Reading roundup
And here I take my departure from prime number posting. Farewell, superlative geekery!
63. Jim Butcher, White Night -- *this* is why I like reading Butcher. I thought that this book was a little slow getting started, even though it practically opens with a murder scene (it's just, it's not "The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault" as far as opening scenes go, but then, what is?), but once it got *really* going (say, round chapter 3) it had that can't-put-it-down momentum. I finished a quarter of the 400 page book during my morning commute, and then went and hid in the bathroom for an hour and read another 10 pages... 20... 50... 75. In fact, the only reason I stopped was I hit the flashback, or I probably would've just read on through lunch.
I like Harry, in all his smart-assed, headlong, stupidly chivalrous glory, and I like his narrative voice. I thought his scenes with Murphy in the beginning felt a little flat, but I like his dynamic with Molly and Elaine (not at all in a shipping them way. I like Harry/Murphy theoretically, as much as I like anything and on the grounds of being 10,000 times better than Harry/Susan. But I really don't want to see another sex scene, because the one with Susan in, what was it, Death Masks? sucked so bad, and, really the hottest interaction Harry's had in possibly the entire series was actually with "Sheila" back before he realized she was a private hallucination brought on by Lasciel). I liked "Lash" in this book, too, and was sad about her passing, though somewhat relieved that Harry is free of the coin's influence now, and also that he (probably?) doesn't have Hellfire at his beck and call, because that was getting kind of Stu-ish. I like that Harry is finally maturing, sort of -- that he is learning things from his instruction of Molly, that he is becoming more likely to plan ahead than shoot from the hip, even in the heat of the moment (e.g. when he chooses to tail Grey Cloak rather than fight him), and that he is starting to trust more people and open up to them more (not just Murphy and, to some degree Thomas and Michael Carpenter, but also Molly and Elaine). I never cared much for his Lone Wolf complex.
Thomas and Ramirez are two of my favorite less-central characters in the series, and I loved having them both feature somewhat prominently in this book. I love Ramirez's combat magic! Green goop and Aztec glove or whatever that was. And I rather liked the scene of him skipping after Harry, trying to keep up. I thought Carlos's quips were a bit strained, less fun than in previous books, but I suppose it can in fact be attributed to the burdens of his new job and the war in general. The revelation that he is a virgin grew on me. I wonder if it's for moral reasons, or lack of time? The scene where Harry pretends to be Thomas's jilted lover was priceless, and the final scene at the hairdresser's was rather fun, too. I like the White Court vampires in general, so I enjoyed their massive presence in this book. And I have a soft spot for Marcone when he is playing Harry's sorta-ally, and I love his "preventative measures" in this book (also, totally called that the girl who got shot, Helen's daughter, is the girl Harry had seen Marcone reading to in an earlier book). In fact, the only way I could've enjoyed the big firefight scene in the Deeps any better was if Kincaid had also been present, in the flesh and not viacriously through having given Murphy the gun. ("Man toy"! Hee! And Molly eavesdropping on Murphy and Harry's conversation at this point. Does Kincaid know how to treat a girl, or what?) Also, Mouse is beyond adorable.
Let's see. I was pretty sure something was off with Priscilla from the second mention of her turtleneck (the second scene in which she appears), though I thought it was concealing fang-marks rather than an adam's apple and falsies. O-kay. Oh, and that scene where Luccio tells Harry how she can't make Wardens' swords anymore -- right on the same page as Harry mentions Yoshimo -- is rather hinting at the fact that Harry will be picking up the Knight's sword he has been keeping. Speaking of the flashback, actually, I could've done without that part at all. Yeah, ok, I get it, Harry is both hardcore and kind of losing it. I thought the real-time examples with Molly and the Velvet Room showed that just fine. The ghouls stuff was just gross, and didn't really lead to anything much that wouldn't've happened anyway.
I didn't much care for Abby (whose precognition just made me think of Mrs Cake -- dude, you do not try to mine for humour the same are Pterry has done to death, and it wasn't that funny to begin with), and I wasn't too impressed with or invested in any of the other Cauldron women.
Random observations: I actually liked Harry's explanation of the mistranslation behind "do not suffer a witch to live". I'm generally not a big fan of in-story messages, but this was OK if not subtly done. Ditto for the comment around the White Council being "more willing to take chces and
make hard decisions' that amounted to other people getting killed while the Council's bony collective ass stayed as covered as possible". I didn't think there were as many kickass quips in this book as there often are, but I did like this quote: "Doing battle with the forces of... I was going to say evil, but I'm increasingly unsure exactly where everyone around me falls on the Jedi-Sith Index. Doing battle with the forces of things trying to kill me, or my friends, or people who can't protect themselves" -- that right there summarizes a lot of what I like about these books and Harry as the narrator.
Overall, I was less impressed than with Proven Guilty (but that was kind of an outlier, for these books, which tend to be fun but not exactly deep), and enjoyed it less than Dead Beat (which is probably my second favorite), but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.
64. Holly Black, Ironside -- I liked it! I think it may actually be better than Tithe in terms of the book itself, though it doesn't quite have the novelty of a fresh urban fantasy world, or the delight of first meeting a character like Roiben. Things that bugged me about Tithe were not noticeable here -- I always find it a little hard to decide whether that's because I've gotten used to the author's style and have learned to ignore those things that annoy me about it, or if they're really not there. I think it's the latter, actually. The story felt a lot tighter overall, without the slow ramp-up that hampered me a little in Tithe, and there was less of a feeling of too much assorted fairy imagery thrown together for the underhill scenes -- the strangeness of it was more subtle, I think, and thus more effective (like, I loved the rug of mousetails and the "blackberry boy"). Well, not subtle in the prologue, which did feel over the top for that reason, and maybe also because I'd listened to the recording of Holly Black reading it on her website, but, really, all that drinking of blood. But it's a good contrast with the current, icy Roiben, I guess. I liked it a lot better than Valiant, largely because of the cohesiveness -- it's a much tighter story, though of a more traditional format, too, I guess: Kaye's personal quest to 'win' Roiben, Kaye and the others trying to protect the ones they love, and the war of the Seelie and Unseelie courts, all tied up together in a most satisfactory way. One problem I had with Tithe is still present in Ironside, and that does weaken the book some, I think -- Roiben's POV feels too human for a Faery. There's what feels like an attempt to explain it in-text, when he muses that his diction is becoming more similar to Kaye's, to human diction -- but I don't quite buy it. The dialogue's good, but the internal narration... doesn't quite do it for me.
I liked the twists in this one, which I think were more effective for me than the ones in Tithe. The one I saw coming from a mile off was that Silarial was planning to use someone Roiben would be loathe to kill as her champion. I'd thought Kaye, originally, but I suppose she couldn't, since Kaye wasn't really affiliated with her court. And, in any case, by bargaining with Silarial to name Ethine as her heir, that made the choice extremely simple. I have a hard time believing that Roiben did not see that coming... though I suppose can convince myself Silarial is breaking the normal rules and Roiben can't quite believe that she'd go that far, like his reaction to her using mortals as weapons. But still, it was kind of a stretch for me. I really liked Kaye's riddle-answer to her quest (didn't see that coming... and now I'm embarrassed on my own behalf as well as Roiben's for missing that... I should go and re-read that section to see what kind of authorial sleight-of-hand is there, if any). Probably doesn't stand up to full scrutiny, but Ruddles seemed happy enough to have Kaye fulfill the quest, so it makes sense he would not question her too much, especially given the circumstances. Nice touch to end with the revelation of how she did that, too. The most effective twist for me, though, was the fairies bargaining for Ethine with Dave: "Luis took a step forward. 'What did you do to him?' 'We killed him,' said a fey with scales along his cheekbones." Just the chilly and sudden reversal of that scene -- worked really well for me.
A lot of what this book is about is happily ever after. A review a read somewhere said something about Corny's half of the journey being more compelling than Kaye's, but I'm not sure I agree. The "problems" in Kaye and Roiben's relationship are more common and less interesting than Corny's existential sort of struggle and finding healing after his experience with Nephamael -- but that in itself is kind of neat, given that Kaye is a changeling-pixie and Roiben is the King of the Unseelie Court. The scene where Kaye and Corny are enumerating all the reasons why Roiben is a terrible boyfriend (too busy, too old, too emo, no car, hair longer than hers) was a lot of fun, as well as the other mentions of this sort of thing along the way. I also like it that at the end Kaye is not planning to abandon her family and mortal friends to disappear underhill -- she is not giving up the rest of her life for Roiben. Roiben's backstory with Silarial was great, too, as well as her assumption of her irresistability. I didn't really feel the chemistry between Corny (sorry, Neil -- that was really cute) and Luis. I could've bought into Corny liking Luis a lot more soundly if there'd been a little more time/interaction between them before Corny came to the realization he liked him. Luis liking Corny back just felt contrived. It's harder to show that, yeah, without a Luis POV and with the POV characters otherwise preoccuppied (Kaye) or seeing everything thorugh skewed perception (Corny), but it could've been built up to more believably, I think, though it would've taken more time.
Ironside seems to be a good deal less dark than Valiant and even than Tithe (which kind of makes sense, since instead of *two* ruthless Queens there's now only one). Dave's death is chilling, but more "offscreen" than Janet's, and he is a less major character in this one, and you can kind of see the bad end coming anyway. And, of course, there's the kind of happy ending. But there are some really nice, non-fluffy things going on that are on par with the changeling revelation in Tithe -- Kaye telling her mother the truth, Ellen's reaction, and the thing that hit me especially hard about that -- Kaye thinking back afterwards to all of the irresponsible, free-spirit mother things Ellen had done, which have seemed rather lovable so far, and wondering if that was Ellen subconsciously punishing her because she could feel Kaye was not her child. That -- the world tilting on a single realization in such a brutal way -- worked really well. I like the family they make afterwards -- Kaye's grandmother, Ellen, Kaye, and Kate -- not fluffy but loving and learning to live with each other, Kate fey and disdaining mortal food and talking to rats, against the background of TV and Chinese food and babysitting with a friend, the weird reverse adoption thing it turns into.
I still like Roiben a whole lot, though he had fewer memorable lines in this one than in Tithe or even in the Valiant cameo. I found the Seelie Court Fey pretty boring (Ethine and Talathain come across as brainwashed rather than interesting in any way), but I did find Ellebere growing on me for some reason. I have no particular strong feelings for Kaye -- the thing about her I find most endearing is actually her attachment to her rats -- and I'm largely indifferent to Luis, but I do like Corny, with his adolescent desire to not be human, reveling in the anti-Midas curse, and quips "Of course, my crown would have lots of rhinestones spelling out 'tyrant' so not everyone would want to steal it either." His *character* and character arc were the most interesting for me in this outing, but, again, the romance piece of it I don't really buy.
Nice touches: Roiben thinking about how "inelegant" Silarial's new warfare tactics are, Ethine being disappointed by diner blueberry pie. Also, the cafe with the random letters in drawers -- if that's an idea based on a real place, I wanna go there! Because I'm terribly nosy and love reading pieces of paper I find in the street and inside books and other people's postcards, and I would love to browse there.
The other thing I liked (which is also true of the previous books) were the references slipped in to other fantasy books and things -- Swordspoint lying around on the floor of Corny's room (he *would* see himself as an Alec type, looking for a calm, competent Richard, heh), Kaye lending Roiben an "Emma Bull paperback" (which I assume is War for the Oaks, and am therefore greatly amused by the idea of Roiben reading about Willie Silver and company), and Ellen mentioning "a book signing at a bar. Kelly something. Chain? Kelly Chain?" (which I assume is Kelly Link). And I wonder if Kaye's mental litany of "Stupid mud. Stupid boat. Stupid faery island." is an homage to Cassie's VSD's (after all, Ruby had a "Still not king" button in Valiant).
