The Book of Life

     The Book of Life, by Deborah Harkness, is the third, and final installment of the All souls trilogy. These books combine history, science, myth, and magic to create a story with many, MANY, layers. Unlike some books of this type, the author is able weave the story so that all of the pieces make sense even when you don't yet see the whole picture.
     While this series is science fiction/fantasy, it has elements of historical fiction as well. The use of modern and historical science and knowledge was excellent in my mind. The combination genetic research, and ancient alchemy is fascinating, and brings about the real life issues of racial purity and segregation.
      The importance of family lines, yet the acceptance of adoption into vampire families, even in ancient times, is key in this book. I quite enjoyed the fact that once a person was claimed as family, it was simply accepted in vampire families.
      It seems standard for me recently to read trilogies, and to rank the second as my least favourite, the third as the middle, and the first as my favourite. This series is no different, although I think that I simply don't like the fact that there are not any more coming out.

A Map of Time

A Map of time by Feliz J. Palma is one of the only books which I have read which was not originally written in English. It was interesting, well written, and well thought out. I'm not sure what category this book would fit into. Somewhere between historical fiction, mystery, and fantasy. The book had a few story lines which were connected in ways which I was not expecting.

For much of the book I was expecting the narrator to become a character, who later wrote the events down, sort of like Bilbo in The Hobbit. The book is narrated by an all knowing, omnipresent point of view. This is not a perspective that I am used to. I'm not going to say that I don't like this perspective, but I prefer books written by a character's point of view.

The book includes many actual historical people, and I'm not sure which, if any of the events actually happened. I don't have enough knowledge of Victorian history to pick out fact from fiction. I know a bit about Jack the Ripper, H.G. Wells (and his book The Time Machine), and Dracula (although not much about the author). This is probably what the author was counting on. Inserting enough fact that readers will recognize names to make the whole storyline more believable.