The Resurrectionist by E.B. Hudspeth

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

Philadelphia, the late 1870s.  A city of gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and horse-drawn carriages - and home to the controversial surgeon Dr. Spencer Black.  The son of a grave robber, young Dr. Black studies at Philadelphia's  esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops the unconventional hypothesis: What if the world's most celebrated mythological beasts - mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs - were in face evolutionary ancestors of humankind?

The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one.  The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from a childhood spent exhuming corpses through his medical training, his travels with carnivals, and the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life.  The second book is Black's magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray's Anatomy for mythological beasts - dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus - all rendered in meticulously detailed anatomical illustrations.  

I'm really at a loss on how to start this review.  The bigger problem, once I do get it started, I'm at an even bigger loss on where to go from there.  And I'm really flabbergasted on how I would finish it off.  I really don't know what to say about this one.  I loved it, I was disappointed in it, I loved it some more, and then it sat on my shelf waiting to be reviewed.  And therein lies the confusion I'm feeling.

The love started off with the concept of the book.  The idea of creating a book around a fictional doctor who went over the deep end and decided that humans are descended from mythological creatures, it's pure genius.  Then making that same doctor start experimenting of animals and humans in order to recreate those creatures, just brings it over the top.  The first half of the book is this imaginatively, convoluted story of a man who takes a once promising career, and descends into madness.  It's also the weakest half of the book, hence my disappointment.

Since it's a fake biography, I wanted the narrative to convince me that Dr. Spencer Black was in fact a real person.  I wanted to become so engrossed in the story of his life that I would be able to forget he never existed.  That never happened.  I'm not sure I can really pinpoint the issues I had with the story itself.  Some of it was the pace of the story, it was a bit jarring in places.  I also think it was the fact that none of the characters around Dr. Black were fleshed out enough to provide a support system for his story.  The pieces, which were there, never fit together.

And then the magic happened.  When the codex starts, all the problems I had in believing the reality of the "biography", were forgotten.  The anatomical details and the gorgeous way they were rendered by the artist, made me really believe that these creatures existed.  They even came close to having me convinced that there could have been link between us at some point in time.  I was, and still am, in awe of the details the illustrator was able to bring out in the creatures.  If I could, I would love to have some of them enlarged, framed, and hung on my wall.  I loved this section of the book so much, that had I written the review right away, it would have been glowing.  I waited though, and that changed my outlook on it.

In the end, I'm just not sure the codex was able to overcome the issues I had with the "biography."  I'm a reader, and I'm a reader that wants to get lost in the story.  I want to be able to willingly suspend my disbelief and get transported to another place and time.  I want to forget that I'm reading a fiction book.  And sadly, that never happened for me.  Had this been just a picture book, it would be my favorite of all time.  As it is, it's going to sit in a permanent home on my shelves, and I'm sure I'll pull it out and look at the wonderful illustrations.  I'm just not going to revisit the first half again.

Odd And The Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Synopsis From Back Cover:

In a village in ancient Norway lives a boy named Odd, and he's had some very bad luck:  His father perished in a Viking expedition; a tree fell on him and shattered his leg; the endless freezing winter is making villagers dangerously grumpy.

Out in the forest Odd encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle -  three creatures with a strange story to tell.

Now Odd is forced on a stranger journey than he imagined - a journey to save Asgard, city of the gods, from the Frost Giants who have invaded it.

It's going to take a very special kind of twelve-year-old boy to outwit the Frost Giants, restore peace to the city of the gods, and end the long winter.

Someone cheerful and infuriating and clever...

Someone just like Odd....

When I first sat down to write this review, all I was going to say was "I loved it."  Then I was going to finish the post with "Everyone should read it."  That's all folks.  Though I doubt that would really excite you, or would it?  Well either way, I'll never know.  There is no way I could leave a review at two lines, though I'm sure some of you would prefer that over my longer, rambling ones.

Ever since I was a little kid, I have loved mythology.  It doesn't even matter what pantheon of gods we are talking about.  Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Babylonian, Egyptian, even American Indian; they were all fair game to a young boy that could never get enough of those stories.  So when I saw this book reviewed last year (maybe the year before) by a blogger I know I trust, Tasha of Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books, I knew this one would be for me.  I'm so glad that I listened to myself.

For such a short book, one that I ready pretty quickly, it packed one of the biggest escapism punches of the year for me.  For that brief amount of time, I was lost in another world.  A world that was ruled by gods who weren't really as powerful as they thought they were.  A world where a tricky Frost Giant can trick the trickster god himself into doing something really stupid.  A world where three of the most powerful gods to ever walk the Earth, can be turned into animals.  It's a world where those same animals get into trouble and have to have a crippled, twelve-year-old boy get them out of it.  It's a world that I really want to know for myself.

Odd, the young hero of the tale, is one of those boys that is way too clever for his own good, and he knows it.  He knows how smart he is.  From what I can tell, he has know problems letting everyone else know it too.  But he isn't that smarty pants kid that you couldn't stand in 5th grade.  You know the kid I'm talking about, we all had one in class.  Instead, Odd is the kid that you wanted to have as your best friend.  He is the resourceful one, the kid you can count on to get you out of trouble.  I figure if Odd can get Odin, Thor and Loki out of trouble, he should be able to do the same thing for the rest of us.

I really want Odd to make another appearance someday.  I would love to find out how he got along with the other Gods or how he settles into the lands of his mother.  He is one of those characters that deserved to have more than one book written about him.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Bubo

This post is inspired by a conversation I had with a coworker the other day.  I'm a huge fan of the original Clash of the Titans movie but have not seen the remake, so when my coworker informed me of the deplorable way in which Bubo the owl made of brass and iron, who saved the day in the first movie, was treated in the remake I was furious.  How can they treat such a wonderfully adorable character with a heart of gold in such a offhanded way.  It's cold and callous and should never have happened, so this post is dedicated to the brave metal owl who only wanted to fit in and save the day.

For those of you who have no frickin clue of what I'm talking about I'll give you a brief rundown.  In the movie Perseus loses his magic helm in a fight with Calibos and Zeus orders Athena to send him her beloved  magic owl Bubo as a replacement.  Now naturally Athena didn't want to part with him so with the help of Hephaestus she creates a duplicate of him made of metal.

He doesn't show up until Perseus is on his way to meet the Stygian Witches and Bubo immediately shows him the way to the caves, and proves why he is such a valuable asset.  Bubo is able to save the day two more times in the movie, the first is when he save Pegasus from Calibos' men which allows Pegasus to fly to Perseus and help him battle the Kraken.  The second time is when Bubo, without thinking of the danger to himself, attacks the Kraken as a distraction and is swatted into the ocean for his bravery.  Heroically he returns from his watery grave in time to snatch the head of Medusa, which Perseus had dropped, and returns it in time for Perseus to turn the Kraken to stone.

Now I ask you does this sound like a character that should have been so horribly wronged in the remake?  I don't think so, instead they should have made a movie that respected the bravery and contributions that Bubo showed in the first one.  What they need to do now is make a movie from Bubo's perspective.  He should be the hero, not Perseus.