There are little non-magical but still sort of surreal moments that I really like -- like Kaye wondering whether kids had stolen baby Jesus out of the empty manger "or if the family had just taken him in for the night".
Anyway, a really good read, and I'm sad that blackholly won't be writing any more "Modern Faerie Tales" for the next five years at least...
65. Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Justice -- OMG, the pacing of these books! I think it gets slower and slower, to the point where nothing really happens for a hundred pages at a time, and the wrap-up is like 150 pages. Some of the slowness I don't mind -- I mostly liked the beginning, Imri with Mavros and then Eamonn in the City of Elua, and I liked the daily life with Dorelei, settling in in Alba. And the wandering around in the wilderness I didn't like, but I understand the point of it -- giving Imriel time to achieve that "humble heart", wear the reader down along with him. Other things, though, went on too long, especially the assorted traveling -- narrator-Imri doesn't have the same gift for travel writing that narrator-Phedre does, although that's the only aspect in which I prefer Phedre's narration to his. Mostly it's the ending, though, 'cos I was totally ready for things to come to a frickin' conclusion once Imri met up with Phedre and Joscelin in Vralia -- and it went on, and ON from there...
I can't say that I cared a whole lot for the plot -- what there was of it. I really don't get vengeance as a driver... I can understand revenge that's meant to discourage a repeat of the situation (e.g. what Richard did in Swordspoint), but cutting off someone's head to make the dead rest easier? Really not something that resonates with me. So I wasn't really bought into Imriel's motivation -- until the point at which he started questioning it himself, and was ready to give up (had, in fact, given up -- not exactly a Frodo on Mount Doom moment, but it is refreshing to have a hero who not only falters but actually *fails*, would've failed on his own), and then Berlik offered himself as a willing sacrifice -- *that* was nice. As was the fact that the pilgrims and Vralians wanted to protect him, and that Imriel understood why Berlik had made the choice. (BTW, I had a feeling Morwen was about to forswear herself when she was making that elaborate oath.)
One of the most interesting scenes, though I'm not really sure why I thought so, was the one where Morwen attempts to -- well, rape, I guess, though she's using a voodoo doll to accomplish it -- so, rape, Imriel. I don't suppose female-on-male rape is all that common in fantasy lit, but really what I found interesting and affecting was Imriel calling out to the gods of Terre D'Ange: "'Blessed Elua be my witness,' I whispered. 'I do not consent to this. Mighty Kushiel hear your scion. This is blashpemy, and I will avenge it.' Morwen hesitated. 'Your gods are not here.'" Again, I'm not sure why I find this scene quite interesting, but I think part of that is that it shows starkly the 'cultural' (and philosophical, and magical, and religious) differences between Terre d'Ange and Alba as well as the real world.
I do continue to like Imriel. I like it that his ambition in life is to be *good* -- it's fairly refreshing, for a fantasy hero, who seem to mostly be all about rising above their humble origins and/or saving or changing the world. (In fact, one of the things I really like -- although it could've been stressed less often -- is that Vralia begins and wins a war while he's off on his walkabout, and he doesn't even notice. Phedre was always at the cener of world events -- it's neat to have Imriel be completely incidental to them for a change.) So, I like Imriel, though I like him better when he has people (or events) around to yank him out of the broodiness. For this reason (and possibly other as well), Mavros really grew on me in this book. He really seems to care about Imriel, but he never loses his sense of humour or fun. The fact that he bet on Imri in the Bryony House wager struck me as incredibly sweet, actually, as well as clever. Imri is a bit too broody for me, but he has a sense of humour about it, and allows people to tease him about it, and so forth, which makes it much more palatable that it would've been otherwise -- the Corwin effect.
I don't care for Sidonie at all. The Imriel/Sidonie is undeniably hot -- the actual sex (and I say this as someone who generally doesn't find Carey's pornier scenes at all sexy) and the UST before they get to that point and when he's pining for her in Alba. But I don't buy their relationship as anything deep at all. I don't find Sidonie interesting, and I can't really see why Imri would, either. I see it as a forbidden fruit type of thing (like Claudia was, only more so), but... nothing more. Much as I disliked Phedre, I could get behind her and Joscelin's relationship, because even without the sex it was an *interesting* one -- very different individuals brought together by fate, then bound by the Cassiline oath and shared tragedy and experience. Imriel and Sidonie's relationship before/outside the sex is pretty much nonexistent. I guess it's neat that she is one of the few people who *doesn't* make him want to be a better person, that he feels he can just be himself with her -- and interesting twist on the transformative power of love in fairy tales/fantasy -- but the problem is that it doesn't make for a very compelling lovers' arc, even with the external obstacles to their relationship. Also, he still has more chemistry with Maslin than with Sidonie when they're not actually in bed.
Speaking of Maslin, I really liked that he appeared in this book as much as he did. The fact that he stood up to Barquiel, that he went off on Sidonie's "quest", the way he interacted with Imriel in Vralia -- very nice. I do think their changing relationship could be done a bit better -- I can convince myself to believe it, because it makes sense that two landsmen lost in the wilderness would find how much they have in common and develop a friendship out of animosity, but it was me doing the work of convincing, not really Carey. I was rather disappointed that Maslin stayed behind -- not so much that he seems over Sidonie and is ceding her to Imriel, although it would be neat to continue a (friendly) kind of a love triangle going, but also because I'm afraid that means there wouldn't be much of him in the next book, and I'd been looking forward to that when it became clear he would become Imriel's friend. I wouldn't mind seeing a threesome, either, or even just Maslin/Imriel (Imri says (jokingly, yes, but) "My bright angel come to save me" and reports that "He [...] took my shoulder in a hard grip; one that lay somewhere between affection and violence" -- how is this not a slash scene waiting to happen? But anyway.
I find it curious -- and neat -- that Imriel is "reclaiming" his time in Darsanga. Not just coming to terms with it and getting over the effect that had on his sexuality -- coming to terms with 'Kushiel's heritage' and being with a man (sorta... the male attendant in the Valerian House showing didn't freak him out). Not just that, but also calling up thoughts of Darsanga to keep himself in control in the face of temptation (in Bryony House and later with Morwen) and, less positively, using his history as an excuse for his coldness towards Dorelai. And, of course, being willing to turn himself over to Sidonie's power at the end is an important step as well.
I continue to really like Joscelin, and his relationship with Imri. And that Imri gets all jealous on Joscelin's behalf when he sees Phedre's reaction to Childric d'Essoms. And that when he spots Maslin's fair hair when he's come to rescue him, Imri's first thought is that it's Joscelin, come to save him.) It's really quite sweet. I've commented on Maslin and Mavros and Sidonie already. Alais, whom I liked in prior books, has receded so far into the background that I no longer care much about her. I continue to be sad that Barquiel L'Envers seems to be firmly entrenched as the villain now -- I liked his ambiguous antagonists-but-allies relationship with Phedre in the first trilogy, and I still like him as a character in his brief appearances, but I'm guessing he is headed for an ignoble death or infamy or something, and I don't like that. I rather liked Amarante, especially that image of love as "a safe harbour", and her concern of Maslin in the Maslin/Sidonie relationship.
I liked Dorelei OK -- the fact that she saw through Imriel, that she was willing to give him time and freedom. But she's also not someone who elicited a lot of passion. None of the Albans did, though I liked the mystical aspects of their life that Imriel came into contact with better than any of the other mysticism encountered in these books so far. My feelings on Vralia are... heh. Well, as far as fantasy pseudo-Russias go, it's not bad, although the "Rus" words are pretty mangled. (But the food is about right, and made me crave vareniki, though they're never mentioned by name but only as soft, delicious dumplings. Mmm, vareniki.) And the Christianization of the Yeshuites continues to bug me, although I found myself rather liking Micah ben Ximon. I kind of liked Imriel's interlude with Kebek the Tatar, too, especially their on-the-fly sign-language conversation about their "girls" (I have a far easier time understanding Kebek's attraction to his, btw...)
And, unrelated to anything, I got a kick out of Brigitta musing about "tiny Alba ruling the world", thanks to its power over the seas (via the Master of the Straits) and everybody else smiling at the impossibility of it. Sun never sets, and all. :)
68. Terry Pratchett, Lord and Ladies -- I really liked this one. I wonder if it might be my favorite Witches book, in fact. I haven't quite decided. Granny Weatherwax is one of my favorite characters, and I liked her in this book. I know people have a problem with her getting too powerful as the Witches books wear on, but I think anybody who brags about being able to turn into a swarm of bees first thing upon rising from the almost-dead is still comfortably far from Mary-Sue territory. I loved, loved, LOVED Granny/Ridcully. I actually find Ridcully quite adorable in cameos, and there was just the right amount of him in it. They are a fabulous sort of couple, since nobody else is able to deal with them due to their sheer force of personality. I find myself wishing I could see the alternate universes in which they did get together. It must be awesome! (Is there fic? Not the same, but maybe at least there's fic?) And I liked the she convinced him to leave her (and theoretically go for help) -- and he DID! Nobody actually leaves in fantasy under these circumstances, no matter how much sense it makes, and it's so refereshing that Riduclly did! And: "I'm the head wizard now. I've only got to give an order and a thousand wizards will... uh... disobey, come to think of it, or say 'What?', or or start to argue. But they have to take notice." Also, I kind of like the implied potential maybe Diamanta/Ponder Stibbons, though I have a very hard time imagining how *that* would work out, and I can only assume (from, say, The Last Continent) that it didn't. In this leg of the Trousers of Time, anyway.
I liked Nanny Ogg and her careful but slightly wistful fondness for the King of the Elves -- which makes sense, since she also thinks Greebo is a big softie. And I even -- never thought it would come to that -- like Magrat, in her Queen Ynci moments, when she shot the crossbow through the keyhole and: "'I will not beg for mercy,' it said. 'Good,' said Magrat, and fired." (Also, really liked Mr Brooks squirting the Elves with Raid, or whatever. And the comparison of Elves to wasps. This is why Pterry is awesome -- there is all this apparently random stuff, and it all works on, like, a dozen levels. How does he DO that?!) Also, I liked the way she tore up her wedding dress for bandages without a thought, as contrasted with the mopeyness over Emberella's dress in Witches Abroad.
I wasn't sure what I was expecting from the Elves. I knew they were not pretty-shiny Tolkien Elves, but I wasn't quite prepared for them to be this irredeemably psycho. Pterry pulled it off, of course, and I like a lot of aspects of it, the implied hive nature of them (all elves laughing when the Queen said something funny), the weird hypnotic harmonics that are more uncomfortable than beautiful when not filtered through glamour, ditto for faces, the less-flatering feline comparisons, the iron-sense they have, the fact they the non-royal Elves are referred to in the neuter. It's not a vision I can get behind (I *like* Elves -- cruel, superior, alien, but not quite to that degree), but it worked.And the bit on 'half-Elves': "you just get a race o' skinny types with pointy ears, and a tendency to giggle and burn easily in sunshine".
This book also totally brought out the 12-year-old in me. I guess it makes sense, for a Midsummer Night's Dream riff -- the "phallusy" about witches' broomsticks, why a broomstic is better than a man, "Blossoms were left to go fertilize themselves", the tansmigration jokes ("I was younger then. Now, once is enough."), "Il Porcupino Nil Sodomy Est". Just so much fun!
