Reading roundup
I've been meaning to get around to posting this for ages. AGES!
33. Michelle Sagara, Cast in Secret -- this book (#3 in the series) is the first one that didn't unduly irritate me; I dunno if I'm just getting used to the series/style or if it's actually getting better. Anyway, I definitely enjoyed this outing, the best of all three, and am looking forward to more. Partly, I think, is that the Kaylin/Sevrin angst is kept to a minimum -- if I weren't aware of it from the earlier books, I don't think I would've noticed it. There's still a bit too much focus on Kaylin and THE CHILDREN for my taste -- it makes her feel kind of one-note to me -- but not distractingly so. I think there maybe also were fewer annoying pseudo-stream-of-consiousness sentence fragments.
I like this world and its melting-pot/salad bowl sort of setting. There's some nice race-building details like the practice of licking a newborn Leontine cub being a great honor offered to a non-parent. The focus of this book are the Tha'alani (as Dragons were the focus of book #1 and the ElvesBarrani the focus of book #2). There's some interesting stuff about them there, especially about the "deaf" boy, but for all that they don't intrigue me particularly as a race. I was much more pleased by the heavier Dragon presence -- the return of Tiamaris, who was my favorite from book 1, and Sanabalis's even heavier presence. And there was still enough of Nightshade to keep things interesting on the Barrani front. I do wonder where the Kaylin/Nightshade stuff is going... I enjoy their interaction (e.g. "You have a way of robbing words of their splendor," as Nightshade told Kaylin), and Nightshade's general powerful outlaw lord vibe (he reminds me a bit of Marcone, I guess, in the Dresden books).
The magic in these books is actually of very little interest to me -- I'm in it for the racial interaction and second world fantasy detective stories. So, the whole terrible looming disaster, Word for water, girl personification of water, Keeper thing, trial by Nightshade's castle, etc. etc. wasn't of particular interet to me. I did like the view of the Oracles and how they're treated by the mundanes, and how the Hall of Oracles is rather reminiscent of a mixture of an insane asylum and a place for folks with various degrees of autism to hang out, and the way the most functional Oracles are the weakest in terms of power. That's a place I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Still don't care about Kaylin's identity or destiny or whatever, but she is starting to bug me a little less, now that she no longer comes across purely as a collection of cutesy "tough chick" flaws.
A couple of quotes:
"The exotic appeals to many men -- and few women -- of all races" [Nightshade on Grethan]
"He had power [...] but he wasn't chosen for his power. He was chosen because he had no desre to use it."
Tiamaris shook his head. "He had the desire, Kaylin."
"He was not a man who needed to be brought to justice. He was a man to whom justice needed to go." [Severn on Idis the bad guy]
34. Dave Duncan, Impossible Odds -- I really enjoy the King's Blades books -- they're swashbuckling good fun, set in a pretty cool world (pseudohistorical Europe, kinda, with just a bit of magic) and I tend to like Duncan's characters, too. This one's no exception, though I can't say it will stand out as a favorite.
The plot: The big flashback in the middle didn't work so well for me -- it took a while for me to become interested in Joanna's story, and just at a time when I was really interested to move on with the present-day timeline. But, once I resigned myself to the slowness of the flashback, Rubin "courting" Johanna was pretty interesting. The main plot was pretty hopping, though, especially the climactic fights/flights. I guessed a little ahead of the reveal who "Rubin" in Chivial was, and also who the "Rubin" in the Vamky dungeon was. I also guessed who the "Rubin" in the carriage with Johanna was, pretty much right away, but still enjoyed the twists. But the resolution was kind of ridiculous, especially since I didn't have that much invested in a happy ending for Bellman and Johanna.
Characters: I liked Ringwood as a kid, though his mental explamations before he was bound ("Gulp!", "Vomit") didn't really seem to fit with the style of the books. I liked the way he kept thinking about his father, and was generally believably sharp and believably young and green at the same time. I didn't much care for the young marriage to Trudy, even though I liked them both. But at least a lot of his reasoning seemed to be, I'll be too busy to date, in addition to really loving her, so it wasn't presented as some epic love. Ranter was annoying, but I'm kind of sad he got killed off -- it would've been good to see a surly, unpleasant Blade live. But Shadowman!Ranter was really creepy and very effective -- the way he could sort of interact with Ringwood even as a zombie, and the way he got to avenge his brother blades. And I found it really moving when Ringwood tried to talk him into staying to wait for the light to make a clean end of it, but he shuffled off. I would have liked to see a "nasty" character like Ranter survive, just for variety, but he had a good end. Bellman, on the other hand, I found totally uninteresting. Oh, and it was good to see Roland again.
I don't know what it is, but Johanna disguised as Rubin seemed more interesting (and capable) than present-day!Johanna sans disguise. I did like her more in flashback, and it was actually pretty cool to have a heroine in hiding who also had to manage a two-year-old (I sure don't envy that!) Trudy's self-confidence very pleasant, but the fact that she still feels guilty over her role (in leading to the torture of Wolfgang, for example) is also nice. Oh and I really liked the scene where Trudy and Johanna scream to get Ringwood to come to them, instead of lingering longer with Ranter.
Also, I liked Radu quite a lot, and Volpe, and was pleased that neither one of them turned out to be a bad guy, really.
Oh, and I kind of want to read slash between a bound Blade and the person he's bound to. Of course, with a minimum of three Blades being bound, that's already an orgy, but I don't mind.
Favorite quote:
"I am a Chivian Blade!" Ringwood said sharply, too sharply. "I cannot submit to disarming. I beg you not to throw away lives by making the attempt."
In some way I don't fully understand, it epitomizes the appeal of these books and the Blades for me.
35. Tamora Pierce, Terrier (Beka Cooper, Book 1) -- Hmm. This one didn't grab me like most of the other Tortall books -- possibly it's that it's so removed in time from the main timeline -- but it did grow on me, and I did enjoy it.
I'm not sold on the journal format. I do like that the book is written in "period dialect", with words like "mot", "cove", "peaches" (for "breasts"), etc. But Beka-as-diarist is just not that interesting as a narrator, and I don't think the use made of the telling-the-story-as-it-unfolds aspect of the diary writings deliver that much of a payoff vs a story told the way the other Tortall stories are. Not like I hate the format, I just don't see the point. (I especially didn't see the point of the two introductory diary entries from George's mother and Beka's mother. They just made the opening feel really slow.)
I like Beka well enough. The magical skills/help she possesses are not such as to give her an unfair advantage, so she's still closer to Kel than Alanna or Daine along that spectrum, if you ask me -- like, she can hear the pigeons, but not control them, and, of course, Pounce doesn't do what she asks but what he pleases (though his help did get a bit too convenient at times). The crippling shyness as a flaw is not something that felt like it was an integral part of her character, though -- it just kind of felt tacked on. I don't know... I was shy to the point of not being willing to speak to strangers at all for a couple of years, and combined that with being a pretty voluble and forceful person with those I knew, so it's not like I don't believe shyness can ride a strong personality, but... I don't know, it just didn't feel real to me. I rather hope it's dropped more or less in subsequent books as Beka outgrows it, because mostly it just annoys me for that reason.
I'm intrigued by Rosto and like Kora and Anniki, and am looking forward to seeing more of them. I liked Beka's senior dogs, too, especially how it's shown that they have lives outside the "force".
What I really liked was the world-building involved in creating the Watch, because it's very much not "Tortall Blue" or "CSI: Tortall" or whatever -- the legal and law-enforcement system is distinctly different from the modern one, which, honestly, I hadn't expected. The fact that the Watch is paid out of Happy Bags, which is essentially racketeering/official bribery. The fact that individual bribes are not only accepted but encouraged ("'Folks don't trust a Dog what don' get bought,' Goodwin told me. 'You're too good t' be bought, they start thinkin' maybe you got some other angle--' 'Or some other master. Then it gets bloody.'). The close ties with the Rogue/organized crime. The beating of those being detained and the fact that torture is something the cage dogs (wardens, essentially) are expected to engage in to some degree (while still being part of the "good guys"). Anyway, I was impressed. And there's mention of "the Black God's Option" -- cop suicide -- which was also a detail I hadn't expected in a YA book.
