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Saturday, January 12
Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell
Agnes Shanklin has always lived her life for others: her overbearing mother, her beautiful sister, the children she teaches in her small Cleveland school. Then, in 1919, the influenza robs her of mother, sister, and job all in one stroke. Cut adrift, Agnes decides to take a cruise to Egypt with her dog Rosie. There she will be a witness to the Cairo Conference that changed the face of the Middle East and a friend to some of the most famous and infuential people of the time; she will meet a man who changes her spinster life forever; she will begin, at forty, to discover who she is.
In Dreamers Russell has taken on the ambitious project of telling a small story -- that of Agnes -- against the backdrop of giant ones. She does this largely by making the giants equally small; World War I, the influenza epidemic, the Cairo Conference, all are explained mostly as they affect the tiny and diffident figure of Agnes. The giant personalities that threaten to overshadow her -- Winston Churchill, Gertrude Bell, Lawrence of Arabia -- are likewise rendered in miniature: not Churchill's leadership, but his love of painting; not Lawrence's deeds but his nervous giggle. Greatness lurks behind in the shadows, coloring the edges of events and words, but is never allowed to take centre stage. The result is a book of heartbreaking poignancy and beauty.
There are flaws. Agnes, particularly in some early passages, shares with Dickens's Esther Summerson an unfortunate tendency to be too good while at the same time characterizing herself as a bad person, giving her an air of unbelievable martyrdom. And I found the final passage of the book less than satisfying. These flaws, however, speak less to the quality of the work than the immense challenge Russell takes on in portraying a small woman among greatness -- a balancing act that I have never before seen performed with such finesse and power. A brief glimpse of an oft-overlooked period of history, this is a book I will be chewing over for a long time to come.
Monday, July 02
The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes by Anne Stuart, Jennifer Crusie, and Eileen Dreyer
The three Miss Fortunes have problems.
First problem: their history. TV personalities courtesy their parents, who were eventually exposed as fraudulent psychics and ruined, their now-adult daughters aren't interested in fame -- but it keeps catching up to them anyway.
Second problem: their magic. Because while the elder Fortunes may have been foolish, they weren't frauds, and the sisters have their gifts in uncontrollable spades. Dee, eldest and responsible, changes shape during times of emotional stress (leading to stashes of clothes all over town and a string of traumatized ex-boyfriends). Lizzie, dreamy and bookish, wants to turn straw into gold, but mostly manages to turn the silverware into bunny rabbits. And the youngest, most reckless sister, Mare? Mare throws things. Mare's going to be Queen of the Universe, as soon as she finishes conquering the local Value Video!!.
Third problem: their Aunt Xan. She's got more magic than any of them. She killed their parents. And now she wants something from them.
But Xan isn't an entirely bad aunt. She's willing to trade. So she casts a spell that brings each of the girls their True Love, their soulmate, the one man they can love and be happy with for the rest of their lives. All they have to do to get their men... is give up their magic.
I was a little nervous about this one. I got it for free, with the caveat I had to review it. I didn't have to like it, but I hate reviewing books I don't like. Fortunately (hah!) it was a non-problem. I wouldn't describe this as paranormal romance so much as a kick-ass modern-day fairy tale. Despite the authors being romance writers, not fantasy, the story manages to blend the normal and the magical far better than most urban fantasy -- the sisters' talents and the attendant problems hit that elusive sweet spot, real enough to believe and magical enough that you want to believe. Romance-wise, I found one of the boys a bit over-done, but the sweet spot is still there -- that marvelous line between touching and funny that Crusie has always walked so well. She brought talented company with her this time; I'm gonna be checking out all these ladies' works before too much longer.
But seriously -- read The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes. It's got three sisters. It's got a wicked witch. It's got sexy motorcycle-riding modern princes, clueless evil minions, and a surprising number of frogs. What more can you ask from a fairy tale?
Wednesday, March 14
At some point I am really going to write up my trip to DC. Honest I am. But for now, since I'm way behind on this:
Books read: February
Dragons in the Waters by Madeleine L'Engle
This book was given to me by juliarandolph because she said I posted something in my blog that reminded her of it. I'm still not entirely sure what it was, but I'm guessing I went on a "war of Northern aggression" rant. I do those. And, er, yeah. The Civil War was not as simple as the history books make it, let's just say that.
Stopping now.
Anyway, all that aside, I quite enjoyed the book, which was very L'Engle. Great characters, intriguing little mystery, you don't quite notice that the plot's rambling until midway through the book when it stops rambling and starts happening. The ending lost me, but, well, those type of endings often do. I just cannot seem to get into the mystical mood; once things get transcendent I am left standing on the dock waving rather sadly at all the people getting carried off by into ethereal heights. This isn't limited to fantasy, either -- I have the same reaction to hard sf books wherein people transcend humanity.
Just not the transcendent type, I guess.
Dead Man's Ransom and The Pilgrim of Hate by Ellis Peters (Reread)
I read these to do some strategic theft for a project I'm worldbuilding right now. Well, that was the excuse, anyway. I adore the Cadfael mysteries, so it doesn't take much of an excuse.
Peters's ability to create a real world continues to fascinate me. I don't know how accurate she is, mind you: my knowledge of life in a 12th century monastery hovers somewhere right above nil, and it's likely to stay there. But it feels real and, as someone who's used to reading fantasy and science fiction, that's much more important.
I did start wondering on this reread whether Peters was romanticizing her world. I think it would appear so to many people. It's not a gritty world, and right now fantasy's on a backswing where anything that's not filthy and corrupt is considered to be romanticized. And certainly Peters does not go into the grotty details much. When I think about it, I remember the leper colony that was in that one book, or the priest who drove a retarded girl to suicide in that other book, or the nun who was raped, or the girl forced into marriage with an older man, or the time the king ordered all the prisoners of war hung... but that's not the overall impression of the world one gets from the books. The impression is of a clean, earthy world, one where terrible things happen, it's true, but a pleasant world overall.
Some people will still argue that this is romanticization, that life in the twelfth century was universally short, brutish, and nasty. But I'm not sure I agree. I think there is a tendency to romanticize in the other direction as well, to heap on the filth, misery, and suffering until it becomes unreal. Unpleasant still, but rather unreal. We're not there yet, in fantasy, but we're rapidly approaching it.
I kinda like Peters's middle ground.
(For people who don't know the series -- I don't recommend starting with either of these books; I recommend starting with A Morbid Taste for Bones. Which is also a good book. One with a fabulous title.)
Idolon by Mark Budz
One of the winners in the WF freebie lotto. I really liked this book. Butz managed to do a near-future setting without it feeling a) dated or b) overly disconnected; as people might have guessed by now, I am not a big fan of antiheroes, acrimony, and angst. I like to have at least one character I can root for.
Budz was remarkably successful in creating a world that was gritty without being depressing, and I liked that. But the really interesting thing about Idolon was the philm. Philm, the book's central conceit, is downloadable imagery which can be displayed on, well, pretty much anything -- your house, your floor, yourself. Budz has a lot of fun talking about the high-tech skin grafts people get, the "casts" of identical philms people join, the various identity issues implied by the need to constantly change your looks, and so on. It's a great conceit. My only complaint is that he doesn't stick with it through the ending and instead goes and visits transcendent-land for a while, which, as we've already established, leaves me sitting on the landing drumming my nails and checking my watch. But it was still a damned good tale overall.
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (Reread)
This is, at the moment, my favorite Discworld novel. (Not my favorite Discworld character -- that would be Sam Vimes.) I have a real weak spot for con men, I think. This was one of the books where I really thought Pratchett hit pay dirt. One didn't laugh aloud so much as with some of his other books -- but one grinned fiercely. A lot.
Also notable for being the first book I got off of BookMooch, which is a very cool service. If only Dan would let me get rid of more books. *sigh*
Impossible Things by Connie Willis (Reread)
My mother mentioned she wanted more short stories, so I bought her this for Christmas. (And then nicked it to read myself. Yes! Self-serving gifting wins again! And Mom liked it, which was a bonus.)
I read this years ago, my freshman year of college, and I honestly think it's gotten better with rereading. Connie Willis is one of those writers I regard with awe; she has that rare ability to hit all the notes, from poignant to chilling to wonderfully funny. It's like meeting a singer with a six-octave range when you only have one; you can but stand and gape in sheer envy.
She hits pretty much all the notes with this collection. I'm not a short story reader, but this is great stuff.
