Kitty Goes to Washington by Carrie Vaughn
I liked this one a lot; I prefer this werewolf series to Patricia Briggs', I think, and definitely to Jane Lindskold's, though the differing genres has something to do with that. Lindskold's book was good, but as I think I said, it didn't focus on the wolf story enough; too much about politics and succession, and the wolf got lost along the way. Almost the same thing with Patricia Briggs; they don't feel as genuine as these do, more like a serious fairy tale than a story of real people.
This one doesn't do that. this is about real people dealing with real problems -- one of which just happens to be a fur problem, or a dead, blood-drinking problem. The thing I like most about these is that they feel very genuine; it was utterly believable in the first one that a woman who happened to be a werewolf would use her position as a late-night DJ to start talking about supernatural stuff, and if she happened to get a caller who was also a werewolf, it would be hard to keep the secret from getting out -- it made perfect sense. This book also made sense: if there were a government body studying the possibility of werewolves and vampires, it would probably be like the Center for Paranatural Biology, and if it came to the attention of the Senate, it would certainly get picked up by a committee, and everything that happens in the book would naturally progress from there. I loved the Crescent, though I didn't like that Ahmed was so hands-off about everyone else's problems; I understood it, but I like Kitty and I wanted him to be the hero and help her -- and even more, I wanted him to have been helping Fritz. But on the plus side, that is exactly what I want the Gabriel books to be about, at least in the short term: helping the people who come into the bar who are desperate in one way or another. So some of my bitterness was certainly about not being able to take over the story myself and tell the one I want to tell.
I liked the romance, and I really liked that it didn't take over; the ending of the book was perfect. I'm not as fond of Cormac as a character, nor his cousin Ben the lawyer/assistant vampire hunter. I don't buy them. Partly because so far, they haven't done squat in the two books in terms of living up to the badass reputation she has granted them, particularly Cormac. Okay, he can break into places well, but she acts as though he is the deadliest of all, even more dangerous than some of the supernaturals -- and why should I believe that? He hasn't even killed anyone. I liked the psychic, too, and the secret behind Elijah Smith -- though it was a bit of an anticlimax after all the buildup. I don't think it was a bad way for the story to play out, just not enough to justify all the hype. But then again, maybe Elijah Smith isn't gone. I love the fanatic Senator Duke, and I wonder what he'll do next now that he didn't get the proof he wanted of the werewolves' connection to Satan and all.
Man, fundamentalists are scary even in fantasy novels. I should really remember that.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Book #7
Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood
I decided to go with something more serious and literary and stuff, so I read Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood. I love Atwood's writing, what little of it I've seen -- and essay or two in school textbooks and The Handmaid's Tale, one of my favorite books-that-disturbed-me. This one I picked up because it's science fiction, which is cool, and because I absolutely love the title. Both are the names of extinct animals, and are the adopted names of two of the characters (the third goes by both Snowman, as in Abominable, and Thickney, another extinct animal that fits in beautifully: oryx and crake and thickney, crake and thickney, oryx and thickney. Good stuff.).
In the end, I liked this one and I was disturbed by it, though not as disturbed as by The Handmaid's Tale, nor did I like it as much. Atwood has a great talent for speculation; she finds the real flaws in our society and dreams up the worst possible exaggeration of them. You take the sexism and misogyny that underpin so much of our culture, and you make it impossibly evil and vile, and you get the Handmaids; you take our movement towards consumerism and technology as solutions to all of our problems, and you get Oryx and Crake. The big problem I had with this book was the ending. It's a post-apocalyptic scenario, with the human race wiped out completely but for, apparently, Snowman; as the book goes on you realize that he is surrounded by genetic experiments, such as pigoons and rakunks and wolvogs (pig-baboons, racoon-skunks, wolf-dogs) and that his life is utterly pointless and miserable. But what you want to know, of course, is how things got to be like that, how the apocalypse happened; you also want to know why Snowman is so worthless and despondent, but that's secondary. Much of the book is flashbacks that explain the answers to both questions, and the buildup in both issues is really interesting: Snowman, who used to be called Jimmy, had a truly crappy childhood, and his adulthood was not much better. It turns out that as many problems as he has in the post-apocalypse world, he had just as many before the world collapsed, and basically the same ones: he is obsolete and unwanted, and he has no idea how to deal with it. As for the society, it was what made the book disturbing, because it seems to be the way we're heading: toward walled compounds run by corporations, which school, house, and employ the best and brightest, while the lesser people live in squalor and deprivation in the "pleeblands," where cities are overrun and much of the world is dealing with starvation and societal breakdown caused mainly by overpopulation, global warming and climate change. Not fun to read about, though it did make me want to recycle more -- and that's not meant to sound as pathetic as it probably does. We are not at this point yet as a society, and I plan to do everything I can to prevent it.
