Reading roundup
Whoa, I haven't done one of these in *ages*! (Since February, actually... *is horrified*) And I've fallen way behind in my 52-book non-challenge thing -- I think I was at 13 at the end of February, and am only on my 20th one. I think it was Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell that tripped me up. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed what I read of that book (about a third...), but it was so slooow and ungainly (totally impossible to transport and read on the train, for instance), that it totally disrupted my flow. I do plan to check it out again and keep reading until I finish it, but slooowly. Anyway, the ones I have read:
14. Tamora Pierce, Trickster's Queen -- (sequel to Trickster's Choice) I really like Tamora Pierce's Tortall, and I generally tend to like her heroines, but Aly is definitely not one of my favorite ones. In the afterword, Pierce says that she wanted to create a laid-back heroine in Aly. Unfortunately, it doesn't come across that way -- she just comes across as a huge Mary-Sue, who doesn't have to work at anything, has all these natural gifts, etc., etc. For all their superpowers, Alanna and even Daine (who is also not a great favorite of mine) had issues, and had to work at stuff, and Aly just feels shallow instead of laid-back because she doesn't. (I also was extremely irritated by the pseudo-clever banter she exchanged with her spies.) Aly is kept company by the two other Mary-Sues -- the "remarkable young women" from the blurb -- Sarai (who has the traditional Mary-Sue shortcoming of hot temper, and suffers no consequences for her radical action) and Dove (who is just so smart and so brave and so wonderful that *gag*). Mind, they were still fun to read about -- they just annoyed me as characters.
The characters I did like were Nawat Crow (who is darling) and Kyprioth the trickster-god. Now, I have a soft spot for trickster gods in general (Hermes, Loki), and this one captured both the lighthearted, bantering side with the sudden godlike wrath powered by mercurial temperament. Funny that he seemed to have more nuance, actually, than many of the human characters. The healer who runs off with Sarai (it's been awhile) was also nice, as was the captain of palace guard.
The book features something that I didn't expect of it -- *HEAVY SPOILER BELOW*
child death. The boy-king, whom we see a couple of times, mostly in sympathetic circumstances, dies/is murdered, as is Sarai and Dove's half-brother. In a way, the way they die is a cop-out -- they're murdered by the bad guys at Kyprioth's suggestion, removing the necessity for the good guys' rebellion to remove them. But that passage is well-written and wrenching, so it's still good.
15. Gene Wolfe, The Wizard -- the second half of The Wizard-Knight. I liked it. I can't say I loved it as much as the first half, but I in general tend to like beginnings more than endings. There was a lot more fighting in it (or at least it felt that way) and less variety, and a general wrapping-up of loose ends. It's very difficult to be coherent about it... it didn't feel terribly coherent -- and felt authentic that way. But as I'm trying to think about it my mind is skipping from incident to incident, from character to character, and I can't think of anything constructive to say. It really did feel a lot like reading a bunch of Norse myths, vaguely strung together -- and I mean that in a *good* way. The passage where Abel intentionally breaks his promise I particularly liked. The ending didn't seem to live up to the build-up. I don't know... I definitely like the whole thing, as it's completed, but I almost liked better having read just the first half.
16. Charles Stross, Family Trade -- I picked up this book because the blurb (and the acknowledgements, too, I think) said something about this being a new fantasy series in the tradition of Zelazny's Amber. Um, no. There are some superficial similarities -- a member of the magical elite family discovering (as opposed to *re*covering) her elite magical heritage, cross-universe travel via lockets (as opposed to Trumps), and lots of familiar intrigue. The key differences would be -- the writing is nowhere near as good, the familiar intrigue not anywhere as complicated, the settings nowhere near as imaginative, the characters nowhere near as interesting, and the narrative voice is mostly annoying. So is the main character, who, I suppose is meant to be a saucy, independent kind of woman, but instead comes across like a self-involved bitch. The love interest is annoyingly earnest. There are scenes that are potentially building up to something, but feel adrift in the context of the book as a free-standing entity. Also, there are Britishisms (e.g. "car park") in the text even though it's supposed to be taking place in Boston, and a lot of the dialogue sounds awkward -- but I'm not sure whether that's because a Brit is trying to imitate American speech (and arriving, instead, at cliche) or just because it's badly written. I may pick up the second on (which our library has) just to see where it goes, seeing as how I invested some time in getting to know these (annoying) characters already, but, meh, definitely not Amber.
