Reading roundup (space!elves edition), book meme + character meme
38. M.C.A. Hogarth, Earthrise
39. M.C.A. Hogarth, Rose Point
40. M.C.A. Hogarth, Laisrathera -- this is a space opera(-romance, but emphasis is definitely on plot) trilogy set in the same universe as the cookie-baking asexual romance curtainfic books, but with actual plot and quite a bit less "pastoral" (to use the author's own word), and proved to be rather Relevant To My Interests, which you can tell from how I finished all three in a week. It starts off with very Firefly-like vibes (this is a good thing, in my book) -- a clunker of a freighter, crew of misfits, mysterious new passenger. When liveblogging these to egelantier who'd rec'd the series, I said at first, "It's like Firefly if the Washburnes were tiger furries, Kaylee was a seven-foot-tall metal-feathered bird and Simon was an elf, except the relationships work out a bit differently." Upon further consideration, Bryer the Phoenix seems more Book than Kaylee, except for his engineering role, but I rather stand by the rest of it. Also, if Mal were a woman and had an ulcer and a psychic mood Tribble. But that's book 1; book 2 has unexpected horse nomads and book 3 is much more high-fantasy like than space opera (it all makes sense in-universe, though -- well, within the rules of this worldbuilding, anyway). As I said, these are quite a bit darker than the fluffy mindhealer books, including (non-grauitous, and treated seriously but unflinchingly) rape, slavers, pirates, mass graves, accidental genocide (I'm still boggling at that one a bit) -- but that's actually par for the course with the Firefly feel, since quips and "aww, lets hug him again" moments there also coexisted with Reavers and bounty hunters and Hands of Blue. Spoilers from here!
Let's get one bit of unexpected RTMI out of the way first -- Liolesa the Eldritch (=space elf) queen gave me alllll the Zerika feels. This is probably not surprising, because there are probably only so many ways to write a functional Elf Queen from the POV of the elves, especially at an inflection point in the history of the kingdom, but I was struck by the similarity as soon as Liolesa appeared on page, and it just kept getting stronger and stronger as she interacted with her subjects and told Hirianthial about her mortal lover. Liolesa is more circumspect and secretive than (young) Zerika, probably by virtue of not having a monopoly on sorcery via the Orb, but I really liked her, and I want her and Zerika to be cross-universe pen-pals or something. (Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing all kinds of Dragaera crossovers with the Eldritch homeworld, but when am I not in the mood for Dragaera crossovers? But, like, they could be sort of twitched to exist in the same universe -- this is also a universe where the !elves are derived from humans by genetic engineering (although by themselves, not an outside power), and human/animal crosses are a thing with the Pelted. The Jenoine could totally be a group of pre-Exodus evil geniuses who took their more extreme experiments (mice and lizards, not just attractive big cat furries) to an exo-planet and continued to experiment with local fauna. Anyway!) So, I really liked Liolesa -- she might actually be my favorite character from these books, and I really liked her relationship with Hirianthial, and the way she and Reese build a rapport, and Reese is not afraid to call out on her mistakes when she thinks she sees some, and Liolesa takes her opinion seriously and asks Hiran about it. One last bit of Dragaera crossover thoughts, and then I promise I will stop: Hirianthial's other cousin, the boisterous and bossy Araelis reminded me of Aliera a bit.
My other favorite character was Sacha the Harat-Shar pilot, who is cheerful and indomitable most of the time but with some unexpected depth to him. He and Irene (they're twins and lovers; this is perfectly normal on their world) are adorable together, and I liked Irene, too, with her penchant for wearing socks on her tail because she gets cold easily. I actually liked the friendship between Sascha and Hirianthial and Irene and Reese more and felt more chemistry between those two pairs than between the romantic leads, but it's lovely as just plain friendship (with the light one-sided UST that is probably inevitable with homeworld Harat-Shar/anyone else friendships), too. The other members of the earthrise crew never fully crossed over into full-on character territory for me; Bryer the Phoenix is mysterious and taciturn, but I did like his weird bond with Hirianthial -- the way it turns out they can understand each other as men of necessary violence and protectors; Kis'eh't the Glaseah is so even-keeled, it's hard for a character like that to stand out among a more boisterous crew, but I did like her annoyance with the Eldritch customs nonsense and subsequent agreement to become Liolesa's adviser because of this. (One note on the Harat-Shar -- with the Dreamhealers books, I didn't get much of a sense of extra limbs from the centauroid Vasiht'h, except for the two backs thing; but here I enjoyed how expressive the tigraine's tails were, twitching when they're nervous, being an extra limb to wrap around in a hug, that sort of thing. The furries thing is not my thing, but it was nice to see the animal traits actually in action somewhat.)
And then we have the principals, Reese, the captain of Earthrise, and Hirianthial, the Eldritch noble-turned-Alliance-trained surgeon-turned mindmage. I like them both individually even though I don't feel that much chemistry between them. The thing that first jumped out at me about Reese is the way she reliably and determinedly transmutes every negative emotion she feels -- anger, worry, jealousy, helplessness, ANYTHING -- into anger. This is not subtly but neatly done, and I appreciated this character trait. Her arc is "reluctantly learning to let people close", and it's a nice arc, although I feel like she tends to blame herself way too much for her "crimes" -- yes, she was a jerk to Hirianthial for a long time, and yes she inadvertently harvested what turned out to be sentient crystals (although it appears that the sentient crystals do not consider this a crime themselves, so Reese's self-accusations of genocide are understandable but feel a bit much), but she keeps bringing this up when talking to Surela as if these "crimes" are comparable to actual, literal, fully intentioned treason which jeopardized an entire PLANET and race and led to many bloody deaths, and, like... no? But I can believe Reese trying to help in this fashion, and also sharing Hirianthial's self-abnegation streak. Not all of the stops on the way from "bitter loner with some employees" to "vassal of the Eldritch queen with a multi-species family of her own" make full sense to me -- the thing with slavery on Harat-Sharii which seemed to be there just for putting Reese in a position of being responsible for her crew before she's ready to admit how she feels about them was rather odd, and the way none of the frankly fucked up shit that went down there (freemen doctors being the result of a malpractice nightmare and the abandoned hospital, probably-forced miscarriage and talk of sterilization) is ever mentioned again -- but I do like where she ends up. Oh, and one thing I also liked is that Reese is, quite emphatically, not an action hero; she's a decent captain and competent trader, and she is certainly brave, but she is not used to violence, either witnessing or participating in, and even by the end of the trilogy, when she's had to deal with slavers and people slaughtering each other with swords, the violence remains foreign to her in a way it clearly is not to the Eldritch, Bryer, and the Fleet personnel she interacts with. I liked that, and the way it was also true of Irine and Sascha.
