The Pain Merchants (Shifter) by Janice Hardy

British Cover

4
Nya lives in a world of Healers, Takers and Pain Merchants: people who can take pain from people and either store it away or turn it into powerful weapons. But Nya has a unique ability to actually be able to shift pain (hence the American name of the book) from one person to another. The story is what happens when this ability becomes known by those who would use her for it.

I'd read Janice's blog for a while before I decided to get the book, and in some ways I was surprised. I think I expected it to be more mature than it was: but I was forgetting that this is a teen book, perhaps Middle Grade (but I'm not entirely sure what Middle Grade actually is). Saying that though, I still really enjoyed the book and the world Nya lives in was lovely to  see and experience.

The healing idea is marvellous. As I said in the introduction, the ability is to take away the pain from an injury and- optionally- to be able to heal that injury. The pain is held in the healer's body until pynvium can be found: a rare metal that (when raw) is able to contain pain. In some ways, it's straightforward, but then I didn't want a huge and complicated magic system- and in it's good that it isn't magic. What's been done here is much more involved and sophisticated, in my opinion. One idea has been taken: that someone can heal someone else. What has then been done is that it was fleshed out. A problem with some magic in books is that- like in Harry Potter- no end of magic can be cast without personal effects. There is just an endless pool of magic while the magic itself is based on knowledge and creativity. Much better are the systems that cause the energy for magic to be taken from the caster, but that is an over-used idea. Janice's system is great because it really is a real effect: the healer will completely experience the pain of whoever they heal, they just won't have the physical injury.

The city itself was interesting too- as was it's place as city in a world. There is class divide in the city between the aristocrats who dominated the land through war and the natives who fought them. None of the descendants of those natives have positions of power, they-  the Gevegs- are beggars and manual labourers who work so that the Baseeris stay rich. The animosity between both groups is always apparent and it's the underlying tension throughout the city. A Baseeri believe that every Geveg's life is worth less than his own, and they would let thugs or worse do what they will with them. They turn a blind eye for their own protection.

American Cover (I prefer)

The League is almost the middle ground between Baseeris and Gevegs, but the leadership and power indicate quite clearly to whom the preference is directed. Since the skill of healing is valued, though not exceptionally rare, anyone will be accepted into the league and, once there, they dedicate their lives to healing others- in theory for the good of all. But in such a powerful establishment, there is obviously a level of corruption and wealth that is sadly necessary. The League has to feed, clothe and train the healers so money has to come into the institution. What's more, a Baseeri noble would dislike a grimy Geveg healing him so they must also be kept elegant and presentable. The League is supposed to be a good thing, at least that is what I feel. And I get the feeling it was a good thing until the Baseeris arrived as part of the unnamed Duke's conquest to reclaim independent lands.

One of the things I didn't like was the characterisation. I'm not going to make an issue of this because it isn't at the same maturity as some things I read so there can't always be the same moral ambiguity. Good and Evil are mostly clear cut, though the Pain Merchants (which is like a mob version of the League) are somewhat unclear. Even Nya, who is stealing eggs at the beginning, shows some sort of ambiguity. Yet it's all rather low-key and the manner of it makes it clear whether it's a good or bad deed. Nya is starving, so theft can be acceptable; and she also offers to work for her food once caught. She is a good character in a tough situation. As for the Pain Merchants, they are seen as ultimately bad. Though they might do good, it's for capitalist reasons of money-making.

The other thing  noticed myself disliking was some of the slang in the book. Some of it was local dialect, but when "cos" starting being used instead of "because" or " 'cause" the grammar freak in me lashed out and I got rather annoyed every time it was used after. I do remember some others, but that is the one that annoys me the most. Also, some of the names were bothersome since they seemed to awkward, but I think I'm just being unwarrantedly picky.

As a fantasy book for younger readers, I do think this was quite good. I would have preferred a more mature book, but knowing my old tastes, I know I would have liked it. I think the fact I read it all in a day is a nod towards the fact it is a good book. If you're looking for something simple, enjoyable and fantastical, look no further.

Book Blogger Confessions- Positives

This meme is hosted by Karen at For What It's Worth and Tiger at All Consuming Media

This is for book bloggers to talk about life as a book bloggers: the ups and the downs. This week, it's an up!

Let's talk about the positive side of blogging! How has blogging influenced your real life in a positive way? (not related to books or reading) Have you learned to be organized or are you more social now for example?

In some ways I am more critical of things. I don't mean I wander about judging everything, but I reach conclusions quicker than I used to, which is nice. It's also good how when watching a film or television, I can see the little things that I think will later be important. I've always been reasonably good at guessing what would happen in a film, but book blogging has cause that to grow since it helps me see other people's opinions on things and I can look at things in a way I wouldn't have previously considered. And if it's not a genre I'm familiar with, it helps me get a little insight into its tropes or typical elements.


