Reading roundup
5. Tess Gerritsen, The Bone Garden -- I think this may actually be my favorite of her books I've read, not least because it features almost no Maura Isles. Maura is the "Kay Scarpetta" character, the medical examiner whose professional and personal life are the focus of most of Gerritsen's stuff, but I actually find her to be the least interesting protagonist. I far prefer the tough detective Jane Rizzoli in the books where the two of them share the spotlight, and even Maura's forbidden love interest (a Catholic priest) is more interesting to me than Maura herself. But anyway, in this book Maura appears only in a brief cameo, and the other regulars don't appear at all, Instead, the bulk of the book takes place in 1830's Boston, with a framing present-day story about a newly divorced woman, Julia, who finds some old bones digging around in the garden of her newly purchased very old house. The story from the past is one that, for Julia, unfolds via some old letters, but the reader gets to witness so to speak first-hand, in a series of multiple third-person POV's.
I quite enjoyed the past story, which is about a young Irish girl, a new immigrant who ends up having to take care and hide her newborn niece from an ever-spreading murderous web of nefarious intents. She strikes up a romance with a poor but talented young man studying to be a doctor, and everything was great until it turned into this all-consuming love for the ages, which I didn't really buy. It ends tragically, which doesn't make it any better, but the baby at the root of all the hoopla survives and ends up inheriting the house where Julia found the bones.
I was fairly fond of the present-day framing story, too, especially the cantankerous old family historian guy (descendent of that pivotal baby in the past story), until Julia acquired some sort of psychic connection to Rose, the Irish girl fromt he past, and her rebound love interest Tom (old historian guy's nephew and a doctor) turned out to be the spitting image of Rose's tragically killed love interest, and that was just a little too much borderline-supernatural nonsense for me. But up until then -- i.e. the last several pages -- it was actually an OK story.
I saw a bunch of the twists coming way in advance. Like, I guessed that Norris's mother did not leave him but had been murdered pretty much as soon as it was mentioned she had walked out on them. Originally, I had thought the father had murdered her because she had been planning to leave with the kid, and then, when I figured out that Norris was Glenville's bastard, I thought Glenville might have had her killed when she showed up asking for help (I figured out Norris was his bastard when Norris was remembering his mother had said she was going to make sure he got the medical help he needed when he was sick). I didn't guess Glenville's sister was the real killer or Norris's mother, or the East End Ripper, until it was actually revealed. And, though I really should have, I also did not make the connection that the bones Julia had found must have been Norris's mother. And even though I had guessed that baby Meggie was Glenville's child, somehow I didn't make the connection that the rich gentleman looking for her via the lawyer would've been Glenville, in spite of the connection between the two of them -- I guess I figured whoever was looking for her through that avenue was still doing it for nefarious purposes. And it was a nice touch -- that I hadn't figured out -- when it was revealed that Glenville only found out Aurnia had been pregnant with his child when her body had been autopsied as a demonstration for the medical students. That does tie it together nicely. Anyway, there was enough that I hadn't seen a mile off that it was still an interesting read.
I liked Norris well enough, and Rose was an empathetic protagonist, too, if a bit too saintly. I liked Wendell -- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, in his med school days -- quite a lot, and the other two med students in the group were neat foils for the protagonist. The bad guys were too unremittently black for my taste, but I did think it was neat that the main villain of the piece is introduced pretty sympathetically -- as a loving mother and a vocal feminist.
Anyway, I'm sort of sorry that subsequent Gerritsen books are likely to get back to Maura again, especially since the last one also seemed to be skirting the edge of near-supernatural.
6. Jim Butcher, Captain's Fury (Book 4 of Codex Alera) -- this was actually the second time I checked it out, because the first time I held on to it for three month and then returned it without even having started once the renewals ran out. Truth to tell, while I'd liked the first book well enough and the second one was OK (because it had Max), the third one annoyed me more than anything. So I was pleasantly surprised when I actually liked this one, once I finally read it, and was moved to check out book 5 right away.
For one, Tavi, and everyone else, finally knows who he is, something that had been clear to me since about the middle of the first book. And, yeah, called Tavi being a nickname for Octavian, about the same time. (Almost called it, rather -- I thought it was going to be a nickname for Octavius. Close enough.) And in this book Butcher actually pointed it out :)
The other reasons that I liked this book better: none of this "I love him/her but we can never be together" nonsense, with either Bernard/Amara or Isana/Fade. Less Isana in general, which is a plus, as far as I'm concerned, and she gets called on her crap, which is another. I really liked Fidelias since the beginning, and was glad to see so much of him in this book, including as a POV character again. Also, I've actually started liking the First Lord (probably just in time for Gaius to die, too). I suppose Butcher was setting the reader up to like him, during the dangerous trek, only to feel betrayed like Amara when he does what he did with the volcano, but I actually like it when ostensibly good guys have to do terrible things to prevent even more terrible things from happening, so as far as I was concerned, that just made me like him more. (And I always did think Amara was a silly idealist, and don't mind a bit that she ended up feeling betrayed.) Also, I suspect I'm just constitutionally incapable of *not* liking a character who says, "The pain won't kill me. Bernard is bleeding. See to him. I believe I'll faint now, if it isn't too inconven..." There was also a fair bit of Max, and Crassus, whom I've come to like quite a lot (and I especially loved the confrontation between Crassus and Fidelias/Marcus when Crassus is "mooning" over wounded Max: "He walked around to the young officer's front, saluted, and slapped him sharply across the mouth. [...] 'Crows take you, sir,' Marcus said quietly. 'You are a Legion captain. Not some teenage bride mooning over her husband off to war. Get off your ass and lead, before more men wind up like your brother." and onward).
