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Post by Christmas Chief on Oct 27, 2012 14:16:37 GMT -5
Both are stellar reviews in that they reveal information about the author (in the first) and about the work (in the second). The Duke Ellington allusion extends farther than I thought. "Hours" is very true. (I was surprised to see she didn't write "websites like 667 Dark Avenue." I guess we really are the last safe place.)
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Post by Tryina Denouement on Oct 27, 2012 23:58:19 GMT -5
"Hours" is very true. (I was surprised to see she didn't write "websites like 667 Dark Avenue." I guess we really are the last safe place.) We are the LAST and FRIENDLY place!
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Oct 28, 2012 16:34:18 GMT -5
Theodora and Snicket stay in the Far East Suite (a Duke Ellington album) of the Lost Arms (...) There are several more Ellington references, including: Black Cat Coffee at the corner of Caravan and Parfait, and the library book, "An Analysis of Black, Brown, and Beige," a book, Snicket tells Ellington Feint, that "looked so dull I thought no one would ever check it out." Also kudos to the reviewer for getting those references, 'cause I don't think any one of us pointed these out.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Oct 31, 2012 14:52:51 GMT -5
It's such a habit to tag these, and the reviews look so much more uniform when they're under a fold ... I hope no one minds. Snicket Strikes AgainBy Gina Cargas Just over six years have passed since the 13th chapter of A Series of Unfortunate Events was published. By the time The End rolled around, readers were well acquainted with — and occasionally, even fond of — the Baudelaire orphans, their evil cousin Count Olaf and the threatening, vaguely steampunk world they all inhabited. Yet the object of many fans’ fascination was neither the mysterious sugar bowl nor the initials V.F.D., but the author himself. Over the course of the series, Lemony Snicket became more and more of an active participant in the story. He may have begun as a snarky and exceptionally self-aware narrator, but he ended as the cryptic eye of an ominous storm of unsolved mysteries. As A Series of Unfortunate Events never bothered to solve many of these mysteries, it is not without some apprehension that many fans return to Snicket’s bizarro world. The first installment of Snicket’s new faux-autobiographical series, Who Could That Be At This Hour?, puts the author in the limelight and acts almost as a prequel to the Baudelaire saga. It tells the story of a 13-year-old Lemony, freshly graduated from a mysterious training school — the kind that gives classes on eavesdropping and falling from great heights — and placed into an apprenticeship with S. Theodora Markson, the Snicketized interpretation of a bumbling detective. The two journey together to solve a crime in Stain’d-By-The-Sea, a surreal deserted town, home to a seaweed forest and a failing ink business nowhere near the sea. The premise bears all the markings of traditional noir fiction, yet Snicket does to detective lit what Douglas Adams did to science fiction: He simultaneously honors and blatantly mocks the genre. The surreal setting, Snicket’s retrospective regret and the marvelously ominous narration (“There was a town, and there was a girl, and there was a theft,” the book begins) combine to both pay homage to and deconstruct common tropes of crime novels. The genre-bending and literary references play into a larger theme that has always been an attractive trademark of Snicket’s work; despite the fact that his work caters to the pre-puberty set, he doesn’t talk down to his audience. Snicket consistently treats children, whether readers or characters, as mature and capable human beings. His young readers are more than able to handle the death and desolation he depicts, while his child characters are motivated, precocious and perceptive beyond their years. In Who Could That Be At This Hour?, our cast of preteen characters includes Moxie, an aspiring journalist who lives in a lighthouse; Pip and Squeak, the brothers who drive their father’s cab and accept book recommendations as fare; and Stew, the violent young boy who fools his police officer parents with a sickly smile. Almost all of these children have been abandoned by, or at least separated from, their families. As such, they’re all driven and independent, forced to operate in an absurd world ruled by incompetent adults. Returning in full force in this book is perhaps the most prominent Snicketism, the author’s word-definition gimmick — a phrase which here means “occasionally annoying habit of defining a word immediately after using it.” At times, this conceit comes off as amusing, but for those of us with 13 previous Snicket mysteries under our belt, the snarky asides can verge on cloying. Perhaps it’s the fact that Snicket is now both the narrator and the protagonist. While A Series of Unfortunate Events allowed him to occasionally insert himself into the story, Snicket’s new book places the reader in constant contact with a strange and sometimes frustrating main character. By placing himself — or rather, his constructed persona — center stage, Snicket distances the reader from the story to an extent. While the later pages largely resolve this shortcoming, the first three chapters show Lemony to be a tad unrelatable. In A Series of Unfortunate Events, the reader discovered a dark, malevolent world along with the three child protagonists. With each turn, they were exposed to some new, shocking horror, and so were we. Here, we’re watching from afar as a young child explores a dark, cruel world — one he already knows exists. It’s new for us, yet his blasé familiarity with stealth and deception makes it a bit harder to care. But aside from these issues, Who Could That Be At This Hour? is wonderfully engaging and better structured than many of the later Unfortunate books. Within its 261 pages, you’ll find a fully developed, pursued and solved case, an extravagant cast of characters and just enough unanswered questions to make an adult reader Hulk-smash her copy against a wall out of sheer excitement for the next installment. For new Snicket readers, Who Could That Be At This Hour? is an excellent stand-alone introduction to his wry morbidity and somehow hopefully dark worldview. And for old fans, plunging back into Snicket’s murky, twisted world will be a worthwhile thrill — a word which here means “something you should do, immediately.”