I also liked Granny Weatherwax playing Sherlock Holmes: "Someone got killed up here. [...] A tall man. He had one leg longer 'n the other. And a beard. He was probably a hunter." "How'd you know all that?" "I just trod on'im." Also, heh, apparently Granny is of the Susan school of child discipline: "If you don't go away, I will personally rip your head off and fill it with snakes." That makes sense, I suppose. And I guess now we know that the Archchancellor Weatherwax is a distant cousin of hers. And, I loved the Bursar's mad battle cries and other utterances. He is a lot more entertaining on an extreme dose of dried frog pills (or, possibly, Pterry used up all the good nonsense phrases in this book). And: "Outside on the battlements, the guard changed. He changed into his gardening apron and went off to hoe the beans." And it was neat that there was a Catch-22 reference -- "a squadron of Yossarians with middle-ear trouble".
Also, I have to say that the term "isoresons" are almost certainly the geekiest thing even encountered in fantasy. It fills me with glee. Glee! (And, so, Ponder now has a real post -- Reader in Invisible Writings. I probably saw that in other (newer) books and just never noticed.)
I continue to make my way through Sandman. I'm still not really used to the graphic format, but finding it less distracting now, and here's a weird thing -- it's harder for me to put the book down until I'm done. I tend to flip through portions I haven't read with regular text books, too, but when I do that with a graphic novel the art "catches" me more than the occasional words that pop out, and so I want to get there more quickly -- maybe? Or maybe it's that there's at least a perception of faster reading, so that each page spread takes less time to read? I don't know. Still liking it, although I've noticed that how much I enjoy each segment/episode seems almost inversely proportional to how much Dream there is in it. This is somewhat disappointing, given the nature of these comics...
66. Sandman #1: Preludes and Nocturnes (Neil Gaiman) -- heh, I see what you meant, _grayswandir_, by saying that the appearance of the characters changes from comic to comic. I actually like the image of this Lucifer more than the one in Season of Mists, but this Azazel less. Also, it's really weird to have first person narration from Dream and others. I can't say I was particularly interested in the main story, and it was really *weird* to have characters from other comic books make an appearance. I mean, I know it takes place in the DC universe, nominally, but it was still *really* strange... I liked Dream's preparation for summoning the Hecatae -- extracting the required sacrifices from various dreams of various people. I liked various bit players -- like Mark at the diner (the guy waiting for his interview), and Dr. Crane in the insane asylum (is he some kind of superhero comic book villain? or just somebody Gaiman made up?). "The Sound of Her Wings" was pretty powerful, more for the ideas/art than actual words, in this case, I have to say (though the final "punchline" is nice) -- the old Jew, the montage of deaths worked for me. The episode that got to me the most, though, was "24 Hours". Dude... domestic violence, passive-aggressive murder, a spot of necrophilia (which made me think of Gaiman's Snow White retelling, btw), the creepy waitress writing happy endings for all her customers -- and that was *before* the insane maniac got ahold of them. Of all the stuff that happened afterwards, I think it's the various oblique "shots" of Judy having put out her eyes that get to me the most (again, just the art...). And then, in the next episode, Dee's speech about why he is doing all this: "Revenge, possibly. That and dreams of power. In the beginning I thought I'd tell them I was doing this and they'd make me ruler of the world if I stopped... But it's so much fun I don't *want* to stop."
Looking over what I just wrote, I see I noticed the art much more (in a positive way) in this one than Season of Mists, and The Doll's House, too, since I'm writing this after finishing both volumes. I wonder if that's because it was Gaiman's first comic (right?) and he baked in more of the medium's bells and whistles into it -- the deaths montage, the nearly-blank pages with Dee facing Dream -- and as the volumes went on stopped playing around with that as much and relied more on the writing. Or is it just because their artist changed? On the other hand, the use of bold font in the speech bubbles seemed a lot more prominent in this one, or at least more distracting. Wonder if it's because they figured out they didn't need to do it as much, or to have the words themselves convey stresses rather than font. Kinda neat, these progressions, unless I'm just imagining them...
67. Sandman #2: The Doll's House (Neil Gaiman) -- _grayswandir_ warned me this was going to be dark, and may be I was on the lookout for it too much, because nothing in here came even close to creeping me out as much as "24 Hours" in the preceding volume. Which is probably a good thing, as I'm not sure I ever want anything to top that. I think I like the story better, here. I could take or leave the prologue -- didn't find Nada and her story interesting in Season of Mists or the brief encounter in Preludes, don't find her interesting now, either. I did like the main story, though. Again, I quite liked several secondary characters -- Hal (who seems really sweet) and Chantal (I love her weird dreams about recursive stories and a love affair with a sentence, and "We possess the largest collection of stuffed spiders in private hands on the eastern seaboard" -- she sounds like Luna Lovegood after a slightly darker turn), and I really liked Gilbert/Fiddler's Green (his "hoom"ing made me think of Ents, not altogether inappropriately, as it turned out :). I'd liked Unity in an abstract sort of way back in Preludes, and she really won me over when she told off Dream: "Of course you don't [understand]. You're obviously not very bright, but I shouldn't let it bother you." Oh, and I liked Abel's baby gargoyle. It's cute.
There were neat bits of dark (VERY dark) humour in the "collectors'" convention -- Nimrod getting stage fright ("not afraid of anything, certainly not blood, definitely not women... he's scared"), the panel on women in serial killing ("I tell you, I'm sick and tired of women in our line being stereotyped... I'm a serial killer and a woman, and I'm proud of it!"), and even Funland's dream.
I'm not sure why Jed's plight didn't bother me more, but it didn't... And while I agree that the idea of the Corinthian is pretty creepy, the stuff he did didn't really affect me. Speaking of dark, though, it was neat that there was a reference to "24 Hours" -- two, even -- Judy being Rose's friend and the newspaper headline about the six deaths at the diner.
The episode I *really* liked, though I'm not sure how it relates to the rest, was "Men of Good Fortune". Chaucer (and Spenser?) cameos! Will and Kit! (and Shakespeare's deal with the devil! And Will and Kit and Will and Dream talking in iambic pentameter!). Dream and Hob Gadling in costumes through the ages (and I actually really liked the art of Dream in this episode). The references to the eras. Also, Hob's observation that "I've seen people, and they don't change. Not in the important things" reminded me of Woland's speech at the theater (Master i Margarita), which is always a good thing.
Part of the reason I wanted to read The Doll's House rather than another volume (beyond trying to read more or less in order) was that there was some Desire in it. Not as much as I would've liked, though. Behind the scenes action is OK, but I really would have liked to see a lot more onscreen. *sigh*
Here's the thing... I haven't read much horror, it's not my thing, so it's weird to be reading it in this form, especially with a visual component. And I think the fact that it's a comic, beside the art, even, makes it starker than in Gaiman's novels. There are certainly parts of Coraline and American Gods and Neverwhere that are quite creepy. But the narration tones it down somewhat, I guess? Just Gaiman's style, which is kind of unassuming and infused with quiet humour. But not in Sandman, where there's a lot less of an outside narrator (rules of the medium, I guess?). So, starker. And it's so *weird* to think of all this horrible stuff as coming from the same mind as officialgaiman's delightful blog entries about his dog and his kids and his friends and his pictures of giant pandas. It's not like I expect horror writers to be serial killers themselves or anything, but... WEIRD!
70. Sandman #6: Fables and Reflections (Neil Gaiman) -- I mentioned in the previous three volumes that the episodes I enjoyed the most were the ones *not* centered around Dream but around secondary characters, the episodic ones, so I expected to like this volume more than the others. But apparently it doesn't work that way. I enjoyed it, sure, and some of the 'fables' more than others, but not as much as the more coherent books. But, individually:
"Three Septembers and a January" -- I like Emperor Norton, and I like the story this tells about him, but there's not much there, to be honest. "His madness keeps him sane" is a nice line, as Gene Wolfe pointed out in the introduction, and I loved Death borrowing Norton's hat -- that whole scene was awfully cute (actually, Death is starting to really grow on me). But nothing particularly special.
"Thermidor" -- I was quite bored by this one, actually. Maybe if I were more interested in French history... although the Orpheus cameo is kind of neat.
"Hunt" -- OK, this one was cute. The story the grandfather tells is OK, but what I really liked was the out-of-story conversation between the grandfather and the girl. The juxtaposition is really nice: "It all sounds suspiciously post-modern to me", "It's not sexist at all. It's the custom of the people. Or it was. Before we came here." "Jesus! You're so transparent, grandpa!" But, still, the whole thing is cute, but not particularly striking, the way my favorite episodes from the other books are.
"August" -- history again, and again I was not particularly interested. Maybe it's 'cos I always liked Julius Caesar but not Augustus. I liked the idea, I guess, but, eh. Augustus crushing the rat though (it was a very cute rat!) was rather... interesting.
"Soft Places" -- and yet more history, which I'm still not interested in. But it did feature Fiddler's Green, which was very nice. I really like that guy! Person. Place.
"Orpheus" -- my favorite thing about this part was seeing the Endless in their Greek forms. And meeting what I guess is the missing brother (here, Olethros, which I guess means his 'real' name is Destruction. Which brings me to the question -- we've got Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Destruction, Delirium (who was once Delight), and... Dream. Does the fact that Dream is the only one whose name does not start with D-E have significance?)
"A Parliament of Rooks" -- my favorite story in this volume. I can definitely identify with poor Lyta going stir-crazy taking care of a baby all day, and I like little Daniel (and his interaction with Goldie), and Cain's mystery is neat. Also, Abel serving Matthew rat. Hee!
"Ramadan" -- some really pretty art. I especially like the progressive descent down the various doors and corridors and stairs. I also like this line: "There were paths through the palace that none but Haroun al Raschid knew; and this was because those who had drawn up the plans, and those who had built the paths, had all long since gone to their final reward: for it is seldom healthy to know the secrets of a king."
So, in short, rather liked "A parliament of Rooks", and enjoyed "Hunt" and "Three Septembers", but this is definitely the Sandman I've liked least so far.
69. Young Warriors, edited by Tamora Pierce -- well, this is a new one. This was the first time that, after reading the introduction to an anthology, I wanted nothing more than to put down the book and not read it at all. Because the introduction (by Tamora Pierce, sadly... sadly because I think I've lost some respect for an author I like, as a result) made it a point to talk about the relevance of stories to the current time, our present reality, news stories, knowing when fighting was not only not right but harmful, etc. etc. Like, that was the whole of the intro, pretty much. The bit that irked me the most: "Is India Edghill's native girl who takes up alien weapons to defeat an oppressor exacting vengeance for the dead or engaging in terrorism? Is Pamela F Service's religious heroine, who lures a foreign commander and his guards into a rocky desert, a rebel insurgent or a national defender?"
I hate "message" literature in general. I hate "message" fantasy even more. My hate for *political* message fantasy knows no bounds -- to the point that a throwaway reference can pretty much poison a whole book for me (it happened with Alta and nearly happened with Witch Baby), and taint my appreciation for an entire series. Because you know what? I don't require authors I read to agree with me on all points, but what I can't abide is the strawman argument these political message fantasies turn into: 'Eviltor the Dark Lord's warmongering government has devastated the peaceful countryside of Meadowlands with fire and sword, sown their fields with salt, eats babies in order to absorb their lifeforce, and powers their war engines with the howls of agony from the 99% of Meadowlanders enslaved in the dark catacombs of unspeakable torture. Therefore, America's War on Terror is wrong!' It's faulty logic, and shoddy rhetoric, and it's disingenuous, which is just about the worst thing I can imagine literature being, short of being outright malicious. And this is bound to be even more true in short stories, especially short stories aimed at the YA set as these are -- there's just not enough *room* for subtlety and balance and showing the motivation of the villains and the flaws of the heroes, especially as YA stories tend to be less ambiguous and more black and white in general. And the then intentionally draw comparisons to the real world and suggest that the (highly abstract) lessons learned from said stories should be used as a basis for forming opinions on real world issues? Uh, not so much.