The plot was OK. I figured out who the Snake was quite a bit before Beka did, but it was a pretty poignant set-up, and the other big mystery of the fire opals/murdered diggers did get spiced up with the human interest side of the Ashmiller kids, so that worked for me, too. Still, the character interaction is definitely more interesting than the "police work", not that I was expecting -- or wanting -- anything different.
There's a lady knight -- Sabine -- in this book, which nobody seems to think is odd. I read Lioness such a very long time ago -- was it always the case that women could be knights some centuries before that timeline, and it just was no longer in fashion? Or is that sort of a new detail?
I will definitely continue reading the series, but I'm not OMGthrilled about it at this point.
36. D.M.Cornish, Lamplighter (Monster Blood Tatoo, Book 2) -- these are such odd, odd books. I'm not even talking about the 200-page index (Explicarium) that accompanies a 600 page book -- and goes well beyond LotR levels of explanation, if you ask me. They are quite, quite slow, especially whenever Rossamund is the only actor on stage. Fortunately, he gets a companion of sorts pretty early on in the Book, and some other people to play off.
I liked Threnody quite a lot. She is passionate and headstrong and a bit pathetic and almost totally self-involved and very often wrong. But I like her more than Europe, whom I mostly found irritating without much to recommend her (still do in this book, even after she gave Rossamund a scarf and saved him at the end). I was happy to see more of Sebastipole the leer in this book -- I like him quite a lot now, and would like to see more of him, and I enjoyed Doctor Crispus and Numps (in moderation) as new characters as well. Basically, it was nice to have people around who were allies to Rossamund for a change. And I'm intrigued by Dolours the bane and her implied sedorning views, and would hope to see her in the next book too.
The big revelation... I'm glad we finally got to it, 'cos it was getting ridiculous. I've VERY STRONGLY suspected that Rossamund was some kind of monster, on account of the Extinker and the dogs' reaction to him, and of course the pseudo-cryptic things some others have said, like Freckle and his old masters. It's good to have it out in the open, finally, 'cos the pseudo-suspense was getting old. I do wonder where it goes from here... and what Europe actually thinks of this development.
37. Kristin Cashore, Graceling -- So, funny thing. I saw this book at the library, picked it up, read the inside-cover summary and put it down, in spite the very favorable Tamora Pierce blurb on the back -- because it felt like the kind of YA book that would annoy me -- angsty Sue heroine, that sort of thing. But then I read good things about this book somewhere on LJ, can't recall where, and decided to give it another shot, so when I saw it at the library the next time, I checked it out.
As I was reading the first couple of chapters, I thought I should've stuck with my original decision and passed. Katsa annoyed me. Like, a lot. She has a Grace -- a special skill that makes her very good at something -- and because her Grace is killing, she is feared and misunderstood, while she is also so much more competent than the two older men who accompany her (and is thus annoyed by them). Oh, and she is on this special mission to rescue an old man for the secret Council which opposes the unscrupulous things the bad kings of the seven kingdoms do -- oh, yeah, and the Council was all Katsa's idea. 'Cos, obviously, all those people who are willing to risk their lives to oppose the kings, their own and their neighbors', were just waiting around for Katsa to show up and give them the idea. Anyway, *gag*. And then it is mentioned that Katsa is oblivious to people's intentions -- the underlord who is in love with her, stuff like that. It's supposed to be funny or endearing or something, but it just annoyed me more. I just don't see how a person who is supposedly in charge of this secret Council and its secret missions can be clueless about people's intentions and yet effective at the secret mission stuff. And later on it's revealed that Katsa's Grace is not killing, as everyone thinks, but survival (which I'd actually been suspecting for a while). How is being oblivious a survival trait? Katsa just didn't seem like a very coherent character to me, early on -- she had all these traits that the author wanted her to have, to give her the combination of badassness and conscience and angst, but they didn't necessarily go together, from what I saw.
But then Prince Po (it's a nickname, fortunately) entered the narrative, and things significantly improved. Yes, it's a romance, and I can't say I could really fathom why Po would fall in love with someone as... charmless as Katsa, but OK, whatever floats his boat. Po is a pretty cool character -- he is competent and confident and sensitive, and not threatened a bit by Katsa's ability to beat the crap out of him. When Katsa discovers the true secret of his Grace (he can sense people's thoughts as they relate to him, in addition to other things he can sense), she freaks out, and that freak out was foreshadowed (clunkily) by Katsa's hatred of mind readers, but it's really one of those cases where the protagonist reacts out of all proportion to the situation. But Po talks her down and they take off together, and eventually become lovers and Katsa, once she stopped freaking out over things that did not require freaking out about, became bearable, though I never actually came to like her. And Po's nickname for her, "wildcat" ('cos she gets called Kat for short) is the corniest thing ever, but I forgive him for it.
Anyway, so far I've mostly been complaining, but there are a couple of things this book does which pleasantly surprised me, so credit where credit is due -- and I think those things alone actually do make it a pretty good book, worthy of a rec even, in spite of all the ways in which it annoyed me or fell short. First, I liked that Katsa's initial refusal to marry and have children did not get overturned by a happy ending. She is still saying she will never marry at the end, and while Po would be happy to marry her, he respects this decision, and is happy to just remain lovers for as long as they'll have each other. Her reasons for not wanting to marry are also pretty good, something I can respect: "once she became his wife, she would be his wife forever. And, no matter how much freedom Po gave her, she would always know that it was a gift. Her freedom would not be her own; it would be Po's to give or to withhold. That he never would withhold it made no difference. If it did not come from her, it was not really hers." It is a medieval setting, with no gender equality to speak of, so it makes sense. Second, Po's injury leaves lasting consequences -- he goes blind, and there is no magical cure for him at the end of the book. His Grace allows him to compensate for it, but it's not quite the same thing as being able to see, and there's depression and difficulty adjusting, and those sorts of things that I wouldn't expect in a happy ending of a YA book. I respect that.
It also helped that Katsa was called out on some of her nonsense, mostly by Po but some by the other folks, too, so she didn't quite feel so Mary-Sue-ish anymore after a while. There's also an interesting moment where Katsa is angry at Po and slugs him -- in anger, but pulling back slightly, so she only bruises rather than breaks his jaw. It's quite interesting, actually, because you don't see a lot of "girl hitting guy when she clearly has the advantage" scenes, and it's dealt with pretty seriously. That was neat to see. Oh, and there's also a sex scene -- not explicit or anything, but not "fade to black" either, which I also hadn't expected. And there's some nice feminist ideas about teaching girls how to defend themselves (it actually reminded me, oddly, of Miss Congeniality -- which is actually totally a good thing, I loved that movie), which are not exactly subtle but do fit Katsa's character and the setting, so they worked for me as a positive.
Those are all good things, but there are still more negatives. The world-building is... how shall I put it? Lame. Katsa comes from the Middluns, which is surrounded by Estill, Nander, Wester, and Sunder at the easily-guessed cardinal directions, and there's also Monsea (which has mountains and a seaside) and Lienid, which is an island (just say both the name and the noun...) The capital cities in each kingdom are named after the respective kings (Ror City, Randa City, etc.), and the other cities are named things like Westport (in Wester), Sunport (in Sunder), and Monport (in Monsea). LAME! Nothing else is fleshed out, and it just feels like a paint-by-numbers fantasy landscape in that regard.