Hirianthial was at once a compilation of things that I really, really like, on a very iddy level -- I have a total thing for hyper-competent and dedicated doctors/healers, and for people who are equally good at killing and healing, and for the loyal knight/powerful queen dynamic he's got with Liolesa, and stoically suffering characters, especially if we get to see them with that composure broken; (also, I apparently have a men-with-long-hair kink now? the scene in book 1 with Irine braiding the dangle into Hirianthial's hair was quite something, as was Hirianthial agreeing to Val trimming his hair for him) -- and frustrating elements, because he's so self-effacing and overly humble, which is not my thing, especially in combination with those tropes. But he does emerge from that, more or less, though it takes until pretty much the very end. It was also interesting to see things from the POV of a much older Eldritch than the Dreamhealers' Jahir -- that Hirianthial has already known deep loss (his parents, his first wife and unborn daughter, that he is someone with one career behind him (as the queen's White Sword) and a master of another (all his medical specialties), that although he has centuries to go yet, he feels his age (and centuries of hard exertion) in his joints -- that was actually a really nice touch, and not something I've ever seen before with a long-lived race.
As for their relationship... I don't see the chemistry overmuch, but if it makes them happy... and they are cute as a couple. I liked the careful conversation about Hiran's first wife, and Reese's blurted marriage proposal, and Hirianthial's "stud gift" of the resurrected eucalyptus seed, and "build me a hospital", and happily-in-love Hirianthial is actually my favorite Hirianthial, so that was good to see. And Reese's crew and Hirianthial's family being intent on matchmaking them was pretty cute. Hirianthial's rape being the turning point for Reese in going from disparaging him to admitting she cared was a choice that gave me pause; it feels like a genderswap of an unpleasant cliche (and made me think of the storyline that had apparently been planned but fortunately never filmed for Mal and Inara, speaking of Firefly parallels), and I wonder if that was intentional, but even if it was... Another thing that gave me pause (on a much lighter note) was Reese's virginity/never-been-kissed status, at thirty-two. I eventually made it work for myself by thinking about it some more -- sex is not part of the family tradition she grew up in, and while she's certainly curious enough about things related to it to read romance novels, I could also see her being too much of a romantic (fairy princes and lacy nightgowns and all) not to find any appeal in casual/transactional sex which would've been a "safe" option if she were so inclined, and too hedgehogged, before the start of the trilogy, to put herself out there for something more serious. Still, one of the things I did really like about the relationship is that, while Hirianthial doesn't want to contemplate the "after", given Reese's short lifespan, other people do talk about it, and he doesn't flinch from it -- not from the consideration of marrying Liolesa, for instance, for dynastic reasons.
Our Heroes meet a lot of other people along the way as they travel from a station hospital for emergency surgery, a pit stop on Harat-Sharii to hide from pirates, Reese's family on Mars, Fleet personnel, and Eldritch homeworld people. The Eldritch were the only ones among whom I found characters I was interested in; besides Liolesa and A...., I also liked Val the renegade priest, and, collectively, the cameraderie of the White Swords. And while I don't *like* Surela, I was impressed that she was misguided, ignorant, and xenophobic but not evil -- that she saw and admitted her mistake and tried to do the right thing at personal cost, and that she gets a redemption arc -- brutal but survivable (I fully expected her to die killing the Chatacaavan, and that she didn't, and accepted the possibility of a future after both the rape and the annihilation of her house through her own actions, was something I was happy to see). That was more nuance than I'd expected from a "bad guy".
The other bad guys, though, don't get any, and this was a weakness of the book 3 storyline for me -- the Chatcaavan shapechanger is evil because apparently they all are (I mentioned to egelantier, too, that the Evil So Evil dragonic shape-shifters made me think of the Raksura-verse Fell, and being done with the book, they still totally do; there is a series with them as principal characters and presumably they get a bit more nuance there, but I'm not sure I'm up for reading it...), Hirianthial's evil twin (or brother, at any rate; but they look enough alike that Reese mistakes Baniel for Hirianthial at first) is psychopathic evil of the "some men just want to watch the world burn" variety, and Athanesin, who starts out as Baniel's puppet, is apparently similar but driven by actual ambition rather than destructive glee. I had the hardest time believing that he could have whipped up an army to murder an entire house branch, including women and children -- birth rates being as low and protection of women being so central to Eldritch culture, and the divide between the two factions being purely political and fairly recent, rather than something born of generations of resentment/being able to see the people they were cutting down as Other, this just doesn't seem like the sort of thing that should be able to happen on a large scale. Oh, also, I don't like the people-not-telling-each-other-things driven plot points, but in this case it was actually somewhat plausible that Reese would not be told about Baniel -- Hirianthial clearly doesn't like thinking/talking about him, and the thing with Araelis telling her stuff and then shutting up when she realizes she's misconstrued her relationship with Hiran, and Reese thinking she knows everything she needs to and telling Hirianthial so kind of made sense; more sense than usual, anyway.
Speaking of Eldritch culture and worldbuilding, this trilogy answered some of the questions I had after reading the Dreamhealers books -- whether Eldritch were true alien or modified human, and how that all worked, why the Veil, why the world is so low-tech ad how it could survive -- but left/raised a lot of other questions. Like, OK, the Eldritch long lifespan is genetic modification from a human base; does that mean lifespan in the hundreds of years is available to others in the Alliance? How much of the low-tech world we see is the Eldritch opting for a low-tech world vs technology lost during early colonization/fighting with monsters/attrition? And if they wanted a low-tech world... why? A clean, fresh start away from "poisoned" humanity? Given the long lifespans, even with Hirianthial's explanation that each subsequent generation lived longer than the last, it doesn't sound like there were that many generations between the establishment of Eldritch society and the present day -- there have been only three queens between the descent of the Veil and the present day, counting Liolesa, right? -- so how could they have become so entrenched in the 'new' ways? Were the settlers zealots who just wiped the slate clean? Where does the elaborate language (which I really liked, with the different modes) and Elven-sounding names come from? Was this world settled by a bunch of Tolkien LARPers/Elric wannabes? I mean, I think the real answer is probably that Hogarth wanted a high-fantasy-like world populated by !Elves (who can interbreed with humans) and realistic worldbuilding is highly secondary to that, and I'm not actually complaining, but I kept wondering about this. I did like the detail that the world HADN'T been self-sufficient for a very long time, and the isolation was largely a fiction to keep the people from getting stirred up. But given that, Reese has a very good point that probably coming clean about this would've saved a fair bit of bloodshed.
