Thursday, March 02
The final review... until I read more books, at least.
"Angelica: A Novel of Samaria" by Sharon Shinn
A woman and an angel gradually learn to love each other in spite of having their marriage decreed by God.
Gaaron has always been a dutiful angel, resigned to shouldering any task, from singing down Jovah's healing on a plague-stricken town to disciplining wayward teenagers. So when Jovah tells him he must take a bride from the nomadic Edori, he never considers disobeying. And at least Susannah seems quiet, not reckless like his beautiful but maddening human sister Miriam. As for Susannah, after her lover is unfaithful to her she hardly cares where she goes; living among angels, she tells herself, is as good as anything, even if Gaaron's stolid ways leave her pining for warmth and love. But even as the two grow closer, Gaaron learning to respect and eventually crave Susannah's council and Susannah beginning to see the fierce passion behind Gaaron's devotion to duty, they are driven further apart by circumstance and the unexpected invasion of their peaceful world by violent outsiders from the stars.
This book is science fiction only in the sense that Anne McCaffery's Pern novels were science fiction. Technology is present and visible to the modern reader, but appears as magic to the characters; the "angels" are clearly products of genetic engineering, for example, and Gaaron's sung prayers to lift plague bring down a rain of... antibiotic pills. Shinn handles this with remarkable skill, so that the reader knows more or less what's going on and yet doesn't end up with a condescending attitude towards the ignorant characters. Her touch with religion, despite the use of loaded words like "angel" and the omnipresence of Jovah, is also very light, which is probably just as well considering that God appears to be a computer in this case. I was able to accept the world far more rapidly and with fewer flinches than I initially expected.
The invasion plot, however, is a straw man, existing only to occasionally up the tension. The focus of the book is on the relationships: first and foremost Susannah and Gaaron, but also Gaaron and the willful Miriam, Susannah and her ex-lover, and the intricacies of various minor interactions. The book is a long, slow buildup towards the various climaxes of plot and relationship, which, when they finally arrive, feel more anticlimactic -- but the slight letdown of the ending was more than made up for by the meandering and marvelous journey.
This doesn't quite match up to the only other book of Shinn's that I've read (Summers at Castle Auburn) but it was a well-written and lovingly detailed story, complete with excellent characters and a nicely crafted world, and I'll probably be picking up more in the series. An excellent book to curl up with and slowly savor.
"Angelica: A Novel of Samaria" by Sharon Shinn
A woman and an angel gradually learn to love each other in spite of having their marriage decreed by God.
Gaaron has always been a dutiful angel, resigned to shouldering any task, from singing down Jovah's healing on a plague-stricken town to disciplining wayward teenagers. So when Jovah tells him he must take a bride from the nomadic Edori, he never considers disobeying. And at least Susannah seems quiet, not reckless like his beautiful but maddening human sister Miriam. As for Susannah, after her lover is unfaithful to her she hardly cares where she goes; living among angels, she tells herself, is as good as anything, even if Gaaron's stolid ways leave her pining for warmth and love. But even as the two grow closer, Gaaron learning to respect and eventually crave Susannah's council and Susannah beginning to see the fierce passion behind Gaaron's devotion to duty, they are driven further apart by circumstance and the unexpected invasion of their peaceful world by violent outsiders from the stars.
This book is science fiction only in the sense that Anne McCaffery's Pern novels were science fiction. Technology is present and visible to the modern reader, but appears as magic to the characters; the "angels" are clearly products of genetic engineering, for example, and Gaaron's sung prayers to lift plague bring down a rain of... antibiotic pills. Shinn handles this with remarkable skill, so that the reader knows more or less what's going on and yet doesn't end up with a condescending attitude towards the ignorant characters. Her touch with religion, despite the use of loaded words like "angel" and the omnipresence of Jovah, is also very light, which is probably just as well considering that God appears to be a computer in this case. I was able to accept the world far more rapidly and with fewer flinches than I initially expected.
The invasion plot, however, is a straw man, existing only to occasionally up the tension. The focus of the book is on the relationships: first and foremost Susannah and Gaaron, but also Gaaron and the willful Miriam, Susannah and her ex-lover, and the intricacies of various minor interactions. The book is a long, slow buildup towards the various climaxes of plot and relationship, which, when they finally arrive, feel more anticlimactic -- but the slight letdown of the ending was more than made up for by the meandering and marvelous journey.
This doesn't quite match up to the only other book of Shinn's that I've read (Summers at Castle Auburn) but it was a well-written and lovingly detailed story, complete with excellent characters and a nicely crafted world, and I'll probably be picking up more in the series. An excellent book to curl up with and slowly savor.
Second review:
"A Fistful Of Sky" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The normal child in a magical family discovers that she's not so normal after all.
"Transition" is what Gypsum's family calls it; the time when you come into your magic. All four of Gyp's siblings, older and younger, have already gone through their transitions and received their magical powers, leaving her behind. Gyp, at twenty, knows who she is: the dumpy, mousy one, the normal one, butt of magical pranks she can't defend herself from, or, worse, the determined efforts of her mother to make her "better". So when she falls ill one day, she thinks that's all it is. A normal-girl illness. Only slowly does she learn that she has come into her powers, later than anyone in her family ever has, and in possession of a greater and crueler gift than any of her siblings. For while they have the magic of wishing, Gyp has inherited the gift of cursing, and she must learn to use it before it kills her.