The story centers around some political intrigue, and, well, frankly, Cashore doesn't pull of political intrigue very well. The kings are mostly all greedy idiots with no depth (Po's father, Ror, is a slight exception, and the child queen Bitterblue and Randa's heir, Raffin are more fleshed out), and their intrigues just seem ridiculously childish, especially as described. There's supposed to be this great mystery around King Leck, but because there is so little detail about anything, his bad guy status is pretty much telegraphed from the things that are mentioned, like his queen locking herself up and all the animals with cuts that don't heal in his animal shelters. That detail is dropped in such a ridiculous way that I really don't know how anyone could not notice it for the red flag. Also, I have a problem with the way Leck's Grace works. I am willing to accept that he could have a Grace which makes people automatically believe him and consider him above suspicion. But I cannot see how it could possibly also work to make people believe things about him that they hear from other people -- his soldiers or merchants or whatever. I don't think we've seen any Grace that works at a one-person remove, so this really seems qualitatively different from any other Grace, which makes it unbelievable to me.
And I thought the way Leck was killed and the whole problem was solved was rather anticlimactic. It felt wrong, from a narrative perspective, to have Katsa kill him while muddle-headed, though I did, of course, expect danger to Po to be the thing that would give her some immunity from Leck's Grace. His death just felt unsatisfying.
Random observation/question: Raffin and Bann (his assistant) gave me a couple-y vibe, pretty much from the first they were mentioned, but also when Katsa and Po talk about not getting married, they say, "And there are those who do understand. Raffin does, and Bann." which pinged that also. There was also that thing about Raffin thinking about marrying Katsa, clearly not out of love. I don't know... the last time I felt a real couple-y vibe in canon, that was Dumbledore and Grindelwald in DH, and we all know how that turned out. I see I'm not alone in my suspicions, either (and other people, elsewhere, too).
38. Kelly Link, Pretty Monsters -- this is a collection of short stories with some overlap with a previous collection I'd read. I had thought the stories in that one were somewhat uneven; in this book, I at least liked all of the stories. I don't know that I *loved* any of the new-to-me ones -- probably not, and I'm thinking Link is one of those authors where, after you've read a couple of stories, most of them are really enjoyable but sort of start to blend together, because what stands out is the style of storytelling, and not the individual stories. But I don't mind, because I really did enjoy them all. I don't have strong individual reactions to many of them, but I'll just jot them down here, mostly to remind myself which stories actually were in here:
"The Wrong Grave" -- I liked the (living) boy protagonist and found the story pretty funny, but the ending is a tad more ambiguous than the sort I like.
"The Wizards of Perfil" -- I saw the "twist" at the end, if it's meant to be a twist, coming, but it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the story at all -- in fact, I think it enhances it. And the imagery is particularly neat in this one. And it has wonderful lines like:
"Once, when she was coming back from the pier with a bucket of fish, there was a dragon on the path. It wasn't very big, only the size of a mastiff. But it gazed at her with wicked, jeweled eyes. She couldn't get past it.It would eat her, and that would be that. It was almost a relief. She put the bucket down and stood waiting to be eaten. But then Essa was there, holding a stick. She hit the dragon on its head, once, twice, and then gave it a kick for good measure. 'Go on, you!' Essa said. The dragon went, giving Halsa one last reproachful look. Essa picked up the bucket of fish. 'You have to be firm with them,' she said. 'Otherwise they get inside your head and make you feel as if you deserve to be eaten. They are too lazy to eat anything that puts up a fight.'"
Come to think of it, Link's prose reminds me a bit of LeGuin in this story, which is an awesome thing indeed.
"Magic for Beginners" and "The Faery Handbag" I had read already.
"The Specialist's Hat" -- I liked the way the twin girls interacted, especially (but then I've always liked twins), and the counting thing worked for me quite well.
"Monster" -- my least favorite story in this collection, or, at least, the least memorable -- I actually forgot it was even there when listing them out, until looked at the table of contents. But it was still pretty good, and definitely an enjoyable read, if rather darker than I like.
"The Surfer" -- I liked the first-person narration (by a teen soccer goalie would-be-superstar, quite entertaining and endearing for all that he is often kind of a jerk), and the supporting characters, especially Naomi. I liked the sci-fi books references (especially the name checks for Connie Willis and Naomi Novik). I didn't mind (surprisingly, 'cos it was not exactly subtle, and I dislike political polemic in my spec lit) the distopian view of the fractured United States, with its terrible education and draconian laws and people wanting to emigrate to Costa Rica -- it wasn't subtle, but it wasn't hammered on too much. And I've got to say, reading this story -- which features successive flu epidemics as background -- during swine flu (especially as we were getting ready to leave for NYC) was a little uncomfortable.
"The Constable of Abal" -- saw the "twist" in this one as well. This story actually gets closure of sorts and a happy ending, rather surprisingly. The ghosts on ribbons thing was very neat -- I have a ready image of it in my mind.
"Pretty Monsters" -- I think this was my favorite story in the collection. It's a very nested narrative -- there are two stories being told in parallel, one of them the story that a girl in the first story is reading. At the very end, it turns out that the first story is also a story being read by someone. The story-within-a-story-within-a-story has an open ending, and the protagonists in the outer story never finish reading the story they're reading, so everything ends up open-ended, and the stories are connected by a theme. It works quite well! And I liked the fact that even in the most nested story, there's reference to other books/stories -- an allusion to Twilight, I'm guessing, because she says "it was kind of bad except i also kind of enjoyed it." And the protagonists have LiveJournals and chat on IM, which was amusing to me. The title's tied to the novel rather explicitly -- the phrase "pretty monsters" is actually mentioned by a character in the middle story, and then alluded to by the characters in the outer story, but it does work pretty well.
Anyway, I thought this was a really strong collection. Whereas I had liked the first one I read mostly on the strength of "The Faery Handbag" and "Magic for Beginners" and it had several stories that I didn't like at all, I liked all the stories in this one, and think the collection is really, really good overall.
Last random note: the book was lying in the bathroom, and L started reading it, too. She says she likes it -- I'm actually going to keep it/renew it for her if she wants. :D
39. Kim Harrison, Outlaw Demon Wails -- this was possibly the wrong book to start reading this series with -- there is rather a lot of angst that descends from stuff that happened in earlier novels in the series, which was kind of annoying without the fist-hand burden of the requisite background, but I'd been trying to get into this series for a while, so when I saw a book, I grabbed it, not caring where in the series it lay. And I still enjoyed it, and plan to continue reading, forward and back, so it all worked out.
I don't think Harrison is a particularly wonderful writer -- she overuses epithets for one ("the tall man," "the older elf", "the small woman", "the Were") -- I'm not even picky about this, but it stood out enough to irritate me. I didn't fall in love with any of the characters -- Ivy is interesting (but I'm kind of bored by the sexual/vampiric tension between her and Rachel, though I do like their friendship) and Jenks is amusing, and I like Rachel's mother, and the demons are kind of cool (I kept imagining Al as played by Johnny Depp in Captain Jack mode, for some reason, but you know that's no bad thing), as is Rynn Cormel the head honcho vampire who was once President, and the one who intrigued me most was actually Trent Kalamack, the elf drug lord (also, I kind of ship him and Rachel; am I supposed to?) -- the only thing I don't like is that it seems implied that he wants association with her to change him for the better, and I dislike character reformation arcs. But none of them really clicked in that "must have more of this character!" way. I'm not really sure how I feel about Rachel the protagonist. She definitely avoids being a Mary-Sue in my book, because she does stupid things and is called out on them, even though she is full of super-speshul powers.
The world-building is... unusual, I guess, with Interland and magic being out in the open (and even reference to anti-human prejudice right after the turn) and funny little details like tomatoes replacing pumpkins as the symbol of Halloween.
Anyway, so I do hope to continue reading books in this series, but I'm not as head-over-heels in love as I'd been hoping to be as a best-case scenario.
40. Mercedes Lackey, Foundation (The Collegium Chronicles) -- well, what do you know! A new Lackey book that did not irritate me at some point! It's still quite slow and very light on plot in relation to just... Our Hero sitting in classes, taking baths, and making friends -- as a lot of her later books all seem to be -- but it was not in an annoying way.