Starfish by Peter Watts
This is one of those books I nearly didn't read. Dan had been pushing it at me for about a year, waxing enthusiastic about how fabulous it was, but the more he pushed it, the less sure I was that I really wanted to read it. It looked like a concept book, and I have a love/hate relationship with those. It looked depressing, another area where I have trouble. And Dan was pushing it so hard, I figured he and I would both be disappointed when I read it. Nothing could be that good.
But finally I broke down and read the thing.
I was wrong. It was that good.
Starfish is a really, really hard book to describe. It is a concept book -- there is all kind of shininess about ocean vents and marine biology in here -- but it is also a book about fucked-up people and what our society does to them. In the case of Starfish, what we do to them is exile them to the bottom of the ocean, child molesters and abuse survivors and bullies and killers, people who've been so bent up by life that they no longer fit in. Instead, they care for power plants at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by other neurotic people, and they're happier there.
And, despite being a book about broken people, it is not depressing. The characters are broken, but they aren't victims. I have a bit of a problem with the victim mentality, so for me this made them utterly sympathetic.
This book made me think. A lot. About a great many things. Go and read it. I really can't recommend this one highly enough.
The Night Watch by Sean Stewart
This is another of those books that's really hard to describe. It's futuristic fantasy, cyberware and magic combined, and it's one of the few I've seen where the magic feels real. This is not D&D magic; it's real magic, uncontrollable, edgy, and frightening. It's not good; it's not bad. It's just magic.
The book is an extraordinarily diffuse one for me; we jump around from character to character, and there is no great, powerful climax, but rather a series of small epiphanies. It's also a book that... well, I suppose I could best describe it as an anti-romance. Not in the sense that it denies love (quite the contrary) but rather in the sense that it explores the dark side of love. The pain of having to set yourself against a loved one, or of failing someone you love, of not being able to protect them. Of losing them.
An odd book, and, like Starfish, one that made me think. I'm still not sure what I'm thinking about, but I would still recommend it to anyone who's tired of formulaic, comfortable fantasy novels. This one's anything but comfortable.
Wow. Not doin' a whole month of those at once again.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 957 words.
Comments: I have been really struggling with this story lately, partly because of where I am in the story, partly because I write best when I'm on a schedule and lately my schedule has been fucked. So yesterday, which was a day off, I decided that enough was enough. Butt in chair time. I'd break this block if it killed me.
It didn't quite kill me, but I spent four hours painfully scratching out two hundred words. Finally, in chat, I got desperate enough to threaten my characters with skipping the scene I was on entirely and going to the next, something I never do. But I was desperate.
And within a few moments of saying that, I got a sentence. Then another. Then another. Then two hours of frantically typing two thousand words which got me through the problem scene.
Behold! The power of pointy stick. I'm gonna remember that one.
Today was not so spectacular, but I did get to skip the four-hours-blank-staring thing and go right to the Good Words. I can live with that.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Chapter openings? I hate 'em. Hate hate hate. It's worse than transitions. In the end I always type some crappy thing like "Elliot woke up" and figure I'll fix it on the rewrite, but it always bugs me.
Snips: Elliot looked groggily down at his dressing gown. "I have no pants."
... mind you, given that his pacifist not-girlfriend just dragged him out of bed and is holding a gun and telling him to hurry, he may have bigger problems than inadequate dress. Inability to prioritize, for example....
Books read: February
Dragons in the Waters by Madeleine L'Engle
This book was given to me by juliarandolph because she said I posted something in my blog that reminded her of it. I'm still not entirely sure what it was, but I'm guessing I went on a "war of Northern aggression" rant. I do those. And, er, yeah. The Civil War was not as simple as the history books make it, let's just say that.
Stopping now.
Anyway, all that aside, I quite enjoyed the book, which was very L'Engle. Great characters, intriguing little mystery, you don't quite notice that the plot's rambling until midway through the book when it stops rambling and starts happening. The ending lost me, but, well, those type of endings often do. I just cannot seem to get into the mystical mood; once things get transcendent I am left standing on the dock waving rather sadly at all the people getting carried off by into ethereal heights. This isn't limited to fantasy, either -- I have the same reaction to hard sf books wherein people transcend humanity.
Just not the transcendent type, I guess.
Dead Man's Ransom and The Pilgrim of Hate by Ellis Peters (Reread)
I read these to do some strategic theft for a project I'm worldbuilding right now. Well, that was the excuse, anyway. I adore the Cadfael mysteries, so it doesn't take much of an excuse.
Peters's ability to create a real world continues to fascinate me. I don't know how accurate she is, mind you: my knowledge of life in a 12th century monastery hovers somewhere right above nil, and it's likely to stay there. But it feels real and, as someone who's used to reading fantasy and science fiction, that's much more important.
I did start wondering on this reread whether Peters was romanticizing her world. I think it would appear so to many people. It's not a gritty world, and right now fantasy's on a backswing where anything that's not filthy and corrupt is considered to be romanticized. And certainly Peters does not go into the grotty details much. When I think about it, I remember the leper colony that was in that one book, or the priest who drove a retarded girl to suicide in that other book, or the nun who was raped, or the girl forced into marriage with an older man, or the time the king ordered all the prisoners of war hung... but that's not the overall impression of the world one gets from the books. The impression is of a clean, earthy world, one where terrible things happen, it's true, but a pleasant world overall.
Some people will still argue that this is romanticization, that life in the twelfth century was universally short, brutish, and nasty. But I'm not sure I agree. I think there is a tendency to romanticize in the other direction as well, to heap on the filth, misery, and suffering until it becomes unreal. Unpleasant still, but rather unreal. We're not there yet, in fantasy, but we're rapidly approaching it.
I kinda like Peters's middle ground.
(For people who don't know the series -- I don't recommend starting with either of these books; I recommend starting with A Morbid Taste for Bones. Which is also a good book. One with a fabulous title.)
Idolon by Mark Budz
One of the winners in the WF freebie lotto. I really liked this book. Butz managed to do a near-future setting without it feeling a) dated or b) overly disconnected; as people might have guessed by now, I am not a big fan of antiheroes, acrimony, and angst. I like to have at least one character I can root for.
Budz was remarkably successful in creating a world that was gritty without being depressing, and I liked that. But the really interesting thing about Idolon was the philm. Philm, the book's central conceit, is downloadable imagery which can be displayed on, well, pretty much anything -- your house, your floor, yourself. Budz has a lot of fun talking about the high-tech skin grafts people get, the "casts" of identical philms people join, the various identity issues implied by the need to constantly change your looks, and so on. It's a great conceit. My only complaint is that he doesn't stick with it through the ending and instead goes and visits transcendent-land for a while, which, as we've already established, leaves me sitting on the landing drumming my nails and checking my watch. But it was still a damned good tale overall.
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (Reread)
This is, at the moment, my favorite Discworld novel. (Not my favorite Discworld character -- that would be Sam Vimes.) I have a real weak spot for con men, I think. This was one of the books where I really thought Pratchett hit pay dirt. One didn't laugh aloud so much as with some of his other books -- but one grinned fiercely. A lot.
Also notable for being the first book I got off of BookMooch, which is a very cool service. If only Dan would let me get rid of more books. *sigh*
Impossible Things by Connie Willis (Reread)
My mother mentioned she wanted more short stories, so I bought her this for Christmas. (And then nicked it to read myself. Yes! Self-serving gifting wins again! And Mom liked it, which was a bonus.)
I read this years ago, my freshman year of college, and I honestly think it's gotten better with rereading. Connie Willis is one of those writers I regard with awe; she has that rare ability to hit all the notes, from poignant to chilling to wonderfully funny. It's like meeting a singer with a six-octave range when you only have one; you can but stand and gape in sheer envy.
She hits pretty much all the notes with this collection. I'm not a short story reader, but this is great stuff.
Starfish by Peter Watts
This is one of those books I nearly didn't read. Dan had been pushing it at me for about a year, waxing enthusiastic about how fabulous it was, but the more he pushed it, the less sure I was that I really wanted to read it. It looked like a concept book, and I have a love/hate relationship with those. It looked depressing, another area where I have trouble. And Dan was pushing it so hard, I figured he and I would both be disappointed when I read it. Nothing could be that good.
But finally I broke down and read the thing.
I was wrong. It was that good.
Starfish is a really, really hard book to describe. It is a concept book -- there is all kind of shininess about ocean vents and marine biology in here -- but it is also a book about fucked-up people and what our society does to them. In the case of Starfish, what we do to them is exile them to the bottom of the ocean, child molesters and abuse survivors and bullies and killers, people who've been so bent up by life that they no longer fit in. Instead, they care for power plants at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by other neurotic people, and they're happier there.
