Reading Roundup
1. Jonathan Kellerman, Bones (Alex Delaware) -- this is actually one of the better Alex Delaware novels among recent ones, both my mother and I thought. There's less in the way of protagonist heroics (which I always find a little difficult to suspend disbelief on) and almost until the very end it's not clear if one of the suspects is innocent or guilty (and the people supporting him are just deluded). There are a couple of details that are not fully explained, but nothing that bothered me particularly. One of the reasons I enjoy these books so is the secondary/tertiary characters -- Kellerman is very good at making those colorful and memorable. In this book, nobody jumped out particularly, but I did enjoy Alma the murdered vegan's girlfriend (abrasive and interestingly conflicted) and the retired golf-playing detective with the good Scotch. There's a fair bit of interaction with Robin and Rick makes an appearance, even, and I liked the new detective following Milo around like a puppy (though not enough to want to read a book about him, see below). Oh, randomly, I've noticed that in the recent books bystanders stopped commenting on how cute and curly-haired Alex is -- a rare sign that he is actually aging somewhat? :P
4. Jonathan Kellerman, True Detectives -- this is a non-Delware book, although set in the same universe and with Alex and Milo (and even Alex's dog) as cameo appearances. It focuses on the two brothers from the book above, Moe Reed, a rookie detective, and his older half-brother, flashy Aaron Fox, who retired from LAPD to become a PI. Moe worked better for me as a rookie tagging along with Milo and Alex, seen from the outside, than he does as a main and POV character -- he's got Issues, but they are not very interesting. He is slightly endearing, but not enough to actually want to hang out with him. I do like Aaron considerably better, and mainly read the book for him. He is a charismatic bastard who keeps getting mistaken for Denzel Washington, and even his clothes obsession, which is something I find really boring, didn't annoy me. Anyway, I liked him, and that he gets to play hero, sorta, although even then in a very-much-not-aboveboard way. The plot was kind of meh, with the mystery that kicks things off being only very loosely connected to the actual central mystery. The other characters were also not particularly interesting, with the possible exception of the abused wife. (And I found the Hollywood big shot turned religious nut, some kind of strange amalgamation of Michael Moore and Mel Gibson, judging by his history, whom we never actually get to meet, just sort of bizarre.) Because the book doesn't stick to one POV, or even two, like a few in the past, it felt sort of random and all over the place. There's a side plot with Liana, one of Aaron's operatives, finding love with a divorced Ph.D., which was really sweet and I like the guy a lot and Liana decently, but it was so very disconnected from the rest of the story. Not one of my favorites, no, though I wouldn't mind getting glimpses of what Aaron and Moe are up to in subsequent Alex books, and did enjoy seeing Petra again in this one.
2. Ursula LeGuin, Voices -- nobody does world-building that feels consistent, very different from real societies, comfortable and inviting yet tinged with deep mystery like LeGuin does, and these books are no exception. I liked this book a lot, mostly because I liked Memer as the narrator. I'm usually only OK with protagonists, and first-person narrators are even iffier, but I really loved her, as a person, as a product of her culture and her upbringing in an occuppied city -- she is likeable and believably flawed and has natural reactions like fear and yearning and pettiness and learns and grows a lot as a person, leaving aside her development as a Reader. The magic was pretty cool, too. And I liked the set-up, but I thought the resolution -- the Ald in charge turns out to be a good guy who loves his Ansul "wife" and poetry, and the overthrow is relatively bloodless and a peace (though tense) is quickly restored and it's not quite a happily ever after but headed that way -- I found that hard be suspend disbelief for. I liked Gant Ioratth a lot, actually, as a character, it just seemed that everything was resolved too quickly, too simply, and his son and the priests were the only real bad guys. I expected something a bit more nuanced, tbh. But there are a lot of things I liked about this book -- the Ansul relationshi witht he gods, Memer's conversations with Simme the Ald boy, descriptions of various household members, the way the Waylord's torture is alluded to in an elided but very effective way (this is, apparently, some kind of narrative kink of mine, because I commented on this favorably in at least two other books of recent memory -- Jhegaala and The Blade Itself -- dunno what's wrong with my brain). So, I liked the book as a whole, it was just the end that didn't work for me.
Quotes:
"There was never much to do with Gudit but agree with him. He was crazy, old, hunchbacked, and worked very hard, if not always at the most useful job."
"When I was little, I was proud of doing worship, but I'd been doing it for a long time now. I got tired of the gods. They wanted so much looking after.
3. Ursula LeGuin, Powers -- I liked this one, too. Liked the resolution better than the one in Voices because, for all that there's hardly one -- there is no climax to speak of in terms of "action", and while it ends on a hopeful note, it ends with the chance at healing rather than, well, resolution. Gavir was very sweet, and had some very nice growth -- I liked that it took him a long time and some very, very bitter experience to overcome the pitfalls of his trusting nature -- but he didn't appeal to me as much as narrator as Memer did. But I really enjoyed the different societies he experiences, the squabbling slaver city-states, the harsh subsistence freedom of the first group of runaways he encounters, the broken pseudo-communism / Robin Hood legend of the Barnavites, the alien traditions of the Marshes when he returns "home". I liked that every group had people who were admirable but flawed (the Mother who sits up trying to heal an injured slave boy but does not act to prevent Sallo's death and gives Gavir bloodmoney for her; Barna, who is a likeable, charismatic leader, visionary even, maybe -- but a brute and a rapist, too; Gavir's aunt, who shuts him out at first because of her own feelings of guilt but ultimately saves his life, one directly, once indirectly).