Mostly this is because I actually liked Mags as a character/protagonist. He comes from a terrible background (over-the-top terrible, but at least genuinely so and not in a O Woe Is Me! emo way), but he is not angsty about it, he is rather matter of fact. It takes him a long time to stop cringing away when people call him out, to understand that he wants friendship with others, to learn how to play, all kinds of things that are a reminder of the way he grew up, and he never loses his skepticism and suspicious view of people (which are good things). OK, how quickly he learns to be an expert rider/fighter is a little suspicious, and he becomes a little too indispensible too quickly, but for a late Lackey novel, not bad at all. And I like that he is an intensely logical person.
The other characters are pleasant background noise, nothing remarkable on their own. I actually found Dallen the Companion, his vanity and blathering, a bit annoying, but that's not a bad thing, necessarily. There's just the barest hint of a plot buried in all the domesticity, more a setup for a future book than anything else -- the actual climax of this one, with Bear's disappearance/kidnapping, totally came out of left field and didn't ring true/make much sense. One thing that did annoy me -- though not enough to turn me off the book in any serious way -- was that Mags speaks (and :Mindspeaks:) in dialect throughout the whole book. Why would you DO that as an author? I mean, yes, it's to remind us that he has uncultures speach -- but his speach patterns themselves are enough to show that, and vocabulary use. No need for apostrophes and funny spelling all over the place, REALLY!
41. Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, A Companion to Wolves -- it was actually an interesting coincidence (totally unintended) to read this book alongside Lackey's Foundation (I started ACTW earlier and finished it later, so it was really kind of a nested read), because, of course, ACTW is a deconstruction of the "fuzzy animal companion wish-fulfillment fantasy" genre, of which Lackey's Valdemar books are one of the prime examples. (I gather that ACTW is even more a deconstruction of the Pern books, but I've never read those, so Valdemar is my primary example of the genre, and it certainly worked well enough for me.)
I really liked Isolfr -- more than any other protagonist of Ebear's to date (I don't know if it's Monette's coauthorship or the more straightforward fantasy setting or what that's to credit for it, or just the variety of characters an author produces). His worries were well-founded and certainly felt real, and he tried to handle them best he could, and he was self-conscious and trying so hard and aware of his limitations and, just, the sort of earnest but fallible character I want to give a hug and protect. The secondary cast -- when I was able to keep track of them, which was very difficult in this book -- they have esoteric Norse names many of which look very similar and those names change for most of them -- are pretty neat if not spectacular -- there weren't any standouts for me, but I liked Frithulf particularly, and the others. The wolves, too, have very distinct, vivid personalities, and it's hard not to like spirited Viradechtis or her mother, Vigdis, who thinks of Isolfr as her pup. Oh and Tin the svartalf was pretty cool, too.
I did my usual thing I do after finishing an Ebear book, which is go through matociquala's tags for the book and catch up on background, favorite author bits, other people's comments and questions in the spoiler thread, etc. In this case, I encountered matociquala saying, "It's also another one of those patented Monette/Bear feminist novels with nearly no women in them." -- which was very much what I thought at various parts of the story, too. The non-human females -- Vigdis and Viradechtis and Tin -- are very much active characters in this book, and even human women, in their more background roles (Isolfr's mother, who teaches him more about honor than his warrior jarl father, his lover and mother of his child, his sister) are quite important and interesting. And, of course, just about every society but the human one that Isolfr encounters is matriarchal to a greater or lesser respect. The wolf packs have dominant females, the konigenwolves; the trolls are bee-like, they have trellqueens and witches, and the males are only there to mate with the queen and die; and the svartalfar hierarchy we don't see as explicitly, I think, but there power seems to rest with the smiths (which can be either males or females (and don't think of themselves as women (or, presumably, men), just as smiths) and the mothers, who must naturally be female. And Isolfr notices this and even starts using girls for scouts when he is strapped for people, learning from the svartalfar.
Of course, there's also the gender inversion aspect, with Isolfr ending up in a Forced Marriage kind of trope (although he does actually choose, at several points in the book, to remain a wolfcarl and brother to a konigenwolf with all that it entails, when he is given the option to walk away; it may mean losing honor and Viradechtis and, towards the end, probably sabotaging the war effort, since the wolfthreat really needs Viradecthis and her pups, but he does actually get a choice). More interesting to me than just that fact was the way Isolfr thinks, at one point, that he gets no less choice than his sister, whom his father decides to marry off to a man of his choice ("At least, Isolfr thought, Viradechtis would not choose for reasons as cold as Gunnar's"). Later, when he realized Skjaldwulf wants him for him and not the position of jarl, Isolfr thinks "I am not worth it" and that makes him think of his own words, choosing to remain a wolfcarl because Viradechtis is "worth it" -- I liked those parallels.
I'd been reading matociquala's LJ, so I'd known to expect the traumatic mating frenzy sex, but was not really prepared for just how, well, traumatic it was, either the first time Isolfr witnesses a mating frenzy, knowing that'll be him someday, or when Viradechtis and Isolfr's first mating frenzy actually comes -- well, more the aftermath of it, actually, than the frenzy itself. It was quite, quite noticeable that Isolfr was straight, which makes his relationship to his two jarls really interesting, and everything that leads up to it, too. I really liked Isolfr's remark "Just counting my dowry" and found it quite heart-wrenching (and at the same time fairly funny) that Isolfr worried he came back from his svartalfar mission no longer pretty. He is just such a good kid! And I also liked that when he comes back after running off without telling anyone why -- because to tell he would've had to break his oath to the svartalfar -- he is worried that his jarls will be mad at him, even though he comes back triumphant, with an army of svartalfar, after defeating a trellqueen.
The world of this thing is dark enough and full enough of difficult choices that when it comes to the choice Isolfr has to make, in the last couple of pages, to kill the troll witch and queen's kitten -- the only chance to preserve the hive memory of the Iskyrne trolls -- I really was not sure, until he made the choice, if he would kill her or let her go. And it was good to see it come to a head, that the systematic extermination of an intelligent species -- a hostile species not interested in communicating with the humans, but still -- was actually called into question.
The world is pretty dark, people and wolves die and are maimed, and even in the downtimes there is frostbite, chilbains, beard lice, as a daily part of their existence, not as something you get to escape once you get the telepathic animal companion (this is where reading ACTW alongside Foundation was especially neat). But there is warmth and humour, too, which made the book enjoyable. Not comfortable, which is probably why I didn't *love* it, while I liked it a lot, but definitely enjoyable.
There will be two sequels, it appears, one about Isolfr's daughter Alfgyfa, judging by the title, and the other one about wolfcarls, I guess. I'd love to see more of Vethulf and Skjaldwulf's relationship as co-jarls, actually, as well as more of Isolfr.
Oh, there's a post answering some readers' questions (snarkily and spoiler-ly): here.
42. J.K.Rowling, Tales of Beedle the Bard -- yeah, I'm a bad HP fan and only now read this. It was very cute! (and I read it in about an hour, on the MUNI ride home). I must say, I probably enjoyed the Dumbledore notes more than the stories themselves, of which only "The Fountain of Fair Fortune" really worked for me as stand-alone tales, without the notes (well, and the Deathly Hallows story, but we knew it already, so it doesn't count). I had to double-check to convince myself that those are JKR's illustrations -- she draws pretty darn well, in that case! I was especially impressed by the flying horse. And I like that the three witches in "Fountain" are shown as a maiden, mother, and crone sort of set.
A couple of lines that made me laugh:
"As the eminent Wizarding philosopher Bertrand de Pensees-Profondes writes in his celebrated work A Study into the Possibility of Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of Natural Death, with Particular Regard to the Reintegration of Essence and Matter: 'Give it up. It's never going to happen.'"
"A similar rabbit later became a trusted advisor at the court of King Henry VI. *
* This may have contributed to that Muggle King's reputation for mental instability."
"[A] tiny minority of the Wizarding community persists in believing that Beedle was sending them a coded message, which is the exact reverse of the one set down in ink, and that they along are cleaver enough to understand it." -- nice dig at the Harmonians, JKR. Perhaps a touch petty, but funny nevertheless.