And, despite being a book about broken people, it is not depressing. The characters are broken, but they aren't victims. I have a bit of a problem with the victim mentality, so for me this made them utterly sympathetic.
This book made me think. A lot. About a great many things. Go and read it. I really can't recommend this one highly enough.
The Night Watch by Sean Stewart
This is another of those books that's really hard to describe. It's futuristic fantasy, cyberware and magic combined, and it's one of the few I've seen where the magic feels real. This is not D&D magic; it's real magic, uncontrollable, edgy, and frightening. It's not good; it's not bad. It's just magic.
The book is an extraordinarily diffuse one for me; we jump around from character to character, and there is no great, powerful climax, but rather a series of small epiphanies. It's also a book that... well, I suppose I could best describe it as an anti-romance. Not in the sense that it denies love (quite the contrary) but rather in the sense that it explores the dark side of love. The pain of having to set yourself against a loved one, or of failing someone you love, of not being able to protect them. Of losing them.
An odd book, and, like Starfish, one that made me think. I'm still not sure what I'm thinking about, but I would still recommend it to anyone who's tired of formulaic, comfortable fantasy novels. This one's anything but comfortable.
Wow. Not doin' a whole month of those at once again.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 957 words.
Comments: I have been really struggling with this story lately, partly because of where I am in the story, partly because I write best when I'm on a schedule and lately my schedule has been fucked. So yesterday, which was a day off, I decided that enough was enough. Butt in chair time. I'd break this block if it killed me.
It didn't quite kill me, but I spent four hours painfully scratching out two hundred words. Finally, in chat, I got desperate enough to threaten my characters with skipping the scene I was on entirely and going to the next, something I never do. But I was desperate.
And within a few moments of saying that, I got a sentence. Then another. Then another. Then two hours of frantically typing two thousand words which got me through the problem scene.
Behold! The power of pointy stick. I'm gonna remember that one.
Today was not so spectacular, but I did get to skip the four-hours-blank-staring thing and go right to the Good Words. I can live with that.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Chapter openings? I hate 'em. Hate hate hate. It's worse than transitions. In the end I always type some crappy thing like "Elliot woke up" and figure I'll fix it on the rewrite, but it always bugs me.
Snips: Elliot looked groggily down at his dressing gown. "I have no pants."
... mind you, given that his pacifist not-girlfriend just dragged him out of bed and is holding a gun and telling him to hurry, he may have bigger problems than inadequate dress. Inability to prioritize, for example....
Sunday, February 11
Rather late, but here's my book reports for the latter half of January:
Books Read Jan 15 - 31
Myrren's Gift by Fiona McIntosh (Unfinished)
Like Eyes of God, this was an attempt to scratch my high fantasy itch, and it also failed miserably. It was, frustratingly, the book I would have liked, if. The plot was quite good, with some really original points. The characters were interesting and quirky. The setting was generic-medieval and the story started on page 120 (the book, obviously, didn't), but I could have survived that.
If the book hadn't been sabotaged with over-writing.
I got nearly to the end of this book, and I swear, half the reason was the sort of fascinated horror that makes one slow down when passing highway accidents. I couldn't believe the thoroughness and the adroit skill applied to sucking every bit of life out of interesting characters and situations. I kept thinking maybe one would slip through the cracks, but no. The author got 'em all. It was amazing.
Now, mostly this was caused by the fallback of all mediocre writers, violations of the "show, don't tell" rule. If you took all the violations of that rule in this book, bound them in hardback, and used the result to beat the crap out of beginning authors, the world would be a better place. But on those occasions when the author so forgot herself as to actually show something, she became so unnerved by the risk (what if people misunderstood?) that she bent herself over backwards to explain things, from multiple viewpoints, in painstaking detail, in triplicate, so that by the time readers got to the action they just wanted it all to be over and done with.
There was also a lot of intuiting. Characters "instinctively felt" they could trust someone. Characters "just knew" that such-and-such was the right thing to do. Characters fell in love at first sight. You can sneak this by readers a few times, but do it often and some of us will start replacing "his instincts told him..." with "his author told him..." in our own minds. Instinct is not an acceptable substitute for character development and plot causality.
I got about eighty pages from the end before realizing a) I wasn't really enjoying this much, and b) since this was the first book of a series, the author had no obligation to tie up any of the dangling plot threads. Given the quality of the rest of the work, I figured my chances of getting any satisfaction were not good. Time to move on to greener pastures.
The Bookman's Wake by John Dunning
I gather that this is the fourth or fifth installation in the story of Cliff Janeway, policeman-turned-rare-book-dealer -- in fact, I have a vague memory of picking up the first book in the series, then wandering off. Too light on mystery, too heavy on book-geekery, and that's coming from me.
Dunning seems to have caught his balance by this point in the series, though, and I read it in one long sitting -- a gulped meal, as good mysteries generally are. As meals go, it was fairly satisfying. The mystery wasn't the greatest I've read, but it wasn't the worst either: the characters, if not brilliantly rendered, were sturdy and believable, the plot not too great a stretch even if it moved slowly at times. The book-geekery occurred in measured and interesting doses. It's always interesting to get a peek at someone else's obsessions and see the odd, twisty little ways they mirror your own. I adore books with a passion, and the longish scene in which Janeway and the female ingenue are used-bookstore hopping was very familiar... and yet not. I am, at the end of the day, not a collector: I am a reader. I buy these books not to own them but to curl up with them on the couch and devour them. I dog-ear the pages, I break the spines, I pile them in huge, careless heaps on my bookshelves, I write in them when I give them away. The only possible use the copyright page has for me is to tell me when the book was first published. If I have a first edition, it's sheer chance.
Reading this novel has led me to conclude that anyone who lets me get my hands on a first edition ought to be shot. There's an entire world out there -- if a rather small, insular one -- that regards my kind of book-handling with unutterable loathing, a world for whom the actual reading of books is an afterthought at best and sacrilege at worst. An interesting world to visit, even if I wouldn't want to live there.
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
This book got read because Dan found it in the same bookstore where I found Bookman's Wake and stood hovering over me waiting for me to put that book down and shove this one into my hands. Oh, the trauma. Twist my rubber arm.
My Family and Other Animals falls roughly into the same category as the James Herriot novels for me: semi-autobiographical, somewhat about beasties, a lot about people, very British, very funny, and very mad. Only with, um, extra mad. The frame story is about Gerald (who would grow up to become a zookeeper and prominent wildlife conservationist) relocating to the Greek isle of Corfu at the age of ten. There he has many encounters with the native wildlife, animal and human alike, all of them much enlivened by the presence of his eccentric family.
The book is immensely, devastatingly funny: rambling speculations and observations on wildlife, events in Durrell's daily life on the isle, and anecdotes ranging from the mundane to the bizarre all delivered in the same deadpan British voice. The dog's loyal but misguided attack on Mother's frilly bathing costume; Gerald buying a semi-tame seagull from a convict; brother Lawrence's phobia of matchboxes, developed after Gerald had captured a scorpion with her young and left her boxed for safekeeping... I honestly never knew what was going to happen when I turned the page.
I will also note that, even if only half the stories in this book are true, Gerald was bloody fearless as a kid. I like wild animals as well as the next girl, but catch me splashing through the swamp fishing around in the mud after two gigantic snakes I just saw disappear.
A lovely, funny book, recommended whether you like animals or just enjoy a taste of the absurd. I'll definitely be looking for more of these.
Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder
There's only a few hard science fiction writers I can stand to read. Schroeder is one. First, because he's writing about something really different; in the case of Suns, "different" means floating freefall cities built around nuclear-reactor suns, making for a truly bizarre but well-grounded set of societies. Second, and more importantly, because Schroeder performs that oft-forgotten but all-important step of putting actual people in his techno-dreams. And people, moreover, that I like. Gregory Benford, I hope you're taking notes.
Aside from the floating cities, the wild battles, and the woman wounded by a bullet fired in some unknown war millions of miles away (freefall! Nothin' to stop it movin'!), Schroeder also fascinates me with his... I suppose it's best described as a conflicted attitude towards AI. It's not the first time it's come up in his work -- you can see edges of it in Ventus and it's a strong undercurrent in Lady of Mazes. Schroeder seems to take the position that people in his future need to be protected from the all-powerful AIs, not because the AIs are hostile, but because the AIs can do and be everything... and thus there is no particular need for humans to do or be anything.
It's not a world-view I agree is an inevitable consequence of true AI, and certainly not one I would care to write about, but it's fascinating to watch Schroeder exploring all the consequences.
At any rate, aside from the techno-dream and the good characters, this is also a whizz-bang great bloody fun adventure story. If you've been looking for your sensawunda, I suggest you look for it here.
