Book of Negroes Book Review

Over the Christmas holidays, the Vancouver Sun held a promotion that they called the 12 Days of Christmas.  Each day, they would provide free stuff for readers with an iTunes account. Now most of the stuff was pretty disposable, but one of the giveaways was an iBooks version of the Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill.  At the time, I didn't really think too much about it. I put aside and went about my life. About a month ago, I finally found the time to read it.And I couldn't put it down.  Lawrence Hill has crafted an excellent story that pulls the reader forward from beginning to end.  From an idealic childhood in Bayo to the cruelty of the American South to the betrayal of the British in Nova Scotia, Aminata is pulled through a nightmarish life full of pain, loss, and suffering but also love and hope that gives the reader a far better understanding of the true horror of the slave trade.The real strength of Hill's novel is the unforgettable imagery that transports the reader into the time period. When Aminata is transported from Africa to the American South by ship, you can almost smell the disgusting conditions through Hill's obscene yet descriptive prose. It was simply unforgettable and gave me an understanding of the horror that Africans, kidnapped from their homes, separated from their families, and robbed of their freedom, had to endure.  Hill's background in history tracking the Black Canadians of Nova Scotia strengthens the tale by giving the tale historical authenticity.  You don't feel that you're reading a work of fiction but instead are staring into the life of a real person.There are some weaknesses though. While Aminata is an excellent lead, she isn't the most original of characters.  The intelligent, rebellious female hero who beats the odds is a fairly trope character. While Hill uses her well, it was a missed opportunity for a more complicated and thus interesting character, especially when dealing with the omnipresent influence of slavery on everyone’s lives. Throughout the story, she maintains her trust in others, despite the number of times that she has been betrayed. I would have liked to see her wrestle more with issues of trust and cynicism towards humanity as this would have given her something internally to struggle against and eventually overcome. Instead, her conflict is external, focused on the scourge of slavery and the way it destroys so many innocent lives.However, this choice may be more appropriate as it allows Aminata's moral certainty and inner strength to contrast with the poisoned compromises that result from an economic system based on slavery.  For example, see Solomon Lindo, a jewish duty inspector who believes himself to be compassionate and understanding to Aminata yet can not see that by “owning” her, he is still harming her, robbing her of her god-given right to freedom. Despite his redemptive actions later on, I can understand why Mr. Hill does not give Solomon the absolution he craves. By participating in the slave system as an owner, Mr. Lindo has given it personal credibility. The lives that are lost cannot be returned, the atrocities cannot be undone. Redemption and absolution are beyond reach for Mr. Lindo and that is what makes him a somewhat tragic figure. His only hope lies in Aminata’s forgiveness and she understandably, is not in a forgiving mode.A second weakness in the book is the ending. I felt that it strained the novel’s credibility to deliver a happy ending that didn't really fit with the rest of the story.  Over her entire life, slavery had robbed Aminata of her freedom, her family, her lover, and finally her children.  For everything to work out at the end, while emotionally satisfying for the lead character, seems to undermine the tragedy of slavery and its destructive impact on so many lives. Perhaps Mr. Hill is like us. Having watched Aminata overcome so much hardship during her life, we cannot help to cheer when she receives a little piece of happiness. We are only human.However, these weaknesses should not distract from the fact that the Book of Negroes is an outstanding accomplishment.  Lawrence Hill should be proud of his work. He has crafted a story that should not be missed.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I do apologize for the long delay in between posts. It has certainly been a busy month. I started a new job (it's awesome), played some baseball (we lost), and worked on COTN in my spare time (it's vastly improved). I just haven't had the time that I would like to update my blog. So today I write on something that I meant to do a coupled of months ago, a review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.Oh wait, the little one is here.Ok and we're back. Sorry about that but my roommate has his little one this weekend. Three hours and a pocket full of sand later, I'm back to my post. Note to self: playing in a sandy park with little kids with an iPhone in your pocket is not a good idea. However, I did learn that the iPhone can take a fistful of sand without a scratch.Now where was I? Oh yay, that's right the review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. the first part of a trilogy written by Stig Larssen before his death, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been somewhat of a cultural phenomenon, spanning numerous bestselling lists and now three movies. So what did I think of it?Meh.I found the whole story rather generic. It's your boilerplate mystery story with very little to set itself above the crowd. The only interesting thing about the story is Lisbeth Salander. Everytime she shows up, the book kicks in high gear. She's smart, cunning, and darkly funny with an inventiveness that is fun to watch. Unfortunately, she's only in about a third of the book.Yep, that's right. The character whose name graces the cover is not the main character of the story. That honor goes to a financial reporter by the name of Bloomkvist. Who is Bloomkvist you ask? Perhaps one of the most boring character leads that I have ever read. My friend Frederick argues that the lead character in modern novels are designed to be boring as they serve as a cypher for the reader, allowing us to interpolate ourselves into the story. I don't think that's true. A boring character is a boring character. In the case of Bloomkvist, what you get is a middle-aged average-looking man who is inexplicably irresistible to women. What? After a tepid but interesting start, the novel lags badly in the middle sections where it gets distracted from the main plot line and becomes obsessed with the sex life of the boring Bloomkvist. It seems like every women that he comes into contact with falls head over heels in love with him and there's no explanation of why that would be the case. In it's dead middle sections, the novel becomes more enamored with middle-aged male fantasies rather than the mystery that should be the centre of the story. It's really disappointing.Near the end of the novel, when the story focuses more on Salander and the mystery of Harriet"s death, it really picks up steam in a way that many novels would be jealous of. It's great stuff but it should have been like this throughout the entire novel, not just at the end.After reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I have no inclination to read the next two books in the series. Perhaps if the novels focused on Salander rather than Bloomkvist but even then I would have a difficult time forcing myself to read it. Try Oscar Jade instead, it's a lot more fun.C+