About the only way I could like this book better was if there was Aldrick in it, which sadly there was not. Instead, there was the senator's boring crazy singulare. I hope there will be more Aldrick before the end, because I also want to know what was up with the girl that he was going to duel Araris's brother about.
I continue to like the Canim, from a worldbuilding perspective, and it was nice to get some inside looks at them via the return of Varg and him being part of Tavi's pack for a while. I'm looking forward to the continuation of Tavi's relationship with the Canim in the next book. Also, I continue to like Kitai, and her willingness to tweak the Alerans every chance she gets. And Tavi's embarrassment about their relationship, like when Isana wants to talk to him about his parentage and he assumes she is going to talk to him about Kitai. And Ehren has grown on me, finally. Especially when he comes out with lines that would be at home in the Dresden books, like: "The plan is insane. [...] You are insane. [...] I'll need some pants."
I still think the ability or inability to use furies at certain points and to certain degrees is not necessarily organic but being used to drive plot, particularly in the Gaius, Amara, and Bernard subplot. But I did like the limitation of Gaius not being able to use his magic, not even for pain management ("I can't ever remember going for so long without performing any crafting. It's like... walking around with my feet and hands asleep all the time. I hadn't realized how difficult it would be.") which is an interesting concept. And, of course, the dramatic difference when he can craft again.
So, I think this may actually be my favourite of the four books, and I'm actually looking forward to the next one, for the first time since finishing Book 1. (Sadly, I'm not enjoying Book 5 nearly as much... but it is getting better.)
7. Steven Brust, Dzur (reread) -- I mainly just reread it to find that elusive quote about which house thinks when and how (which I didn't find, so I think it must be in Dragon instead), and I did skim a few parts, but still read most of it, so I'd say it counts. I won't do a full write-up, since there is one already here, but I do think I noticed the Kiera = Sethra Lavode stuff more this time around, and also the re-read was useful since this time I wasn't confused by what timeframe the interstitial Valabar meal was happening in, relative to the main action. Also, as usual, I forgot most of the plot as soon as I finished reading, so I was still surprised by some things (though not *all* of them), but was actually able to see the foreshadowing of some other parts.
Also, I did get this other quote out of it: "One must never pass up the opportunity to feel superior to a Dzur."
10. Steven Brust, Jhereg (reread)
11. Steven Brust, Yendi
In retrospect, I'm starting to wonder if I ever read Yendi. I don't think so... because usually I have at least a vague memory of the plot or some scenes or whatever, and I didn't with this one at all. So I think I must've never read it and just knew the basics from flashbacks in other books. Reading these two books straight through, and trying to keep in mind chronological vs published order and all that good stuff, I am seeing some possible inconsistencies, like Vlad mentioning Godslayer (as a legendary sort of weapon) in Yendi even though it's not really created until Issola, or referring to avoiding the Sorceress in Green in Yendi when he was only introduced to her in Jhereg (which, in spite of being first in the collection and in publishing order, actually comes later chronologically).
I rather enjoyed both of the books, and Kragar in them, and (in Yendi) Vlad and Cawti are rather cute, in a whirlwind romance (between assassins) sort of way, though, I dunno, a leetle sudden. I found it particularly romantic when Cawti said matter-of-factly that she would kill Laris if he killed Vlad, and also her proposal ("Vladimir, it would make me the happiest of women if you would consent to be my husband." "What?" "I want to marry you." "Why?" "Because I love you."). But I still ship Vlad/Morrolan, so sue me. Speaking of Morrolan, I don't think I'll ever get rid of the mental echo of "Uncle 'Rollan" XD. Still speaking of Morrolan, I just love him. I'm not sure I'd be able to explain why, but he hits some kind of character kind somewhere. Being very competent at multiple things is definitely part of it, as is his highly developed but idiosyncratic (from a human standpoint, anyway) sense of honor. And his bickering with Aliera is cute. I should probably knuckle down and actually read the Paarfi books, since he is in them... I might end up enjoying them more than I remember, who knows...
12. Steven Brust, Teckla (reread) -- This one was a lot less fun. Not because it's not a good book, but because it's no fun at all to watch the disintegration of a marriage... and Vlad's general well-deserved angst. And he is so alone in this -- without Cawti, and he spends a lot of time without his friends and Noish-pa, and even without his associates, and on several occasions even without Loiosh. And that makes this a rather lonely book. Nothin really drives this home better than "If Loiosh had said anything I'd probably have killed him," when Cawti walks out. That's such a chilling line. I bookmarked a bunch of conversations between Vlad and Cawti, and Vlad's thought on their marriage and how Cawti had changed and who he had become, but it's too depressing to actually write anything about them, I find.
