March books
What I read in March 2010 (not including comics):
Science fiction and Fantasy
Midwinter by Matthew Sturges. Disgraced war hero Mauritaine collects several fellow prisoners to be his companions on a suicide mission for the Queen of the Seelie Court. Sadly, both the characters and their quest are bland and over-worn. Sturges relies upon basic fantasy tropes to tell a story with no meaning or message to it. The characters are cardboard, the world poorly thought out, the quest unenticing. Give this one, and its many cliches, a miss.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. It's 1914 and Alek's parents have just been killed. His tutors hustle him out of bed and help him escape in a monstrous steam-powered mecha. Meanwhile, across the ocean, teenaged Deryn Sharp is preparing for her exams. To join the Airforce, she'll have to exhibit bravery, wit...and pass as a boy. Their fates will become entwined, as their nations edge toward war with each other.
I think my expectations were too high. Scott Westerfeld was one of my favorite authors for a few years (to the extent that I stalked him at Wiscon, asked enumerable questions at his reading, and then pounced on him directly after to tell him how fantastic he is), and I'm a huge fan of alternate histories, ya, and genemods. And yet...somehow I didn't love this book. In fact, I barely liked it. The world building feels lazy, and the characters are not well drawn. Deryn is very inconsistent--supposedly her father taught her everything about airships and took her flying, and so she finds her lessons very easy...and yet for some reason she has to be taught "fore" and "aft"? She's 15, but she acts and thinks like someone years younger. As a character, Alek hangs together better, and I was interested in his slow awakening to class differences and the lives of the poor. But when they meet, they each become cardboard cutouts of character types again. The plot is nothing special. The big reveals are telegraphed from the start. All in all, worth reading, but don't get your hopes up.
The Women of Nell Gwynne's by Kage Baker. Courageous and attractive, Lady Beatrice is the much-admired daughter of her soldier papa. She impetuously follows him to his latest post--only to realize that he, and everyone else at the encampment, will shortly be killed. She manages to rescue herself from the carnage, but at the expense of her innocence. Too damaged to be considered genteel any longer, too practical to die tragically in the gutter, Lady Beatrice decides to turn her disgrace into an asset. She becomes an excellent prostitute--but at Nell Gwynne's, she becomes an even better spy.
This tale is set in the Company series, but it's enjoyable even without all that backstory. Lady Beatrice is a wonderful, believeable character, and her fellow whores are interesting without being caricatures. The plot itself is too rushed, and there wasn't any resolution--this feels like the opening to a novel, rather than a novella. Sadly, Kage Baker's untimely death this year means we'll never see what further adventures Lady Beatrice might have had.
Strange Brew ed by PN Elrod. A collection of short stories by some of the best-known authors in the paranormal romance/urban fantasy genre. Each is set in the author's already popular series. On the plus side, this means the writing is at least readable and some small effort has been put into the world building. On the minus side, nothing important can happen for fear that regular readers of the books will miss out. (Also, it must be mentioned that the cover art is of a sexy lady with lots of cleavage but no head or face--the usual art for urban fantasy.)
Patricia Briggs's "Seeing Eye" would have been good as a book--as a short story, there is barely a climax and the denoument is unbelievably rushed. The last few paragraphs in particular are wretched.
I hate Jim Butcher's Dresden series, so I simply skimmed his "Last Call" and believe it to be just as pedestrian and poorly developed as all his work.
Rachel Caine's "Death Warmed Over" was the highlight of the collection for me, for the simple reason that I like the concept of her story. And the love interest is a zombie!
Karen Chance's "Vegas Odds" has my favorite world and characters and some very good action scenes. But she spent too much time explaining her characters and their backstories, and I felt the romance was shoe-horned in to make her story fit the genre's conventions. Not every heroine needs to date a werewolf biker!
PN Elrod's "Hecate's Golden Eye" was totally lackluster and unconvincing. No emotion, no heat, no memorable characters, and not much of a plot.
Charlaine Harris's "Bacon," about a vampire using a Circe to get revenge, would have been much better under the knife of a good editor.
Faith Hunter's "Signatures of the Dead" has interesting world building and a unique main character. The stand out to me was her friend Jane, a vicious, fearless shapeshifter. I'd like to read more about her.
Caitlin Kittredge's "Ginger" has no point--it just sort of meanders, stumbling as it tries on several different plots at once.
The worst of the book is the last, Jenna Maclaine's "Dark Sins." The love interest immediately calls the heroine "mo ghraidh", the heroine and her bffs are "The Righteous" (who answer only to the High King of the Vampires, btw), and in the end the heroine defeats the baddie cultists (who have chained the vamps to marble alters! naked!) by summoning the Morrigan, who tells our dear heroine that she is the Chosen One. Melodramatic and lazy writing style, as well. Blegh. Definitely giving this author's books a miss
History
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool. Over 400 pages of definitions, facts, and glosses for the most alien aspects of 1800s England. And there are a lot of them! The nineteenth century saw the birth of much of what we think of as unremarkable necessities of civilization: a police force, basic schooling for all children, a national mail system...This is truly a fascinating read, and one I highly recommend for anyone reading regency or Victorian-era literature.
