Sekhu.

[razorsmile]

Bought Elizabeth Bear's Dust. /Nyah-nyah-nyahnyah-nyah/

Just finished page 71 and the setting keeps getting more interesting every time I think about it. Surely diminishing returns will kick in at some point.

Comments

[derekcfpegritz]

Diminishing returns kick in around page 150 when it all proves to be nothing more than an exercise in cliches. I was hoping that there would be some kind of interesting twist to events that would undercut the otherwise played-out generation-ship-gone-medieval storyline, but...nope. It's just yet another generation-ship-gone-medieval storyline.

I seriously have no idea what anyone sees in Elizabeth Bear. She is, at best, a thoroughly-mundane writer who would probably make a lot more money if she stuck to writing old-lady romance novels.

Short version: I disagree.

[razorsmile]

I haven't finished it yet of course so I can't fully comment on your first paragaraph. I must point out though that it's the first book in a (duology? trilogy?) series.

I seriously have no idea what anyone sees in Elizabeth Bear. She is, at best, a thoroughly-mundane writer who would probably make a lot more money if she stuck to writing old-lady romance novels.

... My instinctual response to that is "Awww hell no. You did not just say that here." My pedantic response would be "Hey, she's never written old-lady romance novels of any sort" (unless the Jenny Casey books count*).

My preliminary real response would be "I think you're mistaking her for someone else (an easy mistake, lots of people make it, lots of scifi writers named Elizabeth)."

If you're not, then I'll assume you haven't read Carnival or any of her fantasy stuff.

*and considering it features a protagonist in her late-forties who ends up in a stable three-way relationship with another woman and a man while piloting FTL spacecraft and bringing about a technological

Re: Short version: I disagree.

[derekcfpegritz]

I must take a look at this Jenny Casey book that you mention: it sounds like something that may change my mind concerning Bear. It's always possible that I've just gotten off on the wrong foot with her as an author, simply because I might've only read her weakest stuff so far. The same thing happened to me with Elizabeth Hand: her short stories are awful, yet she is one of my all-time favorite novelists. Seriously, do yourself a favor and track down a copy of Winterlong: it's one of the eeriest post-apocalyptic novels I have EVER read.

However, I find it imperative that I avoid Elizabeth Bear's fantasy work, as I generally find 99.99999% of all fantasy written after the 1950s to be droll, derivative crap. The only fantasy I can stomach these days really is fantastic, in the sense of representing truly phantasmagoric realms of insane, bizarre wonder--such as the works of China Mieville and Steph Swainston. If you haven't read Perdido Street Station yet...whoo, you are missing OUT! If that novel doesn't change your ideals as to what

Re: Short version: I disagree.

[razorsmile]

The Jenny Casey books (Hammered-Scardown-Worldwired) start out looking like cyberpunk but quickly turn into considerably more. They are not the greatest thing since sliced bread (well, except Scardown, that kinda *is*) but they're collectively very solid work with new spins on old tropes (calling them cliches when they're the LEGO blocks of the genre is a trifle unfair). I have a feeling you'll like them and I'm a hundred percent certain *you* will enjoy Scardown. We'll see.

Re: Fantasy

I agree on that score (post-50s fantasy) by and large (China Mieville is good-crazy). Look for Scar Night too by Alan Campbell; it's a bit lightweight but it's fun - amnesiac zombie angels doing Matrix-fu above, within and beneath a city suspended over a bottomless chasm by chains - and the setting is substantially kickass.

Now to Bear. Again, I must say no. The Promethean Age stuff ( my review of Blood & Iron, the first book if you have the time - or, you know, care :D) is some seriously anagogic stuff that plays around with intra- and extra-