It's an odd feeling, but I find myself firmly on Vlad's side in this, against the revolutionaries, because while I certainly emphasize with their ideals... I don't think I'll ever be able to see revolutions in a positive light.
I did continue Sticks ("No future in it") highly amusing, even throughout Teckla. And there's the great quote, of course: "Why do you want to see him [Kelly]?" "I plan to leave all my worldly wealth to the biggest idiot I can find and I watned to interview him to see if he qualified. But now that I've met you, I can see there's no point in looking any further."
Also, I continue to enjoy these touches like, "A fortnight, if you're interested, is one day less than three weeks. If you think that's a peculiar period of time for which to have a special term, I can't blame you." (This is because, of course, a Dragaeran week is five days lone, so 3x5-1 = 14.)
Question: one of the memories that Vlad goes through when thinking about Cawti is "Cawti holding a knife at Morrolan's throat and explaining how it was going to be, while I sat paralyzed and helpless" -- which book is this from? Or not from a book?
Here's an interesting thing. I don't find rereading these books comforting, like I do with the Vorkosiverse saga. I think I find that comforting (and re-reading in general) because I know how things turn out, in the long run, and so the older books are stops along the way to a known destination. With the Vlad Taltos books, not only is the destination unknown (in an unfinished series) it's not even remotely easy to guess, for me anyway, and I have no idea what the next book will bring, or even where in the timeline it will fall, and I can be pretty sure that one thing it won't bring is any sort of closure. And that makes reading the older books sort of disconcerting, like revisiting stops on a train to nowhere. Or something... About the only exception to this is Taltos, I think -- I do derive that sense of comfort when rereading it. Maybe I'll do that next.
8. Mercedes Lackey, The Snow Queen (a Tale of Five Hundred Kingdoms) -- similarly to the Codex Alera book, I was afraid I was going to lose patience with the series after Fortune's Fool and thus was kind of apprehensive about reading this one, but it ended up being my favorite of the four I've read so far. Partly, I think, it's that, for the first time since the first book, the protagonist is once again a Godmother, rather than just someone simply subject to the Tradition. And probably a larger part is that the fairy tale around which this one was centered is one of my favorite ones, definitely more so than "Cinderella" (as in the first book). For one thing, I've always like the fairy tales where the bride rescued her lover more than the ones where it was the other way around, and this is, at root, one of the former.
I can't say that I cared for this set of characters any more or less than in the previous books -- I actually don't think Lackey writes characters that appeal to me particularly. But the ideas were neat, and the Sammi (Finns) as a culture are something you don't see in fantasy all that much, so that was pretty cool, and it just worked pretty well, on the whole.
There were still some hinky bits. The part where the Gerda and Kay story is resolved -- where Aleksia justifies the Tam-Lin-like test of the girl by thinking that she would need to be able to stand up to Kay in a rage, hurling hurtful things at her seems like it's advocating staying in abusive relationships. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's not, and Lackey's just trying to fit some benevolent justification for a part of the story that only really makes sense of the Snow Queen is malevolent, but it's still kind of weird. And there are smaller things, like random capitalization of Bears and Swan but not other animals that irritated me.
I can't say I particularly believe or care about the romantic resolution, where not only are the young lovers reunitied, but the young man's mother hooks up with the boy's mentor, and Aleksia the Godmother potentially hooks up with the lecherous but good-hearted Wonder-Smith, but it didn't make me want to throw up either, so, OK.
9. Scott Westerfield, Pretties -- Yet another book I liked better than the one it's sequel to. Tally no longer comes across as a gullible idiot with questionable, plot-serving motivations. I liked Zane (and his "milli-Helens" quip), and the fact that it turns out David is not Tally's great love after all ('cos that whole thing was rather sudden), and I liked their breakup, hurtful on both sides, especially David accusing Tally of choosing Zane because he's pretty. And I liked that Peris chickened out of the escape -- it's more believable to have someone who knowingly elects the safe life of the pretties over the freedom and danger of the New Smoke. I'm not sure I believe Shay's transformation. I don't really buy her as someone who would turn traitor and go work for the establishment, even for the cure, even when really, really pissed at Tally, given how anti-establishment she was in the previous book (I could much more easily believe in the Cutters, even though that bit felt rather sensationalistic). So, to me this was the weakest part. The whole primitive humans reservation thing was also not terribly believable, but at least interesting. The pulsing tattos were cool, and I thought it was really neat that Tally cured herself basically by willpower and the placebo effect. I definitely want to read the last one in the trilogy.