The Girl Who Was Never Queen by Mary Maine. King George III (the one who "went mad") had fourteen children and only one legitimate grandchild--the Princess Charlotte. The only child of the estranged Prince and Princess of Wales, she grew up knowing that for her, the personal truly was political. Her marriage would shape alliances between nations; her appearance could create or forstall riots. Her very friendships could be controlled by the Prime Minister and the House of Lords.
I have read many novels that purport to be history (I'm lookin at you, Jane Boleyn), so it was a pleasure to read the reverse. Main takes the liberty of pretending to know the inner workings of Princess Charlotte's mind. But she does not insert melodrama where there was none, and she attempts neither character assasination nor canonization. I found this book engaging and--knowing what I did about Princess Charlotte--a bit melancholy.
Misc.
The Other Mother by Nancy Abrams. When her daughter was 1, the author and her partner broke up. Since then, the two fought for custody of little Amelia--a fight complicated by the lack of laws for lesbian couples. Although this is a personal tale about a heartbreaking situation, I didn't feel all that emotionally involved. Mostly, I felt frustration at the author, for being so biased toward her own interests while simultaneously pretending toward impartiality. And the dream sequences that begin each chapter didn't endear the book to me, either. Still, I'm glad this book was published, if only to remind everyone of the harsh realities of the queer struggle toward equal rights, today and in the past.
Belinda by Maria Edgeworth. Belinda is a silly, naive girl who is sent to stay with the glamorous Lady Delacour. Her worldly aunt wants her to find a rich husband, Lady Delacour wants her to be entertaining, and Belinda just wants to fall in love. She is initially dazzled by the high-flying life of the Delacours and the rest of the Ton, but rapidly sees the dark side to the sparkling diamonds and scathing witticisms.
Although the novel was published in 1801, this is a very readable book, with dialog that still scintillates to the modern ear. Alas, Edgeworth lost her nerve half way through this fascinating novel. Abruptly, everything becomes black or white. Belinda becomes a paragon of such utter virtue that she never puts a foot wrong, and thus loses all individuality. The battle between the ideals of Harriet Freke (a proto-feminst character) and the perfect Percivals is never truly joined, because the author explicitly calls one side monstrous and the other virtuous. Edgeworth also doesn't trust the reader to judge rightly which love interest Belinda should marry--she suddenly writes one as though all he does is rescue curates and innocent girls, and the other (a person of color, which I'm sure is just a coincidence and not at all further evidence of the racism found throughout this book) as an inveterate gambler and liar. The only character who survives this reformation is Lady Delacour, whose courage and satiric mind remain undimmed despite her adoption of a more domestic (and thus, virtuous) lifestyle. Lady Delacour is a character for the ages, as witty as Wilde's and as emotionally complex as Woolf's. For her alone, this book is worth reading.
Lady Elizabeth's Comet by Sheila Simonson. Very possibly the most enjoyable Regency romance I have read yet. All the usual genre tropes are here: the sensible heroine in her late 20s, her troublesome but amusing family, the strong-willed man who enters her life through uncontrollable circumstances. But Simonson makes her characters breathe and feel as no other regency writer I've read. The story is told in the first person, and we are placed into the mind of a woman in the nineteenth century--a very intelligent and educated mind, but one nevertheless of her period, with the period's prejudices. It is painful to realize that even Lady Elizabeth, who has spent her twenties peering through a telescope rather than marrying, has ingested the poisonous idea that an intellectual woman is unnatural. She is unusual to the modern reader in other ways: she has little interest in her younger siblings, and in fact doesn't know them well or provide for their education, despite their dependence upon her. The usual cliche of a hero realizing his love for a heroine by watching her tender care toward children or the sick doesn't hold true here. And to readers used to Heyer's sexless maidens, Lady Elizabeth's thoughts are quite inappropriate--though not passionate, she has an eye for handsome men.
I was surprised to find such character development, emotional depth, and complex interpersonal relationships. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has liked Austen, Heyer, or any of the many regency writers--so long as they're not hoping for a paint-by-numbers story.
Damsel in Distress by Carola Dunn. 5th in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Daisy's good friend, the dim but good-hearted Philip Petrie, falls in love with an American heiress...but their romance takes a turn for the tragic when she's kidnapped! The kidnappers warn Philip not to go to the police, so he enlists Daisy instead. A lackluster mystery and no emotional pay-off off for the characters. The last few books have felt like Dunn is stretching this series out as long as she can.