Actually, I really wonder about the Mother, since I'm talking about her. It's not clear how much power the noble women have in their families. It doesn't seem like a whole lot, to be sure, since the summer idylls change whenever the Father arrives, and since the daughter of the family doesn't get much choice in her marraige and such. But I did spend a long time wondering about why the Mother did not act to interfere with Torm. Because she had no power to do so, to go against her husband, per the rules of society? Because she was afraid of him, given that there are strong hints that the Father's temper was similar to Torm's when he was younger, and it's probably not the sort of thing one grows out of? Or because even to her a slave's life was not worth enough to interfere? Gavir's conjectures and the way the Mother behaves at other times suggest one or both of the former two possibilities but I'm not totally sure about that.
Anyway, liked the world-building and the range of characters a lot. Although it adds to the versimilitude, I'm sorry we don't get to find out what happens to the people Gavir leaves behind -- Yaven and Sotur and his friends among the Barnavites. I really liked Melle the little girl, both when we first meet her and when Gavir rescues her from the ruins of Heart of the Forest (and I like the way her trauma is not dwelt on yet very clear -- LeGuin is very good at that). I also really, really loved the descriptions of the summers in the country -- because on the one hand they are so vivid and idyllic and made me feel like I was right there and reminded me nostalgically of all of *my* idyllic summmers in the country -- and on the other hand, there are the details of the farm slaves not being eable to retaliate when the masters' children are with them, and taking it out on a slave boy instead. Having read all three books now and being able to comment on the whole cycle -- I like the way these work, with a common setting (and timeline) but different protagonists and characters only somewhat overlapping. It's maybe less effective for me to have Orrec Caspro as the sort of touchstone because, while I liked him in Gifts, he wasn't my OMGfavorite, but I certainly don't mind, and the stories are nicely interwoven. I especially like the way Melle the child in Powers closes the circle started by Melle, Orrec's mother (who was my favorite character in that book) in Gifts.
So, really enjoyed this series. I don't love it like I love Earthsea, and I wish there'd been a chance to hang out more with Memer, but there's still no beating Ursula LeGuin for general YA-friendly fantasy awesomeness.
5. Libba Bray, Rebel Angels -- these books are so clearly... let's say not very good at staying within the Victorian setting, but quite enjoyable nevertheless. I'm not sure I liked it as much as A Great and Terrible Beauty, but I liked it. Still like Gemma a fair bit, still find Felicity by far the most interesting (and thought the deep dark secret thing with her was quite decently handled, if, again, not particularly fitting to the setting). The relationships between the girls, with the exception of Pippa now, were very interesting. I liked the twist with Miss Moore (which I hadn't seen coming). The magic did not wow me in the first book and was downright boring in this one, and, really, I didn't care much for the main magical/mystery plot at all. The social part of it was much more interesting, Ann's fake Russian princess background and her crush on Gemma's brother, Felicity's family drama, Gemma's relationship with Simon Middleton. I was not particularly interested in Kartik or Gemma's father's addiction, mainly because those lines don't feel particularly well handled.
6. Diana Wynne Jones, The Merlin Conspiracy -- I didn't realize, until I started reading this book, that there was a sequeal out there to Deep Secret, which I had enjoyed a lot when I read it years ago, and wanted more in the same universe. This satisfies, but I still want more! I liked Roddy a whole lot, and found Nick likeable and amusing, and I liked quiet, competent Toby, too, and Maxwell Hyde, Roddy's Magic grandfather. Plenty of the other characters were interesting, too, if not quite as likeable as that lot; of those, Romanov was my favorite (I guessed who he was well before it was revealed). Liked the world-building lots -- there are a lot of little details, like cars in Blest having different pedals and making Nick carsick, which contribute to the multi-verse feel while having every world still feel quite concrete. The plot was quite interesting, though I definitely preferred it once Nick and Roddy were finally in the same world, which took a while. The dual narration worked quite well, even when there was brief overlap in recounting the same events from both Nick and Roddy's POVs, because the overlap added interesting layers. The revelation of Grundo's spell worked really well for me, as did Roddy dealing with the aftermath, feeling adrift and resenting him but: "I nearly went to help [Grundo]. Then I thought that this was what he had bespelled me to do, and I stopeed. And then I thought that you helped people if they needed it, and I started forward again. But it was over by then."
I didn't find the magic in this boring at all, unlike the book above, probably because of the concreteness with which it's described. And there are really neat bits, such as when Roddy and Grundo meet the Little Person:
"Don't you even feel how marvelous it is to have talked to one of the Little People?" I said.
"No, not as the main thing," Grundo grunted. "If you think like that, then you're treating him like something in a museum, not as a person."
(And one of the things I like about Rhoddy a lot is that she is able to think about herself critically -- I think she'd get along very well with Tiffany Aching that way. :) Another thing I like about Rhoddy is that even though she gets this enormous download of magic through the ages and it's clear from the start that her magical heritage is very special, even before she gets earmarked for the Lady of Governance heirship, she never feels like a Mary-Sue, either in her own narration or in Nick's, even though he is in (teenage) love at first sight with her. She is controlling and scared and embarrassed and snobbish and petty occasionally, and feels very real and multi-dimensional. Yeah, I really liked Roddy. And I'd like to see what becomes of her and Nick, singly and together.
7. Tamora Pierce, Bloodhound -- I was OK but not overly impressed with Terrier (and took a long time to get into it), but I really liked Bloodhound, and Beka has definitely become on of my favorite heroines of Pierce's, maybe even surpassing Keladry. A number of things that put me off in the first book are no longer here or much less stressed: Pounce the walking deus ex machina magic cat is absent for most of the book and doesn't actually do anything to advance the plot, which was refreshing. Beka is mostly over her improbable shyness. Her narrative voice (the book is still in diary format) has become a lot more interesting, too. There was one small step back for me, though: one of the things I really liked about Terrier is that the world of Tortall law enforcement was pretty grim and brutal, no Miranda rights and plenty of torture as part of investigation and cruel-and-unusual-by-today's-standards punishment, and that was just sort of part and parcel of Beka's world. But in this one Beka's starting to question these things more, and speak out against them if only in her own mind. It makes sense as character development, I suppose, as Beka is coming into her own as an adult and a Dog, but I hope it doesn't go too far into undermining an aspect of the worldbuilding that I admired.