13. Chris Crutcher, Chinese Handcuffs -- when I read this, I found myself thinking that this was probably Crutcher's first novel. It's not, it's his fourth book, but it's earlier than the other two I read by 4-11 years, and I think that shows. First, there's the narration. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes and Whale Talk were first-person POV, and the narration was one of my favorite parts. In Handcuffs, there are parts that are first-person narrated, too, with a device -- Dillon writing letters to his dead brother. Those were my favorite sections of the book, once again because of the narration -- Dillon is a smart-ass (as most of Crutcher's protagonists seem to be), and smartasses make engaging narrators. But the rest of the book is in omniscient or not-tight-enough third, and those sections felt weaker. The ones centered on Dillon were still OK. The ones about present-day Jen were not bad, either -- there's a good reason for her sections to be narrated in a more detached sort of way. My favorites were actually the "J.Maddy" sections, flashbacks by young Jen, and those actually worked perfectly -- the third person gave them this hazy, unreal, remembered feeling. What I had a real problem with were the random other third-person/omniscient POVs scattered in -- the bikers' one was ridiculous, the T.B. one (he's the villain of the piece) was meh, Stacey's felt pretty unnecessary, and the blurb in the end felt just tacked on. And because the letters and narration alternated, there were times when action that had already been revealed in one form was covered again in the other, to no additional insight. The book just felt a lot less well constructed for that reason.
My other problem was the darkness of the book and how some specific elements of it were dealt with. Now, the dark grittiness is actually one of the things I like a lot about Crtucher's YA stuff, and why I keep reading it -- there's terrible child abuse and racism and murder and all kinds of things in the other two books, and I don't have a problem with all the terrible stuff that's part of the plot in Handcuffs, but rather how it's handled. First, very early on in the book there is a rather graphic flashback scene of Dillon the protagonist and his older brother (who is dead by suicide throughout the book's "present") beat a neighbor's cat to death. It goes on for about 4 pages. Paperback pages with wide spacing and large print, but, ugh. I actually had to stop reading several times, put the book down, and that almost never happens to me. If this wasn't an author I already liked and trusted, I wouldn't have read on. Anyway, they beat a cat to death. They're not blase about it, and it does affect them very deeply (in fact, what prompts the flashback is that Preston, the older brother, mentioned the cat in his suicide note), and they were apparently trying to protect their dog at the time, but it's a difficult thing to get over when being introduced to a protagonist. And towards the very end of the book, Dillon visits the old lady whose cat they killed all those years ago to confess, and she's senile and can't really understand what he's saying, keeps thinking the cat is still alive. Her daughter tells Dillon: "She doesn't understand. I do, though. Let yourself off the hook, Dillon. You were a little boy." "I guess some things just can't be fixed," he says, leaving, but it feels like the daughter's words are meant to work as forgiveness anyway, and that doesn't feel right.
Then there's the fact that what prompts Preston's suicide (after he's been crippled and tried to kick the drug habit) is participating in a gang rape. Peripherally, but he certainly seems to feel responsible. Dillon never seems to think about it, though. Granted, he's got a hell of a lot of stuff to deal with, his brother shoots himself in front of his eyes and makes him feel responsible as an accessory, but that still felt weird to me, especially in light of some of the other stuff he ends up dealing with. Not like a character-flaw weird, but just a loose end.
And, finally, there's just the unremittant darkness of everything. There are no happy families, or even functional ones in this book. Dillon's mother left because of Preston's problems, Jen's father was a molester, her mother brings home a succession of creeps, culminating in T.B. who is a molester, abuser, sociopath and probably a murderer, Stacey's parents don't talk to each other, and the wise teacher figure is single/divorced. Usually there's at least a little bit of brightness in Crutcher's books, but not here. Stacey even asks Dillon at one point if he knows any happy families, and they conclude that they don't. Now, granted, both of them are deeply affected by what's going on around them, so their outlook on life is unsurprisingly dark... but it really seems just as unauthentic to have *only* unhappiness as it is to have happy sunshine suburbs everywhere.
In addition to these things that I liked less than usual, this book also had flaws in common with other stuff by Crutcher I've read. There's the somewhat unbelievable physical resolution (Dillon borrows a newsman's equipmant with no explanation and videotapes T.B. raping Jen and then blackmails him with the tape -- this destroyed my suspension of disbelief half a dozen times at least), although I did feel the emotional resolution -- or lack thereof -- was nicely done (sort of the opposite of a "happily ever after" for Dillon and Jen). And there's still the problem of the adults being black and white and essentially cardboard -- there's the wise, saintly coach who looks out for both Dillon and Jen (and does things that I'm pretty sure no actual person in the school system would do, at least not if they valued their jobs...) and the stupid jerk of a principal who hassles Dillon and has no redeeming qualities, and Jen's weak, useless mother, and Jen's wonderful grandfather (who gets a free pass because in a little girl's memories a favorite relative probably would show up as purely good). Crutcher's teen characters can certainly be gray and complex, so it feels like he's just sketching in the adults, not treating them as real characters on purpose. Which, hm, is the author's choice, I guess, but it bugs me.