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Post by Christmas Chief on Nov 5, 2012 8:44:57 GMT -5
I'm not sure I understand the headline here. The article doesn't seem to address its being aimed at a younger audience? Or not in a literal way, at least. New Lemony Snicket book aims to younger audienceBy Cameron Mount Before you ask yourself whether you want to read Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket’s new book, you might want to ask yourself the questions found on the back cover: “Do you really think that’s any of your business? Why? What kind of person are you? Are you sure?” This sets the tone of “Who Could That Be at This Hour?,” the first book in a new series by the popular “Series of Unfortunate Events” author. Full of dark wit and cryptic charm, this is a slightly less-memorable but still brilliantly crafted mystery from the singular mind of Handler. This is book one in “All the Wrong Questions,” a four-part prequel to “The Series of Unfortunate Events,” which follows Lemony Snicket as a 13-year-old detective. The first installment involves the mystery of a stolen statue that wasn’t actually stolen and tracking characters that may or may not exist. Fast-paced, wry humor packs every page without wasting a sentence. The thirteen-part “Series of Unfortunate Events” developed the Baudelaire orphans and Count Olaf in a mesmerizingly intricate plot, but the role of Snicket’s character was always somewhat convoluted. Adult Snicket is cynical, enigmatic and necessarily kept in the background, but teenage Snicket could not be more different. He’s inquisitive and optimistic, rebellious and loud. It isn’t a contradiction; it’s a way of freeing the more interesting facets of Snicket’s personality that were masked before. Whereas “The Series of Unfortunate Events” and Snicket’s character felt somewhat improvised book-to-book, the new series reads like an intricately fleshed-out story being slowly revealed. The characters, while not as immediately captivating as Count Olaf, are as creative as ever. Highlights include Moxie Mallahan (never without her typewriter), “sub-librarian” Dashiell Qwerty and Pip and Squeak who coordinate the city’s only taxi with one sitting on a stack of books and the other pushing on the car’s pedals. The story takes place in the harbor town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, a once bustling seaside community that took its wealth from now depleting octopus ink. Where water once was, seaweed still grows in an eerie and scientifically inexplicable forest. The settings and characters are vivid and borderline absurd, but grounded by Snicket’s dry and self-referential irony. “Don’t repeat yourself,” quips the inept contrarian S. Theodora Markson. “It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.” It’s clear this series has a younger audience in mind than “The Series of Unfortunate Events,” yet it’s at least as intelligent with subtle humor, literary references and a decidedly adult vocabulary. If read as an adolescent, this is the kind of book that inspires and awes; as an adult, it weaves together a just as satisfying sense of nostalgia and literary craft. Purposefully or not, “The Series of Unfortunate Events” read as a cynical response to Harry Potter. Here were orphans that didn’t triumph, but got sucked into an increasingly bleak life, full of irony rather than hope. While the new series contains the same humor, there’s much more optimism. This is Handler’s take on mystery books like “The Boxcar Children,” a fully noir setting where children triumph despite their surrounding gloom. By the end of the book, after heavy twists and increasing tension, it’s clear that Handler has set up a winner. Rather than a companion to “The Series of Unfortunate Events,” this is a brand new endeavor that leaves you anxiously awaiting the next installment. It’s a tougher sell than his previous series, because the underlying story is more conventional, but Snicket fans will be more than satisfied with this glimpse into Handler’s ever-fascinating mind.