Anyway, while the flashback stuff was great, the climax happened too quickly and the stuff after the climax -- the falling action according to the plot diagram I have my students do sometimes -- was crappy and too short. Nothing actually gets resolved, and the book ends in Limbo. That was annoying, because too much has changed for me to simply accept the story as is; when the story takes place in our society I can predict what the characters will do with a cliffhanger, which is generally "Make the same mistakes they did before" or, in the less bitter angst-y books, "Learn from their mistakes and be happier overall." But when the entire world has changed over the course of the book -- and though Snowman hasn't really changed, the world certainly has -- I can't simply figure out what comes next, and so the cliffhanger ending becomes simply annoying instead of both annoying and intriguing.
I liked the book, I'm glad I read it. I won't read it again.
I decided to go with something more serious and literary and stuff, so I read Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood. I love Atwood's writing, what little of it I've seen -- and essay or two in school textbooks and The Handmaid's Tale, one of my favorite books-that-disturbed-me. This one I picked up because it's science fiction, which is cool, and because I absolutely love the title. Both are the names of extinct animals, and are the adopted names of two of the characters (the third goes by both Snowman, as in Abominable, and Thickney, another extinct animal that fits in beautifully: oryx and crake and thickney, crake and thickney, oryx and thickney. Good stuff.).
In the end, I liked this one and I was disturbed by it, though not as disturbed as by The Handmaid's Tale, nor did I like it as much. Atwood has a great talent for speculation; she finds the real flaws in our society and dreams up the worst possible exaggeration of them. You take the sexism and misogyny that underpin so much of our culture, and you make it impossibly evil and vile, and you get the Handmaids; you take our movement towards consumerism and technology as solutions to all of our problems, and you get Oryx and Crake. The big problem I had with this book was the ending. It's a post-apocalyptic scenario, with the human race wiped out completely but for, apparently, Snowman; as the book goes on you realize that he is surrounded by genetic experiments, such as pigoons and rakunks and wolvogs (pig-baboons, racoon-skunks, wolf-dogs) and that his life is utterly pointless and miserable. But what you want to know, of course, is how things got to be like that, how the apocalypse happened; you also want to know why Snowman is so worthless and despondent, but that's secondary. Much of the book is flashbacks that explain the answers to both questions, and the buildup in both issues is really interesting: Snowman, who used to be called Jimmy, had a truly crappy childhood, and his adulthood was not much better. It turns out that as many problems as he has in the post-apocalypse world, he had just as many before the world collapsed, and basically the same ones: he is obsolete and unwanted, and he has no idea how to deal with it. As for the society, it was what made the book disturbing, because it seems to be the way we're heading: toward walled compounds run by corporations, which school, house, and employ the best and brightest, while the lesser people live in squalor and deprivation in the "pleeblands," where cities are overrun and much of the world is dealing with starvation and societal breakdown caused mainly by overpopulation, global warming and climate change. Not fun to read about, though it did make me want to recycle more -- and that's not meant to sound as pathetic as it probably does. We are not at this point yet as a society, and I plan to do everything I can to prevent it.
Anyway, while the flashback stuff was great, the climax happened too quickly and the stuff after the climax -- the falling action according to the plot diagram I have my students do sometimes -- was crappy and too short. Nothing actually gets resolved, and the book ends in Limbo. That was annoying, because too much has changed for me to simply accept the story as is; when the story takes place in our society I can predict what the characters will do with a cliffhanger, which is generally "Make the same mistakes they did before" or, in the less bitter angst-y books, "Learn from their mistakes and be happier overall." But when the entire world has changed over the course of the book -- and though Snowman hasn't really changed, the world certainly has -- I can't simply figure out what comes next, and so the cliffhanger ending becomes simply annoying instead of both annoying and intriguing.