Here's the other thing, though -- the introduction is not even really accurate about the stories in question. I go into it. I go into it in more detail in the "Devil Wind" story (which I actually ended up really writing, but even in the Pamela F Service's story, the girl in question does not "lure" the foreign commander -- she runs off and he follows her -- and ends up in a trap set by *gods* -- not the girl in question. It's just disingenuous, these descriptions, and they bug the HELL out of me!
Other things that really pissed me off about the introduction: "There are other, nonhuman powers in some of these stories, powers that give the young protagonists a nudge [...] Once again, these powers are there to make you think through the ideas our authors have placed before you." I see! So, really the fantastical elements are purely there to enable the creation of these test cases for the authors' propaganda. And here I was thinking this was a fantasy collection... And: "all of our children are these young warriors [...] We owe it to them and to ourselves to see to the sharpness of our own minds by testing them on the visions of others, to see if we aren't ready for a new way of looking at war and at those who fight it." Handy tool to brainwash your children right here!
I've enjoyed Tamora Pierce's books for about fifteen years now, and I'm really, really disappointed to have this piece of tripe introduction erode most of the good will I have towards this author. But I just can't stand this kind of thing. It's worse than reading Robin Hobb's anti-fanfiction and anti-LJ rants.
But I read that dreadful introduction at the very beginning of my commute, and I had no other book with me, so I went on to read it. And, honestly, nothing was quite as bad as the introduction, though the bad taste of it never quite left me.
"The Gift of Rain Mountain," Bruce Holland Rogers -- Decent story, the mesoamerican setting felt a bit over the top (lots of 'ethnic' buzzwords packed into such a short story) but was a neat change from the usual generic fantasy setting. Narrator sounded pleasant enough. Very little plot, but I appreciated the final twist at the end, though I'm not sure what exactly the message that SPOILER there will only be peace when there are no more humans left to fight with /SPOILER is meant to convey.
"The Magestone", S.M. and Jan Stirling -- Fairly boring, and didn't seem to have much of a character arc. I kept wondering about why the mermaid could speak the same language as the boy, as the implication seems to be that they don't interact with humans. The magestone was WAY too much of a deus ex machina, and pretty much did everything in this story that got done. The mermaid martial art of tail-slapping was pretty cool, though.
"Eli and the Dybbuk", Janis Ian -- I appreciate the setting (think Fiddler on the Roof), but it kept feeling slightly off to me. So, Eli lives in a shtetl but there's only one girl his age around? That seems really weird, given the number of children religious Jews have. He is fourteen, but he's only been studying Torah for a few years? (Well, I don't know about back then/there, but in modern Orthodox communities that I'm familiar with, they start at, like, five). Also, at the end of the story Eli and Leah are touching each other and holding hands -- and, I don't know whether this prohibition holds for all religious Jews, back in those days, but religious men and women don't touch each other. So there were all these bits of "flavor" that just felt off to me, and kept jerking me out of the story to wonder if they were errors or not. The story itself was kind of meh. A boy discovering he is better off as a scholar and a husband than a soldier, because soldiers don't have a monopoly on courage and wisdom is a more versatile, unlimited weapon? I really like that message. But the story has too much extra stuff in it to deliver it particularly well, and the extra stuff is more distracting than interesting. And the very end totally threw me for a loop. Eli is walking with his son, asks him the riddle he used to defeat the dybbuk, and the boy guesses it. Yay! And then: "together they [Eli and his son] ran home to Leah, who did not know the answer to the riddle and did not need to know. For so long as there were Elis and Joachims in this world, she would be forever safe, and no darkness would inhabit her soul." Um, is it me, or is the implication, 'Leah didn't need to be smart because she had her men to be smart for her?' What the hell kind of message is that, from a writer whose blurb states that she "love[s] the idea of women as warriors, since my generation didn't really have them available as mentors." *massive eyeroll*
"Heartless", Holly Black -- unlike the first three, this is actually a well-written story (no surprise there). I wish I'd been aware of it in time to suggest it to pegkerr for her "Heart of Flesh/Heart of Stone" paper, because it is all *about* that choice. I liked the dreamy feeling throughout it -- dreamy in the oppressive, numb, nightmarish sense -- and the understatedness of the resolution. I didn't *love* it, because it's not the kind of story I love -- too grim, even with the ending -- but it was miles better than any of the preceding ones.
"Lioness", Pamela F. Service -- this is a historical fantasy story about the princess/priestess of Kush turning back the Roman invasion, supposedly based on historical accounts. I think I would've liked reading the historical accounts better, to be honest. The plot was pretty cool (although not much like what the intro suggested it would be, more on that later), but the characters were dull, and the "human color" touches didn't really add anything. I didn't care about the protagonist, or any of these people, and it was rather boring to read.
"Thunderbolt", Esther M Friesner -- is the story of how Helen (of Sparta, and not daughter of Zeus in reality) escaped from Theseus. I liked the conceit of her thinking of all of her actions in military terms. The narration was pretty fun. I love Sparta, I hate Theseus, so it was fun to listen to her extoll Sparta and bash him. I found the ease with which she achieved her victory rather difficult to believe, though. I saw the novel-length extension of this story, Nobody's Princess, in the library the other day, and I passed on it, even though I like Friesner's books. The story didn't really want me to pick up the novel, either.
"The Devil Wind", India Edghill -- this was a story that I actually quite liked. Once again, the blurb about it in the introduction almost completely misrepresented what the story was like. Yes, there's a native (Indian) girl, but she does not take up arms against the English oppressors in general -- she is avenging the murder of her Indian husband, her English friend-and-might-as-well-be-sister, that girl's mother, who was her employer, and a Muslim nurse. The other Englishmen who feature in the story are positive characters, kind to Tara when she is pretending to be the English Estelle, and she speaks about them in general with affection ("I found their care touching, their defiant calm admirable"). She doesn't censure the rebelling sepoys (the story takes place against the background of their uprising), but neither is she particularly on their side. In fact, she says: "She Who Dances Death is a harsh mistress. Those who offer life to her must do so with a pure heart. Hatred and bloodlust have no place in her service. The man against whom she does, in fact, "take[] up alien weapons" is not some generic oppressor -- he is a *murderer*, who killed his wife for her money, killed Tara's husband and the nurse because they were witnesses, and caused the death of his daughter. *That* is why she Tara takes revenge upon him, not because he is British, or an invader, or any of those things. But, anyway, my grudge against the introduction aside, I liked this story, because Tara was an engaging narrator, and the story was well written, and I liked the cyclical conclusion. I think this story actually achieves what all of the other ones in this collection were presumably supposed to achieve: show an unusual warrior in a setting that's not all that common in mainstream fantasy. And it was good. This is the first new-to-me author in this collection I was sufficiently intrigued by to keep an eye out for more of her stories/books.
"The Boy Who Cried 'Dragon'", Mike Resnik -- short and funny, a fractured fairy tale kind of story. Nothing special or earth-shattering, but cute. Favorite quote: "just as fifty years ago a Maasai warrior became a man by slaying a lion with his spear, and today you are hailed as an adult when you can break through Microsoft's firewall, back in the days we are talking about, a boy or girl would be recognized as a young man of woman only after slaying a dragon."
"Student of Ostriches", Tamora Pierce -- whatever my feelings on the intro she penned, Pierce is still a good writer. The narrator is sympathetic, the setting is clearly unusual but without the "local colour" being slathered on too thick, the way I felt it was in the first story. I liked her reaction at seeing a white man. I liked the basic premise of learning fighting by watching animals fight, though I kinda doubt the protagonist's prowess is credible. I don't actually remember her as a legendary figure in Tortall, but I still enjoyed the story.
"Serpent's Rock", Laura Anne Gilman -- I like the unusual setting (Australian bush), and think it was actually subtly enough weaved in (except for an overabundance of "quick-leaper"s). But the story itself was pretty boring and pointless. The protagonist goes through a number of encounters with animals that are repetitive and almost fairy-tale like. But only one (and a half) of those encounters actually end up doing anything tangible, and there are some things from the beginning, too, that don't contribute much to the story. Basically, it's just not interesting and not that well written. Pretty much the way I felt about Gilman's urban fantasy novel that I tried, too. *sigh*
"Hidden Warriors", Margaret Mahy -- another pretty boring story with characters whom I did not care about one bit. The blurb says she may write a book about them, and that's what the story felt like -- pages from the middle of a novel, without any hook giving a reason to be interested in these characters or any particularly impressive resolution. The wizard's diction was kind of interesting, but that's really it.
"Emerging Legacy", Doranna Durgin -- OK, at least something happened in this one. The clumsy but clever heroine who is underestimated by her people (and why? and also, it didn't seem like her pack actually didn't listen to her) and strives to live up to her heroic father's legacy... well, yawn. But at least stuff happened that was somewhat exciting. Most worth of note, probably, is that the author bio mentioned that her dog has a LiveJournal: connerybeagle. That's... new.
"An Axe for Men", Rosemary Edghill -- decently written, except for a glut of Random Capitalized Words, and an interesting sort of reversal -- power passing from the hands of a corrupt matriarch into the hands of a man. But, eh, I'd been expecting a lot better.
"Acts of Faith", Lesley McBain -- I liked the story. Against the background of WWII Ireland, three girls, Catholic Bridget, Maire, who follows the old ways and has the Sight, and Jewish refugee Miriam (and I think what she's gone through to get there is hinted at pretty effectively without actually saying anything much), develop a friendship and run away to New York using magic. The fantastical elements are not the most creative or believable ever, but it's a neat enough story, especially compared to the so many others in this collection that fizzled.
"Swords that Talk", Brent Hartinger -- eh. A ghost, a troll, a talking sword, but pretty much zero actual wonder.
Wow. What a lame collection... There was one story that I really liked -- "The Devil Wind", and several more that I enjoyed: "Heartless", "Thunderbolt", "Student of Ostriches", "The Boy Who Cried Dragon", and "Acts of Faith". Pretty weak, really. Also, I just kind of feel like remarking that diversity is great, but when eleven and a half out of fifteen stories are written by women, I think maybe it's not diversity anymore. Surely, men write about young warriors too?
**
As if this post weren't long enough, random bits of book-related stuff:
~ From officialgaiman, here:
"I'm not sure how I missed The Privilege of the Sword. It's a sequel to Swordspoint, which is one of my favourite of Ellen Kushner's novels, and thus one of my favourite books. (Ellen Kushner would be my evil twin, only she's a girl, we're not related, and I strongly suspect that if either of the two of us is evil, then it's me.)"
That is an oddly adorable thought...
