"Emma" by Jane Austen (adapted to manga by Crystal S. Chan)

This was a good book, even if I did have to stop every ten pages or so to shake my fist in the air and yell "EMMA!!! QUIT MEDDLING!!!". The parts when she wasn't meddling were indubitably (yes, I like that word) my favorite.

As you can see from the cover picture, I actually read a manga adaptation, not the real thing. The series of adaptations is very faithful to the originals, though, so I feel comfortable reviewing this as the actual story. (Also, manga reads a lot quicker, because you don't have to spend eons describing the dance or someone's dress, you can show it.)

I really, really, really hate Mrs. Elton. The art they have for her doesn't exactly help (it's kind of ugly), but she somehow manages to be the most exact blend of condescending and egotistical to just be the most unlikable character in the history of the universe. 

Mr. Woodhouse, on the other hand, was very awesome and funny. I alternated between two ways of reading him: 1) as a severe hypochondriac, and 2) as someone who genuinely cares about other people's health (but he's still a hypochondriac). I don't know which of them Austen intended. Option 1 is funnier, but option 2 is nicer, I think.

My only major disappointment (and really, this is irrational) is that I watched the movie version first, so two lines ("Be careful! The baby! It might have an infection", said by Mr. Woodhouse; and "We know nothing about her parents. They may have been pirates!", said by Emma) aren't in the real thing. Actually, they might be, but they got cut in the manga adaptation, because you can only fit so much dialogue in a manga before the pages become walls of text.

Emma gets four stars, basically meaning that I liked it despite its faults. 

Favorite lines:

    Frank Churchill: "[Emma] requests that you each say something entertaining, in a general way. One very clever thing, or three dull things if you cannot be clever." [Note: Emma actually didn't request that, it was Frank's idea.)

    Miss Bates: "Oh! Very well, I can manage that. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as I open my mouth."

    Pages 231-232. (It's so true, though. And she's the one making the joke, which makes it funnier until Emma immediately ruins it. Badly done, Emma!)

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The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis

 

  Book 1: Out of the Silent Planet

My initial thoughts on this book were, "what on Earth Malacandra". In the book, Malacandra is the inhabitants' name for Mars, where Dr. Ransom, the main character, ends up. My final thoughts on this one are "well, that was weird". 

The three human characters in the book travel to Mars Malacandra in a very spherical ship, and Lewis gets his first space fact wrong (I'm only sort of judging him for this, as the book was written in 1938 while Sputnik 1 launched in 1957): gravity. He is correct insofar as that gravity would be reduced almost to nothing; however, nothing that we have yet been able to send up has had sufficient mass to attract objects toward its center, as the ship does in the book. 

From there, the book becomes a sort of space-fantasy novel, sort of like the Five Worlds graphic novel series (which I have yet to review). I mean, it makes sense in its own way, but its own way is REALLY WEIRD. It goes into all sorts of metaphysics and spirituality and super weird aliens (seriously, the aliens are super weird) and C. S. Lewis' recurring theme of God being called different things in different worlds/dimensions. 

(I'm now wondering if Polly and Digory could have gotten to one of these with the color pools in The Magician's Nephew, haha😀)

This one gets four stars. I liked it, despite its being super weird.

  Book 2: Perelandra

My initial thoughts on this one were, "what on Earth Malacandra Perelandra". Perelandra is the space-fantasy name for Venus.

Two humans in this one, both recurring from Out of the Silent Planet: Dr. Ransom and Dr. Weston (ze villain). Ransom arrives in sort of a glass coffin thing that is propelled to Perelandra by the archangel-like entity from book 1, Oyarsa. Weston on the other hand arrives in a similar very spherical ship to book 1.

Half the book is just an allegory of "what if we had the garden of Eden, but it ended with Eve resisting temptation?", which was really boring, and Dr. Weston is super messed up. The other half is a collection of less-super-weird aliens, super weird aliens, philosophical debates with aliens, and a weird fever-dream-like bit that's maybe supposed to be allegorical Hell?

The cover blurb on my copy grossly misrepresents the actual story. Seriously, cover blurb people, the prologue to the Garden of Eden: Venus Edition isn't an "old and beautiful civilization", it's one person. (Well, two, but we never meet Venus Adam until the very end.) And it's hardly being "invaded by a dark force", it's just some creepy entity possessing a corpse. I was expecting an A Wrinkle in Time-style evil telepathic dictatorship or some such, not... one creepy dude. I mean, that one creepy dude is 1/4 of the people currently on the planet, but STILL.

This one gets three stars. The parts that weren't boring allegory or philosophical debates were good, as were some of the debates, but not a lot in my opinion. At least the super weird stuff in book 1 was entertaining. 

  Book 3: That Hideous Strength

My initial thoughts on this one were, "what on Earth Malacandra Perelandra Earth again apparently??". And actually, it wasn't that weird once one got used to the idea.

About half the book (which is like as long as the other two combined) is weird and dystopian and extremely confusing. The other half is not what I expected and is in a much different tone from the first two books.

Whoever published this edition needs to get someone new to write its cover blurbs. When it says "up to Dr. Ransom and his friends" (emphasis added), it means that about 1/3 of the book is dedicated to someone named Mark Studdock, a further half or so is at least loosely from the perspective of his wife Jane, and only a bit more than 1/6 of it is about Dr. Ransom or anyone else. 

What irks me is that the "National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments", the main villain of the piece, does almost no sinister experimentation through the entire book, as any normal evil science orgaization would have as their main focus. I mean, they do have a reanimated head possessed by the same thing that controlled Dr. Weston in Perelandra, and they try to make someone go insane at some point by way of things that are just barely off-center, but other than that? Nothing.

I give That Hideous Strength (which is named for a quotation by Sir David Lindsay, whoever he is) two stars for being alternately depressing and confusing and not having any of that charm that made me rate Out of the Silent Planet four stars.

Overall, this series gets an average of three stars, meaning "it was okay". I liked book 1 for actually being set on a different planet (Mars/Malacandra). Book 2 was just half boring, and book 3 was tense and weird in equal measure without having the redeeming quality of "it's in space".

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