I liked the book, I'm glad I read it. I won't read it again.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Book #6
You Suck, by Christopher Moore
I finally read my last Christmas book, and my last Christopher Moore novel (until he writes another one, of course). You Suck, the sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends (which I read last year) was a good one; I liked it better than BsF, for the most part. I loved the blue-dyed hooker, though she got annoying as soon as she turned vamp, and I love the premise that the Animals spent $500,000 on her because they all wanted to "bone a Smurf." Toni was right that both Tommy and Jody are irritating, but Abby Normal made up for all of that, particularly with her badass conversations as recorded in her diary, and her formal descriptions of death and of vampires -- that she continues to call Tommy The Vampyre Flood, and My Dark Master, and refers to herself as one of the Lost Children of the Night and such, bemoaning and reveling in her own power and darkness, while at the same time talking about her need for Mochaccinos and how much she hates her sister and her hilarious gangsta lingo, is just brilliant. Makes the book, for me. Anyway, I liked it a lot. Definitely has a better ending than the first one: I think it's even romantic, and it's certainly the only solution for Tommy and Jody. I love how Moore makes everything work out in the end, though he usually takes out at least one of the characters -- I love that he thought of a way to do that and yet bring them back to their old selves, in this one. I was pissed when Gustavo died, but hey, everything worked out well in the end. Sweet.
I finally read my last Christmas book, and my last Christopher Moore novel (until he writes another one, of course). You Suck, the sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends (which I read last year) was a good one; I liked it better than BsF, for the most part. I loved the blue-dyed hooker, though she got annoying as soon as she turned vamp, and I love the premise that the Animals spent $500,000 on her because they all wanted to "bone a Smurf." Toni was right that both Tommy and Jody are irritating, but Abby Normal made up for all of that, particularly with her badass conversations as recorded in her diary, and her formal descriptions of death and of vampires -- that she continues to call Tommy The Vampyre Flood, and My Dark Master, and refers to herself as one of the Lost Children of the Night and such, bemoaning and reveling in her own power and darkness, while at the same time talking about her need for Mochaccinos and how much she hates her sister and her hilarious gangsta lingo, is just brilliant. Makes the book, for me. Anyway, I liked it a lot. Definitely has a better ending than the first one: I think it's even romantic, and it's certainly the only solution for Tommy and Jody. I love how Moore makes everything work out in the end, though he usually takes out at least one of the characters -- I love that he thought of a way to do that and yet bring them back to their old selves, in this one. I was pissed when Gustavo died, but hey, everything worked out well in the end. Sweet.
Book #5
Sandman Book 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman
Well, sort of a book. I reread Preludes and Nocturnes, the first Sandman graphic novel, since apparently I can't go two weeks without reading something by Neil Gaiman. I tried to read Roy Blount Jr.'s memoir of his mother first, because Roy Blount is very funny on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and because I heard him reading little snippets on Prairie Home Companion on Saturday, and those were great. Unfortunately, the funny little 45-second vignettes he read from this book were not only the funniest parts of the book, they were also the length in which Roy Blount's writing makes sense. Anything over 45 seconds -- say a page -- and he goes off on some strange tangent or makes a garbled self-referential aside or makes some droll joke that I just don't get. I got this book at the Safeway book sale because I read the first page, and it was hilarious; I should have gone on to read the second page, when he lost me.
Anyway, I dragged through 100 pages of that, and then I put it down and got out my comic book. Sandman is an interesting story; the character is a bit narrow at the beginning -- it's necessary for the story, because in the first installment a cult trying to imprison Death and bargain for immortality ends up trapping Morpheus, the King of Dreams instead (Dream is Death's brother), and the rest of this first collection of 8 stories is Morpheus trying to recover from his imprisonment and regain everything he lost. At the end of the book he regains his power, and his sister, Death, reminds him of his role in the world, and he goes off to do it, feeling empowered again. So the second installment should have more about what the king of dreams actually does, which would be nice. The world that is made available to Gaiman through this character is incredibly cool; it's the kind of thing I wish I could play around with, and judging from the collection I have on the shelf next to me, of Sandman short stories written by other writers, I'm not the only one.