Science fiction and Fantasy
Midwinter by Matthew Sturges. Disgraced war hero Mauritaine collects several fellow prisoners to be his companions on a suicide mission for the Queen of the Seelie Court. Sadly, both the characters and their quest are bland and over-worn. Sturges relies upon basic fantasy tropes to tell a story with no meaning or message to it. The characters are cardboard, the world poorly thought out, the quest unenticing. Give this one, and its many cliches, a miss.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. It's 1914 and Alek's parents have just been killed. His tutors hustle him out of bed and help him escape in a monstrous steam-powered mecha. Meanwhile, across the ocean, teenaged Deryn Sharp is preparing for her exams. To join the Airforce, she'll have to exhibit bravery, wit...and pass as a boy. Their fates will become entwined, as their nations edge toward war with each other.
I think my expectations were too high. Scott Westerfeld was one of my favorite authors for a few years (to the extent that I stalked him at Wiscon, asked enumerable questions at his reading, and then pounced on him directly after to tell him how fantastic he is), and I'm a huge fan of alternate histories, ya, and genemods. And yet...somehow I didn't love this book. In fact, I barely liked it. The world building feels lazy, and the characters are not well drawn. Deryn is very inconsistent--supposedly her father taught her everything about airships and took her flying, and so she finds her lessons very easy...and yet for some reason she has to be taught "fore" and "aft"? She's 15, but she acts and thinks like someone years younger. As a character, Alek hangs together better, and I was interested in his slow awakening to class differences and the lives of the poor. But when they meet, they each become cardboard cutouts of character types again. The plot is nothing special. The big reveals are telegraphed from the start. All in all, worth reading, but don't get your hopes up.
The Women of Nell Gwynne's by Kage Baker. Courageous and attractive, Lady Beatrice is the much-admired daughter of her soldier papa. She impetuously follows him to his latest post--only to realize that he, and everyone else at the encampment, will shortly be killed. She manages to rescue herself from the carnage, but at the expense of her innocence. Too damaged to be considered genteel any longer, too practical to die tragically in the gutter, Lady Beatrice decides to turn her disgrace into an asset. She becomes an excellent prostitute--but at Nell Gwynne's, she becomes an even better spy.
This tale is set in the Company series, but it's enjoyable even without all that backstory. Lady Beatrice is a wonderful, believeable character, and her fellow whores are interesting without being caricatures. The plot itself is too rushed, and there wasn't any resolution--this feels like the opening to a novel, rather than a novella. Sadly, Kage Baker's untimely death this year means we'll never see what further adventures Lady Beatrice might have had.
Strange Brew ed by PN Elrod. A collection of short stories by some of the best-known authors in the paranormal romance/urban fantasy genre. Each is set in the author's already popular series. On the plus side, this means the writing is at least readable and some small effort has been put into the world building. On the minus side, nothing important can happen for fear that regular readers of the books will miss out. (Also, it must be mentioned that the cover art is of a sexy lady with lots of cleavage but no head or face--the usual art for urban fantasy.)
Patricia Briggs's "Seeing Eye" would have been good as a book--as a short story, there is barely a climax and the denoument is unbelievably rushed. The last few paragraphs in particular are wretched.
I hate Jim Butcher's Dresden series, so I simply skimmed his "Last Call" and believe it to be just as pedestrian and poorly developed as all his work.
Rachel Caine's "Death Warmed Over" was the highlight of the collection for me, for the simple reason that I like the concept of her story. And the love interest is a zombie!
Karen Chance's "Vegas Odds" has my favorite world and characters and some very good action scenes. But she spent too much time explaining her characters and their backstories, and I felt the romance was shoe-horned in to make her story fit the genre's conventions. Not every heroine needs to date a werewolf biker!
PN Elrod's "Hecate's Golden Eye" was totally lackluster and unconvincing. No emotion, no heat, no memorable characters, and not much of a plot.
Charlaine Harris's "Bacon," about a vampire using a Circe to get revenge, would have been much better under the knife of a good editor.
Faith Hunter's "Signatures of the Dead" has interesting world building and a unique main character. The stand out to me was her friend Jane, a vicious, fearless shapeshifter. I'd like to read more about her.
Caitlin Kittredge's "Ginger" has no point--it just sort of meanders, stumbling as it tries on several different plots at once.
The worst of the book is the last, Jenna Maclaine's "Dark Sins." The love interest immediately calls the heroine "mo ghraidh", the heroine and her bffs are "The Righteous" (who answer only to the High King of the Vampires, btw), and in the end the heroine defeats the baddie cultists (who have chained the vamps to marble alters! naked!) by summoning the Morrigan, who tells our dear heroine that she is the Chosen One. Melodramatic and lazy writing style, as well. Blegh. Definitely giving this author's books a miss
History
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool. Over 400 pages of definitions, facts, and glosses for the most alien aspects of 1800s England. And there are a lot of them! The nineteenth century saw the birth of much of what we think of as unremarkable necessities of civilization: a police force, basic schooling for all children, a national mail system...This is truly a fascinating read, and one I highly recommend for anyone reading regency or Victorian-era literature.