The other way it has changed me is that I think I'm more confident. As an online persona, I don't think I come across as shy or exceedingly quiet, but I'm much more so in real life. Even in my own friendship groups I'm liable to sit quietly and absorb what's going on around me and make the occasional comment. But blogging and getting responses to what I say is a nice way to find that my opinions aren't idiotic and won't be brushed-off. The few times I've been (rightly) challenged, I haven't felt like backing down. It has something to do with the fact that with books it is an opinion or an interpretation and as such no one can really say to you that what you say doesn't matter because everyone is allowed to interpret things as they see fit and comment how they want to. This idea has sort of also altered my own personal beliefs about life and relationships, but it's something I only notice now I stop to think about it.


Ironically enough, I think book blogging has made me slightly more unorganised!!! I'm a naturally organised person: my wardrobe is arrange by the type of clothes, then by colour. My drawers are arranged according to what I use most often, and how easily I need to be able to access them. It's hard to explain in some ways, but I am someone who organises everything if my mind wander enough; my worst problem is that I can't leave loose change messy and uncounted. I have to pile it and count it before doing anything else; which isn't arduous, but it has to be done. Yet since book blogging, my desk keeps getting messy. Previously, it was pristine; everything was in line and all but at right angles to everything else. Nowadays, it's lucky to see it like that because I just can't find the time to tidy it. But it is still a good thing! I'm too organised so it's good that I've been able to allow a little chaos.


Anyone else have some strange, yet still beneficial changes???

Spire by Aaron Safronoff

3.5
This Science-Fiction/Dystopian novel is set in a place ruled by the Collective- an omnipotent, authoritarian but mostly invisible force. In a world consumed with improving humanity via Genetic Enhancement, a drug- an extreme performance enhancer- is introduced whose effect is impossible to predict, but whose potential seems limitless. The story centres on Joshua, an unsuspecting test subject, but also moves between stories involving the drug's creator; a Collective Defector and a Collective Leader Himself.

For me, I think the first thing to point out is that the parallel stories didn't always seem to work. As I sometimes find with this way of writing, I only like one particular storyline and the others should all be supplementary to that storyline and take mostly a back-seat. I never actually lost interest in the other stories, but I often felt detached from them; reading them mostly because I would return to the story I liked (Joshua's). So I tip my hat at Safronoff for not losing my attention, but I want to say that it worked in way that could have easily failed.

The plot of the story isn't a bad one, though it was occasionally clichéd. The start was kind of difficult for me because I really hate being thrown head first into a story and having absolutely no idea what was going on. It starts with Joshua- a drug user- talking about coming down from a high and how he felt about it. I get that, at least theoretically. It makes sense as a way to say how he thinks, a bit about his life and it's mildly interesting. But then I started to get lost about what was going on. I think he bought drugs, and I think he is somewhat of an expert in the field in terms of identifying them, but that is the bare minimum of what I should know. Nothing else sticks out from the start except those plot points.

It wasn't until the intrigue was introduced that I was, for lack of better word, intrigued by the story. The enhancements people had (particularly Eve) were incredible to see and weren't so far-fetched that you couldn't accept them. I'm not a huge Sci-Fi reader, but this felt more like Urban Fantasy to me which I really enjoyed considering it was still in the realms of believability. The chemical enhancement was much more fantastical, but I loved it for that. It was the kind of thing that a film would get wrong every time because your imagination plays such a huge and incredibly powerful part in making the moment as powerful and awe-inspiring as it was. In some ways I would say the book was worth reading for the times when the enhancer was used and when the higher end GEaRs (the genetic enhancers...sorry, I can't remember and I didn't mark the actual phrase!) was put on show. Technology and the advances we have made, are making and could make astound me and interest me to equal degrees.

There were things that weren't great in the book: two of which I've mentioned. Other things are just niggles i.e. things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but annoyed me anyway. Sometimes it seemed the tone was off for what was happening, or that the writing was making me more confused and the story less understandable. There was also that cliché issue, and the feeling that not everything felt entirely new. I don't want to say he's a plagiarist: he isn't! I've been emotionally up and down this and it probably made me more temperamental whilst reading.

So it was good book, and I definitely wouldn't overlook it. But, in my mind, it's a Science Fiction more than a dystopia and one should approach with that in mind; as well as with the expectation to feel a bit lost on a number of occasions. And if you're the kind of reader who hates that, you have been warned.

Friday Hop Dix-Sept

Q: What would your prefer: reading your favorite book over and over again until you got sick of it OR reading 100s of mediocre books? And why?