I like the story when he goes to Hell, and the part when he goes to his own realm after escaping his imprisonment. I didn't care much for the Justice League (though the flash of Apokolips's world was more than a little freaky) and the John Dee story when he takes over the minds of several people in a diner is one of the more horrifying things I've ever read. The worst part of that one is that he gives them back their minds after ten or twelve hours of making them do horrid things to themselves and each other for his amusement. I can't even think about it. Anyway, the first story and the last story are not really very comic book-y, but they sure are good stories. I loves me my Gaiman.
Well, sort of a book. I reread Preludes and Nocturnes, the first Sandman graphic novel, since apparently I can't go two weeks without reading something by Neil Gaiman. I tried to read Roy Blount Jr.'s memoir of his mother first, because Roy Blount is very funny on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and because I heard him reading little snippets on Prairie Home Companion on Saturday, and those were great. Unfortunately, the funny little 45-second vignettes he read from this book were not only the funniest parts of the book, they were also the length in which Roy Blount's writing makes sense. Anything over 45 seconds -- say a page -- and he goes off on some strange tangent or makes a garbled self-referential aside or makes some droll joke that I just don't get. I got this book at the Safeway book sale because I read the first page, and it was hilarious; I should have gone on to read the second page, when he lost me.
Anyway, I dragged through 100 pages of that, and then I put it down and got out my comic book. Sandman is an interesting story; the character is a bit narrow at the beginning -- it's necessary for the story, because in the first installment a cult trying to imprison Death and bargain for immortality ends up trapping Morpheus, the King of Dreams instead (Dream is Death's brother), and the rest of this first collection of 8 stories is Morpheus trying to recover from his imprisonment and regain everything he lost. At the end of the book he regains his power, and his sister, Death, reminds him of his role in the world, and he goes off to do it, feeling empowered again. So the second installment should have more about what the king of dreams actually does, which would be nice. The world that is made available to Gaiman through this character is incredibly cool; it's the kind of thing I wish I could play around with, and judging from the collection I have on the shelf next to me, of Sandman short stories written by other writers, I'm not the only one.
I like the story when he goes to Hell, and the part when he goes to his own realm after escaping his imprisonment. I didn't care much for the Justice League (though the flash of Apokolips's world was more than a little freaky) and the John Dee story when he takes over the minds of several people in a diner is one of the more horrifying things I've ever read. The worst part of that one is that he gives them back their minds after ten or twelve hours of making them do horrid things to themselves and each other for his amusement. I can't even think about it. Anyway, the first story and the last story are not really very comic book-y, but they sure are good stories. I loves me my Gaiman.
Book #4
Through Wolf's Eyes, by Jane Lindskold
I have several fantasy series that I am interested in, and over the last year or so I've picked up the first installment in some of them. Unfortunately, thanks to Robert Jordan, Diana Gabaldon, Stephen King and George R.R. Martin, I am always a little leery of starting a series that isn't actually finished yet; you never know when the author might stall and fail to publish the next book for years -- or even die before finishing the last book, dammit. So these first books are starting to pile up a bit, and many of them are by authors who I've never read, so there is another layer of both curiosity and slight nervousness.
But it's a new year! Full of possibilities and opportunities, and it is a man's duty and privilege to grab as many as practicable and hug them to his bosom. Or something like that. So I grabbed one that has been winking at me from the bookshelf for months, Through Wolf's Eyes by Jane Lindskold. The series is about a young girl who is raised by wolves until she is about 15, and then she is found and brought back into human society. The twist is that she might actually be a long-lost princess, and she is found and returned to her birth parents' home country because she is useful as a political pawn, since the country is going through a succession debacle. The king's children have died; he disowned the youngest, who set out to found his own colony in the deep wilderness. The colony was killed by a fire, leaving only this one girl alive; she has no memory of her human family, but is the right age to be the disowned prince's daughter, the king's granddaughter, which would give her a better claim to being the heir to the throne than any of the king's other candidates, his nieces and nephews and their children. So she gets thrown into all of this political intrigue, but fortunately, the skills and morals she learned living in a wolf pack give her an advantage in dealing with human political machinations.