I like grown-up Beka a lot now. She is still very earnest, but has picked up a dry sense of humour, which makes a big difference to me when it comes to narration. I like that she gets overconfident and makes a mistake she pays for, both physically and later emotionally, when Rosto has her assailants killed and nobody but her sees anything wrong with that, and also that her mentors and peers are not particularly forgiving of the mistake. She's also definitely a woman in this one -- she has a daliance/puppy love sort of thing with a charming gambler, and I really liked the way it was handled, from how he has to learn not to make sudden advances lest she end up reacting to it as an attack with all those Dog-trained instincts; to the way she never actually dismisses him as a suspect even though she's head-over-heels for him, and the reasons she things it is unlikely (though not impossible) that he is in ont he scheme are well-reasoned Dog arguments, not emotional ones; to how she actually goes and buys contraception, and tries applying make-up; to the cutely and in-character elided way the physical side of their relationship is described; to the way it ends. (I wonder, though, if this "trial" relationship is a set-up for something more serious between Beka and Rosto in the next book.)
I was a bit sad to not see almost any of the supporting characters from the first book in this one, because it's set outside of Corus, except Goodwin, who does rock. I liked the newly introduced ones well enough -- I liked Nestor immediately, but am a bit more conflicted on Okha/Amber because I'm not sure I got any sense of her as a character, beyond the trans-ness (because she did strike me as trans rather than simply a cross-dressed/drag queen, though I am definitely not an expert on this sort of thing). Like, there are at least two queer characters in this book -- Nestor and one of Pearl's right-hand rushers -- but their sexuality is not the sole focus of who they are or what they do in the plot, the way I felt Amber's transgenderedness was. (I also did a mental double-take every time Beka referred to Okha/Amber as "he" and "him", because from something Amber said early on that cemented for me that she thinks of herself as a woman. But I may be reading too much into all this, and probably it would be too much to expect of a YA book, anyway.
I liked the plot, which is a bit more thriller than mystery, and this works better, I think, because transparency isn't a problem then. I am a little iffy on Hanse's motivation -- posthumously retracted -- but, whatever, it's a pretty minor part of it. I liked Beka's doggie, who had a definite personality, and needed taking care of, all of which I enjoyed reading about in Beka's narration. (Also, there's a literal Pet the Dog moment with Pearl and the dogy in question. Heh.) There is some loss on the good guy side -- Master Finer, whom I liked a lot -- but I also liked the fact that while Beka blames herself for it at first, she quickly remembers what was actually said to her about how it happened and realizes that she couldn't have prevented his death at all -- another thing I liked about Beka. I'm not sure how I feel about Beka being made partners with Tunstall at the end... I liked Goodwin better (and even more so in this book, with her secret embroidery, loose dog past, and "married, not dead" attitude), of the two senior Dogs, and her dynamics with Beka, too, but I don't mind tunstall at all, so, we'll see.
Anyway, definitely looking forward to the continuoation/conclusion of this series a good deal more than I had been after the first one.
8. Jaqueline Carey, Naamah's Kiss -- I didn't hate it. The reviews I read were pretty abysmal, but it was a fairly quick and half-enjoyable read for me. This is shaping out to be my least favorite of the three trilogies (I'm weird in that I like Imriel's better than Phedre's, because I like Imriel so much better than Phedre, and also there is marginally less Yeshuite-related fail. Together this balances out the relative scarcity of Joscelin and Barquiel L'Envers being a joke in the first two books.) -- anyway, least favorite, but still readable.
Moirin... Moirin as a young girl I like -- her interaction with her mother and Cillian, the wild solitary existence, her relationships with her mother (whom I liked a whole lot) and other relatives during their infrequent encounters, and Cillian (as friend and then lover) and his family. That was all really nice. Then Moirin had her rite of passage thing with the destiny, and went downhill as a character for me from there. Destiny-driven characters are tricky... and Moirin is not an example of a successful one, I'd say. The whole destiny thing, along with wanting to sleep with anything that moves, which is apparently Naamah's legacy, take the place of character development -- hell, of *having* a character from then on. On the plus side, I didn't hate her like I did Phedre, so that was something. But I did still think she was a Mary-Sue, with how quickly she won over everyone she met and ended up at the center of momentous events at several courts -- and with a good deal less of a good reason than Phedre, who'd been trained in court espionage, at least. One of the reasons the Imriel books are my favorites is that momentous world events don't revolve around Imri -- one of my favorite bits is how he totally misses the war in Vralia while about his own business. It's refreshing. Also, everybody wanting to sleep with Moirin bugs me just as much as everybody being into BDSM in the Phedre books.
I liked Moirin's mother, as I'd mentioned, and I liked her father, too -- he, more than any other character in this book, seemed like the sort of hagiographic character who lived in Phedre's novels, but not in a bad way. Jehanne... oh, goodness. I guess there's supposed to be something charming and irresistible in there, but I could not discern it. She just seemed bitchy, immature, self-centered, high-maintenance -- not good queen material, and not great parent material, either. And I actually found the part where she hit Moirin for telling her she had to leave -- which Jehanne already expected anyway -- more disturbing than all of Raphael's circle machinations and dub-con. Towards the end of the book, there a passage where Moirin reflects, in parallel, on Jehanne and Snow Tiger, and that's just embarrassing for Terre d'Ange. Snow Tiger, I felt, could've been a really neat character, from her distinctly unusual upbringing (and the tension between being raised as a warrior heir and wanting some "girlier" things, too) to the horror of what she went through at first and the choices she ends up having to make -- there is so much material there for a truly fascinating person. But I never felt her as a person, just as a legend-in-the-making sort of thing, almost as if she were operating on a separate plain from the real characters.That didn't work for me so well. (You know what else bugged me? That was referred to as Snow Tiger throughout -- and that some of the Ch'in names (as commonly used) were translated (e.g. Brother Thunder) and some were not. Um, why?) I actually did buy Snow Tiger asking Moirin for Naamah's blessing at the end -- it seemed like both of them needed it, and it was an OK conclusion.
