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480th out of 612 books
—
1,313 voters
The Uncertain Places
An ages-old family secret breaches the boundaries between reality and magic in this fresh retelling of a classic fairy tale. When Berkeley student Will Taylor is introduced to the mysterious Feierabend sisters, he quickly falls for enigmatic Livvy, a chemistry major and accomplished chef. But Livvy’s family—vivacious actress Maddie, family historian Rose, and their mother,...more
Paperback, 240 pages
Published
June 15th 2011
by Tachyon Publications
(first published June 1st 2011)
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A 1971 Berkeley student starts dating a girl from a very old family, and has to deal with a fairy tale curse/blessing that has followed them for centuries. There are consequences to bargaining with fairy-types.
One aspect of the book that I particularly enjoyed was the protagonist's changing perspective as he got older. As a youth he charges around trying to fix things and he scorns the older family members for their apparent hesitance and seeming apathy. Later, his responsibilities grow and he s...more
One aspect of the book that I particularly enjoyed was the protagonist's changing perspective as he got older. As a youth he charges around trying to fix things and he scorns the older family members for their apparent hesitance and seeming apathy. Later, his responsibilities grow and he s...more
I liked this much, much better than "Tender Morsels". I liked the atmosphere, the framing (it's told retrospectively by a middle-aged man), the setting (the 70s, California), the fairy tales bound by fae rules. This book felt fleshed-out to me.
I won't spoil anything, but this is a man telling the tale of his college romance, and the strange reclusive family his girlfriend belongs to. It's lovely to come across a book where two different worlds have been side-by-side for so long, and when the you...more
I won't spoil anything, but this is a man telling the tale of his college romance, and the strange reclusive family his girlfriend belongs to. It's lovely to come across a book where two different worlds have been side-by-side for so long, and when the you...more
"A long time ago there lived a poor woodsman. One day he was walking in the forest when a man came out of the trees and hailed him. 'Good day,' the man said. 'And how are you doing today?'
"'Very poorly,' the woodsman said. 'My family and I have not eaten for three days, and if I do not find food for them soon I fear we will all die.'
"'I can help you,' the main said. 'But you must promise to give me the first thing you see when you return home today.'"
All long-time readers of fairy tales are fa...more
"'Very poorly,' the woodsman said. 'My family and I have not eaten for three days, and if I do not find food for them soon I fear we will all die.'
"'I can help you,' the main said. 'But you must promise to give me the first thing you see when you return home today.'"
All long-time readers of fairy tales are fa...more
this is the second book that i've read by lisa goldstein, the first being dark cities underground. i'd compare it more with pamela dean's tam lin than that book, though. (i'd compare dark cities underground with neil gaiman's neverwhere for location, though not tone--i think that fantasies that take place in part in subway systems are getting to be a sub-genre.)
will is our narrator and protagonist. he's attending berkley in the 1970s. his roommate, ben, takes him to his girlfriend, maddie's, fam...more
will is our narrator and protagonist. he's attending berkley in the 1970s. his roommate, ben, takes him to his girlfriend, maddie's, fam...more
I read through the glowing reviews and thought, "What can I add to what Peter S. Beagle, Charles de Lint, Ursula K. Le Guin, Patricia McKillip...to name a few, have said?" Okay, here's my take: This is contemporary fantasy of the sort that revolves around the intersection of the ordinary world and Faerie. That in itself is pretty ho-hum. It's all too easy to create fae/fairies/elves who are humans with pointy ears and magical powers. Very pretty humans, but still humans. That said, Goldstein is...more
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This fairy-tale inspired novel begins in 1971, when a friend introduces Berkeley student Will to lovely Livvy and the Feierebrand family of three sisters and a mother. The novel starts wonderfully, with a partly creepy, partly enticing description of the family's rambling, architecturally jumbled house in the hills of Napa Valley. The family is sort of spacey and odd, but charming and clearly affluent. Will falls for Livvy, despite the secrets that seem to be kept that have to do with the family...more
It's difficult to find a theme that has not been used by another author. Take a theme and rework it into a different novel and make it your own. Goldstein does a remarkable job of doing just that. The theme is that of the bondmaid discovered long ago by the Brothers Grimm. So what's it about?
