Character Connection

It's no secret that I love Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I came to it late, but I especially love the version illustrated by Charles Vess. But then, I love Gaiman and I love Vess, so that should be a no-brainer, right? There are lots of not-very-nice people running throughout Faerie in Gaiman's version of the fabled realm, but probably the real villains of the piece are the Lilim, especially the oldest one. When the three Lilim are first introduced, they are ancient hags stumbling around a filthy, disgusting hovel they share. But there's an odd thing. There's a mirror within their home that doesn't reflect, but, rather, shows three beautiful women in a beautiful castle looking out at them and approving and disapproving of their actions.  "The three women in the mirror were also the Lilim:  but whether they were the successors to the old women, or their shadow-selves, or whether only the peasant cottage in the woods was real, or if, somewhere, the Lilim lived in a black hall, with a fountain in the shape of a mermaid playing in the courtyard of stars, none knew for certain, and none but the Lilim could say." As the book gets going, a shooting star falls to Earth and sets off a whole chain of events. The eldest Lilim (Lilith?) is one pursuer. She is the lucky crone chosen to go fetch the star for its powerful magic. She gets to eat their last little bit of star heart (you read that right) and so regains her lost youth, beauty, and full power to enable her to effectively capture the fallen star. With her powers fully restored, the eldest Lilim goes on a rampage. She is merciless in pursuit of what she desires. I think part of what makes her so…

Yup, you read that right. We are venturing into microbiology here. Hey, I was a bio major back in the day; gotta get some use out of that degree, right? The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a non-fiction book, and it is absolutely horrifying. Or, rather, terrifying, as claimed in the subtitle. Preston decided to make his readers lose some sleep at night by writing about how close the United States came to an outbreak of Ebola. You might have heard of it. An awful little virus that leaves you bleeding out of all orifices. So, I'm scrolling through my shelves on GoodReads, as I do every Wednesday night (yes, I am a procrastinator), trying to choose villains for an October Character Connection. Up pops The Hot Zone. "Scary book," I thought as I scrolled by, as I always do. Wait for it... "Scary. Book!" Ding ding ding! What could be scarier than the Ebola virus? It's a definite villain in this piece. You might argue that in order to be a villain, there should be some evil intention involved. You'd be right. But I'll go ahead and argue for the sake of it that when your purpose in "life" is to replicate, and you do that when your host dies an agonizing, beyond-messy death, there's a (weak) argument to be made for evil intention. I was going to post some of the descriptions of exactly how Ebola victims die, but I decided that is a little bit much for me. I'll just introduce you to the beginning of an agonizing end (Here's an excerpt with more details if you're curious). It apparently starts with a monster of a headache and then a backache and then progresses into nausea and vomiting. Later, "His eyes are the color of rubies,…

My intention for the month of October is to feature either villains from any genre or heroes from horror/thriller novels. I don't always follow through with my intentions, so we'll see how this plays out. Boy, do I have a doozy of a villain this week. William Hamleigh. Words cannot begin to express my deep loathing for this bully of a character. I think if he were real and walked into a room, I would have to launch myself at him and beat the crap out of him. Seriously. I hate this guy. You can find William in The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. The book is set in 12th century England, when times were probably pretty brutal. William represents the brutality. See, William is from a little nothing middle-class family that has ambitions. Oh, the dreaded a-word. Ambition in moderation is definitely a good thing. Overweening ambition is nothing but destructive. The Hamleighs have decided that they need to be an aristocratic, titled family. Unfortunately, there is another family and a community of monks that stand in the way of the the Hamleighs' plans to get titles and riches. Too bad for the townsfolk. William, a jerk who cries for mommy when he doesn't get his way (I won't even get started on the mommy-complex he has; I don't want to sicken anyone), thinks that it's okay to rape, pillage, and destroy--well, anything. He's horrible. The book is a monster at around 1000 pages, give or take a couple of hundred, and I just kept reading, thinking, "He's got to get what's coming to him now...Okay, well, maybe now....Or now?....Ok, is anybody going to teach him a lesson?!?!?!" He just kept sinking lower and lower and lower. His evil mommy spurred him on to some of his…

I have avoided Harry Potter and company completely in my Character Connection posts. It's not that I don't love them; I absolutely do. It's just that my memory for details in books isn't great in the first place, and in the second, I haven't re-read these as often as so many of you have. I don't want to make any glaring mistakes and look like an idiot. I'm going to give this a try for Banned Books Week, so please bear with me and nicely correct any mistakes I make. My husband said something the other day that left us talking for a few minutes about little Neville. I ended by saying that I really liked what Rowling did with his character over the course of the series. Neville isn't the best student at Hogwarts. He's shy and forgets things and makes mistakes in almost all his lessons. If something can go wrong, it's going to go wrong for Neville. He gets into some situations that are funny and painful at the same time, because you can't help but feel bad for the clumsy, gentle boy. But he knows what he's good at and that's where he shines. He has a true gift with plants and he knows it. He doesn't seem to waste time wishing that his talents were flashier and more amazing. He's content with his plants. Neville is being raised by his strict, aristocratic, it's-all-about-the-family-name, grandmother. She is an awful person to be raising a child like Neville. Instead of encouraging his talents, she dwells on his weaknesses and always makes him feel bad. No one really knows what happened to Neville's parents, but everyone just seems to assume that they died in the first Wizarding War. He doesn't talk about them and doesn't ask for anyone's…