Random things: I like the Martian habit of swearing by "blood and freedom" and "bleeding soil" , and the detail of Harat-Shar (or at least Sascha, but it seems cultural) using "arii" (the intimate form of address, vs "alet") pretty much right out of the gate, the different forms of address for the multitude of Harat-Shar parents, given the harem structure. I also liked the detail where Irine actually grabs a change of clothes for Reese, so she's not running around the palace during the coup/escape in a ball gown and corset -- I was thinking she should take the corset off, at least, and then there was Irine, with clothes.
Other random stuff: Eldritch blush "a faint blue-tinged peach" and they run hotter than most other races. Also, Hirianthial gets both Jedi mind tricks (before his full powers come through, when he's hiding the crew from Surapinet's slavers/pirates) and a lightsaber XD
What was Reese's deal with doctors, anyway? In the first book it seems like she has something against doctors especially (and that's part of he antipathy towards Hirianthial), but that's never explained. Is it just the feeling of helplessness, being in someone else's control?
A few quotes:
Reese: "Isn't it a little extreme? Tending to your enemies... that doesn't sound good for self-preservation."
H: "It wasn't intended to preserve me."
Kis'eh't: "Reese is good peole, but sometimes she bites off her foot after the trap is open."
About the Eldritch language: "their own tongue, a stream of vowels with consonants that only seemed to give them ground to soar from."
"Had no idea Fleet ships had so many conference rooms. What do they do, have meetings all day?"
"You have no idea," Narain said, long-suffering. "It's a cultural weakness. We love consensus."
*
A book meme from various folks:
1. A book you love that nobody seems to have read?
Well, not nobody, but some books that I'm surprised are not as well known as I think they should be are: Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday (I'm wondering if Home the movie adaptaion gave it a boost in popularity, though), SRB's The Demon's Lexicon, Libba Bray's Beauty Queens, Rosemary Kirstein's Sterrswomen books, and probably a lot of others. But I don't think there's anything I read which is so obscure that nobody else on my flist has read it.
2. Do you have a favorite poet?
I have several. But at some point concluded that W.B.Yeats was my most favorite. I have some other favorites, too -- Larkin, Auden, Blake, G.M. Hopkins, Frost, assorted Romantics (mostly Coleridge and Shelley), and I like Dorothy Parker's and Oscar Wilde's poetry a lot, too (as well as other things they wrote), and Milton, and in Russian Akhmatova and Blok, but some time ago I calculated things, and Yeats is my favorite because I'm sort of in awe of the apparent effortlessness of his poetry as measured against the impact of it.
3. What booklr do you get the best book recommendations from?
I tend to triangulate my recs from various LJs, because there are people with whom I have a lot of shared fandoms but we like them for different reasons, so them loving something is not, by itself, enough of a predictor that I will love it, too. But if several people with whom I share a lot of fandoms (different Venn diagrams of fandoms) love/enjoy something, that's a much stronger case that I should read it. "People who love the Vorkosigan Saga" seem to be a pretty good predictor for things I will like in general. And lately I've been picking up a lot of recs from egelantier (and Quality Lit from ikel89, of course ;) Some of that is for the joy of shared reading, of course, as well as the likelihood of overlap in tastes.
4. Favorite book you read this year?
I've had no absolute standout favorites this year, but really enjoyed Burndive, Saga (the two volumes I read this year), Fangirl, Death at the Dionyssus Club, Body Work, and the Earthrise books, although some of these can be shelved under Quality Lit, I think. I also thought a lot about Watchmaker of Filigree Street, but not in a way that would make me list it as "favorite". Actual favorite, dunno... Burndive had Cairo Azarcon in it, but it's not a standalone the way Fangirl is. Maybe Fangirl, if we're talking about a single book? I'm deeply surprised, believe me...
5. A book that made you cry?
It's not uncommon for me to cry during books. But The Shepherd's Crown made me hide in the bathroom and bawl, as well as cry during my commute, in public, which is a lot less common. So, yeah.
6. A book you think is overrated?
What does that even mean? Popular when I don't like it? Sure, there are plenty, but what does that matter? Critically acclaimed when I don't find it deserving? I tend not to read those. I think some books I loved ended up being overrated/overhyped; e.g. The Goblin Emperor was adorable and I loved it and rec'd it and gifted it to all kinds of people, but it is by no means a perfect book, and while I'm happy Uprooted won a Nebula, and I loved it (and rec'd and gifted it to all creation, too), I didn't think it was a work of staggering genius either -- but then, it doesn't have to be. So, I dunno. I know some books that fandom considers overrated -- like Lev Grossman's The Magicians -- but I actually loved the first book and enjoyed the second (and plan to read the third). I guess I don't really get the Sanderson hype, or the Seanan McGuire hype -- but that doesn't necessarily means those books are *overrated*, they might just not be for me, and that's OK.
7. Do you remember what the first book you pre-order was? If not, do you remember the first time you were avidly awaiting a book’s release?
One of the Harry Potter books -- I think it would've likely beet Order of the Phoenix. I think that was the first one we pre-ordered (because I have a memory of walking into a physical bookstore with B and buying GoF), and everyone that followed.
8. A book you recommend to read in the summer?
That is an odd question. Summer makes me think about childhood and long hours of freedom, so something nostalgic and/or about kids, I guess. Kir Bulychev stories? Monday Starts on Saturday? Mostly Russian books come to mind, but if I had to pick an English one, hmmm, not sure, something by Diana Wynne Jones? Or something cheerful and forward-momentum-y, like, Going Postal or A Civil Campaign (although I wouldn't recommend starting either of the series there).