Why I picked Storyist

Over the past few weeks, my writing output has been slowed as I've made to transition from Windows to Mac. When I was on Windows, I would fight my way through MS Word. Word is probably the best word processor on the market, but I found that it got in the way of the writing experience when working on fiction. Far too often I would have to worry about formatting rather than what was happening next in my story. I wrote all of Evermore: Call of the Nocturne on Word and it was a long laborious process.So when my PC died and I made the switch to Mac, I wanted to choose my writing software carefully. Checking the Internet, it seemed that there was only two programs to consider: StoryMill and Scrivener. Far and away the most popular writing programs, StoryMill and Scrivener deserved to be taken head-to-head. So I downloaded their generous demos and got to work.StoryMillThis was my early favourite. Easy to set up, easy to use, StoryMill did a great job of getting out of my way and letting me write. It didn't look the best, especially on Mac, but it got the job done.However, it did have a few annoyances. It's full screen writing mode was an ugly, eye-sore that stretched across my widescreen monitor, making it look like my paragraphs were lonely sentences. Its character section was nice but didn't let me add groups. As my wiki file for the Evermore Trilogy contains characters, groups, things, and locations, this wasn't enough for my purposes. Finally, StoryMill was good but it didn't feel incredible. It didn't make me excited to write. Instead, it felt like a chore.ScrivenerWhile I took StoryMill through its paces, I didn't spend too much time with Scrivener. It looked nice but I could never really get into it. It simply took too long to set up and coordinate in order to facilitate the writing process. It made the whole thing harder rather than easier.Thus, I was all set to buy StoryMill. I was ok with it but I wasn't overjoyed by the product. I felt that it would simply get the job down.Then I heard about Storyist. Storyist caught my attention when I heard that it was the first writing program tha would allow you to directly export to the .epub file format. Curious, I read some reviews. They were enthusiastic about the new version, even more so then StoryMill or Scrivener. So I downloaded the 15-day demo and put it through it's paces.StoryistFirst I tried out the character documentation feature. To my surprise, it allowed me to create groups. Secondly, it put them into an attractive and concise format. After playing with it fo a couple days, I was convinced that it's Story creation features were better than StoryMill and more focused than Scrivener.Next, I transferred over a Novella that I was working on in StoryMill to see how it handled the actual writing. It took some getting used to but soon enough I was writing with far more efficiency than I was used to.  Chapters are organized on the left hand side but it also allows you to subdivide the chapters down into sections.  I really like this feature as you can create your story as a group of sections and simply move these sections from chapter to chapter as you edit.The full-screen option is another feature that I love.  Rather than the ugly wide blue screen of StoryMill or slight translucency of Scrivener, Storyist uses a straight-up manuscript look with black letter boxes.  The look is appealing in that when you write the pages go by quickly because of its low word-count per page.  This is great because it makes you feel like you're really flying and getting a lot of work done.  It's a subtle form of positive reinforcement that really makes the writing experience fun.The only thing that I don't like about the writing with Storyist is the Progress Goal.  StoryMill has this great progress meter that allows you to set a daily session goal (say 1000 words) and updates a progress bar as you write.  Storyist on the other hand uses an Inspector that you must click to pop up.  The Inspector contains other features but its session goal feature leaves a lot to be desired.  Unlike StoryMill, the session goal does not reset on every writing session.  That means that if you set a goal of 1000 words and finish that goal, when you come back the next day the session goal will not reset automatically.  In other words, you have to reset the session goal automatically each and every time you write.  This is highly annoying especially when you're used to the ease of StoryMill's progress bar.  Hopefully in an update they'll fix this issue.The feature that I love most however is Storyist's ability to export your story to an .epub file.  As everyone knows by now, .epub is the format used by Apple's iPad and it also works with the popular Stanza app for iPhone.  Storyist allows you to organize your pages and include a cover page from the images section of the navigator pane on the left.  The end result looks great in Stanza (I haven't tried it in iPad yet).  It's nice and clean and it makes sure there  are page breaks for each new chapter.  This is something that Smashwords' Meat-Grinder process does not do all, leaving chapter breaks in the middle of the page.  The result is a far more attractive file.  After you've exported the story to .epub you can still edit it, allowing you to optimize the file for the platform.  All in all, it works exactly as it should.  It's easy and simple and allows you to do what you need.  It makes it a breeze to publish books on the iPhone and iPad.For all the reasons above, I found that Storyist was the best program for my needs on the Mac.  I purchased it a couple weeks ago and have made a lot of progress finishing the first draft of my next novella.  I would recommend it to anyone.  It just makes writing fun.