Spirits in the Wires

Rating:
Summary: incredible modern day fantasy
Review: Book editor Aaron Goldstein is irate by the slight he received from Christiana Tree, whose "birth" came when Christy turned seven and rejected parts of his personality. Already a nasty person, the angry Aaron forces a hacker to place a virus in Christiana's favorite website Wordwood. The repercussions of his actions go way beyond that of destroying a web locale, as Wordwood is a place that exists in that ethereal limbo between computers. Thus people vanish including Saskia Madding, the girlfriend of Christy Riddell.

Christiana feels that she has been assigned a quest to save Wordwood, find the lost souls, and relocate Saskia in her own body. To do this they must leave the realm of the generally accepted reality and enter the spirit ether of the Internet spirit world,

Charles De Lint is at his best with this incredible modern day fantasy that focuses on technological mumbo jumbo to computer illiterates like moi who feels that though it is weirdly impossible it works. The story line is loaded with action and intelligent characters that through the quest learn a key natural law that in a moral society; it is not one's genes, but what one does and how one behaves today that matters. This is a great work by the one of the top fantasy authors of the twenty-first century.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: incredible modern day fantasy
Review: Book editor Aaron Goldstein is irate by the slight he received from Christiana Tree, whose "birth" came when Christy turned seven and rejected parts of his personality. Already a nasty person, the angry Aaron forces a hacker to place a virus in Christiana's favorite website Wordwood. The repercussions of his actions go way beyond that of destroying a web locale, as Wordwood is a place that exists in that ethereal limbo between computers. Thus people vanish including Saskia Madding, the girlfriend of Christy Riddell.

Christiana feels that she has been assigned a quest to save Wordwood, find the lost souls, and relocate Saskia in her own body. To do this they must leave the realm of the generally accepted reality and enter the spirit ether of the Internet spirit world,

Charles De Lint is at his best with this incredible modern day fantasy that focuses on technological mumbo jumbo to computer illiterates like moi who feels that though it is weirdly impossible it works. The story line is loaded with action and intelligent characters that through the quest learn a key natural law that in a moral society; it is not one's genes, but what one does and how one behaves today that matters. This is a great work by the one of the top fantasy authors of the twenty-first century.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: 21st Century Animism
Review: I am glad that deLint finally wrote an urban fantasy focusing on computers and the internet. I found his idea of technology being inhabited by spirits very interesting.It is an animism(everything has a spirit belief) for the 21st century. However, the only problem I had with this book is that for a couple chapters, near the middle, nothing much happens except for conversations between some of the characters as they try to figure out what's going on.That aside, this book is gives an intersting depiction of the worlds formed out of the overlap between the internet and the spiritworld.

Rating:
Summary: Magic on the Internet
Review: I don't generally read fantasy, as most of it tends to fall under the "sword and sorcery" style that does nothing for me. Then I read a few stories Charles de Lint wrote in Tapping the Dream Tree. Two of them in particular struck a chord with me. "Pixel Pixies" and "Embracing the Mystery" both concern magic and computers. This was the kind of "urban fantasy" I was looking for. Not Emma Bull's War for the Oaks that spends half its time in Fairy Land, but de Lint's vision that brings the magic into the modern world, even to the internet.

When I could tell that de Lint's new novel Spirits in the Wires was going to build on these two stories, I got excited. Was I finally going to get to immerse myself in a fantasy world that I could enjoy?

Spirits in the Wires concerns a Web site called the Wordwood, which is like a search engine but you can ask it any question and it will answer you in a style familiar to you, such as a beloved family member. It also concerns two of the women in the life of writer Christy Riddell: his girlfriend Saskia Madding, who believes she was born from the Wordwood; and his "shadow self," whom he calls "Mystery" but who has given herself the name Christiana Tree (Miss Tree=Mystery). Christiana is made up of aspects of Christy that he threw off himself when he was seven years old, but she has made herself over the years into her own person.

When a man spurned by Saskia wants revenge, he has a virus sent into the Wordwood, which causes everyone logged on to the site at that moment to disappear--including Saskia, who disappears right in front of Christy, who is helpless to do anything about it. This leads to a pursuit of those disappeared, a trip into the website, and teamwork from people who variously love and hate each other.