I actually liked Bao, except for the part where I kept wondering what language he and Moirin were speaking most of the time, and, if it was d'Angeline, why his accent disappeared so quickly, and, if it was Ch'in, how Moirin grew to be so quickly proficient in it. Actually, that's a good question in general, since she gave quite a speech to Snow Tiger fairly early on in their acquaintance. So, yeah, I liked Bao well enough (and/but didn't think he was particularly Joscelin like) -- he's got a brusque sort of charm, and I like his cockiness and humour. I am not sold on Bao and Moirin, though. It's not clear to me what there is to like about Moirin in that respect, maybe that's why. I liked that he tried to resist the tonic initially, and that he wanted to go off and be by himself after the forced soul-bond or whatever. Possibly I'm measuring all these relationships against Phedre and Joscelin -- which I wasn't even so in love with, mostly because I thought Joscelin deserved better a lot of the time, and also the complete character growth reset at the beginning of book 2 -- but at least they truly challenged and complemented each other and grew together in interesting ways. As for Moirin and Bao -- sure, he defends her a lot, and they have fun int he sack, seeing as how Moirin is constitutionally incapable of being celibate -- but so what?
The character I was *most* intrigued by, though, was Raphael. I've read two reviews now (umihebizanomiko, you might have a secret twin) that mention hating Raphael in part because of how different he is from the de Mereliot family (who were, 'tis true, awfully nice -- if not particularly memorable for me -- in the two earlier trilogies). I thought he was interesting, though I did feel the final Face Heel Turn when he demands Moirin's oath for saving her father's life was overdone/hard for me to believe. It's entirely possible that part of my interest in Raphael is because ambitious healers is a bit of a kink of mine. But even aside from that I thought he was interesting -- a person with well-defined desires and ambitions (unlike, say, Moirin), willing to make hard choices (unlike, say, Jehanne) -- however badly -- and with both actual positive traits and serious flaws. You know, a character, not a cardboard cutout. I liked the fact that whatever else he was, he was a devoted and skilled physician. I liked the fact that he was clearly -- pretty openly, even -- only attracted to Moirin's powers. I liked the way he reacted when she "read" the memory from him. I mean, obviously the fact that he used her quite callously and the dub-con are not good -- but I can see them as self-justified for him in a way that's consistent with his character, and characters who can justify that sort of thing to themselves are interesting to me (at least until they cross a line, which Raphael hasn't quite done, though the business with the oath came close). I don't necesarily buy into Moirin's psychobabble about how this was all the result of him always feeling second-best, but he was interesting to read about. He was actually the one character that I wanted to see more of than we got.
(As an aside, it's possible that Raphael and Jehanne don't bother me as much as some other readers because I never liked d'Angelines that much to begin with -- they mostly seemed like vain, arrogant, self-absorbed peacocks to me. King Daniel doesn't do anything, the queen is apparently still in middle school -- which is a far cry from Drustan and Ysandre, to be sure, or even Sidonie and Imriel -- but I feel no impetus to mourn the golden age of Terre d'Ange.)
As far as plot goes: I enjoyed the part in Alba a lot, enjoyed the part in the City of Elua until Jehanne "rescued her" (words cannot express how deeply unmoved I am by Moirin/Jehanne, the basis of which does, primarily, see to be that Jehanne smells nice, and which seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with anything important). The whole half of the book that takes place in Ch'in was still a quick enough read, but did not engage my emotions at all. For all the dragon possession, large-scale war and carnage, there was no feeling of jeopardy there -- which is odd, because I definitely felt that with the Skaldian invasion and the siege of Lucca in the other books. Maybe because the country was already at was by the time Moirin got there, so there was no peaceful status quo to jeopardize? Or maybe because none of the characters felt real. Anyway.
Moirin's magic annoyed me. There were just too many disparate kinds of it. I can accept the whole twilight thing as stepping into the spirit world and thus being responsible for opening doorways to demons, conversing with the dragon, as well as the concealment and hunting she originally learned it for. The thing with the plants makes sense given that she's of Annael's line, and I can sort of accept that Raphael could channel the same sort of power into human healing. But then the memory-swallowing thing on top of that? It's sort of "foreshadowed" early on, only less foreshadowed and more just plunked in there for no reason. (And, as soon as Snow Tiger mentioned the men who would have to be put to death, I saw where that was going.) And, of course, the random demon gift. And this is all in the first book!
Speaking of magic, while the notion of being possessed by a dragon is kind of neat, the whole conceit where every time the dragon looked in a reflective surface and couldn't see itself it would go mad, that just made no sense to me. OK, the first time, or without Moirin to explain what was going on. But in spite of itself, totally unable to control it? Is this based on a real Chinese legend or something? Because, if not, then WTF. And even if it is, that really could've been justfied better. Just seemed like such a totally artificial, random constraint...
Another thing that bugged me about this book, thematically, was this current of "scientific progress = bad". Gunpoweder is apparently something that needs to be eradicated from the human mind, and this is worth killing people for. And there are magical parallels, too, with the forbidden knowledge Raphael's circle is seeking, and even the lost great gifts of shapeshifting of the Maghuin Dhonn. I just don't like "man was not meant to know" messages, and they seem to be all over the place here. And, if you ask me, all the moralizing about messing with magical and scientific powers is sort of undercut by Master Lo, who resurrects one person without his particular consent as to the cost and uses Moirin as an unwitting aid to euthanasia.