Some things I did really like was little J.Maddy's memories of her beloved Grandpa going senile (nothing is guarranteed to bring tears to my eyes quicker, it's some kind of reflex... but I don't think I've seen it done before through a child's eyes, and I thought that was nicely done). I also liked Dillon's idea of pouring Preston's ashes into the tanks of the bikers' hogs (because they're the ones who were responsible for him becoming crippled and drug-addicted, and for the final straw of the gang rape). And I liked the metaphor of the Chinese handcuffs and steering into a skid when talking about love and life -- I thought that was better done than the title metaphor in Whale Talk.
I quite enjoyed the past story, which is about a young Irish girl, a new immigrant who ends up having to take care and hide her newborn niece from an ever-spreading murderous web of nefarious intents. She strikes up a romance with a poor but talented young man studying to be a doctor, and everything was great until it turned into this all-consuming love for the ages, which I didn't really buy. It ends tragically, which doesn't make it any better, but the baby at the root of all the hoopla survives and ends up inheriting the house where Julia found the bones.
I was fairly fond of the present-day framing story, too, especially the cantankerous old family historian guy (descendent of that pivotal baby in the past story), until Julia acquired some sort of psychic connection to Rose, the Irish girl fromt he past, and her rebound love interest Tom (old historian guy's nephew and a doctor) turned out to be the spitting image of Rose's tragically killed love interest, and that was just a little too much borderline-supernatural nonsense for me. But up until then -- i.e. the last several pages -- it was actually an OK story.
I saw a bunch of the twists coming way in advance. Like, I guessed that Norris's mother did not leave him but had been murdered pretty much as soon as it was mentioned she had walked out on them. Originally, I had thought the father had murdered her because she had been planning to leave with the kid, and then, when I figured out that Norris was Glenville's bastard, I thought Glenville might have had her killed when she showed up asking for help (I figured out Norris was his bastard when Norris was remembering his mother had said she was going to make sure he got the medical help he needed when he was sick). I didn't guess Glenville's sister was the real killer or Norris's mother, or the East End Ripper, until it was actually revealed. And, though I really should have, I also did not make the connection that the bones Julia had found must have been Norris's mother. And even though I had guessed that baby Meggie was Glenville's child, somehow I didn't make the connection that the rich gentleman looking for her via the lawyer would've been Glenville, in spite of the connection between the two of them -- I guess I figured whoever was looking for her through that avenue was still doing it for nefarious purposes. And it was a nice touch -- that I hadn't figured out -- when it was revealed that Glenville only found out Aurnia had been pregnant with his child when her body had been autopsied as a demonstration for the medical students. That does tie it together nicely. Anyway, there was enough that I hadn't seen a mile off that it was still an interesting read.
I liked Norris well enough, and Rose was an empathetic protagonist, too, if a bit too saintly. I liked Wendell -- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, in his med school days -- quite a lot, and the other two med students in the group were neat foils for the protagonist. The bad guys were too unremittently black for my taste, but I did think it was neat that the main villain of the piece is introduced pretty sympathetically -- as a loving mother and a vocal feminist.
Anyway, I'm sort of sorry that subsequent Gerritsen books are likely to get back to Maura again, especially since the last one also seemed to be skirting the edge of near-supernatural.
6. Jim Butcher, Captain's Fury (Book 4 of Codex Alera) -- this was actually the second time I checked it out, because the first time I held on to it for three month and then returned it without even having started once the renewals ran out. Truth to tell, while I'd liked the first book well enough and the second one was OK (because it had Max), the third one annoyed me more than anything. So I was pleasantly surprised when I actually liked this one, once I finally read it, and was moved to check out book 5 right away.
For one, Tavi, and everyone else, finally knows who he is, something that had been clear to me since about the middle of the first book. And, yeah, called Tavi being a nickname for Octavian, about the same time. (Almost called it, rather -- I thought it was going to be a nickname for Octavius. Close enough.) And in this book Butcher actually pointed it out :)
The other reasons that I liked this book better: none of this "I love him/her but we can never be together" nonsense, with either Bernard/Amara or Isana/Fade. Less Isana in general, which is a plus, as far as I'm concerned, and she gets called on her crap, which is another. I really liked Fidelias since the beginning, and was glad to see so much of him in this book, including as a POV character again. Also, I've actually started liking the First Lord (probably just in time for Gaius to die, too). I suppose Butcher was setting the reader up to like him, during the dangerous trek, only to feel betrayed like Amara when he does what he did with the volcano, but I actually like it when ostensibly good guys have to do terrible things to prevent even more terrible things from happening, so as far as I was concerned, that just made me like him more. (And I always did think Amara was a silly idealist, and don't mind a bit that she ended up feeling betrayed.) Also, I suspect I'm just constitutionally incapable of *not* liking a character who says, "The pain won't kill me. Bernard is bleeding. See to him. I believe I'll faint now, if it isn't too inconven..." There was also a fair bit of Max, and Crassus, whom I've come to like quite a lot (and I especially loved the confrontation between Crassus and Fidelias/Marcus when Crassus is "mooning" over wounded Max: "He walked around to the young officer's front, saluted, and slapped him sharply across the mouth. [...] 'Crows take you, sir,' Marcus said quietly. 'You are a Legion captain. Not some teenage bride mooning over her husband off to war. Get off your ass and lead, before more men wind up like your brother." and onward).