Once I got past de Lint's strange naming convention ("Christy" for a man, "Aaran" with no "o," in addition to just an uncommon selection of names in general), I realized that this made it easier to keep characters separated, as opposed to some writers who don't take that into consideration and have characters named Fred and Frank (or Jo and Joy) in the same book. Probably the most interesting aspect of the book is that the characters carry over from other books. I met most of the people in Spirits in the Wires somewhere in Tapping the Dream Tree. So, it's like a series book where you already know the characters and can just get on with the story. But on the other hand, some of the characters I didn't know were introduced fully with the plot so I didn't feel left out. I feel sure that a newcomer could pick up Spirits in the Wires and not feel lost.

De Lint has quite a story here to tell and writes with apparent ease. He is familiar with the technology (one aspect of the book that could have been done badly) enough to give enough information to understand the plot, but not bog his audience (already tech-savvy, to judge by his vast internet following) down with unnecessary details. But the details of the land inside the Wordwood are perfection. The idea that a fantasy land could, at its core, be run by a computer program is ingenious and I was swept up in the plot and the characters' relationships with each other in spite of myself. I couldn't wait to get back to the book after having to handle my daily responsibilities.

The ending was a little talky and took a while to wrap everything up, but in general, this is a solid novel that I enjoyed a lot. I don't believe that de Lint's other books are this well geared toward me but, hopefully, wanting to revisit these characters will carry me through any stories that aren't quite my cup of chai.

Rating:
Summary: Magic on the Internet
Review: I don't generally read fantasy, as most of it tends to fall under the "sword and sorcery" style that does nothing for me. Then I read a few stories Charles de Lint wrote in Tapping the Dream Tree. Two of them in particular struck a chord with me. "Pixel Pixies" and "Embracing the Mystery" both concern magic and computers. This was the kind of "urban fantasy" I was looking for. Not Emma Bull's War for the Oaks that spends half its time in Fairy Land, but de Lint's vision that brings the magic into the modern world, even to the internet.

When I could tell that de Lint's new novel Spirits in the Wires was going to build on these two stories, I got excited. Was I finally going to get to immerse myself in a fantasy world that I could enjoy?

Spirits in the Wires concerns a Web site called the Wordwood, which is like a search engine but you can ask it any question and it will answer you in a style familiar to you, such as a beloved family member. It also concerns two of the women in the life of writer Christy Riddell: his girlfriend Saskia Madding, who believes she was born from the Wordwood; and his "shadow self," whom he calls "Mystery" but who has given herself the name Christiana Tree (Miss Tree=Mystery). Christiana is made up of aspects of Christy that he threw off himself when he was seven years old, but she has made herself over the years into her own person.

When a man spurned by Saskia wants revenge, he has a virus sent into the Wordwood, which causes everyone logged on to the site at that moment to disappear--including Saskia, who disappears right in front of Christy, who is helpless to do anything about it. This leads to a pursuit of those disappeared, a trip into the website, and teamwork from people who variously love and hate each other.

Once I got past de Lint's strange naming convention ("Christy" for a man, "Aaran" with no "o," in addition to just an uncommon selection of names in general), I realized that this made it easier to keep characters separated, as opposed to some writers who don't take that into consideration and have characters named Fred and Frank (or Jo and Joy) in the same book. Probably the most interesting aspect of the book is that the characters carry over from other books. I met most of the people in Spirits in the Wires somewhere in Tapping the Dream Tree. So, it's like a series book where you already know the characters and can just get on with the story. But on the other hand, some of the characters I didn't know were introduced fully with the plot so I didn't feel left out. I feel sure that a newcomer could pick up Spirits in the Wires and not feel lost.

De Lint has quite a story here to tell and writes with apparent ease. He is familiar with the technology (one aspect of the book that could have been done badly) enough to give enough information to understand the plot, but not bog his audience (already tech-savvy, to judge by his vast internet following) down with unnecessary details. But the details of the land inside the Wordwood are perfection. The idea that a fantasy land could, at its core, be run by a computer program is ingenious and I was swept up in the plot and the characters' relationships with each other in spite of myself. I couldn't wait to get back to the book after having to handle my daily responsibilities.