9. Favorite non fiction book?
I really like Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The subject matter can be creepy and sad, but he writes about it in an uplifting way -- not fake-uplifting, but human brains are amazing things, and Sacks writes about all his patience with such caring and humanity.
10. The most expensive book you’ve ever bought?
I have never bought an exhorbitantly expensive book, I think -- no out of print editions or fancy illustrated compilations or anything of the sort. Or, rather, I've never bought an exhorbitantly expensive book FOR PLEASURE, so the most expensive book I bought is bound to be one of my chemistry/engineering textbooks, which were like $200-300 apiece.
11. Know any good book playlists?
I don't understand this... I never listen to music when reading. Or is this asking something else?
ETA: Actually, heh, now that I'm thinking about it, one book series I can think of that has an actual honest-to-goodness playlist -- with links to YouTube videos in the back -- is Lia Silver's Prisoner and Partner, who have a DJ as a protagonist, and thus an actual soundtrack of sorts :) I can't say I share DJ's taste in music (I actually really don't XD) but it's an entertaining concept.
12. What is your favourite book from your country?
I'm not a huge fan of classic Russian literature, but I do love Bulgakov's Master i Margarita a lot -- one of my very favorite books (and he's not only from my country -- assuming we mean Russia/USSR -- he actually lived in my home city.)
13. What books are you waiting to come out now?
The Hanging Tree (RoL #6 -- which has now been pushed to Jan 2017?!?! and even the UK version is late October, ARGH, write your books on time, Ben!), Vallista (next Vlad Taltos book, probably 12-18 months out, but Brust just recently tweeted that he'd finished his draft, yay, so maybe less??), Peace Talks (the next Dresden Files, but I don't think it has a release date yet), Thorn of Emberlain (Locke Lamora #4, in September), League of Dragons (with trepidation, because I doubt very much it will be a satisfactory conclusion) -- only two weeks to go! Oh, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (July!). And at some point the Kvothe conclusion, too. And Winds of Winter? I'm increasingly skeptical that I'll still care about Winds of Winter by the time it comes out, which is sad.
14. Name a series that gets better over time.
Monotonically better? I'm not sure there is such a thing. But Dresden Files definitely gets better once it hits the middle part. Mature Discworld is much better than early Discworld (althought the last couple of books don't continue this trend, for obvious but distressing reasons). And then I think there are series that are stronger when viewed as a whole than taken book by book, like the Dragaera edifice, and (much more tidily) Warchild and sequels.
15. Name a series that gets worse over time.
Way too many of these, probably... Anne Rice's Vampire series are one example where I jumped off after a while. And I've steered clear of even starting a bunch of series where I heard this was the case, like the Anita Blake books.
Mostly, though, I find there are series that build to a high point (at least for my taste) and then dip down from there; ASOIAF is a good example -- ASoS is the pinnacle, I think, and then it kinda..., Temeraire hit the high point for me with Victory of Eagles and has sort of wiggled around since then but even the books I liked never achieved that level again; Dresden Files hits its peak for me around Dead Beat/Proven Guilty, and even my beloved Vorkosigan Saga has been winding down since the crest of Memory/A Civil Campaign.
**
And a quick little random character meme:
Write down 15 characters, randomize them, then answer the questions, in order
1. Magneto (X-Men)
2. Gandalf (LotR)
3. Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons)
4. Toph Beifong (AtLA)
5. Kevan Lannister (ASOIAF)
6. Cordelia Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga)
7. Zerika IV (Dragaera)
8. Tony Stark (MCU)
9. Moist von Lipwig (Discworld)
10. Ted Lender (Kosmooluhi)
11. Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5)
12. William Laurence (Temeraire)
13. Zoe Washburne (Firefly)
14. Willow Rosenberg (BtVS)
15. Fiona of Amber (Chronicles of Amber)
1. Your mom/dad: Magneto (X-Men). Do I get awesome superpowers as a result? Please say I do!
2. Your sibling: Gandalf (LotR). Um, well. Lots of wise advice, I suppose?
3. Your grandma/grandpa: Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons). I can sort of imagine grandma Lisa. She would always be reading the latest academic journals in her not-quite-retirement, and volunteering for a million different causes, 75% of them to do with animals and the environment, and she would have vegan cookies for visiting grandkids, as well as sage advice.
4. Haunts you: Toph Beifong (AtLA). AHAHA, Toph would make the BEST trolly poltergeist, and you know it!
5. Your boyfriend/girlfriend: Kevan Lannister (ASOIAF). Nah, too boring. I love Kevan, but we are way too similar, and this would never go anywhere.
6. Your ex: Cordelia Naismith (Vorkosigan Saga). I adore Cordelia, but not really like that. Although I do find redheaded women particularly beautiful. (Too bad a threesome with Aral would be out of the question; that might actually make this randomizer suggestion worthwhile...)
7. Your best friend: Zerika IV (Dragaera). Actually, yeah, I could see us getting along.
8. Proposed to you: Tony Stark (MCU). Doubt very much he meant it. He was probably drunk at the time, or thought he was dying, or something else stupid.
9. Your boss: Moist von Lipwig (Discworld). OH GOD. Moist with his energy and his forward momentum would be such an exhausting boss XD
10. The random person you met at the bar: Ted Lerner (Kosmooluhi). Sounds about right, actually! XD We can bond about beer.
11. Your rival: Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5). Is this about Cordelia? (Since I kind of doubt it's about Kevan, and we wouldn't be rivals professionally, since I'm not interested in his line of work, either of them). If it is about Cordelia, then the two of them have my blessing, in fact.
12. Gave you your first kiss: William Laurence (Temeraire). HIGHLY unlikely. Like, least likely of all the people on this list, tbh.
13. Drunk and singing karaoke with: Zoe Washburne (Firefly). ...she would have to be epically drunk. I think she is the Firefly crew member I can LEAST envision singing karaoke.
14. Played 7 minutes in heaven with: Willow Rosenberg (BtVS). Noooo, too weird, 'cos she reminds me too much of myself. Although at least this meme seems to be consistent in making me out to be narcissistic and into redheaded women.