There is an unlikely hero, Will Taylor, Berkeley student, who falls in love with Livvy, a chemistry major who revels in preparing good food because of it. Livvy is but one of three intriguing and unusual wo...more
There is an unlikely hero, Will Taylor, Berkeley student, who falls in love with Livvy, a chemistry major who revels in preparing good food because of it. Livvy is but one of three intriguing and unusual wo...more
A reviewer of Graham Joyce's "Some Kind of Fairy Tale" mentioned this book as a better version of "person kidnapped by fairies with consequences in the real world" So I had to read it.
Uncertain Places definitely fits the genre. A Berkeley undergrad, Will, goes with his buddy to visit the buddy's girlfriend's house in Napa, meets her sister, and falls in love.
Only the mother is slightly vague, and the sisters possessed of a mischievous and devil-may-care air unlike anyone else. Around the sisters...more
Uncertain Places definitely fits the genre. A Berkeley undergrad, Will, goes with his buddy to visit the buddy's girlfriend's house in Napa, meets her sister, and falls in love.
Only the mother is slightly vague, and the sisters possessed of a mischievous and devil-may-care air unlike anyone else. Around the sisters...more
A weak beginning had me questioning my choice to read this book. Some of the dialogue on the first few pages made me cringe inwardly, and a few of the metaphors (like a car "arguing" with a gravel driveway) felt forced, as if they were trying too hard to be quirky (this word makes me want to barf) and funny. Fortunately, things improved shortly. There were chapters I found hard to put down, though as you've probably already guessed from this sentence, that wasn't the case with all the chapters....more
This book has a very unique and interesting plot (which is why it gets four stars) but it lacked in areas such as depth of characters (why it didn't get five stars).
I've never read a book before which had a plot quite like this book (although, feel free to correct me if it's derivative) so Goldstein gets major marks for that. And the story kept me reading and interested.
Where this book really lost it for me was the unrealistic reactions of the characters, the main character and his best friend...more
I've never read a book before which had a plot quite like this book (although, feel free to correct me if it's derivative) so Goldstein gets major marks for that. And the story kept me reading and interested.
Where this book really lost it for me was the unrealistic reactions of the characters, the main character and his best friend...more
Get ready for a ride into a fairy tale land that is not all it seems! The Uncertain Places is reminiscent of a Charles de Lint tale, weaving fairy tales, history, and coming of age together for a ride down the rabbit hole. When Will Taylor meets Livvy Feierabend, he falls in love with her almost instantly. However, he discovered that there is truth to fairy tales and Livvy's family is bound by an oath made centuries ago to the fairyland - one of the lost fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm come to...more
I think iO9 recommended this book ages ago, and I was so interested I went out and bought a (used) copy because it wasn't available for the Kindle. Suffice to say, it had been sitting on my shelf for quite some time till I finally picked it up.
But on to the actual review. I really enjoyed this book, I think it's one of those stories that you have to digest and bits and pieces come back to you years later. It starts in 1971 and two guys are driving to Napa to visit girls, and then strange occurr...more
But on to the actual review. I really enjoyed this book, I think it's one of those stories that you have to digest and bits and pieces come back to you years later. It starts in 1971 and two guys are driving to Napa to visit girls, and then strange occurr...more
This is a lyrical short book with a nice voice and I read it fast since it was reasonably engrossing, but in the end I kind of did not see its point, while outside the pages, the suspension of disbelief truly shatters; it reminded me of a much better written and more interesting Acts of Will, a sort of fairy tale set in the adult world - I could not say for adults since the content is very 9th grade with no real adult matters beyond some stuff about pregnancy - though the way the book is written...more
The Uncertain Places has that special kind of magic to it that you find in good faerie tales. Though grounded in reality, the magic seeps in through the cracks, and Those People that come from the other realm are given more depth than before.