Finally, a last random thing that bugged me -- those repeating catchphrases, like "stubborn peasant-boy" and "hopeless romantics", etc. Not new to this book -- the Imriel books had plenty of them, and Phedre ones too, probably -- they were certainly equally keen on repetition. But even the catch phrases seem to be blase and uninspired and generic in this one. \random
Contrary to what it may seem, I am looking forward to more of the series, partly to see what will come of Raphael, since it seems certain something will, and partly to see if Moirin ever develops an actual character (I'm guessing, no). But still, looking forward to it.
4. Jonathan Kellerman, True Detectives -- this is a non-Delware book, although set in the same universe and with Alex and Milo (and even Alex's dog) as cameo appearances. It focuses on the two brothers from the book above, Moe Reed, a rookie detective, and his older half-brother, flashy Aaron Fox, who retired from LAPD to become a PI. Moe worked better for me as a rookie tagging along with Milo and Alex, seen from the outside, than he does as a main and POV character -- he's got Issues, but they are not very interesting. He is slightly endearing, but not enough to actually want to hang out with him. I do like Aaron considerably better, and mainly read the book for him. He is a charismatic bastard who keeps getting mistaken for Denzel Washington, and even his clothes obsession, which is something I find really boring, didn't annoy me. Anyway, I liked him, and that he gets to play hero, sorta, although even then in a very-much-not-aboveboard way. The plot was kind of meh, with the mystery that kicks things off being only very loosely connected to the actual central mystery. The other characters were also not particularly interesting, with the possible exception of the abused wife. (And I found the Hollywood big shot turned religious nut, some kind of strange amalgamation of Michael Moore and Mel Gibson, judging by his history, whom we never actually get to meet, just sort of bizarre.) Because the book doesn't stick to one POV, or even two, like a few in the past, it felt sort of random and all over the place. There's a side plot with Liana, one of Aaron's operatives, finding love with a divorced Ph.D., which was really sweet and I like the guy a lot and Liana decently, but it was so very disconnected from the rest of the story. Not one of my favorites, no, though I wouldn't mind getting glimpses of what Aaron and Moe are up to in subsequent Alex books, and did enjoy seeing Petra again in this one.
2. Ursula LeGuin, Voices -- nobody does world-building that feels consistent, very different from real societies, comfortable and inviting yet tinged with deep mystery like LeGuin does, and these books are no exception. I liked this book a lot, mostly because I liked Memer as the narrator. I'm usually only OK with protagonists, and first-person narrators are even iffier, but I really loved her, as a person, as a product of her culture and her upbringing in an occuppied city -- she is likeable and believably flawed and has natural reactions like fear and yearning and pettiness and learns and grows a lot as a person, leaving aside her development as a Reader. The magic was pretty cool, too. And I liked the set-up, but I thought the resolution -- the Ald in charge turns out to be a good guy who loves his Ansul "wife" and poetry, and the overthrow is relatively bloodless and a peace (though tense) is quickly restored and it's not quite a happily ever after but headed that way -- I found that hard be suspend disbelief for. I liked Gant Ioratth a lot, actually, as a character, it just seemed that everything was resolved too quickly, too simply, and his son and the priests were the only real bad guys. I expected something a bit more nuanced, tbh. But there are a lot of things I liked about this book -- the Ansul relationshi witht he gods, Memer's conversations with Simme the Ald boy, descriptions of various household members, the way the Waylord's torture is alluded to in an elided but very effective way (this is, apparently, some kind of narrative kink of mine, because I commented on this favorably in at least two other books of recent memory -- Jhegaala and The Blade Itself -- dunno what's wrong with my brain). So, I liked the book as a whole, it was just the end that didn't work for me.
Quotes:
"There was never much to do with Gudit but agree with him. He was crazy, old, hunchbacked, and worked very hard, if not always at the most useful job."
"When I was little, I was proud of doing worship, but I'd been doing it for a long time now. I got tired of the gods. They wanted so much looking after.
3. Ursula LeGuin, Powers -- I liked this one, too. Liked the resolution better than the one in Voices because, for all that there's hardly one -- there is no climax to speak of in terms of "action", and while it ends on a hopeful note, it ends with the chance at healing rather than, well, resolution. Gavir was very sweet, and had some very nice growth -- I liked that it took him a long time and some very, very bitter experience to overcome the pitfalls of his trusting nature -- but he didn't appeal to me as much as narrator as Memer did. But I really enjoyed the different societies he experiences, the squabbling slaver city-states, the harsh subsistence freedom of the first group of runaways he encounters, the broken pseudo-communism / Robin Hood legend of the Barnavites, the alien traditions of the Marshes when he returns "home". I liked that every group had people who were admirable but flawed (the Mother who sits up trying to heal an injured slave boy but does not act to prevent Sallo's death and gives Gavir bloodmoney for her; Barna, who is a likeable, charismatic leader, visionary even, maybe -- but a brute and a rapist, too; Gavir's aunt, who shuts him out at first because of her own feelings of guilt but ultimately saves his life, one directly, once indirectly).
Actually, I really wonder about the Mother, since I'm talking about her. It's not clear how much power the noble women have in their families. It doesn't seem like a whole lot, to be sure, since the summer idylls change whenever the Father arrives, and since the daughter of the family doesn't get much choice in her marraige and such. But I did spend a long time wondering about why the Mother did not act to interfere with Torm. Because she had no power to do so, to go against her husband, per the rules of society? Because she was afraid of him, given that there are strong hints that the Father's temper was similar to Torm's when he was younger, and it's probably not the sort of thing one grows out of? Or because even to her a slave's life was not worth enough to interfere? Gavir's conjectures and the way the Mother behaves at other times suggest one or both of the former two possibilities but I'm not totally sure about that.