The Girl Who Was Never Queen by Mary Maine. King George III (the one who "went mad") had fourteen children and only one legitimate grandchild--the Princess Charlotte. The only child of the estranged Prince and Princess of Wales, she grew up knowing that for her, the personal truly was political. Her marriage would shape alliances between nations; her appearance could create or forstall riots. Her very friendships could be controlled by the Prime Minister and the House of Lords.
I have read many novels that purport to be history (I'm lookin at you, Jane Boleyn), so it was a pleasure to read the reverse. Main takes the liberty of pretending to know the inner workings of Princess Charlotte's mind. But she does not insert melodrama where there was none, and she attempts neither character assasination nor canonization. I found this book engaging and--knowing what I did about Princess Charlotte--a bit melancholy.
Misc.
The Other Mother by Nancy Abrams. When her daughter was 1, the author and her partner broke up. Since then, the two fought for custody of little Amelia--a fight complicated by the lack of laws for lesbian couples. Although this is a personal tale about a heartbreaking situation, I didn't feel all that emotionally involved. Mostly, I felt frustration at the author, for being so biased toward her own interests while simultaneously pretending toward impartiality. And the dream sequences that begin each chapter didn't endear the book to me, either. Still, I'm glad this book was published, if only to remind everyone of the harsh realities of the queer struggle toward equal rights, today and in the past.
Belinda by Maria Edgeworth. Belinda is a silly, naive girl who is sent to stay with the glamorous Lady Delacour. Her worldly aunt wants her to find a rich husband, Lady Delacour wants her to be entertaining, and Belinda just wants to fall in love. She is initially dazzled by the high-flying life of the Delacours and the rest of the Ton, but rapidly sees the dark side to the sparkling diamonds and scathing witticisms.
Although the novel was published in 1801, this is a very readable book, with dialog that still scintillates to the modern ear. Alas, Edgeworth lost her nerve half way through this fascinating novel. Abruptly, everything becomes black or white. Belinda becomes a paragon of such utter virtue that she never puts a foot wrong, and thus loses all individuality. The battle between the ideals of Harriet Freke (a proto-feminst character) and the perfect Percivals is never truly joined, because the author explicitly calls one side monstrous and the other virtuous. Edgeworth also doesn't trust the reader to judge rightly which love interest Belinda should marry--she suddenly writes one as though all he does is rescue curates and innocent girls, and the other (a person of color, which I'm sure is just a coincidence and not at all further evidence of the racism found throughout this book) as an inveterate gambler and liar. The only character who survives this reformation is Lady Delacour, whose courage and satiric mind remain undimmed despite her adoption of a more domestic (and thus, virtuous) lifestyle. Lady Delacour is a character for the ages, as witty as Wilde's and as emotionally complex as Woolf's. For her alone, this book is worth reading.
Lady Elizabeth's Comet by Sheila Simonson. Very possibly the most enjoyable Regency romance I have read yet. All the usual genre tropes are here: the sensible heroine in her late 20s, her troublesome but amusing family, the strong-willed man who enters her life through uncontrollable circumstances. But Simonson makes her characters breathe and feel as no other regency writer I've read. The story is told in the first person, and we are placed into the mind of a woman in the nineteenth century--a very intelligent and educated mind, but one nevertheless of her period, with the period's prejudices. It is painful to realize that even Lady Elizabeth, who has spent her twenties peering through a telescope rather than marrying, has ingested the poisonous idea that an intellectual woman is unnatural. She is unusual to the modern reader in other ways: she has little interest in her younger siblings, and in fact doesn't know them well or provide for their education, despite their dependence upon her. The usual cliche of a hero realizing his love for a heroine by watching her tender care toward children or the sick doesn't hold true here. And to readers used to Heyer's sexless maidens, Lady Elizabeth's thoughts are quite inappropriate--though not passionate, she has an eye for handsome men.
I was surprised to find such character development, emotional depth, and complex interpersonal relationships. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has liked Austen, Heyer, or any of the many regency writers--so long as they're not hoping for a paint-by-numbers story.
Damsel in Distress by Carola Dunn. 5th in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Daisy's good friend, the dim but good-hearted Philip Petrie, falls in love with an American heiress...but their romance takes a turn for the tragic when she's kidnapped! The kidnappers warn Philip not to go to the police, so he enlists Daisy instead. A lackluster mystery and no emotional pay-off off for the characters. The last few books have felt like Dunn is stretching this series out as long as she can.