Reviews, the fantasy edition
Wow, a bunch of fiction piled up while I wasn't looking. To spare your screens, I'll do the fantasy now, others in a bit.
Peter David, Sir Apropos of Nothing and The Woad to Wuin, both fantasies starring the determinedly antiheroic Apropos. Usually I require my protagonists to have some redeeming qualities, but Apropos repeats that he's a licentious coward so often that, as David doubtless hopes, you can forgive him for it. It doesn't hurt that David is a pretty clever writer, though he does rely too much on bad puns, as you can see. Apropos has some seriously bad luck in life as he tries to find the man who raped his mother, siring him, and also the man who killed his mother, years later; there's a squick warning. Wryly written, but covering a lot of nasty topics. The second book in the series, Woad, starts with a painfully bad send-up of the Lord of the Rings cycle, but it gets better after that.
Parke Godwin, Firelord: I got this version of the King Arthur story because evenbiggerdog recommended it. I'm not a big Arthur fan, with the exception of Mage, so this didn't grab me particularly, but it was cleverly written and would be a good addition to an Arthurian collection. Godwin also has one of the best descriptions of a floppy-haired boy I've ever seen, in this instance Trystan, as helplessly and determinedly attractive to women who can never have him.
Nancy Kress, The Golden Grove: Before Kress wrote kick-ass sf focusing on smart women and tough choices, she tried fantasy about same, here Arachne ruling an island where the spiders spin matchless silk. But the spiders are deformed and dying, and there's change in the wind. A grim tale of a woman whose dreams are destroyed and her dogged refusal to see that there might be other dreams, this lacks Kress's later flair.
Jean Lorrah, Blood Will Tell: When I was young, I loved Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Sime/Gen series, in which Jean Lorrah played for several books. I decided to see what Lorrah had been up to since her odd Savage Empire series in the 1980s. No good, is the answer. This terrible vampire novel, starring Mary Sue and her perfect lover, bored me terribly, even when it turned out that her lover's perfection was not all it seemed. I think that in better hands this plot might have engaged me more, but I was so turned off by the "romance" that I didn't care when things became more complicated in the last eighth of the book.
Lynn Flewelling, Hidden Warrior, sequel to The Bone Doll's Twin: Prince Tobin has been raised as a boy, his true sex hidden by magic even from him to protect him from his uncle the King, who has slaughtered every woman of the line to prevent the prophecy of a Queen's rule from coming true. In this middle book of what is probably a trilogy, Tobin begins to accept his destiny, as things get dicier for the kingdom of Illior. Oh, and I think he's falling in love with his squire, who only likes girls and thinks Tobin's a boy. Good, not-quite-clean fun, with palace politics and strange magics galore.
Stephen King, The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower I: King's publishers are reissuing all four previous Dark Tower books in preparation for the publication of the last three, one later this year and the last two in 2004. The Gunslinger is the only one that has been revised, so I bought a copy of the new version. I firmly believe that King will be taught as a major twentieth-century American writer in the centuries to come, but somehow, the Dark Tower books, which wear their mythic status on their sleeves, seem the least likely of his works to survive the test of time. The Gunslinger is a book about a hard, despairing man at the end of the world, maybe all worlds, and a lot of things are mysterious. As usual, King is at his best when describing the terrors of childhood, the small betrayals that all adults perpetrate on children through love and hate and indifference.
Diana Wynne Jones, Cart and Cwidder, Book I of the Dalemark Quartet: I admit it - I'm a sucker for Jones's Chrestomanci books, about worlds that are just like ours, except that magic works, and the Chrestomanci tries to keep things in balance. Cart and Cwidder is set in a far different fantasy universe, in which a family of traveling musicians faces trouble due to a political clash between the North and the South. Jones is matter-of-fact about the terrible things that happen to families, but I don't think I'll have a full opinion until I finish the series. Right now, I like Chrestomanci better, because the kids in his worlds are having more fun.
Tanya Huff, Fifth Quarter and No Quarter: Huff has several more of these Quarter books set in a fantasy world where magic is divided into four, or maybe five, types corresponding to Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water, and magic-users can communicate with one or more, depending on their talents. These two books focus on Bannon and Vree, brother-and-sister assassins whose latest mission goes horribly wrong, as their target steals Bannon's body, leaving Bannon and Vree sharing Vree's. They set off after the sorcerer, which is desertion, and have many adventures. The hook of Fifth Quarter is that Vree really wants to fuck Bannon, and finds herself in an uneasy alliance with the sorcerer in Bannon's body, which complicates things even more. The angst was tasty, and the characters did a lot of growing up, but the overall world didn't much appeal to me. As is my pattern, I like Huff's sf, Valor's Choice and The Better Part of Valor a lot better (what is it with her and these series names? I'm not even going into the vampire books). Those two also star a conflicted, strong woman with romantic troubles, but she starts out an adult, unlike Vree, and works in a larger military team, which I like.
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: I'm possibly the last person in fandom to read these, barring those who refuse. I couldn't get through Sorcerer's Stone, mostly because I kept comparing it unfavorably to the Chrestomanci books, so GoF's generally acceptable prose was a pleasant surprise. I've hopelessly missed the boat on the fandom, but I do have more respect for Rowling's revelations of increasing layers of complexity in the wizarding world. On the other hand, I agree with ajhalluk that the Weasley twins are dangerous bullies, not cute at all as the reader is apparently supposed to think, I don't like plump = ineffectual at best and bad at worst, and the happiness of house elves does have a whiff of Gone With the Wind about it.