The book is incredibly easy to read, and, with 237 pages, can easily be read in a single sitting. The narratives pulls you along swiftly, and the characters seem real from the very beginning. The only thing I have to comment on them is that although the boo...more
The book is incredibly easy to read, and, with 237 pages, can easily be read in a single sitting. The narratives pulls you along swiftly, and the characters seem real from the very beginning. The only thing I have to comment on them is that although the boo...more
A good book that was nearly a great one. It almost feels like it was rushed by either the writer or the editor - the plot is great, the narrator's voice and the characters and the set-up are well-done, and then there are a few crucial brushstrokes that are left out so the whole thing feels a little incomplete. Some of the dialogue is unforgivably stilted (a woman is returned to her family after years in the 'other realm', and when told that her mother mourned her for years her reply is 'oh'). Ph...more
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Very enjoyable novel about two friends at school in Berkeley in the early 70s. They become involved with two young women, members of a wine-growing family in the Napa Valley. It turns out the family of these two women has a strange history, and the boys get sucked into it, one on purpose. The family's history was encapsulated in a suppressed story from the Brothers Grimm, about a family who always experiences good luck, but has to put one young woman in each generation into bond for another worl...more
I read this because it was listed on a list of top sf&f for 2011. Obviously some people thought this was a great book. I thought it was an okay book. It was short and I still had a hard time finishing it. It really didn't grab me. I agree with this review I found on Goodreads which said, "Overall, The Uncertain Places was a decent book with a mysterious fairy tale merged with 1970s California, but it could have been a lot better if only the characters were less bland and some of the pacing w...more
I did think this story was quite interesting, though in a lot of ways it seemed like a throwback to the kind of intersection-between-our-world-and-the-faerie-realm stories I was reading when I was in high school in the early 90s, and not just because chunks were set in the 80s. It was a bit meandering, and for all the little moments where I recognized bits of folklore and fairy tale that I knew, there were moments were the story stuttered in pacing and failed to engage me. Where it really succee...more
May 10, 2013
Mjlibrary NDSCS
marked it as to-read
813.54 G578
This is a magical story about the mysterious Feierabend sisters: Livvy, Maddie, Rose, and Sylvia. Berkeley student Will Taylor meets them and must solve the riddle of their odd belief that luck and a life of ease are their birthright. Along with this is a long forgotten fairy story discovered by the Grimms and forgotten since, the story of the Bondmaid. Will must solve the riddle of a supernatural bargain and save the family from a pre-determined fate. Goldstein is an author of books...more
This is a magical story about the mysterious Feierabend sisters: Livvy, Maddie, Rose, and Sylvia. Berkeley student Will Taylor meets them and must solve the riddle of their odd belief that luck and a life of ease are their birthright. Along with this is a long forgotten fairy story discovered by the Grimms and forgotten since, the story of the Bondmaid. Will must solve the riddle of a supernatural bargain and save the family from a pre-determined fate. Goldstein is an author of books...more
I really enjoyed this book, although I found some of the writing lacking. I must say, the characters, even the narrator, were a bit one-dimensional. I felt like some of the finer parts of the fairy-tale aspect of this book were moved through too quickly, while other more drole parts (like when Will is hunting for clues) drag on and on and on...
Perhaps the jumps from reality to weird to calm and back are meant to show how bizarre the other realm is, I'm not sure. All in all it was an entertaining...more
Perhaps the jumps from reality to weird to calm and back are meant to show how bizarre the other realm is, I'm not sure. All in all it was an entertaining...more
There was just enough cool things things in the book to keep me reading all the way to the end, but I didn't really enjoy the experience. Most of the problem, I think, is that I didn't *believe* in this book. The narrator is supposed to be a man in this middle twenties, but his voice was so naive and YA-emo-young-lady that I had to keep reminding myself that he was a man. And what sort of guy in his twenties instantly starts believing in fairy tales? There was nothing to make him believe; he jus...more
The Uncertain Places is a story about fairy tales, but also a complex narrative which invites the reader to question understanding of greed and personal internal motivations. I enjoyed the book and found the story refreshing in many ways, but I kept questioning some of the author's literary tools (such as narratives within narratives). I frequently felt that this would be a more vivid story having been told by Neil Gaiman, especially the third and final act. But Gaiman's writings -- while excell...more
Fairy tales were meant to be scary, to teach children the sometimes harsh lessons of life. But what if even those versions told by the Grimm Brothers were toned down from reality, and tweaked into a kinder-gentler version of the true story? To live in fear of your own personal fairy tale, fear of the repercussions and fear of the possibility of it all ending? I was caught from the beginning. Magic and the stuff of fairy tales can only exist when we believe; and I am most certainly a believer (th...more
Moving imagery and delightful characters/setting really made the first half of this fantasy book sing. Mid-read I was ready to email Pat Rothfuss and make sure he knew about this author.
Unfortunately, The Uncertain Places—once its theme was fully revealed—began working too hard in incorporating Grimm fantasy stories. Seemingly paragraph upon paragraph played upon small pointers to Grimm's tales and the story's own plot begins to unravel, becoming diluted and unimportant.