17. Patricia Mc Killip, Harrowing the Dragon -- short stories collection. I expected more from it, actually. McKillip's novellas always have that luminous quality and a particular kind of languor that, one would think, would work really well in short stories. But actually, I was mostly disappointed, or, at least, not particularly impressed.
By story:
"The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath" -- some lovely imagery, but an idea that I've seen done before, and a theme that I thought was better executed in "The Stranger", in the same book.
"A Matter of Music" -- one of my favorites in the lot -- it's neat how all the weird historical stuff unfolds through the music, and I liked the characters. I did think the bittersweet ending was a bit forced, but the story worked really well for me overall.
"A Troll and Two Roses" -- it was trying to be funny, I guess, but was mostly odd. It did have some fun twisting fairy tale conventions, but didn't really feel like a "story" to me.
"Baba Yaga and the Sorcerer's Son" -- I have no idea really, what this was trying to do.
"The Fellowship of the Dragon" -- skipped this one as I had read it before (in After the King, and although I don't remember the actual plot, I don't remember being particularly enthralled by it either, and decided not to repeat the experience)
"Lady of the Skulls" -- it feels fable-y (probably more so after reading _grayswandir_'s fable), but I saw "the right answer" fairly early on, and after that only enjoyed the descriptions of what the various treasure items could do. The imagery and symbols and narrative voice all felt a bit heavy in this one.
"The Snow Queen" -- liked this one a lot, even though fairy tales retold in modern setting is not my usual cup of tea. It was unusual and clever and I liked the build-up and random (realistic) dialogue.
"Ash, Wood, Fire" -- way too artsy for me. The naming conventions were interesting, but not enough to sustain the rest of the story for me.
"The Stranger" -- probably my favorite in the bunch. It has dragons materializing from weather, and weaving, and half-said things, and a quiet but likable narrator, and complex shadows. In other words, the sort of thing I actually expect from McKillip, beautifully done.
"Transmutation" -- it appealed to the chem geek in me, in combination with the part that delights in finding the exactly right word -- but the story itself didn't do much for me beyond that.
"The Lion and the Lark" -- this is also a sort of retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" / "Alenjkij Tsvetochek" (which then transforms into "Finist Yasnyj Sokol", one of my favorite fairy tales) -- with stuff added on. Good, solid fairy tale stuff, which does, I think, combine into a new whole. The characters (especially the enchanted princess at the end) and narrative voice are charming, and the whole thing works well (though it may be just a tad too long). I liked it a lot.
"The Witches of Junket" -- it's well executed, but nothing I have not seen before, though there are some nice touches (like the powerful "ancient" witch who gets carsick because she is not from the cars' era).
"Star-Crossed" -- a Verona copper trying to solve the mystery of Romeo and Juliet. It was OK, but felt gimmicky and... didn't really have any tension, so kind of lacked a point.
"Voyage into the Heart" -- it's got wizards, virgins, and unicorns, all in about two pages. I didn't particularly like it.
"Toad" -- retelling of "The Frog Prince" fairy tale, with meta built in. Not my sort of thing. More an essay than a fairy tale, really.
In summary, favorites -- "The Stranger", "The Snow Queen", "A Matter of Music", "The Lion and the Lark".
18. Victor Pelevin, Generation P -- and attendant short stories (all in Russian), have a long dedicated post, here
19. Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys -- I finished it in, like, two days, and would have finished it in one if I weren't so busy at work that I had to use my commute for work stuff. It was a highly enjoyable read, even though I didn't feel it to be on par with American Gods. Rather different style, plot, sub-genre, and all of that, of course. Actually, it reminded me a lot of Good Omens, in style, and, oddly, of Dave Barry's Big Trouble (like, the lime bit, especially). I can't say that I felt particularly close to any characters, except Mr.Nancy himself in his brief cameos and other characters' memories, and actually found Rosie mildly annoying (and the Rosie/Spider hard to swallow -- well, Spider's end of it), and the resolution too clean -- but it was certainly an enjoyable book.