Stamping Butterflies by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
I'd tried to read Grimwood previously, in some of his earlier cyberpunk efforts, and put it down with the conclusion it was not for me. The violence was excessive, the characters were annoying, and Grimwood had fallen victim to the concept of "eyeball kicks" -- that cyberpunk invention which, used properly, presents the reader with a dazzling Vegas-esque collage of imagery and, used improperly, presents the reader with an indigestible lump of sentence fragments which will nevertheless not be criticized for fear of sounding like a plebe. They are used properly about 2% of the time.
But the concept of Butterflies looked fascinating, and the book was free, so I thought I'd give Grimwood another go.
My conclusion was that he's become a very good writer for someone else to read.
Don't get me wrong. Butterflies is a good book, and I was chewing over it for a day or two afterwards, always a good sign. But it lost me. Grimwood's kicked the eyeball habit, thank god, and the violence was more moderate, but the characters still didn't do it for me. They were good. I kinda wanted to like them. And Grimwood's got an amazing way with snapshots, little fragments of moments that perfectly sum up a character -- this gesture, that turn of phrase. It was really a pity that the snapshots didn't mesh with each other into an actual running movie. Character hooks? Brilliant. Character consistency? Nonexistent. Nothing but a series of hooks and moments that seemed to have little to do with each other even when they weren't actively contradictory.
If I'd had a better sense of the characters, the end might have resonated with me. But I didn't, and frankly it struck me as not much of an improvement on the "and then they woke up" ending.
This was, in concept, a good book. You may well like this book. But I couldn't.
I will now get back to the trying-desperately-not-to-be-sick. Or, at least, not to look sick. My parents are leaving for their first real vacation in a year on Tuesday, leaving me in charge of the farm, and my paranoid workaholic father is perfectly capable of canceling the tickets even at this late hour over my measly little head cold.
*drinks the cure for all sick and sulks*
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: Um, 436 words. I'm hoping to get more when I get back from work. Why is it that whenever I post to the blog I've not made quota?
Comments: My subplots are trying to kill me.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: ... pretty much all of them suck today.
Books Read Jan 15 - 31
Myrren's Gift by Fiona McIntosh (Unfinished)
Like Eyes of God, this was an attempt to scratch my high fantasy itch, and it also failed miserably. It was, frustratingly, the book I would have liked, if. The plot was quite good, with some really original points. The characters were interesting and quirky. The setting was generic-medieval and the story started on page 120 (the book, obviously, didn't), but I could have survived that.
If the book hadn't been sabotaged with over-writing.
I got nearly to the end of this book, and I swear, half the reason was the sort of fascinated horror that makes one slow down when passing highway accidents. I couldn't believe the thoroughness and the adroit skill applied to sucking every bit of life out of interesting characters and situations. I kept thinking maybe one would slip through the cracks, but no. The author got 'em all. It was amazing.
Now, mostly this was caused by the fallback of all mediocre writers, violations of the "show, don't tell" rule. If you took all the violations of that rule in this book, bound them in hardback, and used the result to beat the crap out of beginning authors, the world would be a better place. But on those occasions when the author so forgot herself as to actually show something, she became so unnerved by the risk (what if people misunderstood?) that she bent herself over backwards to explain things, from multiple viewpoints, in painstaking detail, in triplicate, so that by the time readers got to the action they just wanted it all to be over and done with.
There was also a lot of intuiting. Characters "instinctively felt" they could trust someone. Characters "just knew" that such-and-such was the right thing to do. Characters fell in love at first sight. You can sneak this by readers a few times, but do it often and some of us will start replacing "his instincts told him..." with "his author told him..." in our own minds. Instinct is not an acceptable substitute for character development and plot causality.
I got about eighty pages from the end before realizing a) I wasn't really enjoying this much, and b) since this was the first book of a series, the author had no obligation to tie up any of the dangling plot threads. Given the quality of the rest of the work, I figured my chances of getting any satisfaction were not good. Time to move on to greener pastures.
The Bookman's Wake by John Dunning
I gather that this is the fourth or fifth installation in the story of Cliff Janeway, policeman-turned-rare-book-dealer -- in fact, I have a vague memory of picking up the first book in the series, then wandering off. Too light on mystery, too heavy on book-geekery, and that's coming from me.
Dunning seems to have caught his balance by this point in the series, though, and I read it in one long sitting -- a gulped meal, as good mysteries generally are. As meals go, it was fairly satisfying. The mystery wasn't the greatest I've read, but it wasn't the worst either: the characters, if not brilliantly rendered, were sturdy and believable, the plot not too great a stretch even if it moved slowly at times. The book-geekery occurred in measured and interesting doses. It's always interesting to get a peek at someone else's obsessions and see the odd, twisty little ways they mirror your own. I adore books with a passion, and the longish scene in which Janeway and the female ingenue are used-bookstore hopping was very familiar... and yet not. I am, at the end of the day, not a collector: I am a reader. I buy these books not to own them but to curl up with them on the couch and devour them. I dog-ear the pages, I break the spines, I pile them in huge, careless heaps on my bookshelves, I write in them when I give them away. The only possible use the copyright page has for me is to tell me when the book was first published. If I have a first edition, it's sheer chance.
Reading this novel has led me to conclude that anyone who lets me get my hands on a first edition ought to be shot. There's an entire world out there -- if a rather small, insular one -- that regards my kind of book-handling with unutterable loathing, a world for whom the actual reading of books is an afterthought at best and sacrilege at worst. An interesting world to visit, even if I wouldn't want to live there.
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
This book got read because Dan found it in the same bookstore where I found Bookman's Wake and stood hovering over me waiting for me to put that book down and shove this one into my hands. Oh, the trauma. Twist my rubber arm.
My Family and Other Animals falls roughly into the same category as the James Herriot novels for me: semi-autobiographical, somewhat about beasties, a lot about people, very British, very funny, and very mad. Only with, um, extra mad. The frame story is about Gerald (who would grow up to become a zookeeper and prominent wildlife conservationist) relocating to the Greek isle of Corfu at the age of ten. There he has many encounters with the native wildlife, animal and human alike, all of them much enlivened by the presence of his eccentric family.
The book is immensely, devastatingly funny: rambling speculations and observations on wildlife, events in Durrell's daily life on the isle, and anecdotes ranging from the mundane to the bizarre all delivered in the same deadpan British voice. The dog's loyal but misguided attack on Mother's frilly bathing costume; Gerald buying a semi-tame seagull from a convict; brother Lawrence's phobia of matchboxes, developed after Gerald had captured a scorpion with her young and left her boxed for safekeeping... I honestly never knew what was going to happen when I turned the page.
I will also note that, even if only half the stories in this book are true, Gerald was bloody fearless as a kid. I like wild animals as well as the next girl, but catch me splashing through the swamp fishing around in the mud after two gigantic snakes I just saw disappear.
A lovely, funny book, recommended whether you like animals or just enjoy a taste of the absurd. I'll definitely be looking for more of these.
Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder
There's only a few hard science fiction writers I can stand to read. Schroeder is one. First, because he's writing about something really different; in the case of Suns, "different" means floating freefall cities built around nuclear-reactor suns, making for a truly bizarre but well-grounded set of societies. Second, and more importantly, because Schroeder performs that oft-forgotten but all-important step of putting actual people in his techno-dreams. And people, moreover, that I like. Gregory Benford, I hope you're taking notes.
Aside from the floating cities, the wild battles, and the woman wounded by a bullet fired in some unknown war millions of miles away (freefall! Nothin' to stop it movin'!), Schroeder also fascinates me with his... I suppose it's best described as a conflicted attitude towards AI. It's not the first time it's come up in his work -- you can see edges of it in Ventus and it's a strong undercurrent in Lady of Mazes. Schroeder seems to take the position that people in his future need to be protected from the all-powerful AIs, not because the AIs are hostile, but because the AIs can do and be everything... and thus there is no particular need for humans to do or be anything.
It's not a world-view I agree is an inevitable consequence of true AI, and certainly not one I would care to write about, but it's fascinating to watch Schroeder exploring all the consequences.
At any rate, aside from the techno-dream and the good characters, this is also a whizz-bang great bloody fun adventure story. If you've been looking for your sensawunda, I suggest you look for it here.