33. Michelle Sagara, Cast in Secret -- this book (#3 in the series) is the first one that didn't unduly irritate me; I dunno if I'm just getting used to the series/style or if it's actually getting better. Anyway, I definitely enjoyed this outing, the best of all three, and am looking forward to more. Partly, I think, is that the Kaylin/Sevrin angst is kept to a minimum -- if I weren't aware of it from the earlier books, I don't think I would've noticed it. There's still a bit too much focus on Kaylin and THE CHILDREN for my taste -- it makes her feel kind of one-note to me -- but not distractingly so. I think there maybe also were fewer annoying pseudo-stream-of-consiousness sentence fragments.
I like this world and its melting-pot/salad bowl sort of setting. There's some nice race-building details like the practice of licking a newborn Leontine cub being a great honor offered to a non-parent. The focus of this book are the Tha'alani (as Dragons were the focus of book #1 and the ElvesBarrani the focus of book #2). There's some interesting stuff about them there, especially about the "deaf" boy, but for all that they don't intrigue me particularly as a race. I was much more pleased by the heavier Dragon presence -- the return of Tiamaris, who was my favorite from book 1, and Sanabalis's even heavier presence. And there was still enough of Nightshade to keep things interesting on the Barrani front. I do wonder where the Kaylin/Nightshade stuff is going... I enjoy their interaction (e.g. "You have a way of robbing words of their splendor," as Nightshade told Kaylin), and Nightshade's general powerful outlaw lord vibe (he reminds me a bit of Marcone, I guess, in the Dresden books).
The magic in these books is actually of very little interest to me -- I'm in it for the racial interaction and second world fantasy detective stories. So, the whole terrible looming disaster, Word for water, girl personification of water, Keeper thing, trial by Nightshade's castle, etc. etc. wasn't of particular interet to me. I did like the view of the Oracles and how they're treated by the mundanes, and how the Hall of Oracles is rather reminiscent of a mixture of an insane asylum and a place for folks with various degrees of autism to hang out, and the way the most functional Oracles are the weakest in terms of power. That's a place I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Still don't care about Kaylin's identity or destiny or whatever, but she is starting to bug me a little less, now that she no longer comes across purely as a collection of cutesy "tough chick" flaws.
A couple of quotes:
"The exotic appeals to many men -- and few women -- of all races" [Nightshade on Grethan]
"He had power [...] but he wasn't chosen for his power. He was chosen because he had no desre to use it."
Tiamaris shook his head. "He had the desire, Kaylin."
"He was not a man who needed to be brought to justice. He was a man to whom justice needed to go." [Severn on Idis the bad guy]
34. Dave Duncan, Impossible Odds -- I really enjoy the King's Blades books -- they're swashbuckling good fun, set in a pretty cool world (pseudohistorical Europe, kinda, with just a bit of magic) and I tend to like Duncan's characters, too. This one's no exception, though I can't say it will stand out as a favorite.
The plot: The big flashback in the middle didn't work so well for me -- it took a while for me to become interested in Joanna's story, and just at a time when I was really interested to move on with the present-day timeline. But, once I resigned myself to the slowness of the flashback, Rubin "courting" Johanna was pretty interesting. The main plot was pretty hopping, though, especially the climactic fights/flights. I guessed a little ahead of the reveal who "Rubin" in Chivial was, and also who the "Rubin" in the Vamky dungeon was. I also guessed who the "Rubin" in the carriage with Johanna was, pretty much right away, but still enjoyed the twists. But the resolution was kind of ridiculous, especially since I didn't have that much invested in a happy ending for Bellman and Johanna.
Characters: I liked Ringwood as a kid, though his mental explamations before he was bound ("Gulp!", "Vomit") didn't really seem to fit with the style of the books. I liked the way he kept thinking about his father, and was generally believably sharp and believably young and green at the same time. I didn't much care for the young marriage to Trudy, even though I liked them both. But at least a lot of his reasoning seemed to be, I'll be too busy to date, in addition to really loving her, so it wasn't presented as some epic love. Ranter was annoying, but I'm kind of sad he got killed off -- it would've been good to see a surly, unpleasant Blade live. But Shadowman!Ranter was really creepy and very effective -- the way he could sort of interact with Ringwood even as a zombie, and the way he got to avenge his brother blades. And I found it really moving when Ringwood tried to talk him into staying to wait for the light to make a clean end of it, but he shuffled off. I would have liked to see a "nasty" character like Ranter survive, just for variety, but he had a good end. Bellman, on the other hand, I found totally uninteresting. Oh, and it was good to see Roland again.
I don't know what it is, but Johanna disguised as Rubin seemed more interesting (and capable) than present-day!Johanna sans disguise. I did like her more in flashback, and it was actually pretty cool to have a heroine in hiding who also had to manage a two-year-old (I sure don't envy that!) Trudy's self-confidence very pleasant, but the fact that she still feels guilty over her role (in leading to the torture of Wolfgang, for example) is also nice. Oh and I really liked the scene where Trudy and Johanna scream to get Ringwood to come to them, instead of lingering longer with Ranter.
Also, I liked Radu quite a lot, and Volpe, and was pleased that neither one of them turned out to be a bad guy, really.
Oh, and I kind of want to read slash between a bound Blade and the person he's bound to. Of course, with a minimum of three Blades being bound, that's already an orgy, but I don't mind.
Favorite quote:
"I am a Chivian Blade!" Ringwood said sharply, too sharply. "I cannot submit to disarming. I beg you not to throw away lives by making the attempt."
In some way I don't fully understand, it epitomizes the appeal of these books and the Blades for me.
35. Tamora Pierce, Terrier (Beka Cooper, Book 1) -- Hmm. This one didn't grab me like most of the other Tortall books -- possibly it's that it's so removed in time from the main timeline -- but it did grow on me, and I did enjoy it.
I'm not sold on the journal format. I do like that the book is written in "period dialect", with words like "mot", "cove", "peaches" (for "breasts"), etc. But Beka-as-diarist is just not that interesting as a narrator, and I don't think the use made of the telling-the-story-as-it-unfolds aspect of the diary writings deliver that much of a payoff vs a story told the way the other Tortall stories are. Not like I hate the format, I just don't see the point. (I especially didn't see the point of the two introductory diary entries from George's mother and Beka's mother. They just made the opening feel really slow.)
I like Beka well enough. The magical skills/help she possesses are not such as to give her an unfair advantage, so she's still closer to Kel than Alanna or Daine along that spectrum, if you ask me -- like, she can hear the pigeons, but not control them, and, of course, Pounce doesn't do what she asks but what he pleases (though his help did get a bit too convenient at times). The crippling shyness as a flaw is not something that felt like it was an integral part of her character, though -- it just kind of felt tacked on. I don't know... I was shy to the point of not being willing to speak to strangers at all for a couple of years, and combined that with being a pretty voluble and forceful person with those I knew, so it's not like I don't believe shyness can ride a strong personality, but... I don't know, it just didn't feel real to me. I rather hope it's dropped more or less in subsequent books as Beka outgrows it, because mostly it just annoys me for that reason.
I'm intrigued by Rosto and like Kora and Anniki, and am looking forward to seeing more of them. I liked Beka's senior dogs, too, especially how it's shown that they have lives outside the "force".
What I really liked was the world-building involved in creating the Watch, because it's very much not "Tortall Blue" or "CSI: Tortall" or whatever -- the legal and law-enforcement system is distinctly different from the modern one, which, honestly, I hadn't expected. The fact that the Watch is paid out of Happy Bags, which is essentially racketeering/official bribery. The fact that individual bribes are not only accepted but encouraged ("'Folks don't trust a Dog what don' get bought,' Goodwin told me. 'You're too good t' be bought, they start thinkin' maybe you got some other angle--' 'Or some other master. Then it gets bloody.'). The close ties with the Rogue/organized crime. The beating of those being detained and the fact that torture is something the cage dogs (wardens, essentially) are expected to engage in to some degree (while still being part of the "good guys"). Anyway, I was impressed. And there's mention of "the Black God's Option" -- cop suicide -- which was also a detail I hadn't expected in a YA book.
