fictionary update #302: with extra murder
Four books, three of which are murder mysteries (although one isn’t a whodunit so much as a, if I may coin a word, whyhedunit).
Yoon Ha Lee, Ninefox Gambit: I knew there was a possibility I wouldn’t like this, but I thought that would be because it would turn out to be too dark. I wasn’t expecting the worldbuilding to be so inscrutable and confusing. I started reading at the end of April, and every time I’d open it, I’d only get through a few pages.
I pushed myself to keep reading, first because some books need more time before they “click”, and then because I was curious about what the twists and the answers would be. But there was no click. I was still somewhat confused and the story didn’t encourage me to care enough about the characters… I wouldn’t say I disliked it, I just don’t have any strong feelings.
:/
I really don’t know if I will read the sequels or not.He sounded like a good commander. Of course everyone had thought he was a good commander until he stopped being a good human being.
She was so tired, and she had no idea what, if anything, she had done right. In mathematics you had peer review, definite proofs and answers, but war was nothing but uncertainty multiplied by uncertainty.
Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures: Discworld’s take on Hollywood -- here, called “Holy Wood”. At first, I didn’t care one way or the other for the characters (and at first there weren’t any female characters), but they grew on me. Pratchett is being very clever and very funny, and I really enjoyed it.
Also, I was pleased to see Detritus from before he joined the Watch (I like the accent Nigel Planer gives him), and I was surprised that Gaspode the talking dog, who had annoyed me in the Watch books he’d appears in, was not annoying. If the abnormal goes on long enough it becomes the normal. It was just that, when you came to explain it to a third party, it sounded odd.
“Why is it all Mr. Dibbler’s films are set against the background of a world gone mad?” said the dwarf.
Soll’s eyes narrowed. “Because Mr. Dibbler,” he growled, “is a very observant man.”
Because inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.
Susanna Kearsley, Every Secret Thing: Kate is a journalist working in the UK when she’s approached by an old man who has a story he wants to tell her. An old murder, but one still deserving of justice, he says -- before he’s hit by a car. His death spurns Kate on to investigate, and she soon realises that asking questions she is putting not only herself in danger.
I stayed up far too late reading this. There were a lot of things I loved: the sense of danger, the descriptions of scenery and places, the history -- the story about what happened during WWII, the mystery, the romantic moments. But I think the story could have worked just as well if fewer people had been murdered in the present.
It needn’t have diminished the tension in any way, and would have been more satisfying. I keep brainstorming what should have happened instead! And there are complications which heighten the tension but also make it difficult to, satisfyingly, serve justice.
All the murders reminded me of why I tread warily around contemporary mysteries. (Not my cup of tea.) That said, I’d read any number of books with extra murder if they were written by Kearlsey. I really like how she writes.“Just mind you keep your wits about you,” Margot told me now, her voice not managing to hide her amusement. “People like the Damien-Pryces are bound to have a pile in the country” -- which was British-speak, I knew, for ‘giant house’ -- “and I’ve seen first-hand how property affects you. You go all wobbly,” she accused me, “in great houses.”
“I do not.”
“You do. I was with you at Blenheim, remember. Last year.”
“That’s different. Blenheim is a palace.”
I couldn’t see the lighthouse, but I saw the long, straight line of Lisbon’s harbour wall stretched like an arrow pointing out to the Atlantic, to the whitecaps faintly visible beyond the mirror stillness of the bay. Even the clouds didn’t dare venture past that stillness. They kept farther out, like great plumes of spray tossed in the air by the ocean, enraged that it couldn’t come near.
Ellie Marney, Every Word: Rachel and Mycroft are nearly halfway through their final year of school when, without any warning, Mycroft heads overseas to assist his boss. It’s an investigation involving not only a stolen Shakespeare folio but a carjacking similar to the one which killed Mycroft’s parents. So Rachel, with the help of her brother and his girlfriend, buys an airfare to London so she can be Mycroft’s moral support. Whether he wants here there or not.
The Australian setting was a big part of the appeal of Every Breath, so I was a little disappointed that this book took its characters to the most clichéd city ever for a murder investigation. But this is an engaging YA mystery. The tension shifts and builds, first arising from Rachel’s relationship with Mycroft and then from the dangerous situation she finds herself in. Rachel gets to visit Oxford (and I briefly contemplated whether I could head off on an impromptu overseas trip). I like Rachel’s relationship with her brother Mike, and the way Mycroft deals with the answers about his past. And I’m not going to say no to snuggling for warmth and comfort, nope not me.
So I’m not going to complain.
Oh, no, wait, I am! I found it unconvincing that Rachel and Mycroft didn’t have impending exams. (I know how their schooling system works!) Also, one of the twists was very obvious -- and I know this is for teenagers, but I’d read stacks of murder mysteries by the time I was in my final year of school, and if you expect your readers to cope with kidnappers who engage in torture, even if it’s fade-to-black torture, then I think you should also expect some of them to be genre-savvy.
But in all honesty, those things didn’t stop me from enjoying this book. The only reason I haven’t immediately requested Every Move from the library is because I have too many other things to read first.
