[Book Reviews] Books at least partially about Europe

[thewronghands]

Hello, Internet! Madly behind on book reviews again. This time I'm splitting by literary geography. Next up, North America.

Comments

[rosefox]

It belongs to the genre of "set in a vaguely Victorian era, but less awful" -- readers familiar with the historical era on which it is based may keep twitching, waiting for the narrator's gender to hold her back more than it does.

The conceit, if you read between the lines, is that there's no Christianity--the Hebrew calendar is used, people go to temple for religious services, etc. I think that's meant to explain some of the cultural differences. Unfortunately, it threw me out of the book because none of the characters felt Jewish at all, and the existence of the Lord This and Lady That social structure is derived from medieval kingships that were inextricably entwined with the church, and I had so many questions that were not at all addressed even in passing.

[thewronghands]

Huh, I did get that there was no Christianity but did not get that people were supposed to be Jewish, I thought it was just kind of a made up generiligion. I will keep this in mind when I read Tropic of Serpents, which I have bought but not yet read. Thanks!

My jury is still out on whether Victorian-but-less-awful is good as a whole, in that it allows people to have a fairer world but still play with history and the evolution of technology, or bad in that it minimizes all the problems with that era in a way that leads to forgetting or erasure and adds to our subconscious ignorance. But it's not a favorite genre of mine... I can't forget how they totally fucked over Ireland at the time, and that often ruins the fun of it for me. So I don't read a lot there, and therefore don't have broadly read opinions.

[sirena73]

The next two Marie Brennan books are, I think, a bit better than the first. Second one drags a little, but I really enjoyed the third one. Sea dragons FTW!