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Post by Dante on Nov 7, 2012 5:11:53 GMT -5
I've unstickied the review thread as probably the majority of reviews are in now. Also it was kind of a quasi-spoiler-container, too, and that's no longer an issue, even though the book was only released a fortnight ago. ...Only a fortnight? It feels like a lot longer.
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Post by Charlie on Nov 7, 2012 5:40:04 GMT -5
It feels like an age since I was screaming at my friend about how much I loved Lemony Snicket's work, and how, if they so much as touched my copy of WCTBATH all hell would rain down on them (slight exxageration)
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Post by Tryina Denouement on Nov 7, 2012 7:52:33 GMT -5
It feels like an age since I was screaming at my friend about how much I loved Lemony Snicket's work, and how, if they so much as touched my copy of WCTBATH all hell would rain down on them (slight exxageration) I read my WCTBATH in school today, about the quote with Ellington and Snicket in Chap 12. Everybody was so, like, grossed out (becoz they drink coffee LOL.) when I read "But I like you Mr/Ms. (write name here), and I thought this place was interesting, even if you don't drink coffee" (write name here) said."!!! (Ellington's quote.) Oh yeah, I was so, like, excited when I first touched my copy of WCTBATH! But it seems like aeons ago now. although I had got my copy pretty recently since here in Southeast Asia American books come, like, kinda, days away! Soooo Whaaaattttttttttttttt? ?
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Post by Dante on Nov 15, 2012 10:35:39 GMT -5
The Guardian's finally gotten around to posting their review; considering that they were Egmont's venue of choice for publicising the first chapter, I'm not sure why it's taken them three weeks to review the book. Also, it's darn embarrassing seeing so many websites - including Egmont's own - using placeholder cover art for the book, but whatever, I guess... Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket – reviewJosh Lacey greets a new series from Lemony Snicket"They say in every library there is a book that can answer the question that burns like a fire in the mind." So says the magnificently named Dashiell Qwerty, a sub-librarian in Lemony Snicket's delicious new novel; his name, as much as his words, reminds us that we're reading a very bookish book, full of reverence for the power of literature. Who Could That Be at This Hour? is a detective story about a town where even the taxi drivers don't demand money; you can pay your fare by recommending a good book. Snicket himself is a literary creation, the pseudonym of Daniel Handler, an accordion-playing San Franciscan who has also written several YA novels under his own name. Handler originally invented his pen name to infiltrate right-wing newsgroups, and refined Snicket into the narrator of the bestselling Series of Unfortunate Events, several picture books and a crisp encouragement to the Occupy movement ("People who say money doesn't matter are like people who say cake doesn't matter – it's probably because they've already had a few slices"). Now we have the first of a new series, All the Wrong Questions, supposedly the memoir of the 12-year-old Snicket's apprenticeship to a mysterious as-yet-unnamed organisation and an incompetent detective, S Theodora Markson (the S stands for something different whenever she is asked). Open the book and you're immediately in familiar Snicket territory: here is "The Museum of Bad Breakfast, where visitors can learn just how badly eggs can be prepared", and there, "a team of workers were digging up the street to start work on the Fountain of Victorious Finance". The first chapter is a little masterpiece of surreal mischief, teasing us, playing with our expectations, leaving us amused, bewildered and en route to the town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, where the novel settles into a narrative familiar from a million mysteries: the two detectives ring on the door of a big house, are welcomed by a butler and led to meet a wealthy client, who explains that she wishes them to find the Bombinating Beast, a small statue which "has been valued at upward of a great deal of money". The novel's tone and characters are borrowed from noir too, but given a distinctively Snicketish twist: our hero is attacked by a boy who "looked like the child of a man and a log"; he meets a girl whose eyes are "dark gray, like they'd once been black but somebody had washed them or perhaps had made her cry for a long time"; and he encounters a smouldering femme fatale who "was a little older than me, or maybe just a little taller". Neatly packaged in a small hardback and evocatively illustrated by Canadian cartoonist Seth ( see picture), the latest adventures of Lemony Snicket are filled with themes and obsessions familiar from the chronicles of the Baudelaires – abandonment, loneliness, the slippery nature of language – and wrapped in a web of obscure references to everything from Saki's short stories to the titles of Duke Ellington's albums. Will any reader get all these references? Of course not, but that's part of the joy of the book, the sense that you're inhabiting a fictional universe whose boundaries you can't reach. Some children's novelists limit themselves to what they think their readers are capable of; Handler creates his own fantastical world and invites us to find our own way through it. A Series of Unfortunate Events started brilliantly, but dipped in quality over its 13 books; this time, sensibly, Handler has limited himself to only four. The first is a charming, clever and enormously enjoyable little mystery which asks all sorts of questions, but answers very few of them; I'm already impatient to read the rest of the series. • Josh Lacey's The Dragonsitter is published by Andersen. www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/15/who-could-that-be-lemony-snicket
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Post by Charlie on Nov 16, 2012 5:17:21 GMT -5
A Series of Unfortunate Events started brilliantly, but dipped in quality over its 13 books; this time, sensibly, Handler has limited himself to only four I think that 667 will just have to agree to disagree with you there Guardian.