That's the pitch, anyway. The book is actually quite a bit broader in scope; very little of it is about Firekeeper (that's the girl's wolf name, since she was the only wolf who could use flint and tinder and make fire) and the possibility of her becoming the crown princess. There's a lot of political maneuverings among the other candidates, and Firekeeper throws a wrench in the works, but there is just as much time spent on Firekeeper's attempts to learn to act like a human, and more spent on a war that erupts between this country and two of its neighbors. So again, as with so many others, the back of the book lied to me. I wonder if that's simply unavoidable, particularly in the world of epic fantasy.
On the plus side, it is a good epic fantasy. The characters are great, the political maneuverings are more interesting than not; there is really only one distasteful character, though some of the more minor characters would be distasteful if they were focused on, and that might happen in the later books of the series -- there are seven or eight now, judging from the list inside the front cover. The war was a bit iffy, since this author is clearly not a military person, but the animal/human interactions were great, as were the romantic entanglements -- very realistic, not overdone. The writing was mostly good, with only a few bad habits that might be first-novel jitters and inexperience. It was a little long, but then, that's epic fantasy; she needed to go back and explain some of the history of the monarchies of the several countries, along with a little geography, a little history of magic, etc. None of that stuff overwhelms; mainly, this book is a good story. I liked it, and I'll get the next one in the series.
I have several fantasy series that I am interested in, and over the last year or so I've picked up the first installment in some of them. Unfortunately, thanks to Robert Jordan, Diana Gabaldon, Stephen King and George R.R. Martin, I am always a little leery of starting a series that isn't actually finished yet; you never know when the author might stall and fail to publish the next book for years -- or even die before finishing the last book, dammit. So these first books are starting to pile up a bit, and many of them are by authors who I've never read, so there is another layer of both curiosity and slight nervousness.
But it's a new year! Full of possibilities and opportunities, and it is a man's duty and privilege to grab as many as practicable and hug them to his bosom. Or something like that. So I grabbed one that has been winking at me from the bookshelf for months, Through Wolf's Eyes by Jane Lindskold. The series is about a young girl who is raised by wolves until she is about 15, and then she is found and brought back into human society. The twist is that she might actually be a long-lost princess, and she is found and returned to her birth parents' home country because she is useful as a political pawn, since the country is going through a succession debacle. The king's children have died; he disowned the youngest, who set out to found his own colony in the deep wilderness. The colony was killed by a fire, leaving only this one girl alive; she has no memory of her human family, but is the right age to be the disowned prince's daughter, the king's granddaughter, which would give her a better claim to being the heir to the throne than any of the king's other candidates, his nieces and nephews and their children. So she gets thrown into all of this political intrigue, but fortunately, the skills and morals she learned living in a wolf pack give her an advantage in dealing with human political machinations.
That's the pitch, anyway. The book is actually quite a bit broader in scope; very little of it is about Firekeeper (that's the girl's wolf name, since she was the only wolf who could use flint and tinder and make fire) and the possibility of her becoming the crown princess. There's a lot of political maneuverings among the other candidates, and Firekeeper throws a wrench in the works, but there is just as much time spent on Firekeeper's attempts to learn to act like a human, and more spent on a war that erupts between this country and two of its neighbors. So again, as with so many others, the back of the book lied to me. I wonder if that's simply unavoidable, particularly in the world of epic fantasy.
On the plus side, it is a good epic fantasy. The characters are great, the political maneuverings are more interesting than not; there is really only one distasteful character, though some of the more minor characters would be distasteful if they were focused on, and that might happen in the later books of the series -- there are seven or eight now, judging from the list inside the front cover. The war was a bit iffy, since this author is clearly not a military person, but the animal/human interactions were great, as were the romantic entanglements -- very realistic, not overdone. The writing was mostly good, with only a few bad habits that might be first-novel jitters and inexperience. It was a little long, but then, that's epic fantasy; she needed to go back and explain some of the history of the monarchies of the several countries, along with a little geography, a little history of magic, etc. None of that stuff overwhelms; mainly, this book is a good story. I liked it, and I'll get the next one in the series.