15. Gave you your favorite dessert: Fiona (Chronicles of Amber). Is it poisoned? It's probably poisoned.
39. M.C.A. Hogarth, Rose Point
40. M.C.A. Hogarth, Laisrathera -- this is a space opera(-romance, but emphasis is definitely on plot) trilogy set in the same universe as the cookie-baking asexual romance curtainfic books, but with actual plot and quite a bit less "pastoral" (to use the author's own word), and proved to be rather Relevant To My Interests, which you can tell from how I finished all three in a week. It starts off with very Firefly-like vibes (this is a good thing, in my book) -- a clunker of a freighter, crew of misfits, mysterious new passenger. When liveblogging these to egelantier who'd rec'd the series, I said at first, "It's like Firefly if the Washburnes were tiger furries, Kaylee was a seven-foot-tall metal-feathered bird and Simon was an elf, except the relationships work out a bit differently." Upon further consideration, Bryer the Phoenix seems more Book than Kaylee, except for his engineering role, but I rather stand by the rest of it. Also, if Mal were a woman and had an ulcer and a psychic mood Tribble. But that's book 1; book 2 has unexpected horse nomads and book 3 is much more high-fantasy like than space opera (it all makes sense in-universe, though -- well, within the rules of this worldbuilding, anyway). As I said, these are quite a bit darker than the fluffy mindhealer books, including (non-grauitous, and treated seriously but unflinchingly) rape, slavers, pirates, mass graves, accidental genocide (I'm still boggling at that one a bit) -- but that's actually par for the course with the Firefly feel, since quips and "aww, lets hug him again" moments there also coexisted with Reavers and bounty hunters and Hands of Blue. Spoilers from here!
Let's get one bit of unexpected RTMI out of the way first -- Liolesa the Eldritch (=space elf) queen gave me alllll the Zerika feels. This is probably not surprising, because there are probably only so many ways to write a functional Elf Queen from the POV of the elves, especially at an inflection point in the history of the kingdom, but I was struck by the similarity as soon as Liolesa appeared on page, and it just kept getting stronger and stronger as she interacted with her subjects and told Hirianthial about her mortal lover. Liolesa is more circumspect and secretive than (young) Zerika, probably by virtue of not having a monopoly on sorcery via the Orb, but I really liked her, and I want her and Zerika to be cross-universe pen-pals or something. (Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing all kinds of Dragaera crossovers with the Eldritch homeworld, but when am I not in the mood for Dragaera crossovers? But, like, they could be sort of twitched to exist in the same universe -- this is also a universe where the !elves are derived from humans by genetic engineering (although by themselves, not an outside power), and human/animal crosses are a thing with the Pelted. The Jenoine could totally be a group of pre-Exodus evil geniuses who took their more extreme experiments (mice and lizards, not just attractive big cat furries) to an exo-planet and continued to experiment with local fauna. Anyway!) So, I really liked Liolesa -- she might actually be my favorite character from these books, and I really liked her relationship with Hirianthial, and the way she and Reese build a rapport, and Reese is not afraid to call out on her mistakes when she thinks she sees some, and Liolesa takes her opinion seriously and asks Hiran about it. One last bit of Dragaera crossover thoughts, and then I promise I will stop: Hirianthial's other cousin, the boisterous and bossy Araelis reminded me of Aliera a bit.
My other favorite character was Sacha the Harat-Shar pilot, who is cheerful and indomitable most of the time but with some unexpected depth to him. He and Irene (they're twins and lovers; this is perfectly normal on their world) are adorable together, and I liked Irene, too, with her penchant for wearing socks on her tail because she gets cold easily. I actually liked the friendship between Sascha and Hirianthial and Irene and Reese more and felt more chemistry between those two pairs than between the romantic leads, but it's lovely as just plain friendship (with the light one-sided UST that is probably inevitable with homeworld Harat-Shar/anyone else friendships), too. The other members of the earthrise crew never fully crossed over into full-on character territory for me; Bryer the Phoenix is mysterious and taciturn, but I did like his weird bond with Hirianthial -- the way it turns out they can understand each other as men of necessary violence and protectors; Kis'eh't the Glaseah is so even-keeled, it's hard for a character like that to stand out among a more boisterous crew, but I did like her annoyance with the Eldritch customs nonsense and subsequent agreement to become Liolesa's adviser because of this. (One note on the Harat-Shar -- with the Dreamhealers books, I didn't get much of a sense of extra limbs from the centauroid Vasiht'h, except for the two backs thing; but here I enjoyed how expressive the tigraine's tails were, twitching when they're nervous, being an extra limb to wrap around in a hug, that sort of thing. The furries thing is not my thing, but it was nice to see the animal traits actually in action somewhat.)
And then we have the principals, Reese, the captain of Earthrise, and Hirianthial, the Eldritch noble-turned-Alliance-trained surgeon-turned mindmage. I like them both individually even though I don't feel that much chemistry between them. The thing that first jumped out at me about Reese is the way she reliably and determinedly transmutes every negative emotion she feels -- anger, worry, jealousy, helplessness, ANYTHING -- into anger. This is not subtly but neatly done, and I appreciated this character trait. Her arc is "reluctantly learning to let people close", and it's a nice arc, although I feel like she tends to blame herself way too much for her "crimes" -- yes, she was a jerk to Hirianthial for a long time, and yes she inadvertently harvested what turned out to be sentient crystals (although it appears that the sentient crystals do not consider this a crime themselves, so Reese's self-accusations of genocide are understandable but feel a bit much), but she keeps bringing this up when talking to Surela as if these "crimes" are comparable to actual, literal, fully intentioned treason which jeopardized an entire PLANET and race and led to many bloody deaths, and, like... no? But I can believe Reese trying to help in this fashion, and also sharing Hirianthial's self-abnegation streak. Not all of the stops on the way from "bitter loner with some employees" to "vassal of the Eldritch queen with a multi-species family of her own" make full sense to me -- the thing with slavery on Harat-Sharii which seemed to be there just for putting Reese in a position of being responsible for her crew before she's ready to admit how she feels about them was rather odd, and the way none of the frankly fucked up shit that went down there (freemen doctors being the result of a malpractice nightmare and the abandoned hospital, probably-forced miscarriage and talk of sterilization) is ever mentioned again -- but I do like where she ends up. Oh, and one thing I also liked is that Reese is, quite emphatically, not an action hero; she's a decent captain and competent trader, and she is certainly brave, but she is not used to violence, either witnessing or participating in, and even by the end of the trilogy, when she's had to deal with slavers and people slaughtering each other with swords, the violence remains foreign to her in a way it clearly is not to the Eldritch, Bryer, and the Fleet personnel she interacts with. I liked that, and the way it was also true of Irine and Sascha.