Bonus quiz (on the subject of Tamora Pierce's Tortall:
14. Tamora Pierce, Trickster's Queen -- (sequel to Trickster's Choice) I really like Tamora Pierce's Tortall, and I generally tend to like her heroines, but Aly is definitely not one of my favorite ones. In the afterword, Pierce says that she wanted to create a laid-back heroine in Aly. Unfortunately, it doesn't come across that way -- she just comes across as a huge Mary-Sue, who doesn't have to work at anything, has all these natural gifts, etc., etc. For all their superpowers, Alanna and even Daine (who is also not a great favorite of mine) had issues, and had to work at stuff, and Aly just feels shallow instead of laid-back because she doesn't. (I also was extremely irritated by the pseudo-clever banter she exchanged with her spies.) Aly is kept company by the two other Mary-Sues -- the "remarkable young women" from the blurb -- Sarai (who has the traditional Mary-Sue shortcoming of hot temper, and suffers no consequences for her radical action) and Dove (who is just so smart and so brave and so wonderful that *gag*). Mind, they were still fun to read about -- they just annoyed me as characters.
The characters I did like were Nawat Crow (who is darling) and Kyprioth the trickster-god. Now, I have a soft spot for trickster gods in general (Hermes, Loki), and this one captured both the lighthearted, bantering side with the sudden godlike wrath powered by mercurial temperament. Funny that he seemed to have more nuance, actually, than many of the human characters. The healer who runs off with Sarai (it's been awhile) was also nice, as was the captain of palace guard.
The book features something that I didn't expect of it -- *HEAVY SPOILER BELOW*
child death. The boy-king, whom we see a couple of times, mostly in sympathetic circumstances, dies/is murdered, as is Sarai and Dove's half-brother. In a way, the way they die is a cop-out -- they're murdered by the bad guys at Kyprioth's suggestion, removing the necessity for the good guys' rebellion to remove them. But that passage is well-written and wrenching, so it's still good.
15. Gene Wolfe, The Wizard -- the second half of The Wizard-Knight. I liked it. I can't say I loved it as much as the first half, but I in general tend to like beginnings more than endings. There was a lot more fighting in it (or at least it felt that way) and less variety, and a general wrapping-up of loose ends. It's very difficult to be coherent about it... it didn't feel terribly coherent -- and felt authentic that way. But as I'm trying to think about it my mind is skipping from incident to incident, from character to character, and I can't think of anything constructive to say. It really did feel a lot like reading a bunch of Norse myths, vaguely strung together -- and I mean that in a *good* way. The passage where Abel intentionally breaks his promise I particularly liked. The ending didn't seem to live up to the build-up. I don't know... I definitely like the whole thing, as it's completed, but I almost liked better having read just the first half.
16. Charles Stross, Family Trade -- I picked up this book because the blurb (and the acknowledgements, too, I think) said something about this being a new fantasy series in the tradition of Zelazny's Amber. Um, no. There are some superficial similarities -- a member of the magical elite family discovering (as opposed to *re*covering) her elite magical heritage, cross-universe travel via lockets (as opposed to Trumps), and lots of familiar intrigue. The key differences would be -- the writing is nowhere near as good, the familiar intrigue not anywhere as complicated, the settings nowhere near as imaginative, the characters nowhere near as interesting, and the narrative voice is mostly annoying. So is the main character, who, I suppose is meant to be a saucy, independent kind of woman, but instead comes across like a self-involved bitch. The love interest is annoyingly earnest. There are scenes that are potentially building up to something, but feel adrift in the context of the book as a free-standing entity. Also, there are Britishisms (e.g. "car park") in the text even though it's supposed to be taking place in Boston, and a lot of the dialogue sounds awkward -- but I'm not sure whether that's because a Brit is trying to imitate American speech (and arriving, instead, at cliche) or just because it's badly written. I may pick up the second on (which our library has) just to see where it goes, seeing as how I invested some time in getting to know these (annoying) characters already, but, meh, definitely not Amber.