Stamping Butterflies by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
I'd tried to read Grimwood previously, in some of his earlier cyberpunk efforts, and put it down with the conclusion it was not for me. The violence was excessive, the characters were annoying, and Grimwood had fallen victim to the concept of "eyeball kicks" -- that cyberpunk invention which, used properly, presents the reader with a dazzling Vegas-esque collage of imagery and, used improperly, presents the reader with an indigestible lump of sentence fragments which will nevertheless not be criticized for fear of sounding like a plebe. They are used properly about 2% of the time.
But the concept of Butterflies looked fascinating, and the book was free, so I thought I'd give Grimwood another go.
My conclusion was that he's become a very good writer for someone else to read.
Don't get me wrong. Butterflies is a good book, and I was chewing over it for a day or two afterwards, always a good sign. But it lost me. Grimwood's kicked the eyeball habit, thank god, and the violence was more moderate, but the characters still didn't do it for me. They were good. I kinda wanted to like them. And Grimwood's got an amazing way with snapshots, little fragments of moments that perfectly sum up a character -- this gesture, that turn of phrase. It was really a pity that the snapshots didn't mesh with each other into an actual running movie. Character hooks? Brilliant. Character consistency? Nonexistent. Nothing but a series of hooks and moments that seemed to have little to do with each other even when they weren't actively contradictory.
If I'd had a better sense of the characters, the end might have resonated with me. But I didn't, and frankly it struck me as not much of an improvement on the "and then they woke up" ending.
This was, in concept, a good book. You may well like this book. But I couldn't.
I will now get back to the trying-desperately-not-to-be-sick. Or, at least, not to look sick. My parents are leaving for their first real vacation in a year on Tuesday, leaving me in charge of the farm, and my paranoid workaholic father is perfectly capable of canceling the tickets even at this late hour over my measly little head cold.
*drinks the cure for all sick and sulks*
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: Um, 436 words. I'm hoping to get more when I get back from work. Why is it that whenever I post to the blog I've not made quota?
Comments: My subplots are trying to kill me.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: ... pretty much all of them suck today.
Thursday, January 25
So I made a pact with myself to keep track of my reading for this year and blog about it, and I have been doing the first faithfully. Only... if I do a month's worth of books in one post, as originally planned, y'all will hate me as the spammiest of spam spammers. At the current reading rate, anyway.
So I'm dividing the month in half. We'll see how that goes, shall we?
Books Read Jan 1 - 15
Rocket Science, by Jay Lake (aka jaylake).
This was a nifty little book and a good way to start off the new year. You can tell, I think, that this is a first novel and that Lake got his start doing short stories; the writing has a staccato feel to it, but remains free of most of the typical first novel errors. The real accomplishment in it, to my mind, was to recapture the breezy, optimistic, innocent feel of 40s and 50s science fiction (admittedly, by writing a bit of science fiction set in the 40s) without replicating the myriad category errors of the time. It was also a pleasure to read some positive science fiction for a change; despite the narrator being literally beset with Nazis, bootleggers, Russian spies, and the government, it was overall a cheerful and uplifting little book. If you miss Heinlein's early stuff (you know, pre-incest-kick) you should check this one out.
With Child by Laurie R. King
This is one of the good Kings -- the ones where she balances her fascination with character and her actual plot near-perfectly, to my ear at least. A warning to those who like linear plots: the atmospheric still far outweighs the action... but the atmosphere is so spot-on, the sense of being this cop watching children die so heart-breakingly clear at times, that one forgives the lack of a clear, beginning-to-end journey from Point A to Point B.
I remain fascinated with how well King deals with her lesbian protagonist in the Kate Martinelli mysteries. When something is quite so, hrm, contested, as homosexuality, it's difficult to write a homosexual character who isn't in some way a statement. But King does it; the Lesbian Issue slips in and out of Kate's life, present but generally less important than her issues with being a cop, fights with her lover, struggles with her case load. It's as if (heaven forbid!) a character could have a non-standard sexual orientation and yet not be defined entirely by it, but remain a person in her own right... which is in itself a statement, but a subtle one. (Subtle enough that the people who occasionally write King on her blog to whine that the Martinelli mysteries don't have a warning label seem to have entirely missed it, in fact.)
At any rate, most recommended if you enjoy beautiful characterization and rambling plot.
The Ghost Brigades by by John Scalzi
What I said above about Jay Lake? Also goes for this book. Except the set-in-the-40s bit and all that stuff about Nazis.
Seriously, this is a good, fun read, far better in my opinion than his debut Old Man's War. OMW was, for the most part, a great set of ideas and witty comebacks strung together with random incidents; Ghost Brigades is a great set of ideas and witty comebacks strung together with an actual plot. The difference is most pleasant.
It's also another book that ought to be downbeat, but strangely is not. I think the difference is in the feeling that the protagonists have sacrificed for a cause, that the world at large is a better place at the end of the book than at the beginning. I'm a fan of this, as you might have gathered. The world hands me enough dismal, conflicted resolutions. I like 'em in measured doses only in my fiction.
Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Crusie (Reread)
Crusie is one of the only romance writers I read. She's also a regular on my comfort-reading bookshelf for those times when I don't have the brainpower to delve into something new: just the right mix of fluff, funny, and frightening.
Tell Me Lies is pretty patented Crusie. On the one side of the coin is a cheeky, funny little romance... but flip it over and you've got the story of a woman trapped in a bad marriage by her daughter's needs and small-town expectations. I've come to the conclusion over the years that Crusie isn't afraid of much. She's not afraid to write sex scenes that will have you simultaneously turned on and howling with laughter. And she's also not afraid to write scenes like the wife-beating one in this book, scenes that make me want to crawl under the table and stay there until I stop feeling creeped out. It's a fearlessness I wish I had more of.
Whether you read romance or not, you should really check Jennifer Crusie out. She's candy with a hard centre.
Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold (Reread)
Another selection from my comfort reading shelf. I musta been having a bad week.
Someday I'm going to dissect a Bujold book as a study on writing a character novel with good, chunky plot, and if I do, it'll be this one. Because really? The whole blow-up-the-sky-mirror plot? Total filler and background for the character bits. And we don't care. The character bits are that good.
In related news, in like the tenth reread of this book, I have finally gotten to the end without Eskaterin making me cry. Now if I can just make it through the dinner party in Civil Campaign without ending up in a small, horrified ball of sympathetic humiliation, I'll be all set.
It was odd reading this book back-to-back with Tell Me Lies, because they have a similar trapped-in-bad-marriage theme... I'd never noticed before how similar. It was interesting that both women defended their marriage with "he never hits me..." damnation by weak praise if there ever was. But the differences are striking too. In TML Maddie doesn't want a divorce because she fears what it will do to her reputation, her mother, and her daughter, in reverse order of importance. In Komarr Eskaterin is afraid of what divorce (which she regards as oathbreaking) will do to her, not to mention what it will do to her dependent, emotionally damaged husband. The Edie Brickell line "suicide to stay and murder to leave" sums up her situation rather aptly. They end up with cages that look quite different from the inside, all too similar from the out.
So that's my light, cheerful, fluffy reading. On to....
The Eyes of God by John Marco (Unfinished)
Well, there had to be one wash in the batch, and this was it. It was a WF freebie; I picked it up because I was in the mood for a bit of high fantasy, a genre I love dearly when done right. This wasn't.
The book did three major things wrong, each of which could have been made bearable by a success in other regions but which, piled on top of each other, made the book utterly unreadable. The writing was.... well, stylistically I can only call it workmanlike; there weren't any actual errors, but neither was there any sense that the author had any ear whatsoever for sentence rhythm or turns of phrase. The pacing was utter crap, and the author's apparent need to give readers every bit of information at least three times and in the most blatant way possible stretched the book's length to an unbelievable 779 pages. The setting and plot were both derivative, the first a regurgitation of generic-medieval with a few serial numbers filed off, the second an utterly predictable replay of the Arthurian love-triangle, with additional, um, predictability.
Now, both of these things could have been salvaged by good characters; I like me some character, and will forgive many sins if it is delivered. But alas. The Arthur-analogue is Good. This is his only defining characteristic. There is no indication as to how he became Good or why he's Good or anything else; no, he just sits there in the middle of the plot, smugly Good. The Guinevere-analogue is a chameleon, growing and discarding personality traits as best suits the plot. The Lancelot-analogue is the most consistent and believable of the three; too bad he's a consistent and believable asshole.
I think there may have been a decent book in here somewhere -- there were hints at a quest plot and some intriguing stuff about crippled children -- but with 779 pages to hide in, it wasn't worth my while looking.
(See? See? I knew what I was talking about. Now I am only... uh... a sort of medium f-list spammer. Maybe. *hangs head*)
So I'm dividing the month in half. We'll see how that goes, shall we?