About the only way I could like this book better was if there was Aldrick in it, which sadly there was not. Instead, there was the senator's boring crazy singulare. I hope there will be more Aldrick before the end, because I also want to know what was up with the girl that he was going to duel Araris's brother about.
I continue to like the Canim, from a worldbuilding perspective, and it was nice to get some inside looks at them via the return of Varg and him being part of Tavi's pack for a while. I'm looking forward to the continuation of Tavi's relationship with the Canim in the next book. Also, I continue to like Kitai, and her willingness to tweak the Alerans every chance she gets. And Tavi's embarrassment about their relationship, like when Isana wants to talk to him about his parentage and he assumes she is going to talk to him about Kitai. And Ehren has grown on me, finally. Especially when he comes out with lines that would be at home in the Dresden books, like: "The plan is insane. [...] You are insane. [...] I'll need some pants."
I still think the ability or inability to use furies at certain points and to certain degrees is not necessarily organic but being used to drive plot, particularly in the Gaius, Amara, and Bernard subplot. But I did like the limitation of Gaius not being able to use his magic, not even for pain management ("I can't ever remember going for so long without performing any crafting. It's like... walking around with my feet and hands asleep all the time. I hadn't realized how difficult it would be.") which is an interesting concept. And, of course, the dramatic difference when he can craft again.
So, I think this may actually be my favourite of the four books, and I'm actually looking forward to the next one, for the first time since finishing Book 1. (Sadly, I'm not enjoying Book 5 nearly as much... but it is getting better.)
7. Steven Brust, Dzur (reread) -- I mainly just reread it to find that elusive quote about which house thinks when and how (which I didn't find, so I think it must be in Dragon instead), and I did skim a few parts, but still read most of it, so I'd say it counts. I won't do a full write-up, since there is one already here, but I do think I noticed the Kiera = Sethra Lavode stuff more this time around, and also the re-read was useful since this time I wasn't confused by what timeframe the interstitial Valabar meal was happening in, relative to the main action. Also, as usual, I forgot most of the plot as soon as I finished reading, so I was still surprised by some things (though not *all* of them), but was actually able to see the foreshadowing of some other parts.
Also, I did get this other quote out of it: "One must never pass up the opportunity to feel superior to a Dzur."
10. Steven Brust, Jhereg (reread)
11. Steven Brust, Yendi
In retrospect, I'm starting to wonder if I ever read Yendi. I don't think so... because usually I have at least a vague memory of the plot or some scenes or whatever, and I didn't with this one at all. So I think I must've never read it and just knew the basics from flashbacks in other books. Reading these two books straight through, and trying to keep in mind chronological vs published order and all that good stuff, I am seeing some possible inconsistencies, like Vlad mentioning Godslayer (as a legendary sort of weapon) in Yendi even though it's not really created until Issola, or referring to avoiding the Sorceress in Green in Yendi when he was only introduced to her in Jhereg (which, in spite of being first in the collection and in publishing order, actually comes later chronologically).
I rather enjoyed both of the books, and Kragar in them, and (in Yendi) Vlad and Cawti are rather cute, in a whirlwind romance (between assassins) sort of way, though, I dunno, a leetle sudden. I found it particularly romantic when Cawti said matter-of-factly that she would kill Laris if he killed Vlad, and also her proposal ("Vladimir, it would make me the happiest of women if you would consent to be my husband." "What?" "I want to marry you." "Why?" "Because I love you."). But I still ship Vlad/Morrolan, so sue me. Speaking of Morrolan, I don't think I'll ever get rid of the mental echo of "Uncle 'Rollan" XD. Still speaking of Morrolan, I just love him. I'm not sure I'd be able to explain why, but he hits some kind of character kind somewhere. Being very competent at multiple things is definitely part of it, as is his highly developed but idiosyncratic (from a human standpoint, anyway) sense of honor. And his bickering with Aliera is cute. I should probably knuckle down and actually read the Paarfi books, since he is in them... I might end up enjoying them more than I remember, who knows...
12. Steven Brust, Teckla (reread) -- This one was a lot less fun. Not because it's not a good book, but because it's no fun at all to watch the disintegration of a marriage... and Vlad's general well-deserved angst. And he is so alone in this -- without Cawti, and he spends a lot of time without his friends and Noish-pa, and even without his associates, and on several occasions even without Loiosh. And that makes this a rather lonely book. Nothin really drives this home better than "If Loiosh had said anything I'd probably have killed him," when Cawti walks out. That's such a chilling line. I bookmarked a bunch of conversations between Vlad and Cawti, and Vlad's thought on their marriage and how Cawti had changed and who he had become, but it's too depressing to actually write anything about them, I find.
It's an odd feeling, but I find myself firmly on Vlad's side in this, against the revolutionaries, because while I certainly emphasize with their ideals... I don't think I'll ever be able to see revolutions in a positive light.
