Sweetness and Apropos: A Peach of a Pair
The two novels are completely different. At the same time, they have enough similarities that it would be impossible not to take notice.
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley is the story of a perky and prodigious 11-year old who, to save her father, insinuates herself into a murder investigation. Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David relates the adventures of a young and very cynical squire who finds himself charged with the rescue of the Princess of Isteria.
Sweetness takes place in a Georgian English countryside. Apropos takes place in The Middle Lands.
Sweetness is a first novel by a Canadian mystery buff. Sir Apropos is the fifty somethingth novel by a New York-based sci fi icon.
Alan Bradley was a founding member of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild and Director of Television Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan for 25 years until his early retirement in 1994. His interest in things mysterious took a sharp left turn when, in 1989, in collaboration with William Sarjeant, he published the classic Ms Holmes of Baker Street. The premise of the book, which engendered a firestorm of controversy upon publication, is that Holmes was, in fact, a woman…one twice pregnant to boot.
David is another matter. His list of credits is a mile long and he is not completely inaccurate when he refers to himself as “a writer of stuff”. Lots of cool stuff, mind you. He got his start in comics, penning stories for The Incredible Hulk at Marvel and Aquaman at DC. He also did work for the Dark Horse Comics miniseries, The Scream, among others. Back at Marvel, he wrote the comic book spin-off of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. A prolific writer, David is best known for his Star Trek and Babylon 5 novels. Sir Apropos of Nothing began a new phase and a new genre for David: fantasy.
So what are the aforementioned similarities between Sweetness and Apropos?
To begin with, both are about young adults. In the case of Flavia, very young, but she had what my mother would call an old head. Apropos simply grew up too quickly, starting with a misbegotten birth and ending with a narrow escape from an unwanted betrothal.
Both strain credulity. But let’s face it, if you are prepared to be swept away by a pre-teen as she unravels a murder mystery that spans decades, you are obviously in for the game. And Apropos is, after all, a fantasy, so you must take the fantastic in stride.
When her taciturn father becomes a suspect in the slaying of a certain Horace Bonepenny, Flavia sets out to find the real murderer. Naturally, our little Miss Marple manages to outthink and outflank Scotland Yard. The resourceful Flavia begins her sleuthing by going through old newspapers in the village library; she ferrets out the connection with old crimes committed at Greyminster prep school by Bonepenny and the nefarious “third man”. It is the latter who snatches up Flavia and comes this close to doing her in. In the end, our irrepressible little heroine returns the object of everyone’s affection, a rare Black Penny stamp that nearly brought down the Empire around Queen Victoria over a hundred years earlier, to a grateful King George VI. Peace and prosperity are restored to the Buckshaw Estate.
As for Apropos, well, he manages by hook and mostly by crook to survive the fates and his own flawed character. He serves as squire to the enigmatic Sir Umbrage of the Flaming Nether Regions, does in the fallen hero, Tacit One-Eye, outfoxes the dreaded Warlord Shank, escapes the grotesque Harpers Bizarre to say nothing of a herd of outraged unicorns, manouevers around Meander, the mad Vagabond King of the Frozen North, all to return the feisty princess Entipy, banished by Runcible to the Faith Women’s Retreat, to her proper station.
Obviously, both books are fun reads. The yarns are neatly spun. The humor, running from the subtle to the sardonic, is always present.
It is also no surprise that each was to become the first of a series. You could see it coming. The giveaway is the depth of the main character. We love little Flavia, despite her peculiar predilection for poison. We enjoy Apropos, despite his caustic nature and obsessive need for self-preservation. She is a scamp, he a scoundrel. It is fun to see how each, in his or her own way, manages to get from here to there.
Bradley’s Buckshaw Chronicles follow up Sweetness with The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag (released by Random House this past March) and the upcoming Hang, Gypsy! Dance, Gypsy!, slated to appear in 2011.
The Apropos trilogy also includes The Woad to Wuin and Tong Lashing. Darkness of the Light, is the first in a new trilogy of fantasy novels titled The Hidden Earth.
I am not usually drawn to the mystery or fantasy genre. I seldom read novels centered on the adventures of young adults, even ones as precocious as Flavia or Apropos. But my daughter, the librarian, knew I would like these books. In an upcoming post, I will tell you why.
