Sunshine Book Club Week 5

[accidentallymel]

A lot of things happen in this section, although it still feels like the calm before the storm to me. Rae's dark vision is endlessly fascinating to me - I've never been entirely sure of what all she's seeing, but it's cool to think about, especially since she's noticing a lot of secret things (or is she just imagining them?). And then more SOF -

Comments

[biggersandwich]

Yolande is SO interesting. I really want to know more about wardskeepers because so far Rae mostly sounds like she thinks of them as skilled, but not different in the way that SOF and sorcerers are. But then it becomes clear that Yolande does have this totally different perspective on the Others/human situation, and Con's master was involved with the Blaises and there are so many hints that the society in this book that seemed so recogniseable is actually a lot more fractured than we can see. I really want Yolande's story, because she's so firmly presenting "normal to the point of boring" and yet, she survived a difficult job and knows so many unexpected things....

I love how McKinley describes the dark vision because I can't quite imagine it, and yet I feel like I can when I'm reading. So cleverly done.

[accidentallymel]

I require 500 pages of backstory on every single character in this book, and some of the ones who are only mentioned (Rae's dad, anyone?). The hints that society in this world is more complicated than it appears at first are frustratingly tantalizing because they're never fully explored. And I'd love to know more about wardskeepers in general and Yolande in particular.

The dark vision is just - it's so weird, and I love it, because it's exactly the right amount of creepy and weird to fit in with the rest of the book.

[biggersandwich]

So much yes to all of this. I have a lot of respect for McKinley for writing this story instead of the sprawling Voodoo Wars epic (and, admittedly, think she's better at this kind of thing: I didn't like The Blue Sword as much as this or Chalice or Spindle's End at all, not that it's bad, per se), but oh, I would have read the hell out of it.

And one more way to say that vampires are not just humans with additions, because even when Rae is literally a human with this thing added on, it's always evident that it's alien to her, not an augmentation of what she had, the way acquiring something like the kind of night-vision cats have would have been.

[accidentallymel]

DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT CHALICE FOREVER BECAUSE WE COULD TOTALLY TALK ABOUT CHALICE FOREVER, I'd never met anyone else who'd read it, but we should probably not do that here, I loved Chalice, and I have to agree that McKinley's strength is probably worldbuilding and little personal stories within these amazing worlds that she builds. Dragonhaven's another of hers that I really loved because it was such a personal story, while still being completely fascinating. Her characters are amazing.

[kikainausagi]

CAN I JOIN IN THE TALKING ABOUT CHALICE??? :D Maybe after the Sunshine book club is done we can squee wildly about bees or something.

Now I should probably finish this week's installment of Sunshine so I can contribute something on topic.

[accidentallymel]

YES YES I'll do a special post after Sunshine is over and we'll squee wildly about bees it'll be fun!

[biggersandwich]

YES, PLEASE. :D

And to your point above, though we can discuss this in that post as well, I think the thing about McKinley is that she does fantastic worldbuilding, but what she brings to life most effectively is individual experience. Frex, she does seem to have a good overarching sense of what was going on in the Voodoo Wars that she isn't showing us, but the bits that are most memorable are all teeny snippets, the Jasmin Azizes, not the heads of factions. Which works, for sure! But oh, the epics she will never write!

[accidentallymel]

A moment of silence for the epics Robin McKinley will never write. *bows head*