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Post by Tryina Denouement on Nov 17, 2012 8:12:26 GMT -5
I think that 667 will just have to agree to disagree with you there Guardian. *nods at top-notch speed*
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Post by Christmas Chief on Dec 18, 2012 20:01:04 GMT -5
This was bound to appear sooner or later. Bear in mind this review wasn't written by a professional journalist. Indeed, almost none of the criticisms stands up to scrutiny, background into the book was poorly researched, and she calls Handler's performance "dreadfully dull," honestly - but I found it provided an interesting diversity in opinion. ~~~ Lemony Snicket is BackA long time passed before I was willing to read Lemony Snicket’s new book, especially after the dreadfully dull presentation he gave at the Miami Book Fair. Daniel Handler, the man behind “A Series of Unfortunate Events” (or “ASOUE”), held up a childish and exaggerated act—his persona didn’t seem genuine, which interfered with the talent and intellect seen in his books. Although “everybody does something wrong at one time or another,” Handler has done something right in his new series “All the Wrong Questions.” “Who Could That Be at This Hour?” is the first of four books following the apprenticeship of Lemony Snicket. The plot follows young Snicket as he begins to work under S. Theodora Markson, who is an untalented chaperone with an ego just about as big as her hair. After traveling to a small town named Stain’d-by-the-Sea, he encounters various children his age, most of them very charming and with lots of potential. It’s not too long before Snicket is caught up in a case involving the disappearance of a statue of the “Bombinating Beast,” which is said to be half horse and half shark. The book goes in a different direction than the original series, although starting off on a similarly slow pace like the original—those unfamiliar with Snicket’s writing style may quickly lose interest, as he employs his classic vocabulary introductions, which here means taking a word unfamiliar to his targeted age group and putting it into different context, phrasing it very much like this sentence. Tumblr user tardiswanted says, “The writing style was certainly different, but it was probably a good thing—it set apart the book from A Series of Unfortunate Events.” Overall it seems like readers agree that “the language and syntax were much simpler”, as said by user banans13, and that the book was geared to a younger audience. The plot morphs into a whodunit, a mystery story that guides the reader to guessing the identity of villain, in the middle of the book and is full of suspense with the introduction of characters almost as mysterious as Snicket himself. This could be interpreted as a lack of character development, which certainly differs from “ASOUE”, probably caused by the extreme amount of character introduction squeezed into about 200 pages, the same number as the original series. Too much was masked to really gain a complete view of each personality, even for most of the reoccurring ones. The book leaves off with a conversation between Snicket and a character introduced in the seventh novel of “ASOUE;” some information referencing earlier chapters is revealed with a cliffhanger ending—since this is the writing of Lemony Snicket, one could only expect more questions to arise with the closing of this book. Tumblr user isthisapiano says, “[It was] the perfect combination of funny and dark. For every question he answers, he poses ten more, leaving readers insatiable.”As for the physical changes in Snicket’s new book, I would have to say they are just as different as the plot writing. For reasons unknown the publisher is different, switching from HarperCollins, which has published eighteen of Snicket’s previous books, to Hachette Book Group. This series is accompanied by colored illustrations, so rather than the classic look of Brett Helquist’s style (which I grew attached to after reading so many books illustrated by him) there are blue and black cell-shaded scenes which are almost too cartoon-like to really grasp the story’s mood. There has been room for plenty of differences after 6 years since the end of “ASOUE”. “I didn’t realize how much I missed [Lemony Snicket’s] writing until I read his books again.”, says Tumblr user not-immature-happy. Unfortunately the next book won’t be released for a while, so until then many readers are left with the question, “Where is Snicket going with this new series?” ~~~
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Post by Dante on Dec 19, 2012 3:05:59 GMT -5
I don't know what you mean, Sherry Ann. I always research my reviews with quotes from random Tumblr users.