Books Read Jan 1 - 15
Rocket Science, by Jay Lake (aka jaylake).
This was a nifty little book and a good way to start off the new year. You can tell, I think, that this is a first novel and that Lake got his start doing short stories; the writing has a staccato feel to it, but remains free of most of the typical first novel errors. The real accomplishment in it, to my mind, was to recapture the breezy, optimistic, innocent feel of 40s and 50s science fiction (admittedly, by writing a bit of science fiction set in the 40s) without replicating the myriad category errors of the time. It was also a pleasure to read some positive science fiction for a change; despite the narrator being literally beset with Nazis, bootleggers, Russian spies, and the government, it was overall a cheerful and uplifting little book. If you miss Heinlein's early stuff (you know, pre-incest-kick) you should check this one out.
With Child by Laurie R. King
This is one of the good Kings -- the ones where she balances her fascination with character and her actual plot near-perfectly, to my ear at least. A warning to those who like linear plots: the atmospheric still far outweighs the action... but the atmosphere is so spot-on, the sense of being this cop watching children die so heart-breakingly clear at times, that one forgives the lack of a clear, beginning-to-end journey from Point A to Point B.
I remain fascinated with how well King deals with her lesbian protagonist in the Kate Martinelli mysteries. When something is quite so, hrm, contested, as homosexuality, it's difficult to write a homosexual character who isn't in some way a statement. But King does it; the Lesbian Issue slips in and out of Kate's life, present but generally less important than her issues with being a cop, fights with her lover, struggles with her case load. It's as if (heaven forbid!) a character could have a non-standard sexual orientation and yet not be defined entirely by it, but remain a person in her own right... which is in itself a statement, but a subtle one. (Subtle enough that the people who occasionally write King on her blog to whine that the Martinelli mysteries don't have a warning label seem to have entirely missed it, in fact.)
At any rate, most recommended if you enjoy beautiful characterization and rambling plot.
The Ghost Brigades by by John Scalzi
What I said above about Jay Lake? Also goes for this book. Except the set-in-the-40s bit and all that stuff about Nazis.
Seriously, this is a good, fun read, far better in my opinion than his debut Old Man's War. OMW was, for the most part, a great set of ideas and witty comebacks strung together with random incidents; Ghost Brigades is a great set of ideas and witty comebacks strung together with an actual plot. The difference is most pleasant.
It's also another book that ought to be downbeat, but strangely is not. I think the difference is in the feeling that the protagonists have sacrificed for a cause, that the world at large is a better place at the end of the book than at the beginning. I'm a fan of this, as you might have gathered. The world hands me enough dismal, conflicted resolutions. I like 'em in measured doses only in my fiction.
Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Crusie (Reread)
Crusie is one of the only romance writers I read. She's also a regular on my comfort-reading bookshelf for those times when I don't have the brainpower to delve into something new: just the right mix of fluff, funny, and frightening.
Tell Me Lies is pretty patented Crusie. On the one side of the coin is a cheeky, funny little romance... but flip it over and you've got the story of a woman trapped in a bad marriage by her daughter's needs and small-town expectations. I've come to the conclusion over the years that Crusie isn't afraid of much. She's not afraid to write sex scenes that will have you simultaneously turned on and howling with laughter. And she's also not afraid to write scenes like the wife-beating one in this book, scenes that make me want to crawl under the table and stay there until I stop feeling creeped out. It's a fearlessness I wish I had more of.
Whether you read romance or not, you should really check Jennifer Crusie out. She's candy with a hard centre.
Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold (Reread)
Another selection from my comfort reading shelf. I musta been having a bad week.
Someday I'm going to dissect a Bujold book as a study on writing a character novel with good, chunky plot, and if I do, it'll be this one. Because really? The whole blow-up-the-sky-mirror plot? Total filler and background for the character bits. And we don't care. The character bits are that good.
In related news, in like the tenth reread of this book, I have finally gotten to the end without Eskaterin making me cry. Now if I can just make it through the dinner party in Civil Campaign without ending up in a small, horrified ball of sympathetic humiliation, I'll be all set.
It was odd reading this book back-to-back with Tell Me Lies, because they have a similar trapped-in-bad-marriage theme... I'd never noticed before how similar. It was interesting that both women defended their marriage with "he never hits me..." damnation by weak praise if there ever was. But the differences are striking too. In TML Maddie doesn't want a divorce because she fears what it will do to her reputation, her mother, and her daughter, in reverse order of importance. In Komarr Eskaterin is afraid of what divorce (which she regards as oathbreaking) will do to her, not to mention what it will do to her dependent, emotionally damaged husband. The Edie Brickell line "suicide to stay and murder to leave" sums up her situation rather aptly. They end up with cages that look quite different from the inside, all too similar from the out.
So that's my light, cheerful, fluffy reading. On to....
The Eyes of God by John Marco (Unfinished)
Well, there had to be one wash in the batch, and this was it. It was a WF freebie; I picked it up because I was in the mood for a bit of high fantasy, a genre I love dearly when done right. This wasn't.
The book did three major things wrong, each of which could have been made bearable by a success in other regions but which, piled on top of each other, made the book utterly unreadable. The writing was.... well, stylistically I can only call it workmanlike; there weren't any actual errors, but neither was there any sense that the author had any ear whatsoever for sentence rhythm or turns of phrase. The pacing was utter crap, and the author's apparent need to give readers every bit of information at least three times and in the most blatant way possible stretched the book's length to an unbelievable 779 pages. The setting and plot were both derivative, the first a regurgitation of generic-medieval with a few serial numbers filed off, the second an utterly predictable replay of the Arthurian love-triangle, with additional, um, predictability.
Now, both of these things could have been salvaged by good characters; I like me some character, and will forgive many sins if it is delivered. But alas. The Arthur-analogue is Good. This is his only defining characteristic. There is no indication as to how he became Good or why he's Good or anything else; no, he just sits there in the middle of the plot, smugly Good. The Guinevere-analogue is a chameleon, growing and discarding personality traits as best suits the plot. The Lancelot-analogue is the most consistent and believable of the three; too bad he's a consistent and believable asshole.
I think there may have been a decent book in here somewhere -- there were hints at a quest plot and some intriguing stuff about crippled children -- but with 779 pages to hide in, it wasn't worth my while looking.
(See? See? I knew what I was talking about. Now I am only... uh... a sort of medium f-list spammer. Maybe. *hangs head*)
Tuesday, November 21
"This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished, and put an asterisk* beside the ones you loved."
Now with commentary!
1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien* Read it when I was seven. It rocked my world then. It rocks my world now. And I still have hippie-environmentalist-gasms over the Retaking of the Shire.
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov I'm pretty sure there were more than three of these. Either that, or those three were even longer and duller than I remember. I mean, I like Asimov in a way, but even as a kid I used to visualise poking the characters so's to watch them fall over with a cardboard clatter.
3. Dune, Frank Herbert Read when I was eleven. There were cool wormies and the sequels sucked. Hmm. That I can't remember more probably means it's due a reread.
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein *sigh* Sex, cannibalism, bouncy interchangeable women. Fine, Bob. You're cutting edge. Now go away.
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin* Actually this book freaked me out as a child, in that "freaked so I read it a dozen times" kind of way. That shadow-thing was creepy. Tombs was probably my favorite of the trilogy, though.
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson Pretty shiny things. Shame the main character is a waste of good oxygen.
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick Look, man, it's Dick. It's like scoring acid for the price of a paperback. I swear I walk funny after he's done with my brain....
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley This book was responsible for my mother's frequent announcements of, "We need rain, kids, so your father and I will be upstairs performing a fertility ritual. Bye!" Do you think it's too late to sue for emotional scarring?
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury Mmm. Scary post-apocolyptic Bradbury. Not my favorite of his stuff, but I don't think it's possible for the man to write bad.
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe -- I never got the hang of Wolfe. I can see the good there, but it's like reading a dream, and I like my waking hours with causality and basic logic, thanks.
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. It's on the pile! Honest!
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish I really liked bits of these, didn't like other bits, found other bits quaint and dated. The first of the cycle is probably my favorite.
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett Read it at twelve and became a Pratchett fan for life, though in retrospect twelve was probably the best age to read it.
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester I can count the number of antihero stories I like on the fingers of one hand. This is the pinkie.
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey Dammit, I won't diss McCaffery; she was one of the major delights of my childhood, even if now I read her prose and flinch a bit. It may be fluff, but it's fluff with power.
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card This one, on the other hand, I think i was a bit old for when I read it. It reads like overly pretentious martyrdom to me. Well-written, but subtextually suspect.
23. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson Ick, ick, ick. What a pointlessly depressing series that was. Of course, I was ten when I read it, which probably didn't help.
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman Another mixed experience: really liked bits, but there were a lot of other bits that were uncomfortably dated.
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling It's bubble gum, but hey, sometimes you need a little bubble gum. And anything that makes more kids read is good in my book.
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams Hee! Like Pratchett, I read it young, though these days I like Pratchett a lot more -- less bitter. Still. Adams is da man.
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin* Very. Good. Book. But LeGuin is an idol of mine; I can't be objective about her.
31. Little, Big, John Crowley I know I read this, and as an adult, but my only memory of it is a vague sensation of dreamlike things happening in a very big house. This often happens to me with Crowley, sadly.
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny I read it. It was okay, but I never got what all the fuss was about.
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick I had to look this up on Wikipedia to make sure I'd read it; all of Dick tends to blur into one massive paranoid drug-trip after a while. I have, though, and liked it.
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement Not on my list. I have read Hal Clement. It's hard to think of a more boring way to spend an afternoon short of reading an actual physics paper.
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith* Man. This was... some seriously beautiful stuff. Hard to say much about it more than that. Simply beautiful.
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute Uh, I listened to "Walk Me Out In the Morning Dew". Does that count?
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien Well, I fell asleep over it, anyways. Do yourself a favor and stick with the stuff Tolkien considered publishable.
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson* Hee. Far more my style than Gibson. Though Stephenson doesn't seem to know how to deal with endings, and hadn't yet hit on the ultimate solution as seen in his most recent series, eg, "just keep going, they'll buy it!"
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner Sheep Look Up was enough terrifying goodness for me.
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester That antiheroes-on-one-hand thing? Yup. This is the thumb. Or maybe the index finger, who cares?
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein Nice read, but I fail to see anything more striking than that in it.
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks What? They were fun books. Not very original, but if stealing plot was the way for Brooks to escape the mind-numbing dullness of some of his later works, then so be it.
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
----
Twenty-nine out of fifty's not too bad. But man. So many books. So little time.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 434
Comments: Woke up cranky and still made myself write. Mind over matter! Virtue over sloth! I don't have to like it, though.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Must stop dogpiling gestures. The reader will get the idea even if I don't include the faint sideways tilt of her head as she twitched her fingers and raised an eyebrow while... BAD KAT!
Snips: Nothing good today.
Now with commentary!
1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien* Read it when I was seven. It rocked my world then. It rocks my world now. And I still have hippie-environmentalist-gasms over the Retaking of the Shire.
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov I'm pretty sure there were more than three of these. Either that, or those three were even longer and duller than I remember. I mean, I like Asimov in a way, but even as a kid I used to visualise poking the characters so's to watch them fall over with a cardboard clatter.
3. Dune, Frank Herbert Read when I was eleven. There were cool wormies and the sequels sucked. Hmm. That I can't remember more probably means it's due a reread.
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein *sigh* Sex, cannibalism, bouncy interchangeable women. Fine, Bob. You're cutting edge. Now go away.
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin* Actually this book freaked me out as a child, in that "freaked so I read it a dozen times" kind of way. That shadow-thing was creepy. Tombs was probably my favorite of the trilogy, though.
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson Pretty shiny things. Shame the main character is a waste of good oxygen.
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick Look, man, it's Dick. It's like scoring acid for the price of a paperback. I swear I walk funny after he's done with my brain....
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley This book was responsible for my mother's frequent announcements of, "We need rain, kids, so your father and I will be upstairs performing a fertility ritual. Bye!" Do you think it's too late to sue for emotional scarring?
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury Mmm. Scary post-apocolyptic Bradbury. Not my favorite of his stuff, but I don't think it's possible for the man to write bad.
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe -- I never got the hang of Wolfe. I can see the good there, but it's like reading a dream, and I like my waking hours with causality and basic logic, thanks.
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. It's on the pile! Honest!
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish I really liked bits of these, didn't like other bits, found other bits quaint and dated. The first of the cycle is probably my favorite.
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett Read it at twelve and became a Pratchett fan for life, though in retrospect twelve was probably the best age to read it.
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester I can count the number of antihero stories I like on the fingers of one hand. This is the pinkie.
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey Dammit, I won't diss McCaffery; she was one of the major delights of my childhood, even if now I read her prose and flinch a bit. It may be fluff, but it's fluff with power.
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card This one, on the other hand, I think i was a bit old for when I read it. It reads like overly pretentious martyrdom to me. Well-written, but subtextually suspect.
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman Another mixed experience: really liked bits, but there were a lot of other bits that were uncomfortably dated.
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling It's bubble gum, but hey, sometimes you need a little bubble gum. And anything that makes more kids read is good in my book.
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams Hee! Like Pratchett, I read it young, though these days I like Pratchett a lot more -- less bitter. Still. Adams is da man.
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin* Very. Good. Book. But LeGuin is an idol of mine; I can't be objective about her.
31. Little, Big, John Crowley I know I read this, and as an adult, but my only memory of it is a vague sensation of dreamlike things happening in a very big house. This often happens to me with Crowley, sadly.
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny I read it. It was okay, but I never got what all the fuss was about.
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick I had to look this up on Wikipedia to make sure I'd read it; all of Dick tends to blur into one massive paranoid drug-trip after a while. I have, though, and liked it.
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement Not on my list. I have read Hal Clement. It's hard to think of a more boring way to spend an afternoon short of reading an actual physics paper.
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith* Man. This was... some seriously beautiful stuff. Hard to say much about it more than that. Simply beautiful.
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute Uh, I listened to "Walk Me Out In the Morning Dew". Does that count?
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien Well, I fell asleep over it, anyways. Do yourself a favor and stick with the stuff Tolkien considered publishable.
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson* Hee. Far more my style than Gibson. Though Stephenson doesn't seem to know how to deal with endings, and hadn't yet hit on the ultimate solution as seen in his most recent series, eg, "just keep going, they'll buy it!"
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner Sheep Look Up was enough terrifying goodness for me.
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester That antiheroes-on-one-hand thing? Yup. This is the thumb. Or maybe the index finger, who cares?
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein Nice read, but I fail to see anything more striking than that in it.
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks What? They were fun books. Not very original, but if stealing plot was the way for Brooks to escape the mind-numbing dullness of some of his later works, then so be it.
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
----
Twenty-nine out of fifty's not too bad. But man. So many books. So little time.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 434
Comments: Woke up cranky and still made myself write. Mind over matter! Virtue over sloth! I don't have to like it, though.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Must stop dogpiling gestures. The reader will get the idea even if I don't include the faint sideways tilt of her head as she twitched her fingers and raised an eyebrow while... BAD KAT!
Snips: Nothing good today.
Monday, November 20
The beginning of the World Fantasy Swag reviews:
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
As a child, Locke Lamora stole from policemen, started a riot, and finally committed a crime so dire that it forced his master the Thiefmaker to sell him in the dead of night to the Eyeless Priest. Now, as an adult, Locke and his fellow Gentleman Bastards are in the middle of carrying out the greatest sting of his lifetime: robbing a nobleman... a nobleman who knows he's a thief. Now if only Locke can keep the city's crimelord from finding out he's violating the Secret Peace by robbing the aristocracy -- or getting married off to said crimelord's beautiful daughter. If only he can keep one step ahead of the Duke's dreaded Midnighters. If only he can keep clear of the Grey King who seems determined to wipe out the city's greatest criminals....
But this is Locke Lamora. And while the Eyeless Priest may have succeeded in teaching him how to lie his way out of trouble, he never managed to show him how to stay out of it.
Scott Lynch's first novel is an addictive mix of richly imagined fantasy book, swashbuckling adventure, and caper story. It's Robin Hood for the world-weary. It's an Errol Flynn movie for grownups. Locke and his fellow Gentleman Bastards are an endearing mixture of the cynical and the touchingly naive: a group of hardheaded scoundrels and liars who are also orphans, survivors, and brothers; a batch of shameless thieves who laugh at their victims but are endearingly confused about what to do with their ill-gotten gains. The other characters, the city, and for that matter the entire story exist in the same precarious balance. It's not that the book eschews questions of good and evil -- quite the contrary -- but it achieves a sense of gritty realism without succumbing to the pseudo-literary air of gloom, bitterness, and depression that so often goes along with it. It's real, but it's also fun.
It's rare for me to give a genuinely glowing review, but this book deserves it. Go. Read. Join me in hoping the sequel will be out soon. You won't regret it.