Originally @ Dreamwidth.
Yoon Ha Lee, Ninefox Gambit: I knew there was a possibility I wouldn’t like this, but I thought that would be because it would turn out to be too dark. I wasn’t expecting the worldbuilding to be so inscrutable and confusing. I started reading at the end of April, and every time I’d open it, I’d only get through a few pages.
I pushed myself to keep reading, first because some books need more time before they “click”, and then because I was curious about what the twists and the answers would be. But there was no click. I was still somewhat confused and the story didn’t encourage me to care enough about the characters… I wouldn’t say I disliked it, I just don’t have any strong feelings.
:/
I really don’t know if I will read the sequels or not.He sounded like a good commander. Of course everyone had thought he was a good commander until he stopped being a good human being.
She was so tired, and she had no idea what, if anything, she had done right. In mathematics you had peer review, definite proofs and answers, but war was nothing but uncertainty multiplied by uncertainty.
Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures: Discworld’s take on Hollywood -- here, called “Holy Wood”. At first, I didn’t care one way or the other for the characters (and at first there weren’t any female characters), but they grew on me. Pratchett is being very clever and very funny, and I really enjoyed it.
Also, I was pleased to see Detritus from before he joined the Watch (I like the accent Nigel Planer gives him), and I was surprised that Gaspode the talking dog, who had annoyed me in the Watch books he’d appears in, was not annoying. If the abnormal goes on long enough it becomes the normal. It was just that, when you came to explain it to a third party, it sounded odd.
“Why is it all Mr. Dibbler’s films are set against the background of a world gone mad?” said the dwarf.
Soll’s eyes narrowed. “Because Mr. Dibbler,” he growled, “is a very observant man.”
Because inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.
Susanna Kearsley, Every Secret Thing: Kate is a journalist working in the UK when she’s approached by an old man who has a story he wants to tell her. An old murder, but one still deserving of justice, he says -- before he’s hit by a car. His death spurns Kate on to investigate, and she soon realises that asking questions she is putting not only herself in danger.
I stayed up far too late reading this. There were a lot of things I loved: the sense of danger, the descriptions of scenery and places, the history -- the story about what happened during WWII, the mystery, the romantic moments. But I think the story could have worked just as well if fewer people had been murdered in the present.
It needn’t have diminished the tension in any way, and would have been more satisfying. I keep brainstorming what should have happened instead! And there are complications which heighten the tension but also make it difficult to, satisfyingly, serve justice.
All the murders reminded me of why I tread warily around contemporary mysteries. (Not my cup of tea.) That said, I’d read any number of books with extra murder if they were written by Kearlsey. I really like how she writes.“Just mind you keep your wits about you,” Margot told me now, her voice not managing to hide her amusement. “People like the Damien-Pryces are bound to have a pile in the country” -- which was British-speak, I knew, for ‘giant house’ -- “and I’ve seen first-hand how property affects you. You go all wobbly,” she accused me, “in great houses.”
“I do not.”
“You do. I was with you at Blenheim, remember. Last year.”
“That’s different. Blenheim is a palace.”
I couldn’t see the lighthouse, but I saw the long, straight line of Lisbon’s harbour wall stretched like an arrow pointing out to the Atlantic, to the whitecaps faintly visible beyond the mirror stillness of the bay. Even the clouds didn’t dare venture past that stillness. They kept farther out, like great plumes of spray tossed in the air by the ocean, enraged that it couldn’t come near.
Ellie Marney, Every Word: Rachel and Mycroft are nearly halfway through their final year of school when, without any warning, Mycroft heads overseas to assist his boss. It’s an investigation involving not only a stolen Shakespeare folio but a carjacking similar to the one which killed Mycroft’s parents. So Rachel, with the help of her brother and his girlfriend, buys an airfare to London so she can be Mycroft’s moral support. Whether he wants here there or not.
The Australian setting was a big part of the appeal of Every Breath, so I was a little disappointed that this book took its characters to the most clichéd city ever for a murder investigation. But this is an engaging YA mystery. The tension shifts and builds, first arising from Rachel’s relationship with Mycroft and then from the dangerous situation she finds herself in. Rachel gets to visit Oxford (and I briefly contemplated whether I could head off on an impromptu overseas trip). I like Rachel’s relationship with her brother Mike, and the way Mycroft deals with the answers about his past. And I’m not going to say no to snuggling for warmth and comfort, nope not me.
So I’m not going to complain.
Oh, no, wait, I am! I found it unconvincing that Rachel and Mycroft didn’t have impending exams. (I know how their schooling system works!) Also, one of the twists was very obvious -- and I know this is for teenagers, but I’d read stacks of murder mysteries by the time I was in my final year of school, and if you expect your readers to cope with kidnappers who engage in torture, even if it’s fade-to-black torture, then I think you should also expect some of them to be genre-savvy.
But in all honesty, those things didn’t stop me from enjoying this book. The only reason I haven’t immediately requested Every Move from the library is because I have too many other things to read first.
Originally @ Dreamwidth.