The Rainy Season

Rating:
Summary: Garbage
Review: Alternately nonsensical and boring. A complete waste of time, this book reads like a third rate Clive Barker novel minus all the interesting bits.

Rating:
Summary: Fantasy that lives down your street
Review: Blaylock's books in the last few years have slowly taken on a different tone and direction . . . all for the better, I say. Gone are the goofy scenarios with almost ridiculously comedic characters and bizarre fantasy situations that just happened to be set in a world we all might happen to recognize . . . those were darn entertaining but I think Blaylock would have undermined himself had he continued to write in that style. Instead he evolved and grew to the point where he's at now, writing a sort of "fantastic realism" where engagingly real people interact just barely with a world they barely understand and come into contact with things that don't make a whole lot of sense. The "magic" stuff is kept as far into the background as possible and the focus is squarely on people and how they treat each other and what makes them tick and what separates a "good" decision from a "bad" decision. In this novel, Phil Ainsworth winds up with custody of his niece after her mother dies but along the way becomes embroiled in an ongoing scenario a century old that might have something to do with the odd well on his land. The plot is gripping but not all that frightening, it's more tense than anything else and it's fascinating to watch people undone by simple obsessions and the lengths that those obsessions will drive them . . . by the end you're just reading rapidly, watching as they people circle each other and close in, ready to collide in something you know is going to be ugly. Blaylock evokes both the mystique and the wonder at the heart of magic while bringing to life a little corner of California. Night Relics is probably still his best book, the psychology cuts much deeper there, the characters have slightly more depth and the evil just a teensy bit more frightening but you would have a hard time going wrong here and it's really not that bad a place to start with him. I'll be looking forward to seeing what he does next.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Novel & Teacher
Review: I bought this book to check out how good my Writing professor (at Univeristy of California - Irvine), James Blaylock, was at writing. Wow. I'm a fantasy/sci-fi reader for the most part and his writings have kept me from sleeping, not only from content but also because its so good I can't put it down. As a Writing professor he's quite good, a cowboy if you will. Never had so much fun reading a book or going to english class.

Rating:
Summary: Good book for a "rainy day"
Review: I picked this book up at a discount book store because it sounded interesting. It was so well-written that at times I almost thought crystals and the ceremonies that produced them were fact :-). For those who found this book trite--lighten up. I loved it!

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly somber and serious
Review: I really like James Blaylock, and this is a very solid book by him, but it was much more serious and less whimsical than other of his books. Once again, he's crafted unique individuals for characters, and each one is utterly believable. In this book, his characters are struggling to find the tangible, preserved memory of a little girl who was drowned in a spring in California many years before. There are moments in this book of real sadness and loss, and I found it a very affecting read. Still, I prefer my Blaylock a bit more light-hearted, thus 4 instead of 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Blaylock writes ghost stories the way they should be
Review: It's a nice change to read a ghost story that mixes in a healthy dose of the magical and mysterious, instead of the bloody splatter kind of jump-out-and-get-you horror that seems so pervasive these days. Blaylock is a master of the eerie and moody chill, rather than the cheap thrill. He writes about haunted houses so evocatively that you long to visit them, to savor the charged atmosphere for yourself. Add to this a convoluted plot full of many disparate elements that couldn't possibly go together, but somehow do, and you have one of his best novels since The Paper Grail.

If you read this book, you will believe that Blaylock has been touched by magic at some point in his life, to describe it in words so evocatively.

Rating:
Summary: A contemporary fantasy full of mystery, suspense, and heart
Review: It's an unusually rainy winter in southern California, with water brimming the usually dry well on Phil Ainsworth's property, when he learns of the death of his sister and accepts guardianship of her orphaned daughter, Betsy. What he has yet to learn is that rain awakens strange forces in a landscape that hides scars of loss, twisted love, greed, and human sacrifice. Unknowingly, Phil is bringing Betsy into the heart of a supernatural struggle for memories trapped in crystal -- and in this conflict, those who play for love are almost as cruel as those who play for greed.

In this beautifully written book, Blaylock has created believable characters -- notably including a believable 10-year-old, a feat beyond most authors of adult-oriented fiction -- and expressed truths of the heart in evocative symbols. That's what I think a fantasy should do, and that's why Blaylock is one of my favorite authors.

Rating:
Summary: Nowhere NEAR Latin American "magical realism"
Review: On the back cover, someone from Library Journal blurbed, "...one of the most distinctive contributors to American magical realism." It sounds like an advertising campaign, a la Madison Avenue at its low point. As Mencken wrote, "Nobody can go broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public." I thought American meant two continents, but it really means the English-speaking residents of the United States, thus dismissing fine authors - some of them living in the U.S. - who write non-English books. The Rainy Season is nowhere near the high standards of Latin American magical realism: Here's some examples:

1. The Book Of Sand by Jorge Luis Borges, 2. Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes (his masterpiece), 3. Emperor Of The Amazon by Marcio Souza, 4. I The Supreme by A. Roa Bastos, 5. almost all the books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 6. The War Of The End Of The World by Mario Vargas Llosa, 7. almost all of the books by Jorge Amado, 8. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende.

After reading all of the books (nowhere near as extensive)in translation above, better of most science fiction/fantasy nowadays, then that certain someone from Library Journal can have an informed opinion regarding "magical realism."

Rating:
Summary: Mood Music
Review: When Phil Ainsworth's sister dies, he becomes the guardian of her ten-year-old daughter Betsy. She comes to live with him in his mother's home-- a big old house full of the sense of the past. Betsy and Phil become caught up in a story that began long ago as lurkers appear by the well on the property, and strange little trinkets seem to take on a life of their own.

_The Rainy Season_ is an affecting and atmospheric novel which succeeds in carrying a mood of sadness and history from beginning to end. This is my second Blaylock, and he's clearly a talented writer-- I think 'evocative' captures his writing best as a word, regardless of how the tone differs from book to book. I have had a problem with both of his books so far in that I found them both a bit slight-- I'm not able to easily define why-- somehow lacking in contours or contrasts. Still definitely worth reading if you're a fan of the more gentle variety of ghost story.