Book #3
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Want good reading? Neil Gaiman's your man. Unfortunately, now that I've read Anansi Boys, I've read all of his books. I guess I'll have to work on my Sandman collection.
Gaiman has become one of my very favorite authors over the last year or two. I loved Good Omens and American Gods, which were the first two books of his I read; when I found The Sandman I was even more impressed. Now that I've read Neverwhere and Stardust and Smoke and Mirrors and now, Anansi Boys, I think I can safely say that he's become one of my heroes. He has this amazing ability to inspire me; maybe it's because I feel that my writing is similar to his, but even if I'm not on his level, I enjoy everything about his books: his humor, the characters, the themes and the concepts.
Anansi Boys was as good as the rest. It's the story of the son of Anansi the Spider (and I wish I had thought of writing about Anansi; I remember the exercise in oral legends from Underwood Elementary school, and how "Anansi" became "a Nazi" by the third retelling) living in modern day England. Anansi dies, and his son, Fat Charlie Nancy, discovers that he has a brother that he didn't know about; wackiness ensues, along with some rather spooky bits and some really interesting thoughts about the power of storytelling. One of the big themes of the book is how much our stories influence our lives; Anansi owns all the stories, they say, because he stole them and bought them and earned them from Tiger, who had them before the Spider came. When the Tiger had all the stories, they were all about savagery and bloodshed and being the strongest and fiercest, because that is what Tiger is; it was Anansi that made the stories focus on cleverness and fun, on getting the greatest reward for the least effort by using your brain. The point is that Anansi's stories were what made people grow and evolve, and use their minds to become more than animals.
So stories are what make us human, and what make us what we are. I like that. I wonder just how much of me comes from the first stories I learned, the books I read that stuck with me -- like Tolkien and Sherlock Holmes and Poe and Dr. Seuss and King Arthur. And Harriet the Spy and Alvin's Secret Code. I think the answer to that is: quite a lot. Think how different I might be if my first important stories had been about athletes, or rock stars, or war heroes.
Anyway, I loved the book, very funny and thoughtful and yes, inspiring. I finished it this morning, and then ran right to the computer where I wrote half of a story about storytellers. Now that's a good book.
Want good reading? Neil Gaiman's your man. Unfortunately, now that I've read Anansi Boys, I've read all of his books. I guess I'll have to work on my Sandman collection.
Gaiman has become one of my very favorite authors over the last year or two. I loved Good Omens and American Gods, which were the first two books of his I read; when I found The Sandman I was even more impressed. Now that I've read Neverwhere and Stardust and Smoke and Mirrors and now, Anansi Boys, I think I can safely say that he's become one of my heroes. He has this amazing ability to inspire me; maybe it's because I feel that my writing is similar to his, but even if I'm not on his level, I enjoy everything about his books: his humor, the characters, the themes and the concepts.
Anansi Boys was as good as the rest. It's the story of the son of Anansi the Spider (and I wish I had thought of writing about Anansi; I remember the exercise in oral legends from Underwood Elementary school, and how "Anansi" became "a Nazi" by the third retelling) living in modern day England. Anansi dies, and his son, Fat Charlie Nancy, discovers that he has a brother that he didn't know about; wackiness ensues, along with some rather spooky bits and some really interesting thoughts about the power of storytelling. One of the big themes of the book is how much our stories influence our lives; Anansi owns all the stories, they say, because he stole them and bought them and earned them from Tiger, who had them before the Spider came. When the Tiger had all the stories, they were all about savagery and bloodshed and being the strongest and fiercest, because that is what Tiger is; it was Anansi that made the stories focus on cleverness and fun, on getting the greatest reward for the least effort by using your brain. The point is that Anansi's stories were what made people grow and evolve, and use their minds to become more than animals.
So stories are what make us human, and what make us what we are. I like that. I wonder just how much of me comes from the first stories I learned, the books I read that stuck with me -- like Tolkien and Sherlock Holmes and Poe and Dr. Seuss and King Arthur. And Harriet the Spy and Alvin's Secret Code. I think the answer to that is: quite a lot. Think how different I might be if my first important stories had been about athletes, or rock stars, or war heroes.