Hirianthial was at once a compilation of things that I really, really like, on a very iddy level -- I have a total thing for hyper-competent and dedicated doctors/healers, and for people who are equally good at killing and healing, and for the loyal knight/powerful queen dynamic he's got with Liolesa, and stoically suffering characters, especially if we get to see them with that composure broken; (also, I apparently have a men-with-long-hair kink now? the scene in book 1 with Irine braiding the dangle into Hirianthial's hair was quite something, as was Hirianthial agreeing to Val trimming his hair for him) -- and frustrating elements, because he's so self-effacing and overly humble, which is not my thing, especially in combination with those tropes. But he does emerge from that, more or less, though it takes until pretty much the very end. It was also interesting to see things from the POV of a much older Eldritch than the Dreamhealers' Jahir -- that Hirianthial has already known deep loss (his parents, his first wife and unborn daughter, that he is someone with one career behind him (as the queen's White Sword) and a master of another (all his medical specialties), that although he has centuries to go yet, he feels his age (and centuries of hard exertion) in his joints -- that was actually a really nice touch, and not something I've ever seen before with a long-lived race.
As for their relationship... I don't see the chemistry overmuch, but if it makes them happy... and they are cute as a couple. I liked the careful conversation about Hiran's first wife, and Reese's blurted marriage proposal, and Hirianthial's "stud gift" of the resurrected eucalyptus seed, and "build me a hospital", and happily-in-love Hirianthial is actually my favorite Hirianthial, so that was good to see. And Reese's crew and Hirianthial's family being intent on matchmaking them was pretty cute. Hirianthial's rape being the turning point for Reese in going from disparaging him to admitting she cared was a choice that gave me pause; it feels like a genderswap of an unpleasant cliche (and made me think of the storyline that had apparently been planned but fortunately never filmed for Mal and Inara, speaking of Firefly parallels), and I wonder if that was intentional, but even if it was... Another thing that gave me pause (on a much lighter note) was Reese's virginity/never-been-kissed status, at thirty-two. I eventually made it work for myself by thinking about it some more -- sex is not part of the family tradition she grew up in, and while she's certainly curious enough about things related to it to read romance novels, I could also see her being too much of a romantic (fairy princes and lacy nightgowns and all) not to find any appeal in casual/transactional sex which would've been a "safe" option if she were so inclined, and too hedgehogged, before the start of the trilogy, to put herself out there for something more serious. Still, one of the things I did really like about the relationship is that, while Hirianthial doesn't want to contemplate the "after", given Reese's short lifespan, other people do talk about it, and he doesn't flinch from it -- not from the consideration of marrying Liolesa, for instance, for dynastic reasons.
Our Heroes meet a lot of other people along the way as they travel from a station hospital for emergency surgery, a pit stop on Harat-Sharii to hide from pirates, Reese's family on Mars, Fleet personnel, and Eldritch homeworld people. The Eldritch were the only ones among whom I found characters I was interested in; besides Liolesa and A...., I also liked Val the renegade priest, and, collectively, the cameraderie of the White Swords. And while I don't *like* Surela, I was impressed that she was misguided, ignorant, and xenophobic but not evil -- that she saw and admitted her mistake and tried to do the right thing at personal cost, and that she gets a redemption arc -- brutal but survivable (I fully expected her to die killing the Chatacaavan, and that she didn't, and accepted the possibility of a future after both the rape and the annihilation of her house through her own actions, was something I was happy to see). That was more nuance than I'd expected from a "bad guy".
The other bad guys, though, don't get any, and this was a weakness of the book 3 storyline for me -- the Chatcaavan shapechanger is evil because apparently they all are (I mentioned to egelantier, too, that the Evil So Evil dragonic shape-shifters made me think of the Raksura-verse Fell, and being done with the book, they still totally do; there is a series with them as principal characters and presumably they get a bit more nuance there, but I'm not sure I'm up for reading it...), Hirianthial's evil twin (or brother, at any rate; but they look enough alike that Reese mistakes Baniel for Hirianthial at first) is psychopathic evil of the "some men just want to watch the world burn" variety, and Athanesin, who starts out as Baniel's puppet, is apparently similar but driven by actual ambition rather than destructive glee. I had the hardest time believing that he could have whipped up an army to murder an entire house branch, including women and children -- birth rates being as low and protection of women being so central to Eldritch culture, and the divide between the two factions being purely political and fairly recent, rather than something born of generations of resentment/being able to see the people they were cutting down as Other, this just doesn't seem like the sort of thing that should be able to happen on a large scale. Oh, also, I don't like the people-not-telling-each-other-things driven plot points, but in this case it was actually somewhat plausible that Reese would not be told about Baniel -- Hirianthial clearly doesn't like thinking/talking about him, and the thing with Araelis telling her stuff and then shutting up when she realizes she's misconstrued her relationship with Hiran, and Reese thinking she knows everything she needs to and telling Hirianthial so kind of made sense; more sense than usual, anyway.
Speaking of Eldritch culture and worldbuilding, this trilogy answered some of the questions I had after reading the Dreamhealers books -- whether Eldritch were true alien or modified human, and how that all worked, why the Veil, why the world is so low-tech ad how it could survive -- but left/raised a lot of other questions. Like, OK, the Eldritch long lifespan is genetic modification from a human base; does that mean lifespan in the hundreds of years is available to others in the Alliance? How much of the low-tech world we see is the Eldritch opting for a low-tech world vs technology lost during early colonization/fighting with monsters/attrition? And if they wanted a low-tech world... why? A clean, fresh start away from "poisoned" humanity? Given the long lifespans, even with Hirianthial's explanation that each subsequent generation lived longer than the last, it doesn't sound like there were that many generations between the establishment of Eldritch society and the present day -- there have been only three queens between the descent of the Veil and the present day, counting Liolesa, right? -- so how could they have become so entrenched in the 'new' ways? Were the settlers zealots who just wiped the slate clean? Where does the elaborate language (which I really liked, with the different modes) and Elven-sounding names come from? Was this world settled by a bunch of Tolkien LARPers/Elric wannabes? I mean, I think the real answer is probably that Hogarth wanted a high-fantasy-like world populated by !Elves (who can interbreed with humans) and realistic worldbuilding is highly secondary to that, and I'm not actually complaining, but I kept wondering about this. I did like the detail that the world HADN'T been self-sufficient for a very long time, and the isolation was largely a fiction to keep the people from getting stirred up. But given that, Reese has a very good point that probably coming clean about this would've saved a fair bit of bloodshed.