The plot was OK. I figured out who the Snake was quite a bit before Beka did, but it was a pretty poignant set-up, and the other big mystery of the fire opals/murdered diggers did get spiced up with the human interest side of the Ashmiller kids, so that worked for me, too. Still, the character interaction is definitely more interesting than the "police work", not that I was expecting -- or wanting -- anything different.
There's a lady knight -- Sabine -- in this book, which nobody seems to think is odd. I read Lioness such a very long time ago -- was it always the case that women could be knights some centuries before that timeline, and it just was no longer in fashion? Or is that sort of a new detail?
I will definitely continue reading the series, but I'm not OMGthrilled about it at this point.
36. D.M.Cornish, Lamplighter (Monster Blood Tatoo, Book 2) -- these are such odd, odd books. I'm not even talking about the 200-page index (Explicarium) that accompanies a 600 page book -- and goes well beyond LotR levels of explanation, if you ask me. They are quite, quite slow, especially whenever Rossamund is the only actor on stage. Fortunately, he gets a companion of sorts pretty early on in the Book, and some other people to play off.
I liked Threnody quite a lot. She is passionate and headstrong and a bit pathetic and almost totally self-involved and very often wrong. But I like her more than Europe, whom I mostly found irritating without much to recommend her (still do in this book, even after she gave Rossamund a scarf and saved him at the end). I was happy to see more of Sebastipole the leer in this book -- I like him quite a lot now, and would like to see more of him, and I enjoyed Doctor Crispus and Numps (in moderation) as new characters as well. Basically, it was nice to have people around who were allies to Rossamund for a change. And I'm intrigued by Dolours the bane and her implied sedorning views, and would hope to see her in the next book too.
The big revelation... I'm glad we finally got to it, 'cos it was getting ridiculous. I've VERY STRONGLY suspected that Rossamund was some kind of monster, on account of the Extinker and the dogs' reaction to him, and of course the pseudo-cryptic things some others have said, like Freckle and his old masters. It's good to have it out in the open, finally, 'cos the pseudo-suspense was getting old. I do wonder where it goes from here... and what Europe actually thinks of this development.
37. Kristin Cashore, Graceling -- So, funny thing. I saw this book at the library, picked it up, read the inside-cover summary and put it down, in spite the very favorable Tamora Pierce blurb on the back -- because it felt like the kind of YA book that would annoy me -- angsty Sue heroine, that sort of thing. But then I read good things about this book somewhere on LJ, can't recall where, and decided to give it another shot, so when I saw it at the library the next time, I checked it out.
As I was reading the first couple of chapters, I thought I should've stuck with my original decision and passed. Katsa annoyed me. Like, a lot. She has a Grace -- a special skill that makes her very good at something -- and because her Grace is killing, she is feared and misunderstood, while she is also so much more competent than the two older men who accompany her (and is thus annoyed by them). Oh, and she is on this special mission to rescue an old man for the secret Council which opposes the unscrupulous things the bad kings of the seven kingdoms do -- oh, yeah, and the Council was all Katsa's idea. 'Cos, obviously, all those people who are willing to risk their lives to oppose the kings, their own and their neighbors', were just waiting around for Katsa to show up and give them the idea. Anyway, *gag*. And then it is mentioned that Katsa is oblivious to people's intentions -- the underlord who is in love with her, stuff like that. It's supposed to be funny or endearing or something, but it just annoyed me more. I just don't see how a person who is supposedly in charge of this secret Council and its secret missions can be clueless about people's intentions and yet effective at the secret mission stuff. And later on it's revealed that Katsa's Grace is not killing, as everyone thinks, but survival (which I'd actually been suspecting for a while). How is being oblivious a survival trait? Katsa just didn't seem like a very coherent character to me, early on -- she had all these traits that the author wanted her to have, to give her the combination of badassness and conscience and angst, but they didn't necessarily go together, from what I saw.
But then Prince Po (it's a nickname, fortunately) entered the narrative, and things significantly improved. Yes, it's a romance, and I can't say I could really fathom why Po would fall in love with someone as... charmless as Katsa, but OK, whatever floats his boat. Po is a pretty cool character -- he is competent and confident and sensitive, and not threatened a bit by Katsa's ability to beat the crap out of him. When Katsa discovers the true secret of his Grace (he can sense people's thoughts as they relate to him, in addition to other things he can sense), she freaks out, and that freak out was foreshadowed (clunkily) by Katsa's hatred of mind readers, but it's really one of those cases where the protagonist reacts out of all proportion to the situation. But Po talks her down and they take off together, and eventually become lovers and Katsa, once she stopped freaking out over things that did not require freaking out about, became bearable, though I never actually came to like her. And Po's nickname for her, "wildcat" ('cos she gets called Kat for short) is the corniest thing ever, but I forgive him for it.
Anyway, so far I've mostly been complaining, but there are a couple of things this book does which pleasantly surprised me, so credit where credit is due -- and I think those things alone actually do make it a pretty good book, worthy of a rec even, in spite of all the ways in which it annoyed me or fell short. First, I liked that Katsa's initial refusal to marry and have children did not get overturned by a happy ending. She is still saying she will never marry at the end, and while Po would be happy to marry her, he respects this decision, and is happy to just remain lovers for as long as they'll have each other. Her reasons for not wanting to marry are also pretty good, something I can respect: "once she became his wife, she would be his wife forever. And, no matter how much freedom Po gave her, she would always know that it was a gift. Her freedom would not be her own; it would be Po's to give or to withhold. That he never would withhold it made no difference. If it did not come from her, it was not really hers." It is a medieval setting, with no gender equality to speak of, so it makes sense. Second, Po's injury leaves lasting consequences -- he goes blind, and there is no magical cure for him at the end of the book. His Grace allows him to compensate for it, but it's not quite the same thing as being able to see, and there's depression and difficulty adjusting, and those sorts of things that I wouldn't expect in a happy ending of a YA book. I respect that.
It also helped that Katsa was called out on some of her nonsense, mostly by Po but some by the other folks, too, so she didn't quite feel so Mary-Sue-ish anymore after a while. There's also an interesting moment where Katsa is angry at Po and slugs him -- in anger, but pulling back slightly, so she only bruises rather than breaks his jaw. It's quite interesting, actually, because you don't see a lot of "girl hitting guy when she clearly has the advantage" scenes, and it's dealt with pretty seriously. That was neat to see. Oh, and there's also a sex scene -- not explicit or anything, but not "fade to black" either, which I also hadn't expected. And there's some nice feminist ideas about teaching girls how to defend themselves (it actually reminded me, oddly, of Miss Congeniality -- which is actually totally a good thing, I loved that movie), which are not exactly subtle but do fit Katsa's character and the setting, so they worked for me as a positive.
Those are all good things, but there are still more negatives. The world-building is... how shall I put it? Lame. Katsa comes from the Middluns, which is surrounded by Estill, Nander, Wester, and Sunder at the easily-guessed cardinal directions, and there's also Monsea (which has mountains and a seaside) and Lienid, which is an island (just say both the name and the noun...) The capital cities in each kingdom are named after the respective kings (Ror City, Randa City, etc.), and the other cities are named things like Westport (in Wester), Sunport (in Sunder), and Monport (in Monsea). LAME! Nothing else is fleshed out, and it just feels like a paint-by-numbers fantasy landscape in that regard.
