Page 117

One of the panels I was on at Minicon was "Page 117." The idea was to read a random page of a fiction book (in this case 117) out loud, then the panel and audience would discuss whether they'd continue reading the book based on that page. Then the title is revealed. Some were real shockers!

So I was thinking of a similar thing here. One person posts a page 117, we discuss it for 24 hours, then the title and a brief description are revealed. Then someone else posts a new page 117, and we discuss that.

Would anyone be interested in trying it out?

Sounds like fun.

Sounds interesting.

Okay, then, I'll start, but first a ground rule for safety.

• If it would violate the rules of the forums or the TV Tropes Wiki in general, find another book.

Disclaimer: The following page 117 is submitted for review under the Fair Use doctrine for entertainment purposes, without intention of financial compensation—no copyright violation is intended or should be inferred.

—-

—> From Native Silver by Blake Hausladen

unison, the dozen bearded skeletons thrusting their fists up in the air at us.

The crew laughed at this, the drum stopped beating, and I called the exhausted rowers to a halt.

Our own sail caught the wind then, and our speed held. The boatswain called the men to get the oars stowed and themselves below and watered. They went, shaking blistered hands and slapping sore backs.

I was standing by the mast, struggling to hide the ache in my thighs and shoulders, when we made the last turn out to sea. The ship nosed into the first wave, and I gasped as we pitched up and over. I took a deep breath, tasted the salt of the wild spray, and looked onto the sea.

The gray line of the morning's retreating storm cast a dark shadow directly before us, but the rest was an endless roll of emerald green draped beneath a smooth blue canvas.

"A lot different than the river, isn't it?" the boatswain asked from the other side of the mast.

Tears were in my eyes and butterflies in my stomach. I nodded.

"Welcome aboard, Lady Soma," he said and left me to enjoy the view.

The night was short and the morning rough. The easy waves we had cut through the previous day changed direction and became slowly larger as they pushed northeast up the coast, even as the wind blew steadily west. Asking after how this could be, Mercanfur told me the waves were likely from a large storm as far away as Eril. Waves just keep going until they run into something, he told me, but did not have time to tell me much more. He turned us out to sea for a time and then jogged back in, riding the waves diagonally to prevent us going nose first into the high and lazy waves.

The high prow on the Thalia that I had thought so awkward-looking served her well as she pitched down into the trough of each wave and cut up into the next. She did not have to jog back and forth as we did.

The greencoats liked the waves least of all. Up and left we rolled and pitched as our deeper keel was pushed upon by each wave. The crest of each lapped up the rail and sprayed all those on deck. Then back down and right we pitched and rolled. Up and left, down and right, up and left, down and right. They wet the deck with sick, and the stricken soldiers retreated below.

I went down as well to check on Pix. It was a trek to get there. The wide rectangular space at the bottom of the companionway was not only jammed with our cargo but also the moaning greencoats. I had to climb over a few in

—-

So, what does this page 117 tell you about the book? Is it interesting enough to keep reading? Would you take it home from the library, or even buy it, budget allowing?

edited 27th Apr '14 7:01:38 AM by SKJAM

Okay.

The narrator is someone named "Lady Soma". So these people have got some form of aristocracy. Soma hasn't been to sea before, but has been on rivers. They also don't seem to have very advanced tech, judging by the boat. The "greencoats" appear to be soldiers of some kind. So organized militaries are a thing.

I have no idea how literally I should take this. Are these actual animated skeletons or what?

This seems like fairly standard fantasy stuff. I don't know if I would take it home/buy it, but I might flip through it a bit more, see what else it has to offer.

edited 26th Apr '14 12:31:19 PM by majoraoftime

This looks like a fun game.

I agree that the book looks like standard fantasy. The writing in the excerpt leaves much to be desired, so I feel no motivation to read the book whatsoever. The bad writing isn't going to prevent me from picking it up if there are other things to recommend it though. I've completely enjoyed books with worse.

Edit- Also, probably going to be dead wrong, but it looks like it lacks an editor. I would not be surprised if it turns out to be self published.

edited 26th Apr '14 12:24:19 PM by Rhea

I wanna play!

• The description isn't paticularly bad, but it isn't very interesting either. I'd hope to find better prose elsewhere in the novel. Two unworthy exceptions: 

This seems a little cliche and overblown. Is there a proper justification for this emotion or does the narrator go the whole book feeling extreme emotion?

I think this is the worst sentance on the page.

• jammed with our cargo but also the moaning greencoats

I think this says a lot about the narrator's perception of the rank and file. I suspect that these soldiers are the "the dozen bearded skeletons thrusting their fists up in the air", malnurished soldiers pledging loyalty to an uncaring member of the aristocracy. 

