Reviews and Comments

"Tales from Earthsea" by Ursula Le Guin is the fifth book in the Earthsea Cycle. If you've never heard of the series, it was a trailblazer in fantasy / speculative fiction for its Taoist influences and its subversion of many common tropes of Western high fantasy. This book is not one narrative but five short stories of varying lengths with an informative appendix giving some information and facts about the setting. I loved the first four books (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Far Shore, Tehanu) but to me, "Tales of Earthsea" really sets the entire series apart as a landmark in speculative fiction. These stories deepen the world-building in new and unexpected directions with characters that are complex and with honest emotions. They add complexity for the first four books and set up "The Other Wind," the final novel of the series. All of the short stories are excellent but I especially enjoyed "The Finder" and "Dragonfly." All five stories show off Le Guin's excellent writing and prodigious imagination.

I grew up in the Adirondacks in upstate New York and though I knew quite a bit about the famous State Park declared "Forever Wild, Forever Free." The biggest shock to me from this book was the fact that the Adirondacks have always been very active sights of human activity, including attempts to create agricultural land, mining, and industries. Schneider navigates well through the stories and complexities. The central premise of the book is that the Adirondacks were the first place that Americans really began to think about the concept of wilderness or wild places. The meaning of the world "wilderness" has gone through multiple iterations over history that are perfect demonstrations of the way that Westerners generally think about nature. The book tries to look at the Adirondacks through three ways. First, as a history or series of stories about the park. Second, a contemporary examination of life in the Park. Third, an interesting case study for environmental ethics and conservation that gets at broader philosophical questions about our relationship with wilderness. I think that Schneider is most successful with the last element. He shows how the tensions inherent in a protected wildlife area with a substantial year-round population. He talks about the tensions between people wanting to manage the forest versus those who want it to remain untouched. The Adirondacks are a microcosm of these broader conversations in ecology. I actually think the book is weakest as history because I feel that it relies too much of interesting anecdotes and does not keep returning to its central theses to keep the narrative grounded. But this could be due to the fact that the book is written for more of a general audience. The book has lots of interesting stories and some good examinations of issues in conservation and ecology. As a native of the Park, I'm glad I read it and understand my home region much more than I did before.

"The Murder on the Links" by Agatha Christie is the second Hercule Poirot novel. What I think makes Christie so interesting is that she uses fiction conventions I think would have been popular at the time and uses the reader's assumptions to fiddle with the narrative. In fact, that might be the central feature of mystery novel - playing with the conventional to mess with our perceptions. It works well in "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" and in the short story collection "Poirot Investigates." But here, some of the more melodramatic touches (mysterious train journeys, mixed-up siblings, long-lost loves, Hastings' romantic leanings) become too much. That being said, there are many points in which the narrative did surprise me and I enjoyed myself reading it. I think that "Styles" was better. And I think that in this particular novel, Hastings as the narrator got a bit in the way. But Poirot is brilliant as ever.