Anyway, I loved the book, very funny and thoughtful and yes, inspiring. I finished it this morning, and then ran right to the computer where I wrote half of a story about storytellers. Now that's a good book.
Book #2
Magic Bites, by Ilona Andrews
I went for a quick fantasy read, Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to work on my next book project, since it is a sort of hardboiled urban fantasy with blood and guts and a light whodunit mystery that relies more on the particular version of supernatural creatures that this author created than on any traditional mystery concepts. What I mean is that the bad guy in this is a magical creature, who wants magical creature things and who kills in magical creature ways, rather than, say, a jealous lover who kills and blackmails before running off to Mexico. I like these books when the magical creatures are unusual or interesting in some way, when the main character is sympathetic, and/or when the writing is fun.
This one had good magic, so-so writing, and a fairly irritating main character. She was intriguing, but way too over the top with her ass-kicking image. A lot like John Taylor of Simon Green's Nightside books, who also annoys me in the way he is always implying how incredibly dangerous he is to mess with, and never takes his armor off, even for a second, because he has to keep his myriad of enemies in check with the neverending bluff that is his reputation. It is annoying for me to read because the authors, both in Green's case and in this book, act as if the reader is another person who can never be allowed to see the main character's weakness, and that's just silly. They drop hints of humanity, imply vulnerability, but never pursue it for long: Kate tries to date in this one, and regrets it when it blows up in her face, but she doesn't regret it that much -- because she still has ass to kick.
But I did like the version of vampires in this, and some things about the shapechangers. I like the Order of knights, though not much was said about them, and I really liked the bad guy -- though the actual character of the bad guy was not so good. He was not scary except for his power, and his personality and non-magical abilities should match his power for scariness -- see the Denarians in Jim Butcher's Dresden series for the way to make the bad guy scary. And I need to remember this for my own villain, who I have created to be scary, but haven't actually gotten to writing out yet. I'll have to make him dangerous in non-magical ways, to avoid the traps this author fell into.
All in all, it wasn't bad, and I'd read a sequel if I find it discounted.
I'm going to have to read something good to make up for this pair of mediocre turkeys.
I went for a quick fantasy read, Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to work on my next book project, since it is a sort of hardboiled urban fantasy with blood and guts and a light whodunit mystery that relies more on the particular version of supernatural creatures that this author created than on any traditional mystery concepts. What I mean is that the bad guy in this is a magical creature, who wants magical creature things and who kills in magical creature ways, rather than, say, a jealous lover who kills and blackmails before running off to Mexico. I like these books when the magical creatures are unusual or interesting in some way, when the main character is sympathetic, and/or when the writing is fun.
This one had good magic, so-so writing, and a fairly irritating main character. She was intriguing, but way too over the top with her ass-kicking image. A lot like John Taylor of Simon Green's Nightside books, who also annoys me in the way he is always implying how incredibly dangerous he is to mess with, and never takes his armor off, even for a second, because he has to keep his myriad of enemies in check with the neverending bluff that is his reputation. It is annoying for me to read because the authors, both in Green's case and in this book, act as if the reader is another person who can never be allowed to see the main character's weakness, and that's just silly. They drop hints of humanity, imply vulnerability, but never pursue it for long: Kate tries to date in this one, and regrets it when it blows up in her face, but she doesn't regret it that much -- because she still has ass to kick.
But I did like the version of vampires in this, and some things about the shapechangers. I like the Order of knights, though not much was said about them, and I really liked the bad guy -- though the actual character of the bad guy was not so good. He was not scary except for his power, and his personality and non-magical abilities should match his power for scariness -- see the Denarians in Jim Butcher's Dresden series for the way to make the bad guy scary. And I need to remember this for my own villain, who I have created to be scary, but haven't actually gotten to writing out yet. I'll have to make him dangerous in non-magical ways, to avoid the traps this author fell into.
All in all, it wasn't bad, and I'd read a sequel if I find it discounted.
I'm going to have to read something good to make up for this pair of mediocre turkeys.