I did continue Sticks ("No future in it") highly amusing, even throughout Teckla. And there's the great quote, of course: "Why do you want to see him [Kelly]?" "I plan to leave all my worldly wealth to the biggest idiot I can find and I watned to interview him to see if he qualified. But now that I've met you, I can see there's no point in looking any further."
Also, I continue to enjoy these touches like, "A fortnight, if you're interested, is one day less than three weeks. If you think that's a peculiar period of time for which to have a special term, I can't blame you." (This is because, of course, a Dragaeran week is five days lone, so 3x5-1 = 14.)
Question: one of the memories that Vlad goes through when thinking about Cawti is "Cawti holding a knife at Morrolan's throat and explaining how it was going to be, while I sat paralyzed and helpless" -- which book is this from? Or not from a book?
Here's an interesting thing. I don't find rereading these books comforting, like I do with the Vorkosiverse saga. I think I find that comforting (and re-reading in general) because I know how things turn out, in the long run, and so the older books are stops along the way to a known destination. With the Vlad Taltos books, not only is the destination unknown (in an unfinished series) it's not even remotely easy to guess, for me anyway, and I have no idea what the next book will bring, or even where in the timeline it will fall, and I can be pretty sure that one thing it won't bring is any sort of closure. And that makes reading the older books sort of disconcerting, like revisiting stops on a train to nowhere. Or something... About the only exception to this is Taltos, I think -- I do derive that sense of comfort when rereading it. Maybe I'll do that next.
8. Mercedes Lackey, The Snow Queen (a Tale of Five Hundred Kingdoms) -- similarly to the Codex Alera book, I was afraid I was going to lose patience with the series after Fortune's Fool and thus was kind of apprehensive about reading this one, but it ended up being my favorite of the four I've read so far. Partly, I think, it's that, for the first time since the first book, the protagonist is once again a Godmother, rather than just someone simply subject to the Tradition. And probably a larger part is that the fairy tale around which this one was centered is one of my favorite ones, definitely more so than "Cinderella" (as in the first book). For one thing, I've always like the fairy tales where the bride rescued her lover more than the ones where it was the other way around, and this is, at root, one of the former.
I can't say that I cared for this set of characters any more or less than in the previous books -- I actually don't think Lackey writes characters that appeal to me particularly. But the ideas were neat, and the Sammi (Finns) as a culture are something you don't see in fantasy all that much, so that was pretty cool, and it just worked pretty well, on the whole.
There were still some hinky bits. The part where the Gerda and Kay story is resolved -- where Aleksia justifies the Tam-Lin-like test of the girl by thinking that she would need to be able to stand up to Kay in a rage, hurling hurtful things at her seems like it's advocating staying in abusive relationships. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's not, and Lackey's just trying to fit some benevolent justification for a part of the story that only really makes sense of the Snow Queen is malevolent, but it's still kind of weird. And there are smaller things, like random capitalization of Bears and Swan but not other animals that irritated me.
I can't say I particularly believe or care about the romantic resolution, where not only are the young lovers reunitied, but the young man's mother hooks up with the boy's mentor, and Aleksia the Godmother potentially hooks up with the lecherous but good-hearted Wonder-Smith, but it didn't make me want to throw up either, so, OK.
9. Scott Westerfield, Pretties -- Yet another book I liked better than the one it's sequel to. Tally no longer comes across as a gullible idiot with questionable, plot-serving motivations. I liked Zane (and his "milli-Helens" quip), and the fact that it turns out David is not Tally's great love after all ('cos that whole thing was rather sudden), and I liked their breakup, hurtful on both sides, especially David accusing Tally of choosing Zane because he's pretty. And I liked that Peris chickened out of the escape -- it's more believable to have someone who knowingly elects the safe life of the pretties over the freedom and danger of the New Smoke. I'm not sure I believe Shay's transformation. I don't really buy her as someone who would turn traitor and go work for the establishment, even for the cure, even when really, really pissed at Tally, given how anti-establishment she was in the previous book (I could much more easily believe in the Cutters, even though that bit felt rather sensationalistic). So, to me this was the weakest part. The whole primitive humans reservation thing was also not terribly believable, but at least interesting. The pulsing tattos were cool, and I thought it was really neat that Tally cured herself basically by willpower and the placebo effect. I definitely want to read the last one in the trilogy.