Mary Hightower is one of the main characters in Everlost by Neal Shusterman. And I think part of the reason I want to write about her is because of that "Queen of Snots" moniker. My inner 12-year-old giggles every time. Mary is too good to be true, right from the beginning. She's a ruler in a limbo for children who've died but don't "get where they're going." They're stuck in a shadow of our world that they call Everlost. "Her" children are mostly very young, which is what gets Mary called the Queen of Snots. Mary rules a skyscraper and she has accumulated a smorgasbord of all the things that children love best. Okay, maybe not all the things, but everything she can get her hands on. There are tvs and video games and jump ropes and other children to play with. She even trades around to get the children real food, an almost-unheard-of luxury in Everlost. But you can't help but wonder what's in it for her. She's so...regally condescending?... that I was immediately waiting for her true colors to come bursting from behind her mask. No one is that good. No one. And this is coming from a goody two shoes. She is a sort of mother to all her children, even though she's only 14 or 15 herself. So I was wondering for a while if that was what she got out of it: unconditional love from "her children." But that doesn't seem to be it either. In her every scene I found myself inspecting her, trying to find out what her angle is. Oh, and she loves to write books full of advice for newcomers to Everlost. I wish I could better remember some of the things she writes. She's totally serious but she comes across…

Weaver Smith is not the main character in A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly (known as A Gathering Light to Brits), but he plays a big part. I would say that he's the faith of the story. Not religious faith, but faith in himself, in his friends, and their talents. Weaver is Mattie Gokey's best friend. I've written about Mattie in an earlier Character Connection. It's unusual enough for a girl and boy to be as close as they are in 1906, but what makes it really unusual is that Weaver is black. Luckily, he's living in upstate New York, so racism is not as prevalent as it would be if the story were set in, let's say, Mississippi. It's still there though. Weaver is actually from Mississippi, but after his father was murdered, his mother moved them up to New York. She is determined to give her son the best life that she possibly can. Weaver is making the most of his opportunity. He's brilliant and he's a hard worker. He's already earned a scholarship to Columbia, where he plans to eventually go into law. He and Mattie both love language and they play a synonym duel whenever they're together. He doesn't listen to the people around him who say that he's a black man and he will never be more than a field hand or janitor. He knows that there's a lot more in him than that. He has it within himself to change the world. He works at whatever he can in order to save money for college and to help his mother. He suffers his own setbacks in the story, but he is above them. He's going to pursue his dreams, come hell or high water. He's the first generation of his family to be born…

Francesca Giordano is the main character in Poison by Sara Poole. I can't write a better post than what I wrote in my review, so I'm just going to excerpt it here. Francesca was a great character. She's so very earnest in her narration. Her tone actually reminded me a little of Mary Russell, Sherlock Holmes' protégée. She's very confident in her abilities as a poisoner, but she soon realizes that she's up against a very clever opponent. She could have remained over-confident, but she adjusts her thinking. She's also living in a time when anyone outside the "norm" is a heretic and only fit for poverty and starvation at best. She's open-minded enough to learn the lessons that she needs to. She likes to kill and that disturbs her a little. She thinks of herself as a creature of the darkness. She doesn't realize that she's working for the light in a roundabout way. She can only think of her actions and her theological questions and assume that she's probably doomed. But she still continues to do her best. Who did you connect with this week? Link your post on Mr. Linky, then be sure to go check out the other Character Connections! Who do ya love? Or love to hate? You know you've got a lot to say about some larger-than-life characters, and this is the place to say it. Write a straightforward post. Draw a picture. Vlog, write poetry, write fiction, cast the role, be as creative as you want! Be sure to post the book's title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters. Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday. I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my…

Howl from Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, is a bit of a difficult character to pin down. Early in the book, he strikes fear in the heart of the people of Market Chipping. They believe that he's there for evil purposes involving the hearts or souls of beautiful young women. He's obviously powerful. I mean, he lives in a moving castle, for goodness sake. He can exit into any of 4? 5? worlds out his front door just by turning a dial. But he can be awfully childish at times. When he gets a good fit of the sulks, he starts causing goo to ooze everywhere and other people have to run away or try to clean it up before it swallows them whole. Mature reaction there, right? He's got a good heart though and he can be counted upon to fight on the Good Side. It seems like his fights take an awful lot out of him and leave him a little closer to the Darkness than is strictly good for anyone though. He takes in strays like they're going out of style. He picks up Sophie, a young lady enchanted to look like an elderly woman, and kind of lets her run roughshod right over him. He puts up some fights, but mostly she does what she wants. His assistant is only 15, but he's an orphan whom Howl picked up nonchalantly.  He just sort of showed up and Howl never told him to leave. I just looked through the quotes on GoodReads and here are some good ones about Howl. "You must admit I have a right to live in a pigsty if I want." "I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober." "'I feel ill,' [Howl] announced. 'I'm going to bed, where…