Also, this looks like another of those double-standard reviews chiding Handler for daring not to answer all the questions of the entire series in the first volume. "Where is Snicket going with this new series?" Where is J.K. Rowling going, Suzanne Collins, Terry Pratchett, Anthony Horowitz? Why is this a question that needs asking? For that matter, why the emphasis on the publisher switch? It's as if the writer is trying to imply something but shrinking back from actually showing their hand.
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Post by Dante on Mar 4, 2013 16:30:18 GMT -5
Time to resurrect this thread with the first review I've yet seen... for the WCTBATH audiobook! Actually, it's mostly just for the book, but then there's a single, sparse sentence praising Liam Aiken's performance. Still, it's praise that we want! AUDIO BOOK REVIEW: Lemony Snicket is back, asking all the wrong questions By Susan Rife, Herald-Tribune / Friday, March 1, 2013
Lemony Snicket, the author (and also character) of the 13-volume series "A Series of Unfortunate Events," returns (or is it preturns?) with a new series, "All the Wrong Questions," a prequel to the "Series of Unfortunate Events" books.
My kids were too old for the "Series of Unfortunate Events" books, but as readers of this column know, age-appropriateness has little to do with what I like to listen to. Children's books, young adult titles and my own childhood favorites continue to be high on my list of preferred listening, in part because they are often great stories, well told (and have the added benefit of being relatively short).
"All the Wrong Questions" opens with Volume 1, "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" in which a not-quite-13-year-old Lemony meets his spy tutor, S. Theodora Markson (first wrong question: What does the S stand for? You'll get a series of unfortunate answers), a mysterious woman, very tall, with a lot of wild hair, who drops a note into his lap while he's eating breakfast with his parents (or are they?) at the Hemlock Tea Room, where the eggs are so bad they belong in the Museum of Bad Breakfasts.colsrife03
Soon he's speeding away in Theodora's green roadster to to a nearly abandoned village, Stained-by-the-Sea, where drilling rigs pump ink out of octopi in the former sea floor (ink wells, get it?) and the Clusterous Forest is populated by seaweed that's learned to live on dry ground, "a wild and lawless place not fit for man nor beast."
Their first case is a burglary involving a statue about the size of a milk bottle, carved from nearly black wood, of the Bominating Beast, half seahorse, half shark (or is it half alligator, half bear?). Has it been stolen, or is something more nefarious going on? Lemony meets an enterprising girl reporter with the charming name of Moxie, a sublibrarian named Dashiell Qwerty, a pair of bickering married cops and two preteen taxi drivers named Pip and Squeak (one mans the steering wheel, one the floor pedals).
Readers of the first series will gain an understanding of the roots of some of that collections' quirks, including Lemony's habit of defining every vocabulary word he uses — it comes from S. Theodora, and Lemony finds it as off-putting as the adult reader may (although for younger readers, this is likely a terrific vocabulary-building skill).
Snicket has switched genres in this new series, moving from the Gothic to the noir, with all the rapid-fire style and sly asides in keeping with the style.
Liam Aiken's narration is spot-on throughout. This new series, ostensibly for young adults, would be enjoyable to all mystery lovers.
arts.heraldtribune.com/2013-03-01/section/audio-book-reviewlemony-snicket-is-back-asking-all-the-wrong-questions/
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Post by Christmas Chief on Mar 4, 2013 21:26:41 GMT -5
"Ostensibly for young adults" - a rather older audience than the marketed children's series, but of course the reviewer isn't the first to notice the more sophisticated tone in the new series. Spot-on performance, though; that's a good sign.
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