Book The First
The Broom of the System, by David Foster Wallace
My first book completed in this new year (though begun in 2007) was by David Foster Wallace, who is still one of my favorite non-fiction authors. Unfortunately, this book was his first novel, The Broom of the System. I'd love to be able to explain the title, but I can't; I have no idea what it refers to. Ditto for most of the book's themes, characters, motifs, and its plot. It was beautifully written at times; he has a real flair for dialogue as well as the same descriptive zing that makes me enjoy his essays, but since it was "Picaresque," according to the blurbs on the cover, it jumped all over the place, often from page to page. Which wouldn't have bothered me too much, except most of the story lines don't end. The main character breaks up with her psychotic boyfriend after he loses it and handcuffs them together in the middle of the desert -- but then she effectively vanishes, as the last three sequences refer to the ex-boyfriend with his new lover, presumably the now-ex-wife of the guy who rescued the main character, Lenore, from her boyfriend's handcuff madness. Oh, and also to Lenore's former pet, the hilarious cockatiel formerly named Vlad the Impaler and then rechristened Ugolino the Significant once he got a spot on a televangelist show. But we don't actually learn what becomes of Lenore, which means that the whole novel has no point: her great-grandmother dies, again for no discernible reason, and though she breaks up with Rick, we don't know if it is because of his psychosis or because of his freakishly small genitalia -- and the possibility of the latter casts doubt on the positive uplift of the former reason. She may be off fooling around with Wang-Dang Lang, a remarkably distasteful character, who is not redeemed in the reader's eyes by his more impressive endowment. If Lenore ended up with him, it is because she still, even after all of this, cannot make her own choices but goes where she is told and does what she is told, just like a character in a book. And if that is the point, that all of these people are just characters in a book, then they just weren't amusing enough to make it worth my while.
So I'll be sticking to Wallace's essays from now on. Though it's a shame, because judging by the incredibly convoluted and wacked out plot lines that this book follows (until they peter out in a puff of dust, that is) and the ones described in the stories-within-the-story, he has a great flair for absurdist story telling. I sort of wish he'd come down a literary step or two and just write something wacky. It would be fun to read.
My first book completed in this new year (though begun in 2007) was by David Foster Wallace, who is still one of my favorite non-fiction authors. Unfortunately, this book was his first novel, The Broom of the System. I'd love to be able to explain the title, but I can't; I have no idea what it refers to. Ditto for most of the book's themes, characters, motifs, and its plot. It was beautifully written at times; he has a real flair for dialogue as well as the same descriptive zing that makes me enjoy his essays, but since it was "Picaresque," according to the blurbs on the cover, it jumped all over the place, often from page to page. Which wouldn't have bothered me too much, except most of the story lines don't end. The main character breaks up with her psychotic boyfriend after he loses it and handcuffs them together in the middle of the desert -- but then she effectively vanishes, as the last three sequences refer to the ex-boyfriend with his new lover, presumably the now-ex-wife of the guy who rescued the main character, Lenore, from her boyfriend's handcuff madness. Oh, and also to Lenore's former pet, the hilarious cockatiel formerly named Vlad the Impaler and then rechristened Ugolino the Significant once he got a spot on a televangelist show. But we don't actually learn what becomes of Lenore, which means that the whole novel has no point: her great-grandmother dies, again for no discernible reason, and though she breaks up with Rick, we don't know if it is because of his psychosis or because of his freakishly small genitalia -- and the possibility of the latter casts doubt on the positive uplift of the former reason. She may be off fooling around with Wang-Dang Lang, a remarkably distasteful character, who is not redeemed in the reader's eyes by his more impressive endowment. If Lenore ended up with him, it is because she still, even after all of this, cannot make her own choices but goes where she is told and does what she is told, just like a character in a book. And if that is the point, that all of these people are just characters in a book, then they just weren't amusing enough to make it worth my while.
So I'll be sticking to Wallace's essays from now on. Though it's a shame, because judging by the incredibly convoluted and wacked out plot lines that this book follows (until they peter out in a puff of dust, that is) and the ones described in the stories-within-the-story, he has a great flair for absurdist story telling. I sort of wish he'd come down a literary step or two and just write something wacky. It would be fun to read.
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