~ Dragaeran Cycle of rulership, sanctioned by skzbrust himself
~ Another fantasy writer with an LJ: kateelliott
Author of the Crown of Stars series. Found via matociquala linking to an
urban fantasy discussion there -- and I was gratified to see War for the Oaks getting the love it deserves (I was actually rather shocked how many people had never heard of this book -- and I was convinced it was a pillar of the genre). Also, I now want to read Megan Lindholm's Wizard of the Pigeons
63. Jim Butcher, White Night -- *this* is why I like reading Butcher. I thought that this book was a little slow getting started, even though it practically opens with a murder scene (it's just, it's not "The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault" as far as opening scenes go, but then, what is?), but once it got *really* going (say, round chapter 3) it had that can't-put-it-down momentum. I finished a quarter of the 400 page book during my morning commute, and then went and hid in the bathroom for an hour and read another 10 pages... 20... 50... 75. In fact, the only reason I stopped was I hit the flashback, or I probably would've just read on through lunch.
I like Harry, in all his smart-assed, headlong, stupidly chivalrous glory, and I like his narrative voice. I thought his scenes with Murphy in the beginning felt a little flat, but I like his dynamic with Molly and Elaine (not at all in a shipping them way. I like Harry/Murphy theoretically, as much as I like anything and on the grounds of being 10,000 times better than Harry/Susan. But I really don't want to see another sex scene, because the one with Susan in, what was it, Death Masks? sucked so bad, and, really the hottest interaction Harry's had in possibly the entire series was actually with "Sheila" back before he realized she was a private hallucination brought on by Lasciel). I liked "Lash" in this book, too, and was sad about her passing, though somewhat relieved that Harry is free of the coin's influence now, and also that he (probably?) doesn't have Hellfire at his beck and call, because that was getting kind of Stu-ish. I like that Harry is finally maturing, sort of -- that he is learning things from his instruction of Molly, that he is becoming more likely to plan ahead than shoot from the hip, even in the heat of the moment (e.g. when he chooses to tail Grey Cloak rather than fight him), and that he is starting to trust more people and open up to them more (not just Murphy and, to some degree Thomas and Michael Carpenter, but also Molly and Elaine). I never cared much for his Lone Wolf complex.
Thomas and Ramirez are two of my favorite less-central characters in the series, and I loved having them both feature somewhat prominently in this book. I love Ramirez's combat magic! Green goop and Aztec glove or whatever that was. And I rather liked the scene of him skipping after Harry, trying to keep up. I thought Carlos's quips were a bit strained, less fun than in previous books, but I suppose it can in fact be attributed to the burdens of his new job and the war in general. The revelation that he is a virgin grew on me. I wonder if it's for moral reasons, or lack of time? The scene where Harry pretends to be Thomas's jilted lover was priceless, and the final scene at the hairdresser's was rather fun, too. I like the White Court vampires in general, so I enjoyed their massive presence in this book. And I have a soft spot for Marcone when he is playing Harry's sorta-ally, and I love his "preventative measures" in this book (also, totally called that the girl who got shot, Helen's daughter, is the girl Harry had seen Marcone reading to in an earlier book). In fact, the only way I could've enjoyed the big firefight scene in the Deeps any better was if Kincaid had also been present, in the flesh and not viacriously through having given Murphy the gun. ("Man toy"! Hee! And Molly eavesdropping on Murphy and Harry's conversation at this point. Does Kincaid know how to treat a girl, or what?) Also, Mouse is beyond adorable.
Let's see. I was pretty sure something was off with Priscilla from the second mention of her turtleneck (the second scene in which she appears), though I thought it was concealing fang-marks rather than an adam's apple and falsies. O-kay. Oh, and that scene where Luccio tells Harry how she can't make Wardens' swords anymore -- right on the same page as Harry mentions Yoshimo -- is rather hinting at the fact that Harry will be picking up the Knight's sword he has been keeping. Speaking of the flashback, actually, I could've done without that part at all. Yeah, ok, I get it, Harry is both hardcore and kind of losing it. I thought the real-time examples with Molly and the Velvet Room showed that just fine. The ghouls stuff was just gross, and didn't really lead to anything much that wouldn't've happened anyway.
I didn't much care for Abby (whose precognition just made me think of Mrs Cake -- dude, you do not try to mine for humour the same are Pterry has done to death, and it wasn't that funny to begin with), and I wasn't too impressed with or invested in any of the other Cauldron women.
Random observations: I actually liked Harry's explanation of the mistranslation behind "do not suffer a witch to live". I'm generally not a big fan of in-story messages, but this was OK if not subtly done. Ditto for the comment around the White Council being "more willing to take chces and
make hard decisions' that amounted to other people getting killed while the Council's bony collective ass stayed as covered as possible". I didn't think there were as many kickass quips in this book as there often are, but I did like this quote: "Doing battle with the forces of... I was going to say evil, but I'm increasingly unsure exactly where everyone around me falls on the Jedi-Sith Index. Doing battle with the forces of things trying to kill me, or my friends, or people who can't protect themselves" -- that right there summarizes a lot of what I like about these books and Harry as the narrator.
Overall, I was less impressed than with Proven Guilty (but that was kind of an outlier, for these books, which tend to be fun but not exactly deep), and enjoyed it less than Dead Beat (which is probably my second favorite), but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.
64. Holly Black, Ironside -- I liked it! I think it may actually be better than Tithe in terms of the book itself, though it doesn't quite have the novelty of a fresh urban fantasy world, or the delight of first meeting a character like Roiben. Things that bugged me about Tithe were not noticeable here -- I always find it a little hard to decide whether that's because I've gotten used to the author's style and have learned to ignore those things that annoy me about it, or if they're really not there. I think it's the latter, actually. The story felt a lot tighter overall, without the slow ramp-up that hampered me a little in Tithe, and there was less of a feeling of too much assorted fairy imagery thrown together for the underhill scenes -- the strangeness of it was more subtle, I think, and thus more effective (like, I loved the rug of mousetails and the "blackberry boy"). Well, not subtle in the prologue, which did feel over the top for that reason, and maybe also because I'd listened to the recording of Holly Black reading it on her website, but, really, all that drinking of blood. But it's a good contrast with the current, icy Roiben, I guess. I liked it a lot better than Valiant, largely because of the cohesiveness -- it's a much tighter story, though of a more traditional format, too, I guess: Kaye's personal quest to 'win' Roiben, Kaye and the others trying to protect the ones they love, and the war of the Seelie and Unseelie courts, all tied up together in a most satisfactory way. One problem I had with Tithe is still present in Ironside, and that does weaken the book some, I think -- Roiben's POV feels too human for a Faery. There's what feels like an attempt to explain it in-text, when he muses that his diction is becoming more similar to Kaye's, to human diction -- but I don't quite buy it. The dialogue's good, but the internal narration... doesn't quite do it for me.
I liked the twists in this one, which I think were more effective for me than the ones in Tithe. The one I saw coming from a mile off was that Silarial was planning to use someone Roiben would be loathe to kill as her champion. I'd thought Kaye, originally, but I suppose she couldn't, since Kaye wasn't really affiliated with her court. And, in any case, by bargaining with Silarial to name Ethine as her heir, that made the choice extremely simple. I have a hard time believing that Roiben did not see that coming... though I suppose can convince myself Silarial is breaking the normal rules and Roiben can't quite believe that she'd go that far, like his reaction to her using mortals as weapons. But still, it was kind of a stretch for me. I really liked Kaye's riddle-answer to her quest (didn't see that coming... and now I'm embarrassed on my own behalf as well as Roiben's for missing that... I should go and re-read that section to see what kind of authorial sleight-of-hand is there, if any). Probably doesn't stand up to full scrutiny, but Ruddles seemed happy enough to have Kaye fulfill the quest, so it makes sense he would not question her too much, especially given the circumstances. Nice touch to end with the revelation of how she did that, too. The most effective twist for me, though, was the fairies bargaining for Ethine with Dave: "Luis took a step forward. 'What did you do to him?' 'We killed him,' said a fey with scales along his cheekbones." Just the chilly and sudden reversal of that scene -- worked really well for me.
A lot of what this book is about is happily ever after. A review a read somewhere said something about Corny's half of the journey being more compelling than Kaye's, but I'm not sure I agree. The "problems" in Kaye and Roiben's relationship are more common and less interesting than Corny's existential sort of struggle and finding healing after his experience with Nephamael -- but that in itself is kind of neat, given that Kaye is a changeling-pixie and Roiben is the King of the Unseelie Court. The scene where Kaye and Corny are enumerating all the reasons why Roiben is a terrible boyfriend (too busy, too old, too emo, no car, hair longer than hers) was a lot of fun, as well as the other mentions of this sort of thing along the way. I also like it that at the end Kaye is not planning to abandon her family and mortal friends to disappear underhill -- she is not giving up the rest of her life for Roiben. Roiben's backstory with Silarial was great, too, as well as her assumption of her irresistability. I didn't really feel the chemistry between Corny (sorry, Neil -- that was really cute) and Luis. I could've bought into Corny liking Luis a lot more soundly if there'd been a little more time/interaction between them before Corny came to the realization he liked him. Luis liking Corny back just felt contrived. It's harder to show that, yeah, without a Luis POV and with the POV characters otherwise preoccuppied (Kaye) or seeing everything thorugh skewed perception (Corny), but it could've been built up to more believably, I think, though it would've taken more time.
Ironside seems to be a good deal less dark than Valiant and even than Tithe (which kind of makes sense, since instead of *two* ruthless Queens there's now only one). Dave's death is chilling, but more "offscreen" than Janet's, and he is a less major character in this one, and you can kind of see the bad end coming anyway. And, of course, there's the kind of happy ending. But there are some really nice, non-fluffy things going on that are on par with the changeling revelation in Tithe -- Kaye telling her mother the truth, Ellen's reaction, and the thing that hit me especially hard about that -- Kaye thinking back afterwards to all of the irresponsible, free-spirit mother things Ellen had done, which have seemed rather lovable so far, and wondering if that was Ellen subconsciously punishing her because she could feel Kaye was not her child. That -- the world tilting on a single realization in such a brutal way -- worked really well. I like the family they make afterwards -- Kaye's grandmother, Ellen, Kaye, and Kate -- not fluffy but loving and learning to live with each other, Kate fey and disdaining mortal food and talking to rats, against the background of TV and Chinese food and babysitting with a friend, the weird reverse adoption thing it turns into.
I still like Roiben a whole lot, though he had fewer memorable lines in this one than in Tithe or even in the Valiant cameo. I found the Seelie Court Fey pretty boring (Ethine and Talathain come across as brainwashed rather than interesting in any way), but I did find Ellebere growing on me for some reason. I have no particular strong feelings for Kaye -- the thing about her I find most endearing is actually her attachment to her rats -- and I'm largely indifferent to Luis, but I do like Corny, with his adolescent desire to not be human, reveling in the anti-Midas curse, and quips "Of course, my crown would have lots of rhinestones spelling out 'tyrant' so not everyone would want to steal it either." His *character* and character arc were the most interesting for me in this outing, but, again, the romance piece of it I don't really buy.
Nice touches: Roiben thinking about how "inelegant" Silarial's new warfare tactics are, Ethine being disappointed by diner blueberry pie. Also, the cafe with the random letters in drawers -- if that's an idea based on a real place, I wanna go there! Because I'm terribly nosy and love reading pieces of paper I find in the street and inside books and other people's postcards, and I would love to browse there.
The other thing I liked (which is also true of the previous books) were the references slipped in to other fantasy books and things -- Swordspoint lying around on the floor of Corny's room (he *would* see himself as an Alec type, looking for a calm, competent Richard, heh), Kaye lending Roiben an "Emma Bull paperback" (which I assume is War for the Oaks, and am therefore greatly amused by the idea of Roiben reading about Willie Silver and company), and Ellen mentioning "a book signing at a bar. Kelly something. Chain? Kelly Chain?" (which I assume is Kelly Link). And I wonder if Kaye's mental litany of "Stupid mud. Stupid boat. Stupid faery island." is an homage to Cassie's VSD's (after all, Ruby had a "Still not king" button in Valiant).