Anyway, liked the world-building and the range of characters a lot. Although it adds to the versimilitude, I'm sorry we don't get to find out what happens to the people Gavir leaves behind -- Yaven and Sotur and his friends among the Barnavites. I really liked Melle the little girl, both when we first meet her and when Gavir rescues her from the ruins of Heart of the Forest (and I like the way her trauma is not dwelt on yet very clear -- LeGuin is very good at that). I also really, really loved the descriptions of the summers in the country -- because on the one hand they are so vivid and idyllic and made me feel like I was right there and reminded me nostalgically of all of *my* idyllic summmers in the country -- and on the other hand, there are the details of the farm slaves not being eable to retaliate when the masters' children are with them, and taking it out on a slave boy instead. Having read all three books now and being able to comment on the whole cycle -- I like the way these work, with a common setting (and timeline) but different protagonists and characters only somewhat overlapping. It's maybe less effective for me to have Orrec Caspro as the sort of touchstone because, while I liked him in Gifts, he wasn't my OMGfavorite, but I certainly don't mind, and the stories are nicely interwoven. I especially like the way Melle the child in Powers closes the circle started by Melle, Orrec's mother (who was my favorite character in that book) in Gifts.
So, really enjoyed this series. I don't love it like I love Earthsea, and I wish there'd been a chance to hang out more with Memer, but there's still no beating Ursula LeGuin for general YA-friendly fantasy awesomeness.
5. Libba Bray, Rebel Angels -- these books are so clearly... let's say not very good at staying within the Victorian setting, but quite enjoyable nevertheless. I'm not sure I liked it as much as A Great and Terrible Beauty, but I liked it. Still like Gemma a fair bit, still find Felicity by far the most interesting (and thought the deep dark secret thing with her was quite decently handled, if, again, not particularly fitting to the setting). The relationships between the girls, with the exception of Pippa now, were very interesting. I liked the twist with Miss Moore (which I hadn't seen coming). The magic did not wow me in the first book and was downright boring in this one, and, really, I didn't care much for the main magical/mystery plot at all. The social part of it was much more interesting, Ann's fake Russian princess background and her crush on Gemma's brother, Felicity's family drama, Gemma's relationship with Simon Middleton. I was not particularly interested in Kartik or Gemma's father's addiction, mainly because those lines don't feel particularly well handled.
6. Diana Wynne Jones, The Merlin Conspiracy -- I didn't realize, until I started reading this book, that there was a sequeal out there to Deep Secret, which I had enjoyed a lot when I read it years ago, and wanted more in the same universe. This satisfies, but I still want more! I liked Roddy a whole lot, and found Nick likeable and amusing, and I liked quiet, competent Toby, too, and Maxwell Hyde, Roddy's Magic grandfather. Plenty of the other characters were interesting, too, if not quite as likeable as that lot; of those, Romanov was my favorite (I guessed who he was well before it was revealed). Liked the world-building lots -- there are a lot of little details, like cars in Blest having different pedals and making Nick carsick, which contribute to the multi-verse feel while having every world still feel quite concrete. The plot was quite interesting, though I definitely preferred it once Nick and Roddy were finally in the same world, which took a while. The dual narration worked quite well, even when there was brief overlap in recounting the same events from both Nick and Roddy's POVs, because the overlap added interesting layers. The revelation of Grundo's spell worked really well for me, as did Roddy dealing with the aftermath, feeling adrift and resenting him but: "I nearly went to help [Grundo]. Then I thought that this was what he had bespelled me to do, and I stopeed. And then I thought that you helped people if they needed it, and I started forward again. But it was over by then."
I didn't find the magic in this boring at all, unlike the book above, probably because of the concreteness with which it's described. And there are really neat bits, such as when Roddy and Grundo meet the Little Person:
"Don't you even feel how marvelous it is to have talked to one of the Little People?" I said.
"No, not as the main thing," Grundo grunted. "If you think like that, then you're treating him like something in a museum, not as a person."
(And one of the things I like about Rhoddy a lot is that she is able to think about herself critically -- I think she'd get along very well with Tiffany Aching that way. :) Another thing I like about Rhoddy is that even though she gets this enormous download of magic through the ages and it's clear from the start that her magical heritage is very special, even before she gets earmarked for the Lady of Governance heirship, she never feels like a Mary-Sue, either in her own narration or in Nick's, even though he is in (teenage) love at first sight with her. She is controlling and scared and embarrassed and snobbish and petty occasionally, and feels very real and multi-dimensional. Yeah, I really liked Roddy. And I'd like to see what becomes of her and Nick, singly and together.
7. Tamora Pierce, Bloodhound -- I was OK but not overly impressed with Terrier (and took a long time to get into it), but I really liked Bloodhound, and Beka has definitely become on of my favorite heroines of Pierce's, maybe even surpassing Keladry. A number of things that put me off in the first book are no longer here or much less stressed: Pounce the walking deus ex machina magic cat is absent for most of the book and doesn't actually do anything to advance the plot, which was refreshing. Beka is mostly over her improbable shyness. Her narrative voice (the book is still in diary format) has become a lot more interesting, too. There was one small step back for me, though: one of the things I really liked about Terrier is that the world of Tortall law enforcement was pretty grim and brutal, no Miranda rights and plenty of torture as part of investigation and cruel-and-unusual-by-today's-standards punishment, and that was just sort of part and parcel of Beka's world. But in this one Beka's starting to question these things more, and speak out against them if only in her own mind. It makes sense as character development, I suppose, as Beka is coming into her own as an adult and a Dog, but I hope it doesn't go too far into undermining an aspect of the worldbuilding that I admired.
