New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear

[meganbmoore]

It begins in 1899 with a vampire detective aboard a Zeppelin, migrating to the colonies, and ends in 1903 with Tesla and Paris. I say this first and in relative isolation because there are a few people who won’t care about anything I have to say beyond that.

A collection of six stories ranging from short story to novella length, creating a

Comments

[lady_ganesh]

Someone stole your ramble.

[meganbmoore]

AND THE REST OF MY POST!!!!!!!!

*grumps and fixes*

IT DID THIS TO ME YESTERDAY TOO!!!!

[meganbmoore]

IT BE FIXED!

[lady_ganesh]

Sounds interesting!

[etrangere]

I find this much easier to swallow than the usual version. I mean, thanks to biology, it isn’t as much of an issue for females, but how on Earth would male vampires have actual intercourse anyway?
I find it depends of how exactly vampirism is described. If it's a very straight version of the trope, I'll... be bored anyway so I won't care much besides rolling my eyes a lot. If it's something more creative, it depends how it's handled and of the rationales behind. Friedman did two novels with vampires for example, Season of Madness and the Coldfire Trilogy (not counting the stuff she wrote for Vampire the Masquerade ;), both are VERY different versions, and in one case intercourse was possible, and in the other totally impossible (although not for biological reasons). In both cases, it made total sense.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, most vampire stories bore me, but sometimes I can be entertained enough.

But most go with the "soulless undead, unaging, yadda yadda" varieties, and I'm like "but...how does he...?"

[etrangere]

There's a French saying for that kind of explanation : TGCM = Ta Gueule C'est Magique = Shut Up It's Magical ;)

I agree with you, if one's supposedly little more than a magically animated corpse, it makes no sense.

[meganbmoore]

I think vampires can be interesting, and there are good vampire stories. I also think they're way overhyped, and that most vampire stories are too obsessed with emo woobies falling for girls centuries younger than them for me toreally care.

'Tis a good book.

[estara]

However this ending left us feeling, ebear is already writing the follow-up. I think so far the title is Seven for a Secret. I liked the ending (in ebear's universe there is never such a thing as a free lunch for any of her heroes), but I still got upset about Jack.

[meganbmoore]

Well, I think what happened to Jack was set up in the first story, and alluded to a bit in the others. I think it was a case of his kind of romanticism not really having a place in that world.

[estara]

Hmmm, it was just a bit too much for me after what happened to David.

[meganbmoore]

I think that was the point. Evie and David couldn't take the immortality and everyone dying or moving on anymore, and that's why they always moved on. Sebastien clung to mortals, expecting them to always leave him behind. Jack didn't follow the rules of that world and stayed, and eventually paid the price. I'm kind of thinking of Jack the way I did what's-his-face (Elaine's husband) in Promethean Age: trying to be the heroic/romantic figure normal for the genre, but there's no real place for it. So he's the one who dies.

But then, I'm one of those who would usually rather the author stomp on my heart for a fitting ending than give me a happy or ambiguous one to avoid that.

[darkelf105]

Cool! ::orders from library::.

[meganbmoore]

'Tis good.