Peter David, Sir Apropos of Nothing and The Woad to Wuin, both fantasies starring the determinedly antiheroic Apropos. Usually I require my protagonists to have some redeeming qualities, but Apropos repeats that he's a licentious coward so often that, as David doubtless hopes, you can forgive him for it. It doesn't hurt that David is a pretty clever writer, though he does rely too much on bad puns, as you can see. Apropos has some seriously bad luck in life as he tries to find the man who raped his mother, siring him, and also the man who killed his mother, years later; there's a squick warning. Wryly written, but covering a lot of nasty topics. The second book in the series, Woad, starts with a painfully bad send-up of the Lord of the Rings cycle, but it gets better after that.
Parke Godwin, Firelord: I got this version of the King Arthur story because evenbiggerdog recommended it. I'm not a big Arthur fan, with the exception of Mage, so this didn't grab me particularly, but it was cleverly written and would be a good addition to an Arthurian collection. Godwin also has one of the best descriptions of a floppy-haired boy I've ever seen, in this instance Trystan, as helplessly and determinedly attractive to women who can never have him.
Nancy Kress, The Golden Grove: Before Kress wrote kick-ass sf focusing on smart women and tough choices, she tried fantasy about same, here Arachne ruling an island where the spiders spin matchless silk. But the spiders are deformed and dying, and there's change in the wind. A grim tale of a woman whose dreams are destroyed and her dogged refusal to see that there might be other dreams, this lacks Kress's later flair.
Jean Lorrah, Blood Will Tell: When I was young, I loved Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Sime/Gen series, in which Jean Lorrah played for several books. I decided to see what Lorrah had been up to since her odd Savage Empire series in the 1980s. No good, is the answer. This terrible vampire novel, starring Mary Sue and her perfect lover, bored me terribly, even when it turned out that her lover's perfection was not all it seemed. I think that in better hands this plot might have engaged me more, but I was so turned off by the "romance" that I didn't care when things became more complicated in the last eighth of the book.
Lynn Flewelling, Hidden Warrior, sequel to The Bone Doll's Twin: Prince Tobin has been raised as a boy, his true sex hidden by magic even from him to protect him from his uncle the King, who has slaughtered every woman of the line to prevent the prophecy of a Queen's rule from coming true. In this middle book of what is probably a trilogy, Tobin begins to accept his destiny, as things get dicier for the kingdom of Illior. Oh, and I think he's falling in love with his squire, who only likes girls and thinks Tobin's a boy. Good, not-quite-clean fun, with palace politics and strange magics galore.
Stephen King, The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower I: King's publishers are reissuing all four previous Dark Tower books in preparation for the publication of the last three, one later this year and the last two in 2004. The Gunslinger is the only one that has been revised, so I bought a copy of the new version. I firmly believe that King will be taught as a major twentieth-century American writer in the centuries to come, but somehow, the Dark Tower books, which wear their mythic status on their sleeves, seem the least likely of his works to survive the test of time. The Gunslinger is a book about a hard, despairing man at the end of the world, maybe all worlds, and a lot of things are mysterious. As usual, King is at his best when describing the terrors of childhood, the small betrayals that all adults perpetrate on children through love and hate and indifference.
Diana Wynne Jones, Cart and Cwidder, Book I of the Dalemark Quartet: I admit it - I'm a sucker for Jones's Chrestomanci books, about worlds that are just like ours, except that magic works, and the Chrestomanci tries to keep things in balance. Cart and Cwidder is set in a far different fantasy universe, in which a family of traveling musicians faces trouble due to a political clash between the North and the South. Jones is matter-of-fact about the terrible things that happen to families, but I don't think I'll have a full opinion until I finish the series. Right now, I like Chrestomanci better, because the kids in his worlds are having more fun.
Tanya Huff, Fifth Quarter and No Quarter: Huff has several more of these Quarter books set in a fantasy world where magic is divided into four, or maybe five, types corresponding to Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water, and magic-users can communicate with one or more, depending on their talents. These two books focus on Bannon and Vree, brother-and-sister assassins whose latest mission goes horribly wrong, as their target steals Bannon's body, leaving Bannon and Vree sharing Vree's. They set off after the sorcerer, which is desertion, and have many adventures. The hook of Fifth Quarter is that Vree really wants to fuck Bannon, and finds herself in an uneasy alliance with the sorcerer in Bannon's body, which complicates things even more. The angst was tasty, and the characters did a lot of growing up, but the overall world didn't much appeal to me. As is my pattern, I like Huff's sf, Valor's Choice and The Better Part of Valor a lot better (what is it with her and these series names? I'm not even going into the vampire books). Those two also star a conflicted, strong woman with romantic troubles, but she starts out an adult, unlike Vree, and works in a larger military team, which I like.
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: I'm possibly the last person in fandom to read these, barring those who refuse. I couldn't get through Sorcerer's Stone, mostly because I kept comparing it unfavorably to the Chrestomanci books, so GoF's generally acceptable prose was a pleasant surprise. I've hopelessly missed the boat on the fandom, but I do have more respect for Rowling's revelations of increasing layers of complexity in the wizarding world. On the other hand, I agree with ajhalluk that the Weasley twins are dangerous bullies, not cute at all as the reader is apparently supposed to think, I don't like plump = ineffectual at best and bad at worst, and the happiness of house elves does have a whiff of Gone With the Wind about it.