I always feel so sad finishing one of these books. But at the same time I feel uplifted, and like magic really exists in my own world. It's an interesting mix. Once more, this story is competely different from the other Newford books. In this one we get an interesting set of characters, characterized by their animal sides. These 'animal people' say that they were there long before us (the 'normal' people) and came from the beginning of time. It's not a new idea, but the way that de Lint integrat...

Someplace to Be Flying is a tale of Lily, a photojournalist in search of the First People, who supposedly reside in The Tombs; The slums of Newford, a place filled with myths of The Kickaha Tribe and a place of lost dreams. Lily is brutally attacked one night while searching for "the animal people" and finds herself being rescued by knight in shining armor, or in this case in a beat up Chevrolet gypsy cab, Hank; An odd sort of man who has an odd past. Hank and Lilly soon find themselves getting

Yet another amazing book in Charles de Lint's Newford series. This was my first introduction to the Crow Girls, Raven and the rest of that crew and I have to say I love them.... especially Maggie and the Crow Girls. Before I read Someplace to be Flying, if you had asked me what I loved about the Newford series, I would have mentioned characters like Jilly and Geordie and Christy but I would have focused on what a great world de Lint has created. Now that I have read Someplace to Be Flying, I hav...

This was the first Charles de Lint novel that I had ever read, and it's an interesting place to start. I had honestly never even heard of the author before. Strange, considering that he's been writing this Newford series for nearly two decades...and it's a travesty that none of my fantasy-reading friends apparently knew about him either, because he's an excellent writer.Basically, de Lint started creating a world with a series of short stories published in random magazines and whatnot. It's larg...

Oh, I love Newford so so much. Another beautiful glimpse into De Lint's world

This is a re-read for me. Oddly enough, for the longest time, I thought this was a book about a teenage boy, and figured I must not have liked it as much as his others since I didn't remember anything about it besides that. A year or two ago, I somehow realized that I'd gotten books confused (I do this all the time with de Lint for some reason), and that it wasn't entirely sure which one this one was. So, I was really, really happy when I got started reading and realized that this was the one th...

There is a myth that is as old as time. The world was created by Raven, the dark bird of mystery, as he stirred magic in an old black pot. The pot created more than the world: it created the Animal People, spirits as old as time itself. They are the First People and they roamed the land, able to change forms.Out of the pot came the Blue Jay, the Wolf, and The Crow. There also came the Coyote, the Trickster. Always up to no good, he is the outcast of the First People. Most of his mischief is harm...

Lovely Newford entry. The crow girls are back, and for small pages Christy. Raven, Coyote, Magpie and other corbae tell us about magic from their view. And humans too. And don't forget those with just a little canid and corbae blood (or both) see the world just a little bit differently. And the little cousins. "What makes people not believe?" she asked. "Not believe in what?" "Corbae. Magic. The Grace. All of it." Katy shrugged. "Maybe the same thing that makes them not believe in love. Because

"When we understand each other's stories, we understand everything a little better--even ourselves." (66)This book was a mixed bag for me. I liked some of the characters quite a bit (particularly Jack, Katy, and Kerry), I liked the premise, and there are several passages where I particularly liked the writing and the ideas, but I just could not get into the plot and I had a hard time keeping track of who all the very, very many characters were. It took me more than twice as long as it should hav...

in the middle of this mess, don't judge just yet!Though I'd never read Charles de Lint before, I liked Someplace to Be Flying so much that I went out and bought three more of his books when I finished. De Lint's prose had some thin spots where the story stretched to transparency and I could see his hand moving the characters and action, but the tale was so entertaining that I barely cared. He created a very compelling world that I didn't want to end with the book.Someplace to Be Flying combines

For a great many years my Canadian friends (well they would be Canadian, wouldn't they?) have been urging me to read some of de Lint's crow girls stories. Jackpot. You were utterly right, my friends. I should have read these earlier, though I could argue that my need for the urban fantasy of the 1990s comes and goes — mostly going, these days.Add one for the stack of "books I would give my teenage self, had I a time machine."

This wonderful, magical and thought provoking novel opens with a quote from the song "Wyoming Wind" from Kiya Heartwood: “So I asked the raven as he passed by,/ I said ‘Tell me, raven, why’d you make the sky?’/ The moon and the stars, I threw them high,/ I needed someplace to be flying". The story starts like a thriller. Cab driver Hank see a woman being assaulted in a dark side street and stops to help her. The woman, Lily, is a reporter who is doing research on the rumoured "Animal People". Th...

The people who become birds, which noone knows about. My first experience with de Lint, this book has a stronger plot, and some very disquieting elements, which nonetheless feel exactly right. Upside-down kind of fantasy. More about people and their strengths showing in adversity, the values of de Lint are very real, despite the magic below the surface.

Lily, a photographer, is searching for the rumored animal people when she's attacked, and Hank, a cab-driver for criminals, stops to help her. But instead of helping he's attacked as well, and then two crow girls drop from the sky.According to some Native American mythology, the world began when Raven stirred his pot, pulling out the earth, the sky, and the animal people. In Newford, the animal people still walk the earth. And some humans have animal people blood running through their veins.Some...

This is one of my favoritist fantasy books today. The old gods may still walk the earth, but what if even they have forgotten who they are.

After devouring "Trader," "The Mystery of Grace" and "Little Grrl Lost," earlier this year, I was hoping for a similar experience when I picked up "Someplace to Be Flying."And while this novel certainly had its moments of being just as absorbing as all of those, I still feel like it fell a bit short of my expectations. It's not that it's a bad story. But the story takes so long for various elements to come together that I found myself taken out of the novel too much. One thing I found missing wa...

Reading books like this make me wonder why certain readers have such a hissy fit over the fantasy genre, saying it can't be literary or it has nothing to offer in terms of social reflections. Clearly, they haven't read books like this, or if they have, they simply don't care for using magic, mythology, and folklore as a means to explore humanity. If that's the case, it's a shame. Someplace to be Flying is a beautiful book, something to break all those stereotypes of what people seem to think urb...

Charles de Lint's books are always a perfect antidote to all the hatred and horror of the world - not because he shys away from it, no, but because his characters are so full of warmth and his worlds so infused with hope that for a little while everything seems possible again.Suffice to say I will be reading even more of his stories than usual for the next while.This one kind of deals with an apocalypse of sorts, or at least the ending of a world, but also reminds us that sometimes an end is not...

Crow Girls! Really, that's it. They make the book for me. :)

This book could have been good. The premise, that "animal people" live around us in some fantasy world that intersects with the real world, was intriguing. Ok, so there are about 200 characters (slight hyperbole), and de Lint gets so bogged down by trying to make them all interesting that he fails to make *any* of them interesting.Then there's the plot: apparently some of the animal people want to reclaim some holy relic and take over the world. Um... I guess? The actual climax of the story is *...