Book reviews
Thirteenth Scroll by Rebecca Neason: Meh. It's a fairly traditional fantasy novel. The plot is pretty interesting, and it's a quick and easy read, but the characterization and world building suck.
The book starts off with our heroine, Mary Sue Lysandra, angsting over the coming civil war that's interfering with her wedding. Then bandits attack. Her parents and fiancee are killed and she is raped. When she wakes up, she's blind. Why? We don't know. Her eyes haven't been damaged and there's no reference to head trauma. But she's blind. And depressed. So she wanders into the forest, hoping to die, and discovers she has the Sight. She can see what plants are safe to eat. So she finds a cottage and plants a garden and becomes a healer, because she can also see what's wrong with the sick and injured and which plants are good for healing. Also, her Sight let's her see as if she wasn't blind. She has a pet wolf. When she's touching him, she can see through his eyes. But her Sight comes and goes, and she doesn't control it. In spite of this, every time it does go, she panics because she's truly blind now. Also, she's Prophecy's Hand. The fate of the kingdom depends on her. Male lead, a 50-some year old priest, falls in love with her, and she with him, but he's a priest and their love is hopeless, so they shall never speak of it. Just think about it a lot.
The villainess is more interesting, but still pretty flat. She's beautiful, she's a witch, she uses her magic and feminine wiles to get her way, she wants power. She's everything sweet, kind, innocent Lysandra is not.
The author failed World Building 101. Or perhaps dropped the course halfway through. The book starts off in your standard fantasy world. Villages, kings, swords, magic. Then there's some stuff with the church, witchcraft, and old gods. Then suddenly it's Catholicism, complete with a couple Bible passages. At one point a character mentions the Romans. It feels like Neason got tired creating a world, but didn't bother to edit the beginning to make it clear this was a fantasy European kingdom that exists some time in that period where kings were absolute rulers, horses were the fastest way to travel, swords were the preferred way to kill people, and medicine was limited to bandages and plants found in the woods. And when pagan religions were remarkably similar to modern Wicca and the subterranean race forgotten by the surface dwellers spoke Welsh.
I believe this was just Book One in a series. I don't intend to read the sequels.
Touch the Dark by Karen Chance: Decent. Standard modern vampire novel: vampires and other supernatural creatures exist and have their own government and laws, the most important is "don't get found out," a human with special abilities gets involved in the supernatural world. Naturally there's some sex/romance. It's Chance's first novel, and definitely feels like a new writer. If I'd read it in high school I would have loved it. The older and more critical me enjoyed it. There are a few new ideas, but no real twists on the legend. The ending's a little unsatisfying, but the sequel is due out in April. I'll probably read it.
My main problem was that the author sacrifices characterization to move the plot along and have more action scenes, which makes it harder to connect with the characters. For example: early in the book Cassandra (the main character--she's a clairvoyant, of course) is betrayed by a close friend. This bothers her through the whole book, but we only have a few pages of her describing said friend, a brief scene with the character, and then the betrayal. There's no emotional impact for the readers.
Action-wise, it's good. Cassandra is a standard vampire novel heroine, although a little less tough than most. But she's likable. Doesn't automatically hate the assorted supernatural races. She needs help to save the day and isn't an expert anything. She does have loads of power, but doesn't know how to use it. The book's a quick and easy read. There are a few plot holes, but nothing major and it's hard to have time travel without having things not make sense. I have high hopes for both the series and the author. Those on my flist who like the Night World and/or Anita Blake books will probably like it.
The Glory Road by Robert Heinlein: The first novel by Heinlien I've ever read. I didn't dislike it, but didn't think it was wonderful either. It has the opposite problem of the other books. The plot and action suffer because of all the characterization. It's almost as if Heinlein wanted to write a romance and then tried to change it into a fantasy adventure story. The quest isn't nearly as important as the lead characters' interactions, we don't learn the purpose of the quest until near the end, and I didn't care if they succeeded or not. In spite of the emphasis on characters, the love story just sort of happens and the female lead's main character points--that she is ruthless, promiscuous, and manipulative--are rarely shown, just repeated over and over by her and her friend. Once or twice she explains her actions were manipulative, but in such a way that they are justifiable and forgivable, and she seems upset that she may have hurt Oscar by her behavior, in spite of her assertions that she was right.
There was some heavy-handed political commentary thrown in as well. There didn't seem much point to it.
The writing style was good. I'll probably try some more Heinlein. I may have just picked the wrong book for my introduction.
House (general, not episode-specific): Always excellent. But I have a problem with this season's storyline. The cop is Bad. He's abusing his power for revenge. I think it would be more powerful if he were a decent guy, if he was genuinely worried that House would screw up because he was high, or if House had screwed up and was now being called on it. Legally, the cop is in the right. Morally, he's as big of a jerk and bully as House. If the cop was a good guy, that could cause fun conflicting emotions in viewers. But since the cop is only doing this for revenge, no matter what he says, and seems more interested in hurting House than actually getting a case together (if he can freeze House's coworkers' accounts he can do the same to House, but he hasn't because turning them against House is more satisfying), most viewers aren't going to have any trouble siding with House. Especially since hurting Wilson should be punishable by river of piranha.
I'm also surprised no one's bothered to mention that when the surgery temporarily fixed his leg, he wasn't on painkillers. Granted, at the first twinge of pain he went back on them, but the first part is good argument for their "he only takes the pills for the pain" lies they've all been telling.
And finally, another scene from Life with Hedgehog:
Me: Your feet are filthy!
Sophie: I hate baths.
Me: Then stop running in your own poop.
Sophie: I hate it when you clean my feet with the toothbrush.
Me: You've started using your litter box. That's good. Keep it up and you'll need fewer baths.
Sophie: I hate it when you trim my nails.
Me: You'd hate it more if I cut off one of your toes. Hold still.
Sophie: I hate you.
Me: Let's not forget who feeds you. We're done. Keep your feet clean and I won't have to clean them for you. Here, have a cricket, which will hopefully cause you to associate being taken out of your cage with yummy treats.
Sophie: *eats crickets, makes happy purring noise, explores room a little*
Me: Yay! This is good, non-frightened behavior!
Sophie: *hides under bed and refuses to move*
Me: Well, it's a start. Back to your cage and I'm going to bed. Remember, use your litter box! *puts Sophie back and goes to bed*
Sophie: *runs in wheel, poops, and keeps running*
*Next morning I see mess left on wheel*
Me: You don't listen to a word I say, do you?
Sophie: What?
****
We put up our Christmas tree tonight. I took today and tomorrow off work so I can destress and go Christmas shopping. It may not really be possible to do both, but a stressful day failing to find gifts beats going to work.