I like grown-up Beka a lot now. She is still very earnest, but has picked up a dry sense of humour, which makes a big difference to me when it comes to narration. I like that she gets overconfident and makes a mistake she pays for, both physically and later emotionally, when Rosto has her assailants killed and nobody but her sees anything wrong with that, and also that her mentors and peers are not particularly forgiving of the mistake. She's also definitely a woman in this one -- she has a daliance/puppy love sort of thing with a charming gambler, and I really liked the way it was handled, from how he has to learn not to make sudden advances lest she end up reacting to it as an attack with all those Dog-trained instincts; to the way she never actually dismisses him as a suspect even though she's head-over-heels for him, and the reasons she things it is unlikely (though not impossible) that he is in ont he scheme are well-reasoned Dog arguments, not emotional ones; to how she actually goes and buys contraception, and tries applying make-up; to the cutely and in-character elided way the physical side of their relationship is described; to the way it ends. (I wonder, though, if this "trial" relationship is a set-up for something more serious between Beka and Rosto in the next book.)
I was a bit sad to not see almost any of the supporting characters from the first book in this one, because it's set outside of Corus, except Goodwin, who does rock. I liked the newly introduced ones well enough -- I liked Nestor immediately, but am a bit more conflicted on Okha/Amber because I'm not sure I got any sense of her as a character, beyond the trans-ness (because she did strike me as trans rather than simply a cross-dressed/drag queen, though I am definitely not an expert on this sort of thing). Like, there are at least two queer characters in this book -- Nestor and one of Pearl's right-hand rushers -- but their sexuality is not the sole focus of who they are or what they do in the plot, the way I felt Amber's transgenderedness was. (I also did a mental double-take every time Beka referred to Okha/Amber as "he" and "him", because from something Amber said early on that cemented for me that she thinks of herself as a woman. But I may be reading too much into all this, and probably it would be too much to expect of a YA book, anyway.
I liked the plot, which is a bit more thriller than mystery, and this works better, I think, because transparency isn't a problem then. I am a little iffy on Hanse's motivation -- posthumously retracted -- but, whatever, it's a pretty minor part of it. I liked Beka's doggie, who had a definite personality, and needed taking care of, all of which I enjoyed reading about in Beka's narration. (Also, there's a literal Pet the Dog moment with Pearl and the dogy in question. Heh.) There is some loss on the good guy side -- Master Finer, whom I liked a lot -- but I also liked the fact that while Beka blames herself for it at first, she quickly remembers what was actually said to her about how it happened and realizes that she couldn't have prevented his death at all -- another thing I liked about Beka. I'm not sure how I feel about Beka being made partners with Tunstall at the end... I liked Goodwin better (and even more so in this book, with her secret embroidery, loose dog past, and "married, not dead" attitude), of the two senior Dogs, and her dynamics with Beka, too, but I don't mind tunstall at all, so, we'll see.
Anyway, definitely looking forward to the continuoation/conclusion of this series a good deal more than I had been after the first one.
8. Jaqueline Carey, Naamah's Kiss -- I didn't hate it. The reviews I read were pretty abysmal, but it was a fairly quick and half-enjoyable read for me. This is shaping out to be my least favorite of the three trilogies (I'm weird in that I like Imriel's better than Phedre's, because I like Imriel so much better than Phedre, and also there is marginally less Yeshuite-related fail. Together this balances out the relative scarcity of Joscelin and Barquiel L'Envers being a joke in the first two books.) -- anyway, least favorite, but still readable.
Moirin... Moirin as a young girl I like -- her interaction with her mother and Cillian, the wild solitary existence, her relationships with her mother (whom I liked a whole lot) and other relatives during their infrequent encounters, and Cillian (as friend and then lover) and his family. That was all really nice. Then Moirin had her rite of passage thing with the destiny, and went downhill as a character for me from there. Destiny-driven characters are tricky... and Moirin is not an example of a successful one, I'd say. The whole destiny thing, along with wanting to sleep with anything that moves, which is apparently Naamah's legacy, take the place of character development -- hell, of *having* a character from then on. On the plus side, I didn't hate her like I did Phedre, so that was something. But I did still think she was a Mary-Sue, with how quickly she won over everyone she met and ended up at the center of momentous events at several courts -- and with a good deal less of a good reason than Phedre, who'd been trained in court espionage, at least. One of the reasons the Imriel books are my favorites is that momentous world events don't revolve around Imri -- one of my favorite bits is how he totally misses the war in Vralia while about his own business. It's refreshing. Also, everybody wanting to sleep with Moirin bugs me just as much as everybody being into BDSM in the Phedre books.
I liked Moirin's mother, as I'd mentioned, and I liked her father, too -- he, more than any other character in this book, seemed like the sort of hagiographic character who lived in Phedre's novels, but not in a bad way. Jehanne... oh, goodness. I guess there's supposed to be something charming and irresistible in there, but I could not discern it. She just seemed bitchy, immature, self-centered, high-maintenance -- not good queen material, and not great parent material, either. And I actually found the part where she hit Moirin for telling her she had to leave -- which Jehanne already expected anyway -- more disturbing than all of Raphael's circle machinations and dub-con. Towards the end of the book, there a passage where Moirin reflects, in parallel, on Jehanne and Snow Tiger, and that's just embarrassing for Terre d'Ange. Snow Tiger, I felt, could've been a really neat character, from her distinctly unusual upbringing (and the tension between being raised as a warrior heir and wanting some "girlier" things, too) to the horror of what she went through at first and the choices she ends up having to make -- there is so much material there for a truly fascinating person. But I never felt her as a person, just as a legend-in-the-making sort of thing, almost as if she were operating on a separate plain from the real characters.That didn't work for me so well. (You know what else bugged me? That was referred to as Snow Tiger throughout -- and that some of the Ch'in names (as commonly used) were translated (e.g. Brother Thunder) and some were not. Um, why?) I actually did buy Snow Tiger asking Moirin for Naamah's blessing at the end -- it seemed like both of them needed it, and it was an OK conclusion.