17. Patricia Mc Killip, Harrowing the Dragon -- short stories collection. I expected more from it, actually. McKillip's novellas always have that luminous quality and a particular kind of languor that, one would think, would work really well in short stories. But actually, I was mostly disappointed, or, at least, not particularly impressed.
By story:
"The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath" -- some lovely imagery, but an idea that I've seen done before, and a theme that I thought was better executed in "The Stranger", in the same book.
"A Matter of Music" -- one of my favorites in the lot -- it's neat how all the weird historical stuff unfolds through the music, and I liked the characters. I did think the bittersweet ending was a bit forced, but the story worked really well for me overall.
"A Troll and Two Roses" -- it was trying to be funny, I guess, but was mostly odd. It did have some fun twisting fairy tale conventions, but didn't really feel like a "story" to me.
"Baba Yaga and the Sorcerer's Son" -- I have no idea really, what this was trying to do.
"The Fellowship of the Dragon" -- skipped this one as I had read it before (in After the King, and although I don't remember the actual plot, I don't remember being particularly enthralled by it either, and decided not to repeat the experience)
"Lady of the Skulls" -- it feels fable-y (probably more so after reading _grayswandir_'s fable), but I saw "the right answer" fairly early on, and after that only enjoyed the descriptions of what the various treasure items could do. The imagery and symbols and narrative voice all felt a bit heavy in this one.
"The Snow Queen" -- liked this one a lot, even though fairy tales retold in modern setting is not my usual cup of tea. It was unusual and clever and I liked the build-up and random (realistic) dialogue.
"Ash, Wood, Fire" -- way too artsy for me. The naming conventions were interesting, but not enough to sustain the rest of the story for me.
"The Stranger" -- probably my favorite in the bunch. It has dragons materializing from weather, and weaving, and half-said things, and a quiet but likable narrator, and complex shadows. In other words, the sort of thing I actually expect from McKillip, beautifully done.
"Transmutation" -- it appealed to the chem geek in me, in combination with the part that delights in finding the exactly right word -- but the story itself didn't do much for me beyond that.
"The Lion and the Lark" -- this is also a sort of retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" / "Alenjkij Tsvetochek" (which then transforms into "Finist Yasnyj Sokol", one of my favorite fairy tales) -- with stuff added on. Good, solid fairy tale stuff, which does, I think, combine into a new whole. The characters (especially the enchanted princess at the end) and narrative voice are charming, and the whole thing works well (though it may be just a tad too long). I liked it a lot.
"The Witches of Junket" -- it's well executed, but nothing I have not seen before, though there are some nice touches (like the powerful "ancient" witch who gets carsick because she is not from the cars' era).
"Star-Crossed" -- a Verona copper trying to solve the mystery of Romeo and Juliet. It was OK, but felt gimmicky and... didn't really have any tension, so kind of lacked a point.
"Voyage into the Heart" -- it's got wizards, virgins, and unicorns, all in about two pages. I didn't particularly like it.
"Toad" -- retelling of "The Frog Prince" fairy tale, with meta built in. Not my sort of thing. More an essay than a fairy tale, really.
In summary, favorites -- "The Stranger", "The Snow Queen", "A Matter of Music", "The Lion and the Lark".
18. Victor Pelevin, Generation P -- and attendant short stories (all in Russian), have a long dedicated post, here
19. Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys -- I finished it in, like, two days, and would have finished it in one if I weren't so busy at work that I had to use my commute for work stuff. It was a highly enjoyable read, even though I didn't feel it to be on par with American Gods. Rather different style, plot, sub-genre, and all of that, of course. Actually, it reminded me a lot of Good Omens, in style, and, oddly, of Dave Barry's Big Trouble (like, the lime bit, especially). I can't say that I felt particularly close to any characters, except Mr.Nancy himself in his brief cameos and other characters' memories, and actually found Rosie mildly annoying (and the Rosie/Spider hard to swallow -- well, Spider's end of it), and the resolution too clean -- but it was certainly an enjoyable book.
Bonus quiz (on the subject of Tamora Pierce's Tortall: