, but we'll just all try to stay on task, shall we?)

In her acknowledgments Laing thanks her friends for encouraging her "'not to worry about the P.C. People.'  You're right:  the past is not politically correct".  There were a few parts of the book that did indeed rub me the wrong way and perhaps it was those very things that Laing is referring to as politically incorrect.  At one point, after breaking a neighbor's window, Hannah is beaten with a leather belt. The professor's explanation?   "Mrs. D. doesn't think like the adults in your world, or at least like the adults in your world tell you that they think.  In her world, unlike ours, almost everyone says it's fine to spank children now and then, but it is not considered a good idea to burden kids with grown-up worries.  So Mrs. D. reckons that kids are kids, and her two only needed a simple lesson today . . . She hopes they will learn their lesson so she never has to repeat it." This makes sense to me as an explanation, but not as a justification, if that makes sense.  It was also a little disconcerting to me when Hannah thinks to herself, after being approached by an older woman, ". . . the lady would probably look quite a bit younger if she wore makeup, dyed her hair, and got her wrinkles ironed out with Botox" (p.137) and goes on to mention facelifts and dental work.  I think this was another attempt to point out the differences between the two time periods but this is the kind of thing that makes me cringe -- just the whole idea of someone "needing" Botox.  But these are just small quibbles.

Some fun or humorous parts -- Hannah and Alex find a Monopoly board and discover that it's all London landmarks -- So Park Lane instead of Park Place, etc.  I liked it when they played "pass the parcel" at a birthday party, as we did that a few months ago at the birthday party of a dear (English) friend. Laing is good at this type of detail.  On page 105, after the professor has been speaking with Hannah outside a classroom -- "The other girls think I've been scolding you, so try to look upset and angry.  Oh, I see you already do.  That's helpful."  And the Scooby Doo reference on page 178, "'All thanks to us meddling kids!' Hannah said cheerfully, to blank looks from everyone except Alex, who put his hands over his eyes" is a classic.

The book closes with the professor back in London, examining an artifact in the Victoria and Albert Museum and leaving the reader to wonder what part the artifact will play in the next book -A Different Day, A Different Destiny!  I will definitely want to learn about the next adventure and I am curious about whether the characters will stay the same.  

I hope to have a young friend also read this and write a guest post with her reactions.  I'll be interested to hear what someone closer to the target audience thinks.

Oh, and check out Imaginative Journeys!