The story centers around some political intrigue, and, well, frankly, Cashore doesn't pull of political intrigue very well. The kings are mostly all greedy idiots with no depth (Po's father, Ror, is a slight exception, and the child queen Bitterblue and Randa's heir, Raffin are more fleshed out), and their intrigues just seem ridiculously childish, especially as described. There's supposed to be this great mystery around King Leck, but because there is so little detail about anything, his bad guy status is pretty much telegraphed from the things that are mentioned, like his queen locking herself up and all the animals with cuts that don't heal in his animal shelters. That detail is dropped in such a ridiculous way that I really don't know how anyone could not notice it for the red flag. Also, I have a problem with the way Leck's Grace works. I am willing to accept that he could have a Grace which makes people automatically believe him and consider him above suspicion. But I cannot see how it could possibly also work to make people believe things about him that they hear from other people -- his soldiers or merchants or whatever. I don't think we've seen any Grace that works at a one-person remove, so this really seems qualitatively different from any other Grace, which makes it unbelievable to me.
And I thought the way Leck was killed and the whole problem was solved was rather anticlimactic. It felt wrong, from a narrative perspective, to have Katsa kill him while muddle-headed, though I did, of course, expect danger to Po to be the thing that would give her some immunity from Leck's Grace. His death just felt unsatisfying.
Random observation/question: Raffin and Bann (his assistant) gave me a couple-y vibe, pretty much from the first they were mentioned, but also when Katsa and Po talk about not getting married, they say, "And there are those who do understand. Raffin does, and Bann." which pinged that also. There was also that thing about Raffin thinking about marrying Katsa, clearly not out of love. I don't know... the last time I felt a real couple-y vibe in canon, that was Dumbledore and Grindelwald in DH, and we all know how that turned out. I see I'm not alone in my suspicions, either (and other people, elsewhere, too).
38. Kelly Link, Pretty Monsters -- this is a collection of short stories with some overlap with a previous collection I'd read. I had thought the stories in that one were somewhat uneven; in this book, I at least liked all of the stories. I don't know that I *loved* any of the new-to-me ones -- probably not, and I'm thinking Link is one of those authors where, after you've read a couple of stories, most of them are really enjoyable but sort of start to blend together, because what stands out is the style of storytelling, and not the individual stories. But I don't mind, because I really did enjoy them all. I don't have strong individual reactions to many of them, but I'll just jot them down here, mostly to remind myself which stories actually were in here:
"The Wrong Grave" -- I liked the (living) boy protagonist and found the story pretty funny, but the ending is a tad more ambiguous than the sort I like.
"The Wizards of Perfil" -- I saw the "twist" at the end, if it's meant to be a twist, coming, but it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the story at all -- in fact, I think it enhances it. And the imagery is particularly neat in this one. And it has wonderful lines like:
"Once, when she was coming back from the pier with a bucket of fish, there was a dragon on the path. It wasn't very big, only the size of a mastiff. But it gazed at her with wicked, jeweled eyes. She couldn't get past it.It would eat her, and that would be that. It was almost a relief. She put the bucket down and stood waiting to be eaten. But then Essa was there, holding a stick. She hit the dragon on its head, once, twice, and then gave it a kick for good measure. 'Go on, you!' Essa said. The dragon went, giving Halsa one last reproachful look. Essa picked up the bucket of fish. 'You have to be firm with them,' she said. 'Otherwise they get inside your head and make you feel as if you deserve to be eaten. They are too lazy to eat anything that puts up a fight.'"
Come to think of it, Link's prose reminds me a bit of LeGuin in this story, which is an awesome thing indeed.
"Magic for Beginners" and "The Faery Handbag" I had read already.
"The Specialist's Hat" -- I liked the way the twin girls interacted, especially (but then I've always liked twins), and the counting thing worked for me quite well.
"Monster" -- my least favorite story in this collection, or, at least, the least memorable -- I actually forgot it was even there when listing them out, until looked at the table of contents. But it was still pretty good, and definitely an enjoyable read, if rather darker than I like.
"The Surfer" -- I liked the first-person narration (by a teen soccer goalie would-be-superstar, quite entertaining and endearing for all that he is often kind of a jerk), and the supporting characters, especially Naomi. I liked the sci-fi books references (especially the name checks for Connie Willis and Naomi Novik). I didn't mind (surprisingly, 'cos it was not exactly subtle, and I dislike political polemic in my spec lit) the distopian view of the fractured United States, with its terrible education and draconian laws and people wanting to emigrate to Costa Rica -- it wasn't subtle, but it wasn't hammered on too much. And I've got to say, reading this story -- which features successive flu epidemics as background -- during swine flu (especially as we were getting ready to leave for NYC) was a little uncomfortable.
"The Constable of Abal" -- saw the "twist" in this one as well. This story actually gets closure of sorts and a happy ending, rather surprisingly. The ghosts on ribbons thing was very neat -- I have a ready image of it in my mind.
"Pretty Monsters" -- I think this was my favorite story in the collection. It's a very nested narrative -- there are two stories being told in parallel, one of them the story that a girl in the first story is reading. At the very end, it turns out that the first story is also a story being read by someone. The story-within-a-story-within-a-story has an open ending, and the protagonists in the outer story never finish reading the story they're reading, so everything ends up open-ended, and the stories are connected by a theme. It works quite well! And I liked the fact that even in the most nested story, there's reference to other books/stories -- an allusion to Twilight, I'm guessing, because she says "it was kind of bad except i also kind of enjoyed it." And the protagonists have LiveJournals and chat on IM, which was amusing to me. The title's tied to the novel rather explicitly -- the phrase "pretty monsters" is actually mentioned by a character in the middle story, and then alluded to by the characters in the outer story, but it does work pretty well.
Anyway, I thought this was a really strong collection. Whereas I had liked the first one I read mostly on the strength of "The Faery Handbag" and "Magic for Beginners" and it had several stories that I didn't like at all, I liked all the stories in this one, and think the collection is really, really good overall.
Last random note: the book was lying in the bathroom, and L started reading it, too. She says she likes it -- I'm actually going to keep it/renew it for her if she wants. :D
39. Kim Harrison, Outlaw Demon Wails -- this was possibly the wrong book to start reading this series with -- there is rather a lot of angst that descends from stuff that happened in earlier novels in the series, which was kind of annoying without the fist-hand burden of the requisite background, but I'd been trying to get into this series for a while, so when I saw a book, I grabbed it, not caring where in the series it lay. And I still enjoyed it, and plan to continue reading, forward and back, so it all worked out.
I don't think Harrison is a particularly wonderful writer -- she overuses epithets for one ("the tall man," "the older elf", "the small woman", "the Were") -- I'm not even picky about this, but it stood out enough to irritate me. I didn't fall in love with any of the characters -- Ivy is interesting (but I'm kind of bored by the sexual/vampiric tension between her and Rachel, though I do like their friendship) and Jenks is amusing, and I like Rachel's mother, and the demons are kind of cool (I kept imagining Al as played by Johnny Depp in Captain Jack mode, for some reason, but you know that's no bad thing), as is Rynn Cormel the head honcho vampire who was once President, and the one who intrigued me most was actually Trent Kalamack, the elf drug lord (also, I kind of ship him and Rachel; am I supposed to?) -- the only thing I don't like is that it seems implied that he wants association with her to change him for the better, and I dislike character reformation arcs. But none of them really clicked in that "must have more of this character!" way. I'm not really sure how I feel about Rachel the protagonist. She definitely avoids being a Mary-Sue in my book, because she does stupid things and is called out on them, even though she is full of super-speshul powers.
The world-building is... unusual, I guess, with Interland and magic being out in the open (and even reference to anti-human prejudice right after the turn) and funny little details like tomatoes replacing pumpkins as the symbol of Halloween.
Anyway, so I do hope to continue reading books in this series, but I'm not as head-over-heels in love as I'd been hoping to be as a best-case scenario.
40. Mercedes Lackey, Foundation (The Collegium Chronicles) -- well, what do you know! A new Lackey book that did not irritate me at some point! It's still quite slow and very light on plot in relation to just... Our Hero sitting in classes, taking baths, and making friends -- as a lot of her later books all seem to be -- but it was not in an annoying way.
