I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ALISA WEILERSTEIN-Tiny Desk Concert #80 (September 15, 2010).

I have concluded that the cello is my favorite solo classical instrument and Alisa Weilerstein plays a beautiful cello indeed.

She plays three songs: two pieces from Bach and one from Golijov.

I can’t speak to specifics about Weilerstein’s style or skills, but she plays beautifully.

[READ: May 15, 2015] The Last Dragonslayer

I have loved Jasper Fforde’s books.  His Thursday Next series is brilliant (and I plan to re-read it someday).

This is the first book of his 4 part (not a trilogy!) YA series (called The Chronicles of Kazam) and it was fantastic.

The story is about Jennifer Strange.  Jennifer is a foundling who has been working for the past four years at Kazam Mystical Arts Management.  Foundlings from The Lobster are sent for indentured servitude for six years.  She has been quite successful at Kazam and when the owner Zanarerilli disappeared several months ago (she wont say how) she has basically been in charge of the building.  Not bad for a 16 year old  (well, she’ll be sixteen in a couple of months).

Kazam is in the Kingdom of Hereford in the Ununited Kingdoms.  Kazam is the home to some of the most powerful wizards alive.  Sadly there aren’t that many left.  Magic has slowly been dying and as the magic goes so goes the fancy titles of the wizards.  And now you have to fill out all kinds of paperwork every time a wizard is going to cast a largish spell.   They are stuck doing basic magical deeds for people–lifting illegally parked cars, magically rewriting houses, etc.

Also in the house is the Quarkbeast–the most ferocious creatures every created. Well, at least he looks that way.  He is actually quite sweet.

Fforde has created his own universe in which magic can be accessed from the atmosphere–but only by those who can channel it.  Jennifer herself cannot use magic, but she works in a house of people who can.

We also meet Horton “Tiger” Prawns.  Tiger was also a founding at the Blessed Ladies of the Lobster. He is 12 and has been sent by Mother Zenobia to assist at Kazam.  Jennifer knows that Zenobia is no fool and that Tiger must be special.  So she gives him a crash course in Kazam (watch the elevators) and he is soon up to speed (as are we).

The big crisis is that Maltcassion, the last living dragon is predicted to die in a couple of weeks.  All of the precognitive magicians are seeing him get slain by the Last Dragonslayer.  No one knows much about the Dragonslayer.  And actually no one knows much about the dragon either.

Hundreds of years ago the Mighty Shandar–the greatest magician ever–established a pact with the dragons so that they would get their own parcel of land and the humans would leave them alone.  And things have been pretty harmonious since.  So why would the Dragonslayer be killing the final one?  No one knows.

Well, Jennifer Strange is one of the few people allowed into the dragon lands, and she is going to find out just what is going on.

And she learns through some various channels, including the dragon himself, that the dragon lands are quite desirable and that many many people and corporations have their greedy paws set to grab some should they be come unmagical.

And why does Fizzi-Pop, Inc want to give Jennifer so much money all of a sudden?

There are dozens, hundreds of books about magic, but Fforde one deals with some very useful practical details like that rain makes it harder to do magic (which is why its easier to conjure a storm than to make one go away).

As with most Fforde books, there are excellent secondary characters–the wizards are wonderful (wizards are allowed to give themselves their own honorifics but they are very honest so you get names like Wizard Moobin, the Enigmatic Sisters Karamazov, the fascinatingly named Gordon van Gordon Gordonson ap Gordon-Gordon of Gordon, the Mysterious X and the despicable TV personality Yogi Baird.  And don’t forget the Transient Moose.   There’s also King Snodd and the hunky but yucky Sir Matt Griffon

I love Jasper Fforde.  he is able to tell an exciting story, imbue it with a lot of humor and even make a point or two about society.  Not unlike Douglas Adams.