Books (May 2014)
It's a Punderful Life by Gemma Correll
Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswald
Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery and a Masquerade by Walter Kirn
The Windflower by Laura London
Birds of Prey 5: Between Darkness and Dawn by Gail Simone, Ed Benes, Ron Adrian, Jim Fern, Eric Battle, Eduardo Barreto
It's a Punderful Life by Gemma Correll
ADORABLE. PUNTASTIC. My favourite remains Complex Carbohydrates.
Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswald
About a third of the way through I sent Ro (
littlerhymes) an email saying "I started a Victorian steampunk-y queer detective novel this morning and OMG it has ALL MY TROPES and I just want to read instead of anything else right now". Not kidding about the tropes: best friends with benefits! Pining! Victorian era detectives! Science and magic! Public school boys past! etc etc. I would read definitely read more in this series.
Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery and a Masquerade by Walter Kirn
Part true crime writing, part memoir, in Blood Will Out novellist Walter Kirn tells the story of his decade-long friendship the man he originally knew as Clark Rockefeller, who would be found to be a con-man guilty of a long-unsolved murder in 2009. I barely know where to start with this one. The story is fantastical - it's amazing to think that someone as abrupt, strange, narcissistic and boastful as Rockefeller (actually Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter) could've fooled so many for so long - and the stories Kirn tells of their interactions are both pathetic and sad and darkly funny.
While ostensibly about Gerhartsreiter, framed around the reporting of his murder trial, the writing turns inward mostly, as Kirn examines himself, and what could've drawn him to stay friends with this strange, often unlikeable and unfathomable man, and to have not noticed the enormity of his deceit over 10 years. This has the potential to be too much navel-gazing, but Kirn's writing is lyrical and just self-aware enough about his own faults, that it stays an involving read. It's also fascinating to reflect on this story through the lens of the literary and popcultural references that Clark favoured (Highsmith's Ripley, Gatsby being amongst them); an ourosboros of influence that could've, should've given his game away .
The Windflower by Laura London
I read this romance novel as rec'd in an NPR piece that suggested that while very much a product of its era in its choice of tropes, "(e)very element is subverted or twisted. Each time a plot cliche seems imminent, something unexpected happens instead." I don't know if I completely agree - but I do think it's worth reading if you enjoy historical romance fiction.
Set in 1812, gentle Merry is living a quiet, shunned life as the ward of her British-loving aunt in the middle of a proudly patriotic American colony. After suffering the shock of an unwanted marriage arrangement, she gets kidnapped at sea and, in fear of the consequences to her American-spy brother and cousins, refuses to give up her identity and so becomes the prisoner of the fearsome pirate Rand Morgan. While on the boat, she has a lust/hate relationship with Morgan's half-brother Devon, and gradually becomes cherished favourite of all the hardened pirates on the boat, including the caustic, troubled Cat, all while trying to hide the secret of her involvement in the wanted notices for these pirates.
Oh boy, writing that all out, it seems cracktastic - and it's even more tangled than that sounds, with added plots/themes of revenge, slavery and bondage, past abuses, and secret identities all getting a guernsey. And it's overwritten and overwrought in its sex scenes - I honestly did not make it through one without skimming because the prose gets so purple and so vague at the same time. BUT - and it's a big but - everything else is pretty great. The relationship stuff - between Devon and Merry, between Devon and his family, between Merry and her family, between the pirates, between Rand and Cat, and so on - it's so meaty and enjoyable and full of feels. And that totally redeemed it for me, even as the main romance didn't quite satisfy.
PS No one has written fic for Rand and Cat that I can find, and this is a tragedy....Yuletide?
Birds of Prey: Between Darkness and Dawn by Gail Simone, Ed Benes, Ron Adrian, Jim Fern, Eric Battle, Eduardo Barreto
More Birds of Prey! Huntress goes on her first mission to infiltrate a group of religious cultists suspected of causing troubled teens to kill themselves - and confronts (and by extension, almost gets Oracle killed by) a superhero-hating old enemy; meanwhile, Black Canary struggles with the fact Oracle thinks Savant and Creote can be useful on their side. I didn't enjoy the mystery/plots as much in this one, but it does advance the main relationships and sets up for further showdowns so I'm looking forward to reading the next one. (Fair warning - the art is even more eye-poppingly filled with gratuitous cleavage and groin and butt shots.)