Random things: I like the Martian habit of swearing by "blood and freedom" and "bleeding soil" , and the detail of Harat-Shar (or at least Sascha, but it seems cultural) using "arii" (the intimate form of address, vs "alet") pretty much right out of the gate, the different forms of address for the multitude of Harat-Shar parents, given the harem structure. I also liked the detail where Irine actually grabs a change of clothes for Reese, so she's not running around the palace during the coup/escape in a ball gown and corset -- I was thinking she should take the corset off, at least, and then there was Irine, with clothes.
Other random stuff: Eldritch blush "a faint blue-tinged peach" and they run hotter than most other races. Also, Hirianthial gets both Jedi mind tricks (before his full powers come through, when he's hiding the crew from Surapinet's slavers/pirates) and a lightsaber XD
What was Reese's deal with doctors, anyway? In the first book it seems like she has something against doctors especially (and that's part of he antipathy towards Hirianthial), but that's never explained. Is it just the feeling of helplessness, being in someone else's control?
A few quotes:
Reese: "Isn't it a little extreme? Tending to your enemies... that doesn't sound good for self-preservation."
H: "It wasn't intended to preserve me."
Kis'eh't: "Reese is good peole, but sometimes she bites off her foot after the trap is open."
About the Eldritch language: "their own tongue, a stream of vowels with consonants that only seemed to give them ground to soar from."
"Had no idea Fleet ships had so many conference rooms. What do they do, have meetings all day?"
"You have no idea," Narain said, long-suffering. "It's a cultural weakness. We love consensus."
*
A book meme from various folks:
1. A book you love that nobody seems to have read?
Well, not nobody, but some books that I'm surprised are not as well known as I think they should be are: Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday (I'm wondering if Home the movie adaptaion gave it a boost in popularity, though), SRB's The Demon's Lexicon, Libba Bray's Beauty Queens, Rosemary Kirstein's Sterrswomen books, and probably a lot of others. But I don't think there's anything I read which is so obscure that nobody else on my flist has read it.
2. Do you have a favorite poet?
I have several. But at some point concluded that W.B.Yeats was my most favorite. I have some other favorites, too -- Larkin, Auden, Blake, G.M. Hopkins, Frost, assorted Romantics (mostly Coleridge and Shelley), and I like Dorothy Parker's and Oscar Wilde's poetry a lot, too (as well as other things they wrote), and Milton, and in Russian Akhmatova and Blok, but some time ago I calculated things, and Yeats is my favorite because I'm sort of in awe of the apparent effortlessness of his poetry as measured against the impact of it.
3. What booklr do you get the best book recommendations from?
I tend to triangulate my recs from various LJs, because there are people with whom I have a lot of shared fandoms but we like them for different reasons, so them loving something is not, by itself, enough of a predictor that I will love it, too. But if several people with whom I share a lot of fandoms (different Venn diagrams of fandoms) love/enjoy something, that's a much stronger case that I should read it. "People who love the Vorkosigan Saga" seem to be a pretty good predictor for things I will like in general. And lately I've been picking up a lot of recs from egelantier (and Quality Lit from ikel89, of course ;) Some of that is for the joy of shared reading, of course, as well as the likelihood of overlap in tastes.
4. Favorite book you read this year?
I've had no absolute standout favorites this year, but really enjoyed Burndive, Saga (the two volumes I read this year), Fangirl, Death at the Dionyssus Club, Body Work, and the Earthrise books, although some of these can be shelved under Quality Lit, I think. I also thought a lot about Watchmaker of Filigree Street, but not in a way that would make me list it as "favorite". Actual favorite, dunno... Burndive had Cairo Azarcon in it, but it's not a standalone the way Fangirl is. Maybe Fangirl, if we're talking about a single book? I'm deeply surprised, believe me...
5. A book that made you cry?
It's not uncommon for me to cry during books. But The Shepherd's Crown made me hide in the bathroom and bawl, as well as cry during my commute, in public, which is a lot less common. So, yeah.
6. A book you think is overrated?
What does that even mean? Popular when I don't like it? Sure, there are plenty, but what does that matter? Critically acclaimed when I don't find it deserving? I tend not to read those. I think some books I loved ended up being overrated/overhyped; e.g. The Goblin Emperor was adorable and I loved it and rec'd it and gifted it to all kinds of people, but it is by no means a perfect book, and while I'm happy Uprooted won a Nebula, and I loved it (and rec'd and gifted it to all creation, too), I didn't think it was a work of staggering genius either -- but then, it doesn't have to be. So, I dunno. I know some books that fandom considers overrated -- like Lev Grossman's The Magicians -- but I actually loved the first book and enjoyed the second (and plan to read the third). I guess I don't really get the Sanderson hype, or the Seanan McGuire hype -- but that doesn't necessarily means those books are *overrated*, they might just not be for me, and that's OK.
7. Do you remember what the first book you pre-order was? If not, do you remember the first time you were avidly awaiting a book’s release?
One of the Harry Potter books -- I think it would've likely beet Order of the Phoenix. I think that was the first one we pre-ordered (because I have a memory of walking into a physical bookstore with B and buying GoF), and everyone that followed.
8. A book you recommend to read in the summer?
That is an odd question. Summer makes me think about childhood and long hours of freedom, so something nostalgic and/or about kids, I guess. Kir Bulychev stories? Monday Starts on Saturday? Mostly Russian books come to mind, but if I had to pick an English one, hmmm, not sure, something by Diana Wynne Jones? Or something cheerful and forward-momentum-y, like, Going Postal or A Civil Campaign (although I wouldn't recommend starting either of the series there).