Mostly this is because I actually liked Mags as a character/protagonist. He comes from a terrible background (over-the-top terrible, but at least genuinely so and not in a O Woe Is Me! emo way), but he is not angsty about it, he is rather matter of fact. It takes him a long time to stop cringing away when people call him out, to understand that he wants friendship with others, to learn how to play, all kinds of things that are a reminder of the way he grew up, and he never loses his skepticism and suspicious view of people (which are good things). OK, how quickly he learns to be an expert rider/fighter is a little suspicious, and he becomes a little too indispensible too quickly, but for a late Lackey novel, not bad at all. And I like that he is an intensely logical person.
The other characters are pleasant background noise, nothing remarkable on their own. I actually found Dallen the Companion, his vanity and blathering, a bit annoying, but that's not a bad thing, necessarily. There's just the barest hint of a plot buried in all the domesticity, more a setup for a future book than anything else -- the actual climax of this one, with Bear's disappearance/kidnapping, totally came out of left field and didn't ring true/make much sense. One thing that did annoy me -- though not enough to turn me off the book in any serious way -- was that Mags speaks (and :Mindspeaks:) in dialect throughout the whole book. Why would you DO that as an author? I mean, yes, it's to remind us that he has uncultures speach -- but his speach patterns themselves are enough to show that, and vocabulary use. No need for apostrophes and funny spelling all over the place, REALLY!
41. Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, A Companion to Wolves -- it was actually an interesting coincidence (totally unintended) to read this book alongside Lackey's Foundation (I started ACTW earlier and finished it later, so it was really kind of a nested read), because, of course, ACTW is a deconstruction of the "fuzzy animal companion wish-fulfillment fantasy" genre, of which Lackey's Valdemar books are one of the prime examples. (I gather that ACTW is even more a deconstruction of the Pern books, but I've never read those, so Valdemar is my primary example of the genre, and it certainly worked well enough for me.)
I really liked Isolfr -- more than any other protagonist of Ebear's to date (I don't know if it's Monette's coauthorship or the more straightforward fantasy setting or what that's to credit for it, or just the variety of characters an author produces). His worries were well-founded and certainly felt real, and he tried to handle them best he could, and he was self-conscious and trying so hard and aware of his limitations and, just, the sort of earnest but fallible character I want to give a hug and protect. The secondary cast -- when I was able to keep track of them, which was very difficult in this book -- they have esoteric Norse names many of which look very similar and those names change for most of them -- are pretty neat if not spectacular -- there weren't any standouts for me, but I liked Frithulf particularly, and the others. The wolves, too, have very distinct, vivid personalities, and it's hard not to like spirited Viradechtis or her mother, Vigdis, who thinks of Isolfr as her pup. Oh and Tin the svartalf was pretty cool, too.
I did my usual thing I do after finishing an Ebear book, which is go through matociquala's tags for the book and catch up on background, favorite author bits, other people's comments and questions in the spoiler thread, etc. In this case, I encountered matociquala saying, "It's also another one of those patented Monette/Bear feminist novels with nearly no women in them." -- which was very much what I thought at various parts of the story, too. The non-human females -- Vigdis and Viradechtis and Tin -- are very much active characters in this book, and even human women, in their more background roles (Isolfr's mother, who teaches him more about honor than his warrior jarl father, his lover and mother of his child, his sister) are quite important and interesting. And, of course, just about every society but the human one that Isolfr encounters is matriarchal to a greater or lesser respect. The wolf packs have dominant females, the konigenwolves; the trolls are bee-like, they have trellqueens and witches, and the males are only there to mate with the queen and die; and the svartalfar hierarchy we don't see as explicitly, I think, but there power seems to rest with the smiths (which can be either males or females (and don't think of themselves as women (or, presumably, men), just as smiths) and the mothers, who must naturally be female. And Isolfr notices this and even starts using girls for scouts when he is strapped for people, learning from the svartalfar.
Of course, there's also the gender inversion aspect, with Isolfr ending up in a Forced Marriage kind of trope (although he does actually choose, at several points in the book, to remain a wolfcarl and brother to a konigenwolf with all that it entails, when he is given the option to walk away; it may mean losing honor and Viradechtis and, towards the end, probably sabotaging the war effort, since the wolfthreat really needs Viradecthis and her pups, but he does actually get a choice). More interesting to me than just that fact was the way Isolfr thinks, at one point, that he gets no less choice than his sister, whom his father decides to marry off to a man of his choice ("At least, Isolfr thought, Viradechtis would not choose for reasons as cold as Gunnar's"). Later, when he realized Skjaldwulf wants him for him and not the position of jarl, Isolfr thinks "I am not worth it" and that makes him think of his own words, choosing to remain a wolfcarl because Viradechtis is "worth it" -- I liked those parallels.
I'd been reading matociquala's LJ, so I'd known to expect the traumatic mating frenzy sex, but was not really prepared for just how, well, traumatic it was, either the first time Isolfr witnesses a mating frenzy, knowing that'll be him someday, or when Viradechtis and Isolfr's first mating frenzy actually comes -- well, more the aftermath of it, actually, than the frenzy itself. It was quite, quite noticeable that Isolfr was straight, which makes his relationship to his two jarls really interesting, and everything that leads up to it, too. I really liked Isolfr's remark "Just counting my dowry" and found it quite heart-wrenching (and at the same time fairly funny) that Isolfr worried he came back from his svartalfar mission no longer pretty. He is just such a good kid! And I also liked that when he comes back after running off without telling anyone why -- because to tell he would've had to break his oath to the svartalfar -- he is worried that his jarls will be mad at him, even though he comes back triumphant, with an army of svartalfar, after defeating a trellqueen.
The world of this thing is dark enough and full enough of difficult choices that when it comes to the choice Isolfr has to make, in the last couple of pages, to kill the troll witch and queen's kitten -- the only chance to preserve the hive memory of the Iskyrne trolls -- I really was not sure, until he made the choice, if he would kill her or let her go. And it was good to see it come to a head, that the systematic extermination of an intelligent species -- a hostile species not interested in communicating with the humans, but still -- was actually called into question.
The world is pretty dark, people and wolves die and are maimed, and even in the downtimes there is frostbite, chilbains, beard lice, as a daily part of their existence, not as something you get to escape once you get the telepathic animal companion (this is where reading ACTW alongside Foundation was especially neat). But there is warmth and humour, too, which made the book enjoyable. Not comfortable, which is probably why I didn't *love* it, while I liked it a lot, but definitely enjoyable.
There will be two sequels, it appears, one about Isolfr's daughter Alfgyfa, judging by the title, and the other one about wolfcarls, I guess. I'd love to see more of Vethulf and Skjaldwulf's relationship as co-jarls, actually, as well as more of Isolfr.
Oh, there's a post answering some readers' questions (snarkily and spoiler-ly): here.
42. J.K.Rowling, Tales of Beedle the Bard -- yeah, I'm a bad HP fan and only now read this. It was very cute! (and I read it in about an hour, on the MUNI ride home). I must say, I probably enjoyed the Dumbledore notes more than the stories themselves, of which only "The Fountain of Fair Fortune" really worked for me as stand-alone tales, without the notes (well, and the Deathly Hallows story, but we knew it already, so it doesn't count). I had to double-check to convince myself that those are JKR's illustrations -- she draws pretty darn well, in that case! I was especially impressed by the flying horse. And I like that the three witches in "Fountain" are shown as a maiden, mother, and crone sort of set.
A couple of lines that made me laugh:
"As the eminent Wizarding philosopher Bertrand de Pensees-Profondes writes in his celebrated work A Study into the Possibility of Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of Natural Death, with Particular Regard to the Reintegration of Essence and Matter: 'Give it up. It's never going to happen.'"
"A similar rabbit later became a trusted advisor at the court of King Henry VI. *
* This may have contributed to that Muggle King's reputation for mental instability."
"[A] tiny minority of the Wizarding community persists in believing that Beedle was sending them a coded message, which is the exact reverse of the one set down in ink, and that they along are cleaver enough to understand it." -- nice dig at the Harmonians, JKR. Perhaps a touch petty, but funny nevertheless.