And now, I need a long weekend to recharge after a great long weekend of
sinpozium, dinner with friends, and film festival movies. *sigh*
Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswald
Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery and a Masquerade by Walter Kirn
The Windflower by Laura London
Birds of Prey 5: Between Darkness and Dawn by Gail Simone, Ed Benes, Ron Adrian, Jim Fern, Eric Battle, Eduardo Barreto
It's a Punderful Life by Gemma Correll
ADORABLE. PUNTASTIC. My favourite remains Complex Carbohydrates.
Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswald
About a third of the way through I sent Ro (
littlerhymes) an email saying "I started a Victorian steampunk-y queer detective novel this morning and OMG it has ALL MY TROPES and I just want to read instead of anything else right now". Not kidding about the tropes: best friends with benefits! Pining! Victorian era detectives! Science and magic! Public school boys past! etc etc. I would read definitely read more in this series.
Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery and a Masquerade by Walter Kirn
Part true crime writing, part memoir, in Blood Will Out novellist Walter Kirn tells the story of his decade-long friendship the man he originally knew as Clark Rockefeller, who would be found to be a con-man guilty of a long-unsolved murder in 2009. I barely know where to start with this one. The story is fantastical - it's amazing to think that someone as abrupt, strange, narcissistic and boastful as Rockefeller (actually Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter) could've fooled so many for so long - and the stories Kirn tells of their interactions are both pathetic and sad and darkly funny.
While ostensibly about Gerhartsreiter, framed around the reporting of his murder trial, the writing turns inward mostly, as Kirn examines himself, and what could've drawn him to stay friends with this strange, often unlikeable and unfathomable man, and to have not noticed the enormity of his deceit over 10 years. This has the potential to be too much navel-gazing, but Kirn's writing is lyrical and just self-aware enough about his own faults, that it stays an involving read. It's also fascinating to reflect on this story through the lens of the literary and popcultural references that Clark favoured (Highsmith's Ripley, Gatsby being amongst them); an ourosboros of influence that could've, should've given his game away .
The Windflower by Laura London
I read this romance novel as rec'd in an NPR piece that suggested that while very much a product of its era in its choice of tropes, "(e)very element is subverted or twisted. Each time a plot cliche seems imminent, something unexpected happens instead." I don't know if I completely agree - but I do think it's worth reading if you enjoy historical romance fiction.
Set in 1812, gentle Merry is living a quiet, shunned life as the ward of her British-loving aunt in the middle of a proudly patriotic American colony. After suffering the shock of an unwanted marriage arrangement, she gets kidnapped at sea and, in fear of the consequences to her American-spy brother and cousins, refuses to give up her identity and so becomes the prisoner of the fearsome pirate Rand Morgan. While on the boat, she has a lust/hate relationship with Morgan's half-brother Devon, and gradually becomes cherished favourite of all the hardened pirates on the boat, including the caustic, troubled Cat, all while trying to hide the secret of her involvement in the wanted notices for these pirates.
Oh boy, writing that all out, it seems cracktastic - and it's even more tangled than that sounds, with added plots/themes of revenge, slavery and bondage, past abuses, and secret identities all getting a guernsey. And it's overwritten and overwrought in its sex scenes - I honestly did not make it through one without skimming because the prose gets so purple and so vague at the same time. BUT - and it's a big but - everything else is pretty great. The relationship stuff - between Devon and Merry, between Devon and his family, between Merry and her family, between the pirates, between Rand and Cat, and so on - it's so meaty and enjoyable and full of feels. And that totally redeemed it for me, even as the main romance didn't quite satisfy.
PS No one has written fic for Rand and Cat that I can find, and this is a tragedy....Yuletide?
Birds of Prey: Between Darkness and Dawn by Gail Simone, Ed Benes, Ron Adrian, Jim Fern, Eric Battle, Eduardo Barreto
More Birds of Prey! Huntress goes on her first mission to infiltrate a group of religious cultists suspected of causing troubled teens to kill themselves - and confronts (and by extension, almost gets Oracle killed by) a superhero-hating old enemy; meanwhile, Black Canary struggles with the fact Oracle thinks Savant and Creote can be useful on their side. I didn't enjoy the mystery/plots as much in this one, but it does advance the main relationships and sets up for further showdowns so I'm looking forward to reading the next one. (Fair warning - the art is even more eye-poppingly filled with gratuitous cleavage and groin and butt shots.)
And now, I need a long weekend to recharge after a great long weekend of
sinpozium, dinner with friends, and film festival movies. *sigh*