9. Favorite non fiction book?
I really like Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The subject matter can be creepy and sad, but he writes about it in an uplifting way -- not fake-uplifting, but human brains are amazing things, and Sacks writes about all his patience with such caring and humanity.
10. The most expensive book you’ve ever bought?
I have never bought an exhorbitantly expensive book, I think -- no out of print editions or fancy illustrated compilations or anything of the sort. Or, rather, I've never bought an exhorbitantly expensive book FOR PLEASURE, so the most expensive book I bought is bound to be one of my chemistry/engineering textbooks, which were like $200-300 apiece.
11. Know any good book playlists?
I don't understand this... I never listen to music when reading. Or is this asking something else?
ETA: Actually, heh, now that I'm thinking about it, one book series I can think of that has an actual honest-to-goodness playlist -- with links to YouTube videos in the back -- is Lia Silver's Prisoner and Partner, who have a DJ as a protagonist, and thus an actual soundtrack of sorts :) I can't say I share DJ's taste in music (I actually really don't XD) but it's an entertaining concept.
12. What is your favourite book from your country?
I'm not a huge fan of classic Russian literature, but I do love Bulgakov's Master i Margarita a lot -- one of my very favorite books (and he's not only from my country -- assuming we mean Russia/USSR -- he actually lived in my home city.)
13. What books are you waiting to come out now?
The Hanging Tree (RoL #6 -- which has now been pushed to Jan 2017?!?! and even the UK version is late October, ARGH, write your books on time, Ben!), Vallista (next Vlad Taltos book, probably 12-18 months out, but Brust just recently tweeted that he'd finished his draft, yay, so maybe less??), Peace Talks (the next Dresden Files, but I don't think it has a release date yet), Thorn of Emberlain (Locke Lamora #4, in September), League of Dragons (with trepidation, because I doubt very much it will be a satisfactory conclusion) -- only two weeks to go! Oh, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (July!). And at some point the Kvothe conclusion, too. And Winds of Winter? I'm increasingly skeptical that I'll still care about Winds of Winter by the time it comes out, which is sad.
14. Name a series that gets better over time.
Monotonically better? I'm not sure there is such a thing. But Dresden Files definitely gets better once it hits the middle part. Mature Discworld is much better than early Discworld (althought the last couple of books don't continue this trend, for obvious but distressing reasons). And then I think there are series that are stronger when viewed as a whole than taken book by book, like the Dragaera edifice, and (much more tidily) Warchild and sequels.
15. Name a series that gets worse over time.
Way too many of these, probably... Anne Rice's Vampire series are one example where I jumped off after a while. And I've steered clear of even starting a bunch of series where I heard this was the case, like the Anita Blake books.
Mostly, though, I find there are series that build to a high point (at least for my taste) and then dip down from there; ASOIAF is a good example -- ASoS is the pinnacle, I think, and then it kinda..., Temeraire hit the high point for me with Victory of Eagles and has sort of wiggled around since then but even the books I liked never achieved that level again; Dresden Files hits its peak for me around Dead Beat/Proven Guilty, and even my beloved Vorkosigan Saga has been winding down since the crest of Memory/A Civil Campaign.
**
And a quick little random character meme:
Write down 15 characters, randomize them, then answer the questions, in order
1. Magneto (X-Men)
2. Gandalf (LotR)
3. Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons)
4. Toph Beifong (AtLA)
5. Kevan Lannister (ASOIAF)
6. Cordelia Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga)
7. Zerika IV (Dragaera)
8. Tony Stark (MCU)
9. Moist von Lipwig (Discworld)
10. Ted Lender (Kosmooluhi)
11. Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5)
12. William Laurence (Temeraire)
13. Zoe Washburne (Firefly)
14. Willow Rosenberg (BtVS)
15. Fiona of Amber (Chronicles of Amber)
1. Your mom/dad: Magneto (X-Men). Do I get awesome superpowers as a result? Please say I do!
2. Your sibling: Gandalf (LotR). Um, well. Lots of wise advice, I suppose?
3. Your grandma/grandpa: Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons). I can sort of imagine grandma Lisa. She would always be reading the latest academic journals in her not-quite-retirement, and volunteering for a million different causes, 75% of them to do with animals and the environment, and she would have vegan cookies for visiting grandkids, as well as sage advice.
4. Haunts you: Toph Beifong (AtLA). AHAHA, Toph would make the BEST trolly poltergeist, and you know it!
5. Your boyfriend/girlfriend: Kevan Lannister (ASOIAF). Nah, too boring. I love Kevan, but we are way too similar, and this would never go anywhere.
6. Your ex: Cordelia Naismith (Vorkosigan Saga). I adore Cordelia, but not really like that. Although I do find redheaded women particularly beautiful. (Too bad a threesome with Aral would be out of the question; that might actually make this randomizer suggestion worthwhile...)
7. Your best friend: Zerika IV (Dragaera). Actually, yeah, I could see us getting along.
8. Proposed to you: Tony Stark (MCU). Doubt very much he meant it. He was probably drunk at the time, or thought he was dying, or something else stupid.
9. Your boss: Moist von Lipwig (Discworld). OH GOD. Moist with his energy and his forward momentum would be such an exhausting boss XD
10. The random person you met at the bar: Ted Lerner (Kosmooluhi). Sounds about right, actually! XD We can bond about beer.
11. Your rival: Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5). Is this about Cordelia? (Since I kind of doubt it's about Kevan, and we wouldn't be rivals professionally, since I'm not interested in his line of work, either of them). If it is about Cordelia, then the two of them have my blessing, in fact.
12. Gave you your first kiss: William Laurence (Temeraire). HIGHLY unlikely. Like, least likely of all the people on this list, tbh.
13. Drunk and singing karaoke with: Zoe Washburne (Firefly). ...she would have to be epically drunk. I think she is the Firefly crew member I can LEAST envision singing karaoke.
14. Played 7 minutes in heaven with: Willow Rosenberg (BtVS). Noooo, too weird, 'cos she reminds me too much of myself. Although at least this meme seems to be consistent in making me out to be narcissistic and into redheaded women.
15. Gave you your favorite dessert: Fiona (Chronicles of Amber). Is it poisoned? It's probably poisoned.