The ending was a little talky and took a while to wrap everything up, but in general, this is a solid novel that I enjoyed a lot. I don't believe that de Lint's other books are this well geared toward me but, hopefully, wanting to revisit these characters will carry me through any stories that aren't quite my cup of chai.

Rating:
Summary: Another Visit to Newford
Review: In his latest book, Charles de Lint takes readers back to Newford for an adventure featuring a cast of familiar and not-so-familiar characters from earlier stories. Reading previous books and collections is not required, but would add to the enjoyment of this new story. We get to know Saskia much better than in the short story about her in "Moonlight and Vines" and make friends with Christiana, Christy Riddell's "shadow" and the heroine of the tale.
Following the pattern of many of de Lint's other stories; "Spirits" connects the world we know to the world of Faerie through the border between the two. In this case, the border holds the presence known as the Wordwood and the place it inhabits, which many of us would call cyberspace. Unlike most books about conflict and resolution, "Spirits" doesn't have an ordinary nemesis. The character, Aaran, who sets the plot in motion is motivated by spite; he wants to get even with Saskia because she is, for want of a better term, classier than he is. Aaran gains advantage over a hacker and forces him to turn a virus loose in the Wordwood. He nor the hacker are not, however, the main antagonists. Neither is the spirit who takes advantage of the Wordwood's disruption. I'll leave it to you to figure out who the "bad guy" is, if there really is one, when you read it.
As an unapologetic de Lint fan, I relished the chance to revisit places and friends from earlier stories. According to Christiana's narrative in "Spirits", people in our world have to believe in\remember fictional characters so those characters can keep their existence. Charles de Lint's latest will go a long way toward keeping some of our favorite spirits healthy.

Rating:
Summary: Another Visit to Newford
Review: In his latest book, Charles de Lint takes readers back to Newford for an adventure featuring a cast of familiar and not-so-familiar characters from earlier stories. Reading previous books and collections is not required, but would add to the enjoyment of this new story. We get to know Saskia much better than in the short story about her in "Moonlight and Vines" and make friends with Christiana, Christy Riddell's "shadow" and the heroine of the tale.
Following the pattern of many of de Lint's other stories; "Spirits" connects the world we know to the world of Faerie through the border between the two. In this case, the border holds the presence known as the Wordwood and the place it inhabits, which many of us would call cyberspace. Unlike most books about conflict and resolution, "Spirits" doesn't have an ordinary nemesis. The character, Aaran, who sets the plot in motion is motivated by spite; he wants to get even with Saskia because she is, for want of a better term, classier than he is. Aaran gains advantage over a hacker and forces him to turn a virus loose in the Wordwood. He nor the hacker are not, however, the main antagonists. Neither is the spirit who takes advantage of the Wordwood's disruption. I'll leave it to you to figure out who the "bad guy" is, if there really is one, when you read it.
As an unapologetic de Lint fan, I relished the chance to revisit places and friends from earlier stories. According to Christiana's narrative in "Spirits", people in our world have to believe in\remember fictional characters so those characters can keep their existence. Charles de Lint's latest will go a long way toward keeping some of our favorite spirits healthy.

Rating:
Summary: This One Just Didn't Grab Me
Review: In his latest novel featuring an ensemble cast of Newford-ites, Charles DeLint attempts to explore the idea that Cyberspace is the modern equivalent of the Hollow Hills -- an otherworld that can be physically accessed -- and that some of the older denizens of the spirit world may have already become interested in this psychic real estate. Or, at least, that's what he says he's doing in his introduction.

When a virus disrupts the Wordwood site and a whole lot of people disappear into virtual reality, a disparate group of magic users and mundanes must use whatever means they can come up with to go to the rescue. Christy Riddell is one of the central characters, as his partner Saskia is one of the ones who has disappeared. We also get to see Holly Rue, Robert Lonnie, Geordie and a supporting cast of Newford's literary citizens (as opposed to Newford's painting citizens) as well as the usual faeries, sprites and elemental spirits.

And that's what kind of bothered me about this book. We had the usual suspects doing the usual things in pretty much the usual way; only the setting was somewhat altered, and that not by much. I think the question of spirits in cyberspace, so much a part of a lot of cyberpunk fiction, is a really interesting one. But I didn't find it addressed here in any interesting way. Rather, the idea seemed taken for granted and from there the novel read like a Michael Crichton action piece, with lots of fireworks and explosions, told from so many points of view that it was hard to care about any of them.