What can I say about this book? It's fast, it's funny, it's beautiful, it kept me up until two am on a work night because I couldn't bear to put it down. The plot isn't intense -- no serial killers or world-ending catastrophes here -- but Gyp has such a wonderful voice that I was willing to read for the pleasure of hearing it, practical, willful, and sympathetic without being pitiable. Add to that the cast of willful, eccentric, and magical family members, all at the same time jaw-droppingly bizarre and wonderfully familiar, and then mix in Gyp's increasingly funny/tragic contortions as she tries to empty herself of curses without actually hurting anyone, and coat it all in gorgeous prose, and, well, two am. And only the fact that it was two am kept me from turning the book over and reading it again.
If you like beautifully written books about funny, wonderful people and don't need a breakneck plot, if you're equally sick of hero-villian plots and books that think "flawed characters" means "guilt-ridden and miserable", if you like reading something that makes you laugh out loud... then this is the book for you.
Just don't say I didn't warn you about the 2 am thing.
The first of a few book reviews (sorry, still thinking about that "life" post):
"The Autumn Castle" by Kim Wilkins
A crippled heiress has her world turned upside down when she discovers her childhood friend was kidnapped by fairies.
Christina Starlight lives in pain thanks to the car accident that killed her parents when she was a teenager; her only comfort is her artist-lover Jude, even if she sometimes doubts that he loves her as intensely as she does him. Then one day she trips over a table, blacks out, and wakes up in a beautiful fairy kingdom ruled over by a childhood friend she thought long dead, a kingdom where her chronic pain vanishes as if it had never been. She thinks it's only a dream, until Mayfridh, her friend turned Fairie Queen, turns up on her doorstep in the real world. The two worlds are in conjuction until the autumn passes, May explains, but when the winter comes they will once again slide apart and passage between them will become impossible. But a single season is enough time for Christine to become dangerously dependent on her visits to the pain-free world; enough time for May to fall dangerously in love with Jude; enough time for a man who has dedicated his life to killing fairies to draw closer and closer to the secret of the passage between worlds....
Two things this book is not: it's not lush with setting, and it's not plot-driven. If you're expecting a radically different take on fairies, don't pick up this book. Aside from the changeling May and the rather intriguing witch-character, the fairies are stock characters indistinguishable from the human; the fairy kingdom, a prettily painted but indistinct picture of light and happiness. The homicidal maniac plot is workmanlike but unsurprising. We already know what's going to happen, we just don't know when or how.
No, the main focus of the book is on the relationships, particularly the painful love triangle between Jude, May, and Christine. Here, too, are few surprises. I guessed within the first few chapters where they'd end up; the only question was how soon they'd get there and which byways of angst we'd explore along the way. They were explored very well and prettily, but I have a big OFF button labeled "Angst" in the centre of my soul, and it's only been made easier to hit by the tendency of fantasy writers to attack it with a big hammer. And this book is nothing if not angsty. Everyone is tortured, with Christine the undeniable Queen of Pain but Jude, May, and several of the supporting characters putting in good bids for heirs-apparent. It's handled well: at least, I finished the book and didn't mutter "Aw, is oo poor widdle rich girl?" more than three or four times. But when the central premise of the book turns you off, there's only so far you can go towards liking it.
If you're a fan of intricately-explored relationships and don't mind a crew of sad-eyed characters, read this book. The characterization is faultless, the wordscraft good, and the premise simple but believable. But if you're likely to find yourself growling "whine, whine, bitch bitch bitch" at overly tragic characters you may wish to go for that Martha Wells instead.
"The Autumn Castle" by Kim Wilkins
A crippled heiress has her world turned upside down when she discovers her childhood friend was kidnapped by fairies.
Christina Starlight lives in pain thanks to the car accident that killed her parents when she was a teenager; her only comfort is her artist-lover Jude, even if she sometimes doubts that he loves her as intensely as she does him. Then one day she trips over a table, blacks out, and wakes up in a beautiful fairy kingdom ruled over by a childhood friend she thought long dead, a kingdom where her chronic pain vanishes as if it had never been. She thinks it's only a dream, until Mayfridh, her friend turned Fairie Queen, turns up on her doorstep in the real world. The two worlds are in conjuction until the autumn passes, May explains, but when the winter comes they will once again slide apart and passage between them will become impossible. But a single season is enough time for Christine to become dangerously dependent on her visits to the pain-free world; enough time for May to fall dangerously in love with Jude; enough time for a man who has dedicated his life to killing fairies to draw closer and closer to the secret of the passage between worlds....
Two things this book is not: it's not lush with setting, and it's not plot-driven. If you're expecting a radically different take on fairies, don't pick up this book. Aside from the changeling May and the rather intriguing witch-character, the fairies are stock characters indistinguishable from the human; the fairy kingdom, a prettily painted but indistinct picture of light and happiness. The homicidal maniac plot is workmanlike but unsurprising. We already know what's going to happen, we just don't know when or how.
No, the main focus of the book is on the relationships, particularly the painful love triangle between Jude, May, and Christine. Here, too, are few surprises. I guessed within the first few chapters where they'd end up; the only question was how soon they'd get there and which byways of angst we'd explore along the way. They were explored very well and prettily, but I have a big OFF button labeled "Angst" in the centre of my soul, and it's only been made easier to hit by the tendency of fantasy writers to attack it with a big hammer. And this book is nothing if not angsty. Everyone is tortured, with Christine the undeniable Queen of Pain but Jude, May, and several of the supporting characters putting in good bids for heirs-apparent. It's handled well: at least, I finished the book and didn't mutter "Aw, is oo poor widdle rich girl?" more than three or four times. But when the central premise of the book turns you off, there's only so far you can go towards liking it.
If you're a fan of intricately-explored relationships and don't mind a crew of sad-eyed characters, read this book. The characterization is faultless, the wordscraft good, and the premise simple but believable. But if you're likely to find yourself growling "whine, whine, bitch bitch bitch" at overly tragic characters you may wish to go for that Martha Wells instead.
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