(In the interests of full disclosure: I met Scott Lynch at World Fantasy and liked him, and I've been reading his blog since the Writerbo post, which had a lot to do with our buying the book. It had nothing to do with me writing a good review of the book, or for that matter for Dan and I (after a shared reading of the prologue) nearly coming to blows over who got to read it first. And frankly we only settled the thing peaceably because it would have been such a shame to get blood on the book.)
----
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 524 words.
Comments: At this point in my writing career I've learned to seriously worldbuild ahead of time (that I not commit cardboard-cutout setting) and to outline (that I not forget to include important things -- like, say, a plot). And generally my world and my outline look all pretty and reasonable and realistic on paper. But it isn't until I start writing that I learn whether they'll work. Writing isn't science. It doesn't matter how well I put the body together. If the lightning don't strike, the bitch don't breathe.
Today... well, some of the subplots are definitely not breathing, and some others may require CPR, and there's still quite a few bits that I'm not sure whether I'm laying groundwork or merely spewing blather that I will have to cut on the rewrite. But a huge chunk of the main plot just sat up, took a look around, and started making snide commentary on the furniture. Today is the first concrete sign I've had that the book works.
It's a good feeling.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: I wrote a chunk of action, and then a chunk of conversation, and then another chunk of action, and then sat there for five minutes scratching my head over why they were all boring and the pacing felt wrong before I realized that, y'know, perhaps it would be better if I interspaced conversation with action. Because things do not have to happen in a linear manner. Slow on the uptake, me.
Snips: "Dammit, Gwen, run! I'll stay here and try to distract her."
Now she did look down, her expression amused. "Did you get hit on the head, or are you always afflicted with situational stupidity?"
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
As a child, Locke Lamora stole from policemen, started a riot, and finally committed a crime so dire that it forced his master the Thiefmaker to sell him in the dead of night to the Eyeless Priest. Now, as an adult, Locke and his fellow Gentleman Bastards are in the middle of carrying out the greatest sting of his lifetime: robbing a nobleman... a nobleman who knows he's a thief. Now if only Locke can keep the city's crimelord from finding out he's violating the Secret Peace by robbing the aristocracy -- or getting married off to said crimelord's beautiful daughter. If only he can keep one step ahead of the Duke's dreaded Midnighters. If only he can keep clear of the Grey King who seems determined to wipe out the city's greatest criminals....
But this is Locke Lamora. And while the Eyeless Priest may have succeeded in teaching him how to lie his way out of trouble, he never managed to show him how to stay out of it.
Scott Lynch's first novel is an addictive mix of richly imagined fantasy book, swashbuckling adventure, and caper story. It's Robin Hood for the world-weary. It's an Errol Flynn movie for grownups. Locke and his fellow Gentleman Bastards are an endearing mixture of the cynical and the touchingly naive: a group of hardheaded scoundrels and liars who are also orphans, survivors, and brothers; a batch of shameless thieves who laugh at their victims but are endearingly confused about what to do with their ill-gotten gains. The other characters, the city, and for that matter the entire story exist in the same precarious balance. It's not that the book eschews questions of good and evil -- quite the contrary -- but it achieves a sense of gritty realism without succumbing to the pseudo-literary air of gloom, bitterness, and depression that so often goes along with it. It's real, but it's also fun.
It's rare for me to give a genuinely glowing review, but this book deserves it. Go. Read. Join me in hoping the sequel will be out soon. You won't regret it.
(In the interests of full disclosure: I met Scott Lynch at World Fantasy and liked him, and I've been reading his blog since the Writerbo post, which had a lot to do with our buying the book. It had nothing to do with me writing a good review of the book, or for that matter for Dan and I (after a shared reading of the prologue) nearly coming to blows over who got to read it first. And frankly we only settled the thing peaceably because it would have been such a shame to get blood on the book.)
----
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 524 words.
Comments: At this point in my writing career I've learned to seriously worldbuild ahead of time (that I not commit cardboard-cutout setting) and to outline (that I not forget to include important things -- like, say, a plot). And generally my world and my outline look all pretty and reasonable and realistic on paper. But it isn't until I start writing that I learn whether they'll work. Writing isn't science. It doesn't matter how well I put the body together. If the lightning don't strike, the bitch don't breathe.
Today... well, some of the subplots are definitely not breathing, and some others may require CPR, and there's still quite a few bits that I'm not sure whether I'm laying groundwork or merely spewing blather that I will have to cut on the rewrite. But a huge chunk of the main plot just sat up, took a look around, and started making snide commentary on the furniture. Today is the first concrete sign I've had that the book works.
It's a good feeling.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: I wrote a chunk of action, and then a chunk of conversation, and then another chunk of action, and then sat there for five minutes scratching my head over why they were all boring and the pacing felt wrong before I realized that, y'know, perhaps it would be better if I interspaced conversation with action. Because things do not have to happen in a linear manner. Slow on the uptake, me.
Snips: "Dammit, Gwen, run! I'll stay here and try to distract her."
Now she did look down, her expression amused. "Did you get hit on the head, or are you always afflicted with situational stupidity?"
Saturday, October 28
For those of you who don't yet understand why many people flinch violently at the mention of Publish America, I suggest you read this review. Actually, read it no matter what. It's damned funny.
Somewhere out there is a woman sitting and confidently waiting for the money to roll in, because she's been told that she was a "hidden talent", kept from stardom only because of the stupidity of the big publishing company. Because she's been assured that "PublishAmerica is NOT in any way a POD, vanity press, or subsidy publisher, and has nothing in common with them." Because she's been "selected" by this real publisher, one that would look her work, would even "assign an editor who will spend time going through the text" -- and (judging from other PA author's stories) told her she was just so talented, she didn't need to change a word.
And on the reader's end... well, by the simple law of averages, PA is probably putting out some good stuff. But who wants to risk getting this? Much safer to pick up something from a real publisher. It might be trite, overdone, even downright bad -- but it'll be half the price for a book twice as long, and at least it'll be literate.
Bah. Need alcohol now.
Somewhere out there is a woman sitting and confidently waiting for the money to roll in, because she's been told that she was a "hidden talent", kept from stardom only because of the stupidity of the big publishing company. Because she's been assured that "PublishAmerica is NOT in any way a POD, vanity press, or subsidy publisher, and has nothing in common with them." Because she's been "selected" by this real publisher, one that would look her work, would even "assign an editor who will spend time going through the text" -- and (judging from other PA author's stories) told her she was just so talented, she didn't need to change a word.
And on the reader's end... well, by the simple law of averages, PA is probably putting out some good stuff. But who wants to risk getting this? Much safer to pick up something from a real publisher. It might be trite, overdone, even downright bad -- but it'll be half the price for a book twice as long, and at least it'll be literate.
Bah. Need alcohol now.
Wednesday, October 04
I am sleepy and stuff, so instead of a meaningful post I'm just going to point y'all at DailyLit. This is a very cool little site that will email you a bite-sized piece of your story of choice every day. So far everything is old stuff the copyright has run out on, but I have to say it's a great way to read the classics. I'm about halfway through The Wizard of Oz and have a list of half-a-dozen other "always meaning to read, never got around to" books from the site.
This makes me happy.
And now, the boring part:
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 514 words.
Comments: Have just realized that some of the "lack of focus" and "forced" feeling people are picking up in crits is probably because Elliot has no stake, as such, in what happens. He is an interested observer, nothing more, for the first half of the book. Bah! Why do I keep writing books where the really interesting stuff only starts halfway through?
Fix it on the rewrite, fix it on the rewrite....
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: My main character has gone all cool and reserved and quiet on me. Can I bite him?
Snips: Trevor and Darien ran the entirity of the lazarine operation with, as far as he'd been able to tell from the Library's records the night before, minimal supervision from Edison. They were the logical suspects. For them to greet him with delight and tea was an annoying setback to his investigation.
This makes me happy.
And now, the boring part:
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 514 words.
Comments: Have just realized that some of the "lack of focus" and "forced" feeling people are picking up in crits is probably because Elliot has no stake, as such, in what happens. He is an interested observer, nothing more, for the first half of the book. Bah! Why do I keep writing books where the really interesting stuff only starts halfway through?
Fix it on the rewrite, fix it on the rewrite....
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: My main character has gone all cool and reserved and quiet on me. Can I bite him?
Snips: Trevor and Darien ran the entirity of the lazarine operation with, as far as he'd been able to tell from the Library's records the night before, minimal supervision from Edison. They were the logical suspects. For them to greet him with delight and tea was an annoying setback to his investigation.
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.
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