I feel in the end the s...more
Unfortunately, The Uncertain Places—once its theme was fully revealed—began working too hard in incorporating Grimm fantasy stories. Seemingly paragraph upon paragraph played upon small pointers to Grimm's tales and the story's own plot begins to unravel, becoming diluted and unimportant.
I feel in the end the s...more
I really liked the idea of this book and it was a fast read. The only reason it didn't get four stars was I felt like for all the main characters touting the virtues of the Feierabend sisters they didn't really seem all that. I mean, especially Livvy, it seemed like I never really got to to know her and it was hard to see what Will was so drawn to. I think if Will (the narrator) spent a little more time on the bits where he got to know Livvy she'd have felt more three dimensional and I'd have ca...more
This is romantic fiction masquerading as fantasy in which a modern Prince gets put through the authorial mill to rescue the Princess from the fairies. It also has a tediously long ending session when a group tries to mount another rescue in fairy land, being saved by the last gasp epilogue which does say something intelligent about life. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt with three stars. It should really be no more than 2.5 stars.
http://opionator.wordpress.com/2012/0...
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I initially had high hopes for this book. The premise, interesting and exciting. So exciting that I scoured the internet looking for a copy when my local bookshop didn't have it. The execution was, sadly, awful.
The characters were one dimensional and uninteresting. You would think that a family torn apart by a fairy curse would be heart wrenching. And a man willing to do anything to wake his lady love would be heartwarming. I hated just about every character in this book from the mother driven...more
The characters were one dimensional and uninteresting. You would think that a family torn apart by a fairy curse would be heart wrenching. And a man willing to do anything to wake his lady love would be heartwarming. I hated just about every character in this book from the mother driven...more
(4.5 stars) The Uncertain Places by Lisa Goldstein is the story of a family haunted by a long-ago pact with the fairies. Like all fairy tales, it’s also a story about human problems, so it’s easy to find yourself within these pages even if mysterious beings have never cleaned your house in the middle of the night.
In 1971, Berkeley students Will and Ben go to visit the eccentric Feierabend family who live in a rambling house in Napa Valley. Ben is dating the eldest Feierabend sister, Maddie, and...more
In 1971, Berkeley students Will and Ben go to visit the eccentric Feierabend family who live in a rambling house in Napa Valley. Ben is dating the eldest Feierabend sister, Maddie, and...more
Original review posted at Layers of Thought.
“…he thought they only showed themselves in what he called the uncertain places. Where the sea meets the land, for example… or inside meets outside… or at dawn or twilight…” page 171
About: Set in early 1970’s California within the now famous wine growing region of Napa Valley, our narrator Will is studying for his degree at UC Berkley when he meets Livie, one of the Feirbrand girls. It’s almost “love at first sight”. However, Will notices something odd...more
“…he thought they only showed themselves in what he called the uncertain places. Where the sea meets the land, for example… or inside meets outside… or at dawn or twilight…” page 171
About: Set in early 1970’s California within the now famous wine growing region of Napa Valley, our narrator Will is studying for his degree at UC Berkley when he meets Livie, one of the Feirbrand girls. It’s almost “love at first sight”. However, Will notices something odd...more
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| Uncertain Places not available on kindle? | 2 | 5 | Mar 14, 2012 11:28pm |
Aka Isabel Glass.
Lisa Goldstein (b. November 21, 1953 in Los Angeles) is a Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award nominated fantasy and science fiction writer. Her 1982 novel The Red Magician won the American Book Award for best paperback novel, and was praised by Philip K. Dick shortly before his death. Goldstein writes science fiction and fantasy; her two novels Daughter of Exile and The Divided...more
More about Lisa Goldstein...
Lisa Goldstein (b. November 21, 1953 in Los Angeles) is a Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award nominated fantasy and science fiction writer. Her 1982 novel The Red Magician won the American Book Award for best paperback novel, and was praised by Philip K. Dick shortly before his death. Goldstein writes science fiction and fantasy; her two novels Daughter of Exile and The Divided...more
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“Nick turned out to be a shy boy, uncertain in groups and in new situations, but also very brave, determined to overcome his fear." - Will, as a parent describing his son”
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“Will and I are thinking about writing a movie," Ben said. "It's called Theater Closed for Repairs.”
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