There are little non-magical but still sort of surreal moments that I really like -- like Kaye wondering whether kids had stolen baby Jesus out of the empty manger "or if the family had just taken him in for the night".
Anyway, a really good read, and I'm sad that blackholly won't be writing any more "Modern Faerie Tales" for the next five years at least...
65. Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Justice -- OMG, the pacing of these books! I think it gets slower and slower, to the point where nothing really happens for a hundred pages at a time, and the wrap-up is like 150 pages. Some of the slowness I don't mind -- I mostly liked the beginning, Imri with Mavros and then Eamonn in the City of Elua, and I liked the daily life with Dorelei, settling in in Alba. And the wandering around in the wilderness I didn't like, but I understand the point of it -- giving Imriel time to achieve that "humble heart", wear the reader down along with him. Other things, though, went on too long, especially the assorted traveling -- narrator-Imri doesn't have the same gift for travel writing that narrator-Phedre does, although that's the only aspect in which I prefer Phedre's narration to his. Mostly it's the ending, though, 'cos I was totally ready for things to come to a frickin' conclusion once Imri met up with Phedre and Joscelin in Vralia -- and it went on, and ON from there...
I can't say that I cared a whole lot for the plot -- what there was of it. I really don't get vengeance as a driver... I can understand revenge that's meant to discourage a repeat of the situation (e.g. what Richard did in Swordspoint), but cutting off someone's head to make the dead rest easier? Really not something that resonates with me. So I wasn't really bought into Imriel's motivation -- until the point at which he started questioning it himself, and was ready to give up (had, in fact, given up -- not exactly a Frodo on Mount Doom moment, but it is refreshing to have a hero who not only falters but actually *fails*, would've failed on his own), and then Berlik offered himself as a willing sacrifice -- *that* was nice. As was the fact that the pilgrims and Vralians wanted to protect him, and that Imriel understood why Berlik had made the choice. (BTW, I had a feeling Morwen was about to forswear herself when she was making that elaborate oath.)
One of the most interesting scenes, though I'm not really sure why I thought so, was the one where Morwen attempts to -- well, rape, I guess, though she's using a voodoo doll to accomplish it -- so, rape, Imriel. I don't suppose female-on-male rape is all that common in fantasy lit, but really what I found interesting and affecting was Imriel calling out to the gods of Terre D'Ange: "'Blessed Elua be my witness,' I whispered. 'I do not consent to this. Mighty Kushiel hear your scion. This is blashpemy, and I will avenge it.' Morwen hesitated. 'Your gods are not here.'" Again, I'm not sure why I find this scene quite interesting, but I think part of that is that it shows starkly the 'cultural' (and philosophical, and magical, and religious) differences between Terre d'Ange and Alba as well as the real world.
I do continue to like Imriel. I like it that his ambition in life is to be *good* -- it's fairly refreshing, for a fantasy hero, who seem to mostly be all about rising above their humble origins and/or saving or changing the world. (In fact, one of the things I really like -- although it could've been stressed less often -- is that Vralia begins and wins a war while he's off on his walkabout, and he doesn't even notice. Phedre was always at the cener of world events -- it's neat to have Imriel be completely incidental to them for a change.) So, I like Imriel, though I like him better when he has people (or events) around to yank him out of the broodiness. For this reason (and possibly other as well), Mavros really grew on me in this book. He really seems to care about Imriel, but he never loses his sense of humour or fun. The fact that he bet on Imri in the Bryony House wager struck me as incredibly sweet, actually, as well as clever. Imri is a bit too broody for me, but he has a sense of humour about it, and allows people to tease him about it, and so forth, which makes it much more palatable that it would've been otherwise -- the Corwin effect.
I don't care for Sidonie at all. The Imriel/Sidonie is undeniably hot -- the actual sex (and I say this as someone who generally doesn't find Carey's pornier scenes at all sexy) and the UST before they get to that point and when he's pining for her in Alba. But I don't buy their relationship as anything deep at all. I don't find Sidonie interesting, and I can't really see why Imri would, either. I see it as a forbidden fruit type of thing (like Claudia was, only more so), but... nothing more. Much as I disliked Phedre, I could get behind her and Joscelin's relationship, because even without the sex it was an *interesting* one -- very different individuals brought together by fate, then bound by the Cassiline oath and shared tragedy and experience. Imriel and Sidonie's relationship before/outside the sex is pretty much nonexistent. I guess it's neat that she is one of the few people who *doesn't* make him want to be a better person, that he feels he can just be himself with her -- and interesting twist on the transformative power of love in fairy tales/fantasy -- but the problem is that it doesn't make for a very compelling lovers' arc, even with the external obstacles to their relationship. Also, he still has more chemistry with Maslin than with Sidonie when they're not actually in bed.
Speaking of Maslin, I really liked that he appeared in this book as much as he did. The fact that he stood up to Barquiel, that he went off on Sidonie's "quest", the way he interacted with Imriel in Vralia -- very nice. I do think their changing relationship could be done a bit better -- I can convince myself to believe it, because it makes sense that two landsmen lost in the wilderness would find how much they have in common and develop a friendship out of animosity, but it was me doing the work of convincing, not really Carey. I was rather disappointed that Maslin stayed behind -- not so much that he seems over Sidonie and is ceding her to Imriel, although it would be neat to continue a (friendly) kind of a love triangle going, but also because I'm afraid that means there wouldn't be much of him in the next book, and I'd been looking forward to that when it became clear he would become Imriel's friend. I wouldn't mind seeing a threesome, either, or even just Maslin/Imriel (Imri says (jokingly, yes, but) "My bright angel come to save me" and reports that "He [...] took my shoulder in a hard grip; one that lay somewhere between affection and violence" -- how is this not a slash scene waiting to happen? But anyway.
I find it curious -- and neat -- that Imriel is "reclaiming" his time in Darsanga. Not just coming to terms with it and getting over the effect that had on his sexuality -- coming to terms with 'Kushiel's heritage' and being with a man (sorta... the male attendant in the Valerian House showing didn't freak him out). Not just that, but also calling up thoughts of Darsanga to keep himself in control in the face of temptation (in Bryony House and later with Morwen) and, less positively, using his history as an excuse for his coldness towards Dorelai. And, of course, being willing to turn himself over to Sidonie's power at the end is an important step as well.
I continue to really like Joscelin, and his relationship with Imri. And that Imri gets all jealous on Joscelin's behalf when he sees Phedre's reaction to Childric d'Essoms. And that when he spots Maslin's fair hair when he's come to rescue him, Imri's first thought is that it's Joscelin, come to save him.) It's really quite sweet. I've commented on Maslin and Mavros and Sidonie already. Alais, whom I liked in prior books, has receded so far into the background that I no longer care much about her. I continue to be sad that Barquiel L'Envers seems to be firmly entrenched as the villain now -- I liked his ambiguous antagonists-but-allies relationship with Phedre in the first trilogy, and I still like him as a character in his brief appearances, but I'm guessing he is headed for an ignoble death or infamy or something, and I don't like that. I rather liked Amarante, especially that image of love as "a safe harbour", and her concern of Maslin in the Maslin/Sidonie relationship.
I liked Dorelei OK -- the fact that she saw through Imriel, that she was willing to give him time and freedom. But she's also not someone who elicited a lot of passion. None of the Albans did, though I liked the mystical aspects of their life that Imriel came into contact with better than any of the other mysticism encountered in these books so far. My feelings on Vralia are... heh. Well, as far as fantasy pseudo-Russias go, it's not bad, although the "Rus" words are pretty mangled. (But the food is about right, and made me crave vareniki, though they're never mentioned by name but only as soft, delicious dumplings. Mmm, vareniki.) And the Christianization of the Yeshuites continues to bug me, although I found myself rather liking Micah ben Ximon. I kind of liked Imriel's interlude with Kebek the Tatar, too, especially their on-the-fly sign-language conversation about their "girls" (I have a far easier time understanding Kebek's attraction to his, btw...)
And, unrelated to anything, I got a kick out of Brigitta musing about "tiny Alba ruling the world", thanks to its power over the seas (via the Master of the Straits) and everybody else smiling at the impossibility of it. Sun never sets, and all. :)
68. Terry Pratchett, Lord and Ladies -- I really liked this one. I wonder if it might be my favorite Witches book, in fact. I haven't quite decided. Granny Weatherwax is one of my favorite characters, and I liked her in this book. I know people have a problem with her getting too powerful as the Witches books wear on, but I think anybody who brags about being able to turn into a swarm of bees first thing upon rising from the almost-dead is still comfortably far from Mary-Sue territory. I loved, loved, LOVED Granny/Ridcully. I actually find Ridcully quite adorable in cameos, and there was just the right amount of him in it. They are a fabulous sort of couple, since nobody else is able to deal with them due to their sheer force of personality. I find myself wishing I could see the alternate universes in which they did get together. It must be awesome! (Is there fic? Not the same, but maybe at least there's fic?) And I liked the she convinced him to leave her (and theoretically go for help) -- and he DID! Nobody actually leaves in fantasy under these circumstances, no matter how much sense it makes, and it's so refereshing that Riduclly did! And: "I'm the head wizard now. I've only got to give an order and a thousand wizards will... uh... disobey, come to think of it, or say 'What?', or or start to argue. But they have to take notice." Also, I kind of like the implied potential maybe Diamanta/Ponder Stibbons, though I have a very hard time imagining how *that* would work out, and I can only assume (from, say, The Last Continent) that it didn't. In this leg of the Trousers of Time, anyway.
I liked Nanny Ogg and her careful but slightly wistful fondness for the King of the Elves -- which makes sense, since she also thinks Greebo is a big softie. And I even -- never thought it would come to that -- like Magrat, in her Queen Ynci moments, when she shot the crossbow through the keyhole and: "'I will not beg for mercy,' it said. 'Good,' said Magrat, and fired." (Also, really liked Mr Brooks squirting the Elves with Raid, or whatever. And the comparison of Elves to wasps. This is why Pterry is awesome -- there is all this apparently random stuff, and it all works on, like, a dozen levels. How does he DO that?!) Also, I liked the way she tore up her wedding dress for bandages without a thought, as contrasted with the mopeyness over Emberella's dress in Witches Abroad.
I wasn't sure what I was expecting from the Elves. I knew they were not pretty-shiny Tolkien Elves, but I wasn't quite prepared for them to be this irredeemably psycho. Pterry pulled it off, of course, and I like a lot of aspects of it, the implied hive nature of them (all elves laughing when the Queen said something funny), the weird hypnotic harmonics that are more uncomfortable than beautiful when not filtered through glamour, ditto for faces, the less-flatering feline comparisons, the iron-sense they have, the fact they the non-royal Elves are referred to in the neuter. It's not a vision I can get behind (I *like* Elves -- cruel, superior, alien, but not quite to that degree), but it worked.And the bit on 'half-Elves': "you just get a race o' skinny types with pointy ears, and a tendency to giggle and burn easily in sunshine".
This book also totally brought out the 12-year-old in me. I guess it makes sense, for a Midsummer Night's Dream riff -- the "phallusy" about witches' broomsticks, why a broomstic is better than a man, "Blossoms were left to go fertilize themselves", the tansmigration jokes ("I was younger then. Now, once is enough."), "Il Porcupino Nil Sodomy Est". Just so much fun!
I also liked Granny Weatherwax playing Sherlock Holmes: "Someone got killed up here. [...] A tall man. He had one leg longer 'n the other. And a beard. He was probably a hunter." "How'd you know all that?" "I just trod on'im." Also, heh, apparently Granny is of the Susan school of child discipline: "If you don't go away, I will personally rip your head off and fill it with snakes." That makes sense, I suppose. And I guess now we know that the Archchancellor Weatherwax is a distant cousin of hers. And, I loved the Bursar's mad battle cries and other utterances. He is a lot more entertaining on an extreme dose of dried frog pills (or, possibly, Pterry used up all the good nonsense phrases in this book). And: "Outside on the battlements, the guard changed. He changed into his gardening apron and went off to hoe the beans." And it was neat that there was a Catch-22 reference -- "a squadron of Yossarians with middle-ear trouble".
Also, I have to say that the term "isoresons" are almost certainly the geekiest thing even encountered in fantasy. It fills me with glee. Glee! (And, so, Ponder now has a real post -- Reader in Invisible Writings. I probably saw that in other (newer) books and just never noticed.)
I continue to make my way through Sandman. I'm still not really used to the graphic format, but finding it less distracting now, and here's a weird thing -- it's harder for me to put the book down until I'm done. I tend to flip through portions I haven't read with regular text books, too, but when I do that with a graphic novel the art "catches" me more than the occasional words that pop out, and so I want to get there more quickly -- maybe? Or maybe it's that there's at least a perception of faster reading, so that each page spread takes less time to read? I don't know. Still liking it, although I've noticed that how much I enjoy each segment/episode seems almost inversely proportional to how much Dream there is in it. This is somewhat disappointing, given the nature of these comics...
66. Sandman #1: Preludes and Nocturnes (Neil Gaiman) -- heh, I see what you meant, _grayswandir_, by saying that the appearance of the characters changes from comic to comic. I actually like the image of this Lucifer more than the one in Season of Mists, but this Azazel less. Also, it's really weird to have first person narration from Dream and others. I can't say I was particularly interested in the main story, and it was really *weird* to have characters from other comic books make an appearance. I mean, I know it takes place in the DC universe, nominally, but it was still *really* strange... I liked Dream's preparation for summoning the Hecatae -- extracting the required sacrifices from various dreams of various people. I liked various bit players -- like Mark at the diner (the guy waiting for his interview), and Dr. Crane in the insane asylum (is he some kind of superhero comic book villain? or just somebody Gaiman made up?). "The Sound of Her Wings" was pretty powerful, more for the ideas/art than actual words, in this case, I have to say (though the final "punchline" is nice) -- the old Jew, the montage of deaths worked for me. The episode that got to me the most, though, was "24 Hours". Dude... domestic violence, passive-aggressive murder, a spot of necrophilia (which made me think of Gaiman's Snow White retelling, btw), the creepy waitress writing happy endings for all her customers -- and that was *before* the insane maniac got ahold of them. Of all the stuff that happened afterwards, I think it's the various oblique "shots" of Judy having put out her eyes that get to me the most (again, just the art...). And then, in the next episode, Dee's speech about why he is doing all this: "Revenge, possibly. That and dreams of power. In the beginning I thought I'd tell them I was doing this and they'd make me ruler of the world if I stopped... But it's so much fun I don't *want* to stop."
Looking over what I just wrote, I see I noticed the art much more (in a positive way) in this one than Season of Mists, and The Doll's House, too, since I'm writing this after finishing both volumes. I wonder if that's because it was Gaiman's first comic (right?) and he baked in more of the medium's bells and whistles into it -- the deaths montage, the nearly-blank pages with Dee facing Dream -- and as the volumes went on stopped playing around with that as much and relied more on the writing. Or is it just because their artist changed? On the other hand, the use of bold font in the speech bubbles seemed a lot more prominent in this one, or at least more distracting. Wonder if it's because they figured out they didn't need to do it as much, or to have the words themselves convey stresses rather than font. Kinda neat, these progressions, unless I'm just imagining them...
67. Sandman #2: The Doll's House (Neil Gaiman) -- _grayswandir_ warned me this was going to be dark, and may be I was on the lookout for it too much, because nothing in here came even close to creeping me out as much as "24 Hours" in the preceding volume. Which is probably a good thing, as I'm not sure I ever want anything to top that. I think I like the story better, here. I could take or leave the prologue -- didn't find Nada and her story interesting in Season of Mists or the brief encounter in Preludes, don't find her interesting now, either. I did like the main story, though. Again, I quite liked several secondary characters -- Hal (who seems really sweet) and Chantal (I love her weird dreams about recursive stories and a love affair with a sentence, and "We possess the largest collection of stuffed spiders in private hands on the eastern seaboard" -- she sounds like Luna Lovegood after a slightly darker turn), and I really liked Gilbert/Fiddler's Green (his "hoom"ing made me think of Ents, not altogether inappropriately, as it turned out :). I'd liked Unity in an abstract sort of way back in Preludes, and she really won me over when she told off Dream: "Of course you don't [understand]. You're obviously not very bright, but I shouldn't let it bother you." Oh, and I liked Abel's baby gargoyle. It's cute.
There were neat bits of dark (VERY dark) humour in the "collectors'" convention -- Nimrod getting stage fright ("not afraid of anything, certainly not blood, definitely not women... he's scared"), the panel on women in serial killing ("I tell you, I'm sick and tired of women in our line being stereotyped... I'm a serial killer and a woman, and I'm proud of it!"), and even Funland's dream.
I'm not sure why Jed's plight didn't bother me more, but it didn't... And while I agree that the idea of the Corinthian is pretty creepy, the stuff he did didn't really affect me. Speaking of dark, though, it was neat that there was a reference to "24 Hours" -- two, even -- Judy being Rose's friend and the newspaper headline about the six deaths at the diner.
The episode I *really* liked, though I'm not sure how it relates to the rest, was "Men of Good Fortune". Chaucer (and Spenser?) cameos! Will and Kit! (and Shakespeare's deal with the devil! And Will and Kit and Will and Dream talking in iambic pentameter!). Dream and Hob Gadling in costumes through the ages (and I actually really liked the art of Dream in this episode). The references to the eras. Also, Hob's observation that "I've seen people, and they don't change. Not in the important things" reminded me of Woland's speech at the theater (Master i Margarita), which is always a good thing.
Part of the reason I wanted to read The Doll's House rather than another volume (beyond trying to read more or less in order) was that there was some Desire in it. Not as much as I would've liked, though. Behind the scenes action is OK, but I really would have liked to see a lot more onscreen. *sigh*
Here's the thing... I haven't read much horror, it's not my thing, so it's weird to be reading it in this form, especially with a visual component. And I think the fact that it's a comic, beside the art, even, makes it starker than in Gaiman's novels. There are certainly parts of Coraline and American Gods and Neverwhere that are quite creepy. But the narration tones it down somewhat, I guess? Just Gaiman's style, which is kind of unassuming and infused with quiet humour. But not in Sandman, where there's a lot less of an outside narrator (rules of the medium, I guess?). So, starker. And it's so *weird* to think of all this horrible stuff as coming from the same mind as officialgaiman's delightful blog entries about his dog and his kids and his friends and his pictures of giant pandas. It's not like I expect horror writers to be serial killers themselves or anything, but... WEIRD!
70. Sandman #6: Fables and Reflections (Neil Gaiman) -- I mentioned in the previous three volumes that the episodes I enjoyed the most were the ones *not* centered around Dream but around secondary characters, the episodic ones, so I expected to like this volume more than the others. But apparently it doesn't work that way. I enjoyed it, sure, and some of the 'fables' more than others, but not as much as the more coherent books. But, individually:
"Three Septembers and a January" -- I like Emperor Norton, and I like the story this tells about him, but there's not much there, to be honest. "His madness keeps him sane" is a nice line, as Gene Wolfe pointed out in the introduction, and I loved Death borrowing Norton's hat -- that whole scene was awfully cute (actually, Death is starting to really grow on me). But nothing particularly special.
"Thermidor" -- I was quite bored by this one, actually. Maybe if I were more interested in French history... although the Orpheus cameo is kind of neat.
"Hunt" -- OK, this one was cute. The story the grandfather tells is OK, but what I really liked was the out-of-story conversation between the grandfather and the girl. The juxtaposition is really nice: "It all sounds suspiciously post-modern to me", "It's not sexist at all. It's the custom of the people. Or it was. Before we came here." "Jesus! You're so transparent, grandpa!" But, still, the whole thing is cute, but not particularly striking, the way my favorite episodes from the other books are.
"August" -- history again, and again I was not particularly interested. Maybe it's 'cos I always liked Julius Caesar but not Augustus. I liked the idea, I guess, but, eh. Augustus crushing the rat though (it was a very cute rat!) was rather... interesting.
"Soft Places" -- and yet more history, which I'm still not interested in. But it did feature Fiddler's Green, which was very nice. I really like that guy! Person. Place.
"Orpheus" -- my favorite thing about this part was seeing the Endless in their Greek forms. And meeting what I guess is the missing brother (here, Olethros, which I guess means his 'real' name is Destruction. Which brings me to the question -- we've got Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Destruction, Delirium (who was once Delight), and... Dream. Does the fact that Dream is the only one whose name does not start with D-E have significance?)
"A Parliament of Rooks" -- my favorite story in this volume. I can definitely identify with poor Lyta going stir-crazy taking care of a baby all day, and I like little Daniel (and his interaction with Goldie), and Cain's mystery is neat. Also, Abel serving Matthew rat. Hee!
"Ramadan" -- some really pretty art. I especially like the progressive descent down the various doors and corridors and stairs. I also like this line: "There were paths through the palace that none but Haroun al Raschid knew; and this was because those who had drawn up the plans, and those who had built the paths, had all long since gone to their final reward: for it is seldom healthy to know the secrets of a king."
So, in short, rather liked "A parliament of Rooks", and enjoyed "Hunt" and "Three Septembers", but this is definitely the Sandman I've liked least so far.
69. Young Warriors, edited by Tamora Pierce -- well, this is a new one. This was the first time that, after reading the introduction to an anthology, I wanted nothing more than to put down the book and not read it at all. Because the introduction (by Tamora Pierce, sadly... sadly because I think I've lost some respect for an author I like, as a result) made it a point to talk about the relevance of stories to the current time, our present reality, news stories, knowing when fighting was not only not right but harmful, etc. etc. Like, that was the whole of the intro, pretty much. The bit that irked me the most: "Is India Edghill's native girl who takes up alien weapons to defeat an oppressor exacting vengeance for the dead or engaging in terrorism? Is Pamela F Service's religious heroine, who lures a foreign commander and his guards into a rocky desert, a rebel insurgent or a national defender?"
I hate "message" literature in general. I hate "message" fantasy even more. My hate for *political* message fantasy knows no bounds -- to the point that a throwaway reference can pretty much poison a whole book for me (it happened with Alta and nearly happened with Witch Baby), and taint my appreciation for an entire series. Because you know what? I don't require authors I read to agree with me on all points, but what I can't abide is the strawman argument these political message fantasies turn into: 'Eviltor the Dark Lord's warmongering government has devastated the peaceful countryside of Meadowlands with fire and sword, sown their fields with salt, eats babies in order to absorb their lifeforce, and powers their war engines with the howls of agony from the 99% of Meadowlanders enslaved in the dark catacombs of unspeakable torture. Therefore, America's War on Terror is wrong!' It's faulty logic, and shoddy rhetoric, and it's disingenuous, which is just about the worst thing I can imagine literature being, short of being outright malicious. And this is bound to be even more true in short stories, especially short stories aimed at the YA set as these are -- there's just not enough *room* for subtlety and balance and showing the motivation of the villains and the flaws of the heroes, especially as YA stories tend to be less ambiguous and more black and white in general. And the then intentionally draw comparisons to the real world and suggest that the (highly abstract) lessons learned from said stories should be used as a basis for forming opinions on real world issues? Uh, not so much.