13. Chris Crutcher, Chinese Handcuffs -- when I read this, I found myself thinking that this was probably Crutcher's first novel. It's not, it's his fourth book, but it's earlier than the other two I read by 4-11 years, and I think that shows. First, there's the narration. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes and Whale Talk were first-person POV, and the narration was one of my favorite parts. In Handcuffs, there are parts that are first-person narrated, too, with a device -- Dillon writing letters to his dead brother. Those were my favorite sections of the book, once again because of the narration -- Dillon is a smart-ass (as most of Crutcher's protagonists seem to be), and smartasses make engaging narrators. But the rest of the book is in omniscient or not-tight-enough third, and those sections felt weaker. The ones centered on Dillon were still OK. The ones about present-day Jen were not bad, either -- there's a good reason for her sections to be narrated in a more detached sort of way. My favorites were actually the "J.Maddy" sections, flashbacks by young Jen, and those actually worked perfectly -- the third person gave them this hazy, unreal, remembered feeling. What I had a real problem with were the random other third-person/omniscient POVs scattered in -- the bikers' one was ridiculous, the T.B. one (he's the villain of the piece) was meh, Stacey's felt pretty unnecessary, and the blurb in the end felt just tacked on. And because the letters and narration alternated, there were times when action that had already been revealed in one form was covered again in the other, to no additional insight. The book just felt a lot less well constructed for that reason.
My other problem was the darkness of the book and how some specific elements of it were dealt with. Now, the dark grittiness is actually one of the things I like a lot about Crtucher's YA stuff, and why I keep reading it -- there's terrible child abuse and racism and murder and all kinds of things in the other two books, and I don't have a problem with all the terrible stuff that's part of the plot in Handcuffs, but rather how it's handled. First, very early on in the book there is a rather graphic flashback scene of Dillon the protagonist and his older brother (who is dead by suicide throughout the book's "present") beat a neighbor's cat to death. It goes on for about 4 pages. Paperback pages with wide spacing and large print, but, ugh. I actually had to stop reading several times, put the book down, and that almost never happens to me. If this wasn't an author I already liked and trusted, I wouldn't have read on. Anyway, they beat a cat to death. They're not blase about it, and it does affect them very deeply (in fact, what prompts the flashback is that Preston, the older brother, mentioned the cat in his suicide note), and they were apparently trying to protect their dog at the time, but it's a difficult thing to get over when being introduced to a protagonist. And towards the very end of the book, Dillon visits the old lady whose cat they killed all those years ago to confess, and she's senile and can't really understand what he's saying, keeps thinking the cat is still alive. Her daughter tells Dillon: "She doesn't understand. I do, though. Let yourself off the hook, Dillon. You were a little boy." "I guess some things just can't be fixed," he says, leaving, but it feels like the daughter's words are meant to work as forgiveness anyway, and that doesn't feel right.
Then there's the fact that what prompts Preston's suicide (after he's been crippled and tried to kick the drug habit) is participating in a gang rape. Peripherally, but he certainly seems to feel responsible. Dillon never seems to think about it, though. Granted, he's got a hell of a lot of stuff to deal with, his brother shoots himself in front of his eyes and makes him feel responsible as an accessory, but that still felt weird to me, especially in light of some of the other stuff he ends up dealing with. Not like a character-flaw weird, but just a loose end.
And, finally, there's just the unremittant darkness of everything. There are no happy families, or even functional ones in this book. Dillon's mother left because of Preston's problems, Jen's father was a molester, her mother brings home a succession of creeps, culminating in T.B. who is a molester, abuser, sociopath and probably a murderer, Stacey's parents don't talk to each other, and the wise teacher figure is single/divorced. Usually there's at least a little bit of brightness in Crutcher's books, but not here. Stacey even asks Dillon at one point if he knows any happy families, and they conclude that they don't. Now, granted, both of them are deeply affected by what's going on around them, so their outlook on life is unsurprisingly dark... but it really seems just as unauthentic to have *only* unhappiness as it is to have happy sunshine suburbs everywhere.
In addition to these things that I liked less than usual, this book also had flaws in common with other stuff by Crutcher I've read. There's the somewhat unbelievable physical resolution (Dillon borrows a newsman's equipmant with no explanation and videotapes T.B. raping Jen and then blackmails him with the tape -- this destroyed my suspension of disbelief half a dozen times at least), although I did feel the emotional resolution -- or lack thereof -- was nicely done (sort of the opposite of a "happily ever after" for Dillon and Jen). And there's still the problem of the adults being black and white and essentially cardboard -- there's the wise, saintly coach who looks out for both Dillon and Jen (and does things that I'm pretty sure no actual person in the school system would do, at least not if they valued their jobs...) and the stupid jerk of a principal who hassles Dillon and has no redeeming qualities, and Jen's weak, useless mother, and Jen's wonderful grandfather (who gets a free pass because in a little girl's memories a favorite relative probably would show up as purely good). Crutcher's teen characters can certainly be gray and complex, so it feels like he's just sketching in the adults, not treating them as real characters on purpose. Which, hm, is the author's choice, I guess, but it bugs me.
Some things I did really like was little J.Maddy's memories of her beloved Grandpa going senile (nothing is guarranteed to bring tears to my eyes quicker, it's some kind of reflex... but I don't think I've seen it done before through a child's eyes, and I thought that was nicely done). I also liked Dillon's idea of pouring Preston's ashes into the tanks of the bikers' hogs (because they're the ones who were responsible for him becoming crippled and drug-addicted, and for the final straw of the gang rape). And I liked the metaphor of the Chinese handcuffs and steering into a skid when talking about love and life -- I thought that was better done than the title metaphor in Whale Talk.