I'm also disappointed that DeLint's books seem to have lost the edginess that grabbed me in many of his earlier works. There aren't any great villains here, so the conflict is a little pale. There isn't any real sense of danger. Although the characters constantly must remember that "The otherworld is dangerous place," we don't see any real danger. Nothing really bad happens to anyone. It's all a walk in the park and the ending no surprise. We're told anything can happen, but it rings false. In reality "anything" CAN'T happen, because the heroes always come through safe and sound with very few scars. Call me bloodthirsty, but I think at this point DeLint's work could benefit from killing someone dead -- someone major.

This is another book that will probably be lost on anyone who hasn't read several of DeLint's short story collections. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone new to this writer or this genre. Although it's always interesting to see what's going on in Newford with these characters, I considered this one of their less thrilling adventures. Get it out of the library or wait for paper.

Rating:
Summary: True Magic
Review: The strongest point of de Lint's writing is not the fantasy elements that appeal to so many of his readers. His true strength is in the characters he creates, characters that come alive the reader until we feel we know them like we know a close friend. And unlike some characters in book collections, de Lint is not afraid to take his characters through changem but allows his characters to develop without destroying their basic personas.

Spirits in the Wires Revolves around Saskia Madding, the poet born on the Internet, who is sucked back in along with hundreds of other victims who were online when a computer virus struck down the WordWood, an online library with an independent mind (it also happens to be where Saskia came from) The group who travel to save Saskia find that the problem with the Wordwood is much bigger than one handicapped site, while Saskia struggles to stay alive and puzzle out her own origins.

Besides devloping Saskia more fully as a character, de Lint also takes this opportunity to explore the character of Christiana Tree, Christie Ridell's shadow person, created from all the parts of himself that he cast off. De Linta has the fantastic ability to create a realistic character out of such a fantastical setting. But perhaps the character development I appreciated most was for what one might consider a Newford "villain"-Aaron, the snooty book editor who hates Saskia and is the ultimate cause of her current misfortune. De Lint shows that even bad people can be fully devloped, human characters, a hard feat for writers to accomplish.

I must confess, Saskia's true nature still aludes me. I only borrowed this book from the library, so I didn't have a chance to reread it and really discover what the things Saskia saw meant. (Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!) But this novel conveys to me real magic the de Lint has empowered with the same plausability as his well loved characters.

If only someone would start the Wordwood.......

Rating:
Summary: Vintage de Lint in Cyberspace
Review: There's nothing in this book to really surprise longstanding fans of Charles de Lint. His regular stable of characters, slightly supplemented, forms the core of the narrative, and there's myth and magic going on all around. Though the story doesn't entirely live up to its promise in the end, the journey is an entertaining read, good for fans, and not a bad introduction for new readers.

The theme, as the title suggests, is magic in the electronic world. Saskia Madding was born on the Internet and now wonders if she's even real. Her friend Christiana Tree (Ms. Tree) was born of the parts of Christy Riddell's psyche he didn't want, though she's already worked through her identity crisis. When they decide to explore Saskia's origins, they inadvertently trip a spirit that lives in a popular website, sucking Saskia and hundreds of computer users into an electronic netherworld. And of course, de Lint's company of heroes has to go find them.

By suggesting there's a magical link between the otherworld and cyberspace, de Lint opens up a wonderful idea for a writer of his skills to explore. Sadly, he wimps out in the end, making the magic of cyberspace similar to magic everywhere else in his works. But his characters' struggle along the way, the discoveries they make, the victories they acheive, is eminently readable.

Like much of de Lint's work, there are a lot of backward references to other pieces he's written in the Newford venue. you don't need to know what they all mean to understand the novel, but it sure helps.

Though I enjoyed this book, I don't recommend it for newbies to this author. Start with a short story collection or with "The Onion Girl" if you want to be initiated. But for fantasy fans in general, and de Lint fans in particular, this is a strong work worth reading, and it opens new doors for the characters in future works. Hang onto it, you'll probably want to reread it in the near future too.