I would definitely say my favourite book. Everytime I read it I am bound to discover something new in it and I enjoy it so much more for that and I can see the whole book in a different way. Also, why would I settle for mediocre when I can have the utmost best? Also, it's that idea that I would rather live a terrible life but have one moment of pure bliss than merely abide a life of pure mediocrity. It's like choosiing true love over simply living with someone you like for your whole life.

Love Stories: What are some of your favorite fictional love stories?

I adore Jane Austen's stories, and Pride and Prejudice still kind of holds the title of my favourite of all time. It's so perfect, in my opinion, in every which way and I knowing the ending (who doesn't know the ending?!?) makes all the little machinations and side comments up to that point so much better. I've read Emma and Northanger Abbey too- both of which I adored- but Pride and Prejudice is and will remain my favourite.

I also liked the Time Traveller's Wife for the romance since the disjointedness of it makes it quirky and you doubt that it might ever work- but the romance is believable and you're swept away with it all (well, I was).

A non-novelistic love story that always makes me squirm with joy and anticipation is the one in Love Actually- namely Colin Firth's Character's one. He's an English writer, recently in France, with a Portuguese housekeeper. But they slowly fall in love with one another and their conversations, where neither understands the other, is blatant but sweet way to say that on some level they understand one another and that they are on the same page (ha...) in an odd, inexplicable way.

Happy Hopping!

Slaughterhouse 5 (Or, the Children's Crusade) by Kurt Vonnegut

4
This is well-known modern classic that follows Billy as he jumps through his timeline in what is an utterly bizarre story that somehow didn't lose my attention, though I expected otherwise.

It's an incredibly short book, which is nice. I think that had this book been maybe another 50 pages longer then I would have been annoyed; what featured in the book was that which was applicable and relevant. And there isn't actually anything bloody (despite what it's name suggests). There is some death but of a gory description. Billy actually repeatedly say "So it goes." as a simple to just accept death and move in. This kind of sums up the tone of book in general- it's emotionless without being bland or boring. Billy is stolid about most events in his life (either because he is or he has to be) so even the death of loved ones does not bother him in any discernable way.

The time jumping theme is also very well done. In some ways, it's like reading 3 or 4 different stories at different points in a linear timeline. The two goods things of this are, one, that when the other stories are perhaps less exciting, one stories will remain more interesting as it builds to a small conclusion of something that has been built up to. The other is when all the stories come to pinnacles at the end. In way we know what they'll be (what with time jumping and all) but watching everything come to a conclusion in tandem really pushes an idea of time to the forefront.

The idea, courtesy of the Extra Terrestrial Trafalmadore species, is that time isn't expressly linear and that everything you do in life is merely a path we can't see. This annoyed me in some ways since I don't believe in fate or destiny (and I get the impression that Vonnegut doesn't really either) but I appreciated the effect it had in terms of telling a story. It was one of the reasons that Billy was so stolid; because he knew what woul happen in the future and so he wasn't worried about it happening. There was a wonderful idea that since those moments in our life surround us, we are constantly living in the past or future in the best moments of our lives. So the point I took from the ending of stories all being reached similtaneously is that your life comes down to crucial moments that you are constantly working towards. The notion of legacy is always one I find interesting, and is a message I always take from a Chekhov production. Mortality scares me as much as anyone, but I like to think I live in other ways that aren't so tangeable. I'm not talking afterlife: I mean the influence you have on people, the things you do and the impression you make.

Quite famously, this is meant to be an anti-war novel. I can see it now I look back, but it wasn't something that leapt out at me, but I did notice some things. The major one was the nonchalant way in which the Trafalmadore know they will destroy the Universe when testing spaceship fuel. But knowing this, they assume it cannot be stopped; that time always has ended, always is ending and always will end at that time for that reason. Again my anti-fate idea is showing since my argument would be that that is no just excuse to destroy all life. Part of me wonders that Vonnegut didn't make war considered inevitable in the book only because, as humans, we are so adamantly against those ideas. True, some believe a higher being has a plan for them, but no one thinks their entire life is etched in marble; we like to believe we influence our owns lives and make our own consequences, for good or for ill.

Truly, this is a great book. It's the kind of one I'd pass to someone who wants to read more fiction and is perhaps leaning towards trying classics at some point. It's not at all difficult to read, and my only problem with it was that the Science Fiction element of the Trafalmadore felt wrong. It was well written and worked for the story, but it felt off. The book wouldn't have been the same without either though, so I am of two minds about this.

Anyway; this was excellent so I urge you to buy it somewhere and read it. Did I mention it's only 150 pages too? Beats a 700+ page Dickens novel.