• I was standing by the mast, struggling to hide the ache in my thighs and shoulders

This is the only bit that provoked anything approaching empathy from me to the narrator. It seems she is afraid to show weakness, perhaps her position is dependant upon it. She obviously has status and some sort of power, but in what ways is this power limited? 

• Lady Soma refers to only one other character by name rather than position. Is this a sign of her power over her inferiors? Or is due to a lack of familiarity with those she is travelling. What are the circumstances of her first sea voyage? Is her detatchment from those she she travels with a sign of mistrust and vunerability, or disdain and superiority?     

• All in all I probably wouldn't be tempted to give this book a try.   

edited 26th Apr '14 9:25:10 PM by C0mraid

Okay, 24 hours have passed, so the reveal.

The book is Native Silver by Blake Hausladen. It's the second book of the Vesteal Series, the first of which, ''Ghosts in the Yew', I review here. Prince Barok has been exiled to the isolated province of Enhedu, and surprising everyone, has been able (with a lot of help) to bring it to a surge of prosperity. The overall Empire of Zoviyan, in the meantime, is tearing itself apart. Worse, it has been discovered that the Empire's official religion has been tampered with, and everyone's been worshiping the god of Evil for the last few centuries. There's just one Earth goddess priest left, and the goddess is really, really in need of blood sacrifices.

I have not actually read Native Silver yet, it's in my pile to review.

@majoraoftime: Lady Soma is Prince Barok's wife Dia. The "bearded skeletons" (checking on page 116) are half-starved fishermen from the port. Evidently the fishing has not been good lately.

@Rhea: Well, not dead wrong. The author's wife is credited as editor, and it's a micropress.

@C0mraid: As I haven't read the pages leading up to this one, I can't answer most of your questions. Dia, Lady Soma, is a former concubine who's been promoted to Prince Barok's wife by virtue of being the only one of his servants who actually liked him enough to follow him into exile. (Barok was a Royal Brat at the beginning of the first book, before his supernaturally forced Heel–Face Turn.) She's probably pregnant at this point, as a part of her subplot in the previous volume was undoing her barrenness.

—-

So, now it's someone else's turn to post a page 117. If you want to continue discussing Native Silver, please note that in your reply, so we don't get mixed up with the next book's discussion.

Okay, here goes.

-

His arteries silted up like an old river. The heart is a fistful of earth. The heart is a river...

All I know of Atho's Helen is what I learned from the letters. There is a photograph. Her face is so open and earnest it calls across the years. Her dark hair is piled high and woven elaborately as a corbeille. Her face is too angular to be pretty. She is beautiful.

In the same drawer as the letters and Helen's photograph, there is a thick folder containing faint blue carbons and newspaper cuttings: Athos's search for my sister, Bella.

When you've hardened yourself in certain places, crying is painful, almost as if nature is against it.

"I know the records are incomplete..." "Please post the following every Friday for one year..." "I know I have written to you before..." "Please check your lists... taking into account possible variations in spelling... for the period of time..." Athos's last inquiry was dated two months before he died.

I thought he had given up years before. But I understood why Athos had kept this to himself. I lay on the carpet in his study. "Love is always good, no matter the circumstances... our secrets will be our courage when we need it." I tried to believe this, but I hadn't yet learned that true hope is severed from expectation, and his words, like his search for Bella, seemed painfully innocent. But I held the file folder the way a child holds a doll.

Once in a while a train squealed past. Through the floor I felt the heavy iron wheels rumbling on their tracks.

-

edited 27th Apr '14 10:38:48 AM by majoraoftime

The plot of Native Silver makes it sound more interesting.

On the second excerpt, this is another one I'm not sure about. It did make me curious about the plot, but the writing has too many boring adjectives and extraneous words. Why say, "But I understood why Athos had kept this to himself," when "But I understood why Athos kept this to himself," would work?

I'm guessing it's a mystery or a thriller. I'm assuming both Helen and Athos are deceased, and Athos newly so. Who is Helen and why does she belong to Athos? Why was Athos searching for the speaker's sister?

I'm going to presume that "stilted" should read "silted."

From the names and the use of the word corbeille, I'm going to guess that this is set in France or Louisiana. Photographs and railroads suggest no earlier than 1880 or so; not sure when carbon paper came in, but that places the start of Athos' search no later than the 1990s or so when carbon paper went out of style.

There's a melancholy feel to the scene. I'd keep reading long enough to find out if the narrator is going to find an important clue that sends them off to the next place, or if it's just going to be gloomy reminiscences.

The second passage feels somewhat disjointed to me. I'm not sure I would continue reading it, based on that.

• What was the relationship between Athos and the narrator? I think he may have been some kind of father figure.  
• I wonder if Bella and her sister were seperated during a war(WW 2?). Possibly Helen died during the same conflict.
• I'm not too keen the way the narrator suddenly interjects her current outlook on life. Sometimes that can be done well, but it often doesn't work.
• I would be tempted to give this book a try.