Here's the other thing, though -- the introduction is not even really accurate about the stories in question. I go into it. I go into it in more detail in the "Devil Wind" story (which I actually ended up really writing, but even in the Pamela F Service's story, the girl in question does not "lure" the foreign commander -- she runs off and he follows her -- and ends up in a trap set by *gods* -- not the girl in question. It's just disingenuous, these descriptions, and they bug the HELL out of me!
Other things that really pissed me off about the introduction: "There are other, nonhuman powers in some of these stories, powers that give the young protagonists a nudge [...] Once again, these powers are there to make you think through the ideas our authors have placed before you." I see! So, really the fantastical elements are purely there to enable the creation of these test cases for the authors' propaganda. And here I was thinking this was a fantasy collection... And: "all of our children are these young warriors [...] We owe it to them and to ourselves to see to the sharpness of our own minds by testing them on the visions of others, to see if we aren't ready for a new way of looking at war and at those who fight it." Handy tool to brainwash your children right here!
I've enjoyed Tamora Pierce's books for about fifteen years now, and I'm really, really disappointed to have this piece of tripe introduction erode most of the good will I have towards this author. But I just can't stand this kind of thing. It's worse than reading Robin Hobb's anti-fanfiction and anti-LJ rants.
But I read that dreadful introduction at the very beginning of my commute, and I had no other book with me, so I went on to read it. And, honestly, nothing was quite as bad as the introduction, though the bad taste of it never quite left me.
"The Gift of Rain Mountain," Bruce Holland Rogers -- Decent story, the mesoamerican setting felt a bit over the top (lots of 'ethnic' buzzwords packed into such a short story) but was a neat change from the usual generic fantasy setting. Narrator sounded pleasant enough. Very little plot, but I appreciated the final twist at the end, though I'm not sure what exactly the message that SPOILER there will only be peace when there are no more humans left to fight with /SPOILER is meant to convey.
"The Magestone", S.M. and Jan Stirling -- Fairly boring, and didn't seem to have much of a character arc. I kept wondering about why the mermaid could speak the same language as the boy, as the implication seems to be that they don't interact with humans. The magestone was WAY too much of a deus ex machina, and pretty much did everything in this story that got done. The mermaid martial art of tail-slapping was pretty cool, though.
"Eli and the Dybbuk", Janis Ian -- I appreciate the setting (think Fiddler on the Roof), but it kept feeling slightly off to me. So, Eli lives in a shtetl but there's only one girl his age around? That seems really weird, given the number of children religious Jews have. He is fourteen, but he's only been studying Torah for a few years? (Well, I don't know about back then/there, but in modern Orthodox communities that I'm familiar with, they start at, like, five). Also, at the end of the story Eli and Leah are touching each other and holding hands -- and, I don't know whether this prohibition holds for all religious Jews, back in those days, but religious men and women don't touch each other. So there were all these bits of "flavor" that just felt off to me, and kept jerking me out of the story to wonder if they were errors or not. The story itself was kind of meh. A boy discovering he is better off as a scholar and a husband than a soldier, because soldiers don't have a monopoly on courage and wisdom is a more versatile, unlimited weapon? I really like that message. But the story has too much extra stuff in it to deliver it particularly well, and the extra stuff is more distracting than interesting. And the very end totally threw me for a loop. Eli is walking with his son, asks him the riddle he used to defeat the dybbuk, and the boy guesses it. Yay! And then: "together they [Eli and his son] ran home to Leah, who did not know the answer to the riddle and did not need to know. For so long as there were Elis and Joachims in this world, she would be forever safe, and no darkness would inhabit her soul." Um, is it me, or is the implication, 'Leah didn't need to be smart because she had her men to be smart for her?' What the hell kind of message is that, from a writer whose blurb states that she "love[s] the idea of women as warriors, since my generation didn't really have them available as mentors." *massive eyeroll*
"Heartless", Holly Black -- unlike the first three, this is actually a well-written story (no surprise there). I wish I'd been aware of it in time to suggest it to pegkerr for her "Heart of Flesh/Heart of Stone" paper, because it is all *about* that choice. I liked the dreamy feeling throughout it -- dreamy in the oppressive, numb, nightmarish sense -- and the understatedness of the resolution. I didn't *love* it, because it's not the kind of story I love -- too grim, even with the ending -- but it was miles better than any of the preceding ones.
"Lioness", Pamela F. Service -- this is a historical fantasy story about the princess/priestess of Kush turning back the Roman invasion, supposedly based on historical accounts. I think I would've liked reading the historical accounts better, to be honest. The plot was pretty cool (although not much like what the intro suggested it would be, more on that later), but the characters were dull, and the "human color" touches didn't really add anything. I didn't care about the protagonist, or any of these people, and it was rather boring to read.
"Thunderbolt", Esther M Friesner -- is the story of how Helen (of Sparta, and not daughter of Zeus in reality) escaped from Theseus. I liked the conceit of her thinking of all of her actions in military terms. The narration was pretty fun. I love Sparta, I hate Theseus, so it was fun to listen to her extoll Sparta and bash him. I found the ease with which she achieved her victory rather difficult to believe, though. I saw the novel-length extension of this story, Nobody's Princess, in the library the other day, and I passed on it, even though I like Friesner's books. The story didn't really want me to pick up the novel, either.
"The Devil Wind", India Edghill -- this was a story that I actually quite liked. Once again, the blurb about it in the introduction almost completely misrepresented what the story was like. Yes, there's a native (Indian) girl, but she does not take up arms against the English oppressors in general -- she is avenging the murder of her Indian husband, her English friend-and-might-as-well-be-sister, that girl's mother, who was her employer, and a Muslim nurse. The other Englishmen who feature in the story are positive characters, kind to Tara when she is pretending to be the English Estelle, and she speaks about them in general with affection ("I found their care touching, their defiant calm admirable"). She doesn't censure the rebelling sepoys (the story takes place against the background of their uprising), but neither is she particularly on their side. In fact, she says: "She Who Dances Death is a harsh mistress. Those who offer life to her must do so with a pure heart. Hatred and bloodlust have no place in her service. The man against whom she does, in fact, "take[] up alien weapons" is not some generic oppressor -- he is a *murderer*, who killed his wife for her money, killed Tara's husband and the nurse because they were witnesses, and caused the death of his daughter. *That* is why she Tara takes revenge upon him, not because he is British, or an invader, or any of those things. But, anyway, my grudge against the introduction aside, I liked this story, because Tara was an engaging narrator, and the story was well written, and I liked the cyclical conclusion. I think this story actually achieves what all of the other ones in this collection were presumably supposed to achieve: show an unusual warrior in a setting that's not all that common in mainstream fantasy. And it was good. This is the first new-to-me author in this collection I was sufficiently intrigued by to keep an eye out for more of her stories/books.
"The Boy Who Cried 'Dragon'", Mike Resnik -- short and funny, a fractured fairy tale kind of story. Nothing special or earth-shattering, but cute. Favorite quote: "just as fifty years ago a Maasai warrior became a man by slaying a lion with his spear, and today you are hailed as an adult when you can break through Microsoft's firewall, back in the days we are talking about, a boy or girl would be recognized as a young man of woman only after slaying a dragon."
"Student of Ostriches", Tamora Pierce -- whatever my feelings on the intro she penned, Pierce is still a good writer. The narrator is sympathetic, the setting is clearly unusual but without the "local colour" being slathered on too thick, the way I felt it was in the first story. I liked her reaction at seeing a white man. I liked the basic premise of learning fighting by watching animals fight, though I kinda doubt the protagonist's prowess is credible. I don't actually remember her as a legendary figure in Tortall, but I still enjoyed the story.
"Serpent's Rock", Laura Anne Gilman -- I like the unusual setting (Australian bush), and think it was actually subtly enough weaved in (except for an overabundance of "quick-leaper"s). But the story itself was pretty boring and pointless. The protagonist goes through a number of encounters with animals that are repetitive and almost fairy-tale like. But only one (and a half) of those encounters actually end up doing anything tangible, and there are some things from the beginning, too, that don't contribute much to the story. Basically, it's just not interesting and not that well written. Pretty much the way I felt about Gilman's urban fantasy novel that I tried, too. *sigh*
"Hidden Warriors", Margaret Mahy -- another pretty boring story with characters whom I did not care about one bit. The blurb says she may write a book about them, and that's what the story felt like -- pages from the middle of a novel, without any hook giving a reason to be interested in these characters or any particularly impressive resolution. The wizard's diction was kind of interesting, but that's really it.
"Emerging Legacy", Doranna Durgin -- OK, at least something happened in this one. The clumsy but clever heroine who is underestimated by her people (and why? and also, it didn't seem like her pack actually didn't listen to her) and strives to live up to her heroic father's legacy... well, yawn. But at least stuff happened that was somewhat exciting. Most worth of note, probably, is that the author bio mentioned that her dog has a LiveJournal: connerybeagle. That's... new.
"An Axe for Men", Rosemary Edghill -- decently written, except for a glut of Random Capitalized Words, and an interesting sort of reversal -- power passing from the hands of a corrupt matriarch into the hands of a man. But, eh, I'd been expecting a lot better.
"Acts of Faith", Lesley McBain -- I liked the story. Against the background of WWII Ireland, three girls, Catholic Bridget, Maire, who follows the old ways and has the Sight, and Jewish refugee Miriam (and I think what she's gone through to get there is hinted at pretty effectively without actually saying anything much), develop a friendship and run away to New York using magic. The fantastical elements are not the most creative or believable ever, but it's a neat enough story, especially compared to the so many others in this collection that fizzled.
"Swords that Talk", Brent Hartinger -- eh. A ghost, a troll, a talking sword, but pretty much zero actual wonder.
Wow. What a lame collection... There was one story that I really liked -- "The Devil Wind", and several more that I enjoyed: "Heartless", "Thunderbolt", "Student of Ostriches", "The Boy Who Cried Dragon", and "Acts of Faith". Pretty weak, really. Also, I just kind of feel like remarking that diversity is great, but when eleven and a half out of fifteen stories are written by women, I think maybe it's not diversity anymore. Surely, men write about young warriors too?
**
As if this post weren't long enough, random bits of book-related stuff:
~ From officialgaiman, here:
"I'm not sure how I missed The Privilege of the Sword. It's a sequel to Swordspoint, which is one of my favourite of Ellen Kushner's novels, and thus one of my favourite books. (Ellen Kushner would be my evil twin, only she's a girl, we're not related, and I strongly suspect that if either of the two of us is evil, then it's me.)"
That is an oddly adorable thought...
~ Dragaeran Cycle of rulership, sanctioned by skzbrust himself
~ Another fantasy writer with an LJ: kateelliott
Author of the Crown of Stars series. Found via matociquala linking to an
urban fantasy discussion there -- and I was gratified to see War for the Oaks getting the love it deserves (I was actually rather shocked how many people had never heard of this book -- and I was convinced it was a pillar of the genre). Also, I now want to read Megan Lindholm's Wizard of the Pigeons