I actually liked Bao, except for the part where I kept wondering what language he and Moirin were speaking most of the time, and, if it was d'Angeline, why his accent disappeared so quickly, and, if it was Ch'in, how Moirin grew to be so quickly proficient in it. Actually, that's a good question in general, since she gave quite a speech to Snow Tiger fairly early on in their acquaintance. So, yeah, I liked Bao well enough (and/but didn't think he was particularly Joscelin like) -- he's got a brusque sort of charm, and I like his cockiness and humour. I am not sold on Bao and Moirin, though. It's not clear to me what there is to like about Moirin in that respect, maybe that's why. I liked that he tried to resist the tonic initially, and that he wanted to go off and be by himself after the forced soul-bond or whatever. Possibly I'm measuring all these relationships against Phedre and Joscelin -- which I wasn't even so in love with, mostly because I thought Joscelin deserved better a lot of the time, and also the complete character growth reset at the beginning of book 2 -- but at least they truly challenged and complemented each other and grew together in interesting ways. As for Moirin and Bao -- sure, he defends her a lot, and they have fun int he sack, seeing as how Moirin is constitutionally incapable of being celibate -- but so what?
The character I was *most* intrigued by, though, was Raphael. I've read two reviews now (umihebizanomiko, you might have a secret twin) that mention hating Raphael in part because of how different he is from the de Mereliot family (who were, 'tis true, awfully nice -- if not particularly memorable for me -- in the two earlier trilogies). I thought he was interesting, though I did feel the final Face Heel Turn when he demands Moirin's oath for saving her father's life was overdone/hard for me to believe. It's entirely possible that part of my interest in Raphael is because ambitious healers is a bit of a kink of mine. But even aside from that I thought he was interesting -- a person with well-defined desires and ambitions (unlike, say, Moirin), willing to make hard choices (unlike, say, Jehanne) -- however badly -- and with both actual positive traits and serious flaws. You know, a character, not a cardboard cutout. I liked the fact that whatever else he was, he was a devoted and skilled physician. I liked the fact that he was clearly -- pretty openly, even -- only attracted to Moirin's powers. I liked the way he reacted when she "read" the memory from him. I mean, obviously the fact that he used her quite callously and the dub-con are not good -- but I can see them as self-justified for him in a way that's consistent with his character, and characters who can justify that sort of thing to themselves are interesting to me (at least until they cross a line, which Raphael hasn't quite done, though the business with the oath came close). I don't necesarily buy into Moirin's psychobabble about how this was all the result of him always feeling second-best, but he was interesting to read about. He was actually the one character that I wanted to see more of than we got.
(As an aside, it's possible that Raphael and Jehanne don't bother me as much as some other readers because I never liked d'Angelines that much to begin with -- they mostly seemed like vain, arrogant, self-absorbed peacocks to me. King Daniel doesn't do anything, the queen is apparently still in middle school -- which is a far cry from Drustan and Ysandre, to be sure, or even Sidonie and Imriel -- but I feel no impetus to mourn the golden age of Terre d'Ange.)
As far as plot goes: I enjoyed the part in Alba a lot, enjoyed the part in the City of Elua until Jehanne "rescued her" (words cannot express how deeply unmoved I am by Moirin/Jehanne, the basis of which does, primarily, see to be that Jehanne smells nice, and which seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with anything important). The whole half of the book that takes place in Ch'in was still a quick enough read, but did not engage my emotions at all. For all the dragon possession, large-scale war and carnage, there was no feeling of jeopardy there -- which is odd, because I definitely felt that with the Skaldian invasion and the siege of Lucca in the other books. Maybe because the country was already at was by the time Moirin got there, so there was no peaceful status quo to jeopardize? Or maybe because none of the characters felt real. Anyway.
Moirin's magic annoyed me. There were just too many disparate kinds of it. I can accept the whole twilight thing as stepping into the spirit world and thus being responsible for opening doorways to demons, conversing with the dragon, as well as the concealment and hunting she originally learned it for. The thing with the plants makes sense given that she's of Annael's line, and I can sort of accept that Raphael could channel the same sort of power into human healing. But then the memory-swallowing thing on top of that? It's sort of "foreshadowed" early on, only less foreshadowed and more just plunked in there for no reason. (And, as soon as Snow Tiger mentioned the men who would have to be put to death, I saw where that was going.) And, of course, the random demon gift. And this is all in the first book!
Speaking of magic, while the notion of being possessed by a dragon is kind of neat, the whole conceit where every time the dragon looked in a reflective surface and couldn't see itself it would go mad, that just made no sense to me. OK, the first time, or without Moirin to explain what was going on. But in spite of itself, totally unable to control it? Is this based on a real Chinese legend or something? Because, if not, then WTF. And even if it is, that really could've been justfied better. Just seemed like such a totally artificial, random constraint...
Another thing that bugged me about this book, thematically, was this current of "scientific progress = bad". Gunpoweder is apparently something that needs to be eradicated from the human mind, and this is worth killing people for. And there are magical parallels, too, with the forbidden knowledge Raphael's circle is seeking, and even the lost great gifts of shapeshifting of the Maghuin Dhonn. I just don't like "man was not meant to know" messages, and they seem to be all over the place here. And, if you ask me, all the moralizing about messing with magical and scientific powers is sort of undercut by Master Lo, who resurrects one person without his particular consent as to the cost and uses Moirin as an unwitting aid to euthanasia.
Finally, a last random thing that bugged me -- those repeating catchphrases, like "stubborn peasant-boy" and "hopeless romantics", etc. Not new to this book -- the Imriel books had plenty of them, and Phedre ones too, probably -- they were certainly equally keen on repetition. But even the catch phrases seem to be blase and uninspired and generic in this one. \random
Contrary to what it may seem, I am looking forward to more of the series, partly to see what will come of Raphael, since it seems certain something will, and partly to see if Moirin ever develops an actual character (I'm guessing, no). But still, looking forward to it.