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adrian_turtleI wish The Birchbark House had been written sooner, so I could have read it when I was in elementary school.
I wish Slow River had been written sooner, so I could have read it when I was an undergraduate.
Wishing The Iron Cage had been written sooner is a different kind of thing. It's the fourth book of Gillian Bradshaw's Magic's Poison series (not exactly a series. Same place, same conflict, mostly different characters.)
I liked the first 3.5 books, even though they aren't nearly as good as Bradshaw's best work. They're about noncombatants (a vet, a historian, a printer) taking part in a war because they think it's important. Not joining up to be soldiers, but doing what they're good at in different directions even though it's scary. These are not subtle books. The bad guys practically twirl their mustaches. But I like the good guys a lot.
The hero of The Iron Cage is a printer, a foreigner who makes his living in a strange city by selling pamphlets--news, satire, scandal, poetry, whatever. An alien prisoner (whose people face extermination by the government) commissions him to print a pamphlet, something to drum up sympathy and outrage. Our hero agrees because he needs the money, and soon finds his own sympathy and outrage involved. Complications ensue.
This next bit is sort of a spoiler, but it's not a book based on suspense or mystery so I don't think it matters. And it's not giving away the end, just a bit of middle. I know some people are extremely sensitive to these things nowadays, so...
Our hero is threatened with many things, as complications ensue. Among them is the threat of exposing his secret--that he was a criminal in his home country. Also, the more dire threat of being forcibly returned to be punished for his crime. He broke out of prison and fled a country where the law equates "not showing up for trial" with "admission of guilt." He has come to believe in the war effort, is working diligently and risking his life to help prevent genocide, and he is terrified his new allies won't believe he was falsely accused. The poor guy is in a nearly impossibly situation. My heart aches for him.
It's all because he was falsely accused of rape. He had printed something attacking a powerful person, who then set out to destroy him. The powerful person arranged for the malicious false accusation--obviously groundless, but the court was so incredibly corrupt he was prosecuted anyhow. And of course he had to flee the country with his reputation in tatters, because an innocent man with a powerful enemy cannot defend himself in a corrupt court.
I don't like being manipulated to sympathize with Julian Assange. I really don't. If the book had been written 10 years ago, even 3, I might think it was a bizarre coincidence. It's a powerful setup because it threatens our hero on so many levels, though the obvious falseness of the accusation undercuts it. But it was published in November of 2011...so it looks horribly deliberate.
I wish Slow River had been written sooner, so I could have read it when I was an undergraduate.
Wishing The Iron Cage had been written sooner is a different kind of thing. It's the fourth book of Gillian Bradshaw's Magic's Poison series (not exactly a series. Same place, same conflict, mostly different characters.)
I liked the first 3.5 books, even though they aren't nearly as good as Bradshaw's best work. They're about noncombatants (a vet, a historian, a printer) taking part in a war because they think it's important. Not joining up to be soldiers, but doing what they're good at in different directions even though it's scary. These are not subtle books. The bad guys practically twirl their mustaches. But I like the good guys a lot.
The hero of The Iron Cage is a printer, a foreigner who makes his living in a strange city by selling pamphlets--news, satire, scandal, poetry, whatever. An alien prisoner (whose people face extermination by the government) commissions him to print a pamphlet, something to drum up sympathy and outrage. Our hero agrees because he needs the money, and soon finds his own sympathy and outrage involved. Complications ensue.
This next bit is sort of a spoiler, but it's not a book based on suspense or mystery so I don't think it matters. And it's not giving away the end, just a bit of middle. I know some people are extremely sensitive to these things nowadays, so...
Our hero is threatened with many things, as complications ensue. Among them is the threat of exposing his secret--that he was a criminal in his home country. Also, the more dire threat of being forcibly returned to be punished for his crime. He broke out of prison and fled a country where the law equates "not showing up for trial" with "admission of guilt." He has come to believe in the war effort, is working diligently and risking his life to help prevent genocide, and he is terrified his new allies won't believe he was falsely accused. The poor guy is in a nearly impossibly situation. My heart aches for him.
It's all because he was falsely accused of rape. He had printed something attacking a powerful person, who then set out to destroy him. The powerful person arranged for the malicious false accusation--obviously groundless, but the court was so incredibly corrupt he was prosecuted anyhow. And of course he had to flee the country with his reputation in tatters, because an innocent man with a powerful enemy cannot defend himself in a corrupt court.
I don't like being manipulated to sympathize with Julian Assange. I really don't. If the book had been written 10 years ago, even 3, I might think it was a bizarre coincidence. It's a powerful setup because it threatens our hero on so many levels, though the obvious falseness of the accusation undercuts it. But it was published in November of 2011...so it looks horribly deliberate.