A brief summary:

The narrator is Jakob, originally from a Polish Jew. The Nazis came for his family when he was seven years old. He managed to escape, and he heard his parents die, but never saw what happened to Bella. He was rescued and taken to Greece by Athos, a Greek archaeologist working on Biskupin. They live there until Jakob is a teenager, and over time Athos becomes a father figure to Jakob. Later on they move to Toronto. Athos eventually dies, and while going through the things in his apartment, Jakob finds the letters and files. Helen is Athos' late wife, who died during WW 1.

edited 28th Apr '14 12:53:22 PM by majoraoftime

And the name of the book?

Heh, I assumed the narrator was female. I though the author was male though.

Anyone mind if I post a page next?

Go right ahead. I want to give a fair chance to other people before posting again.

Here goes:

"You don't have to shout at her," my wife says.

"I'm not shouting."

"Yes, you are," she says. "Don't you hear yourself?"

"I'm sorry I shouted."

"You don't have to snap at everybody, either."
"And I'm sorry I snapped."

My wife is right, this time. Without realizing it, I have moved from optimistic conceit into a bad temper; and without my being conciousness of it my voice has risen into anger, and I have been shouting at them again. We are all silent at the table now. The children sit with their eyes lowered. They seem too fearful even to fidget. I am guilty. My forehead hurts me (with tension. Another headache is threatening.) I am numb with shame. I feel so helpless and uncertain. I wish one of them would say something that would give me a clue, that would point the way I must follow toward an easy apology. (I feel lost.) But no one will speak.
I pounce upon an energetic idea. I whirl upon my son without warning, shoot my index finger out at him and demand:

"Are you mad or glad?"

"Glad!" He cries with laughter and delight, when he recognizes I am joking again and no longer irate.
I spin round to my daughter and shoot my index finger out at her.

"Are you mad or glad?" I demand with a grin.

"Oh, Daddy," she answers. "Whenever you make one of us unhappy, you always try to get out of it by behaving like a child."

"Oh, shit," I say quietly, stung by her rebuff.

"Must you say that in front of the children?" my wife asks.

"They say it in front of us," I retort. I turn to my daughter. "Say shit."

"Shit," she says.

"Say shit," I say to my son.

He is ready to start crying.

edited 28th Apr '14 8:47:48 AM by C0mraid

The book's title is Fugitive Pieces, by Anne Michaels.

edited 28th Apr '14 12:49:21 PM by majoraoftime

I looked up yesterday's, and it was Fugitive Pieces, a novel by a Canadian poet awarded numerous literary prizes including the Orange Prize. Interesting.

I like today's excerpt better than the other ones. The daughter (her?) did something and the father overreacts then backtracks poorly. The son must be... 4-5? I have no idea about the daughter. Anywhere from 7 to 16.

The father seems both childish and self absorbed. He quickly goes from angry at his daughter enough to yell to forgetting all about it to focus on himself.

Wow, that girl doesn't mince her words. She tells her dad straight up that he's a man child.

The introspective paragraph in the middle is kind of interestingly written; there's a weird combination of a couple quite long sentences and several quite short ones.

edited 28th Apr '14 12:50:57 PM by majoraoftime

I can't help but agree with the daughter in this passage. I don't know how justified the father's actions are, but it really does appear that he is acting like a child, and when she points it out, he only becomes more childlike. I think I would probably continue reading this even though I have no idea what is happening, because I really like the prose style.

Also, this seems familiar, but I can't place where I might have read this before. It kind of reminds me of George Saunders, though I don't think it's him.

Seems like a good book and I like the Author's prose so I might pick it up at a bookstore, but the main character's actions strike a little close and I don't think I'd actually end up reading it.

I'm not keen on this one, the narrator seems mercurial in his temperament, and possibly borderline abusive. See the way his son is about ready to cry at the end.

Sorry for the delay.

The book is Something Happened by Joseph Heller. In many ways it's similar to his first novel Catch 22, only focusing on middle class America.

The narrator, Bob Slocum, has been playing guess-the-news with his family about a possible promotion. Unfortunately his family haven't responded the way he expected, and brought up the friend/superior he needs to backstab to get the job.

The next page sees Slocum comfort his son, apologised for being childish, and goes off to sulk.    

The boy is 9, the girl over 15. There is another son, Derek, who is mentally handicapped and a source of shame to the family.

It's a book I like, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Catch 22. it's the only other work I've read of Heller's that can compare.

I was inspired to google the book, ironically there's an article which uses the full page as an excerpt.

edited 29th Apr '14 10:55:19 AM by C0mraid